Home
Cuadernos Colombianos
April 24, 2012
U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta visited Colombia on Monday as part of a regional tour that includes Brazil and Chile. Panetta's visit came on the heels of Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak's trip to Colombia and may be planned to bless the growing Colombian-Israeli collaboration, which Colombia believes can help it position itself as a major exporter of security in the region.
Mexico, Bewildered and Contested
April 24, 2012
Just a year ago the indigenous Purépecha community of Cherán established a self-imposed “state of siege” to protect itself from the illegal logging that was decimating the community’s forests. This past Wednesday, April 18, the communal council of Cherán reported that a group of 20 comuneros engaged in a project of reforestation were ambushed by an armed group, leaving two dead and two others seriously wounded.
April 23, 2012
In Zapatista Spring, author Ramor Ryan reveals the ambivalent, contradictory, and neocolonial nature of “solidarity work” in one of the Zapatista autonomous municipalities of Chiapas, Mexico. His work blends the genres of diary, ethnography, novel, and zine in an allegory of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
April 20, 2012
Writing for The New York Times’ Economix blog on March 15, Simon Johnson, a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), provides a well-argued defense of populism. But by offhandedly dismissing Latin American populism, his comentary examplifies the imperial double standard that keeps even “pro-populist” commentators from seeing the reality in developing countries.
April 19, 2012
On March 22, the global day of water, thousands participated in the Plurinational March for Water, Life, and Dignity to protest the Ecuadorian government’s promotion of large-scale mining—Correa’s government is the first to open up the country to large-scale mining.
The Other Side of Paradise
April 18, 2012
In part two, Robert Hill, Professor of Afro-American and Caribbean History at UCLA, who has been deeply involved in the "migrated archives" since their discovery, shares his insights into the release of the archives and what it entails for the Caribbean history.
April 17, 2012
Communities that suffered through the civil wars of the 1980s and 1990s are once again faced with violence as they defend their land against international interests. This article was published in the Spring 2012 issue of the NACLA Report on the Americas, "Central America: Legacies of War."
Rebel Currents
April 16, 2012
President Evo Morales's surprise announcement that Bolivia will revoke its contract with Brazilian company OAS to build the controversial TIPNIS highway has failed to defuse tensions, but could represent a paradigm shift in the TIPNIS controversy, with an opportunity to return to "ground zero."
Border Wars
April 13, 2012
In February, I visited the American Border Patrol (ABP), the vigilante group that claims to be the first to have used an unmanned aerial vehicle for surveillance on the U.S.-Mexico border. Though labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, ABP has much in common with the U.S. border enforcement policy, especially as the United States renews its call for surveillance technology and a "virtual wall."
The Other Side of Paradise
April 12, 2012
Nearly 50 years after decolonization, the case brought forth by four Kenyan pensioners against the British government has the real potential to be regarded as a “Colonial WikiLeaks,” quite possibly leading to the rewriting of the established narratives of decolonization and independence not only in Africa, but also throughout the Caribbean and all former Commonwealth colonies.