Central America in Minutes

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 30: In Costa Rica, evidence collected by the press and prosecutors of Rodrigo Chaves rigging a public-relations contract leads the Supreme Court to discuss the possible removal of his immunity — an unprecedented corruption probe against a sitting president. In Honduras, President Xiomara Castro will be interim defense minister after ruling-party presidential candida...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 29: The attorneys general of El Salvador and Guatemala meet and agree to increase cooperation, in the most public show of support from the Bukele regime for Consuelo Porras. Weeks after Guatemalan prosecutors threatened to launch an investigation into USAID funding to independent media, the Salvadoran legislature approves a Foreign Agents Law to choke off internatio...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 28: In El Salvador, Nayib Bukele sends the Military Police to disperse families in front of his personal residence, as they pleaded not to be evicted from their homes. As the regime arrests another lawyer accompanying families threatened by displacement, Bukele claims international interference against his government, reactivating a 2021 plan to place high taxes on...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 27: Even if Jose Rubén Zamora, who is 68 years old, successfully defends himself at retrial in the original case against him, he looks set to face years of legal challenges as the hydra of spurious accusations against Guatemala’s former top publisher continues to grow. On April 21, the Bernardo Arévalo administration said they are finishing chalking up a journalist-...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 26: It may have come as a surprise in the U.S. when Trump and Bukele shrugged off a court order to bring back wrongfully deported immigrant Kilmar Ábrego. In El Salvador, presidential non-compliance has been business as usual since 2020. El Faro is on vacation for Holy Week. Today, in a shorter episode, we share the perspectives of two Salvadoran columnists from our...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 25: The U.N. Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua names Daniel Ortega, Rosario Murillo, and dozens of regime officials in a report on crimes against humanity. It’s their second major release in two months, compounding U.N. evidence-gathering on the Ortega-Murillo regime as the 2018 state repression turns seven years old. Days before Nayib Bukele is set to meet...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 24: The key to El Salvador’s prisons, and the Nayib Bukele administration that runs them, are facilities that most observers abroad have never heard of: black boxes where reports of systematic torture have emerged in survivor testimony, disease proliferates and medical care is denied, and at least 375 people have reportedly died in custody. These prisons are a focal...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 23: Former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Ronald Johnson, a friend and promoter of Nayib Bukele, tells the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “I don’t doubt” that Pegasus could have been used against civil society and U.S. officials during his tenure in El Salvador. The Panama government allows fugitive ex-president Ricardo Martinelli —once famous for usin...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 22: Nayib Bukele and Elon Musk propose that U.S. judges ruling against Donald Trump’s agenda be impeached, citing the illegal 2021 removal of the Salvadoran constitutional chamber magistrates as a model to follow. Bukele claims that a judge’s order against recent deportations to Salvadoran prison is a “judicial coup” against Trump. In the Honduran primaries, ruling...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 21: The Sunday primaries in Honduras await results as civil society monitors criticize delayed ballot delivery and the press reports violations of the chain of custody of ballots by the Army. Ruling party Libre receives the most votes, according to projections. Tension grows between the two main electoral institutions. Minister of Defense Rixi Moncada, who is also t...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 20: Honduras claims it is closing in on a free-trade deal with China, but negotiations have lagged since late last year. Xiomara Castro is toning down some public references to Chinese cooperation for infrastructure as they play push and pull with Donald Trump. Nicaraguan environmentalist group Fundación del Río filed a complaint with the Supreme Court of Justice ag...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 19: Fidel Zavala is a Salvadoran businessman turned human rights activist who sued the director of prisons after attesting to state crimes in prison under the state of exception. He has been re-arrested in El Salvador less than a year into his lawsuit against the director of prisons. Salvadoran unions report 30,000 illegal firings since 2019 to the International Lab...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 18: The internationally sanctioned Guatemalan Special Prosecutor Against Impunity threatens to investigate USAID funding to independent media, echoing attacks on the press in El Salvador and Nicaragua. José Ubico, the former president of Guatemala’s congressional National Defense Committee, is sentenced to 18 years in prison in the Eastern District of Texas after pl...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 17: Honduran campesinos repeat calls for President Xiomara Castro to respect a 2022 agreement to end assassinations tied to palm oil monocrop in the Bajo Aguán. Castro has not installed a promised Truth Commission nor propelled a constitutionally mandated agrarian reform. Nicaraguan police and military leaders swear in para-security forces implicated in crimes again...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 16: Rosario Murillo orders the removal of presidential security advisor Horacio Rocha and interim Supreme Court president Marvin Aguilar as Murillo, the newly minted “co-president” of Nicaragua, prepares to nominate a reduced nine-seat Supreme Court in her image. Nayib Bukele slates changes to the Salvadoran penal code to make soldiers “agents of authority” when “ac...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 15: With Trump and regional migration carrying the headlines and Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveling in Central America, Nayib Bukele rewrites the constitution in El Salvador and the Guatemalan Supreme Court resumes an internationally condemned probe of Bernardo Arévalo. Honduras and Colombia try to rally Latin American and Caribbean nations against Trump’s dep...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 14: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights finds the Nicaraguan state guilty of “abusive use of the state apparatus” in allowing Daniel Ortega’s unconstitutional 2011 reelection, setting precedent for the elections in Honduras in 2017 and El Salvador in 2024. China hawk Marco Rubio, Trump’s top diplomat, plans to make his first official trip to Central America. Co...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 13: The Biden administration extends Temporary Protected Status for 232,000 Salvadorans through September 2026, but has not renewed these protections from deportation for recipients from Honduras or Nicaragua. Per a tally by exiled Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa, 38 former political prisoners have had their asylum claims denied by the United States after promises th...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 12: Expecting increased U.S. deportations, Honduran President Xiomara Castro threatens to expel a key Southcom military base. Her Guatemalan counterpart Bernardo Arévalo, meanwhile, says the country is “open” to taking in deportations of other Central American nationals. After weeks of claiming that the Chinese military controls the Panama Canal and mistreats U.S. b...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 11: In a major universal jurisdiction trial, an Argentinian judge has requested the arrest of Daniel Ortega, Rosario Murillo, and a battery of top Nicaraguan officials implicated in hundreds of killings and other 2018 state crimes against humanity. Two-thirds of the big business-friendly Guatemalan Congress approved an anti-monopoly law that was a priority of Presid...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 10: In 2024, Bernardo Arévalo failed to remove the Guatemalan attorney general from office, the Salvadoran press published evidence that Nayib Bukele’s family is acquiring significant assets, and Central American leaders eyed Donald Trump’s return for political gain. In 2025, U.S. immigrants’ organizations plan to again turn to religious organizations to fight Trump...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 9: The Salvadoran Court of Accounts planned to let Agriculture Minister Pablo Anliker off the hook for $60 million in Covid-19 fraud while ordering six of his subordinates to repay the money from contracts he signed. After three years of negotiations, El Salvador secures a $1.4 billion debt refinancing lifeline from the IMF and stands to obtain more from other finan...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 8: The Nicaraguan regime tightens border controls, pulls passports, and puts a legal veneer on the cancellation of citizenship to keep a leash on insiders and critics alike. U.S. congressmen from both parties criticize arbitrary arrests in El Salvador. But Republican Chris Smith cites Joe Biden’s signing-off on Nayib Bukele’s unconstitutional reelection to assert th...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 7: Top editors of Costa Rica’s leading daily newspaper resign, citing editorial pressures on coverage. Salvadoran authorities raid the home of a radio journalist whose station is critical of Bukele’s mining project. Guatemalan AG Consuelo Porras picks apart the Public Prosecutor’s Office in a dramatic reshuffling of dozens of staff, and dismantles the special war-cr...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 6: After the express approval of a new data privacy law in El Salvador, a freshly created State Cybersecurity Agency will order the removal of online content deemed “inadequate” or “inexact” from the internet. Nayib Bukele declares on X that El Salvador’s watershed 2017 prohibition of metallic mining is “absurd”. In Nicaragua, toxic mining and settler violence again...