South America Archive

On Oct. 3, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released 11.9 million confidential files, known as the Pandora Papers, that documented how world leaders, oligarchs and business elites park their wealth in offshore jurisdictions. Like the Panama Papers of 2016, this new leak brought shell companies and offshore jurisdictions under intense public scrutiny for their role in helping the rich and powerful evade taxes and ignore the transparency requirements by which their fellow citizens and competitors must abide. What was perhaps most damning was the inclusion of five U.S. states—South Dakota, Florida, Delaware, Texas and Nevada—among the list of favored offshore […]

Many Latin American countries have grappled with democratic backsliding in recent years. But recent sham elections in Venezuela and Nicaragua marked a new low.  On Sunday, the regime led by Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro held municipal and regional polls that were widely seen as rigged, resulting in ruling party candidates taking a vast majority of gubernatorial, mayoral and local council seats.  And earlier this month, Nicaraguan strongman Daniel Ortega oversaw his own rigged elections. After putting seven opposition candidates behind bars during the campaign, Ortega claimed a fourth consecutive term in office. According to an independent voting rights group, turnout […]

If there is one constant in Argentina’s merry-go-round of political and economic crises, it is the presence of outsize personalities, high drama and policy failures. The results of Sunday’s midterm congressional elections suggest that this cycle is unlikely to be broken any time soon. The election didn’t just throw the system into disarray. It also introduced the latest entrant to Argentina’s pantheon of flamboyant politicians: the wild-haired, far-right economist Javier Milei, who saw his fortunes soar, giving credence to his plan to seek the presidency in 2023. The immediate impact of the Nov. 14 elections was that the center-left Peronistas, […]

In May of this year, thousands of Colombian citizens took part in weeks of widespread protests against a newly proposed tax reform plan and, more generally, the country’s growing economic inequality. The demonstrators included teachers, doctors, students and labor union members, as well as many who were new to protesting. But instead of allowing them to peacefully express their opinions, the Colombian National Police cracked down, killing at least 24 people in clashes that resembled their fights against criminal organizations and insurgents.  Of course, Colombia’s police are not unique in their heavy-handed approach to law enforcement. In 2019, police violence […]

In the leadup to Nov. 7’s sham election in Nicaragua, incumbent President Daniel Ortega’s crackdown on the opposition and imprisonment of his most viable challengers garnered a good deal of attention. But the Nicaraguan election was only the first in a series of crucial political contests taking place in the region this month. By the time December begins, the path ahead for nearly half a dozen Latin American countries may well have been redrawn. Beyond Nicaragua’s widely criticized parody of democracy, the continent will see pivotal presidential elections in Chile and Honduras, the winners of which could take these countries in […]

Tensions within NATO over the past two decades have led some to assert that the old military alliances of the 20th century are a thing of the past. Soon, the argument goes, they will give way to looser, ad hoc groupings like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, comprising Australia, India, Japan and the United States; the AUKUS security pact among Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States; or other “coalitions of the willing” formed to address specific concerns, like those that intervened in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. To be sure, the past 30 years have punched some […]

BOGOTA, Colombia—In the next five weeks, Dairo Antonio Usuga, Colombia’s most-wanted drug lord who was captured on Oct. 23, is expected to be extradited to the United States on drug trafficking charges filed in New York and Florida, according to Colombian authorities. As head of the notorious drug cartel Clan del Golfo, Usuga—more commonly known by the alias “Otoniel”—is accused of steering an international criminal enterprise, processing and shipping more than 160 tons of cocaine each year to the United States and Europe, and wielding control over large swaths of Colombian territory, where his men imposed their own laws using terror […]