SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador - Every day, as she travels to the food stall she operates, Mirna Isabel Villalta crosses an invisible but dangerous boundary. Her modest home is in a part of San Salvador controlled by the Mara Salvatrucha, a gang so ruthless and sprawling that the Obama administration has labeled it an international criminal organization. Her food stall is in the city center in an area controlled by Barrio 18, a gang that despises the Mara Salvatrucha. She knows she's breaking an...

Women’s empowerment and political participation are not only crucial for women: they are essential for effective democratic governance, one which promotes human rights and equity. The same can be said about the importance of boosting youth political participation. The U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) invited three young women parliamentarians from Latin America and the Caribbean to join a recent discussion in Salamanca, Spain, on young women’s political participation in the...

Douglas Farah, security analyst for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), testified before the House Subcommittee on Terrorism this past Tuesday. The hearing highlighted the Colombian FARC's ties to other terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and international drug cartels, as well as the FARC's involvement in political activities in the Latin American region. After replying to questions on matters of regional security and the Colombian FARC's links to...

Voters in El Salvador will go to the polls on Sunday to choose a new president from two decidedly opposite ends of the political spectrum. Former guerrilla and current Vice President Salvador Sanchez Ceren, of the hard-line wing of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), is facing off against San Salvador Mayor Norman Quijano of the pro-U.S. opposition Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party. As if the stakes were not high enough already - for the Salvadoran people and...

El Salvador will hold its presidential elections on February 2, 2014. In 2009, current president Mauricio Funes of the former guerrilla FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) became only the second leftist to be elected president in El Salvador since the 1930s. Many in the country attribute Funes' victory to the machinations of former president Antonio Saca (2004-2009) of the conservative ARENA party, who is alleged to have helped the FMLN to victory in a deal to avoid...

Central America constitutes an important strategic area for the United States. As discussed in my recent book “Latin America in the Post-Chavez Era: The Threat to U.S. Security”, legal and institutional collapse in Central America could have very serious consequences for regional and U.S security. Central America has been victim to increasing drug cartel activity as the situation in Colombia and Mexico has turned more complicated for the drug lords. In addition, Central America is...

Nicaragua cannot be called a democracy any more with a straight face. The president has stacked the Supreme Court, had them declare that he can run for re-election contrary to the constitution, had a new constitution printed when Congress refused to change it to his liking, and ignores blatant election fraud such as tossing 100% of opponent votes in the garbage bin. This appears to be part of a plan to perpetuate the Ortegas at power. The plan is spearheaded by Venezuela, backed by Cuba, and...

US President Barack Obama underestimates the threat Iran poses to global security. Were this not the case, he would not have sent CIA Director Leon Panetta to Israel ahead of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House. Panetta was reportedly dispatched here to read the government the riot act. Israel, he reportedly told his interlocutors, must not attack Iran without first receiving permission from Washington. Moreover, Israel should keep its mouth shut about attacking Iran....

Ronald Reagan helped to usher in a hopeful wave of democratization in Latin America. In one country after another, multi-party elections ended decades of single-party rule and military dictatorship. But today, that legacy is under threat - and so is our own homeland. The southern front in the War on Terror, which runs through Latin America’s institutions of state, is cracking under a combined assault of political revolution, Islamist terrorism, and the world’s most heavily armed...

The terms Caribbean and South American refer to aggregations of countries, not to specific areas within legally defined boundaries. Thirty-one countries form the Caribbean, which is divided into English, French, Spanish, and Dutch linguistic regions. The majority of the countries are English-speaking. The total Muslim population by country varies from 4 to 15 percent. The largest Muslim populations are in English-speaking countries such as Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. There are small...