Russia and the U.S. are partnering in the Globalized War on People's Freedoms...

Progress needs the clash of ideas... 
The clash of ideas creates the dynamic dualism of opposing creeds and generates a dialectic which propels humanity forward...
Without the clash of ideas there will be no progress... Maybe that is why Russia has stagnated throughout the 20th and 21st centuries... and that is why the "western liberal democracies..." are having difficult times... that is why the U.S. is tittering at the MAGA concept and endangering its hegemonic monopoly which the U.S. enjoyed after the collapse of the Soviet Union...
The opposition has to have freedom to organize and challenge the status quo... In Russia this is an alien preposition... The Putin oligarchs refuse any challenges... and the U.S. is more and more sinking in the MAGA fantasy...

This week in Russia...

Protesters had gathered in the Russian capital after authorities disqualified a number of opposition candidates from standing in local elections.

More than 600 people have been detained over an unauthorised protest in Moscow, amid reports of police violence.


Leading activist Lyubov Sobol was arrested before she could reach the rally, attended by 1,500 people....

...And the last weekend... 

Moscow police arrested more than 1,000 protesters ahead of election...

Demonstrators are demanding opposition candidates be allowed to run for city council...

Russian authorities detained more than 1,000 protesters in Moscow on Saturday, in an attempt to quash a recent surge in protest mood that has spooked the Kremlin. Police also arrived at the homes of multiple opposition figures with search and arrest warrants, and called the editor-in-chief of the country’s leading independent television station in for questioning.

 Alexei Navalny, the highest profile opposition politician, was arrested outside his house earlier in the week as he stepped out to go jogging and buy his wife flowers for her birthday; he has been sentenced to 30 days in jail. Others received midnight knocks on the door from investigators, who demanded to search their properties and branded them suspects in the crime of “hindering the work of the electoral commission”.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny

In Russia the people are detained and harassed and jailed... for demanding basic freedoms...

In the U.S. voters are suppressed by gerrymandering and by difficulties to register and vote... Voter suppression is a disgusting and despotic game that the status quo and the 1% play...

Russia and the U.S. are merging into a globalized populist anarchy... and both are defending the profits of the 1% and promoting the interest of the 1%...

*******************************************************************

It has been said that religion is the opium of the people... the rulers, the 1% use religion to keep their rule and the status quo...

Religious wars have killled, massacred and maimed thousands throughout history...

The Turkic-Islamic penetration into Europe...

The Crusaders... to liberate the "Holy Lands..." and the save Byzantium...

The Catholic and Protestant wars in Europe...

The Ottoman Turks massacring Christian Armenian, Greeks and Assyrians... 

The Turks committing the genocide of Armenians... 

*****

And now the U.S. Evangelicals hypocritically supporting the immorality of the politicians and advocating and promoting the interests of the 1%...

...and check below... 

  

The Georgetown Visitation sisters, a sect within the Catholic Church, ,  owned at least 107 enslaved men, women and children, the records show. And they sold dozens of those people to pay debts and to help finance the expansion of their school and the construction of a new chapel.

Evangelicals and Catholics alike support the profit driven 1%... and there is no end in sight...

Putin's Russia suppresses... the opposition...
The U.S. suppresses the freedoms of the people...
The Church deceives the people... 
It is the age of globalized wars against the freedoms of the people... 

U.S. and Russia... and Turkey...

Che Guevara praised America as the head of the snake... with a vicious bite... American liberals praised America as the world's leading democracy...
...and billionaires wanted to Make America Great Again...
But,
The world expected a new global vision from the U.S.  and instead got a partnership with Putin's Russia... Russian oligarchs and apparatchiks hooked up with U.S. white nationalists and racists and billionaires and the outcome became the world that we are living in...
Russia has a history of czarist despotism which evolved into Stalinist dictatorship and later into Putin's oligarchic vandalism... The "liberal western democracies,"  are democracies based on money... the more money individuals possess the more rights they have... money decides rights and equality... and who will lead the country...

Putin's Russia
Alexei Navalny, Russia's most prominent opposition figure, has questioned reports that he suffered an acute allergic reaction after being taken ill in jail...

 "I have never had an allergy. Not to food or pollen or anything else," Navalny wrote in a blog post.

The 43-year-old was taken to hospital with a swollen face, eye problems and rashes on his body. He was in jail for calling for unauthorised protests. His doctor suggested he might have been exposed to "some toxic agent".          Navalny has since been discharged from hospital and has returned to jail.

Putin's Russia is an oligarchic despotism... the opposition has no rights... and the oligarchs have both the money and the rights... This is yet another variety of "bourgeois democracy..." That is democracy based on money...
In the U.S. the 1% has more rights than the rest of the people... and they are bold enough to declare that even if they kill a person on 5th avenue in New York... they will still go free...
Putin's Russia and Trump's America are starting to resemble each other more closely... and other leaders with despotic tendencies are imitating them...

Erdogan's Turkey has a long history of despotic actions... 
Brazil, Philippines and Saudi Arabia are others... examples of despotic friends of the ruling 1%... be they in the U.S.  or in Russia...

...an image of Erdogan's Turkey...

Elif Shafak: Turkish author living in exile in England...
I love her writings... like I like the writings of Orhan Pamuk (Nobel laurate...) Like Shafak, Pamuk lives in exile too... in Europe...

Shafak insists..." Much has been said about the anti-liberal nature of authoritarian populism, but little about anti-intellectualism and anti-feminism..."


Shafak continues...

One day two months ago I woke up to thousands of abusive messages on Turkish social media, many of them generated by bots and trolls. Sentences had been plucked from one of my novels, The Gaze, and were being circulated by people demanding fiction writers be put on trial for "obscenity". My new novel, 10 Minutes38 Seconds inThis Strange World, was also targeted. Both books explore difficult subjects - sexual harassment, gender violence and child abuse - and I was far from the only writer targeted in this way. Soon the hysteria turned into a kind of digital lynching of Turkish authors who had even slightly touched on similar issues in their novels and short stories.

Erdogan's Turkey bans books and persecutes authors... even fiction is not safe... They put authors on trial because of their fiction... like they did to Shafak and Pamuk...
Erdogan;s Turkey... bans books...

I received a distressed call from my Turkish publisher the same week, informing me that civilian police officers had come to the office demanding to see a number of books. Not only my fiction but titles by Duygu Asena, a leading feminist who died in 2006. The books were taken to the prosecutor's office to be investigated.

Erdogan's Turkey and his university rector... The people are romanticised as pure and innocent.

 The deputy rector of a newly established university in Turkey, Bülent Ari, claimed on TV: "I'd rather trust ignorant people who have not attended university or better yet, not even attended primary school ... because their minds are pure." Saying he was unhappy to see literacy rates going up, he claimed that people who had higher education and were more cultured also had blurred minds and couldn't think straight. "If Erdogan leaves it will be a catastrophe," he added. Afterwards, he was promoted by the government to the Council of Higher Education.

Shafak narrates... that,

There is a clear animosity towards intellectuals under President Erdogan's AKP government. More than 7,300 academics have been dismissed via emergency state decrees. Around 700 scholars have been criminally charged for signing a peace petition. They have lost their jobs and been blacklisted. Some have been arrested, others have had travel bans imposed on them or had their passports confiscated. Mehmet Fatih Tras, a university assistant who had signed the peace petition and was then fired, killed himself. Professor Sebnem Korur Fincanci, chair of the Human Rights Foundation, and Ayse Gül Altinay, a professor of gender and women's studies, were both given two-year prison sentences. Professor Füsun Üstel, one of Turkey's leading academics on nationalism and identity, is in prison.

Like intellectuals, feminists are accused of being 'pawns of the west' and 'rootless cosmopolitans'... 

It is equally hard for female journalists. Nurcan Baysal had police knocking on her door in the middle of the night. Baysal is one of the most important voices writing about the traumas of Yazidi and Kurdish women, and she was put on trial for her articles. Ayla Albayrak from the Wall Street Journal was charged with "terrorist propaganda" after penning an article about what was transpiring in the Kurdish-majority south-east. She was sentenced in absentia. Article 19 called the decision "an unprecedented verdict for a reporter of a foreign media outlet".

In the U.S. advisers to the current regime have also targeted intellectuals equating to "cosmopolitan" rootless globalists... and Putin's Russia has a long history of anti-intellectual  crusades...

Turkey's trajectory shows that wherever there is a rise of nationalism and authoritarianism, patriarchy and homophobia are also in the ascendant... and that is exactly the same in Russia and the U.S. and all over the "liberal democracies..."

Nationalists are burning poster of Shafak... in Turkey...
White nationalists demonstrated and killed people in the U.S.
... and Russian chauvinist and oligarchic regime is prosecuting Navalny and other opposition leaders-intellectuals...

Violence is part of the "white nationalists" in the U.S. 
Violence is part of the Putin's oligarchs... and violence is the desired policy in Erdogan's Turkey...

Shafak continues...

In 2006, after I wrote The Bastard of Istanbul - a novel about a Turkish and Armenian-American family - I was put on trial for "insulting Turkishness". The words of several of my Armenian fictional characters were used as "evidence" by the prosecutors. As a result, my Turkish lawyer had to defend not only me but also my characters. I wish I could say that Turkey has made progress in human rights and freedom of speech since then, but I am afraid it has been the opposite.

No country is immune to the rise of populist nationalism... 

As liberal democratic values continue to be endangered, we storytellers are now facing unexpected challenges. Doris Lessing once said that literature was analysis after the event. But there might be times when literature has to become analysis during the event. Paradoxically, at a time when truth is under attack, writers might need to defend fiction more loudly. In the age of anger, tribalism and apathy, we need stories of connectivity, humanism and empathy. In the face of binary oppositions, we need to promote a more nuanced way of thinking. Wherever there is a decline in democracy we will see an increase in censorship and intolerance. Today, more than ever before, literature has to be not only about stories but also about silences and the silenced. It has to become a sanctuary for the disempowered and the marginalised across the world.

Automated Globalization... Brave New World

The Brave New World is coming to life... 
Check what is happening...

• automated authoritarianism ... When leaders twit and the rest of us read and follow and applaud...  We are cheated and taken advantage of... We are the masses and they are the 1%... the rich and the powerful... the bosses...

• automated anarchy... The conspiracy theorists and the fake news create a globalized havoc... what to believe...? Maybe nothing... Whom to believe...? Maybe no one... 

• automated globalism... The "liberal democracies" of Europe and North America exploit the rest of the world... and create the refugee crisis.... The refugees are coming... the refugees are coming... close the harbors... and erect the walls...

• automated warfare... the 1% does not need the poor anymore... they do not need the Wretched of the World... the Blacks and Latinos and the non-European and the  non-white minorities... can wallow in their wretched poverty... the 1% has drones and AI and robots... and bombs... they can bomb the shit out of anywhere they fancy... The Israeli religious and political leaders can blow and demolish any Palestinian home they desire... The Saudis and  the United Arab Emirates can create hell in Yemen... 

• automated cold war... The Russians did it... they meddled in the U.S.A. elections... they promoted Brexit... they promoted fascist and racist parties in Europe...  and of course if the Russians van do it... so can China... and Iran and Saudi Arabia and Turkey... and of course the "liberal democracies" have done it for centuries... Tey have argues "the white man's burden"... to cover up their exploitative racism... and sent missionaries to Africa and Asia and Latin America in order to evangelize and spread the GOOD word bible...  after all, Jesus gave the instructions that Christians are to 'Go into all the world and preach ...' and the Europeans and North Americans perverted the instructions into 'Go into all the world exploit...'

• virtual cage... and thus the world shrank into the global village that we live in... and the 1% introduced Global Warming and converted the world into  global prison...  and made the world into a world of homeless refugees...

And now they are attempting to crush the homeless and the refugees... Europe made a deal with Libya... and the U.S. made a deal with Guatemala...

In Libya they bombed the refugees... in Guatemala they terrorize and starve them...

This is the Brave New World of the global 1%... where Russian oligarchs... Saudi princes... U.S. billionaires... Turkish and Philippine dictators-fascists... European and North American "liberal democracies..." have converted the rest of the globe into "shithole... countries..."

The Wreched of the World... revolted in Algeria... against French colonialism... in 1968 there was Prague Spring... there was French youth revolt... there was North American Anti-Vietnam movement against the 1% who had developed bone spurs... in their head...

***********************************

Trump says, “I don’t do cover-ups.” 
And Nixon said, “I am not a crook...”
And Clinton said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman...”

The Silent Majority is Accomplice to the death of the 7 Year old girl from Guatemala...

This is Jakelin Ameí Rosmery Caal Maquin, the 7 year old girl who died in Border Patrol custody... at the Mexico-U.S. border...

A seven year old and her father had crossed the Mexico-U.S. border... but she never realized her dream of a better life... She was terrorized by the U.S. patrol and died from dehydration... Just 90 minutes after crossing the border... 

    Migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border say they are fleeing persecution, poverty     and violence in their countries...
   But the U.S. executive of the 1% does not want them...A seven-year-old girl who US officials say tried to cross the Mexico-US border illegally with her family has died hours after being taken into custody. The Guatemalan girl, who authorities there have named as Jackeline Caal, died of dehydration and shock, the Washington Post reports.

It is our collective shame that these things are happening at the Mexico-US border... Children ripped off their parents... people tear gassed... those who escape the tear gas are taken into custody... and a 7 year old died of dehydration...

It is our collective shame... and the silent majority should wake up...
Human compassion is essential for survival... not only for them... but without that basic compassion we cannot survive as human beings...

Stand up and speak out... keeping your silence makes you an accomplice to the brutality of the U.S. executive of the 1%...

Do not be a part of the problem... by keeping silence...
Maybe in this holiday season... you can stand up and be counted...
Speak up... 
Big business... has penetrated all Central American countries... the banana plantations and coffee and the rest... exploit the people of central America...
The U.S. government for decades has helped the brutal military dictatorships in Central America...  They U.S. government has supported death squads...
And now some people are asking for refuge...
Speak up... and let people come in...
Human beings help each other... 
... A 7 year old died in U.S. custody... from dehydration...

Speak out... keeping silence is to be an accomplice to brutality...

Arms kill... Be it American...Russian or Chinese... Arms indeed kill...

Arms are manufactured to kill... and arms do kill...
Arms do not have nationality... American arms kill and so does Russian... Chinese arms kill and so does Indian or Pakistani...
Turkey intends to invade Syria and destroy Kurdish fighters, peshmergas..., allied with the U.S.  In essence, the government in Syria has Russian arms... and the opposition has U.S., American and European arms...Russian and American arms have killed thousands in Syria... maimed thousands more... and created thousands of refugees...

• The U.S. and European and Russian arms have created a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Africa... 

But now,

• Americans and many European countries refuse to accept refugees... going against international conventions and norms...

Saudi Arabia, armed by the U.S., is in war in Yemen...

Saudi Arabia is fighting in Yemen... with U.S. supplied arms... The ruling 1% in America and Europe proclaims that if they do not sell arms to the Saudi dictatorship, then Russia or may be China will sell them arms... So why not Americans benefit from the Saudi petrodollars...
American arms for Saudi petrodollars... and Yemeni war... and Yemeni victims... 
Essentially the Americans, and the Europeans and also  Russians... benefit from the Saudi oil and Saudi dollars and Yemeni war...
They are the merchants of death... and blood...

 39,773... 

That’s how many people were killed by guns last year in the U.S. according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — raising the rate of gun deaths to its highest level in more than 20 years amid an increase in suicides...
Guns kill all nationalities... American guns kill Americans too... Putin's regime kills the Russian opposition with Russian arms... and the Chinese suppress the Uighurs, its Muslim minority, by Chinese arms...

The bullet does not recognize the nationality of the victims... 
Arms and ammunition are manufactured to kill... everyone... anyone... regardless of nationality or wealth or...

The Yemeni war... conducted by U.S. arms and Saudi butchers and assassins... assisted by their allies... This young girl is starving to death... because Saudis have blockaded the ports  of Yemen and humanitarian aid cannot be delivered...

... and this girl is maimed by U.S. arms by Saudi actors..., "soldiers..."

The rest of her life she is going to carry the memories of the U.S. arms...

The global 1%  manufactures arms for profit... and arms kill and the 1% becomes the assassins of  the world...
They are the traders in blood... for blood...

Russian and American weapons create globalized misery... killing fields... just like global warming...just like the opioids... 

Drugs kill...

and 

So do arms....

As a result of the Saudi-led war in the country, millions of Yemenis are at the risk of starvation... U.S. arms in the hands of the Saudis are starving thousands of Yemenis and massacring thousands...

They have no where to go... they have nothing to do... A nation of homeless... That's what the U.S. arms in the hands of the Saudis is doing... and all of us are complicit in it... 

We the people should demand a halt to arms sales to all... We should not be the global merchants of death...

***

The West once flooded China with opium. China is returning the favour... and China’s pledge to curb fentanyl production may not change much

Fentanyl Is Now America's Deadliest Drug

The powerful pain medication causes more overdoses than heroin, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deaths involving the synthetic opioid, which can be 100 times stronger than morphine, doubled each year between 2013 and 2016. Fentanyl was connected to 1,600 deaths in 2012, but that number had jumped to 18,000 by 2016. Last year it was involved in nearly 30,000 of the estimated 70,000 U.S. overdoses. Another report earlier this year suggested opioid-related deaths have been underreported by as much as 35 percent.

Will "the wall" stop the drugs...?

      
Bethlehem's Christmas Tree... and the   menorah which stands today in Jerusalem's old city Jewish Quarter, overlooking the Temple Mount...

Yesterday was a day of candles and light for people of faith around the globe... and it was candles and lights for a week now for the businesses...
Christians light the first of four Advent candles, representing prayer, penance, rejoicing and sacrifice in preparation for Christmas... but will prayers and penance cover up the sex scandals of the priests and the bishops... and will prayer and penance be enough for the Evangelicals who have steadfastly supported the executive of the 1%... even when that executive was grabbing the kids from their parents... even when that executive is bombing the hell out of the Yemeni people - men,  women and children alike...   
At sunset, Jewish people turn to the menorah to mark the start of Hanukkah. The eight-day festival commemorates an ancient miracle, when one day’s-worth of consecrated oil lasted for eight during the rededication of the Second Temple of Jerusalem... maybe the Jewish people will contemplate about the Palestinians while the first light is turned on... maybe the Jewish people will think about the Palestinian men, women and children... during the eight days of Hanukkah...

... and maybe all of us will think about the verse “For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:”                                                     Matthew 25:25 in King James Version of the Bible... 

I am not a believer and I do not appreciate the fanatic dogmatism of some preachers... but there is good philosophy in the Bible... and I read it often... not for salvation, but rather to embrace global values and ALL of humanity... and of course I will celebrate Christmas... in fact three times...
On the December 25... with everyone... and on January 6 with my Armenian friends... and on January 7 with my Ukrainian friends...
I love to celebrate... and during the eight days of Hanukkah I love to meet my Jewish friends... they are fun... and they are good people to hang around...

                                                                         *** 
...of Chameleons and the rest...

Will "The Wall" stop the drugs and will political chameleons succeed to camouflage the arrogance and greed of the 1%...? Will the executive of the 1% succeed to lull the people again...?
The "wall" will have no effect on smugglers but will harass people.

Check the news...

Drug overdoses killed more than 70,000 Americans in 2017, a record. The deaths contributed to a reduction in American life expectancy over the last three years, a pattern unprecedented since World War II.

The new numbers from health officials depict an addiction crisis more deadly than car crashes or gun violence... and non of them are good...  Cars kill and pollute... guns massacre and create wars... and drugs make us sick and helpless... These are the gifts of the 1% to the "WE THE PEOPLE..." ...and the U.N. report on climate... What will be our legacy to the next generation... coal and dust... ashes and fires... maybe flooded streets and Miami under water...  I always joked while teaching that eventually people will start roaming around with bottled water on their one hand and bottled air on the other... Maybe that's for next Christmas and Hanukkah...! Maybe... the Hanukkah lights will come from coal mines... or maybe from oil wells...  and Maybe Christmas trees will miraculously survive the wild fires... Maybe... after all the executives of the 1% gathered in Buenos Aires... over the weekend and acted as chameleons laughing at the people and deciding how to divide the globe... ... and till when "WE THE PEOPLE..." will tolerate...? Today is the second day of Advent... the glitter of gifts weighs heavy on the Christmas tree... Today light the second candle... and maybe people will see the starving people in Yemen... and notice the refugees in Syria... and maybe the tear-gassed children in Tijuana... Maybe... after all it is the season of miracles...

"We the people..." must decide...!

Why they are running... ?

My friend told me... Two people looked at me and asked; "Why you are here...?" and I answered smiling; "... because YOU were there..."
My friend is dark skinned... from South Asia and the people bugging him were white Anglos... in London, England...
My friend added; "I just wanted to remind them that South Asia was the crown jewel of the British vast colonial empire... where once the sun never set...
They colonized for economic exploitation and never imagined that the colonial population will migrate to the metropolis...
They just wanted the riches without the population... they wanted the capital without the labour...

*** 

Why they are running... ? 

Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, return to Mexico after being hit by tear gas by U.S. Customs and Border Protection after attempting to illegally cross the border wall into the United States in Tijuana, Mexico, earlier this week. Adrees Latif/Reuters

Indeed,
Why they are running... ? 
Because, like my friend reiterated... North Americans wanted the riches of Central America... without the people...
They wanted the cheap labour to stay in their countries... and provide cheap labour...

At the Mexican-American border... a family of migrants from Central America... attempts to scale the wall at the border...
But,
U.S. border patrols rain tear gas on them... and mother and children run back...

The tear gas initiates the violent repudiation of HUMAN RIGHTS... migrants do have rights... at the border... refugees have rights at the border... It is the international law... and the tear gas violates the international law...

The migrants run... and the tear gas follows them...

... and migrant families run away...
Some are blaming the current executives of the 1%... but the truth is that both parties have identical policies when it comes to the foreign policy of the 1% in North America!
The 1% wants the profit that they make from Central America... coffee and banana plantations are proof of their greed... But North Americans and the executive of the 1%, whether red or blue or orange, wants the profits and not the people...

Check their policies... from liberal Carter to conservative Reagan and "nationalist" Trump...!

Indeed... Why are they running... ? 

 

And to paraphrase my friend when the two guys attempted to bully him... THE MIGRANTS ARE COMING TO THE U.S. BECAUSE THE U.S. WAS AND IS IN CENTRAL AMERICA...!

Check the policies... of both parties...

What’s Driving That Refugee Caravan...?

Human Rights Watch, in a disturbing new report on life in El Salvador communities under gang rule, finds that the small country had 20,000 murders from 2014 to 2017.

Adjusted for population size, it would be equivalent to the United States having over one million murders in the same period.

The report also estimates that over one-third of municipalities in El Salvador are controlled by gangs, which rule through extortion and the ever-present threat of violence.

This is important context for the refugee caravan arriving at the southern United States border, where the Trump administration has deployed tear gas to prevent arrivals from requesting asylum. As we wrote when President Trump first threatened to prevent the refugees’ arrival, this is almost certainly almost certainly a violation of international law, though in practice there’s no real enforcement mechanism The Salvadoran Civil War was a conflict between the military-led government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or "umbrella organization" of several left-wing groups. A coup on October 15, 1979, led to the killings of anti-coup protesters by the government as well as anti-disorder protesters by the guerrillas, and is widely seen as the tipping point toward civil war. The full-fledged civil war lasted for more than 12 years and saw extreme violence. It also included the deliberate terrorizing and targeting of civilians by the death squads death squads, the recruitment of child soldiers children and other violations of human rights, mostly done by the military. An unknown number of people disappeared disappeared during the conflict, and the UN reports that the war killed more than 75,000 people between 1980 and 1992. In 2016, the El Salvador Supreme Court ruled that the amnesty law was unconstitutional and that the El Salvador government could prosecute war criminals. The United States contributed to the conflict by providing large amounts of military aid of $1–2 million per day to the government of El Salvador during both the Carter and Reagan administrations. The Salvadoran government was considered "friendly" and allies by the U.S. in the context of the Cold War. By May 1983, US officers took over positions in the top levels of the Salvadoran military, were making critical decisions and running the war. And,  The Nicaraguan Civil War is more commonly known as the Nicaraguan Revolution.  There were encompasses these events that made up the revolution: the rising opposition to the Somoza dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) attempting to oust it, then the FSLN attempting to govern in Nicaragua from 1979-1990, and the Contra War between the FSLN and the Contras from 1981-1990. In 1982, Somoza loyalists and people opposing the Sandinista, known as the Contra (for counter-revolution), or Nicaraguan Democratic Force, waged war against the Sandinista government.   The Contra were backed by the United States and its allies, while the FLSN was supported by the Soviet Union and its allies. Also, The Guatemalan Civil War ran from 1960 to 1996. It was fought between the government of Guatemala government and various leftist rebel groups supported chiefly by ethnic Maya Maya indigenous people and Ladino Ladino peasants, who together make up the rural poor. The government forces of Guatemala have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population of Guatemala  during the civil war and for widespread human rights violations human rights violations against civilians. Democratic elections during the Guatemalan Revolution in 1944 and 1951 had brought popular leftist governments to power, but a United States-backed coup d'état in 1954 installed the military regime of Carlos Castillo Armas, who was followed by a series of conservative military dictators. In 1970, Colonel Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio became the first of a series of military dictators representing the Institutional Democratic Party or PID. The PID dominated Guatemalan politics for twelve years through electoral frauds favoring two of Col. Carlos Arana's proteges (Gen. Kjell Eugenio Laugerud Garcia in 1974 and Gen. Romeo Lucas Garcia in 1978). The PID lost its grip on Guatemalan politics when General Efraín Ríos Montt, together with a group of junior army officers, seized power in a military coup on 23 March 1982. In the 1970s continuing social discontent gave rise to an insurgency among the large populations of indigenous people and peasants, who traditionally bore the brunt of unequal land tenure. During the 1980s, the Guatemalan military assumed almost absolute government power for five years; it had successfully infiltrated and eliminated enemies in every socio-political institution of the nation, including the political, social, and intellectual classes. In the final stage of the civil war, the military developed a parallel, semi-visible, low profile but high-effect, control of Guatemala's national life. It is estimated that 200,000 people were killed or "disappeared" during the conflict. As well as fighting between government forces and rebel groups, the conflict included, much more significantly, a large-scale, coordinated campaign of one-sided violence by the Guatemalan state against the civilian population from the mid-1960s onward... ... and of course the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero was one of the most notoriously infamous crime in El Salvador... and the U.S. intelligence played a central part in the assassination...  See the report below...

Tom Gibb in The Guardian...

Tom Gibb

Wed 22 Mar 2000 21.11 ESTFirst published on Wed 22 Mar 2000 21.11 EST

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San Salvador. 
In the bright morning sunlight of March 24 1980, a car stopped outside the Church of the Divine Providence. A lone gunman stepped out, unhurried. Resting his rifle on the car door, he aimed carefully down the long aisle to where El Salvador's archbishop, Oscar Arnulfo Romero, was saying mass. A single shot rang out. Romero staggered and fell. The blood pumped from his heart, soaking the little white disks of scattered host.

Romero's murder was to become one of the most notorious unsolved crimes of the cold war. The motive was clear. He was the most outspoken voice against the death squad slaughter gathering steam in the US backyard. The ranks of El Salvador's leftwing rebels were being swelled by priests who preached that the poor should seek justice in this world, not wait for the next. Romero was the "voice of those without voice", telling soldiers not to kill.

The US vowed to make punishment of the archbishop's killers a priority. It could hardly do otherwise as President Reagan launched the largest US war effort since Vietnam to defeat the rebels. He needed support in Washington, which meant showing that crimes like shooting archbishops and nuns would not be tolerated.

The ordering of the murder was blamed on the bogeyman of the story, a military intelligence officer called Major Roberto D'Aubuisson who had, conveniently for Washington, recently left the army. In the weeks before the murder, he was repeatedly on television using military intelligence files to denounce "guerrillas". Those he accused were often murdered. Romero was near the top of the list.

But US promises to bring justice came to nothing. With no trigger-man, gun or witnesses, officials claimed lack of evidence. D'Aubuisson went on to become one of El Salvador's most successful politicians before throat cancer killed him at the end of the civil war 12 years later - the revenge of God, many concluded.

However, new evidence suggests that Washington not only knew far more about the killing than it admitted - but also did nothing to investigate for fear of jeopardising its war effort. Vital evidence was ignored. Key witnesses, including the most likely gunman, were killed by those supposed to be investigating.

Indeed, Why they are running... ? 

From the tear gas or from the poverty and violence supported and promoted by the executive of the 1% in North America...?