At his first Summit of the Americas, in Trinidad and Tobago in 2009, President Barack Obama laid out a vision for U.S. relations in the hemisphere based on partnership and a commitment to pursuing policies that aligned the United States with the needs and interests of the region’s people, particularly those living in its barrios and favelas. Gone would be the days of overt attempts by Washington to influence Latin America’s political direction or to promote a particular economic course. Countries would decide for themselves which path to pursue, and the United States would cooperate where possible based on mutual [...]
Over the past few decades, Latin America became the very public incubator of new economic models—or at least of flamboyant variations on old ones. For a while, it seemed as if the region might just give birth to some kind of a successful hybrid: a populist, leftist formula for expanding economies and erasing poverty, powered by the free market and assertively steered by governments. But those days are gone, and they’re exiting the stage with the same bombast and drama with which they burst onto it. No one would suggest that the so-called 21st Century Socialism concocted by the late [...]
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. Indigenous groups in Chile are calling for the release of Machi Francisca Linconao, a spiritual leader of the Mapuche people who has been imprisoned for arson since 2013 under the country’s controversial counterterrorism law and whose health is currently in decline. In an email interview, José Aylwin, the co-director of Observatorio Ciudadano, a Chilean human rights NGO, discusses indigenous rights in Chile. WPR: What is the legal status of Chile’s indigenous peoples, and what [...]
