Let's talk Latin America
Let's talk Latin America
Bristolatino’s Political editor Kwame Lowe discusses the complex matter of Colombia’s low-intensity civil war between guerrilla group the FARC and the government, and analyses the true significance of the current peace talks. On 6 November 2013, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) reached a ‘fundamental agreement’ in their peace talks with the Colombian government, […]
Bristolatino joint editor-in-chief Rosanna West, while working as a reporter at Colombian national newspaper El Espectador on her year abroad, interviewed one Colombian and two Argentine experts about the foreign acquisition of land in their countries. This is a translation of an article that first appeared in El Espectador discussing whether government efforts to limit […]
Eleonore Hughes reviews The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, a 2003 documentary focusing on events in Venezuela leading up to and during the April 2002 coup d’état attempt, which saw late President Hugo Chávez removed from office for two days. When Kevin Thomas from the Los Angeles Times reviewed this documentary as an “extraordinary opportunity to record history”, he […]
Bristolatino Politics editor Kwame Lowe discusses the ongoing struggle of the indigenous communities of Latin America and particularly Brazil. A fortnight ago today marked the 521st anniversary of the ‘discovery’ of the Americas by Christopher Columbus. Columbus Day, as it is known, is celebrated across much of Latin America and the USA. For many indigenous communities […]
As Brazil’s cultural capital nears its moment in the spotlight, Bristolatino’s ‘Latin America in Bristol’ editor Tom Webb looks at how the ‘pacification’ of the city’s favelas is beginning to transform Rio’s socioeconomic dynamic. There are over 100 favelas in Rio de Janeiro, in which around one third of the city’s population lives: 6 million people. The […]
Bristolatino’s joint editor-in-chief Rosanna West discusses the significant student movement that has rocked Chilean government and society since its beginning in 2011. The Chilean student movement demands a free and higher quality education, as well as an end to the privatization of schools and universities. The Government’s free-market approach to education, implemented over 20 years ago […]
Joe Sharp discusses the risks, as well as the benefits the lithium reserves found under the Salar de Uyuni in Southern Bolivia could bring for the population of one of South America’s poorest nations. In the mid-1500’s, Spanish conquistadors discovered huge silver reserves in the Cerro Rico mountain just outside the city of Potosi in Bolivia. […]
Bristolatino’s Politics editor Kwame Lowe takes a look at the complex, ongoing struggle against drug trafficking in the Americas, and tells us where he thinks it’s going wrong. Can the ‘War on Drugs’ be termed a war if there can be no winners or losers? There is merely perpetual destruction on both sides: the side responsible […]
Sam Benstead discusses the long-lasting tensions between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The aptly named Massacre River forms the northernmost part of the international border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It was into this river that Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican dictator between 1930 and 1961, ordered the bodies of 20,000 innocent Haitians to be dumped […]