South America Archive

In December 2019, a new Argentine president was sworn in amid considerable upheaval, promising to wrest the country from its endless cycles of boom and bust. His predecessor’s efforts to reform the economy and finally unleash the country’s great potential had to come to naught. On almost every economic indicator, Argentina was actually worse off than when he had taken office four years before and, once again, the country faced the dreaded specter of foreign debt default. Though that brief summary refers to the presidential transition from Mauricio Macri to Alberto Fernandez, change the names and dates and this could […]

When preliminary results in Bolivia’s election last October showed that longtime President Evo Morales had narrowly won a controversial fourth term in office, it provoked a national outcry. The tabulation of the vote count, which initially showed a dead heat, had been halted on Election Day, only to resume a day later with Morales having jumped into the lead. The Organization of American States quickly issued a statement denouncing the “inexplicable change” in results that “drastically modifies the fate of the election and generates a loss of confidence in the electoral process.” Violent mass protests then erupted, fueled in part […]

Some of Latin America’s most serious challenges—violent crime, drug trafficking, economic inequality and public corruption—all have one thing in common: money laundering. In Mexico alone, the government’s Financial Intelligence Unit reported that drug cartels and other illicit actors laundered an estimated $50 billion in 2019— crucial revenue for cartels that has also contributed to Mexico’s record-high homicide rate in recent years. Money laundering has helped Brazilian gangs like the Primeiro Comando da Capital, or First Capital Command, expand their criminal networks into neighboring Paraguay and Bolivia. In Venezuela, it has enabled a dramatic theft of public resources by officials tied […]

When the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, agreed to demobilize as part of Colombia’s landmark 2016 peace agreement, it ended 50 years of armed conflict. It also left the Colombian army without its chief adversary. The country still faces internal armed threats, like the smaller guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army, and about 10,000 fighters are scattered across dozens of smaller militias, some of them led by former FARC members. But for Latin America’s largest army, the adjustment has been fraught with difficulty. The army built up a formidable intelligence apparatus during the country’s decades of internal conflict, […]