The 7-O results in Venezuela
2012 Noviembre América Latina
Fourteen years have passed since Hugo Chávez burst upon the presidential scene with his Project for a Bolivarian Revolution. Citizens weary of political...

The extractive capitalism of Latin America’s progressive camp
2012 Junio América Latina
In today’s Latin America, the leading agro-mineral exporting countries, including those engaged with the world’s leading mining and energy multi-national...

Immigration policies during the Obama administration
2012 Abril América Latina
The only point of consensus regarding the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 S 1348), a federal compromise bill touted as both smoothing the...

We’re starting to see ourselves through our own eyes
2011 Diciembre América Latina
Latin America and the Caribbean are arising with extraordinary strength to form the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a small...

From Latin America to Abya Yala: The new awakening of indigenousness
2011 Septiembre América Latina
The homogenizing and “civilizing” policies fostered above all by the First Inter-American Indigenist Congress, held in Pátzcuaro, Mexico, in 1949, together...

Some thoughts for 21st-century socialists
2011 Julio América Latina
Revolutionaries almost always think that victory over their opponents means a total rupture with all past history. In the best of cases they admit...

The “Hidden Transcript” of the Powerful in WikiLeaks
2011 Marzo América Latina
Like many other years, 2010 was packed full of political events critical for the region. One of the most important and stunning phenomena on the international...

Seven Sound Barriers Broken In the Digital Radio Era
2010 Noviembre América Latina
As recently as ten years ago, we sent radio programs to our associated broadcasters from the regional office of the World Association of Community Radio...

Venezuela: Pieces for Analyzing Venezuela’s Election Results
2010 Octubre América Latina
Venezuela’s reality after its elections for parliament on September 26, 2010, is a glass half full for some and a glass half empty for others. The results...

A Look at the Gringo Wall
2010 Abril América Latina
In 1997, Tijuana artist Marcos Ramírez Erre placed a Trojan horse on the border between Tijuana and San Diego, just meters from the migration buildings....

Twelve Days on the Road to Rejection
2010 Marzo América Latina
On the run-up to Mardi Gras—the “Fat Tuesday” carnival the day before Lent—New Orleans Jesuit and lawyer Tom Greene organized an unusual workshop that...

“At The Heart of Uruguayan Democracy, Surrounded by Thinking Heads”
2010 Marzo América Latina
Dear friends, life has been extraordinarily generous to me. It has given me endless satisfactions beyond my wildest dreams. Almost all of them are...

Is There Participatory Democracy In the ALBA Countries?
2010 Enero América Latina
Latin America is a vast field of experimentation in which different political projects co-exist that are expressed in different forms of linkage among...

A Passenger’s Version of Latin America’s Future
2009 Noviembre América Latina
I had two passports in my hands and wasn’t sure which I should to give to the immigration official, who seemed more interested in the size of the airplane...

The Codes of Latin American Culture
2009 Noviembre América Latina
Like any other dimension of reality, the values that make up a society’s collective self-image need to be categorized to be analyzed. It is thus possible...

Letting a Hundred Flowers Bloom?
2009 Agosto América Latina
Intellectuals, democracy and socialism: Dead ends and access roads” was the name they gave to their critical reflection sessions on Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian...

Fernando Lugo: Irresponsibility and Machismo
2009 Junio América Latina
Responsible paternity is an issue of public interest. The rights of children, just like those of women, are a public issue because they are recognized...

The Left and Human Rights: A Contribution to the Debate
2008 Agosto América Latina
Fidel Castro wrote in Granma’s July 3 edition: “Out of a basic sense of humanity, we were pleased by the news that Ingrid Betancourt, three North...

What’s up, Old Man? A Look at Young People’s Politics
2008 Julio América Latina
We’re sick of being compared to the generation of old militants who never stop pointing out that things were better in their times, and that they...

Strawberry Fields and Undocumented Workers Forever?
2008 Junio América Latina
Salinas Valley was catapulted to universal fame by Nobel Prize winner in literature John Steinbeck, admirer of the original Californians, those who conserved...

Initial Statements by President-Elect Fernando Lugo
2008 Mayo América Latina
I’m Paraguayan. I’m not from the Left or the Right; I’m from Paraguay. My ideology. Ideologically, I don’t identify with any leftist...

Interview with President-Elect Lugo A Change in Paraguay’s “Cathedral”
2008 Mayo América Latina
He’s 55 years old, and has the olive-colored complexion of Paraguay’s Guaraní people. He was born in San Solano, a tiny Paraguayan village in the San...

Marxism, Post-Marxism, Liberation Theology (Part 1) Reflections for a Re-encounter
2008 Enero América Latina
Liberation Theology’s reinterpretation of Jesus’ message is a landmark in Latin American historical development. It destabilized the providentialist...

Chávez’s Behavior at the Summit: Symptoms of Latin American Insecurity
2007 Diciembre América Latina
Everything that Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez said in his altercation with President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and King Juan Carlos of Spain at...

Latin American Radio: Six Contributions to Development
2007 Noviembre América Latina
Radio always has been and continues to be the mass medium with the greatest coverage and acceptance in Latin America. Even in the Altiplano or the depths...

Five Little Problems with Venezuela’s Brand of 21st Century Socialism
2007 Octubre América Latina
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez was reelected in December 2006 with over 60% of thevote. During the campaign and ever since, he has insisted that...

Red Alert for Climate Change And a Possible Way Out
2007 Septiembre América Latina
Nobody on the planet any longer questions that climate change is real. It is a direct consequence of the culture currently dominating 100% of the Earth’s...

How Can We Give The Earth a Future?
2007 Agosto América Latina
It’s an honor for me to give this lecture to open this university’s general studies courses. I know many universities in both the East and the West...

The Ignored Contradiction between Modern State and Providential God
2007 Julio América Latina
Aprovidential vision of God predominates in Latin America. While it is largely rooted in the Catholicism inherited from Spanish colonial times, it is...

Media Content as Social Property
2007 Junio América Latina
Who owns the rainbow? Does someone have title to the property over the oceans, which takes up most of the planet’s surface? What would you think if...

Bush-Lula: The Ethanol Alliance
2007 Mayo América Latina
If you think that President George W. Bush’s visit to several Latin American countries, Brazil in particular, was inspired by alarming warnings from...

No Salvation Apart from the Poor
2007 Abril América Latina
Paul exclaimed: “Poor me! Who will save me from this mortal body?” Current times don’t lend them selves to this kind of question. We’re part of a civilization...

Reform or Revolution? And the Left’s Ethical Challenge
2007 Marzo América Latina
In February I had the chance to share ideas on the present and future of the Latin American Left with a group of friends and colleagues from the region...

Chakana Guides for Community Radio
2007 Febrero América Latina
The Aymara call it Pusi Wara, four stars, but it’s more commonly called Chakana, which means the stair way, the bridge to the higher world. People...

Two Opposing Solutions to Latin America’s Two-Sided Problem
2006 Noviembre América Latina
The results of many of the elections held in Latin America in recent months have led numerous observers, perhaps the majority, to speak of a “leftwing...

A Portrait of the Chávez Government
2006 Noviembre América Latina
Two key elements allow us to explore and understand the new political expressions arising in the current Latin American contexts. One is the change...

AIDS and Migrants: A Perverse Association
2006 Octubre América Latina
The acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has earned a prominent place among the cruelest scourges to afflict humanity. The bottom line of its global...

Politics and Energy: Now and for the Future
2006 Octubre América Latina
In probably no other region of the world are energy and politics so closely related as in Latin America. For a state to have control of a petroleum company...

What Must We Change To Provide Quality Education?
2006 Junio América Latina
It isn’t enough to guarantee the broadest possible infant education coverage. We also need to guarantee its quality. For many theoretical reasons and...

What Culture Are We Legitimizing In Our Classrooms?
2006 Mayo América Latina
Of all the quality criteria for an educational curriculum for children at the initial or infant education level, or any other level for that matter,...

What’s Our Concept of Children and Classrooms?
2006 Abril América Latina
Education is always based on a curriculum: a consistent and coherent set of different factors and elements that we intentionalize and organize to foster...

What Kind of People Are We Forming In Our Kindergartens?
2006 Marzo América Latina
The most recent contributions to neurology have shown that three quarters of the neuronal connections that human beings use during their lifetime for...

Michelle Bachelet: A Mother for Chile?
2006 Enero América Latina
When Michelle Bachelet took over Chile’s defense portfolio, her first meeting with the top command began with the following declaration: “I’m a socialist,...

“Chile is for all of us”
2006 Enero América Latina
The Concertation is a coalition of parties that emerged to fight for a better Chile. During the eighties we won democracy. The first years of the nineties...

States and Laws Reproduce Violence against Women
2005 Septiembre América Latina
The words of Latin American women continue to have no value to those who legislate, govern and administer justice. A couple of weeks ago I was in Mexico...

Father Knows Best: A Key to Understanding Us
2005 Septiembre América Latina
Attempting to discover why, even though the ideals of societal modernization are relatively well known in Latin America, the state so passionately resists...

Building Citizenship: A Challenge for Radio
2005 Julio América Latina
It was in London during a meeting of AMARC’s inter-national administrative council that I openly used the term “citizens’ radio” for the first time....

Down and Dirty in Latin America
2004 Octubre América Latina
There is a set of modern beliefs, images, symbols and metaphors that relate to life, identity, otherness and the place of cleanliness and whiteness in...

The Left in the 21st Century: Reflections, Tasks and Challenges
2004 Julio América Latina
The Left’s renewed presence in Latin American political life can be observed in the emergence of a series of governments that, admittedly vaguely, identify...

An Economy Without Ethics Means a Continent Without Development
2004 Junio América Latina
In his small treasure chest titled On Ethics and Economics, published in 1987, Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics Amartya Sen referred to the serious...

Rhetoric Reigned in the European-Latin American Summit
2004 Junio América Latina
The Third Summit of Heads of State of Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union was held in Guadalajara on May 28-29. The first had taken...

From Conqueror State to Nation State Is from Resignation to Citizenship
2004 Mayo América Latina
In Nicaragua, our historic present could be characterized as a long, almost retarded present relative to our era’srhythm, since it covers at least...

The Legacy of a Life Intensely Lived
2003 Octubre América Latina
It has been very hard for me to write this, as my memory has been filled with contradictory experiences and recollections, a profound sense of joy and...

Another Kind of Development and Integration Is Possible
2003 Octubre América Latina
Concern about Latin America¡¦s development includes a dimension without which any project for this continent is unthinkable: the well-being of the entire...

Brazil’s Landless Movement: “Our Aim Is to Topple Three Walls...”
2003 Enero América Latina
One of the great challenges Lula faces is how to achieve agrarian reform in Brazil, where 500 latifundistas (large estate owners) own unproductive...

From the Feminization of Poverty to Women’s Political Leadership
2002 Diciembre América Latina
Isabel is an Argentine woman from the province of Salta. She used to get up very early in the morning, wake up the kids and go to the factory. Later,...

The New Ecology: Exploiting Forests to Preserve Them
2002 Agosto América Latina
In less than forty years peasant families have gone from being heroes to being villains by clearing forest land to sow maize and beans, cultivate coffee...

Crime Is on the Rise in our Lands
2002 Mayo América Latina
The crime rates in Central and South America have skyrocketed in the last two decades. According to The Economist, all of the region’s cities...

Sexism in the Spanish Language
2002 Mayo América Latina
It is so vivid it seems like yesterday, and yet it was almost 30 years ago, around 1973, that we were in that philosophy department assembly in Oviedo....

The War against Coca: A View from Bolivia
2001 Abril América Latina
In its fight against drugs, the US government has declared war on coca and thus on the peasant families who grow this prodigious plant in the valleys...

We Women Want Power
2001 Marzo América Latina
Up until the 21st century women participated in social processes as part of their groups, communities or towns. They had no specific participation that...

Educational Reform in Latin America: "It Needs to be Turned Around"
2000 Septiembre América Latina
The start of a new decade and of a new century is an invitation to reflect on past achievements and to prepare a future agenda based on new available...

Latin America and International Cooperation
2000 Julio América Latina
Latin America and the Caribbean—"Our America," as Cuban patriot José Martí called it — is a region of the world whose face is presented to you daily...

Let People’s Voices Be Heard In the New Millennium
1999 Diciembre América Latina
When we inaugurated Radio Enriquillo in southeastern Dominican Republic, we wanted to open its microphones to all voices. From the first day of transmission,...

Setting Chile on the Right Path
1999 Octubre América Latina
The arrest of General Augusto Pinochet in London on October 16, 1998, has led our country, or perhaps more accurately has forced it, to look into the...

Agrarian Reforms: The Latin American Legacy (part 2)
1999 Agosto América Latina
Although agrarian reform may be a prerequisite for sustainable development, it is certainly not a panacea for all of the disasters suffered by Latin...

Agrarian Reforms: The Latin American Experience
1999 Julio América Latina
How well was Latin American agriculture performing before the agrarian reforms were implemented? The figures reflecting agricultural growth in the post-war...

Violence against Women: A Centuries-Old Plague
1999 Junio América Latina
The sight of someone slapping a woman's face now sparks general rejection and alarm. This public show of virtue, however, can conceal the private vice...

Pinochet Under Arrest The End of Voluntaristic Democracy
1998 Diciembre América Latina
Finances and stock markets are not the only things that have globalized. Law and the struggle against impunity are beginning to be universalized too,...

Research and Social Action: Keys for an Alliance
1998 Noviembre América Latina
Academics look down on grassroots researchers. Social activists complain that researchers are slow and removed from reality. Some analysts are bureaucrats...

From North to South: Travel Tips for Cooperants
1998 Noviembre América Latina
By Sergio Ferrari, a Latin American journalist in Geneva, Switzerland. Talking with Leonardo Boff is like a "cosmic learning experience," especially...

The Rights and Duties of Community Radio
1998 Octubre América Latina
1. Communication is a universal and fundamental human right. The word brings us closer together, opens us up to each other, develops us, makes us better...

A Declaration of Human Rights For the 21st Century
1998 Septiembre América Latina
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was born exactly fifty years ago, in 1948. A new initiative by Latin America's women is now touring the continent...

"We Need Fair Trade, Not Free Trade"
1998 Junio América Latina
AS MEMBERS OF UNIONS, SOCIAL AND HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS OF WOMEN, indigenous, educators, environmentalists and parliamentarians...

When Children Organize And Want to Work
1998 Mayo América Latina
When the child and adolescent workers of the Christian Workers' Movement (MANTHOC) was born in Peru in 1976, it was the first such movement in Latin...

Community Radios: Freedom of Antenna!
1998 Febrero América Latina
WHEN YOUNG JOURNALISTS INTERVIEW ME, THEY NEVER FAIL TO ASK A KEY QUESTION: "AND RADIO... DOES IT STILL HAVE A FUTURE? How does it defend itself against...

A School Where People Learn How to Learn
1998 Enero América Latina
THE EFFECTS OF ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL GLOBALIZATION ARE DENOUNCED DAILY but, given that transnational interests move with the same objectives in the...

NGOs: Rethinking Strategy
1997 Octubre América Latina
In discussions about the impact of globalization, we spend too much time batting around questions of what to do and who to do it with, and don't put...

For Life and Against Neoliberalism
1997 Febrero América Latina
Dear Friends: We Provincial Superiors of the Society of Jesus in Latin America and the Caribbean, following the call of General Congregation...

For an Agrarian Reform Of the Air Waves
1996 Mayo América Latina
A Great Festival of Latin American and Caribbean Grass roots and Community Television and Radio was celebrated in Quito, Ecuador, on November 20 24,...

Summit of the Americas: Only the US Wins
1995 Febrero América Latina
The Summit of the Americas, held in Miami on December 9 11, 1994, enjoyed the presence of all but one of the 35 heads of state from the Americas and...

Community Media in Neoliberal Times
1993 Abril América Latina
Some have already broken the seventh seal. Without waiting for angels or trumpets, Fukuyama and the neoliberal prophets have declared the end of history....

Liberation Theology Today: Crisis or Challenge?
1992 Agosto América Latina
It is commonly believed that with the fall of Eastern Europe's socialist governments, the crisis in Marxist thought and the installation of the new world...

An Ecological SOS in Latin America*
1991 Noviembre América Latina
One year before the 500th anniversary of the "encounter" between two worlds and two natural systems, and only a few years before the end of the 20th...

Latin America in the "New World Order"*
1991 Agosto América Latina
A series of international meetings and seminars held in Latin America and elsewhere in 1990-1991 indicate a common evaluation of the nature of Latin...

The Last Word
1989 Junio América Latina
In the following statement the Latin American nations known as the Group of Eight, minus Panama, meeting in Rio de Janeiro, make known their concern...