The first time Hugo Chavez froze relations with Venezuela's second largest commercial partner (Colombia that is, on January 2005), it was due to the capture of one of FARC's leaders Rodrigo Granda, while attending in Caracas one the Bolivarian get-togethers organized by the Venezuelan regime. Granda, a wanted criminal involved in planning and assassinating Cecilia Cubas, daughter of former Paraguayan President Raúl Cubas, had been living in Venezuela and was given citizenship by the...

In the 1960s, leftist philosophy professor Abimael Guzman started a Maoist guerilla group at the University of San Cristobal de Huamanga in Ayacucho, Peru. Guzman named this organization in honor of the most celebrated phrase ever turned by an early Peruvian Communist and journalist, Jose Carlos Mariategui, who wrote that "Marxism-Leninism will open the shining path to the revolution." Little did Peruvians realize then that the path would turn into a river of blood. Dried up for a...

The Cutting EdgeFor centuries, blue-turbaned nomadic Tuareg tribesmen have led caravans of camels across the expanses of the Sahara. Laden with millet and cloth from Africa’s West Coast, the caravans traveled unmarked paths to trade for salt and dates in Timbuktu, across the sand plains of Niger, and into the mountain oasis of the Algerian south. Smugglers take the same routes today - driving SUVs along paved roads or with guidance from the Tuareg and satellite phones - to move...

One of the most brutal and destructive terrorist groups worldwide since its emergence in 1980-Peru’s “Shining Path” (Sendero Luminoso - SL) -continues to carry out attacks on Peruvian military, police, and civilian targets in 2008. Almost ten years after the group splintered during a “no-holds barred” offensive by Peruvian security forces, government officials and citizens alike express concern that a return to the past, when almost 70,000 Peruvians and others...

The networks of global terrorism--both formal and informal--leave no region untouched. The Western Hemisphere is no exception, as we recently learned from the tragic events of September 11th. The Americas, from Canada to Tierra del Fuego, is a breeding ground for Islamic radical and extremist organizations that take advantage of the region's ill-equipped, and poorly trained security agencies. Canadian intelligence officials acknowledge that their country is riddled with terrorists and have...

Introduction Colombia, one of the closest U.S. allies in Latin America, has been ravaged for decades by a civil war pitting left-wing guerrilla groups against right-wing paramilitary organizations. The two predominant rebel groups-the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (known by its Spanish acronym, FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN)-are included on the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. Under Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who took office...

In late 1966, Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (1928-1967) arrived in Bolivia. "Che," the nickname by which he is generally known, was a seasoned revolutionary with a global reputation. An Argentinean, Che was a physician, but had become active in leftist circles in the early 1950s, even spending some time as an insurgent in Guatemala after the CIA overthrew the Arbenz regime in 1954. In 1955 he met Fidel Castro, then an unsuccessful Cuban revolutionary just out of jail due to an amnesty....

The October 23, 2006 failed explosive operation in Caracas On October 23, 2006, the Baruta Municipality police found two explosive devices near the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela. One of the bombs was found in a box containing leaflets making reference to the Lebanese radical Islamic group Hezbollah. The local television news network, Globovision, reported one of the devices found in a flowerpot near the Embassy, while the other device found outside a school, near the diplomatic premises....

The ongoing controversy surrounding the debate over illegal immigration and border security issues in the United States, specifically as it applies to the porous U.S.-Mexico frontier and the status of millions of undocumented workers and other migrants that enter the country each year from Mexico, continues to dominate headlines. Although the overwhelming majority of those entering the United States from Mexico each day are in search of opportunity, many observers worry that it is only a...