Whether Biden or Trump, US’s Latin American Policy Will Still Be Contemptible
By John Perry and Roger D. Harris With Donald Trump as the new US president, pundits are speculating about how US policy towards Latin America might change. In this article, we look at some of the speculation, then address three specific instances of how the US’s policy priorities may be viewed from a progressive, Latin […]
![President Gustavo Petro with Palestine Ambassador to Colombia, Raouf Almalki. [Source: thesun.my]](https://twoworlds.me/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/petro3-150x150.jpg)
Latin American Governments Pay a Price for Challenging Israel’s Genocidal War
Governments in Latin America have been at the forefront of opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and several of those which have done so suddenly face new threats, even including attempted coups. Adrienne Pine, a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, said during a recent webinar hosted by the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition that […]
The Narcodictator in His Labyrinth
Prosecutors in New York this month claimed they had cracked ‘the largest drug trafficking conspiracy in the world’. While it lasted, more than four hundred tons of cocaine were shipped to the United States from clandestine airstrips in Honduras by characters with aliases such as ‘The Tiger’ and ‘El Porky’. Million-dollar bribes were paid to […]
A Tale of Two Countries: Honduras & Nicaragua face the shock doctrine
Jenny Atlee, Jim Phillips and I presented a webinar on neighbouring countries, Honduras and Nicaragua, that have both suffered what Naomi Klein called the “shock doctrine”. Both rejected neoliberalism in elections last year, but both are under renewed pressure to conform to Washington’s expectations. My contribution compares the two countries’ approaches to the pandemic, and […]
It began with a shipwreck
Some time in the 17th century, a vessel carrying enslaved people from the west coast of Africa ran aground near the Caribbean island of St Vincent, close enough to shore that the survivors swam to land, disposed of their captors and settled alongside the Indigenous Carib-Arawak people, who already offered a safe haven to runaway […]
JOH’s luck runs out
Until 27 January, Juan Orlando Hernández was president of Honduras; he’s now on his way to a high-security prison in New York, awaiting trial. On the day JOH handed power to Xiomara Castro, charges were filed against him that would lead to an extradition request from the US embassy in Tegucigalpa. He was arrested on […]
End of a Narcostate?
Joe Biden has a Central America problem. Countries that turned reliably neoliberal after the ‘small wars’ of the 1980s have become unwieldy again. After sixteen years of neoliberalism, Nicaraguans returned Daniel Ortega to power in 2007 and re-elected him this month in a vote which Biden dismissed as a ‘pantomime’. In El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, […]
Are Nicaraguan Migrants Escaping ‘Repression’-or Economic Downturn?
“Record numbers” of migrants are coming into the United States from Nicaragua, according to Newsweek, which blames the increase on “arbitrary arrests and human rights abuses” by the Nicaraguan government. Former Sandinista leader Sergio Ramírez, writing for El Salvador’s El Faro, claims that “repression” by President Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista government is causing a “dramatic growth” […]
United States struggles to pick a side in upcoming Honduran elections
For Biden, backing a candidate for the November elections in Honduras is a choice between protecting U.S. business interests and condemning the corruption, drug trafficking, and violence that increase migration. Of the countries in Central America’s “northern triangle,” Honduras is the one that sends the most migrants to the United States. Already this year over […]
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on