Notes from the World

Michael Deibert
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Politics, culture, and society from the Caribbean, Latin America, and beyond.

  1. 6d ago

    Haiti: "We Have No Idea What’s Coming"

    On the night of 14 August 1791, in the course of a complex invocation of the Vodou religion that had been created as a syncretic combination of Catholic and African beliefs by the enslaved population of the French colony of Saint-Domingue, a towering black overseer from Jamaica named Boukman led a pledge in which those in bondage swore to rise up against their masters at Bwa Kayiman (The Woods of the Crocodile) on the northern plain of what would later become the nation of Haiti. A week later, thousands did and over the course of a nearly 13 year war of independence that followed, eventually succeeded in defeating the French military and abolishing slavery, the first nation in the Western Hemisphere to do so. Since then, Haiti has lived more than 220 years of nearly constant tumult, the most recent chapter of which began with the assassination of the nation’s president, Jovenel Moïse, five years ago as part of a sprawling international conspiracy that - despite the trials and convictions of some in the United States for their role in it - the world still hasn’t gotten to the bottom of. Since then, Haiti has been ruled by a series of ostensibly temporary interim regimes, the most recent of which has been led solely since this past January by Prime Minister, Alix Didier Fils-Aimé. Much of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and the surrounding areas are controlled by a coalition of armed groups calling themselves Viv Ansanm (Live Together). The International Organization for Migration counts well over 1 million people as internally displaced due to both the violence of Viv Ansanm and its sporadic clashes with what pass for the forces of order, which include elements of the national police force, the Police Nationale d’Haïti (PNH), the nation’s resurrected army, the Forces Armées d’Haïti (FADH), and, until last autumn, an ineffectual, United Nations-sanctioned Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) force. Last September, the United Nations authorized a Gang Suppression Force (GSF) to replace the MSS with a mandated personnel ceiling of 5,550 consisting of both military and police personnel. Like the MSS, however, the GSF has been glacially slow to get up and running. Despite all this, Haiti’s interim authorities and the country’s sprawling (and largely discredited) amalgam of political parties have announced that elections for president and parliament are to be held in the coming months, with the first round to be held on 13 December and the runoff on 21 February. To discuss where Haiti finds itself today and where it may be heading, we are joined on Notes From the World today by three longtime experts observers of the country: Louis-Henri Mars, who for many years served as the Executive Director of Lakou Lapè, a group whose mission was the promotion of a culture of non-violence and dialogue in some of the most marginalized neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. Lorraine Mangones, the Executive Director of the Fondasyon Konesans Ak Libète (FOKAL), a Haitian foundation working throughout Haiti in the fields of education, development, arts and culture, and in support of local civil society organizations; and Louino Robillard, a social activist who was has been the driving force behind a number of organizations in Haiti and currently serves as the Program Director of Rasin Devlopman, which seeks to strengthen the capacity of community leaders and locally elected officials on the Haitian island of La Gonâve.

    Haiti: "We Have No Idea What’s Coming"

  2. Aug 7

    Spain After the World Cup

    On July 19th, the streets and homes of Spain burst into euphoric celebration as the country’s national team defeated Argentina at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey to win the men’s FIFA World Cup for only the second time in its history. Thanks to a goal by Ferran Torres in the second half of extra time, the country marked the high point of summer amid a sometimes dizzying rush of developments: The increasing profile on the international stage of its socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, as he took strong stands on issues such as the wars in Gaza and Iran abroad; the scandal which seemed to threaten to engulf him and the ruling party at home; a booming economy and devastating wildfires afflicting its citizens. To discuss what the World Cup victory may represent for Spain and the state of the nation as a whole, we are joined on Notes From the World by four guests: Omar Encarnación, Professor of Politics in the Division of Social Studies at Bard College; Gerry Hadden, the Barcelona-based correspondent for PRX’s The World; Fernando Peinado, a reporter for the Madrid section of the Spanish daily El Pais; and Jessica Davidson, an Associate Professor at the Department of History at James Madison University.

    Spain After the World Cup

  3. Jul 20

    "The Israeli settlers are becoming more and more dangerous"

    Sami Huraini is a Palestinian human rights activist whose family hails from the South Hebron Hills in the West Bank, one of the centres of the most intense violence currently being committed by Israeli settlers, often with the tacit support and sometimes the outright collaboration of the Israeli military. In 2017, Huraini co-founded Shabab Sumud (Youth of Sumud or Steadfast Youth), an organization that seeks to provide support to Palestinian residents under threat by Israeli settlers or the military. Members accompany children to and from school and shepherds to their fields, and monitor settlers who attack farmers during the olive harvest season, sharing videos and photos on social networks in case of attack. In 2021, along with his sister, Sameeha Huraini, he was awarded the Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk from the Irish-based human rights organisation the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders. He joins us on Notes From the World today to talk about the situation in the South Hebron Hills and the reality of life under occupation.

    "The Israeli settlers are becoming more and more dangerous"

  4. Jul 15

    "On October 7th, It Felt Like the Testimonies I Had Been Reading Were Coming to Life in the Most Horrific of Ways"

    Yardena Schwartz is a journalist and author whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Review of Books, the Economist, and Foreign Policy, among other publications. She is the author of Ghosts of a Holy War: The 1929 Massacre in Palestine That Ignited the Arab-Israeli Conflict, which was called “a good book about a bad mess” by the Wall Street Journal and “a superb, meticulous and hauntingly detailed account” by Commentary Magazine. She joined us on Notes from the World to discuss her book and the situation in Israel and Palestine both before and after 7 October 2023. A reminder to listeners and readers: Journalism like this is almost entirely self-funded and as bills pile upon bills and the interest in supporting international reporting in the media industry, or what’s left of it, dwindles to nil, if these kinds of discussions and this kind of reporting are valuable to you, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber to the newsletter and podcast here: https://michaeldeibert.substack.com/subscribe. I still believe this kind of reporting is valuable to the world we all share.

    "On October 7th, It Felt Like the Testimonies I Had Been Reading Were Coming to Life in the Most Horrific of Ways"

  5. Jul 2

    “Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo Will Fall”: A Conversation About Nicaragua

    In July 1979, the 43 year dictatorship of the Somoza family in Nicaragua was brought to an end when Anastasio Somoza Debayle was overthrown by a rebel army led by the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, the FSLN or Sandinistas, as they were widely known. In the 47 years since then, Nicaragua has experienced a civil war throughout the 1980s which pitted the Sandinista government against rebels, many of them backed by the United States, an uneasy transition to democracy which saw successive democratic presidential elections in 1990, 1996 and 2001 and in 2007, the return to office of the Sandinista cacique Daniel Ortega, who had previously served as Nicaragua’s leader, both defacto and directly as president, from 1979 to 1990. Since the return of the Sandinistas and Ortega, now closely advise by his wife, Rosario Murillo, who served as Vice President from 2017 until 2025 and Co-President since then, Nicaragua has spiraled down in a maelstrom of corruption, state violence and dictatorial repression. In April 2018, a proposal to increase taxes and cut social security benefits ignited long-standing grievances. Protests broke out around Nicaragua and the government responded with immense force which Amnesty International concluded consisted of “a strategy of violent repression not seen in the country for years.” The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concluded that at least 355 people were killed during the protests. In December 2018, the Grupo Interdisciplinario de Expertos Independientes (GIEI), a collection of independent analysts selected by the IACHR, published a report concluding that the Ortega government “committed crimes against humanity” and that Ortega used “public institutions and pro-government armed groups to establish a repressive state apparatus, with the intention to kill and persecute those who opposed their policies.” In February 2023, the regime freed 222 of the more than 250 political prisoners it then held. At once, almost all of them were put on a plane to the United States, with the Nicaraguan government announcing shortly thereafter that those expelled would be stripped of their nationality. Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans have fled to neighboring Costa Rica, where the regime has pursued them. Following the June 2025 murder of retired military officer and fierce regime critic Roberto Samcam in San José, former Costa Rican president Laura Chinchilla referred to Samcam’s murder as an example of the Ortega-Murillo regime “using hitmen to execute exiles or refugees.” The documentary evidence of the regime’s atrocities has grown ever-more extensive. Earlier this year, a report by the United Nations Group of Independent Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua concluded that “since 2018 government funding earmarked for social assistance, cleaning projects, and operational expenses was redirected to fund violent security operations” including “an extensive transnational surveillance and intelligence architecture used to monitor, intimidate and attack hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans who live abroad.” The previous year, the group had found that the Nicaraguan government had committed serious human rights violations and international crimes that “constitute crimes against humanity.” In its 2025 annual report, the IACHR asserted that Nicaragua’s civic and democratic space remained “completely closed” amid the “cancellation of thousands of social organizations [and the] criminalization and de facto prohibition of any public meeting” along with an “intensification of transnational repression.” To discuss the situation in Nicaragua, today we are joined by three guest: Juan Pappier, the Americas deputy director at Human Rights Watch; Carlos Chamorro, the founder and editor of the Nicaraguan news outlet Confidencial; and the journalist, social researcher, and feminist activist Sofía Montenegro.

    “Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo Will Fall”: A Conversation About Nicaragua

  6. Jun 18

    "People are really panicking" : Anti-LGBTQ Legislation Casts a Shadow Across Africa

    Thus far, 2026 has been a very difficult year for LGBTQ rights in Africa. Homosexuality is illegal in 31 countries on the African continent, representing half of the continent’s states, and in recent years, the adoption of anti-LGBTQ laws has increased dramatically. Last month, Ghana’s parliament passed what it called the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill which reinforces an existing penalty of up to three ‌years ⁠in prison for same-sex sexual acts while also sanctioning the “funding, sponsorship or promotion” of LGBTQ acts with prison terms ranging from three to five years, and introducing a “duty to report” LGBTQ acts to a police officer or other authorities. In March, Senegal’s legislature passed a law personally introduced by the country’s then-Prime Minister, Ousmane Sonko, who is now speaker of the national assembly, that doubled to 10 years the maximum prison term for consensual sex acts by same-sex couples and criminalized the so-called “promotion” of homosexuality with jail terms of three to seven years. Diaraye Bâ, a member of parliament for the Patriotes africains du Sénégal pour le travail, l’éthique et la fraternité (PASTEF), Senegal’s ruling party, crowed that “homosexuals will no longer breathe in this country,” Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Senegal’s polygamous president, signed the bill into law in April. Earlier this month, in Niger, the military junta there promulgated a new penal code that severely criminalizes homosexuality, with sanctions ranging from five to ten years for engaging in sexual intercourse with a member of the same sex to ten to twenty years of imprisonment for anyone who “manages, directs, operates, finances, or participates in clubs, companies, organizations, or associations for homosexuals or LGBTQ.” Last September, the rubber stamp transitional assembly of Burkina Faso’s ruling military dictatorship passed a law criminalizing consensual same-sex relations with two to five years in prison, as well as fines. These measures follow the so-called Anti-Homosexuality Act which was enacted by the Ugandan government in May 2023 and which mandates life imprisonment for sex between two people of the same gender, up to 20 years in prison for what it calls is the promotion of homosexuality and the death penalty for what it calls “aggravated homosexuality.” Some of these laws have at least in part been the product of the advocacy far-right evangelical organizations working in the United states. In Senegal, MassResistance, a Massachusetts-based organization that has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, discussed campaign strategy and mobilization tactics with a Senegalese network of Islamic and civil society organizations opposed to LGBTQ rights. In Uganda, Scott Lively of Abiding Truth Ministries, also based in Massachusetts, has also been active since the early 2000s, where he claimed that Western agitators were trying to destroy Uganda’s social fabric by spreading what he called “the disease” of homosexuality to children there. To discuss this situation, we are joined on Notes From the World today by three guests: Alice Bordaçarre, the head of the women’s rights and gender equality desk with the Fédération internationale pour les droits humains (FIDH); Leila Lariba, the director of One Love Sisters Ghana; and Frank Mugisha, the Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda.

    "People are really panicking" : Anti-LGBTQ Legislation Casts a Shadow Across Africa

  7. May 26

    "Political and economic groups always saw Fernando as an inconvenient figure for their interests": A Conversation with Verónica Sarauz

    When Ecuador’s centre-right president Guillermo Lasso dissolved the country’s National Assembly amid a second impeachment proceeding against him in May 2023, he triggered a general election in which he did not run but which would choose his replacement. Throughout the early part of the campaign, polls often showed what seemed to be a scramble for the presidency among three contenders: Luisa González of the Movimiento Revolución Ciudadana of former president Rafael Correa; Jan Topić, a businessman with a colourful background that included training with the French Foreign Legion; and Fernando Villavicencio, a well-known journalist who had been a representative in the Nation Assembly and who had been forced into exile during Rafael Correa’s tenure as president amid repeated attacks by his government. Worrying aloud that Ecuador was on its way to becoming a narco-state, Fernando Villavicencio promised a strong response against the country’s gangs and corruption and by August 2023, he was publicly sharing threatening messages his team had received via the messaging app WhatsApp that he said originated with José Adolfo Macías Villamar aka Fito, the boss of Ecuador’s Los Choneros criminal network. With a post on X, Villavicencio responded, saying that “Despite the new threats, we will continue fighting for the brave people of our Ecuador.” On August 9th, 2023, however, in a crime that shocked the nation, Villavicencio, who had survived a previous assassination attempt in 2022, was murdered following a rally in Ecuador’s capital, Quito. The alleged 18 year-old hitman, from the Colombian city of Cali, was himself gunned down at the scene. Six other Colombians were arrested and charged with roles in the killing. All six were subsequently murdered during a prison riot that October. In the aftermath of the killing, Carlos “Invisible” Angulo, a grandee of the Los Lobos criminal organization, was convicted for his alleged role in the killing, and, in September 2025, Ecuadorian prosectors charged Rafael Correa’s former Minister of the Interior, José Serrano, Ronny “King Reaper” Aleaga, a member of the Latin Kings street gang and a former congressman, and businessman Xavier Jordan (who had been accused of being part of the money-laundering network of the slain Ecuadorian narco Leandro Norero) with being the “intellectual authors” of Villavicencio’s murder. Things remain very murky, however, and in an April 2025 video posted on X, Villavicencio’s widow, Verónica Sarauz, who has relentlessly pushed for justice on behalf of her late husband, accused then-Attorney General Diana Salazar of a “cover up” of the truth in her husband’s murder, claiming that Salazar had presented her with “false” information designed to make her publicly accuse Correa of the crime. She went on to say that it had “become clear” to her that neither Salazar or Ecuador’s President, Daniel Noboa “would allow the truth to come out” and that she “suspected” that both were “part of the sinister network surrounding my husband’s case.” The leader of Los Lobos, Wilmer “Pipo” Chavarría faked a death certificate claiming he had died from Covid-19 in February 2021, and, for good measure, also was claimed to have been killed in a prison riot the same month. Fleeing Ecuador, he was apprehended in the city of Málaga in southern Spain in November 2025 after having arrived from Morocco with false identity papers. In February 2026, from a prison cell in Spain, Pipo accused Daniel Noboa of ordering Villavicencio’s killing, claiming the killing was ordered “out of fear that Villavicencio would win the 2023 elections.” To decode this complex political and legal situation, we are joined on Notes From the World today by Verónica Sarauz, who has never stopped advocating for justice in the case.

    "Political and economic groups always saw Fernando as an inconvenient figure for their interests": A Conversation with Verónica Sarauz

  8. May 6

    "What you basically have in Venezuela is the same dictatorship in place"

    Juan Forero is the South America bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal. Based in Bogotá, Colombia, he worked for both the New York Times and National Public Radio before joining the Journal, and he has been reporting on Latin America for more than 20 years. He joined us on Notes From the World today to discuss the state of Venezuela - now five months after the seizure of Venezuela’s then-president, Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores by U.S. forces - and that of Colombia, as the presidential tenure of Gustavo Petro draws to a close and the country prepares for presidential elections at the end of this month.

    "What you basically have in Venezuela is the same dictatorship in place"
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Politics, culture, and society from the Caribbean, Latin America, and beyond.

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