500,000 women raped in Rwanda. 64,000 in Sierra Leone. 40,000 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 4,500 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Numbers are numbing,” warns Nobel Laureate Jody Williams. “There are women in here who have experienced sexual violence in conflict.”
A secret operation to run guns across the border to Mexican drug cartels — overseen by U.S. government agents — threatens to become a major scandal for the Obama administration. The operation, called “Fast and Furious,” was run out of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) office in Phoenix, Arizona. ATF sanctioned the purchase of weapons in U.S. gun shops and tracked the smuggling route to the Mexican border. Reportedly, more than 2,500 firearms were sold to straw buyers who then handed off the weapons to gunrunners under the nose of ATF.
Josefina Reyes began her career as a human rights organizer the way thousands of women across the globe do: defending her family and her community. The middle-aged mother staged a hunger strike to demand the safe return of her son after Mexican soldiers abducted him from their home. She lost another son to drug-war violence that has taken over the Valle de Juarez, where her family lives. Josefina spoke out against the violence and against abuses committed by the army and police. On Jan. 5, 2010, Josefina Reyes was shot to death.
When George W. Bush left the White House, the rest of the world breathed a sigh of relief. The National Security Doctrine of unilateral attacks, the invasion of Iraq under the false pretext of weapons of mass destruction, and the abandonment of multilateral forums had opened up a new phase of U.S. aggression. Despite the focus on the Middle East, the increased threat of U.S. military intervention cast a long shadow over many parts of the world.
Two years later, that sense of relief has given way to deep concern. After hopes of a something closer to FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy of (relative) non-intervention, we find ourselves facing a new wave of militarization in Latin America–supported and promoted by the Obama administration.
Mothers of May: The Difficult Democratization of of the Genocidal State of Brazil “My son”s name was Edison and he was 29 years old. He was killed on the streets. He just went home for…
Feministas en Resistencia was born on the same day as the coup, June 28, when a large number of women gathered at the home of the president to protest the coup. Although they were driven…
f Secretary of State Clinton permits the coup regime to impose conditions on the return of the constitutional president, then she damages, perhaps irreparably, the Organization of Americas States (OAS), and breaks faith with Oscar Arias who thought he had her unequivocal backing.
Last year, a journalist in Cancun–a Mayan word for “nest of serpents”–uncovered and wrote about an international ring of pedophilia. The leader, Jean Succar, was subsequently arrested and is in jail in the state of Arizona, awaiting extradition.
Like other mothers, Patricia Cervantes has heard the promises sung like empty lyrics by a chorus of presidents, governors, and law enforcement authorities. Their reassuring words vow to end impunity and find justice for the…
By Tom Barry, Salih Booker, Laura Carlsen, Marie Dennis, and John Gershman What in the world are we doing? Seldom, if ever, has U.S. foreign policy been as confusing or as divisive as it is…
