South America Archive

LA PAZ, Bolivia—In the past 15 years, the Bolivian economy tripled in size and poverty was cut in half, achievements built in large part on state spending fueled by the income from natural gas exports. But since 2013 those exports have dwindled, leaving a hole in Bolivia’s public finances that challenges the sustainability of its economic model. On May 1, 2006, then-President Evo Morales marched troops into Bolivia’s gas fields, declaring, “The plunder has ended.” He had recently led the Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, to power, campaigning on a platform to wrest control of the country’s resources from foreign interests and to spread the wealth […]

BOGOTA, Colombia—This week, thousands of demonstrators clad in green, a color that has become the symbol of South America’s pro-choice movements, celebrated in the streets of Bogota as the Constitutional Court struck down laws criminalizing abortion in Colombia. The verdict was the culmination of a legal battle waged since September 2020 by a collection of over 80 women’s organizations calling themselves the “Just Cause Movement” that slowly wound its way to the nation’s highest court. Colombia joins Mexico and Argentina to become the third country in Latin America to decriminalize or legalize abortion in just over a year. A regional […]

SARAVENA, Colombia—On Jan. 19, Sonia Lopez was working late in the office of the Joel Sierra Foundation, a human rights group based in the city Saravena, Colombia, just south of the Venezuelan border. It was hot and muggy, and she was exhausted. Normally, she wouldn’t have been working so late, but intense conflict between armed groups in the department of Arauca, where Saravena is located, had left 83 dead and more than 2,000 displaced since early January, putting a premium on her organization’s work. At 10:45 p.m., shots rang out. Armed men had fired pistols from two cars approaching the […]

Peruvian President Pedro Castillo did not wear his trademark broad-brimmed hat on Tuesday when he swore in his fourth Cabinet in six months. It may seem a trivial detail, but the embattled Castillo, who has worn the traditional headwear for practically every public appearance, may have been trying to signal to the country that this is a new beginning for his young, tumultuous presidency. Since he took office at the end of July, Peruvians have witnessed scandals and missteps coming from Castillo’s administration with unceasing regularity. Now, even those who had argued that Castillo—a rural schoolteacher without government experience—deserved a chance […]

LA PAZ, Bolivia—In early December, United Nations rapporteurs published a letter of allegations against the Bolivian government, citing the untrammeled import and use of mercury for gold mining, and suggesting that Bolivia had become a gateway for contraband mercury going to other Amazonian countries. It further accused Bolivia of failing to comply with the Minamata Convention that regulates the use of toxic substances. In signing the Minamata Convention along with almost every South American country in 2013, Bolivia committed to curbing and eventually eliminating almost all uses of mercury, including in artisanal gold mining. Bolivia ratified the agreement in 2015, and […]