Central America is a subregion of the Americas. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Central America usually consists of seven countries: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. Within Central America is the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, which extends from northern Guatemala to central Panama. Due to the presence of several active geologic faults and the Central America Volcanic Arc, there is a high amount of seismic activity in the region, such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, which has resulted in death, injury, and property damage.
Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, and to the north by the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea. Its capital and largest city is Tegucigalpa.
Henry Alfred Kissinger was an American diplomat, political scientist, geopolitical consultant, and politician who served as United States secretary of state and national security advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. For his actions negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam, Kissinger received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize under controversial circumstances.
Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a K'iche' Guatemalan human rights activist, feminist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the rights of Guatemala's Indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996), and to promoting Indigenous rights internationally.
Kʼicheʼ are Indigenous peoples of the Americas and are one of the Maya peoples. The Kʼicheʼ language is a Mesoamerican language in the Mayan language family. The highland Kʼicheʼ states in the pre-Columbian era are associated with the ancient Maya civilization, and reached the peak of their power and influence during the Mayan Postclassic period.
The Maya are an ethnolinguistic group of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical region. Today they inhabit southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras. "Maya" is a modern collective term for the peoples of the region; however, the term was not historically used by the indigenous populations themselves. There was no common sense of identity or political unity among the distinct populations, societies and ethnic groups because they each had their own particular traditions, cultures and historical identity.
Carlos Castillo Armas was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who was the 28th president of Guatemala, serving from 1954 to 1957 after taking power in a coup d'état. A member of the right-wing National Liberation Movement (MLN) party, his authoritarian government was closely allied with the United States.
Fordlândia is a district and adjacent area of 14,268 square kilometres (5,509 sq mi) in the city of Aveiro, in the Brazilian state of Pará. It is located on the east banks of the Tapajós river roughly 300 kilometres (190 mi) south of the city of Santarém.
The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was the result of a CIA covert operation code-named PBSuccess. It deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944–1954. It installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala.
Brigadier General Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as the Head of Government from August 1983 to January 1986. A member of the military, he was head of state during the apex of repression and death squad activity in the Central American nation. When he was minister of defense, he rallied a coup against President Ríos Montt, which he justified by declaring that the government was being abused by religious fanatics. He allowed for a return to democracy, with elections for a constituent assembly being held in 1984 followed by general elections in 1985.
Operation PBFortune, also known as Operation Fortune, was a covert United States operation to overthrow the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1952. The operation was authorized by U.S. President Harry Truman and planned by the Central Intelligence Agency. The United Fruit Company had lobbied intensively for the overthrow because land reform initiated by Árbenz threatened its economic interests. The US also feared that the government of Árbenz was being influenced by communists.
The National Reorganization Process was the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, which received support from the United States until 1982. In Argentina it is often known simply as the última junta militar, última dictadura militar or última dictadura cívico-militar, because there have been several in the country's history and no others since it ended.
The Central American crisis began in the late 1970s, when major civil wars and communist revolutions erupted in various countries in Central America, causing it to become the world's most volatile region in terms of socioeconomic change. In particular, the United States feared that victories by communist forces would cause South America to become isolated from the United States if the governments of the Central American countries were overthrown and pro-Soviet communist governments were installed in their place. During these civil wars, the United States pursued its interests by supporting right-wing governments against left-wing guerrillas.
Latin American subaltern studies was a group founded in 1992 by John Beverley and Ileana Rodríguez. Inspired by the South Asian Subaltern Studies group, its aim was to apply a similar perspective to Latin American studies. It was one of the more important recent developments within Latin American cultural studies, though in the end the group folded owing to internal differences that were both scholarly and political.
Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is touched to the south by the Pacific Ocean and to the northeast by the Gulf of Honduras. With an estimated population of around 17.6 million, Guatemala is the most populous country in Central America, the 4th most populous country in North America and the 11th most populous country in the Americas. It is a representative democracy with its capital and largest city being Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción, also known as Guatemala City, the most populous city in Central America.
The pink tide, or the turn to the left, is a political wave and turn towards left-wing governments in Latin America throughout the 21st century. As a term, both phrases are used in political analysis in the news media and elsewhere to refer to a move toward more economic progressive or social progressive policies in the region. Such governments have been referred to as "left-of-centre", "left-leaning", and "radical social-democratic". They are also members of the São Paulo Forum, a conference of left-wing political parties and other organizations from the Americas.
Anti-communist mass killings are the politically motivated mass killings of communists, alleged communists, or their alleged supporters which were committed by anti-communists and political organizations or governments which opposed communism. The communist movement has faced opposition since it was founded and the opposition to it has often been organized and violent. Many anti-communist mass killing campaigns waged during the Cold War were supported and backed by the United States and its Western Bloc allies. Some U.S.-supported mass killings, including the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 and the killings by the Guatemalan military during the Guatemalan Civil War, are considered acts of genocide by some scholars.
Gianni Minà was an Italian journalist, writer, magazine editor, and television host. He collaborated with both Italian and International newspapers and magazines; produced hundreds of reports for RAI ; conceived and hosted television programs, as well as produced successful documentary films on the lives of Che Guevara, Muhammad Ali, Fidel Castro, Rigoberta Menchú, Silvia Baraldini, Subcomandante Marcos and Diego Maradona.
Miguel Tinker Salas is a Venezuelan historian and professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He specializes in modern Latin America having written books, edited volumes, and essays on Mexico and Venezuela. He frequently serves as a political analyst and his comments can be seen on television, radio, and print media.
Guatemala–Spain relations are the current and historical relations between Guatemala and Spain. Both nations are members of the Organization of Ibero-American States and the United Nations.
