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Mirage
LOST HILLS, Calif.–On a recent May afternoon when the temperature was toying with triple digits, Dr. Joseph Skorupa, a federal wildlife biologist looking for bird eggs, walked a low earthen levee between two vast pools of shallow water. With light-colored clothing and a
Chile’s Lost Generation
We were the generation that thought we had the world in our hands. We were building a new country, and we gave our all to the cause. We lived and felt intensely, every moment. Estela Ortiz, 39, a communist youth activist during the
The Economic Chaos In Mexico: A Primer
MEXICO CITY–Augustina Cruz lives in the western fringe of Mexico City in a one-room ramshackle house built of broken boards and cartons and a rusty strip of metal for a roof. Each morning Cruz, 45, a widowed mother of five, walks the short
A Dam on the Danube: The Greening of Hungarian Politics
ESZTERGOM, Hungary–For more than 20 years, Istvan Horvath sifted and searched for Hungary’s buried treasures: ancient gold coins, altars, arches and urns. Were it not for the bulldozers on the banks of the Danube, he would have gone on digging peacefully for another
The Ambush of A Young Sandinista: An Early Contra Victory
The death of Daniel Teller in a 1983 contra ambush deeply shook colleagues throughout the Sandinista Front. He’d proven himself to be one of Nicaragua’s most brilliant and promising young political cadres. During four years of revolutionary work in northern Jinotega province, Teller
The Dictator
On September 30, 1988, Augusto Pinochet Ugarte was in majestic fighting form. Chile’s barrel-chested, 72-year-old dictator had just nominated himself for president, with the concurrence of his three fellow military commanders, and officials were gathered in a cavernous hall for his acceptance speech.
The Stale, Small War in El Salvador
The war in El Salvador is “stuck,” and the United States is “itself stuck with the war.” Washington has failed to “revitalize” the Salvadoran government, which “remains ineffective.” U.S. economic assistance “has achieved little.” The Salvadoran military remains “remarkably immune” to U.S. efforts
Land Of Dreamers: What Haitians Want
Text and Photos by Maggie Steber …Then there is the mysterious something foreigners are always being told they can never fathom: “la psychologie Haitienne.”. Deep in the psyche of Haiti lies a violence that goes beyond violence. That this is so is demonstrated
America’s Little War Becomes A Nightmare
SAIGON, South Vietnam, mid-1963–Mal Browne drifted into a far world, caught up in the aromatic lure of incense, the shadowy vision of shuffling saffron, and the lulling monotone of an ancient prayer. “Na…Mo…Ah…Di…Da…Phat…” a lean and ascetic monk intoned. A second bonze solemnly
The Opposition Struggles In Mexico
MEXICO CITY-In the wake of last July’s controversial presidential election, center-left opposition leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas could readily muster 200,000 supporters to fill Mexico City’s central plaza to rally against the ruling party. But as the memory of irregularities and fraud charges stemming from
The Age Of Electronic Government
It began as a routine Freedom of Information Act request but ended in a tangle, a computerized Catch-22. In 1985, the non-profit organization, Public Citizen, requested that Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) provide an array of records detailing workplace hazards. The Washington-based
Death In Haiti
Text and Photos by Maggie Steber In Haiti, it is said that when you look at a man, you see death standing next to him. Personalities, dates and methods change, but there is always one sure factor–and that is death. It is as
The Wary Chronicler Who Inspired A Rebellion
South Vietnam, late December 1961-Homer Bigart of The New York Times had been shot at in anger in some part of the world during each of his past twenty years. The tiny and obscure American war in Vietnam would be his last battle,
The Fragile Peace
For most of his adult life Samuel I. del Villar, a former Mexican government official and prominent intellectual, was a member in good standing of Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI, and a staunch defender of the one-party system. But in the aftermath
Building America’s Stone Wall
On May 22, 1957, E.E. “Pete” Gardner was piloting his tiny Cessna aircraft into Kirtland Air Force Base on the high, dusty deserts of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Gardner noticed that about a mile away a massive B-36 Air Force bomber also was preparing
Proposition 65: California’s Controversial Gift
DAVIS, CA.-It is theatre in the round at the barn-like Wyatt Pavilion on the University of California campus here. But the people on the raised stage are not actors and the audience is obviously not a student crowd. Instead, a phalanx of briefcase-bearing
Death By Drink: The Sad Battle of America’s Indians
Vernon Kills On Top’s new home is his sanctuary. Within the quiet refuge of death row at Montana State Prison he will outlive many of his friends. “This is a safe place,” Kills On Top said recently. “My friends are out there dying.”
The Supreme Court Decides the Fate of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
Florida Congressman Claude Pepper huddled quickly with other colleagues after the U.S. House voted to exclude Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. on March 1, 1967. Powell was the first House member to suffer such a fate since 1919, when the House excluded Victor Berger,
How America Eagerly Built Her Arsenal
Since Pearl Harbor, the United States has been in a constant state of either fighting or preparing for war, a strange fate for a liberal democracy that has allowed the military to have enormous influence on our way of life. New revelations this
Paradise Lost: Haiti Without Trees
Text and Photos by Maggie Steber Editors Note: APF Reporter Vol.11 #3 exsisted only as a photo copy, becuase of this the pictures in this story are of poor quality. A balmy pre-evening breeze brushed the terrace. Port-au Prince sprawled in the view