Portside

The extreme violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar (Burma) is closer to extermination than religious persecution. One key factor insufficiently recognized is the massive land grabbing that is happening in Burma and has now reached into the poorest state, Rakhine. Land grabbing has become a major factor in multiple displacements, including in Central America. Too many explanations stop short from seeing a larger economic vortex of land grabbing.

Reader Comments: Truckers Strike Against "Owner-Operator" Debt and Poverty; Trumpcare Down, But Not Out; Working Class Whites Organize Against Racism; Slavery; Workers and Unions; Roseanne Barr; Handmaid's Tale and Race; Herb March - Untold Working Class and Communist History; Julian Assange; More on the United and Popular Front - Reality, Theory and Relevance for Today; Honduras; CIA Torture; AlterNet is Hiring; and more....

Honduran environmental activist’Berta Cáceres' killing a year ago bears the hallmarks of an operation designed by military intelligence. E’xtrajudicial killings by the security forces and widespread impunity are among the most serious human rights violations in Honduras, according to the US state department. Nevertheless, the US is the main provider of military and police support to Honduras, and last year approved $18m of aid.

Just as it serviced murderous regimes in Central America in the 1980s, Israel will now be exporting forms of repression to Honduras' abusive government.

The U.S. Supreme Court has voted 4-4 in one of the most consequential immigration cases in recent history, United States v. Texas. The High Court's failure to fall one way or another in the case leaves in place a lower court decision that blocks the Obama administration's deferred action immigration initiatives known as DAPA and the expansion of DACA from being implemented. An Atlanta coalition of local community organizations have launched an ICE Free Zones campaign.

CSPG's Poster of the Week honors Internatio­­­­­nal Women's Day by commemorating Berta Cáceres, a well-known indigenous environmental leader in Honduras who was assassinated in her home recently.

Portside's posts did not go out as scheduled Saturday and Sunday. Our service provider, May First, upgraded all of their servers Saturday, to prevent coordinated hacking and DOS - Denial of Service attacks. Unfortunately there were conflicts between the new server software and the software that Portside uses to send posts. We have identified the problem, and are now working to correct it. Below is an Index of the posts that were posted to our website over the weekend.

The names of Berta Cáceres’s murderers are yet unknown. But we know who killed her.

The March 3rd assassination of Berta Caceres, coordinator of the Council of Indigenous Peoples of Honduras (COPIHN), sent shock waves across the country, sparking outrage and demands for an independent investigation. Last month COPIHN issued an international appeal warning of government complicity in the increasing violence directed at the indigenous opponents of the notorious Aqua Zarca Dam Project. Caceres won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015.

Along the Atlantic coast of Honduras, Afro-Caribbean Garifuna communities are being forced from their land, as proposals for the creation of mega-tourism projects and corporate-run “model cities,” gain momentum. Mega-projects are just one of the problems Honduran Garifuna communities have had to face in the six years since a U.S-supported coup d’etat removed then-President Manuel Zelaya from power. But the Garifuna are organizing to defend their land and culture.