The Americas Archive

Earlier this month, Guatemala’s movement for transitional justice received a major boost when a judge charged six retired military officers for their alleged participation in the deaths and forced disappearance of at least 183 civilians during the country’s bloody, 36-year civil war, which ended in 1996. Six others remain in custody over the same allegations but were not yet charged. But the progress coincided with an almost immediate backlash from Guatemala’s political elites. Soon after the retired officers were initially arrested last month, conservative lawmakers presented a bill that would free convicted war criminals and prevent prosecution of crimes related […]

Back in 1990, when the Soviet bloc was crumbling into new nations, Kenichi Ohmae, a Japanese organizational theorist and management consultant, had the audacity to suggest that humankind was on the cusp of a new “borderless world,” in a book of the same name. Ohmae’s goal was mainly to sketch out new ways for businesses to adapt and take advantage of a world that he argued would be increasingly globalized, where nation-states and the borders that help define them would become less and less relevant. For more than two decades, the world seemed to be moving in the direction of […]

SANTIAGO, Chile—Despite high numbers of COVID-19 infections and large segments of the population in quarantine, Chile held a crucial election on May 15 and 16. Voters selected 155 people to represent them in a constituent assembly charged with drafting a new constitution. Turnout, at roughly 43 percent, was not particularly high, though this is comparable with Chile’s long history of low electoral participation, and the pandemic likely depressed the number of those voting as well. In addition, three other elections were held simultaneously: for municipal council members, mayors and governors. This made the election process quite complex, because each vote […]

Mexico’s June 6 midterm elections were widely framed as a referendum on President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s statist makeover of the country’s institutions. In the hours after polls closed, headlines pointed to a defeat for the president’s party, Morena. But despite its losses in the lower house of Congress, the results had a number of bright spots for Morena and for AMLO, as Lopez Obrador is popularly known. On the other hand, there was one clear winner that wasn’t even on the ballot: the country’s electoral authority, the Instituto Nacional Electoral, or INE, which overcame significant challenges to successfully oversee […]

Long before Peru’s latest presidential election, the country’s political climate was already turbulent and unstable. After last weekend’s vote, the sky looks even cloudier, with a strong chance of storms. As Peruvians prepared to vote Sunday, their prospects already looked dim. A wild first-round ballot in April had included 18 candidates, none of whom even won 20 percent of the vote. The two polarizing political figures who made it into last weekend’s final round were appalling in the minds of most voters: the largely unknown Pedro Castillo, a hard-line leftist, schoolteacher and union activist; and the very well-known Keiko Fujimori, […]

It’s hard to imagine that three years ago, Nicaragua was rocked by huge anti-government protests that paralyzed the country before being ruthlessly quashed. Today, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and a lack of vaccines, the capital, Managua, is abuzz with activity. Shopping malls are teeming, while the intersections are crowded with beggars and vendors. Everyday life in this Central American country seems to have returned to normal. Visible scars of the 2018 unrest remain only in the form of graffiti, although many of the protest slogans have been daubed over with pro-government messages proclaiming, “The commander remains”—a reference to President Daniel […]

Less than one week before a pivotal election in Peru, authorities released a revised count of the pandemic death toll in the South American country. It’s no secret that COVID-19 has devastated Peru, but the figures, nonetheless, were breathtaking. The government put the true number of deaths at 180,764, three times higher than earlier estimates. Other countries will likely recalculate their earlier numbers, as well. But for now, Peru holds the painful distinction of having the world’s highest pandemic death toll by population. Confirmation of just how catastrophic the pandemic has been for Peru helps explain the similarly disastrous political […]