Latin America Today

Washington Office on Latin America
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  • Politics
  • Updated Biweekly

News and analysis of politics, security, development and U.S. policy in Latin America and the Caribbean, from the Washington Office on Latin America.

  1. 1d ago

    Estructuras antiderechos: la lucha trans en Colombia y el mundo — con Renata Jank Vivas Antonelli

    En este episodio especial del mes del Orgullo de Latin America Today, la presidenta de WOLA, Carolina Jiménez Sandoval, conversa con Renata Jank Vivas Antonelli, activista y defensora de derechos humanos de la Fundación Santamaría, una organización con sede en Cali, Colombia, que lleva dos décadas documentando la violencia, defendiendo derechos y construyendo poder para las comunidades trans. En Colombia, ser una mujer trans todavía significa enfrentarse a una esperanza de vida de entre 27 y 33 años. Esa cifra sola — décadas por debajo del promedio nacional — habla de la brecha entre los derechos que existen en papel y la realidad que viven las comunidades trans cada día. Renata ofrece una evaluación franca de las condiciones que enfrentan las mujeres trans en Colombia, un país que a menudo se presenta como modelo regional de gobernanza progresista, pero donde persiste la violencia estructural e institucional contra las personas trans. Habla del concepto de estructuras antiderechos: redes coordinadas de poder económico, político y religioso que no solo están frenando los avances recientes, sino que se organizan activamente a nivel transnacional para revertir décadas de conquistas logradas con mucho esfuerzo. La conversación también explora cómo se ve la resistencia en el terreno — desde la casa trans de Santamaría en el suroccidente colombiano, hasta las mesas de coordinación a nivel nacional, pasando por el impulso a una ley integral de derechos trans que lleva el nombre de Sara Millerey, una mujer trans cuyo transfemicidio conmocionó a Colombia y al mundo. Y cierra con una visión: un futuro en el que ser quienes son no les cueste la vida a las personas trans. Este episodio es parte de la serie del mes del Orgullo de WOLA, que destaca los derechos LGBTQ+, la democracia y el espacio cívico en las Américas.

    29 min

  2. Jun 4

    "The Two Candidates Could Not Be More Different": Colombia's presidential vote

    This episode examines the first round of Colombia's presidential election, which took place on May 31, 2026, and previews the June 21st runoff between two starkly different candidates. Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, WOLA's director for Colombia and the Andes, provides deep insight into the candidates, voter concerns, and the election's implications for U.S.-Colombia relations.  The first round produced some surprises. While human rights activist and senator Iván Cepeda advanced as expected with 40.9% of the vote, the first-place finisher was criminal defense lawyer and political outsider Abelardo de la Espriella with 43.7%. Taken together, right-of-center candidates already exceed 50%, suggesting challenging math for Cepeda in the runoff.  Sánchez-Garzoli notes that despite fears of political violence—given the assassination of candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay in the past year and Colombia's deteriorating security situation—election day proceeded peacefully.  The candidates represent fundamentally different visions for Colombia. De la Espriella, a wealthy lawyer who once advised the AUC paramilitary group during peace talks and has represented controversial figures, proposes an "iron fist" security approach. His platform includes ending peace negotiations, building ten mega-prisons, mass detentions, aggressive coca eradication, and legalizing firearms ownership. Economically, he embraces Argentina's Milei-style deregulation and reviving the fossil fuel sector. He has also proposed withdrawing Colombia from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and United Nations human rights bodies.  Cepeda, by contrast, is a philosopher and longtime human rights advocate whose father, a Communist Party senator, was assassinated during the systematic elimination of the Patriotic Union party. Known for his measured, intellectual style, Cepeda was instrumental in Colombia's 2016 Peace Accord and would continue President Gustavo Petro's approach—advancing agrarian reform, pursuing negotiations with armed groups through "total peace," and transitioning away from extractive economic models.  Voter concerns centered overwhelmingly on security and the economy. Sánchez-Garzoli explains that while Petro's ambitions of addressing centuries of inequality in just a few years proved unrealistic, the security situation has genuinely deteriorated.  U.S.-Colombia relations under either candidate promise turbulence, though of different kinds. President Trump publicly endorsed de la Espriella while labeling Cepeda a "radical leftist Marxist." De la Espriella has expressed interest in joining Trump's "Shield of the Americas" security initiative and implementing a "Plan Colombia 2.0," while Cepeda has condemned the U.S. "boat strikes" and other military interventions as violations of Latin American sovereignty and international law.  Looking toward the June 21 runoff, Sánchez-Garzoli warns that Colombia remains fragile and at risk of violence, particularly given President Petro's claims of fraud and the close expected margin. The choices of centrist voters remain uncertain, and it is hard to predict an outcome.

    37 min

  3. May 15

    One Year Later: The Political Imprisonment of Ruth López in El Salvador

    A year after the arrest of Salvadoran human rights lawyer and anti-corruption advocate Ruth Eleonora López Alfaro, WOLA's Latin America Today podcast revisits her case and the broader situation unfolding in El Salvador. Ruth López, who worked with the human rights organization Cristosal, was arrested on May 18, 2025, when police entered her home late at night. Since then, she has been held in detention under conditions that rights groups say reflect the growing erosion of due process and civil liberties under President Nayib Bukele's government. In this episode, WOLA's Corie Welch speaks with Luis Benavides, Ruth López's husband, and Noah Bullock, Executive Director of Cristosal, about Ruth's detention, the climate of fear in El Salvador, and the increasing use of political imprisonment against critics and human rights defenders. Luis recounts the night Ruth was arrested and the uncertainty that followed as authorities moved her between detention facilities while withholding information from her family and legal team. Noah discusses how Cristosal's investigations into corruption and human rights abuses made the organization — and Ruth herself — targets of the government's escalating repression. The conversation also examines El Salvador's prolonged state of exception, which has led to the mass incarceration of 90,000 people since 2022. While the government has framed the emergency measures as necessary to combat gang violence, rights organizations have documented widespread abuses, including arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, and severe restrictions on due process. Together, they reflect on what Ruth's case reveals about political imprisonment in El Salvador, the growing risks facing journalists and civil society organizations, and the importance of international solidarity. Guests Luis Benavides is the husband of Ruth López and has become a public advocate for her release and right to a fair and public trial. Noah Bullock is the Executive Director of Cristosal, a leading human rights organization that was forced to relocate operations from El Salvador to Guatemala amid increasing repression. Additional Resources Read more about WOLA's work on El Salvador Learn more about Cristosal's documentation of human rights abuses

    31 min

  4. May 12

    Uncovering Operation Condor: a 50-Year Fight for Accountability

    This episode marks the 50th anniversary of Operation Condor's assassination program, codenamed "Teseo" (Theseus). Condor was the coordinated campaign of state-sponsored terror carried out by U.S.-backed military dictatorships in South America during the 1970s and early 1980s. Our guest is Peter Kornbluh, director of the Cuba and Chile documentation projects at the National Security Archive, who has spent decades uncovering declassified documents and accounts about this dark chapter. Kornbluh explains that Operation Condor was a transnational collaboration among the secret police forces of Southern Cone military regimes to share intelligence, track, kidnap, and assassinate their political opponents across borders and even around the world. The operation was formally established in November 1975, with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's secret police chief Manuel Contreras serving as the principal organizer. A particularly sinister component was Project Teseo, the assassination program established at a second meeting in Santiago in May 1976. Kornbluh describes declassified documents revealing the bureaucratic nature of this killing apparatus: monthly dues, membership fees, and detailed protocols for locating targets, carrying out assassinations, and escaping afterward. The most notorious Condor operation occurred on September 21, 1976, when a car bomb killed Orlando Letelier, Chile's former foreign minister under Salvador Allende, and his colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt in Washington, D.C.'s Sheridan Circle—the worst act of foreign terrorism in Washington until September 11, 2001. Kornbluh details the complicated U.S. role in these events. The CIA helped create and train intelligence services like Chile's DINA. However, agency officials grew concerned about Condor's blowback potential. Nonetheless, Ford administration officials, particularly Henry Kissinger, pulled back diplomatic efforts that might have prevented the Letelier-Moffitt attack. The conversation traces how accountability eventually came—partially. The Carter administration's response was "demonstrably weak," undermined by bureaucracies protecting their relationships with Southern Cone security forces. Under Reagan, Pinochet initially served as an ally in Central American counterinsurgency, though some distancing came later. Kornbluh reflects on how this history was uncovered through FOIA requests, congressional investigations, and special declassifications ordered under Clinton and later Obama. The Teseo documents only emerged in 2018—more than forty years after the program's creation. The episode concludes with sobering parallels to today: Daniel Ortega's regime sending assassins to kill opponents, Venezuelan agents murdering a military officer in Chile, and the current U.S. administration's killings on the high seas. Kornbluh expresses hope that those committing current human rights atrocities will eventually face accountability, just as Contreras spent his final years in prison and Pinochet faced arrest in London and Santiago.

    52 min

  5. Apr 23

    Polarization and Impunity: Peru's First-Round Presidential Election

    This episode examines the aftermath of Peru's first-round presidential election held on April 12, 2025, recorded just five days later with results still not fully finalized. Host Adam Isacson speaks with Cynthia McClintock, a professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University who has studied Peruvian politics for over four decades. The conversation describes an extraordinarily fragmented and polarized electoral landscape. With 35 candidates on the ballot, the leading vote-getter—Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former authoritarian president Alberto Fujimori—led the count with only about 17 percent of the vote. The race for second place remained too close to call between Roberto Sánchez, a leftist candidate running under the mantle of impeached former president Pedro Castillo, and Rafael López Aliaga, a right-wing populist who served as mayor of Lima. The runoff, between candidates who will combine for less than 30 percent of the first-round vote, is scheduled for June 7th. McClintock traces Peru's current political dysfunction to the period following the 2016 election, during which Fujimori's party discovered the power of congressional impeachment. Peru has cycled through nine presidents in ten years, and McClintock argues that a corrupt governing coalition has consolidated power, particularly since Castillo's impeachment in December 2022. The discussion highlights the deep geographic and cultural divisions in Peruvian society. The gap between Lima and "las provincias"—Indigenous-majority rural and mountainous regions—manifests starkly in voting patterns. This division traces back centuries and reflects ongoing perceptions of discrimination and exclusion, even as economic indicators have improved. Organized crime and security are voters' primary concerns. While Peru's homicide rate remains low by regional standards, it has more than doubled since 2021-2022. Extortion has become particularly urgent. Yet paradoxically, Peru's economy continues to grow, buoyed by high commodity prices for copper and gold, though much mining activity is illegal and environmentally devastating. McClintock expresses concern about the future of accountability and democratic institutions. The newly reconstituted Senate grants Fujimori's party approximately one-third of seats, with significant power over appointments. On U.S.-Peru relations, she notes the current government has stayed under Washington's radar and is proceeding with a $3.5 billion F-16 purchase, though the Chinese-built Chancay port remains a potential point of tension. The episode concludes with McClintock explaining how the chaotic 35-candidate field happened by design: Fujimori's party had previously canceled a primary voting provision that would have winnowed the field, calculating that extreme fragmentation would allow them to win with a small plurality. Despite the grim political outlook, McClintock emphasizes the resilience of Peru and its people. Download this podcast episode's .mp3 file here. Listen to WOLA's Latin America Today podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.

    44 min

  6. Apr 13

    The All-Out Assault on Asylum

    This episode examines the systematic dismantling of asylum protections in the United States under the Trump administration. Our guests are two attorney-advocates: Heather Hogan, Policy and Practice Counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), and Peter Habib, Staff Attorney at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS). Hogan and Habib emphasize that the United States has legal obligations under the 1980 Refugee Act and international agreements stemming from World War II—commitments that other nations have historically looked to America to model. Barriers the Trump administration has erected against asylum seekers include a January 2025 proclamation suspending asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, courthouse arrests of immigrants appearing for their hearings, expanded mandatory detention policies, and a stacked Board of Immigration Appeals issuing precedential decisions that narrow eligibility grounds. Hogan and Habib note that the administration has targeted the "particular social group" ground for asylum, which is commonly used by applicants from Latin America fleeing gang violence, domestic abuse, and cartel persecution. A significant portion of the discussion focuses on "pretermissions"—a mechanism by which immigration judges can deny asylum claims and order removal without allowing applicants to present their cases. Judges have been terminating cases based on minor omissions in lengthy, complex applications, or citing the existence of so-called Asylum Cooperative Agreements with countries including Honduras, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Uganda. These agreements purport to allow the U.S. to send asylum seekers to third countries to apply for protection there, despite those nations having extremely limited asylum systems and significant human rights and security challenges. The guests report that over 11,000 ACA-based removal orders were issued between November 2024 and January 2025, far exceeding any realistic capacity these countries have to process asylum claims. While the administration has paused some ACA-based pretermissions, thousands of people remain in legal limbo, facing prolonged detention, loss of work permits, or pressure to abandon their claims entirely. Both Hogan and Habib stress that what is occurring constitutes refoulement—the prohibited practice of returning people to places where they face persecution. They outline potential reforms: routing all asylum cases through asylum officers first, expanding legal pathways for protection, restoring the refugee program, and providing legal representation to indigent asylum seekers. Habib emphasizes that the fundamental problem has been decades of bipartisan investment in punitive deterrence rather than building a fair, efficient system centered on human rights and due process. Resources mentioned in the conversation include AILA's "Better Way on Immigration" series of policy briefs, with a recent brief focused on reforming the asylum system. The "Third Country Deportation Watch" website is managed by Human Rights First and Refugees International.

    1h 2m

  7. Mar 31

    "El camino duele, pero trae fortaleza": Un episodio especial por el Mes de la Mujer con Collette Spinetti, la primera secretaria de Estado trans del Uruguay

    Por el Mes de la Mujer, estamos lanzando un episodio especial de Latin America Today con una conversación con Collette Spinetti — activista trans uruguaya, profesora de literatura y la primera mujer trans en ocupar un puesto de secretaria de Estado en Uruguay. En este episodio, Collette conversa con Carolina Jiménez Sandoval, Presidenta de WOLA, sobre lo que significa romper barreras históricas como mujer trans en un cargo público, el avance global de los movimientos antiderechos y su trabajo en Uruguay para avanzar en la igualdad en un mundo cada vez más desigual. Sobre Colette Spinetti Collette Spinetti es activista trans uruguaya, profesora de literatura y una figura pionera en la vida pública de América Latina. Fue la primera profesora trans del Uruguay y actualmente es la primera mujer trans en ocupar un cargo de Secretaría de Estado, como Secretaria de Derechos Humanos bajo la presidencia de Yamandú Orsi. Defensora de larga trayectoria de los derechos LGBTQ+, de las mujeres y de las personas privadas de libertad, en su carrera ha liderado organizaciones trans en Uruguay, incluidas la Unión Trans del Uruguay y el Colectivo Trans del Uruguay, y fue electa presidenta del Comité Directivo Trans de ILGA Mundo. También es secretaria general de Corpora en Libertad, una red internacional de organizaciones que trabajan con personas LGBTI+ privadas de su libertad. En este episodio: El avance de los movimientos antiderechos en América Latina y el mundo — y por qué Colette considera que el miedo del patriarcado a perder su poder está en la raíz de este fenómeno La importancia de unir los movimientos sociales — feminista, trans, afrodescendiente y sindical — en torno a objetivos comunes sin perder su especificidad El trabajo en la Secretaría de Derechos Humanos y la lucha dentro de Uruguay por continuar invirtiendo en programas y políticas que promuevan la igualdad, desde la educación hasta los derechos laborales.  Lo que significa gobernar desde un enfoque de derechos humanos — y la discriminación que Colette sigue enfrentando, incluso desde un alto cargo

    29 min

  8. Mar 26

    "Women, 'las buscadoras', have become a very strong reference for courage" | A Special Women's Month Conversation with Ana Lorena Delgadillo Pérez

    For Women's Month, we're releasing a special episode of Latin America Today featuring a conversation with Ana Lorena Delgadillo Pérez — a Mexican human rights lawyer with over two decades of experience working on enforced disappearances, femicides, migrants' rights, and women's rights across Mexico and Central America.  In this episode, Ana Lorena speaks with WOLA's Corie Welch about what the crisis of enforced disappearances looks like today, the outsized role women have played in confronting it, and what enforced disappearances in the context of U.S. immigration enforcement tells us about the state of democracy and rule of law.  About Ana Lorena Delgadillo Pérez  Ana Lorena Delgadillo Pérez is a Mexican human rights lawyer with over two decades of experience working on enforced disappearances, femicides, and the rights of women and migrants across Mexico and Central America. She is the founder and former Executive Director of the Foundation for Justice and Democratic Rule of Law, a regional NGO working in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, where she has helped shape landmark legislation and build forensic and search mechanisms for disappeared migrants. She has litigated historic cases before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, including serving as an expert witness in the Cotton Field case — one of the most significant rulings on femicide in the hemisphere. She currently serves as a member of the United Nations Expert Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.  In this episode:  The context of enforced disappearances in the region — who is disappearing, who is responsible, and what impunity looks like on the ground  How women across borders are supporting each other in the search for their loved ones  The link between femicide and disappearances, and lessons from the landmark Cotton Field case  Enforced disappearances in the context of U.S. immigration enforcement

    28 min
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About

News and analysis of politics, security, development and U.S. policy in Latin America and the Caribbean, from the Washington Office on Latin America.

Information

  • Creator
    Washington Office on Latin America
  • Years Active
    2011 - 2026
  • Episodes
    100
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Creative Commons license -- reproduction allowed without permission, as long as full credit given to Washington Office on Latin America
  • Show Website
    Latin America Today

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