Category Archives: Guatemala

Why Guatemala’s Pérez Molina Is Considering Legalizing Drugs

By Natalie Kitroeff | Published: February 15, 2012
Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina has been acting strange lately. Just one month after his inauguration, he is already ruffling U.S. feathers, and making waves in the politics of the region in unexpected ways. Pérez Molina’s military past and hard-line “mano dura” security policy made many worry that he would backtrack on justice reforms led by [...]
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Ríos Montt’s Incriminating Self-Defense

By Natalie Kitroeff | Published: February 1, 2012
Barring any last minute appeals, General (ret) Efraín Ríos Montt will be prosecuted for crimes against humanity during his tenure as de facto President of Guatemala in the early 1980s, the most violent years of the country’s civil war. At a preliminary hearing last Thursday, Judge Patricia Flores declared the 85 year old Ríos Montt fit to [...]
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Ideas, not money, will make Central America safer

By Eliot Brockner | Published: June 24, 2011
Boz has a great point about the fresh funding headed to Central America: I think a lesson is that there is no amount of money that the US could put on the table and no amount of attention the US could give that would guarantee Central America’s success in fighting organized crime. The US is not [...]
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Central America, crime, and what the Americas are doing about it

By Eliot Brockner | Published: January 28, 2011
On 3 March 2009, The Wall Street Journal published an Op-Ed titled “In Praise of Mexico’s War on Drugs”. Although it was written nearly two years ago, it is still a highly relevant and recommended read. A day later, LatAmThought wrote the following in response to the article Bret Stephens’ commentary “In Priase of Mexico’s War on [...]
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33 in Haiti are tip of insidious iceberg

By Eliot Brockner | Published: February 5, 2010
One of the most horrific stories from the Haiti earthquake that has captured the public’s attention was the arrest of 10 American nationals for attempting to smuggle 33 Haitian children into the Dominican Republic without proper documentation, presumably for adoption abroad. The Christian Science Monitor has good coverage on one of the underreported parts of [...]
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The Dangers of Prison Transfers

By Eliot Brockner | Published: September 12, 2009
The (dare I say, even sarcastically) classic 1997 movie Con Air is based on the premise of a prison transfer gone awry. In the movie, a group of criminals hijack the airplane on which they are being transported from one prison to another. The movie highlights the dangerous nature of violent criminals and their ability [...]
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Honduras is unique, but not alone

By Eliot Brockner | Published: August 7, 2009
More than a month on, the 28 June coup in which Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was forcibly removed by the Honduran military has morphed into an internal power struggle being carefully brokered by international mediators. The situation in Honduras remains precarious for a slew of reasons that have been widely reported and analyzed from all ends [...]
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Coffee Smuggling and the Importance of Successful Nation Branding

By Eliot Brockner | Published: March 8, 2009
At first glance, the Honduran-Guatemalan border at El Florido appears no different from any other international land border crossing in Latin America. Migrant day workers mix with road-weary truckers, soldiers, little kids selling everything from candy to cigarettes, and myriad other overland travelers destined for points unknown. Customs officials dutifully check documentation of each person [...]
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Mexico’s Drug War?

By Eliot Brockner | Published: January 11, 2009
On 12 January, US President-Elect Barack Obama will meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderón to discuss the future of US-Mexican relations. The two have a lot to talk about. Mexico is limping out of one of its most violent years in history, in which 5,630 people were killed in drug and gang-related [...]
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A Window of Opportunity for Guatemala

By Elizabeth Jordan | Published: March 22, 2008
Guatemala’s bloody civil war came to an end with the signing of Peace Accords in 1996. Since then, civil society organizations have been bravely grappling with the legacy of this horrific conflict by endeavoring, among other things, to treat the victims of genocide. The Commission for Historical Clarification –Guatemala’s version of a truth and reconciliation [...]
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