Like Cuba’s Ladies in White and Argentina’s Mothers of the May Plaza before them, Colombia’s Mothers of Soacha continue to do the slow and painful work of human rights defence in one of the world’s riskiest countries. According to civil society estimates, Colombia is perennially the most dangerous country in the world for human rights defenders, and since the...
Colombia: an election which will determine the fate of peace
By Thomas Mortensen, Colombia Country Manager, Christian Aid
As Colombians head to the polls on the 27th May, the internationally recognised peace agreement signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in late 2016, hangs in the balance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGh4F_AlWxA&feature=youtu.be
Edited highlights of a debate between Colombian presidential candidates Ivan Duque and Gustavo...
In the last two weeks the Brazilian scholar Matias Spektor of the Fundação Getúlio Vargas has brought to light documents which take us back to the dark depths of the country’s military regime which governed from 1964 to 1984.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaiFvx6lNSU
Matias Spektor comments on the discovery of the CIA documents. Interview by Pedro Bial, Video: Fatos Incríveis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2mP3XbFZPY
Jair Bolsonaro defends Reserve General...
On March 29th, 2017, the small country of El Salvador became the first nation in the world to exercise its sovereign right to say “no” to metallic mining after carefully analyzing the costs and benefits of this industry. This historic decision was the result of a persistent 12-year struggle (the length of the civil war in the 80s and...
Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans marched through the streets of the capital Managua and other cities at the end of April.
The demonstrations were in answer to a call from the Catholic Church to press for Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista government to enter into dialogue over controversial reforms to the social security system that led to protests earlier in the month...
The imprisonment of former president Lula takes place against a background which is complicated at best and murky at worst.
The case against him is as follows: Lula’s wife, who died two years ago, had been eligible to purchase a $0.5 million duplex apartment in the seaside resort of Guarujá in São Paulo state, but subject to paying for an upgrade...
São Paulo, 16 April. Lula disappeared into the federal police building in Curitiba on 7 April and nobody knows when he will be seen again.
Two days before, after the Supreme Court refused to grant him a habeas corpus, the PT’s presidential candidate had bunkered down at the HQ of the metalworkers union in São Bernardo, surrounded by thousands of...
In a decision as closely watched as a World Cup final, Brazil’s Supreme Court decided by 6 to 5 to reject a habeas corpus application for ex-president Lula, opening the way for his imminent arrest. The eleven judges spent 11 hours proffering their votes in erudite, legal language peppered with Latin expressions, impossible for the man or woman in...
“The people have spoken – the bastards!”
This tribute was first published by Haiti Support Group.
These words were muttered by a US Embassy official at the count of the Haitian Presidential elections of 16 December 1990. This was overheard by Phillip Wearne, an investigative journalist, who stood next to him. The anger of the official was understandable. Through these elections,...
22 March 2018. Marielle Franco was executed with four bullets. One each for racism, misogyny, homophobia and impunity.
By killing Marielle, the assassins eliminated not just a politician elected on the PSOL ticket to the Rio City Council with 46,000 votes, a lone black woman in the sea of white, male, wealthy politicians. They also silenced the voice of a...