The Salvadoran state has closed off all possibility of any kind of negotiation with the gangs. The constitutional court’s August ruling, which stated that gang members will be considered as terrorists under Salvadoran law, will also affect the thousands of people who work with the gangs, all the way from family members to taxi drivers.
Now is a good time to examine a key question: Is Merida working? In light of the reality on the ground for many in Mexico (upwards of 130,000 have been killed in the country since December 2006, the year former President Felipé Calderón launched his drug war) the answer may seem obvious, and the question at best redundant, at worst perverse.
We are a group of social scientists with decades of research experience with the very populations targeted in Biden’s plan. We are painfully aware that Central America’s rural and urban poor need support. But Biden’s package is guaranteed to deepen—not alleviate—the problems faced by Central America’s poor majority.
The forced resignation of DEA chief Michele Leonhart is a step in the right direction toward cleaning up one of the most wasteful and ethically questionable agencies of the federal government, the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has released its annual assessment of the global arms trade, and the United States once again has the dubious distinction on coming in at the number-one spot.
The militarization of citizen security has contributed to systematic human rights abuses while harmful, private- and foreign-investor-led “development” policies continue to dispossess communities of their lands and livelihoods… Therefore, we call for robust, participatory and democratic processes of consultation with the population to be carried out before moving forward.
Less than a year after the crisis of unaccompanied minors arriving in the United States, Washington has come up with its policy response to the children’s plight. Unfortunately, while purporting to address the root causes of migration, it mirrors — and in many ways intensifies — the causes that forced so many to flee.
In-depth interview with the unique South American president, from the CIP Americas Program.
As the demand for justice for the 43 disappeared Ayotzinapa students continues in streets worldwide, the epidemic of violence against women grows and justice for its victims remains relegated to a labyrinth of impunity, inefficiency and government indifference.
The CBP drone program’s lack of effectiveness, absence of a clear mission focus, gaping cost-benefit disjuncture, and failure to demonstrate comparative advantage over other aerial assets underscore that it is time to not only limit the program, but to shut it down.
