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Cuadernos Colombianos
October 17, 2011
Among the wide spectrum of U.S. international conflicts is the U.S. war in Colombia. This war has been often understated and almost forgotten, but thanks to recently-released WikiLeaks documents the U.S. involvement in Colombia is increasingly coming to light.
Traffick Jam
October 14, 2011
In the 1980s Ronald Reagan’s administration illegally defied Congress. What came to be called the “Iran-Contra Scandal,” a nexus of drugs, terror, Latin American proxy conflict, and covert operations involving the United States and Iran, seems this week to have been sampled and remixed for the twenty-first century.
Rebel Currents
October 14, 2011
This week the focus of Bolivia’s TIPNIS conflict shifted to La Paz, with passage of a new law by the Bolivian Congress, massive demonstrations in support of President Evo Morales, and preparations for Sunday’s judicial elections, ahead of the much-anticipated arrival of the indigenous march early next week.
Cuadernos Colombianos
October 13, 2011
Yesterday the U.S. Congress approved the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia. While it is still too early to assess the full magnitude of the FTA, there are already obvious losers and winners.
Mexico, Bewildered and Contested
October 11, 2011
There is some disagreement in Mexico as to whether the state and civil society are engaged in a tough battle against organized crime, or whether organized crime has so permeated these institutions that it is no longer a separate entity. The emergence of a group called the Mata Zetas (Zeta Killers) that has sworn to rid Mexico of its most brutal criminal predators, the Zetas, but which has strong and acknowledged links to rival criminal groups, has brought this argument to a head.
Cuadernos Colombianos
October 10, 2011
The U.S. congress is expected to approve the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the United States and Colombia this Wednesday. The alarms are already sounding among many sectors in Colombia, especially the producers of rice, corn, wheat, and dairy products. 350,000 Colombian small farmers are expected to be among the first to be hit.
Rebel Currents
October 7, 2011
A recent protest in Washington, D.C. against the TIPNIS highway in Bolivia serves as a reminder of how conservative forces are exploiting the TIPNIS conflict to undermine President Evo Morales’s leftist government. For the most part, though, the anti-highway movement is not so much against the government as it is for a recovery and revitalization of Bolivia’s “process of change.”
Traffick Jam
October 6, 2011
Bolivian President Evo Morales has argued that the United States uses the drug war to advance its own political interests and discredit political opponents. But does the Bolivian Government do the same?
October 6, 2011
In April, the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba approved the most profound reforms that the island had seen since the 1960s. They are meant to revive the flagging economy. But are they sufficient? The jury is still out, and the answer will depend on the implementation of the reforms themselves. This article was originally published in the July/August 2011 issue of the NACLA Report on the Americas.
Border Wars
October 5, 2011
Deportation does great damage to families who are often divided by the U.S.-Mexico boundary. The hardships that deported migrants endure and their great efforts to overcome the obstacles that prevent them from reuniting with their loved ones in el Norte exemplify at their very best the "family values" that many in Washington rhetorically and emptily champion.