Drugs & Narcotráfico

The emerging Colombian cannabis market has a predicted value of $54 billion USD by 2025. Its potential to uphold the peace agreement, create jobs for rural farmers and boost the national economy is remarkable, although there are stubborn obstructions to progress.

Tatiana Huezo's Prayers for the Stolen (Noche de fuego, 2021) is a Mexican drama about female friendship and resilience in the face of violence in Guerrero, Mexico.

It is almost 12 years since the Mexican government ‘declared war on violence’. Since then there have been thousands more homicides and people declared missing. Narcoculture and violence have become normalised in Mexican society. Everyone is affected, but none more so than children, who exhibit more aggressive behaviour and violent play.

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.

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.

A wave of protest paralysed Ecuador, with roads blockaded and food running short in some areas. The protests were led by indigenous organizations, but backed by students and trade unions. After various authoritarian actions and threats, Lasso has been forced to conciliate and the protests have subsided for now.

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.

What is happening in the Amazon is a war -- against the rainforest, its original inhabitants, and also against the rest of the world. Perhaps this is the Third World War, the war to end all wars?

Peruvian coca farmers are actively recruiting Brazilian indigenous workers from the Alto Salimöes region to harvest and transport coca. Violence and exploitation are rife.

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.