Category: Democracies

From Student Movement to Autonomous Education

November 1, 2016

The broad student movement that won Chile’s alamedas – with demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of young people and the occupation of dozens of secondary schools, demanding changes in the education system – has sedimented in the creation of some thirty self-managed education initiatives in working-class territories.

Citizen Excursions into the Border’s Valley of Dollars and Death

October 27, 2016

It’s anybody’s guess how many victims of violence are still buried somewhere in the Juarez Valley on the Mexico-U.S. border. For starters, there is the still largely unexcavated Navajo Arroyo, where the remains of 18 young women who went missing from nearby Ciudad Juarez have been recovered and identified since late 2011, according to the local daily Norte.

Plan Colombia, Permanent War and the NO Vote

October 17, 2016

The Colombian people voted NO to peace. Or to be exact, 50.2% of 37% of the eligible population voted no. In the referendum held Oct. 2, the majority of voters decided to scuttle four years of peace talks dedicated to ending 52 years of bloodshed.

Anatomy of the New Brazilian Right

October 11, 2016

The Free Brazil Movement was one of the groups in charge of convening the massive demonstrations to impeach Dilma Rousseff. The institutional coup they promoted encouraged the movement, made up primarily of youth between 17 and 30 years old, to launch bids for power in the Oct. 2 municipal elections, where they eight of their members were elected to city councils.

The Silent Drama of the Disappeared

October 10, 2016

Silent traumas grip a growing number of families in Mexico. Not knowing where a loved one is, relatives comb jails, hospitals, morgues and common graves. Digging into the earth, their shovels probe for bodies or remains–fragments of a human being who once warmed their lives.

Ayotzinapa, 43 Reasons to Fight Back

September 27, 2016

The marchers have turned out by the thousands to tell the government of Enrique Peña Nieto that the forced disappearance of the 43 students of the Ayotzinapa Teachers College on September 26, 2014 continues to be a rallying cry for a people who are fed up with the violence and lack of justice in the county.