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...

The land-locked country of Paraguay, neatly tucked between Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia is seldom given much notice. However, there are elements of the country that are worth taking a look at. Last April Paraguay elected a new president, Horacio Cartes. Cartes is a member of the Colorado party, a party that held Paraguay’s presidency for 60 years. Thirty five of those years were ones of dictatorship. Cartes, however, joined the Colorado Party only four years ago. Cartes’s...

New scandal highlights threat to political pluralism In a previous Monitor we reported on the closing of democratic space in the Dominican Republic. This issue was the subject of a recent by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, The Dominican Republic: Becoming a One-Party State?, which argues that the predominance of the ruling Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) - which controls the executive, legislative, and judicial branches - is "fundamentally...

This business has not changed for good. On the contrary, in 2013 NGO Citizen Action against AIDS (Accsi) drafted a report relying on surveys that showed -at least partially- the handful of degrading actions undergone by sexually diverse people from police agents and almost nil formal logging of related claims. In 2008, another report, containing a larger number of interviewees, delved into the matter and showed an even worse scenario marked by impunity. Now, a new survey gives a clue on a...

In a run- off election on December 15thpresidential candidate Michelle Bachelet, who was Chile’s president from 2006 to 2010, was again voted into office. The victory was overwhelming as Bachelet took more than 60% of the vote against her opponent Evelyn Mathei of the conservative Independent Democratic Union party, who is also a childhood friend of Bachelet. Bachelet ran on a platform that responded directly to the student protests and other strikes that the country experienced in the...

Tiny Bolivia, the poorest nation in South America, packs a punch -- or so says President Evo Morales, who welcomed the new year with an announcement: Bolivia is ready to pursue nuclear energy. Morales assured that the country has the necessary raw materials for the quest to be successful, and said nuclear power is a “right for every Bolivian.” “Nuclear energy is not a privilege for developed countries, and others have to be deprived of it,” he said, adding that Bolivia...

Venezuela is in a death spiral that could produce a crisis for the United States. Economic collapse, incompetent leadership and Cuban meddling may provoke a showdown among well-armed chavista rivals, with civilians caught in the crossfire. US diplomats, who've spent years ignoring or minimizing threats emanating from Venezuela, must act urgently to prevent a Syria scenario on our doorstep. The late dictator Hugo Chávez left behind a mess: His divisive, illegitimate regime polarized...

Despite social and economic advances in the last two decades, Latin America is still the most unequal-and the most insecure region in the world. The Human Development Report for Latin America reveals new data on how crime and violence impact the region, highlighting a series of policy recommendations to effectively improve citizen security. "Due to its objectivity and sound analysis, as well as the relevance of its...

Why is Sen. Patrick J. Leahy threatening to kill vital U.S. anti-narcotics support in a key smuggling corridor when his home state of Vermont is awash in illegal drugs? He must have a heck of a reason, right? You be the judge. Despite months of investigation by various authorities, Mr. Leahy, a Democrat, continues to second-guess the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) eyewitness accounts of a firefight that took place on a river in the middle of the Honduran jungle in the dead of night....