Columns
March 6, 2013
President Hugo Chavez—perhaps more than any other Latin American politician—sought to build bridges with the Caribbean, to unite two regions which have so much in common. While many other articles have turned to focus on the economic consequences his death might potentially bring to the Caribbean, a remembrance of all that he had done both for and with the region seems more fitting.
March 6, 2013
The news poured down like a hard Venezuelan rain—Hugo Chávez had passed. After a two-year-long battle with cancer, we should have been prepared. But we weren’t. For members of Venezuela’s grassroots movements, Chávez meant the hope of a better life, and the means to organize to accomplish it.
March 4, 2013
Small and medium-sized coffee growers are on strike protesting the declining prices of the coffee beans and the lack of government support.
March 1, 2013
In the United States, Cuba, and elsewhere in Latin America, Venezuela's creative oil assistance programs are playing a vital role in economic stabilization and poverty reduction. Cutbacks in these programs, which may result from changing political and economic circumstances in Venezuela, would be devastating to many countries.
February 28, 2013
The arrest of a parent of young U.S. citizen children, repeated countless times daily across the United States, caught the ire of a young day labor organizer riding by on his bicycle. After exhorting law enforcement not to arrest the dad, he crawled under the vehicle about to take him away.
February 25, 2013
The peace talks between the Santos government and the FARC in Havana are subject to conflict and politics that could undermine the process.
February 21, 2013
On February 7, authorities released the autopsy report of 16-year-old Nogales, Sonora resident José Antonio Elena Rodriguez, painting a troubling picture of the tragic events of the evening of October 10, when a U.S. Border Patrol agent, firing from the United States, killed the teenager.
February 21, 2013
While it is too early to tell whether or not Jean Claude Duvalier will appear in court today to face charges for embezzlement and corruption, it is important, whatever the outcome, to highlight that Guatemala’s arduous 14-year struggle to prosecute former military dictator Efrain Rios Montt for crimes against humanity provides an important template for Haiti moving forward.
February 16, 2013
The New York Times reinforces attitudes that Latin American politics can be little more than a primitive charade, starring authoritarian leaders and a hoodwinked public, punctuated by laughable distractions. Thankfully—at least within the paper's coverage—this "political theater of the absurd" isn’t commonplace here at home.
February 15, 2013
While widening inequality is helping to stifle the U.S. economy, in Bolivia domestic demand fueled by rising incomes and narrowing inequality is a driving force behind the country's newly found economic prosperity. The U.S. could learn a lot from Bolivia's example.
February 14, 2013
For decades Jean Claude Duvalier brutally ruled over Haiti—leading to the murder, dissapearance, and torture of tens of thousands. However, the recent decision by an appeals court on February 7 demanding Duvalier appear in court or face arrest is a small but extremely important step toward gaining justice for his many victims.
February 13, 2013
Against the backdrop of drones and surveillance towers on the Northern Border, CBP agents repeatedly handcuff border-crossers, often brandishing weapons, conducting invasive body searches, and detaining people for up to 12 hours.
February 12, 2013
More than 5,000 workers at coal multinational corporation began a strike demanding higher salaries, better working conditions, and effective measures to protect the environment. This strike reveals yet a much larger problem with the extractive resource industry in Colombia.
February 7, 2013
Given the current controversy surrounding the extent of the U.S. drone program and targeted killings, it is important to revisit that in the summer of 2012, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency announced that unmanned drones would begin patrolling Caribbean airspace. This is only one aspect of how the War on Drugs in the Caribbean is increasingly looking like the War on Terror.
February 5, 2013
A new report focusing on the Border Patrol's Buffalo Sector in northern New York exposes what is essentially a bounty program—one in which Border Patrol agents receive bonuses for the number of people they arrest. These incentives, combined with larger institutional presures to produce arrests, have resulted in the arrest and detention of large numbers of individuals lawfully present in the United States.
February 5, 2013
The peace process hit a snag last week after FARC resumed its military operations following the expiration of its 60-day unilateral cease fire.
January 31, 2013
A unique experiment in urban planning and preservation has successfully revitalized Havana's decaying historic district while largely avoiding the displacement of existing residents. Will Cuba’s new laws that legalize the free market sale of housing lead to the gentrification of this dynamic neighborhood?
January 30, 2013
The expansion of the Panama Canal is to be completed in 2015. In preparation for this, Jamaica has embarked upon an ambitious program of infrastructure development to position it as a “global transshipment and logistics hub”—joining the likes of Singapore, Dubai, and Rotterdam.
January 29, 2013
The number of migrant deaths in Brooks County, in the southern part of Texas, has exploded over the last year.
January 28, 2013
The negotiations between the FARC and the Santos government have advanced, and last week they established a benchmark for the first item on their discussion of the agrarian question.
January 25, 2013
José Cárdenas has concealed the financial benefits he’s accrued from lobbying precisely because they make his espoused views both easily predictable and utterly dismissible. Fortunately for him, mainstream news organizations like The Miami Herald, Foreign Policy, and NPR accommodate this charade.
January 24, 2013
On January 8, 2013, Canada’s Minister of International Cooperation—and head of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)—blindsided Haiti, the United States, and the United Nations by announcing through the media that he would be freezing any further distributions of development aid.
January 24, 2013
The comprehensive immigration reform bill will soon be introduced in Congress could be great— normalizing the status of millions who are now forced to live in the shadows. However, if history is any guide, it could instead mean a ramping up of enforcement that creates a life and death circumstance for crossing migrants, as well as destroying the fragile eco-system of the borderlands.
January 21, 2013
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has modified its position regarding Colombia's latifundios. This is its first change on the latifundio question since its inception in 1964.
January 18, 2013
While President Evo Morales decrees that Bolivia’s TIPNIS conflict is resolved, conflicting reports issued by the government and religious and human rights groups over the past few weeks have served to extend the controversy over the proposed highway that would bisect this indigenous territory and national park in the Amazon lowlands.