This is cross-posted from the Latin America Working Group's blog, the LAWG Blog. It was written by Jennifer Johnson. They did it again. Despite the fact that not a single soldier responsible for human rights violations has been held accountable by civilian authorities in the years since the onset of the Merida Initiative, the State Department released its second report...
Last week, the Department of State certified that Colombia is meeting the human rights conditions required by law in order to release 30 percent of military aid in the foreign budget. Here is an excerpt of the press release announcing the certification:
Though there continues to be a need for improvement, the Colombian government has taken positive steps to improve respect for human rights in the country. Firm direction by the government that extrajudicial killings will not be tolerated
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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave Mexicans a jolt on Wednesday when, in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations, she compared their country’s drug cartel violence to an “insurgency.”
[W]e face an increasing threat from a well-organized network drug trafficking threat that is, in some cases, morphing into or
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Just as the State Department is required to certify that Colombia's human rights performance is improving in order to free up a percentage of military aid in the foreign aid budget, the State Department must also report that Mexico's government has met certain human rights requirements in order to free up fifteen percent of military aid in the foreign aid budget for Mexico. As required by section 7045(e) of the...
Last week, Peruvian President Alán García suddenly issued decrees that could let notorious military human rights abusers get out of prison, while possibly closing hundreds of other human rights cases. Adam interviews Jo-Marie Burt of George Mason University.
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