Ecuador Defaults on Foreign Debt
President Rafael Correa declared on Friday that Ecuador would not make a $30.6 million interest payment on $510 million in bonds due in 2012, calling the debt illegal. […]
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Colombian Cane Cutters Score Victory, But Struggle of Afro-Colombians Continues
Sugar cane cutters in Colombia, most of them Afro-Colombian and indigenous, won a major victory with the end of a strike on December 4 which awarded them concessions including pay increases, 15 days of paid vacation per year, some job stability in the face of a mechanizing industry and Sundays off. […]
Colombia: Social Conflict Replaces Warfare
Popular Minga
Social conflict has overtaken the center of the political stage, displacing President Alvaro Uribe, who merely repeats the script that brought him so much success in the war: the Indians, sugarcane workers, teachers, government workers, truckers, and anyone else who protests and mobilizes is being manipulated by the FARC guerrillas. […]
Workers Occupy Chicago Factory: Echoes of Argentina’s 2001 Worker Uprising
Workers Occupy Chicago Factory
When 250 workers at the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago were told that the plant was shutting down, they decided to take matters into their own hands. On Friday, December 5, they occupied their factory in an act that echoes the sit-down strikes of the 1930s and the occupation of factories during the 2001 crisis in Argentina. […]
Indigenous Justice in Colombia
On November 26th, seven people were kidnapped on the road leading out of Jambaló’s town center, in the village of Pioyá. Five were liberated later that night, and the other two in the early hours of the next day. […]
Adentro Barrio Adentro: An American Medical Student in Venezuela
When Barrio Adentro began in December 2003, few could have foreseen the broad changes ahead for the small villages that are scattered throughout Venezuela. Within months of the proclamation that launched the initiative, more doctors arrived from Cuba and began living in spare rooms within Venezuela’s poorest and most underserved communities. […]
Pain and Protest on the Day of the Butterflies: Violence Persists Against Women in Mexico
In Mexico, more than 200 women’s and human rights activists kicked off a cross-country caravan in Ciudad Juarez to protest femicide and ongoing violence in all its forms against women. The women’s activists embarked on a week-long journey to the state of Chiapas on Mexico’s southern border.
The Presidential Transition and Latin America Policy: Optimism for Change Dims as Reality Sets In
So much of the Bush legacy in the hemisphere has been shaped by the "you’re either with us or against us" worldview that emerged from the smoldering rubble of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Which is why so many people breathed a sigh of relief on November 5th when Barack Hussein Obama won the elections in the United States. But just how much change can we expect to come from the new Democratic Administration with respect to Latin America policy?
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