Tag: Human Rights

Asunción Lavrin, Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America: Review

Asunción Lavrin, ed. Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America. 1. paperback print. Latin American Studies Series. Lincoln, Neb.: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1992. Asunción Lavrin’s edited volume, Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, presents a series of perspectives on what Lavrin calls the “conquest of the mind,” the means through which the Spanish… Read More Asunción Lavrin, Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America: Review

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Surveying the Field: Peasant Power in Andean History

Like many global hotspots of the twentieth century, the Andes is marked by its history of structural inequality, racial conflict, and legacies of poverty and violence. Tensions between urban and rural areas as well as between descendants of European and Andean ancestry still exist and remain a source of scholarly interest in the region. In… Read More Surveying the Field: Peasant Power in Andean History

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Karen Spalding, Huarochirí: Review

Karen Spalding, Huarochirí, an Andean Society under Inca and Spanish Rule (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1984). Karen Spalding’s history of colonial Peru, Huarochirí, begins with the origins of Andean society, following social changes from pre-Inca days until the height of colonial rule. Written in the mid-1980s amidst a brutal economic crisis that inordinately impacted… Read More Karen Spalding, Huarochirí: Review

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Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela: Review

Alejandro Velasco, Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela (Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2015). Alejandro Velasco’s Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela (2015) uses the Caracas superblock housing complex, known today as 23 de Enero, to analyze Venezuela’s transition from the dictatorship of Marcos… Read More Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela: Review

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Oral History: Ventriloquism or Privileged Interpretation?

Daniel James, Doña María’s Story: Life History, Memory, and Political Identity, Latin America Otherwise (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000). Imagine you have thirty hours of interviews, nine months of work, more than seven decades of oral history from a privileged witness to the rise of Peronism and the Argentine labor movement…and then you start… Read More Oral History: Ventriloquism or Privileged Interpretation?

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Brazil’s Last Slave: The Captive Environment in Pernambuco’s Sugar Fields

Thomas D. Rogers, The Deepest Wounds: A Labor and Environmental History of Sugar in Northeast Brazil (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010). Thomas Rogers’ The Deepest Wounds argues that Pernambuco sugar planters “saw no distinction between land and labor” (8). Enslaved and free workers on cane plantations were demoted in elites’ eyes to… Read More Brazil’s Last Slave: The Captive Environment in Pernambuco’s Sugar Fields

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Digging Out of Darkness: Labor, Capital, and the Chilean State in the Age of Mass Society

Pavilack, Jody. Mining for the Nation: The Politics of Chile’s Coal Communities from the Popular Front to the Cold War. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011. When Chile granted literate men over the age of 21 the right to vote in 1925, a new era marked by the rise of mass society… Read More Digging Out of Darkness: Labor, Capital, and the Chilean State in the Age of Mass Society

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Black Icarus: Slave Strategies in a Jamaican Hell

Trevor G. Burnard, Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire: Thomas Thistlewood and His Slaves in the Anglo-Jamaican World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). Death in the sun-drenched fields or torture in the shade of the house? Resistance or collaboration? How did enslaved Africans cope with the trauma of life on Anglo-Jamaican sugar plantations in… Read More Black Icarus: Slave Strategies in a Jamaican Hell

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Chile Invokes Anti-Terror Law to Quell Violence, Rosende Says

By Nathan Gill Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) — Chile will use an anti-terrorism law criticized by human rights groups to try and quell a spate of violence over indigenous lands in the country’s south, a government official said. The government will apply the law, dating from the military dictatorship, against those responsible for armed attacks against… Read More Chile Invokes Anti-Terror Law to Quell Violence, Rosende Says

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Correa Says Ecuador Willing to Renew Relations With Colombia

By Nathan GillFeb. 27 (Bloomberg) — Ecuador may renew diplomatic relations with Colombia if certain conditions are met, President Rafael Correa said today in a statement posted on the presidential Web site. Correa asked Colombia to reveal all the details of an air raid last year in Ecuadorean territory, repay Ecuador for unspecified damages, support… Read More Correa Says Ecuador Willing to Renew Relations With Colombia

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President Proposes National Recall Vote As Bolivia Slides Further Into Chaos

(Dec. 6, 2007) Violent protests continue to rock Bolivia as politicians refuse to compromise on a new national constitution. President Evo Morales has proposed a national recall vote for himself and the country’s nine prefects to help end protests that began after his political party Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) railroaded a new draft constitution through… Read More President Proposes National Recall Vote As Bolivia Slides Further Into Chaos

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21st Century Socialists Turn Tables On Opposition

(Nov. 30, 2007) Without delay, Ecuador’s new Constitutional Assembly approved President Rafael Correa’s proposal to close the national congress until the assembly concludes its broad reorganization of the state in what officials are calling a “Citizen Revolution.” Ecuador is the third South American country to call a Constitutional Assembly this century, joining Venezuela and Bolivia… Read More 21st Century Socialists Turn Tables On Opposition

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Bolivian Assembly Approves Constitution In Irregular Session

(Nov. 26, 2007) Last Friday Bolivian President Evo Morales and his MAS party in the National Assembly approved constitutional changes by a simple majority vote in an irregular session without the presence of opposition parties. According to the former Vice President Victor Hugo Cádenas the meeting took place in a military barracks in Sucre where… Read More Bolivian Assembly Approves Constitution In Irregular Session

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Venezuelan Police Shoot Students Protesting Chávez’s Constitutional Reforms

(Nov. 25, 2007) Riot police shot a group of students from the Universidad Monteávila on Friday for handing out pamphlets protesting the upcoming constitutional referendum in Venezuela. El Observador Online reported that eight students were wounded in the attack. Police firing small pellets and tear gas forced students to seek protection inside their university. The… Read More Venezuelan Police Shoot Students Protesting Chávez’s Constitutional Reforms

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Why Are People Worried About Constitutional Reforms in Venezuela?

(Oct. 30, 2007) Are the constitutional reforms to be voted on in December a threat to Venezuela’s democracy, and if so, what implications does this have for the region? In a strong statement denouncing the proposed constitutional reforms a number of influential academic and social academies have recently spoken out against President Hugo Chávez’s proposed… Read More Why Are People Worried About Constitutional Reforms in Venezuela?

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BERRIÓS CASE: JUDGE INVESTIGATES PINOCHET’S SON

(May 31, 2006) The investigation into the murder of Eugenio Berríos has uncovered links between Augusto Pinochet Hiriart, the eldest son of the former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and various military organizations in Chile and Uruguay suspected of taking part in the 1993 homicide of the former secret police chemist. Investigative Judge Alejandro Madrid released… Read More BERRIÓS CASE: JUDGE INVESTIGATES PINOCHET’S SON

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BERRIÓS CASE: JUDGE INVESTIGATES PINOCHET’S SON

(May 31, 2006) The investigation into the murder of Eugenio Berríos has uncovered links between Augusto Pinochet Hiriart, the eldest son of the former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and various military organizations in Chile and Uruguay suspected of taking part in the 1993 homicide of the former secret police chemist. Investigative Judge Alejandro Madrid released… Read More BERRIÓS CASE: JUDGE INVESTIGATES PINOCHET’S SON

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PRESIDENT OF CHILE MEETS WITH HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP

(May 29, 2006) President Michelle Bachelet made a historic visit to the headquarters of the Families of Disappeared Detainees (AFDD) on Friday to speak with leaders of the group about human rights issues. The visit was the first time since the transition to Democracy in 1990 that a Chilean president has personally visited the organization… Read More PRESIDENT OF CHILE MEETS WITH HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP

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PRESIDENT OF CHILE MEETS WITH HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP

(May 29, 2006) President Michelle Bachelet made a historic visit to the headquarters of the Families of Disappeared Detainees (AFDD) on Friday to speak with leaders of the group about human rights issues. The visit was the first time since the transition to Democracy in 1990 that a Chilean president has personally visited the organization… Read More PRESIDENT OF CHILE MEETS WITH HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP

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FUJIMORI: PERU REQUESTS GAG ORDER

(May 26, 2006) President Michelle Bachelet requested that Chile’s Supreme Court keep ex-Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori quiet after a series of comments on Peru’s upcoming elections provoked an outcry from government officials in Lima. Since being released on bail, Fujimori has generated a whirlwind of controversy between the two countries as well as confrontations with… Read More FUJIMORI: PERU REQUESTS GAG ORDER

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OPERATION COLOMBO: CONTRERAS RESPONDS TO ALLEGATIONS

(May 24, 2006) Gen. Manuel Contreras, former director of Chile’s secret police, will appear before Santiago’s Constitutional Tribunal Thursday to appeal the 258 human rights violations currently filed against him. Gen. Contreras’ lawyer, Fidel Reyes, is expected to argue that the charges against his client are inapplicable because of due process violations arising from the… Read More OPERATION COLOMBO: CONTRERAS RESPONDS TO ALLEGATIONS

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GOVERNMENT PERPLEXED BY MAPUCHE HUNGER STRIKE

(May 24, 2006) Senator Alejandro Navarro will travel to Araucanía in southern Chile on Thursday to figure out what went wrong with a government negotiated agreement that ended a 63-day hunger strike of four Mapuche prisoners. The strikers resumed their protest last Saturday criticizing the government for failing to hold up their end of the… Read More GOVERNMENT PERPLEXED BY MAPUCHE HUNGER STRIKE

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CARAVAN OF DEATH: JUDGES SENTENCE DRAWS CRITICISM

(May 18 2006) Judge Víctor Montiglio closed the case against six retired military member in the Caravan of Death case Wednesday deciding to apply Chile’s controversial 1978 Amnesty law instead of prosecuting. The ruling goes against the stated policy of the Chile’s Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court as well as the Geneva conventions on… Read More CARAVAN OF DEATH: JUDGES SENTENCE DRAWS CRITICISM

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RIGGS BANK CASE: JUDGE CERDA SENDS TEAM TO U.S. TO TRACK BRIBES

(May 17, 2006) Judge Carlos Cerda has authorized a team of Chilean State prosecutors (CDE) to travel to the U.S. to investigate multiple bank accounts held by Chile’s former Dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet and his family at Barclays Bank PLC and Lehman Brothers. The authorization comes on the heels of new findings in the Riggs… Read More RIGGS BANK CASE: JUDGE CERDA SENDS TEAM TO U.S. TO TRACK BRIBES

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PINOCHET CHARGED IN CHILE FOR MURDER OF SECRET POLICE CHEMIST EUGENIO BERRIOS

Door May Open Revealing Dictator’s Complicity In Other Human Rights Violations, Including The Death Of President Frei Montalva (May 12, 2006) The investigation into the death of former secret police chemist Eugenio Berríos has allegedly linked Chile’s former dictator General Augusto Pinochet to the murder as well as the mysterious death of former President Eduardo… Read More PINOCHET CHARGED IN CHILE FOR MURDER OF SECRET POLICE CHEMIST EUGENIO BERRIOS

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