Who’d have thought it? Less than a year ago the presidents of Venezuela and Colombia were practically at each other’s throats. With the inauguration of Juan Manuel Santos as Colombia’s new leader last August, many assumed things would get worse. How wrong they were. The burgeoning “friendship” between him and Hugo Chávez, practically ideological opposites, just keeps on delivering surprises. Now, Santos is telling the world that the camps of the leftwing...

"I think the United States sees everything upside down, at least part of the world," said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in an October 2010 interview. "It's hard to imagine the destiny of this [U.S.] society. But of course we have to hope for the better, for the winds of change coming from the south." Latin America and the Western hemisphere face serious challenges today, threatening regional stability and U.S. national security. First and foremost among them is Hugo...

Terrorist groups and armed insurgents regularly exploit illicit markets to launder money, traffic illegal goods, and purchase arms. In such an environment, the line between armed political organizations and criminal groups appears to break down. However, through a comparative study of paramilitary groups and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-FARC) in Colombia, this article finds that group goals, the political environment, and membership...

The conference that drew Latin American leaders from all walks of life to a college campus in California was billed as a celebration of 200 years of independence for the region. However, the focus at the Institute of the Americas was not on past triumphs, but on the difficulties that many countries face today in strengthening democracy and the rule of law. As Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez said, “The transition to democracy has been a success story for all of Latin...

Uncertainty was high as the police closed in, but instead of pursuing a criminal, they had surrounded a democratically elected president, aiming to overthrow him. Another coup attempt was underway in Latin America. On Sept. 30th, 2010, a group of police officers led a protest over benefit cuts, in Ecuador’s capital, Quito. After President Rafael Correa spoke to the group of revolting officers, he was attacked with tear gas and was rushed to a hospital. He later declared he was being...

Testimony by Colombian statistical expert Daniel Guzmán provided key evidence in the conviction of two former police officers found guilty in the 1984 forced disappearance of Guatemalan student and union leader Edgar Fernando García. In a historical ruling, two former officers of the Guatemalan National Police - disbanded in 1996 as part of the peace accords ending the internal armed conflict - were each sentenced to the maximum term of 40 years in prison for their role in...

Colombian journalist Jorge Enrique Botero denies being a mouthpiece for Colombia's largest guerrilla group the FARC after releasing material of his stay in a guerrilla camp. This is false, but irrelevant. With this statement, Botero is making the same mistake that corporate news journalists from organizations like El Tiempo, RCN and Caracol make when they say that they practice objective journalism. All of these journalists are constantly being used to promote the interests of governments,...

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...