Ending Latin America’s Sewage Decade
The victory of Xiomara Castro in Honduras is a sign that region is ready to exit its lost decade.
Whose Coups?
Donald Trump says that impeachment is actually a coup. It’s one more example of his attack on the rule of law.
It’s Not Just a ‘Coup’: Bolivia’s Democracy Is in Meltdown
The ‘Was it a coup?’ debate distracts from deeper issues plaguing the country — some of Morales’s making.
Author Event: From the Mines to the Streets: A Bolivian Activist’s Life
A discussion book signing with visiting author activists Félix Muruchi about Bolivia’s current process of change and indigenous rights.
The Search for Snowden and Obscene Assaults on Sovereignty
Bolivia’s President Evo Morales — no place to land.
Our Unscientific Drug Control Regime
International standards for drug control are increasingly unscientific and deleterious.
Bolivian President Morales Bows to Pressure and Cancels Amazon Highway
Indigenous groups, who have traditionally served as Morales’s support base, protested the road’s construction, which would have bisected their territory.
Travel Writer Michael Jacobs Does Justice to the Andes
An interview with travel writer Michael Jacobs about his most recent book, “Andes.”
Bolivia After the Storm
At the end of December, the first popular uprising in the region against a government of the left took place in Bolivia.
U.S. Renews Anachronistic Campaign to Stamp Out Coca Leaf Chewing
Washington hues to 50-year-old convention for abolishing a centuries-old indigenous practice.
Creating Cultural Bridges: The Art of Edgar Endress
Artist Edgar Endress talks about his work on immigration, the currency of eks, and the Balkanization of Bolivia.
Deflating Bolivia Hyperbole in the United States
In many ways, perceptions of Bolivia in the United States resemble a Rorschach test on which to project one’s fears, dogmas or utopian visions. In reality, Bolivian political and social dynamics are complex, constantly shifting, and impossible to force into preconceived external formulas. Neither an Andean socialist paradise nor an extension of the “Venezuelan-Iran-Cuba axis of the Bolivarian Revolution,” recent reports perpetuate stale stereotypes and misconceptions and prevent a balanced evaluation of the challenges faced in Bolivia. This briefing will deconstruct one such recent publication Into the Abyss: Bolivia Under Evo Morales and the MAS as a typical case study and offer a deeper, more nuanced analysis of recent developments. Since 1999, Kathryn Ledebur has directed the Andean Information Network (AIN), which promotes human rights and socioeconomic justice in Bolivia and more humane and effective illicit drug control policies. AIN provides information and analysis to NGO colleagues, the media and international policymakers on developments in Bolivia and the impact of U.S. government and European policies.
Please RSVP to Sanho Tree stree@igc.org or call (202) 787-5266.
Book Event: Globalization on the GroundWhat Bolivia Teaches Us
As the U.S. enters a new political era, what can we learn from one nation´s battle to define its own way forward in a globalizing world? Jim Shultz and Melissa Crane Draper of the Democracy Center in Cochabamba, Bolivia will share lessons from the book Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization. The event, co-hosted by the Institute for Policy Studies, along with Food and Water Watch and the Quixote Center, will also feature music, a slideshow, and refreshments.
Dignity and Defiance, edited by Jim Shultz and Melissa Crane Draper, is a powerful, well-crafted, eyewitness account, of Bolivia’s rebellion from below. Readers will find compelling first person accounts of Bolivia’s historic water revolt; of a massive Shell-Enron oil spill and its aftermath; of a nation’s battle to control its oil and gas; and of one people’s dramatic and successful challenge to the policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Here too is the story of those seeking out globalization’s opportunities, from indigenous weaving communities to emigrants, transplanted to three continents.
Bolivia’s story is emblematic of the major political and social transformation underway throughout Latin America today. This book brings readers into that story at a human level, through the eye of skilled writers who blend together deep research and compelling narrative to bring a nation’s story to life.
About the Democracy Center: The Democracy Center works globally to advance social justice through a combination of investigation and reporting, training citizens in the art of public advocacy, and organizing international citizen campaigns.
IPS is working with The Democracy Center to challenge the international investment rules that undermine human rights and democracy by giving foreign investors the right to bypass domestic courts and sue governments directly in international tribunals.
Bolivia and Latin America: New Actors for New Times
Chomsky on the Rise of the South
Noam Chomsky looks at the increasing power and coordination of the countries of the Global South.