Extractivist Malice in Peru: Activist Máxima Acuña de Chaupe Harassed by Yanacocha Mining Company

February 12, 2016 Eduardo Gudynas 0

The enormous mining corporation tried every which way they could to evict Máxima Acuña de Chaupe and her family of subsistence farmers. They used the police, guards, journalists, judgements, and many other weapons. But this is a steadfast family, with a woman deeply rooted in her land in Peru’s northern Andes, who resisted with all her strength and would not give up.

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Fifteen Years Later: The “Great Success” of Plan Colombia

February 4, 2016 Lisa Taylor 0

This February 4, celebrating the “historic collaboration” between the United States and Colombia, current Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos visited the White House to meet with President Barack Obama as they commemorate the fifteen-year anniversary of Plan Colombia. Signed in 2000 under U.S. President Bill Clinton and Colombian President Andrés Pastrana, Plan Colombia was a $1.3 billion initiative to support the Colombian government’s counterinsurgency and counternarcotics efforts.

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A Labyrinth of Injustice in Guatemala: Indigenous Activists Struggle Against Dispossession of Land and Rights

January 30, 2016 Jeff Abbott 0

Family, friends and supporters of Saúl Méndez and Rogelio Velásquez, two political prisoners who had been falsely accused of femicide, kidnapping, and murder, received some joyous news on January 14, 2016; after three years in prison, they were released. However, six other prominent activists from northern Huehuetenango still face prosecution for their resistance to hydroelectric projects imposed in their territory by transnational corporations.

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Peruvian Paradoxes: The Presidential Elections and Power

January 30, 2016 George Ygarza 0

Keiko Fujimori will likely win the 2016 Peruvian presidential elections scheduled for this April. She is the daughter of deposed president Alberto Fujimori, who became one of the first heads of state to be convicted of human rights violations in Latin America. Keiko Fujimori is polling at over thirty percent in an early crowded field of around 12 candidates. The election of a far-right candidate who has pledged to pardon her imprisoned father when she assumes the presidency seems incomprehensible. […]

The Guantanamo of Colombia: Pressure Mounts to Shut Down Notorious US-Funded Prison

January 29, 2016 John Ocampo 0

The campaign to shut down Colombia’s infamous La Tramacua prison, located in the country’s sweltering Caribbean region and often referred to as the “Guantanamo of Colombia,” could be on the verge of a major breakthrough. Built in the year 2000, with U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons and USAID funding, as part of the penitentiary restructuring component of Plan Colombia, La Tramacua is a veritable house of horrors.

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