Dominoes, a popular pastime on Colombia´s Caribbean Coast Photo: Anna Vogt
No surge in kids crossing U.S.-Mexico border this summer, immigration official predicts
There won’t be nearly as many immigrant children who cross the border on their own this summer as there were last year, top officials say. Daniel Ragsdale, deputy director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said authorities expect far fewer migrant children and families than the influx last year that gained worldwide attention and left Border Patrol agents unable to process so many people.
A triumphant voice: Eduardo Galeano (1940-2015)
Galeano was instrumental, a key figure among a number of giant Latin American thinkers who transformed the historiography of their region, and with their region, the world, by becoming the creative voice of an alternative historiography, a mode of subaltern thinking and writing before a number of Bengali historians made the term globally popular.
Border militarization destroys what it protects
In addition, new roads, towers, lights, sensors and the incursion of thousands of Border Patrol vehicles and aircraft into remote, sensitive areas have damaged natural, cultural and historic resources in the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borderlands. This infrastructure and associated operations also cause widespread harm to endangered species, such as the northern jaguar, and irreplaceable landscapes, such as the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area.
Mexico’s Government Is Brushing Off Report of Another State Massacre of Unarmed Civilians
At least 16 reportedly unarmed civilians were killed during a day-long standoff with federal police on January 6 in Apatzingán, Michoacán. The city is one of many considered a battleground between armed criminal and vigilante groups in Michoacán’s “Tierra Caliente” region. The National Security Commission confirmed that it received a video “in which it is possible to infer presumed acts of use of excessive force and abuse of authority” in the case.
Mexican girl forcibly sent to US returns home
The near one-week ordeal for the 14-year-old ended after a DNA test proved that it was a case of mistaken identity and that the woman from Houston Dorotea Garcia was not her real mother. Alondra’s parents placed blame on the Mexican judge who refused to accept the pile of documents they presented as proof of Alondra’s identity, from baptismal records and a copy of her birth certificate to family photographs.
PHOTO-ESSAY: Caravan of the Mutilated
The men belong to the Associación de Migrantes Retornados con Discapacidad (AMIREDIS), an organization for migrants who lost limbs riding the cargo trains collectively known as La Bestia through Mexico. Their goal was to reach the United States and to speak with President Obama. “We want to see Obama so he can know the nightmare that immigrants face,” says José Luís Hernandez Cruz, the organization’s president. “Ask him to help generate jobs in Honduras so we can stop migrating.” As unlikely as that meeting seemed at the beginning of their trip, it appears to be even less possible now. Two of the men agreed to deportation, and pressure is on to deport the rest. The White House declined to comment for this story.
As gang violence surges, El Salvador fears bloody war
“The government has not given up on prevention and rehabilitation, (but) it is fighting the gangs with intensifying repression, which has unleashed an escalation of violence,” he told AFP. The killings underscore the breakdown in a truce the gangs declared in March 2012, which was brokered by the Catholic Church with behind-the-scenes help from then president Mauricio Funes.
Honduran indigenous rights campaigner wins Goldman prize
She said the award would strengthen the group’s campaigns. “It is an opportunity to give higher visibility to the violence of plunder, to the conflict, and also to the denunciations and resistance,” she said in an email response to questions by the Guardian. “It is an honour, and an acknowledgement of the enormous sacrifice and commitment made by Copinh and its planetary contributions.“ The prize coincides with a new report that identifies Honduras as the most dangerous country in the world for environmental and land activists, particularly those from indigenous groups.
HBO ‘Vice’ Series Slams Aid Efforts in Haiti
Despite billions of dollars and earnest promises, living conditions for many Haitians remain deplorable five years after the devastating earthquake there. A central culprit is a broken U.S. foreign-aid system, with no easy fixes. That is the grim takeaway from an investigation conducted by the news program Vice, titled “The Haitian Money Pit,” to air Friday on HBO.
More than 2,000 Candidates Enter Race For Haiti Political Seats
President Michel Martelly has ruled Haiti by decree since Parliament dissolved Jan. 12 when the terms of every member of the Chamber of Deputies, and a third of the Senate expired. The Senate had already been operating with only 20 of its 30 seats occupied because of previously missed elections, and lost its quorum after Jan. 12. The elections have been delayed by factors such as political feuding and lack of funding. Every mayoral post in the country is up for grabs, as are neighborhood leadership positions.
As Colombia Nears Peace Accord, The Question of U.S. Culpability Looms
In the end, Vega concludes that “the interference of the United States in the social conflict has been constant and direct from the late 1940’s and this has been expressed both in military aid and the promotion of policies of counter-insurgency.” He concludes that the U.S. prevented peaceful solutions to structural causes of the social conflict from succeeding in Colombia, and that the result was the prolongation and intensification of the conflict, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents and the displacement of six million people.
Are Women the Key to Peace in Colombia?
But perhaps the most critical factor for the viability of the coming peace is the inclusion of women in the conversation. Around the world, when armed groups lay down their weapons, women are rarely part of the equation. In Colombia, where an estimated 30 to 40 percent of FARC members are female, this would be a crucial mistake. As the parties negotiate, they must consider the perspectives of female FARC combatants — as well as women from communities where former fighters will resettle. In studying 174 countries, Harvard researchers found that the single best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is not its level of wealth or democracy, nor its ethnoreligious identity; it’s how well its women are treated.
Violentology: An Interview with Photojournalist Stephen Ferry
Stephen Ferry is an American photographer who has captured dangerous and tragic scenes of the Colombian armed conflict for twelve years. Ferry published a collection of his and his Colombian colleagues’ photos in a book titled “Violentology: A Manual of the Colombian Conflict.” Latin America News Dispatch interviewed Ferry at the International Center for Photography in New York about what he found most difficult to capture in the middle of a war, who the main protagonists are in his pictures and how photography contributes to Colombia’s peace process between the government and FARC rebels.
Cholitas paceñas: Bolivia’s indigenous women flaunt their ethnic pride
Bolivia is still one of Latin America’s poorest countries, but its economy has grown rapidly in recent years on the back of high mineral and gas prices, and the government’s pragmatic economic policies. That growth has helped a commercial boom in La Paz and the neighbouring city of El Alto, where Aymara merchants – many of them women – play important and lucrative role.
Bolivia resists global pressure to do away with coca crop
In order “to restore the dignity of the coca leaf”, the Bolivian government launched an international campaign in 2006 to depenalise coca and have it taken off the list of narcotics drawn up by the Vienna convention in 1961. Bolivia has not yet succeeded in convincing the UN, but in 2013 it did obtain a specific clause authorising chewing of coca leaves on its territory. “Bolivia is the only country in the world with a clause of this sort,” says De Leo. Coca cultivation, using traditional methods, is currently allowed on 12,000 hectares.