In Colombia, a new voluntary crop substitution programme was designed with participation of many of the small-scale coca producers themselves. This was a key component of the Peace Agreement signed between the former Government and the now demobilized insurgent group, FARC-EP. Although the new Government of President Ivan Duque is largely failing to comply with its part...
“A number of indigenous leaders from the Amazon were at the forefront of climate action events in New York 19-28 September 2019. The protests, rallies and symposia were organised around the UN Climate Summit on 23 September 2019, within the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly, September 17 – 30, 2019. Linda Etchart was there for...
When we think of climate change, we often envision
it in terms of forest clearance, shrinking ice caps, melting glaciers and
rising oceans. But just as important is the question of land and the way
humanity makes use of it. Rachel Simon has examined it for LAB.
August this year saw...
Conversing with Goliath is a research project carried out by FLACSO-Mexico and De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, sponsored by the British Academy (2017-2020). The project aims to understand why violence in Mexico persists in the design and implementation of projects in the extractive industry when a wide range of participatory institutions exist in law and policy programmes...
In a subtitled interview, above, the political prisoner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva speaks of strategic errors made by the PT, BRICS, and the documented US involvement in the Lava Jato investigation, which the Intercept has now revealed was a key actor in the 2016 coup against Dilma Rousseff
In a historic...
Cartonera books – cheap
books with cardboard covers and photocopied texts – were originally a
by-product of the Cartonero movement in Argentina, when people from the shanty
towns travelled into Buenos Aires and other big cities in the wake of the 2001
economic collapse to collect and sell cardboard and other waste left on the
streets.
LAB was present at Wales’ own Latin America Festival, called El Sueño Existe, held in Machynlleth every other year since 2001. We had a lively session on our latest books, Amazon Besieged and Voices of Latin America; LAB author Louise Morris took part in the discussion workshop on Reproductive Rights in Latin...
A synod is a meeting of representatives of Church
communities to discuss issues of doctrine or Church governance. So far, for most people, so boring. But when, in February 2019, General Augusto
Heleno, President Jair Bolsonaro’s senior security adviser, described October’s
Catholic Church synod on the Amazon as ‘relevant to Brazil’s national security’
and having a ‘left-wing agenda’, he was...
A lone man in the garb of a nineteenth century mambi Cuban freedom fighter sits high on a lamp post above a sea of people in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución.
Alberto Korda, Cuba (b.1928): El Quijote de la Farola (The Don Quijote of the lamppost), Plaza de la Revolucion, Cuba 26...
The recent announcement by Iván Márquez – the second highest commander of the original Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) – that sections of South America’s largest demobilised guerrilla movement are returning to war, should come as little surprise to some observers of Latin America. In a recent video, Márquez, whose real name is Luciano Marín, said...