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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.
August 18, 2011
The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) seeks a full-time Co-Editor to produce our bimonthly magazine on Latin American politics and U.S. relations with the region, NACLA Report on the Americas. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in magazine journalism as well as Latin American studies.
Traffick Jam
August 18, 2011
As the U.S. government and pharmaceutical companies continue to aggressively protect and enhance the power and profits accruing to major players in the international drug industry, a genuine critical assessment of the sources of market distortion and criminality which endanger people’s health is more important than ever.
Border Wars
August 17, 2011
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement promised in June to be more discriminating in terms of who it targets for arrest and deportation. A recent raid of a home in southern California, however, shows the hollowness of the pledge. It also displays the inherent dangers of the immigration policing apparatus for civil and human rights.
Mexico, Bewildered and Contested
August 16, 2011
I blogged last week about the Obama administration’s attempt to control drug-war damage by regulating the flow of arms southward across the U.S.-Mexican border. This week we will look at a contradiction: The President’s people seek to control the damage, but at the same time they want to up the ante. You can’t go both ways at the same time.
Cuadernos Colombianos
August 15, 2011
Over the weekend thousands of campesinos, indigenous, and Afro-descendants gathered in the city of Barrancabermeja to call on the Colombian government and the insurgency to begin peace negotiations. The insurgency has expressed their willingness to talk, but the Santos government has yet to even explore the possibility. In order to understand why, we have to analyze the core obstacles that have confronted government peace negotiations with the FARC and the ELN since the mid-1980s.
Rebel Currents
August 12, 2011
Next Monday, representatives of three indigenous groups and their supporters will begin a 375-mile trek from the Bolivian lowlands to the capital of La Paz, to protest the government’s plan to build a highway through their ancestral homeland. The march opens a new chapter in the increasingly conflictive relationship between leftist president Evo Morales and the social movements that brought him to power, and could be another defining moment for the MAS government.
August 10, 2011
A human rights caravan arrived to Mexico City on August 1 to demand that the Mexican government put a stop to the violence against undocumented migrants. Thousands on their way to the United States are kidnapped in Mexico each year, and recently it’s gotten worse. Violence has increased against both migrants and the advocates who provide them with basic services along their route.