The Mexican government initially issued a
Here, we share our collection of maps, produced by the U.S. Southern Command's Joint Interagency Task Force-South, showing the trajectories of boats and planes suspected of trafficking drugs toward the United States from South America.
Image quality varies here: we take what we can get. The maps we have obtained over the years depict trafficking patterns in 2005, 2007, 2010 and 2011.
The first set of maps shows the tracks of boats believed to be carrying drugs or other illegal cargo. A few changes over the years are notable:
- It is increasingly ...
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During 2011, researchers from the Center for International Policy (CIP, Washington), Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA, Washington), Asociación MINGA (Bogotá), and the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (INDEPAZ, Bogotá) carried out a ...
(If you follow this blog regularly, you may recall a period in November when it was nearly dormant, as "Just the Facts" program staff paid a research visit to a region of Colombia that has been a significant destination of recent U.S. assistance. Here is a report of what we learned on that trip.)
For nearly 5 years, with U.S. support, Colombia’s Montes de María has been a priority region for the government’s National Territorial Consolidation Plan (...
Human rights and the rule of law dominated the news this week in Mexico. Human Rights Watch reported that, in fighting the drug war, security forces in Mexico have committed numerous human rights violations and that soldiers enjoy impunity in these cases.
...Every year, at least until 2013, the Defense Department must report to Congress about how it uses its rather untransparent counter-narcotics budget to give aid to other countries' militaries and police. We endeavor to obtain those reports, and usually succeed (they are here.)
We recently got a copy of the report covering aid in 2010. One of the types of aid the Defense Department can provide is "The establishment ... and operation of bases of operations or training...
Just before Christmas, the U.S. Congress approved, and President Obama signed into law, a big 2012 budget law that included funding for the State Department and official foreign aid. Here are some highlights of how the 2012 budget law affects assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean.
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The State Department and Foreign Operations law
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