Águilas Negras: Rising from the Ashes of Demobilization in Colombia

April 14, 2011 C.L. Smith 0
With extensive prior experience in irregular warfare and the exportation of cocaine shipments, the Águilas Negras freed itself from the ideological constraints that circumscribed the AUC’s code of conduct and rapidly became one of the most powerful armed criminal organizations in Colombia. The newfound freedom of association and action coincided with a marked rise in human rights abuses and violence attributable to the group, as it has recently expanded their operations into bordering states of Venezuela, a disturbing trend that has been met with official complaisance in Washington and Bogotá alike.
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Peru: Humala and Fujimori in Final Stretch

April 12, 2011 Ángel Páez 0

If retired military officer Ollanta Humala wins the Jun. 5 presidential runoff in Peru, he will have to govern with a highly fragmented Congress. And if lawmaker Keiko Fujimori triumphs, her most notable move may be the release of her father, former president Alberto Fujimori, who is serving 25 years in prison. […]

From the Lacandon Jungle to the CPR-Salvador Fajardo: Settlements of the Displaced

“The CPRs [Communities of Popular Resistance] exist because the army has forced us to resist. We carry with us the scraps of bombs and bullets that you tried to kill us with. (…)You know very well that we are not guerrillas, but rather peasants, civilians… The Constitution gives us the right to resist when you place yourself above the reproach of civil society, when you persecute us, when you kidnap us illegally, when you have poisoned our rivers and tried to kill us by starvation.” ~ Message to the Guatemalan Army from the CPRs.

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An Inconvenient Truth in Honduras

April 8, 2011 Rodolfo Pastor Campos 0
At the same time that the police and the Honduran army were brutally repressing popular protests of teachers, students, and resistance members for the sixth day in a row, Julissa Reynoso was greeting Honduran President Porfirio Lobo at the presidential palace. According to the press release issued by the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Reynoso was there to recognize President Lobo’s achievements regarding national reconciliation, human rights, and the return to democracy in Honduras.

Cooperatives in Venezuela Promote Solidarity, Equality and Dignity

April 7, 2011 Radio al Reves 0

The social program, Mision Vuelvan Caras, was created in 2004 as a government initiative which promoted the formation of cooperatives, small-scale worker-owned and managed businesses.  The state provided credits for capital investment, tax breaks, contracts and incentives for cooperatives, and intensive free-of-charge job training and administrative support.

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Towards the Reconstruction of the Country: The Constituent Assembly of Indigenous and Black People of Honduras

From February 21st to 23rd, the Constituent Assembly of Indigenous and Black People of Honduras  held a forum in San Juan Durugubuty. Called by the main civil society organizations of the country, the assembled communities sought to collect and systematize the proposals of the Garifuna people and of the seven indigenous groups of the country for a new Constitution.

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