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Cuadernos Colombianos
October 3, 2011
Each year, including pensions and other benefits to military personnel, the Colombian government spends as much as 25% of it's GDP on defense. But this already huge figure only accounts for the immediate costs of the continuation of the war system and does not tell us much about the hidden and more important longer-term effects of the war on the country’s economic and political development.
Rebel Currents
September 30, 2011
In the wake of Sunday’s brutal repression of indigenous marchers against the TIPNIS highway, the past few days have brought renewed popular mobilizations, a few revelations, and more mixed messages from the Bolivian government.
Border Wars
September 28, 2011
Politically powerful officials are saying the U.S. counternarcotic program towards Mexico has not worked, and are calling for a counterinsurgency strategy to replace it. The organized crime "raging along our southern border," they claim, is waging a "strategic-level" of war against the United States.
Rebel Currents
September 28, 2011
Sunday’s brutal repression by federal police of lowland indigenous marchers protesting the TIPNIS highway has sparked widespread public outrage in Bolivia, while the MAS government’s response raises more questions than answers. With conservative opponents of Evo Morales also seeking to exploit the crisis, it's a critical moment for Bolivia's process of change.
Mexico, Bewildered and Contested
September 27, 2011
Last Tuesday, in broad daylight, 35 bodies were dumped around the city of Veracruz. All the bodies had a Z painted on their torsos, presumably indicating membership in Mexico’s most brutal and vicious criminal gang, the Zetas. The Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel took responsibility for the killings, and is presenting itself as a paramilitary force, fighting alongside “the people.” What is happening is ominous, as the militarization of the drug war is spawns competing armies.
Cuadernos Colombianos
September 26, 2011
The United Nations Development Programme’s latest report on Colombia, released last week, reaffirmed what experts have claimed for a very long time: that the core of Colombia’s problems lies in its rural economy.
Rebel Currents
September 23, 2011
While President Evo Morales was busy defending the rights of Mother Earth at the United Nations this week, Bolivia’s TIPNIS conflict escalated beyond the regional boundaries of Beni and Cochabamba into the national and international arena.
Traffick Jam
September 22, 2011
The United States government’s recent “National Drug Threat Assessment 2011” targets international trafficking organizations even while it identifies domestic prescription pharmaceuticals as having the most destructive health consequences.
Border Wars
September 20, 2011
A major report released today by the humanitarian aid and human rights group No More Deaths paints a frightening picture of systematic and widespread abuse by U.S. Border Patrol agents of migrants in their custody. At the same time, it demonstrates the brutality inherent in the agency’s very existence and operation.
Mexico, Bewildered and Contested
September 20, 2011
It is not likely that the small but persistent pacifist movement—the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity—will bring a genuine internal peace to Mexico any time soon, but its growing visibility and its persistence in the face of threats and smug dismissals from all sides is encouraging.