The deadliest place for environmental defenders
The latest report from Global Witness confirms the rising trend in killings of environmental defenders, with Mexico becoming the most dangerous country in a very dangerous region which now accounts for over 75% of lethal attacks in the world.
Cross-border traffic in coca and labour
Peruvian coca farmers are actively recruiting Brazilian indigenous workers from the Alto Salimöes region to harvest and transport coca. Violence and exploitation are rife.
Colombia: transitional justice must include GBV
Transitional justice is not just about bringing perpetrators to justice, it is also about giving a voice to those who lost one, rebuilding societal trust, and fostering reconciliation.
Amazon: crime without punishment
At least 58 indigenous people were killed in the Brazilian, Colombian, Ecuadorean and Peruvian Amazon between 2016 and 2021. In this article, Mongabay outlines the patterns, the involvement of state actors and the cloud of impunity surrounding these crimes
Brazil: orphan mothers
Anti-Black violence by the Police targets young men in Brazil's favelas and makes their mothers 'orphans'. Their trauma and spectacular resistance are highlighted in this new film, reviwed for LAB by Jessica Pandian
Peru: environmental defenders still dying
Murders of indigenous leaders in Peru continue, despite government promises to improve protections. Those who seek to defend their land and protect the local environment are targeted by illegal loggers, miners and drug traffickers.
The Deaths of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira
The brutal murders of journalist Dom Phillips and indigenist Bruno Pereira took place in a region, the Javari Valley, beset by a profitable vortex of clandestine economies, resource plunder and land grabbing which the present government does almost nothing to discourage or suppress.
Dom and Bruno – Bolsonaro’s victims
Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira were murdered in a remote area of the Amazon – almost certainly by or on the orders of those who run the illegal trade in fish, timber, drugs and minerals. President Bolsonaro has fuelled lawlessness by his rhetoric.
Two men missing in The Amazon ‘wild-west’
The Javari reserve in Amazonas, where Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira disappeared, is a wild-west border region with multiple problems of drug trafficking, smuggling and land grabbing.
Colombia: I resist, therefore I exist
‘Resisto, luego existo’, the new exhibition at Bogota’s Centro de Memoria, Paz y Reconciliacion opens to the public with documentaries about centres of resistance around the country.