Latin America Today

WOLA promotes human rights, democracy, and social justice by working with partners in Latin America and the Caribbean to shape policies in the United States and abroad. Listen to updates and interviews with our staff and guests from around the region.

What Trump’s Return Means for Latin America 11/09/2024

What Trump’s Return Means for Latin America This episode was recorded three days after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election. It brings together WOLA’s president, , Vice President for Programs , and Director for Defense Oversight . Together, they possess a combined seven decades of experience working on human rights, democracy, and U.S. policy toward Latin America. All worked on these issues, plus borders and migration, through the first Trump administration. Maureen, Carolina, and Adam discuss what Trump’s win means for democratic backsliding and relationships with authoritarian governments region-wide, as well as for migration policy, drug policy, cooperation with Mexico, and U.S. foreign aid and security programs. Both Maureen and Carolina emphasize the importance of journalists, human rights defenders, advocacy groups, and other elements of civil society. Their role in protecting checks and balances and promoting accountability has never been more crucial. The civic space that they need to do their work is at great risk of closure amid attacks on independent media, disinformation, and threats of retribution emanating from the president-elect and his allies. They note that a Trump presidency will probably reverse the U.S. government’s uneven but improving record as a force helping to shore up democratic rule, which has been eroding in the region and worldwide. Guatemala—where the presence or absence of U.S. support has been crucial for fair elections and anti-corruption efforts—is a key example. The incoming administration’s transactional, ideological stance risks withdrawing support for democratic rule, empowering autocrats with severe consequences for basic rights. While the Biden administration curtailed access to asylum and did little to improve accountability for U.S. border forces’ human rights abuses, Maureen, Carolina, and Adam warn that Trump’s plans for the border and immigration could indelibly stain the United States. The president-elect’s proposed policies—closing migration pathways, “mass deportation,” militarization of border security—threaten to cause mass suffering and greatly complicate U.S. relations with Mexico and other regional governments. Humanitarian organizations on the border, migrant shelters, and legal service providers, they point out, are especially in need of solidarity as they are now at risk of being targeted on a federal level, as Texas’s government has sought to do at the state level. Carolina recalls that “WOLA has survived for over 50 years because we are part of an ecosystem that is under threat but resilient… It's time to stick together and support each other and to do our work with more commitment and more energy than ever.” Adam adds, “Times like these are the reason we exist… Stay with us.” Thank you for listening, and take care of yourself and your community. /episode/index/show/wolapodcast/id/33857107

Mexico's Constitutional Reforms: a Setback for Checks and Balances 10/21/2024

Mexico's Constitutional Reforms: a Setback for Checks and Balances In September 2024, Mexico’s legislature quickly approved a series of constitutional reforms at the behest of outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The revisions, among other things, fundamentally change the nature of the country’s judiciary and fundamentally and permanently change the role of the armed forces in public security. Under the overhaul of Mexico’s judiciary, citizens will now directly elect all judges, increasing the likelihood of eroding the judicial branch’s independence. That, in turn, could complicate accountability for organized crime activity, corruption, and human rights abuses. Another reform places the National Guard, a recently created internal security force whose members are mostly former soldiers, directly within the Defense Ministry. This further cements significant increases in military participation in internal security, immigration control, public works, and the economy during the López Obrador administration. These changes pose likely setbacks to the struggle to hold people and institutions accountable for human rights abuse and corruption, and they threaten to weaken the quality of Mexico’s democracy. In this episode, WOLA’s director for Mexico, , and , the director of México Unido Contra la Delincuencia (), explain the constitutional reforms and their likely consequences. “This particular constitutional reform fully militarized public security at the federal level by turning the National Guard into a fourth armed force,” said Sánchez. “What we did was to fully and permanently militarize public security at the federal level in Mexico for good.” While these reforms are not a “fatal blow” for Mexico’s democracy, Brewer pointed out, they create even more adverse conditions for “victims, survivors, family members, civil society, NGOs, and others” working for rights and justice in the country. “They really need our attention, and our support from the international community. We need to be listening to their voices.” From WOLA: () From MUCD: ; Recursos sobre /episode/index/show/wolapodcast/id/33553287

Reimagining the Drug War Amid Rising Coca Cultivation in Central America 09/17/2024

Reimagining the Drug War Amid Rising Coca Cultivation in Central America This podcast episode features and , part of a team investigating a new trend: the emergence of coca cultivation in Central America. McSweeney, a professor of geography at Ohio State University, has research human-environment interactions, cultural and political ecology, conservation and development, resilience, demography, and land use/cover change. Pinnow is a Honduras-based journalist and documentary photographer specializing in illicit economies, violence and development in Central America. Photo credit: Fritz Pinnow McSweeney and colleagues have published examining the recent and growing appearance of coca leaf cultivation in Central America, a crop historically associated with the Andean region. McSweeney and Pinnow discuss the environmental and market conditions driving coca cultivation in Honduras and Guatemala. They note that those attempting coca cultivation in the region have competitive advantages over Colombian growers, such as more favorable growing conditions. They stress that it would be a serious error to respond to this phenomenon with another forced eradication program. Past crop-eradication strategies, which have almost always been uncoordinated with governance, rule of law, basic services, land formalization, or anti-poverty efforts, have failed and in fact ended up encouraging the planting of coca in new areas. The drug trade, McSweeney and Pinnow state, gains much of its power and wealth from the price premium made possible by the coca plant’s illegality. The inflated prices make it very difficult to offer viable economic alternatives in poor rural areas. “Current drug policy,” McSweeney says, “systematically undermines any other efforts at rural or urban development in these countries.” “If we’ve learned anything from supply side drug control in South America, it’s that eradicating coca crops and trying to shut down trafficking organizations, and trying to shut down the cartels, and trying to go after the Pablo Escobar’s and their successors– it generates a lot of Netflix content, but it doesn't do anything to reduce the amount of drugs that make it into the United States and other countries… What we’ve seen from these approaches and after 40 years of the drug war and billions of dollars spent to eradicate the cocaine trade is more coca being produced in Colombia than ever before, more places with coca being produced, the price of cocaine is lower than it's been in decades, the quality of the cocaine is the highest it's ever been, and it's easier to get than it ever was before.” To stay engaged with drug war reform, McSweeney and Pinnow recommend connecting with (SSDP) and . /episode/index/show/wolapodcast/id/33093052

“This Is Not Hollywood, This Is Real Life”: three weeks after Venezuela’s July election 08/19/2024

"The Scrutiny Should Be Public to All Citizens:" the aftermath of Venezuela's July election 07/30/2024

A Groundbreaking ‘Win’ at the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs 04/09/2024

A Groundbreaking ‘Win’ at the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs On March 14-22, 2024, the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) held its in Vienna, Austria. The session saw a landmark vote that may have important repercussions for drug policy, in Latin America and elsewhere. The commission approved a U.S.-led resolution encouraging countries to implement “harm reduction” measures to respond to drug overdoses and to protect public health. The vote marks a major breakthrough in civil society’s decades-long advocacy to center harm reduction, especially since the U.S. government has a history of blocking all such resolutions, and since the Commission has a longstanding tradition of enactment by a “Vienna Consensus” without votes. This episode features three guests who helped lead civil society’s robust participation at the CND: Ann Fordham, executive director of (IDPC) Lisa Sanchez, executive director of (MUCD) , director for drug policy and the Andes at WOLA The three experts underscore that while the vote on this resolution was a major win in the civil society-led harm reduction fight, it is just one milestone along a longer journey. The fight must continue to ensure this sets the foundation for an international drug policy that truly prioritizes protecting people, views drug addiction as a public health and not a national security issue, and moves away from the normative framework of achieving a “drug free society” through punitive measures and prohibition. “The prohibition regime has tried to make itself inevitable and ‘forever,’ and that’s not the case… There's no reason to think that it needs to last forever. In fact, as we said, it was a misfit from the very beginning,” says John Walsh. “Drug use has always existed, it always will. To suggest that we're going to create a ‘drug-free world’ is not only futile, but it's downright dangerous because of its consequences… I think this is an opening to think more broadly about not just the UN drug policy space, but what governments need to do for the health, safety, and well-being of their populations.” /episode/index/show/wolapodcast/id/30749013

Flooding the Zone: the "Bukele Model,” Security and Democracy in El Salvador 03/08/2024

Flooding the Zone: the "Bukele Model,” Security and Democracy in El Salvador El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele just won re-election by a broad margin as a massive security crackdown has reduced gangs’ role in everyday life. But the increasingly authoritarian “Bukele model” has a big long-term downside, Douglas Farah explains. --- It has been almost a month since Nayib Bukele was reelected as President of El Salvador by a very wide margin, despite a constitutional prohibition on re-election. While security gains and a constant communications blitz have made Bukele popular, our guest, of IBI Consultants, highlights some grave concerns about the “Bukele Model” and where it is headed. Among these: pursuit of an “authoritarian playbook” common to many 21st-century political movements, with eroding checks and balances; vastly weakened transparency over government activities; a complicated relationship with gangs and their integration into the political structure; an unsustainable reliance on mass incarceration; and erosion of the independence and professionalism of the police, military, and judiciary. In this episode, Farah argues: The success of Bukele’s security model may not be as pronounced as is publicly accepted. The human rights cost is very high, with about 75,000 people arrested, far more than earlier estimates of gang membership. Bukele’s model uses elements from the “authoritarian playbook,” including undoing public access laws, eliminating accountability for government spending, consolidating media control, threatening independent media, and relying on armies of social media accounts and traditional media outlets to dominate the political conversation. Toleration of human rights abuse and corruption has undone a police reform that was a key element of the country’s 1992 peace accords. MS-13 is not defeated: its leaders avoid extradition while maintaining close relationships with authorities, while some of its affiliates serve as legislative “alternates.” The influence of China is real but probably overstated, as the country offers few resources and little overall strategic value. While it does not make strategic sense to criticize the popular president frontally, the Biden administration needs to be more consistent and less timid in its critique of specific policies and anti-democratic trends. Douglas Farah is President of , a research consultancy that offers many of its online. He was formerly bureau chief of United Press International in El Salvador, a staff correspondent for The Washington Post, and a senior visiting fellow at the National Defense University's Center for Strategic Research. He is a 1995 recipient of the Columbia Journalism School’s Maria Moors Cabot Prize for outstanding coverage of Latin America. /episode/index/show/wolapodcast/id/30287438

Violence in Ecuador: Getting Beyond Stopgap Solutions 02/20/2024

Violence in Ecuador: Getting Beyond Stopgap Solutions A January outbreak of criminal violence in Ecuador made headlines worldwide. Now, a new government is cracking down in ways that recall other countries' "mano dura" policies, and the U.S. government stands ready to help. Is this the right way forward? While this isn’t the first time Ecuador’s government has declared a state of exception, the prominence of organized crime and the consequential rise in insecurity is a new reality for the country. Ecuador has seen a six-fold homicide rate increase in three years; it now South America’s worst, and Ecuadorians are the second nationality, behind Venezuelans, fleeing through the Darién Gap. How did this happen? How can Ecuador’s government, civil society, and the international community address it? This episode features International Crisis Group Fellow and author of the recent report , , and , WOLA’s director for drug policy and the Andes. The discussion covers how Ecuador suddenly reached such high levels of insecurity, the implications of President Daniel Noboa’s state of emergency and “state of internal armed conflict” declarations, an evaluation of international drug markets and state responses, and a look at U.S. policy. Gonzalez attributes the lead-up to Ecuador’s violent new reality to three factors: Ecuador’s gradual transition into a position of high importance in the international drug trade. The prison system crisis and the government’s incapacity to address it. The fragmentation of Ecuadorian criminal groups after the demobilization of Colombia’s FARC and the decline of Los Choneros, a criminal group with former hegemonic control. Gonzalez describes the state of emergency as “a band-aid solution to control the situation now, but not looking really to tackle these structural problems.” Walsh describes Ecuador’s case as a “wake up call” to the consequences of the drug war prohibitionist approach: “This isn’t just a drug policy question. This is a question about democracies delivering on the basic needs of their citizens, which is security. And I think prohibition in the drug war doesn’t support security. It tends to undermine it.” John calls on the international community to recognize this as a humanitarian issue as well, indicating that “people are basically held hostage. Not in their house, but in their whole community.” /episode/index/show/wolapodcast/id/30036003

A New Chapter in Guatemala's Anti-Corruption Struggle 02/08/2024

Understanding Regional Migration in an Election Year 01/23/2024

Understanding Regional Migration in an Election Year As congressional negotiations place asylum and other legal protection pathways at risk, and as we approach a 2024 election year with migration becoming a higher priority for voters in the United States, we found it important to discuss the current moment's complexities. WOLA’s vice president for Programs, , former director for WOLA’s Mexico Program and co-founder of WOLA’s migration and border work, is joined by Mexico Program Director , whose work on defense of human rights and demilitarization in Mexico has focused often on the rights of migrants, including a visit to the Arizona-Sonora border at the end of 2023. This episode highlights some of the main migration trends and issues that we should all keep an eye on this year, including: Deterrence efforts will never reduce migration as long as the reasons people are fleeing remain unaddressed (the long-standing “root causes” approach). Such policies will only force people into more danger and fuel organized crime. “The question is not, are people going to migrate? The question is, where, how, and with who?”, explains Brewer. For this reason, maintaining consistent and reliable legal pathways is more important than ever, and the ongoing assaults on these pathways—including the right to seek asylum and humanitarian parole—are harmful and counterproductive. There can’t be a one-size-fits-all solution for the variety of populations currently in movement, and the focus should no longer be on ineffective policies of deterrence and enforcement. “It's a long term game that certainly doesn't fit on a bumper sticker for political campaigns,” Meyer points out. Organized crime is a huge factor in regional migration—both as a driver of migration and as a facilitator. Official corruption and impunity enable these systems, a point that migration policies often fail to address. Brewer notes that during her trip to Arizona's southern border in December 2023, the vast majority of migrants she spoke to were Mexican, and among them, the vast majority cited violence and organized crime as the driving factor. In recent months, Mexican families have been the number one nationality coming to the U.S.-Mexico border to seek asylum. It is a regional issue, not just a U.S. issue, as people are seeking asylum and integration in many different countries. Mexico, for instance, received 140,000 asylum applications in 2023. This makes integration efforts extremely important: many people arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border had attempted to resettle elsewhere first. “It's a twofold of the legal status itself, but then real integration efforts that are both economic and educational, but also addressing xenophobia and not creating resentment in local communities,” explains Meyer. /episode/index/show/wolapodcast/id/29611783