By Diego Cevallos - Sunday, December 14, 2008

Kidnappings in the south of Mexico are nothing new, but the latest cases seem to follow a different pattern, Paulo Martínez, spokesman for the non-governmental organisation Sin Fronteras (Without Borders), a human rights watchdog for immigrants arriving in this country...According to Martínez, women kidnapped in the south have reported being tortured and raped. Their captors usually demand ransom from relatives of the victims living in the United States.

By JAMES COCKCROFT - November 28-30, 2008

Indigenous peoples in Indo-Afro-Latin America, especially Bolivia and Ecuador, are rising up to take control of their own lives and act in solidarity with others to save the planet. They are calling for new, yet ancient, practices of plurinational, participatory, and intercultural democracy. They champion ecologically sustainable development; community-based autonomies; and solidarity with other peoples locally, regionally, and internationally...Their values are often different than those of the United States or Europe. One indigenous leader has stated: “We give what money we have not to banks to collect interest but to others – and their gratitude is the interest we receive.”

By Diana Barahona - Upside Down World

Barack Obama seems to be oblivious to the sea change in Latin America, portraying the advance of the left as a threat which came about through the incompetence of the Bush administration, who allowed a "dangerous demagogue" like Hugo Chavez to rise to power.

By Noam Chomsky - Znet

Regional integration of the kind that has been slowly proceeding for several years is a crucial prerequisite for independence, making it more difficult for the master of the hemisphere to pick off countries one by one. For that reason it is causing considerable distress in Washington, and is either ignored or regularly distorted in the media and other elite commentary.

By Henry Meyer - September 18, 2008

Russia is playing its most active role in [Latin America] since the Soviet era, in a challenge to the U.S. in its traditional backyard..."We're increasing our presence in Latin America -- the countries in the region themselves want this," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Igor Lyakin-Frolov. "There's a big power in the north. They need a counterweight," he said...referring to the U.S.

By Tom Barry - June 16 2008

What began as a war on terrorists has become a war on immigrants. The Department of Homeland Security says that it prioritizes its immigration enforcement actions by "targeting the greatest national security and public safety threats"—an approach not taken prior to 9/11...Faced with failure, the Bush administration's stated resolve to dismantle international terrorism has devolved into an attack on a far more vulnerable and proximate target—Latin American immigrants.

The Vatican has condemned what it called growing "neo-marxist" influence in Latin America which threatens the Roman Catholic Church...The Synod of Bishops for America said it was worried by the "development of an ideological tendency, often a neo-marxist inspiration," that was influencing Latin American countries' home and international relations.

...[W]here can one find the good democracy in Latin America?...For that...one must travel across the Andes to Chile and meet socialist President Michelle Bachelet. As the second female President in Latin American history...Bachelet evokes a combination of admiration but unfortunately also disappointment due to the policies of her administration.

Since 1994, the U.S. enforcement strategy has been two-pronged: criminalize the immigrants and militarize the borders. The U.S. has choked off traditional urban crossing points by building double and triple walls, increased the number of agents, and introduced military technology and personnel into routine activities. This policy has made the journey more dangerous by pushing crossing points into remote, hazardous regions in desert and mountainous terrain, or into the equally dangerous underworld of human smuggling—through ports of entry as container cargo.

John Pilger is an award-winning journalist, author and documentary filmmaker...He is an impassioned critic of foreign military and economic adventures by Western governments..."It is too easy," [he] says, "for Western journalists to see humanity in terms of its usefulness to 'our' interests and to follow government agendas that ordain good and bad tyrants, worthy and unworthy victims and present 'our' policies as always benign when the opposite is usually true."

While Latin America is fast moving in progressive directions...in contrast the United States, at least since the Reagan era, has been moving step by step toward a Fascism for the 21st Century. And the pace has quickened in the last six years of Republican government under George W. Bush...

One of the (Free Trade) Agreements the Canadian government is trying to finalize is the Central America Four Free Trade Agreement (CA4TA) with Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua...Although the economic impacts of the deal may not be profound, there are concerns about sovereignty, human rights and democracy based on experiences from past deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Incendio Publicacion! - English and Espanol
New Bi-lingual Anarchist Journal focused on Latin America!

Incendio is...

An endeavor that some of us have taken up to increase communication with anarchists in Latin America, network, learn from their struggles, illuminate opportunities for solidarity actions, provide a forum for Latin American anarchists to share ideas and analysis, break down the language barrier, and make support efforts more possible.

|By Moisés Montoya|Freedom Socialist|February 2006|

Montoya delivers a first person account of why Chicanos in the military - fighting racist wars (and any person for that matter) doesn't make sense, and how to show support for US students who are resisting recruiters in their schools.