Central America today RT: 57.30 mins Click here to watch this program in streaming video - 28 k modems Click here for 56 k modems

Central America today

including
Peace What Peace?
and
Deadly Embrace: Nicaragua, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

working TV Central America today Special, RT: 57:30,
first broadcast March 31 1999


Throughout the 1970's and 1980's, Central America was often in the news as bloody armed conflicts raged in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. By 1996 peace agreements had been achieved which led many Canadians to draw an erroneous conclusion: if they were no longer hearing about war, there must be peace. If elections were being held, there must be democracy. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

	Demonstration against Privatization and World Bank economic policies in Managua Nicaragua
Demonstration with same focus in San Salvador, capital of El Salvador

The wars might have ended but people are facing another kind of violence: the violence of growing unemployment, hunger and poverty. This is the consequence of government efforts to cope with staggering international debts, incurred by earlier regimes, and owed to agencies like the World Bank and the International Monetary fund. In this one hour working TV special, we bring you two of the best and most recent videos on the region:
1. Peace, What Peace?, produced by Kathy Price for the Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin-America, and
2. Deadly Embrace: Nicaragua, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, by Ashley Eames and Elizabeth Canner for the Nicaragua Network Education Fund. They reflect the reality of life in Central-America today.

We hope they can help build renewed solidarity with the region, and increase awareness of the Jubilee 2000 campaign for cancellation of debt owed by the world's poorest nations.

	Today, many Nicaraguans have to pick through garbage to survive
Many children have to pick through garbage to make a living and are unable to go to school