http://www.cooperativeresearch.org The Center for Grassroots Oversight aims to provide the public with a means to collaborate on investigations at the grassroots level. en-us http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=RightistsAssertControl#RightistsAssertControl http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=RightistsAssertControl#RightistsAssertControl Almost immediately after a military coup in El Salvador is successful, reformist heads of the military junta are forced out and reactionaries are let in. Two rightists, Colonel José Guillermo García and CIA asset Colonel Nicolás Carranza, are given the positions of minister and vice-minister of defense, respectively. mtuck 2010-10-02T15:07:58+02:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=RomeroOverthrown#RomeroOverthrown http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=RomeroOverthrown#RomeroOverthrown A group of reformist civilian and military officials in El Salvador organize a coup to overthrow the regime of General Carlos Humberto Romero. The group is made up of a mix of reformists with a genuine interest in political and economic reform and anticommunist hardliners concerned that the Romero regime was incapable of preventing a leftist uprising from taking over the country as had happened earlier in the year in Nicaragua. Two army colonels, Adolfo Arnoldo Majano and Jaime Abdul Gutierrez, serve as the figureheads of the new regime. They promise land reform, greater political tolerance, democratic elections, an end to corruption, and a stop to the harsh repression by security forces. AJB 2008-11-27T21:36:59+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=dickinsontorture#dickinsontorture http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=dickinsontorture#dickinsontorture Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson berates former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo for his defense of his 2003 advocacy of torture , joining retired military officials and legal experts . Dickinson writes, "I'm literally sick" over Yoo's memo. He characterizes Yoo's "evil circularity" of logic as: "The Fifth Amendment's due process protections and Eighth Amendment's prohibitions against cruelty do not apply a) to aliens abroad and b) are rendered meaningless by the president's totalitarian powers during time of war. And if the president is above the constitution, he's certainly above the law." Dickinson notes that some of the federal statutes rendered inoperative by the power of the commander in chief, Yoo wrote, include assault, maiming, interstate stalking, war crimes, and torture. Furthermore: "If foreign detainees held on foreign soil have no protection from US law, what about international law? Well, says Yoo, the Geneva Conventions do not require anything more of the United States than what is provided for in the Fifth and Eighth Amendments, which as we just learned do not apply to foreign detainees. Furthermore: 'international law is not federal law and the president is free to override it at his discretion.' To recap: The president is unbound by international law--ever--and not constrained by either federal law or the Constitution in his role as commander in chief, which gives him carte blanche authority to have illegal enemy combatants who are detained on foreign soil assaulted, maimed, tortured, and otherwise subjected to war crimes, so long as the president deems it necessary or in 'self-defense' of the nation." AJB 2008-10-15T14:33:03+02:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=NewSecurityAgencies#NewSecurityAgencies http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=NewSecurityAgencies#NewSecurityAgencies The United States helps the Salvadoran government organize a rural paramilitary force known as the Democratic Nationalist Organization (ORDEN) and the Salvadoran National Security Agency (ANSESAL) under the auspices of General Jose Alberto "Chele" Medrano, who is a senior officer in the National Guard and Armed Forces High Command of El Salvador. As early as 1963, the Green Berets send over ten counterinsurgency trainers to help Medreno. Both agencies are formed with the stated purpose of combating communism. ORDEN is tasked with "indoctrinat[ing] the peasants regarding the advantages of the democratic system and the disadvantages of the communist system," but also operates as an intelligence network. Intelligence relating to "subversive" activities will regularly be relayed to ANSESAL and then to the office of the president, who will then take "appropriate action." ORDEN in particular will be later blamed for numerous human rights abuses, with Amnesty International accusing it of being created with the intention of using "clandestine terror against government opponents." One of the offshoots of ORDEN, the White Hand (Mano Blanco), is later called "nothing less that the birth of the death squads" by a former US ambassador to El Salvador. AJB 2008-08-22T18:54:45+02:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=us_occupation_of_iraq_tmln_64#us_occupation_of_iraq_tmln_64 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=us_occupation_of_iraq_tmln_64#us_occupation_of_iraq_tmln_64 Norwegian petroleum firm Det Norske Oljeselskap (DNO) signs a production-sharing agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) before a legal framework has been drawn up in Iraq to govern such actions. AJB 2008-01-30T20:08:05+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=us_occupation_of_iraq_tmln_52#us_occupation_of_iraq_tmln_52 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=us_occupation_of_iraq_tmln_52#us_occupation_of_iraq_tmln_52 Halliburton issues a press release declaring that it has won a contract from the US Army Corps of Engineers to extinguish oil well fires and do emergency repairs to Iraq's oil infrastructure in post-invasion Iraq. The firefighting work will be subcontracted to Houston-based companies Boots & Coots International Well Control, Inc. and Wild Well Control, Inc. AJB 2008-01-29T15:53:40+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=IMFLoanHaiti#IMFLoanHaiti http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=IMFLoanHaiti#IMFLoanHaiti The IMF grants Haiti a $24.6 million loan under its Structural Adjustment Facility (SAF). As a condition, Haiti is expected to cut public spending, close "inefficient public enterprises", and liberalize its trade policy. AJB 2008-01-22T16:36:34+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=HaitiRice#HaitiRice http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=HaitiRice#HaitiRice One of the conditions for Haiti obtaining the IMF loan it previously received was a lowering of tariffs on rice and an end to support for domestic rice farmers. This has the effect of putting much of Haiti's rice farmers out of business. AJB 2008-01-22T16:36:22+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=Oaxaca1#Oaxaca1 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=Oaxaca1#Oaxaca1 Members of the Local 22 of the National Education Workers Union (SNTE) delivers a list of economic grievances to Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, the governor of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. After receiving no official response, hundreds of teachers start to encamp themselves in the state's historical center with the support of numerous anti-neoliberal organizations. The movement manages to block five access ways to the Oaxaca international airport on June 1 and attract a "mega-march" of around 80,000 people the next day. AJB 2008-01-22T16:36:10+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=Oaxaca2#Oaxaca2 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=Oaxaca2#Oaxaca2 About 2,000 state police attempt to evict the striking teachers from the Oaxacan city square "wielding clubs and firing tear gas." They fail as the protestors quickly resume their positions but manage to injure at least 66 people. The teachers accuse the police forces of killing four; the Mexican national human rights commission will allege that they also "beat sleeping teachers with truncheons." AJB 2008-01-22T16:35:59+01:00