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July 1, 2008
Despite the fact that public sentiment in Latin America has been strongly against the Iraq war since it began, thousands of Latin Americans have the joined the occupation, many of them as private contractors hired by U.S. companies like Blackwater and Triple Canopy.
July 1, 2008
Landed elites in eastern Bolivia have allied themselves with multinational agribusiness corporations to consolidate their wealth and power, which they are using to destabilize the government of president Evo Morales. The rising food prices and shortages driven by those same corporations have only made their radical right-wing project stronger.
June 30, 2008
There are two salient trends in the US reporting about Bolivia: (1) the personalization of Morales as the representative of Bolivia's transformation backed by social movements and (2) the misrepresentation of both the new Bolivian Constitution and the so-called Autonomy Statutes of the business and regionalist elite.
June 26, 2008
The Kelwo Association of Chiloé, an organization of Mapuche residents of Chile’s island-province, was formed in 2001 to bring to public attention one of the great social debts of Chilean democracy: the right to health and life of people in indigenous communities affected by HIV/AIDS.
June 24, 2008
Apparently, Miami is a parallel universe where reality can be distorted with impunity. It's hard to know where to begin a critique of this June 17 Miami Herald editorial by Eduardo Gamarra. His editorial describes tense protests, but his manipulative account is unforgivable and grossly distorts the background leading up to the protests.
June 24, 2008
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama likes to employ soaring rhetoric when discussing human rights. But he has failed to take a strong position opposing the infamous School of the Americas, which trains Latin American militaries. When pressed, the candidate praised Congress’ revision of the school’s curriculum but said that he wanted to continue to evaluate the institution.
June 20, 2008
The Portuguese thinker says several events in Latin America have put the brakes on Washington's hemispheric agenda. At the root of this process, he says, is the unprecedented strength of social movements that led to the election of left-leaning Latin American governments at a time in which the U.S. was using the discourse of democracy to justify interventions around the planet.
June 16, 2008
El Salvador’s FMLN shares revolutionary roots with Nicaragua’s FSLN; now the former Salvadoran guerrillas hope to also share the FSLN’s success in the voting booth next year.
June 16, 2008
Students from a U.S. university recently visited the town of Cajolá in the highlands of Quetzaltenango in Guatemala. Almost half of the town's population has emigrated to the United States. The students visited Cajolá to help and learn from those who stayed behind.
June 13, 2008
What began as a war on terrorists has become a war on immigrants. The Department of Homeland Security says that it prioritizes its immigration enforcement actions by "targeting the greatest national security and public safety threats"—an approach not taken prior to 9/11.