South America Archive

The paint around the front doors of the law building at the Federal University of Rio de Janiero (UFRJ) is flaking, but the inside remains pristine. Yellow walls stretch upward to meet high ceilings, while sizeable busts and oil portraits of the faculty’s founders stare watchfully on. But recently, they have been watching something unusual. Every evening since early November, 25 students have been sleeping in tents inside the faculty building in protest of a constitutional amendment, PEC 55, which was being reviewed by the government. On Dec. 13, it was approved, sparking protests across the country. Brazilians, and especially […]

Leaders of Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, wearing sport jackets and khakis against the high-altitude chill, attended meetings in Bogota last week, a city they hadn’t seen in decades, if ever. In Colombia, unlike anywhere else in the world in 2016, a once-intractable conflict has ended. The peace accord between the government and the FARC guerrillas, which puts an end to 52 years of fighting, cleared one of its last formal hurdles on Dec. 13. Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled that laws needed to implement the accord’s commitments could be passed in a matter of weeks using a […]

It is the most violent country in Latin America for women. As lawmakers and activists struggle against a culture of machismo and a legal system unequipped to enforce laws designed to protect women, there are calls for the government to declare a national emergency. Ninety-three women have been murdered in Bolivia this year by their partners or spouses, 32 more than last year. That spike drove thousands of Bolivians into the streets of six cities late last month, on Nov. 25, the United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Marchers demanded that the government declare the […]

Mauricio Macri assumed the presidency of Argentina a little over a year ago, on Dec. 10, 2015, intent on correcting years of mistakes by his predecessors and eager to cement his place as a leader of significance. While he has largely succeeded in the first goal, the second remains stubbornly out of reach, and efforts to build an enduring legacy will only grow more complicated in the years to come. Macri’s surprising victory in the 2015 election—polls initially showed him likely to lose outright in October’s first round of voting—ended 12 years of rule by Nestor Kirchner and his wife, […]

Brazil, the embattled South American nation that has seen its fortunes rise and fall dramatically in the past few years, is once again looking like a country that foreshadows major global trends. This time, it is flashing warning signs about the coming battles in the worldwide campaign against corruption. For the past few years, Brazil has been in the news for its successes in rooting out embezzlement and bribery schemes involving the country’s industrial giants and its political class. But last week, Brazil’s corruption-plagued Chamber of Deputies took a controversial late-night vote. Rewriting an anti-corruption bill into one that would […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the legal status and socio-economic conditions of indigenous peoples in a range of countries. Last week dozens of indigenous people blocked the entrance to the presidential palace in Brasilia to demand that Brazilian President Michel Temer’s administration respect their rights. In an email interview Ana Carolina Alfinito Vieira, a doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, and Luiz Henrique Eloy, a lawyer with the Terena Indigenous Council, discuss indigenous rights in Brazil. WPR: What is the legal status of Brazil’s indigenous peoples, and […]