Global outcry over Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s violent war on drugs has faded. That doesn’t mean the killings have stopped.
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Recent controversies involving the U.S. military in Africa highlight how the Pentagon uses ambiguous language and outright secrecy to obscure its activities. At times, this has involved subverting democratic processes in partner countries, an approach that runs counter to years of diplomatic engagement. AGADEZ, Niger—In early May, Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, the head of U.S. Africa Command, addressed a group of journalists gathered in a staid, gray room at the Pentagon. The press conference had been called to disclose the main findings of the Defense Department’s investigation of an ambush seven months earlier in the West African nation of Niger. […]
In early October 2002, the British Conservative Party gathered at the Bournemouth International Centre on the south coast of England for its annual conference. Still traumatized by a second consecutive landslide defeat against the Labour Party, then headed by Tony Blair, the Tories had come together to plot their return to government after five long years out of power. On the opening day of the conference, the party chairwoman, Theresa May, took to the stage in an all-black outfit that added to the funereal atmosphere of the event. She told her fellow Tories something that many people were thinking, even […]
Bolivia is beset by drug-related corruption, from high-level officials to the lowest levels of government. And yet, the president insists he has it under control.
Editor’s note: This is the first installment of a two-part series on Bolivia’s relationship with coca, funded by WPR’s International Reporting Fellowship. The second installment can be found here. Ten years ago, Bolivian President Evo Morales expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which had been tasked with curbing the production of coca in Bolivia, the main ingredient in cocaine. Since then, Morales has championed a nationalized, legal coca market, but critics accuse him of fostering the rise of a narco-state. On a Monday afternoon this past February, around 300 residents of the small jungle town of Chimore in central Bolivia […]