Charles Bowden’s Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global
Economy’s New Killing Fields is an unflinching look at the
violence on the U.S.-Mexico border and the failing solutions by both
countries to address it. With an intense sympathy for the many victims
but also a degree of understanding even for a contract killer who finds
God, the author doesn’t let the reader find comfort in anything. The
book, just published by Nation Books (New York: 2010), can be found at
your local bookstore or online distributors. Here are a few selections
from this devastating catalog of violence.
On the 30th anniversary of the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes apologized for the role of the Salvadoran government in this cataclysmic event.
His words are so moving they require no further introduction.
In a decisive ruling for democracy, Colombia’s Constitutional Court determined February 26th that a law authorizing a referendum to change the
constitution to permit a second consecutive reelection of President
Álvaro Uribe would be unconstitutional. President Uribe immediately accepted the decision.
I just listened to a group of Honduran lawyers, who were exhausted,
frustrated and in fear, as they explained their efforts to defend
citizens’ rights in their country.
The lawyers were here to ask
for help from the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.
Their message was:
We charitably termed the Obama Administration’s first year of Latin
America policy a “false start.” After the year was kicked off with a
promising beginning with a rousing speech at the Summit of the
Americas, a promise to close Guantanamo, the lifting of the ban on
travel to Cuba for Cuban Americans, and some principled words on human
rights to Colombian President Uribe, we had some hope for a new, less
ideological, more people-centered approach to the region. As the year
progressed, those hopes were dashed. But now we dare to hope again.
As the Texas State Board of Education voted in March to exclude Archbishop Oscar Romero from history textbooks, just as we reach the thirtieth anniversary of his murder, it seems like a good moment to remember his legacy.
In two interesting analyses of elections in Latin America, Professor Doug Hertzler, associate professor of anthropology at Eastern Mennonite University and Adam Isacson of the Center for International Policy remind us, and the U.S. government, to look closely at the reality in each country rather than viewing it in an ideological context.
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