:: Latin America
Columbias Quest for Peace and Justice: The International and National Context
02.21.2012Introduction: Between April 21-23, thousands of activists from most of the major urban and rural social movements and trade unions, human rights groups and indigenous , afro-colombian movements will meet to unify forces and launch, what promises to be the most significant new political movement in recent history.
Argentina: Why President Fernandez Wins and Obama Loses
10.30.2011Introduction: On October 23rd of this year, President Cristina Fernandez won re-election receiving 54% of the vote, 37 percentage points higher than her nearest opponent. The Presidents coalition also swept the Congressional, Senatorial, Gubernatorial elections as well as 135 of the 136 municipal councils of Greater Buenos Aires.
Latin America: Growth, Stability and Inequalities: Lessons for the US and EU
09.30.2011Introduction: Images of the Past The image of Latin America portrayed by the mass media and held by the educated public is a region of frequent coups, periodical revolutions, perpetual military dictatorships, alternating boom and bust economies and an ever-present International Monetary Fund (IMF) dictating economic policy.
Chavez versus Obama: Facing Presidential Elections in 2012
09.15.2011Introduction: Two incumbent presidents are running for re-election in 2012, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Barack Obama in the United States. What makes these two electoral contests significant is that they represent contrasting responses to the global economic crises:
Colombia: Pillage, Promise and Peace
08.04.2011Invited paper to be presented to the Encuentro Nacional de comunidades Campesinas, Afrodescendientes e Indigenas por la Tierra y la Paz de Colombia: El dialogo es la Ruta, 12 al 15 de agosto 2011, Barrancabermeja Colombia
Chavezs Right Turn: State Realism versus International Solidarity
06.13.2011Introduction: The radical Bolivarian Socialist government of Hugo Chavez has arrested a number of Colombian guerrilla leaders and a radical journalist with Swedish citizenship and handed them over to the right-wing regime of President Juan Manuel Santos, earning the Colombian governments praise and gratitude.
Rethinking imperialist theory and US imperialism in Latin America
James Petras, Henry Veltmeyer :: 06.09.2011In this paper we criticize contemporary theorizing about imperialism for its economic reductionism and a lack of class analysis and institutional specificity regarding the imperial state
Imperialism: Bankers, Drug Wars and Genocide
05.18.2011In May 2011, Mexican investigators uncovered another mass clandestine grave with dozens of mutilated corpses; bringing the total number of victims to 40,000 killed since 2006 when the Calderon regime announced its war on drug traffickers.
Skyrocketing Crime Rates and Imperial Wars
05.04.2011Imperial interventions in civil wars have a devastating effect on countries that last for decades and affect the entire economy and society. One indicator of the long-term consequences of imperial military intervention is the tremendous increase of violent crime, the multiplication of gangs, homicides and general insecurity in Central America.
New book: “Social Movements in Latin America. Neoliberalism and Popular Resistance”
James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer :: 02.02.2011Recent decades have witnessed a worldwide change in social and economic relations, accompanied by a multi- dimensional global crisis and major popular uprisings led by sociopolitical movements.
James Petras receives International Journalism Prize
Clarity Press :: 12.14.2010On December 8 2010 The Club of Mexican Journalists awarded James Petras its prestigious INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISM PRIZE for outstanding Research and Analysis of World News.
Latin Americas Twenty First Century Capitalism and the US Empire
12.02.2010Political Power and the World Market :: The twin nemesis of Latin Americas quest for more equitable and dynamic development, US imperial and local oligarchic power have been subject to profound changes over the past decade.
Latin America: Roads to 21st Century Capitalist Development
10.18.2010Over the better part of the present decade, Latin American stock markets have boomed. Overseas investors have reaped and repatriated billions in dividends, profits and interest payments. Multi-national corporations have piled into mining, agro-business and related sectors, unimpeded and with virtually no demands by local regions for technological transfers and environmental constraints.
The Ecuadorian Coup: Its Larger Meaning
10.09.2010The abortive military-police coup in Ecuador, which took place on September 30, has raised numerous questions about the role of the US and its allies among the traditional oligarchy and the leftist social movements, Indian organizations and their political parties.
Latin Americas Twenty-First Century Socialism in Historical Perspective
10.07.2010Introduction: The electoral victory of center left regimes in at least three Latin American countries, and the search for a new ideological identity to justify their rule, led ideologues and the incumbent presidents to embrace the notion that they represent a new 21st century version of socialism (21cs).
Brazil and Venezuela: Two Turning Point Elections this Fall
08.19.2010Two elections in Latin America this fall will have decisive importance in the direction of economic and foreign policy for the coming decade.
US — Venezuela: The Empire Strikes Back (and Loses)
08.09.2010US policy toward Venezuela has taken many tactical turns, but the objective has been the same: to oust President Chavez, reverse the nationalization of big businesses, abolish the mass community and worker based councils and revert the country into a client-state.
The Electrical Workers Union versus President Calderon: Class, Struggle, Represion and the Rise of Narco-Power
07.28.2010The recovery and reconstruction of Mexico, begins with strengthening the social fabric of Mexican society the promotion of the urban and social movements and in particular the mass democratic trade unions like the SME.
Leader of Deathsquads Wins Colombian Election
06.27.2010Juan Manuel Santos, notorious Defense Minister in the regime of outgoing President Alvaro Uribe and closely identified with high crimes against humanity won the recent Presidential elections in Colombia, June 2010.
Latin Americas New Middle Class Rulers: Stabilization, Growth and Inequality
05.21.2010Latin Americas current relations with the US as well as its present political and economic configuration can best be understood in the context of large scale changes over the past twenty years and the relative stability of the past five years.
Colombia: State Terror in the Name of Peace
05.04.2010The first casualty of state terror is the corruption of language, the invention of euphemisms, where words mean their opposite and slogans cover great crimes: There is no longer a world consensus that condemns crimes against humanity.
Lulas Legacy: The Two Brazils
04.14.2010Brazil is a country of paradoxes: President Lula embraces free trade, signs military agreements with Washington, is acclaimed as Statesman of the Year by the billionaires club at Davos in 2010 and has enriched bankers from Wall Street to the city of London; yet many western and a few Brazilian writers , Fidel Castro and other intellectuals and academics call him a pragmatic leftist or progressive visionary.