Laura Carlsen, Author at Americas Program

Mexico got rid of the DEA’s most elite unit. Now it should get rid of the DEA.

The news that the Mexican government had shut down operations of the elite DEA team in the country – the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) – provoked an avalanche of articles in the press, most of them defending the DEA in order to criticize the president. Hardly any of them spoke about the disastrous history of the Unit, much less about the perverse history and actions of the DEA in Mexico –and in all of Latin America. The agency has left a bloody trail of failures, incompliance with regulations, complicities and corruption in its mission to export the war on drugs as an instrument of social control and U.S. hegemony.

At midpoint in the AMLO administration, Mexico urgently needs a dignified and sovereign migration policy

It’s a well-known scene throughout the world: migrant families marching in the streets to demand their rights and seek a better life are brutally repressed by state forces. Police wield billy clubs to attack men, women and children and enforce the message migrants and refugees have heard everywhere: “You are not welcome here”.

In the Search for the Disappeared, the Seeds of a New Society

Drug War Featured Content Human Rights March 7, 2022 1Like 0Comments

The brigades have unearthed hundreds of human remains and clues to the whereabouts of their loved ones, disappeared throughout Mexico. Their goal is to find them and return them to their families, and that in a context where the state and a large part of society have buried their very existence.

The Exaggerated Death of Mexico’s Drug War

Drug War social movements August 9, 2021 0Likes 0Comments

If this announcement, like previous ones, is merely a way of marking rhetorical distance from the U.S. government without charting a completely different and sovereign national security policy, we´ll be where we started–with uncontrolled violence in many parts of the country.

Colombia, Between Extermination and Emancipation

Democracy and Society social movements June 8, 2021 0Likes 0Comments

his phase of resistance began with a shout of protest against a new policy that would levy taxes on basic products and services, raising the cost of living in a country where unemployment, poverty and inequality are at unprecedented levels. It has now become a struggle between extermination and emancipation.

The defense of the Body-Territory

Gender Equality Human Rights social movements May 5, 2021 0Likes 0Comments

This Earth Day, four women defenders from four countries came together to reflect on their struggles defending the body-territory. They emphasized that the relationship of women’s bodies with the earth, its natural resources, and the mutual care that this implies, is reflected in the types of threats and forms of violence against women’s bodies and against the earth that emanate from the same capitalist-patriarchal system that seeks total domination of both territories.

Victoria Esperanza Salazar should not have died

Gender Equality Human Rights Migration April 8, 2021 0Likes 0Comments

Femicide is a crime foretold, warns lawyer Karla Micheel Salas. Announced, frequently by the victim herself, in denunciations and desperate cries for help that are ignored by the authorities and society. Announced by the conditions of discrimination, threat and vulnerability in which so many women live. Announced, by the numbers of femicides that increase daily. Announced, because of the capitalist-patriarchal system in which we all live, a system that devalues the life of women, especially if they are poor brown migrants with disabilities.

Five years after the “sowing” of Berta Caceres

Human Rights Land and Territory social movements April 5, 2021 0Likes 0Comments

At the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), the organization that Berta Cáceres founded, they have a saying “Berta did not die: she multiplied”; that March 2nd was not the date…

How much is the life of a migrant worth?

Migration social movements April 3, 2021 0Likes 0Comments

The scene is tragic and horrifying. Two burnt out vehicles containing 19 bodies, one of them riddled by 113 bullets, along the hellish slice of borderland in Tamaulipas, near the Nuevo León and Texas.

Adios Trump: A chance to reset US-Mexico relations

Democracy and Society Drug War Gender Equality Human Rights social movements January 4, 2021 0Likes 0Comments

If any country on earth should be breathing a huge sigh of relief about now, it’s Mexico. Four years of bashing, bullying, trade threats and white supremacist machinations now ends with the ignominious exit of Donald J. Trump.

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Author page: Laura Carlsen

Mexico got rid of the DEA’s most elite unit. Now it should get rid of the DEA.

At midpoint in the AMLO administration, Mexico urgently needs a dignified and sovereign migration policy

In the Search for the Disappeared, the Seeds of a New Society

Victoria Esperanza Salazar should not have died

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