The Americas Archive

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only Weekly Wrap-Up newsletter, which uses relevant WPR coverage to provide background and context to the week’s top stories. Subscribe to receive it by email every Saturday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. There’s still a lot of confusion about the circumstances surrounding the attack that took Haitian President Jovenel Moise’s life and seriously wounded his wife, who is being treated at a hospital in Florida. But one thing is certain: The power vacuum it created has exacerbated a political crisis that already seemed […]

Last week, the authoritarian government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced it would allow the country’s main opposition coalition to compete in regional and municipal elections that are scheduled for November, lifting an electoral ban that was first imposed in 2018. It was one of several concessions Maduro has made recently, signaling his desire to improve his global image and seek sanctions relief from the United States.  The lifting of the electoral ban on the Democratic Unity Roundtable, or MUD, came as government and opposition representatives prepare to restart direct negotiations, with a new round of Norway-brokered talks reportedly set to take […]

Beginning April 28, Colombians took to the streets for weeks of mass protests that nearly brought the economy to a standstill. The strikes and rallies were sparked by an unpopular tax reform proposal, but the roots of the unrest lie in a starkly unequal system that, to many poor and middle-class Colombians, seems rigged against them.  While organizers have announced a temporary pause in their activities, further demonstrations are planned for later in the month. On the Trend Lines podcast this week, Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst for Colombia at the International Crisis Group, joined WPR’s Elliot Waldman from Bogota to […]

After Colombians took to the streets on April 28 to protest a tax reform plan, President Ivan Duque quickly rescinded the unpopular proposal. But that didn’t stop the demonstrators, who continued to march in support of more fundamental economic changes to address persistent inequality and poverty, which has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. Colombian security forces responded to the unrest with a typically heavy-handed approach, and at least 60 people have died so far, many at the hands of the police. Protest leaders have paused their activities for now, but are planning more strikes and demonstrations for later in […]

Whatever other misdeeds they may have committed, one would not think of either Evo Morales or Jeanine Anez as being a “terrorist.” Yet, however implausible the accusation may seem, being criminally investigated for “sedition and terrorism” in the past two years may be the only thing the two former Bolivian presidents have in common. After Morales resigned and fled the Andean nation in 2019 amid allegations of fraud in that year’s presidential election, the Justice Ministry under Anez’s interim presidency leveled the controversial charges against him, along with “genocide” for good measure. The indictment was based on both the socialist […]

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the creation of the Pacific Alliance, a Latin American regional trade bloc founded by Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile, with the hopes of expanding to others, such as Panama or Ecuador. The concept had been presented for the first time in 2006 by then-Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez: a network of countries on the Pacific coast that could increase their trade with the Asia-Pacific through interregional agreements. When the Pacific Alliance was finally launched in April 2011, its members had conservative presidents that aligned politically and commercially with Washington. Other countries in the […]