https://znetwork.org/category/place/latin-america/central-america/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Mon, 16 Feb 2026 18:35:28 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/category/place/latin-america/central-america/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mano-dura-comes-to-costa-rica/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mano-dura-comes-to-costa-rica/#respond Mon, 16 Feb 2026 18:18:14 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294791 On Sunday, February 1, Costa Ricans went to the polls to elect a new president and fifty-seven members of congress. The election, which was framed as a referendum on the outgoing administration of Rodrigo Chaves, delivered a resounding victory to his chosen successor, Laura Fernández, who secured over 48 percent of the vote. The campaign [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mano-dura-comes-to-costa-rica/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/peter-thiel-is-unleashing-a-neocolonial-billionaire-fantasy-in-honduras/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/peter-thiel-is-unleashing-a-neocolonial-billionaire-fantasy-in-honduras/#respond Mon, 16 Feb 2026 15:34:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294799 In April 2025, Peter Thiel’s Palantir made headlines after documents were released detailing its partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to create ImmigrationOS, a massive database of information gathered from a variety of sources including the IRS, in order to surveil, detain, and deport immigrants. Thiel is not new to spearheading endeavors that aim to [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/peter-thiel-is-unleashing-a-neocolonial-billionaire-fantasy-in-honduras/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/drugs-right-under-their-noses/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/drugs-right-under-their-noses/#comments Wed, 04 Feb 2026 19:00:37 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294354 In Central America there are 2 countries that have played an important role in international drug smuggling. Those 2 countries are Honduras and Panama. Something else these countries also share in common is that they have both hosted US military troops and bases for decades. Most Americans are unaware that the US has a fairly [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/drugs-right-under-their-noses/feed/ 2 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/bitcoin-country/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/bitcoin-country/#respond Tue, 03 Feb 2026 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294330 Juan Hernández arrived at the Jan. 7 press conference in a uniform that became commonplace in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic: full-body white medical protective gear, including a cap, mask and safety goggles. When it was his turn to speak, he read a statement calling for dialogue to negotiate fair severance packages or the reinstatement [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/bitcoin-country/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ivan-cepeda-on-the-risk-of-us-meddling-in-colombias-election/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ivan-cepeda-on-the-risk-of-us-meddling-in-colombias-election/#respond Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:02:00 +0000 Iván Cepeda is a senator for the Pacto Histórico, the left-wing alliance that backed Colombian president Gustavo Petro’s election, and its candidate to succeed him as president in the general elections of May and June 2026. A human rights defender, Cepeda has a long political career that has led him, at different times, to be [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ivan-cepeda-on-the-risk-of-us-meddling-in-colombias-election/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-60-minutes-scandal-is-what-creeping-authoritarianism-looks-like/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-60-minutes-scandal-is-what-creeping-authoritarianism-looks-like/#respond Mon, 29 Dec 2025 18:53:49 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292881 In September, Bari Weiss had a modest position in the media landscape as the proprietor of the Free Press. It’s a relatively minor news outlet combining center-right commentary on America’s culture wars with a fanatical devotion to defending the State of Israel. In October, David Ellison, the owner of media behemoth Paramount Skydance, bought the Free Press for an [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-60-minutes-scandal-is-what-creeping-authoritarianism-looks-like/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/watch-60-minutes-inside-cecot-segment-blocked-by-cbs-news-chief-bari-weiss/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/watch-60-minutes-inside-cecot-segment-blocked-by-cbs-news-chief-bari-weiss/#respond Wed, 24 Dec 2025 18:53:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292714 A social media user on Monday shared at least part of a “60 Minutes” segment about a prison in El Salvador—where the Trump administration sent hundreds of migrants—after CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss controversially blocked its release. “Canadians, behold! (And Americans on a VPN.) The canceled ‘60 Minutes’ story has appeared on the Global TV [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/watch-60-minutes-inside-cecot-segment-blocked-by-cbs-news-chief-bari-weiss/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/war-for-profit-in-colombia/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/war-for-profit-in-colombia/#respond Sat, 13 Dec 2025 15:01:43 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292331 “Cellebrite Out” read the sign held by Mateo Cruz, a member of the anti-militarist and Palestine solidarity group Tadamun Antimili during a protest at ExpoDefensa, Latin America’s largest military industry fair. Cruz explained  in an interview that a representative of the Israeli surveillance company Cellebrite was attending as a participant in the Bogotá fair—despite the Ministry of Defense [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/war-for-profit-in-colombia/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/colombia-is-showing-the-world-how-to-end-israeli-impunity/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/colombia-is-showing-the-world-how-to-end-israeli-impunity/#respond Sun, 07 Dec 2025 15:49:23 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292117 Since losing his US visa for comments he made at a pro-Palestine rally in New York City, Colombian president Gustavo Petro has not backed down. After Israel illegally intercepted the boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla on October 1, Petro immediately denounced the kidnapping of two Colombian citizens aboard and ordered the expulsion of the entire Israeli diplomatic delegation from his [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/colombia-is-showing-the-world-how-to-end-israeli-impunity/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/dissident-peace-in-colombia/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/dissident-peace-in-colombia/#respond Sun, 30 Nov 2025 16:30:52 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291800 This week, we’re sharing an excerpt from Anthony Dest’s new book Dissident Peace: Autonomous Struggles and the State in Colombia, published by Stanford University Press earlier this year. The book interrogates the foundations of peace and points to the deeper questions that have—in large part— been left unresolved —Eds. On October 5, 2017, state forces [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/dissident-peace-in-colombia/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/agroecology-as-resistance-and-care-in-colombia/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/agroecology-as-resistance-and-care-in-colombia/#respond Fri, 07 Nov 2025 17:30:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290973 The green mountains surrounding the city of Medellín, in the Antioquia region of Colombia, are home to a broad network of cooperatives that continue to serve as a testament to perseverance and creativity over three decades after their founding. To describe this social weaving, I’ll choose one of its threads and trace it, so as [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/agroecology-as-resistance-and-care-in-colombia/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/us-acts-like-pirates-in-the-caribbean/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/us-acts-like-pirates-in-the-caribbean/#respond Wed, 08 Oct 2025 18:10:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289648 In reading historian Marcus Rediker, one can learn a great deal about the “Golden Age of Piracy.” Far from being cruel brutes, pirates often practiced an egalitarian proto-socialism, with loot being spread more or less evenly between the captain and crew. Pirates also did not discriminate on the basis of race. Many pirates were Black [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/us-acts-like-pirates-in-the-caribbean/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/beating-back-bukeles-war-on-gender-ideology/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/beating-back-bukeles-war-on-gender-ideology/#respond Tue, 30 Sep 2025 15:59:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289317 In a country where transgender women are now required to identify as “very high-risk men,” four transgender women dressed as beauty queens and surrounded by giant bouquets of flowers throw candy to the thousands of participants of this year’s Pride march. Feminist and LGBTQIA+ movements have become the face of resistance in El Salvador, where [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/beating-back-bukeles-war-on-gender-ideology/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-panamanian-rights-dirty-alliance/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-panamanian-rights-dirty-alliance/#respond Thu, 31 Jul 2025 15:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1286811 “We are living in a right-wing dictatorship.” This is how Joyner Myron Sánchez, deputy secretary general of the anti-imperialist political organization Juventudes Revolucionarias (Young Revolutionaries, JR), describes the situation in Panama today. “If you disagree [with the government], you may either go to jail or get murdered.” Since early 2025, Panamanian social movements have mobilized to protest the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-panamanian-rights-dirty-alliance/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/colombia-hague-group-meeting-in-bogota-commits-to-sanction-israel/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/colombia-hague-group-meeting-in-bogota-commits-to-sanction-israel/#respond Thu, 24 Jul 2025 15:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1286558 Ministers and officials from 32 countries met in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, on July 15–16 to develop strategies to stop Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. The “emergency conference” was organised by the Hague Group — an alliance of countries formed in January  to hold Israel accountable under international law — in light of the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/colombia-hague-group-meeting-in-bogota-commits-to-sanction-israel/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-revolutionary-shift-is-underway/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-revolutionary-shift-is-underway/#respond Sat, 19 Jul 2025 13:04:51 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1286395 Excellencies, Friends,  I express my appreciation to the government of Colombia and South Africa for convening this group, and to all members of the Hague Group, its founding members for their principled stance, and the others who are joining. May you keep growing and so the strength and effectiveness of your concrete actions.  Thank you [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-revolutionary-shift-is-underway/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/to-bogota/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/to-bogota/#respond Sun, 13 Jul 2025 15:14:54 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1286137 This week, more than 25 states from around the world will gather in Bogotá, Colombia, for the “Emergency Conference” to halt the Gaza genocide: the most ambitious multilateral response since Israel began its campaign of devastation two years ago. “The Bogotá conference will go down as the moment in history that states finally stood up [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/to-bogota/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/agrarian-reform-moves-forward-despite-land-grabbers/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/agrarian-reform-moves-forward-despite-land-grabbers/#respond Tue, 24 Jun 2025 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285408 Under President Gustavo Petro, Colombia has made unprecedented progress in agrarian reform, distributing 570,000 hectares of land to peasants. The government has also reclaimed illegally occupied land, including properties tied to paramilitary leaders, while exposing alarming land inequality: 65% of fertile land is controlled by just 1% of owners. Government makes great strides in agrarian [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/agrarian-reform-moves-forward-despite-land-grabbers/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-panama-authorities-are-cracking-down-on-mass-strikes/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-panama-authorities-are-cracking-down-on-mass-strikes/#respond Mon, 23 Jun 2025 14:03:18 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285359 For almost two months, Panama has seen a national strike against privatization, mega-mining, and US imperialism. It is the country’s third period of mass civil unrest since 2022. Capital and the government have retaliated through police repression, persecution, and mass firings. Yet this has been unable to stifle widespread criticism of elected officials and mainstream [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-panama-authorities-are-cracking-down-on-mass-strikes/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/panamas-mass-strike-movement-confronts-trumps-canal-grab/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/panamas-mass-strike-movement-confronts-trumps-canal-grab/#respond Sat, 07 Jun 2025 10:34:27 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1284689 Panama is the sharpest point of class struggle on the continent, and how it develops and ends will be very important for the relationship between Latin America and Trump’s imperialist policy. In today’s Panama there is a new workers’ revolt: teachers have been on indefinite strike for two months, joined by construction workers, banana plantation [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/panamas-mass-strike-movement-confronts-trumps-canal-grab/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-roots-of-bukeles-gulag/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-roots-of-bukeles-gulag/#respond Mon, 02 Jun 2025 13:03:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1284492 The Terrorism Confinement Center was designed to be a black hole. When Nayib Bukele’s flagship “megaprison”—known as CECOT, after its Spanish acronym—opened in January 2023 in a desolate stretch of Tecoluca, about forty-five miles from San Salvador, his administration boasted that people held there “would not have contact with the outside world again.” Bukele has made global [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-roots-of-bukeles-gulag/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/activists-mobilize-in-colombias-cities-in-support-of-petros-labor-reforms/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/activists-mobilize-in-colombias-cities-in-support-of-petros-labor-reforms/#respond Wed, 21 May 2025 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1284050 Supporters of Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro have organized the first community council meetings that seek to muster popular support for a referendum on labor reforms. Petro called on the people to organize the assemblies after the Senate sunk the referendum in what the government called a fraudulent vote on Thursday. In the same session, the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/activists-mobilize-in-colombias-cities-in-support-of-petros-labor-reforms/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-and-bukele-the-few-repressing-the-many/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-and-bukele-the-few-repressing-the-many/#respond Wed, 14 May 2025 12:21:39 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1283711 On March 15, President Trump’s rendition of immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador stunned the world. They include 23 alleged members of MS-13 and 238 Venezuelans allegedly belonging to another notorious gang, Tren de Aragua. Trump’s accomplice, autocratic buddy, and likely mentor in this maneuver is Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, known for calling [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-and-bukele-the-few-repressing-the-many/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-oilworkers-plan/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-oilworkers-plan/#respond Sun, 11 May 2025 10:31:16 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1283600 “Energy is the principal geopolitical dispute of our time.” So began the Progressive International’s workshop this weekend in Bogotá, convened by the Unión Sindical Obrera de la Industria del Petróleo (Petroleum Industry Workers’ Union, USO) to chart a course to “Colombia’s Energy Sovereignty.” The opening speech was delivered by Andrés Camacho, until recently the country’s [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-oilworkers-plan/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/inside-the-indigenous-land-back-movement-in-colombia/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/inside-the-indigenous-land-back-movement-in-colombia/#respond Fri, 09 May 2025 10:59:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1283551 Sharing a border with Ecuador and Peru, the southern Colombian department of Putumayo takes its name from the Quechua term for “gushing river.” For some, its landscapes are a sacred doorway to the Amazon rainforest, a world unfathomably greater than the human. For others, however, this land looks more like oilfields and military bases, optimized [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/inside-the-indigenous-land-back-movement-in-colombia/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/private-prison-ceo-on-ice-contracts-were-a-better-deal-than-el-salvadors-cecot/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/private-prison-ceo-on-ice-contracts-were-a-better-deal-than-el-salvadors-cecot/#respond Fri, 09 May 2025 10:58:55 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1283538 The CEO of the private prison firm CoreCivic told investors on a Thursday call that his company has a value proposition for the federal government: American prison profiteers are less likely to draw legal challenges than foreign alternatives — an apparent reference to the infamous El Salvador prison housing immigrants who were illegally deported from the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/private-prison-ceo-on-ice-contracts-were-a-better-deal-than-el-salvadors-cecot/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/oligarchy-empire-and-revolution-in-central-america/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/oligarchy-empire-and-revolution-in-central-america/#respond Wed, 09 Apr 2025 16:03:57 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1282216 This is the first in a two-part series on Central America’s history and present, featuring scholars Hilary Goodfriend and Jorge Cuéllar in conversation with Daniel Denvir on The Dig, a Jacobin Radio podcast. It is also a history of American near-empire, tracing its impact from the mid-nineteenth century onward. Central America won independence from the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/oligarchy-empire-and-revolution-in-central-america/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/colombia-wants-to-phase-out-fossil-fuels/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/colombia-wants-to-phase-out-fossil-fuels/#respond Mon, 31 Mar 2025 16:04:49 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1281826 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/colombia-wants-to-phase-out-fossil-fuels/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/highway-heist-in-honduras-how-corporations-fleece-regular-people-in-impoverished-countries/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/highway-heist-in-honduras-how-corporations-fleece-regular-people-in-impoverished-countries/#respond Sat, 22 Mar 2025 16:00:29 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1281395 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/highway-heist-in-honduras-how-corporations-fleece-regular-people-in-impoverished-countries/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/feminists-on-the-move-in-bogota/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/feminists-on-the-move-in-bogota/#respond Sat, 15 Mar 2025 13:49:15 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1281088 This year’s International Women’s Day march in Bogotá began in a distinct spot, at the intersection where Calle 45 crosses one of the city’s most important avenues. Feminists gathered there beside a large mural in which yellow letters spell out the phrase “Las Cuchas are right,” using a slang term for “old ladies” that can [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/feminists-on-the-move-in-bogota/feed/ 0