San Juan Copala, traditional centre of the indigenous Triqui people, lies in Oaxaca State, Mexico, and is one of the poorest and strife-torn areas in Mexico. In an attempt to break the cycle of poverty, inequality, exclusion, and persistent human rights violations, and to unite the Triqui people and preserve their culture and traditions - as well as to distance themselves from the rampant corruption and violence of local political parties - the community declared itself an autonomous...

AT DAWN on September 16th 1810 Miguel Hidalgo, the parish priest of Dolores, a small town in central Mexico, rang the bells of his church to raise the cry of rebellion against the Spanish crown. Mexico, Spain’s richest American colony, thus joined a struggle for independence which had already seen the colonial authorities ousted and rebel juntas installed in Caracas, Buenos Aires and other South American cities. Two years earlier, following Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of the...

Latin America Specific Recommendations: As is the case with Native Americans in the United States, for the 40 million indigenous citizens of Mexico and Central and South America the possession of commonly held ancestral land goes beyond mere economic survival-although it also serves tens of millions for that purpose as well. The ability to govern themselves, to establish and maintain group rights and territorial control of lands that form part of their cultural inheritance, to empower...

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the start of Latin America’s struggle for political independence against the Spanish crown. Outsiders might be forgiven for concluding that there is not much to celebrate. In Mexico, which marks its bicentennial next week, drug gangs have met a government crackdown with mayhem on a scale not seen since the country’s revolution of a century ago. The recent discovery of the corpses of 72 would-be migrants, some from as far south as Brazil, in...

Here’s a puzzler. Latin America has never been more democratic: of 34 nations in Central and South America and the Caribbean, all except one (Cuba) are constitutional democracies, with laws guaranteeing open elections, independent courts, legislatures, and freedom of expression. So why do so many governments still trample on citizens’ rights, bully journalists, harass private business, and generally lord over hearth and home? Incidents in just the last few weeks range from the...

Editor's Note: No one knows exactly why journalist Armando Rodriguez was gunned down at his home in Ciudad Juarez last November. But his colleagues believe it was a warning to the rest of the local media that writing about drug cartels is a dangerous business. Six months later, journalists are still scared about talking about their experiences reporting. NAM contributor José Luis Sierra interviewed reporters in Ciudad Juarez who spoke on condition of anonymity. Being a journalist in...

Last week's Mexico car bomb in the border town of Cuidad Juarez killed three. It is the first known use of a car bomb against authorities and marks a troubling new level of violence in the country's brutal drug war. For years drug experts, security officials, and political analysts have questioned the “Colombianization” of Mexico. Mexico had already overtaken Colombia in terms of kidnappings. The public has long gotten accustomed to a censored press, threats to politicians, and...

As Mexico’s 2012 presidential election gets underway, a national conversation has finally begun on the country’s future. Thanks in part to the recently published book *A Future for Mexico*, which I coauthored with Héctor Aguilar Camín, one of the country’s most distinguished pundits, historians, and novelists, the issue of how Mexico can become in the next 15 years what we call a “middle-class society” has taken center stage. Through public debates...

In the last seven years in Mexico, 35 journalists were killed and six went missing, 84 media workers filed complaints of insults or attacks in 2007, and in the first few days of 2008, the prestigious independent radio commentator Carmen Aristegui, who has often criticised the powers that be, was fired. Given that outlook, many analysts wonder whether the media in Mexico is really as free as the government of conservative President Felipe Calderón claims. "The record in terms...

Where Pacific coast State, Michoacan, Mexico Who 1 Ostensibly, China,, Hugo Chavez -Venezuela, USA, Carlos Slim, Salinas Pliego, Kansas City Southern Mexico, Drug Cartels - La Familia Michoacana - Los Zetas, EZLN. Who 2 Iran - Islam What Destabilize, proselytize - convert - ideological social, political and religious loyalties Objectives - Geopolitical General Reinforce existing Mexican popular sentiment to support Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Cuba against the US....