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August 26, 2011
For the last two decades, the dominant narrative justifying the U.S. military’s activities in Latin America has been the war on drugs and the fight against “narco-terrorists.” In the last ten years, however, the U.S. military has undertaken several unrelated activities including low-profile tests of military equipment; humanitarian assistance that the military itself acknowledges has intelligence-gathering purposes; and training to suppress social protest. This article was originally published in the May/June 2011 issue of the NACLA Report on the Americas.
Rebel Currents
August 26, 2011
After a week of polarizing rhetoric and escalating conflict, the government and indigenous groups protesting construction of the TIPNIS highway have begun negotiations. While the outcome of the process is uncertain, it’s even less clear whether the fractured political alliance between President Evo Morales and the indigenous groups that helped bring him to power can be repaired.
August 25, 2011
The disappearance of women in Apodaca, Nuevo León has become a routine occurrence since the Zetas took over one of the fastest-growing and most marginalized counties in the state. Some of the women were kidnapped off the street or chosen at random for their appearance. Others were taken from their houses at gunpoint and by threats. All were poor, young, and pretty.
Traffick Jam
August 25, 2011
I wrote last week about the pharmaceutical industry’s aggressive promotion of Intellectual Property Rights as part of U.S. government negotiated "free trade" agreements. This blog is an update.
August 24, 2011
The following is an interview with Carlos Amaya, son of the renowned Honduran novelist, Ramón Amaya Amador, and a grassroots activist in the Honduran National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP). He speaks on the past, present, and future of the Honduran resistance.
Border Wars
August 24, 2011
The Department of Homeland Security has revealed that it is employing a new radar system—called VADER—that has significantly augmented its ability to surveil the borderlands and the people passing through from high up in the sky.
August 23, 2011
On August 16, in New York, the great Venezuelan anthropologist Fernando Coronil died of cancer. That he is gone is unthinkable. Our duty now is to keep his energy—which sustained and inspired so many of us—alive.
Mexico, Bewildered and Contested
August 23, 2011
As Mexico gears up for next summer’s presidential election, the country’s electoral “lefts” are deeply divided. The mere fact that Mexico’s “lefts” are almost always referred to here in the plural, even when the discussion is limited to the electoral arena, highlights this division.
Cuadernos Colombianos
August 22, 2011
Colombian oil workers resumed their protests in Puerto Gaitan last week, once again confronting security forces. The new protests come after the Colombian government and the Canadian oil company Pacific Rubiales failed to fulfill promises made during last month’s oil workers’ strike.
Rebel Currents
August 19, 2011
It’s been a busy week in Bolivia, with major mobilizations by indigenous peoples in the Amazon marching against the TIPNIS highway, and by civic groups in Potosí and neighborhood organizations in El Alto who are demanding more, not less, development.