Now that Uruguay has revoked a 25-year-old amnesty for human rights crimes committed during the country’s 1973-85 military dictatorship, citizens are coming forward in droves this week to file charges against former officers, soldiers and cops. Uruguay was one of South America’s last holdouts when it came to annulling amnesty …
Latin America
They’re Not Occupying Brasília: Why Things Feel Tudo Bem (Alright) In South America
In America, the Great Recession has moved protesters to occupy Wall Street. In Europe the debt crisis has incited them to tear up any street. So where in the Western world can you find a modicum of national confidence these days? South American way, amigo, to once obscure capitals like Brasília, where President Dilma Rousseff, the …
Fast and Infuriating: America’s Cops Need to Be an Example for Mexico’s
This week the U.S. Senate voted 99-0 to ban future “gunwalker” operations like the Obama Administration’s “Fast and Furious” debacle. “Fast and Furious” was the well-intentioned but awfully executed program headed by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) in Arizona that let hundreds of …
As Assassination Plot Becomes a Sideshow, U.S.-Iran Tensions Hinge on the Nuclear Issue
A used car salesman, a Mexican narco snitch, and an Iranian spook walk into a bar. What is this, says the ex-CIA barman, some kind of a joke?
Let’s just say that the ostensibly Iranian plot to blow up Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington is not yet proving to be the smoking gun that allows the Obama Administration to rally …
Move Over, China: Why India May Be the Better Partner for Latin America
Bolivia this month is accusing India’s Jindal Steel & Power Ltd. of failing to honor its $2.1 billion investment commitment to develop the Mutún iron ore mine and smelting works. Jindal in turn claims Bolivia isn’t providing it sufficient gas and electrical power to get the job done. Such disputes between Latin American governments …
A Year After the Rescue, Do Chile’s Miners Need Another?
It was Chile’s own man-on-the-moon moment. In fact, for those of us who were there, last year’s miraculous rescue of 33 trapped Chilean miners seemed in some ways eerily, wonderfully similar to a moonwalk. It played out in the cold dead of night on a remote and rocky desert landscape that might as well have been the lunar …
Hiring Narcos to Murder the Saudi Ambassador? If It’s True, Tehran Is Pretty Dumb
If Iranian government operatives really did try to contract a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., as the Obama Administration alleges today, then they weren’t just being diabolical. They were being fairly stupid.
Granted, the Zetas – the drug mafia that Iranian-American Manssor Arbabsiar …
Spy Swap: the Reality Show Washington and Havana Have Yet to Learn
During the Cold War, spy swaps were seemingly commonplace. Iconic, in fact: countless movies of the era use scenes of spooks and dissidents being exchanged at Checkpoint Charlie. And we still do it: just last year, the U.S. sent 10 arrested Russian agents home while Russia in turn let go four prisoners accused of espionage whose …
Can a Young Prime Minister Reform Jamaica’s Old Criminality?
When Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding announced his resignation last month, the only surprise was that it took him so long. Since last year, Golding, leader of the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP), has been embroiled in one of the worst scandals to hit Jamaica since it won independence five decades ago. His government faces accusations …
Why Haiti Does Not Need an Army
Even in the wake of a catastrophic earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people – or perhaps because of that disaster – nationalism reared its head during Haiti’s presidential election campaign last year. Many candidates, including the eventual winner, Michel Martelly, sensed that Haitians had grown weary of U.N. …
Cuba Set to Begin Offshore Drilling: Is Florida In Eco-Straits?
Like the tourism-dependent state of Florida, the tourism-dependent nation of Cuba 90 miles away can’t afford to foul its picturesque coastline with an oil spill. But unlike Florida, which has long resisted the temptation of lucrative offshore drilling, Cuba is broke. And because it’s now hearing the seductive call of as much as …
Why Hugo Chávez Should Do the Right – and Smart – Thing and Let Leopoldo López Run
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights concluded this week what just about everyone in the western hemisphere already knew: leading Venezuelan opposition politician Leopoldo López was denied due process of law in 2008, when socialist President Hugo Chávez’s government barred him from running in elections for six years because …
How John Galliano’s Criminal Conviction Sets a Poor Example for the Developing World
Few would disagree that disgraced British fashion designer John Galliano was acting like a drug- and alcohol-addled jerk. On two separate occasions at the same Paris bar last October and February, he unleashed anti-Semitic insults and was caught on video saying he loved Hitler. But if Galliano’s tirades were socially disturbing, a …