The Americas Archive

Looking down from the hilltops of Bogotá’s southern rim, a sea of shingled rooftops and cinderblock huts stretches toward the horizon. These ever-expanding slums are home to tens of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs), Colombians who have fled their homes elsewhere in the country to escape the country’s long-running armed conflict. Here, Lady Carabali, a mother of five, lives in a damp, ramshackle home made from pieces of wood and scrap metal, with no running water or electricity. She was driven from her small farm on the Pacific coast by paramilitary violence more than a decade ago. Each day, […]

Who cares about the United Nations Security Council? Over the past year, major powers have certainly been taking the council increasingly seriously. U.N. experts who argue that the council’s credibility rests on its appeal to big players in the global system were comforted by Germany, India and South Africa’s successful campaigns for two-year seats on the council last year. But some poor, weak governments have decided to defy it, with a series of African leaders, in particular, showing contempt for the council’s authority. In January 2010, President Idriss Déby of Chad insisted that the U.N. withdraw peacekeepers charged with protecting […]

As the recession recedes, fuel prices have begun to soar across Latin America, confronting governments with the dilemma of how to balance fiscal demands with energy subsidies that are increasingly wreaking budgetary havoc, especially in the Andean nations. The Bolivian and Chilean governments’ recent efforts to confront that dilemma led to dramatic images of unrest, with protesters in both nations burning tires, throwing rocks and building barricades in response to announced policy changes. At the end of December, major cities across Bolivia erupted when President Evo Morales’ government decided to remove price controls that were artificially depressing fuel prices. The […]

China and Argentina recently signed a round of agricultural trade agreements. In an e-mail interview, R. Evan Ellis, an assistant professor at the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies of the National Defense University and author of “China in Latin America: The Whats and Wherefores,” discussed China-Argentina trade relations. WPR: What is the current state of trade relations between Argentina and China? R. Evan Ellis: Argentina is running a trade surplus with China, driven by the export of soy products. Yet Argentine manufacturing interests are being undercut by Chinese companies that sell ever-more goods in the country, beginning with toys, footwear […]