Latin America and the Caribbean


Grassroots organisation OFRANEH denounces kidnapping and disappearance of Garifuna leader in Honduras

48 hours after the kidnapping and disappearance of Sneider Centeno, President of the Triunfo de la Cruz Community Board and active member of the Black Fraternal Organisation of Honduras (OFRANEH), Real World Radio interviewed fellow OFRANEH member César Benedith, who denounced that they have not yet received “any type of answer from the government.” At the time of the interview,…

Bolsonaro accused at UN session of attacking women journalists

During the 44th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which takes place from 30 June to 17 July in Geneva, Switzerland, journalist Bianca Santana reported how she was personally targeted by the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, by social media on 28 May. This case is one of 54 attacks that organisation Artículo 19 Brasil recorded since Bolsonaro took…

Colombia: systematic murders of social leaders multiply during the pandemic

Since the beginning of 2020, at least 103 social leaders and defenders of territories, and 24 former FARC members undergoing a reinsertion process in line with the Peace Accords, have been murdered in Colombia, according to local NGO Indepaz. The Continental Day for Democracy and against Neoliberalism (La Jornada Continental), which represents different social movements and organisations, denounced the government…

RECORD NUMBER OF LAND CONFLICTS IN BRAZIL IN 2019

Throughout 2019, the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) recorded 1833 conflicts in the countryside (averaging five per day), 23% more than in 2018. This is the highest number on CPT records in the past five years. There was also a 14% increase in the number of murders (from 28 to 32), 7% more attempted murders (from 28 to 30), and 22%…

ENVIRONMENTAL REFLECTIONS IN TIMES OF QUARANTINE (PART 1)*

The current COVID-19 pandemic is a symptom of the environmental imbalances that have resulted from treating nature as a commodity. We could argue that the impact of the pandemic would not have reached this magnitude if it weren’t for decades of neoliberalism, which has privileged business over lives: promoting agribusiness and extractivism, cutting down forests, and destroying vital water ecosystems.…

Drop in oil prices: an opportunity?

On 20 April, the world woke up to a historical drop in the price of oil in the United States. The reference value for crude oil in the US (WTI) reached negative numbers for the first time in history. Argentina’s Southern Oil Observatory (Opsur) issued a press release, stating: “Press and social media are filled with technical explanations, when the…

Neoliberalism, pandemic, precarious lives: the challenges faced by feminism

If we watch the news around the world or observe the reality of those around us, we can see how the precarization of work, the scarcity of natural resources, violence and criminalization are increasingly present in the harsh reality of daily life. The new COVID-19 pandemic exposes, in an even more drastic way, the clash of capital versus life. In…

The peasant struggle amid the COVID-19 pandemic

April 17, International Day of Peasants' Struggle, is a special day celebrated by rural organizations around the world, usually with demonstrations, conferences, demands addressed to governments, and other activities. But of course, this year, the COVID-19 pandemic is severely limiting the room for action. For this reason, the international peasant movement La Vía Campesina, which gathers local rural organizations at…

“We need national policies for people affected by dams”

14 March marks the Day of Struggle of people affected by dams. The Latin American Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAR) is growing and taking its motto to different places around the world: “Water and energy are not commodities! Water for Life, not for death!”. In the midst of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, Real World Radio interviewed Diana Giraldo,…

8 March: We must march together

"We resist to live, we march to transform!" is the slogan for the 5th International Action by the World March of Women, set to begin on 8 March, 2020. Every five years, the World March of Women (WMW) prepares an international action which brings together women's movements, to take action against neoliberalism and  mobilize, connecting local struggles and organizations with…