South America Archive

Across the Americas, abortion rights appear to be heading in very different directions. Looking solely at the U.S., the recent leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion suggests that the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling—which established a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restrictions—could soon be overturned. If so, it would be a symptom of a general assault on reproductive rights as well as civil rights more broadly. However, looking further south, a different story emerges. Throughout Latin America, feminist movements are winning major victories on abortion rights, and their lessons are instructive: Organizing matters, but so […]

Colombians will go to the polls Sunday for the first round of a presidential election that represents a turning point in the country’s politics on several levels. The front-runner in the race, Gustavo Petro, would be the most progressive Colombian president since the 1930s should he win. A former leftist guerrilla, Petro has promised to expand the country’s social safety net, including improved access to health care and education, and reconfigure its economy by moving away from dependence on mining and hydrocarbons. His running mate, Francia Marquez, is one of five Afro-Colombian vice presidential candidates; prior to this year, no […]

Two weeks ago, on May 10, Paraguayan prosecutor Mario Pecci and his wife of 10 days, the TV journalist Claudia Aguilera, were lying on a beach at an exclusive resort on the Colombian island of Baru, where they were spending their honeymoon. Suddenly, two men on jet skis approached the shore. One walked over to them, aimed a gun and shot Pecci once in the face and then, as he lay dying, in the back. The killing, as Mathew Charles noted in WPR last week, demonstrated “the strength and influence of organized criminal groups” in Paraguay. And indeed, from the […]

The assassination of a top Paraguayan prosecutor while on vacation in Colombia last week has raised major concerns about the strength and influence of organized criminal groups in the country, one of the world’s top marijuana producers and a key transit point for Andean cocaine. Marcelo Pecci, an organized crime specialist, was shot dead on May 10 on the island of Baru, south of the Colombian city of Cartagena. Pecci was on honeymoon with his pregnant wife when two assailants arrived on jet skis and gunned him down. He died on the spot from three wounds to his face and torso. […]

Chile’s recently inaugurated president, Gabriel Boric, campaigned on a platform emphasizing urgent reforms to shore up social rights in Chile, particularly health care, education and pensions, all of which were a focus of the protests that erupted across the country in October 2019. He also emphasized the need to establish a new relationship with Chile’s historically marginalized and oppressed Indigenous peoples, which represent around 12 percent of the country’s population. But to do so, he will have to overcome formidable obstacles, including the daunting prospects facing the Constitutional Convention that is currently drafting a new constitution which is central to […]