Whose embassy?
Under the 1961 Vienna Convention, foreign embassies are ‘inviolable’: the host country’s officials have a ‘special duty’ to protect them and can’t enter without permission. When the Venezuelan embassy in Washington DC was besieged last summer, the National Lawyers Guild said that the US government had flouted the convention by condoning the attacks and protecting […]
The discoverer of the New World
A review of ‘The Invention of Nature’ by Andrea Wulf On 16 July 1799 a revolutionary thinker arrived in Latin America. Unlike most Europeans who had preceded him to the continent, he didn’t believe in slavery and he promoted the rights of indigenous people. He saw mining for gold and silver for the exploitation it […]
Call for President Obama to revoke his Executive Order against Venezuela
Over 120 organisations have signed a letter to President Obama instigated by the Alliance for Global Justice, calling on him to rescind his executive order which imposes sanctions on officials in Venezuela and describes the government of Nicolas Maduro as an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States’. […]
The United States of South America
Creating the USSA was the driving ambition of Latin America’s ‘Liberator’, Simón Bolívar. According to his biographer Marie Arana, it may well have been in London in 1810, in conversations with Francisco de Miranda, that he first conceived of a federal power in the southern continent to match that in the north. He spent the […]
The General in his Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez
I revisited this novel after reading the new biography of Simon Bolívar by Marie Arana, because after her factual description of what is known about the last weeks of Bolívar’s life, it seemed only appropriate to see them as re-imagined by García Márquez. I would strongly recommend the combination of books for anyone interested in […]
What’s in it for Ecuador?
If Ecuador grants asylum to Edward Snowden, no doubt we’ll hear Rafael Correa being described once more as a ‘tinpot president’, ready to welcome dissidents to Ecuador’s ‘jungly bosom’. If instead Snowden ends up in Venezuela or Cuba, his would-be jailers will move even further onto their moral high ground.
Lessons from Latin America: the case for public investment in housing
A huge Venezuelan housebuilding programme has exceeded its targets, helped reduce poverty and boosted the economy.
Chávez’s legacy of change
From Guardian Weekly letters, 22 March Your editorial and Tariq Ali’s piece on Hugo Chávez (15 March) had a fairness and balance. To understand Chávez’s significance, it is vital to be aware of the role the US has played in Latin America for well over a century, deposing or assassinating elected leaders and carrying out […]
Why they love Chávez
You would expect the New York Post to say Glad to see Hugo (get it?). Or Britain’s Daily Mail to label him a brutal despot (ignoring the fact that he won four elections). Toby Young in the Daily Telegraph, looking for the most obnoxious comparison possible, said he was the Latin American Kim Jong-il. More […]
Book Review: The Hacienda by Lisa St Aubin de Teran
I declare an interest. I own a farm in Latin America. It is much smaller than the one of which this author became the Doña for several years. Also, I came to my farm late in life, whereas when she came to hers when she was a teenager. Sometimes, when I walk the few hundred […]
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on