Podcast appearances and mentions of Juan Manuel Santos

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Best podcasts about Juan Manuel Santos

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Latest podcast episodes about Juan Manuel Santos

La Hora de la Verdad
Al Oído mayo 5 de 2025

La Hora de la Verdad

Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2025 10:11


Chocó, bajo fuego: secuestros, quema de buses, desplazamientos y paros armadosPetro ha vendido más petróleo y carbón que otros gobiernos. Dice Juan Daniel Oviedo Las denuncias de funcionarios obligados a marchar Sandra Ortiz dice que no tiene garantías con la Fiscal General Adriana CamargoAlias Calarcá contra Juan Manuel SantosGustavo Bolívar esperando que Petro le acepte la renuncia al DPSHabrá nueva alocución hoy para hablar del plan pistola El ataque de Petro a Juan Manuel Santos 

6AM Hoy por Hoy
El Papa escogió el momento para venir a Colombia; cuando el pueblo más lo iba a necesitar: Santos

6AM Hoy por Hoy

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 21, 2025 15:38


Amanpour
Two Former World Leaders on Trump's Tariffs

Amanpour

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 4, 2025 57:36


As Donald Trump's historic tariffs trigger a global trade war, two former leaders join the show to discuss what this means for their countries and the world: Sanna Marin was Prime Minister of Finland-- she knows the threat posed by Russia all too well; and Juan Manuel Santos, the former president of Colombia, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for his role in bringing the country's decades long conflict to an end.  Also on today's show: actors Tom Basden and Tim Key on the new feel-good film "The Ballad of Wallis Island"; former US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

6AM Hoy por Hoy
Piden al expresidente Juan Manuel Santos exponer al mundo incumplimientos en el Proceso de Paz

6AM Hoy por Hoy

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 21, 2025 1:47


Volver al Futuro
#221 Juan Carlos Torres | “Ser más que palabras”

Volver al Futuro

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 19, 2025 51:26


Juan Carlos Torres es escritor, narrador y artesano de la palabra con una destacada trayectoria como redactor de discursos presidenciales en Colombia. Durante 18 años trabajó en la Presidencia de la República, participando activamente en procesos de paz y siendo coautor del discurso con el que el presidente Juan Manuel Santos recibió el Premio Nobel de la Paz. Es autor del libro Soy Búho, y es facilitador de talleres de escritura y experiencias de autoconocimiento.En este episodio, Juan Carlos, el Búho, nos invita a explorar la magia de la palabra, el poder del silencio y la profundidad del encuentro humano. A través de sus experiencias como escritor de discursos políticos, comparte cómo la verdadera conexión va más allá de la intelectualidad y se encuentra en el lenguaje del corazón, en la vibración que nos une como seres vivos. A través de su ulular, Búho nos recuerda los significados que todos sabemos pero que olvidamos sobre lo que es la libertad, la paz, el perdón y la belleza. Esta es una plática llena de bellas palabras, pero realmente está construida con silencios, miradas, abrazos, sonrisas y manos extendidas.Como siempre, tus comentarios son muy valiosos para mí. Gracias por compartir y co-crear conmigo mejores preguntas. Con cariño,Victor____¿No quieres perderte el estreno de nuevos episodios?Recíbelos directamente en tu correo. Regístrate aquí: unique-author-3554.kit.com/volver-al-futuroMás contenido en:

Conclusiones
Juan Manuel Santos dice que la "paz total" de Petro "no fue bien planeada"

Conclusiones

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 5, 2025 49:51


El expresidente de Colombia Juan Manuel Santos dijo en Conclusiones que la propuesta de "paz total" del presidente Petro "no fue bien planeada". Según Santos, la iniciativa gubernamental no tenía objetivos claros ni negociadores con experiencia, lo que hizo que las disidencias de los grupos guerrilleros aprovecharan para fortalecerse. El exmandatario hace estas declaraciones después de que el líder del Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), alias Antonio García, dijera a CNN que el Gobierno del presidente Gustavo Petro no ha cumplido con lo pactado en las negociaciones de paz. Petro explicó a través de publicaciones en redes sociales las razones por las cuales suspendió el diálogo con el ELN. CNN ha pedido comentarios a la Presidencia de Colombia sobre lo dicho por el Santos y está a la espera de una respuesta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

La W Radio con Julio Sánchez Cristo
¿Armando Benedetti, el ‘talón de Aquiles' de Gustavo Petro? Esto advirtió Juan Manuel Santos

La W Radio con Julio Sánchez Cristo

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 5, 2025 4:45


Redacción al desnudo
Pusimos a Juan Manuel Santos a aspirar a un tercer mandato presidencial

Redacción al desnudo

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 22, 2025 4:12


Esta semana se nos cruzaron los cables con dos periodos presidenciales, cometimos una imprecisión en un editorial sobre el mural de la discordia y tuvimos un justo #JalóndeOrejas por no referirnos a alguien según el género con el que se identifica.Conviértete en un seguidor de este podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/redaccion-al-desnudo--4087144/support.

La W Radio con Julio Sánchez Cristo
No existe justificación: Juan Manuel Santos sobre medida de conmoción interior del Gobierno Petro

La W Radio con Julio Sánchez Cristo

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 21, 2025 40:58


Grandes Reportajes de RFI
Colombia: la paz con aroma de café

Grandes Reportajes de RFI

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 26, 2024 17:23


El café se ha convertido en uno de los símbolos de la reincorporación de los ex guerrilleros de las FARC que le cumplieron a la paz. En el octavo aniversario de la histórica firma del Acuerdo final entre el gobierno colombiano de Juan Manuel Santos y la otrora guerrilla más vieja del continente, sellado el 26 de noviembre de 2016, les invitamos a descubrir la historia de ex combatientes que han encontrado en el café una forma de volver a la vida civil.  La Federación Mesa Nacional del Café, con apoyo de entidades estatales aliadas, es el proyecto bandera de los ex combatientes que han buscado la ruta cafetera para reincorporarse a la vida civil. Su marca insignia es Trópicos, Frutos de esperanza.  El proyecto agrupa a 1300 familias de excombatientes que trabajan con las comunidades, los militares y las víctimas.El 24 de noviembre de 2016, 13 mil guerrilleros de las FARC firmaron la paz y, en consecuencia, depusieron las armas. De esos firmantes hacían parte Lizette Melo y Antonio Pardos, dos jóvenes que pasaron, cada uno, tres lustros en las filas del grupo insurgente. Desde entonces, ambos caminan por la ruta cafetera para sembrar la paz en los territorios. Ella como barista internacional de café y él como representante legal de la Federación Mesa Nacional del Café.Acompañados de sus familias, de víctimas de la guerrilla y de líderes de las extintas FARC, Lizette y Antonio vinieron a París el pasado 12 de noviembre a contar la historia de paz y reconciliación que hay detrás de una taza de café colombiano.Lo hicieron durante el evento “Café Producto de la Reincorporación y la Reconciliación, Experiencias y buenas prácticas de la Justicia transicional en Colombia, (JEP)”, panel que tuvo lugar en el marco del Foro de París por la Paz, con apoyo del Consejo Nacional de Colegios de Abogados y la Asociación Nacional de juristas franco colombianos y organizado por la embajada de Colombia.Con la participación de:Alfonso Prada, actual embajador de Colombia en Francia y ex secretario de la Presidencia de Juan Manuel Santos.Carlos Ruiz Massieu, jefe de la Misión de Verificación de la ONU en Colombia, creada en 2016 por el Consejo de Seguridad de naciones Unidas para verificar la implementación del Acuerdo. 

Última Hora Caracol
Baja el desempleo, muerte del Mayor Ernesto Maldonado, recta final de la COP16 y Juan Manuel Santos, actualícese antes de mediodía.

Última Hora Caracol

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 31, 2024 6:34


Resumen informativo con las noticias más destacadas de Colombia del Jueves 31 de octubre 11:00am

La Hora de la Verdad
Al Oído septiembre 30 de 2024

La Hora de la Verdad

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 30, 2024 18:35


El expresidente Juan Manuel Santos, dijo que a la paz total de Gustavo Petro le falta rigor y métodoLa plata a las JAC para vías terciariasCada vez que el presidente @petrogustavo habla o trina, ahuyenta la inversión dice FENALCOEcopetrol importará gas: recomienda “dejar de usarlo en los momentos críticos”Irene Montero en México apoyando a su camarada SheinbaumPresidente de la Corte Constitucional denuncia que le toca instaurar tutela para que le den sus medicamentosLos delirios de Holman Morris sobre los ataques a RTVCAgarrados Bolívar y María José Pizarro El embajador de Petro en Panamá

Entrevistas La FM
Secreto de Darcy: Hablan las redes sociales de Juan Manuel Santos... Sigue a Alejandro Gaviria

Entrevistas La FM

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 27, 2024 3:35


Última Hora Caracol
Juan Manuel Santos COP16, fiestas clandestinas Bogotá, Pichi Gordo, Batman.

Última Hora Caracol

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 26, 2024 3:53


Resumen informativo con las noticias más destacadas de Colombia del jueves 26 de septiembre de 2024 a las tres de la tarde.

Entrevistas La FM
Secreto Darcy Quinn: Los que siguen en la rosca del santismo y los que salieron de ella

Entrevistas La FM

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 9, 2024 6:45


Las lecturas políticas del matrimonio de Esteban Santos y Gabriela Tafur.  

Entrevistas La FM
Pocos expresidentes y muchos patos en reunión de Comisión Asesora de Relaciones Exteriores

Entrevistas La FM

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2024 9:07


Juan Manuel Santos y Ernesto Samper han sido algunos de los expresidentes que confirmaron su asistencia.

La W Radio con Julio Sánchez Cristo
Juan Manuel Santos no está de acuerdo con la asamblea constituyente

La W Radio con Julio Sánchez Cristo

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 4, 2024 2:23


El expresidente Juan Manuel Santos ya se había opuesto a hacer modificaciones a la Constitución por vía del acuerdo de paz, tal y como lo planteó el excanciller Álvaro Leyva.

Los Danieles
Columna - Daniel Coronell - El parrafito

Los Danieles

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 11, 2024 8:50


El expresidente Juan Manuel Santos respondió con un anuncio que tal vez se vuelva noticia en los próximos días.

El Reporte Coronell
Exclusivo: Habla el expresidente Juan Manuel Santos sobre su carta a Naciones Unidas

El Reporte Coronell

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2024 31:41


La W Radio con Julio Sánchez Cristo
“Lo del golpe de Estado a mí me da cierta risa”: Juan Manuel Santos responde a Petro

La W Radio con Julio Sánchez Cristo

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2024 1:54


La W Radio con Julio Sánchez Cristo
“Da tristeza ver a Álvaro Leyva con estas tesis”: Santos sobre propuesta de Constituyente

La W Radio con Julio Sánchez Cristo

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2024 8:50


En diálogo con El Reporte Coronell de La W, el expresidente Juan Manuel Santos conversó a propósito de una carta que le envió al secretario general de las Naciones Unidas, Antonio Guterres, sobre el acuerdo de paz que su gobierno firmó con las Farc.  

La W Radio con Julio Sánchez Cristo
Exclusivo: Habla el expresidente Juan Manuel Santos sobre su carta a Naciones Unidas

La W Radio con Julio Sánchez Cristo

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2024 31:41


Noticias del día en Colombia - BLU Radio
Rifirrafe entre el expresidente Santos y el presidente Petro por el nuevo proceso de paz

Noticias del día en Colombia - BLU Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2024 10:40


El expresidente Juan Manuel Santos criticó duramente en Mañanas Blu, con Néstor Morales, las recientes acciones y declaraciones del presidente Gustavo Petro en relación con el acuerdo de paz con las Farc, del que ha dicho que dejó la puerta abierta para convocar a una Asamblea Nacional Constituyente.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Vicky en Semana
Ni Constituyente ni reelección NI MAROMAS Iván Duque se despacha en SEMANA

Vicky en Semana

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2024 42:42


“Ni Constituyente, ni reelección, ni maromas juguetonas para seguir dividiendo a Colombia entre amigos y enemigos de la paz”: el expresidente Iván Duque se va de frente contra Gustavo Petro y Juan Manuel Santos, ¿qué pasó? Entérese aquí. 

Mañanas BLU con Néstor Morales
Juan Manuel Santos revela episodio en el que Petro siendo candidato le pidió su apoyo electoral

Mañanas BLU con Néstor Morales

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2024 2:24


El expresidente Juan Manuel Santos contó que se negó a darle su apoyo en ese momento de elecciones al ahora presidente Gustavo Petro porque quería mantenerse al margen de controversias políticas y así lo seguirá haciendo.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

La W Radio con Julio Sánchez Cristo
Al Oído | Constituyente, un absurdo que une a Petro, a ‘Iván Márquez' y a Álvaro Leyva

La W Radio con Julio Sánchez Cristo

Play Episode Listen Later May 27, 2024 3:41


“Usar el Acuerdo de Paz con las Farc para convocar una constituyente es un absurdo”, dijo Juan Manuel Santos.

Conclusiones
¿Está funcionando la estrategia de pacificación del presidente Gustavo Petro?

Conclusiones

Play Episode Listen Later May 22, 2024 45:21


El analista militar Luis Alberto Villamarín dijo en entrevista con Fernando Del Rincón que la estrategia del presidente de Colombia, Gustavo Petro, para lograr la paz con las guerrillas “está fallando en todo”. Para Villamarín, el mensaje del mandatario es confuso y se contradice porque primero pide a las Fuerzas Armadas que ataquen y después que no. Además, señala que esta estrategia sin dirección alienta a los “delincuentes” y es la continuación de los errores que cometió el expresidente Juan Manuel Santos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Making Peace Visible
Making Peace “Possible” with William Ury

Making Peace Visible

Play Episode Listen Later May 7, 2024 47:20


William Ury is one of the world's most influential peacebuilders and experts on negotiation. He advised Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos in the lead up to that country's historic 2016 peace agreement with the FARC, and played a key role in de-escalating nuclear tensions between the U.S. and North Korea in 2017. Getting to Yes, which Ury co-wrote with Roger Fisher back in 1981, is the world's best selling book on negotiation. Ury co-founded the Program on Negotiation at Harvard, as well as the Abraham Path Initiative, an NGO that builds walking trails connecting communities in the Middle East. His new book is called Possible: How we Survive - and Thrive - in an Age of Conflict. It's filled with incredible stories from Bill's career. In this episode, Bill talks about how lessons from the failures and success of the past – in places like Northern Ireland, Colombia, and the Middle East – can be instructive when dealing with the conflicts of today.  He shares exciting ideas about how journalists can tell stories about peace. What's more, his insights on managing conflict can be applied anywhere from the UN to the boardroom to your own family. William Ury's ideas aren't easy to implement –  in fact they're incredibly challenging. Ury says conflicts don't end, but they can be transformed, from fighting with weapons to hashing differences out in a democratic process. And if Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Colombia – places where people said violent conflict would go on forever – could transform their conflicts, then there's hope for the seemingly “impossible” conflicts of today. Music in this episode by Joel Cummins, Podington Bear, Kevin MacLeod, Meavy Boy, and Faszo. ABOUT THE SHOW Making Peace Visible is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org Support this podcast Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleX (formerly Twitter) @makingpeaceviz We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!

Mañanas BLU 10:30 - con Camila Zuluaga
Petro tiene 48 horas para presentar pruebas por acusaciones contra Rafael Pardo y Eduardo Díaz

Mañanas BLU 10:30 - con Camila Zuluaga

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 22, 2024 2:51


La decisión adoptada se da luego de los señalamientos del presidente Gustavo Petro, en Tumaco, donde aseguró que la política antidrogas en el Gobierno del expresidente Juan Manuel Santos era "un antro de corrupción".See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Milenio Opinión
Diego Enrique Osorno. Tierra de paz

Milenio Opinión

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 31, 2024 2:52


Entre bullicios aeroportuarios, un minuto antes de que se cierre la puerta principal del avión, Juan Manuel Santos entra agitado hacia su asiento.

tierra juan manuel santos diego enrique osorno
Colombia Calling - The English Voice in Colombia
501: "The greatest show on earth? A good conversation"

Colombia Calling - The English Voice in Colombia

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 16, 2024 68:11


This week, Emily Hart speaks to Cristina Fuentes La Roche, International Director of the Hay Festival, about arts curation and festival-making in the era of Artificial Intelligence and social media - and bringing one of the world's most successful literary festivals to Colombia for the last two decades. The Hay Festival is known as 'the Woodstock of the Mind': Nobel Prizewinners and novelists, scientists and politicians, historians, environmentalists and musicians take part in the Festival's global conversation, sharing the latest thinking in the arts and sciences with curious audiences. The festival kicks off in Colombia this month, with chapters this and next week in Medellín and Jericó, Antioquia, then in Cartagena at the end of the month. At this year's festival are Juan Manuel Santos, Wade Davis, Brigitte Baptiste, Rebecca Solnit, André Aciman, Héctor Abad Faciolince, Amalia Andrade, Margarita Rosa de Francisco, Humberto de la Calle, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Los Danieles and more! Emily and Cristina chat all things Hay, Colombia, and the arts - delving into the importance of spontaneity, connection, and conversation - and how the upcoming global challenges we face will prove to be, above all, challenges of the imagination... Tune in and support the podcast: www.patreon.com/colombiacalling

La Silla Vacía
El Acuerdo de Paz con las Farc siete años después

La Silla Vacía

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 24, 2023 10:32


Hoy hace siete años gobierno y la entonces guerrilla de las Farc firmaron el histórico acuerdo para dejar las armas. Fueron 13 mil personas las que ingresaron a la vida civil, una transformación que muchas veces pasa debajo del radar y a veces, termina siendo irrelevante en la agenda pública. En el episodio de hoy, Carolina Varela* explica los avances del Acuerdo; y los retos de la implementación del Acuerdo de Paz, que está bajo la tutela del nuevo comisionado de paz, Otty Patiño.*Carolina es la coordinadora del proyecto Del Capitolio al Territorio, una iniciativa de la Fundación Ideas para la Paz (FIP) para apoyar a la Comisión de paz del Congreso en el seguimiento a la implementación del Acuerdo de Paz.Para saber más puede leer:Informe de avances de la implementación. Iniciativa de del Capitolio al Territorio.Siete años de la firma del Acuerdo con las Farc: lecciones para la paz. Columna de Andrei Gómez-Suárez y Alejandro Posada-Téllez, en La Silla Vacía.Sin Rueda cambia el rumbo y el estilo de la paz total de Petro:Si anda interesado en el Curso de Inmersión de 2024 de La Silla, acá encuentra toda la información: Elija ser Súperamigo. Puede ser parte de nuestra comunidad acá: Un espacio de cuña en Huevos Revueltos puede ser suyo, excepto para contenido político y electoral. Si tiene interés, escriba a socampo@lasillavacia.com. Chequeo de datos: Tatiana Duque, coordinadora de pódcast de La Silla Vacía. Producción: Sergio García y Fernando Cruz, periodistas de La Silla Vacía.Foto de portada: X de Ángela María Calderón F.

Paredro / 070 Podcasts
"La rabia que encarna la luz", de Camilo Hoyos // Lectura en voz alta, Conmemoración de los 7 años del acuerdo de Paz, Colección Futuro en Tránsito de la Comisión de la Verdad.

Paredro / 070 Podcasts

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 24, 2023 25:20


Para celebrar los siete años de la firma de la paz por parte del gobierno de Juan Manuel Santos, hoy viernes 24 de noviembre, compartimos a manera de lectura en voz alta el texto "La rabia que encarna la luz", publicado en el tomo de "Perdón" de la colección Futuro en Tránsito, con el apoyo de la Comisión de la Verdad y dirigida por el autor Alonso Sánchez Baute. Recuerden que pueden bajar toda la colección en la página de la Comisión de la Verdad. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/paredropodcast/support

Noticias del día en Colombia - BLU Radio
Expresidente Santos pide a la JEP cerrar investigaciones y no abrir más macro casos

Noticias del día en Colombia - BLU Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 24, 2023 14:04


Este viernes 24 de noviembre se conmemoran los siete años del acuerdo de paz con la presencia de sus firmantes, Juan Manuel Santos, expresidente de Colombia y Premio Nobel de Paz, y Rodrigo Londoño, excomandante de la guerrilla de las Farc y presidente del Partido Comunes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

6AM Hoy por Hoy
Petro lleva un año y tres meses sin corregir lo que iba a arreglar: Juan Manuel Santos

6AM Hoy por Hoy

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 20, 2023 24:20


En 6AM Hoy por Hoy de Caracol Radio estuvo el expresidente Juan Manuel Santos, para hablar sobre diferentes aspectos del Gobierno actual, luego del lanzamiento de su nuevo libro “La batalla contra la pobreza”.

6AM Hoy por Hoy
"Hay que analizar cuánto una sociedad está dispuesta a sacrificar para obtener la paz": Juan Manuel Santos

6AM Hoy por Hoy

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 20, 2023 1:18


CFR On the Record
Academic Webinar: Human Rights in Latin America

CFR On the Record

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 8, 2023


José Miguel Vivanco, adjunct senior fellow for human rights at CFR and former executive director of the Americas division at Human Rights Watch, leads the conversation on human rights in Latin America. FASKIANOS: Welcome to today's session of the Fall 2023 CFR Academic Webinar Series. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. Today's discussion is on the record. The video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org, if you would like to share them with your colleagues or classmates. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We are delighted to have José Miguel Vivanco with us to discuss human rights in Latin America. Mr. Vivanco is an adjunct senior fellow for human rights at CFR and partner at Dentons Global Advisors. He formerly served as the executive director of the Americas Division at Human Rights Watch, where he supervised fact-finding research for numerous reports on gross violations of human rights and advocated strengthening international legal standards and domestic compliance throughout the region. He is the founder of the Center for Justice and International Law, an international civil society organization providing legal and technical assistance with the Inter-American Human Rights System. So, José Miguel, thank you very much for being with us today. I thought you could begin by giving us an overview of what you see as the most important human rights challenges and advances in Latin America today. VIVANCO: Well, thank you very much for this invitation. It is a pleasure to be with you all and to talk for an hour about human rights problems, human rights issues in Latin America. Let me first make a couple of points. First, I think it's very important that, in retrospect, if you look at Latin America in the 1960s, 1970s, and even 1980s, it was a region that was pretty much run by military dictatorships. So if you look at historically, the region is not in such a bad shape. I know that this comment is quite controversial and many experts who follow the region closely might disagree with that statement, but objectively speaking I think we need to recognize that most of the region is run today—with the exception, obviously, of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua—by democracies, weak democracies, the kind of democracies that we have in Latin America are facing very serious challenges and with endemic problems such as corruption, abuse of power, lack of transparency, lack of proper accountability, and so on and so forth. But in general terms, this is a region that has a chance to conduct some self-correction. In other words, electoral democracy is a very, very important value in the region, and the citizens—most of the people are able to either reward or punish the incumbent government at the times of elections. That is not a minor detail. It is extremely important, especially if you take into account that during the last twenty years in Latin America, if I'm not wrong, the vast majority of the governments elected were from the opposition. The statistics, I think, show that in eighteen of the twenty last presidential elections, the winner has been the party of the opposition; which means that even though our democracies in Latin America are dysfunctional, weak, messy, slow, you know, short-term-oriented, obviously, but at least citizens take their rights seriously and they exercise their powers so that is why you see a regular zigzag or, you know, transfer of power from a left-wing government to a right-wing government or vice versa. And that is, again, something that is, obviously, a very, very important tool of self-correction. And that, obviously, includes or has an impact in terms of the human rights record of those countries. You know, I'm not—I'm not addressing yet—I will leave it for the Q&A section—conditions in those three dictatorships in Latin America. Let me just make some few more remarks about one of the biggest challenges that I see in the region. And that is, obviously, the rise of autocracy or autocratic leaders, populist leaders, leaders who are not interested or as a matter of fact are very hostile to the concept of rule of law and the concept of independence of the judiciary. And they usually are very charismatic. They have high level of popular support. And they run and govern the country in a style that is like a permanent campaign, where they normally go against minorities and against the opposition, against the free media, against judges and prosecutors who dare to investigate them or investigate the government. Anyone who challenges them are subject of this type of reaction. And that is, unfortunately, something that we have seen in Mexico recently and until today, and in Brazil, especially during the administration of President Bolsonaro. The good news about, in the case of Brazil, is that, thanks to electoral democracy, it was possible to defeat him and—democratically. And the second very important piece of information is that even though Brazil is not a model of rule of law and separation of power, we have to acknowledge that, thanks to the checks-and-balance exercise by the Supreme Court of Brazil, it was possible to do some permanent, constant damage control against the most outrageous initiatives promoted by the administration of President Bolsonaro. That, I think, is one of the biggest challenges in the region. Let me conclude my—make crystal clear that there are serious human rights problems in Latin America today regarding, for instance, abuse of power, police brutality, prison problems. Prisons are really, in most of the countries in the region, a disaster. And you know, a big number of prisoners are awaiting trial, in detention and unable to really exercise their rights. And unfortunately, populist leaders use the prison system or essentially criminal law, by expanding the practice and enlarging the numbers of crimes that could be subject of pretrial detention, and—you know, regardless of the time that it will take for that case to be prosecuted in full respect for the rule—due process, and so on and so forth. And that—the reason is very simple. There is a real demand in Latin America for policies that will address insecurity, citizen security. If you look at statistics in terms of crime rate, it is going up in most of the country. Obviously, there are big difference between countries like Mexico, for instance, or Colombia, and if you link—if you look at the power of cartels and big mafias, and gangs in other countries, or petty crime impacting the daily life of the citizens. Regardless of that point, one of the biggest demands in Latin America is for better and more public security. And that's why political leaders, usually the solution for that request and demand is to put people in prison with essentially no real due process and increase the number of prisoners without conviction. There are challenges for free speech occasionally, of those leaders who resent scrutiny of their practice. And normally there is a campaign against free media. And there are some attempts in some countries to constantly look for ways to undermine the independence of the judiciary. Keep in mind, for instance, that now in Argentina the whole Supreme Court is under impeachment, and it's essentially an impeachment promoted by the current government because they disagree with the rulings, positions of the Supreme Court. All the justices on the Supreme Court are subject of this political trial conducted by the Argentine Congress. That is a concrete example of the kinds of risks that are present for judges and the judiciary in general, when they exercise their power and they attempt to protect the integrity of the constitution. So let me stop here and we can move on to the most interesting part of this event. FASKIANOS: Well, that was quite interesting. So, thank you, José Miguel. We appreciate it. We going to go to all of you now for your questions. (Gives queuing instructions.) We already have some hands up. We will go first to Karla Soto Valdes. Q: My name is Karla Soto. I'm from Lewis University. My question is, what specific measures could be implemented to address and/or prevent trafficking within the asylum-seeking community during their journey to the U.S.? VIVANCO: Irina, are we going to take several questions, or? FASKIANOS: I think we should do one at a time. VIVANCO: Well, Karla, there are multiple tools to address that specific issue. But this applies to essentially most of the human rights problems all over the world. The menu is pretty ample, but depends on one important factor—whether the government involved cares about its own reputation. That is a very important premise here, because if you we are dealing with a democratic government, once again, it's not—when I refer to a democratic government, I don't have in mind a sort of Jeffersonian model, I'm referring to the kind of democracies that we have in Latin America. But, if the leaders in charge are—you know, they care about their own reputation, they care about domestic debate, very important, because these types of revelations usually have ramifications at the local level. If they pay close attention to those issues, I think it's possible to apply, essentially, the technique of naming and shaming. In other words, collecting information, documenting what exactly is happening, and revealing that information to the public, locally and internationally. That is going to create naturally a reaction, a process, an awareness, and local pressure is—hopefully, it's not just twenty-four hours news, so splash—big splash, but also will trigger some dynamics. If we are dealing with a country that is run by a dictatorship, it is a very, very different question, because normally you're facing a leader, a government, who couldn't care less about its own reputation. They have taken already and assume the cost of doing business in that type of context. Now, sometimes conditions are kind of mixed, where you have democratic country in general—so there is still free media, there is an opposition, there is Congress, there are elections. But the government in charge is so—is run by an autocratic leader. That makes, you know, quite—a little more challenging to just document and reveal that information. And you need to think about some particular agenda, governmental agenda. Some specific interests of the government in different areas. Let me see—let me give you an example. Let's say that the Bolsonaro administration is seriously interested in an incorporation into the OECD in Paris. That is an important piece of information. Whatever you think that is relevant information regarding the record of that government, you could provide information to an entity that is precisely evaluating the record of the government. And the government will be much more willing to address those issues because they have a genuine interest in achieving some specific goal at the international level. FASKIANOS: Fantastic. We're going to go to Nicole Ambar De Santos, who is an undergraduate student at the Washington University in St. Louis: When we consider weak democracy in a more personal sense, like Peru, the controversy of obligation to help these nations arises. How much third party or other nations, such as the United States, intervene? VIVANCO: Tricky question. Peruvian democracy is quite messy. Part of the problem is that the system, the political system, needs some real reform to avoid the proliferation of small political parties and to create the real link or relationship between leaders, especially in Congress, and their constituencies, and so they are much more accountable to their community, the ones who elected them. I don't think the U.S., or any other government, has a direct role to play in that area. My sense is that when we are looking into a dysfunctional democracy that deserve some probably even constitutional reforms, that is essentially a domestic job. That is the work that needs to be done by Peruvians. Without a local consensus about the reforms that need to be implemented in the political system, my sense is that it's going to be very difficult for the U.S. or any other large democracy, to address those kinds of points. It's very different, that type of conversation, from a conversation or an assessment of universal values, such as human rights. When we are looking into cases of police brutality, for instance, the international community has a role to play. But if I were part of the conversation or evaluation by the U.S. government or the European Union with regard to this dysfunctional democracy in Peru, I would approach very carefully by suggesting creating the right type of incentives, more than questions of punishment, or sanctions. It's incentives for them to create the right conditions to address the domestic problem that is—has become quite endemic, in the case of Peru. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to take the next question from Matthew. Matthew, you don't have a last name, so can you identify yourself? Q: Hello. Yes, my name is Matthew. I am a junior student from Arizona State University studying business, but working on a thesis that has to do with human rights and the ethics of supply chain management. My question is, you were talking at the very beginning kind of just about history and how understanding history is important. And what I was hoping to get was, why is understanding history and culture important when working to address human rights issues, history of dictatorship, colonialism? In cultures it's socially acceptable things, like child labor, in some countries, that's not acceptable in Western ideology. So, yeah, just how is history and culture important when working to address human rights for the future? VIVANCO: Matthew, I think you're referring to two different issues. History is central. It's really, really relevant. Because that helps you—if you—if you follow your history, especially periods of time when massive and gross violations were committed in Latin America, it's important to put things in context and value what you have today. And the job is to—not only to preserve democracy, but also to look for ways to strengthen democracy. Because part of the problem is that domestic debate is so polarized today, not just in Latin America, all over the world, that sometimes people—different, you know, segments of society—in their positions, they're so dismissive of the other side, that they don't realize that we need to frame our debate in a constructive way. Let me put it—one specific example. If the government of Argentina, who is a government very receptive and very sensitive to vast and gross violations of human rights committed during the military dictatorship, so in other words, I don't need to lecture that government on that subject. They are actually the people who vote for the current government of Argentina—not the new government, the current government of Argentina—is deeply committed to those kinds of issues. I think that one of the biggest lessons that you should learn from the past is the relevance of protecting the independence of the judiciary. If you don't have an independent judiciary, and the judiciary becomes an entity that is an appendix of the ruling party or is intimidated by politics, and they could be subject of impeachment procedures every time that they rule something, that the powerful—the establishment disagree, I think they're playing with fire, and they're not really paying attention to the lessons that you learn from recent history in Latin America. That would be my first comment regarding that type of issue. And the second one, about you mentioned specifically cultural problems, culture, tensions or conflicts. And you mentioned—your example was child labor. And, and you suggested that that—the combination of child labor is something typical of Western ideology. If I'm not wrong, that was the language that you used. I would—I would push back on that point. And because this is not just a Western or European commitment. This is a universal one. And this is reflected on international treaties, and that are supposed to eradicate that kind of practice. If you give up to the concept of local traditions, you know, cultural, you know, issues that you need to pay attention, sure, as long as they are not to be in conflict with fundamental human rights. Otherwise, in half of the planet you're not going to have women rights, and women will be subject of traditional control. And you wouldn't have rights for minorities, and especially—and not only, but especially—the LGBTQ community. And you wouldn't have rights for racial minorities, or different religious beliefs. So, we have to watch and be very careful about what type of concessions we make to cultural traditions. I am happy to understand that different communities in Latin America might have different traditions, but there is some firm, solid, and unquestionable minimum that are the these universal human rights values that are not the property or monopoly of anyone. You know, these are—and this is not an ethical conversation. This is a legal one, because these values are protected under international law. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to combine or take two questions. The first question is from Lindsay Bert, who is at the department of political science at Muhlenberg College, who asks if you could speak on the efficacy of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in addressing the human rights violations you described. And the second question is from Leonard Onyebuchi Ophoke, a graduate student at Cavendish University in Uganda: Why is it almost impossible to hold the actors that violate human rights accountable? What could be done to make the mechanism more enforceable? VIVANCO: The inter-American system of human rights protection, there is nothing similar to inter-American system of human rights protection in the Global South. You don't have something similar in Asia, or Africa, or the Middle East. In other words, you don't have a mechanism where ultimately a court, a court of law—not just a commission, a court of law—handle individual cases, specific complaints of human rights abuses, and governments participate in public hearings. The parties involved have the obligation to present evidence before the court, and the court finally ruled on the specific matters where its decisions are binding. The number of issues that have been addressed by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the last thirty years in Latin America are really incredible. And the impact—this is most important point—the impact at a local level is remarkable. In the area, for instance, of torture, disappearances. I'm referring to the elaboration of concepts and the imposing the obligation of local governments to adjust their legislation and practice, and to address specific problems or issues by providing remedies to victims. That is quite unusual. And the court has remarkable rulings on free speech, on discrimination issues, on indigenous populations, on military jurisdiction. One of the typical recourse of governments in the region when security forces were involved in human rights atrocities was to invoke military jurisdiction. So they say, no worries, we are going to investigate our own crimes. And the court has been actually very, very firm, challenging that notion to the point that I don't think there is a single case in Latin America today—once again, with the exception of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, that I hope that somebody will ask me a question about those three countries—and I don't think there is a single case where today security forces try to—or attempt to shield themselves from investigation invoking military jurisdiction. And the credit is to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. I can elaborate, and give you—provide you with a long list of examples of areas where the court has been actually really, really critical in advancing human rights in the region. Let me give you actually one last example that I think is very—is very illustrative, very revealing. In Chile, something like probably twenty years ago or fifteen years ago, full democracy. Full democracy. No Chile under Pinochet. The Supreme Court of Chile ruled that a mother who was openly lesbian did not qualify for the custody of her children because she was lesbian. And she had a couple. So that was sufficient grounds to rule in favor of the father, because the mother didn't have the moral grounds to educate her own kids, children. And this was decided by the Supreme Court of Chile. Not just a small first instance tribunal. And I will point out that the vast majority of the—I mean, the public in Chile was pretty much divided, but I'm pretty sure that the majority of Chileans thought that the Supreme Court was right, you know? The case went to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. And fortunately, after a few years, the court not only challenged that decision of the Supreme Court, forced Chile to change its legislation, and to change the ruling of the Supreme Court of Chile, which is supposed to be the last judgment in the country. And the impact of that one, not only in Chile, in the rest of the region, because it shapes the common wisdom, the assumptions of many people. It helps for them to think carefully about this kind of issues. And the good news is that that mother was able to have the custody of her kids. And not only that, the impact in Chilean society and in the rest of the region was remarkable. Now, the second question that was asked was about how difficult it is to establish accountability for human rights abuses against the perpetrators of those abuses. I mean, it's a real challenge. It depends on whether or not you have locally an independent judiciary. If you do have an independent judiciary, the process is slow, it's messy, it's complicated. But there is a chance that atrocities could be addressed. And that is— especially human rights atrocities or abuses committed during the military dictatorship. There are countries in the region, like for instance, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, where there are people in prison for those type of atrocities. In Brazil, thanks to an amnesty law that was passed in 1978, real investigation and prosecution of those atrocities actually never happened. And an important lesson that you could bear in mind is that Brazilian military are very dismissive of these type of issues, of human rights issues. But not only that, my sense is that Brazilian military officers at very high level are not afraid of stepping into politics, and give their opinion, and challenge the government. In other words, they were actually very, very active, and I'm referring to top officials in the Brazilian Army, during the Bolsonaro administration. There were top leaders who actually publicly argued that if they have to organize a coup again in Brazil, they are ready. That kind of language you don't find in Argentina, in Chile, in other countries where there have been some accountability. For one simple reason, the top military officers running the show are very much aware that if they get involved in politics, that they are part tomorrow of a coup d'état or something like that, at the end of the day they will be responsible. And they might be subject of criminal prosecution for atrocities committed during that period. And so there is a price to pay. So their calculation is much more, shall we say, prudent regarding this issue. But again, once again, how difficult it is? It's very difficult to establish accountability, and much more difficult when you're dealing with dictatorship, where you need to rely on the work done by, for instance, the ICC, the International Criminal Court, which is pretty active in the case of Venezuela. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to take the next question from Fordham. Q: Good afternoon, Mr. Vivanco. My name is Carlos Ortiz de la Pena Gomez Urguiza, and I have a question for you. El Salvador is currently battling crime and gangs with strategies such as mano dura, which have shown a significant decrease in crime at the cost of violating human rights. Do you see a possible effective integration of such policies in high-crime-rate countries, such as Mexico, to stop the growth of narco and crime gang activity? And if so, how? VIVANCO: Well, look, yeah, Carlos, very good question. Bukele in El Salvador is a real, real challenge. It's really, really a complicated case, for several reasons. He's incredibly popular. No question about it. He has managed to—thanks to that popularity—to concentrate power in his own hands. He fully controls Congress. But, much more relevant, he fully controls the judiciary, including the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court today is subordinated to the executive branch. And he is constantly going after the civil society, and free media, and the opposition. Now, in violation of the Salvadorean constitution, he's going to run for reelection. And he will be reelected, because he's also very popular. And his policies to go after gangs are cruel, inhuman, and without—not even a facade of respect for due process. Essentially, the policy which is not sustainable and is—I don't think is something that you could export to other countries—is a policy—unless you have full control, unless you have some sort of dictatorship or quasi dictatorship. Which is based, in essence, in the appearance, in the number of tattoos that people, especially in the marginal communities in the periferia in El Salvador, where shanty towns are located. The police has a, you know, green light to arrest anyone who fit that profile. And then good luck, because it's going to be very, very difficult for that person to avoid something like several months in prison. The whole point of having an independent judiciary and due process is that law enforcement agencies have the—obviously, not only the right, the duty to prevent crimes and to punish criminals. Not physically punish them. You know, it's to arrest them, to detain them, and to use proportional force to produce that attention. But they need to follow certain rules. They cannot just go around and arrest anyone who they have some sort of gut feelings that they are involved in crimes, because then you don't—you're not—the whole system is not able to distinguish and to make a distinction between potential criminals and innocent people. But it is complicated, the case of Bukele, because, for instance, I was referring initially to the technique of naming and shaming as a technique, as a methodology to expose governments with deplorable human rights record. But in the case of Bukele, he couldn't care less about. In other words, actually, I think he used the poor perception that exists, already that is established outside El Salvador as a result of his persecution of gangs in El Salvador—he used that kind of criticism as a way to improve his support domestically. In other words, when the New York Times published a whole report about massive abuses committed by Bukele's criminal system, in the prison system in El Salvador, what Bukele does is to take that one, that criticism, as actually ammunition to project himself as a tough guy who is actually, you know, doing the right thing for El Salvador. It's a question of time. It's a question of time. All of this is very sad for El Salvador, one of the few democracies in Central America with some future, I think, because I think they managed after the war to create institutions that are—that were much more credible than in the neighboring countries, like Guatemala, Honduras, and I'm not going to even mention Nicaragua. But under the control of this strongman, everything is possible today in El Salvador. He will be able to govern El Salvador this way as long as he's popular. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has relaxed its attention and pressure on that government, based on the question of migration. So they are hostage by the cooperation of Bukele government to try or attempt to control illegal immigration into the U.S. So that point trumps or, I mean, supersedes everything else. And that is actually very unfortunate. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to take the next two questions, written questions. One is on the subject that you wanted, from Brittney Thomas, who is an undergraduate at Arizona State University: How come the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are socialist or communist while other Latin America countries are predominantly democracies? And then from Roger— VIVANCO: I'm sorry, I couldn't understand the question. Obviously, it's about Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, but? FASKIANOS: Why are they socialist or communist while other Latin American countries are predominantly democracies? VIVANCO: Oh, I see. OK. FASKIANOS: Yeah. And then the next question is from Roger Rose, who is an associate professor of political science at University of Minnesota, Morris: Given the recent decline in the norms of U.S. democracy in the last seven years, does the U.S. have any credibility and influence in the region in promoting democracy? And, again, if you could comment specifically on nations with the least democratic systems—Venezuela, Nicaragua—how could the U.S. play a more constructive role than it is currently? VIVANCO: The U.S. is always a very important player, very, very important. I mean, it's the largest economy in the world and the influence of the U.S. government in Latin America is huge. However, obviously, I have to acknowledge that our domestic problems here and serious challenges to the fundamentals of the rule of law, and just the notion that we respect the system according to which one who wins the election is—you know, has the legitimacy and the mandate to form a new government. If that notion is in question, and there are millions of American citizens who are willing to challenge that premise, obviously undermines the capacity of the U.S. to exercise leadership on this—in this context. And the autocrats and the autocracies in the region—I'm not referring to the dictatorships, but I'm referring to the Andrés Manuel López Obrador, once again, from Mexico, or Bolsonaro in Brazil—they take those kinds of developments in the U.S. as green lights to do whatever they want at local level. So that is a serious—obviously, it's a serious problem. And what is going on here has ramifications not only in the region, but also in the rest of the world. Now, Cuba is a historical problem. It's going to be too long to address the question in terms of why Cuba is a dictatorship and the rest of the region. Part of the problem with Cuba is that you have a government that violates the most fundamental rights and persecutes everyone who challenges the official line. And most of the Cubans today are willing to leave the country and to go into exile. But the problem is that we don't have the right tool, the right instrument in place, to exercise pressure on Cuba. And the right instrument today is the embargo. And that embargo, that policy is a total failure. The Cuban government is the same, exactly the same dictatorship. There has been no progress. And there's going to be no progress, in my view, as long as the U.S. government insist on a policy of isolation. You should be aware that every year 99 percentage of the states in the world condemned the isolation against Cuba, with the exception and the opposition of the U.S. government, Israel, and in the past was the Marshall Islands. Now, I don't think even the Marshall Islands joined the U.S. government defending that policy. So the policy is incredibly unpopular. And the debate at international level is about the U.S. government policy on Cuba and not about the deplorable human rights record of Cuba. That's why I was actually very supportive of the change of policy attempted during the Obama administration. Unfortunately, the isolation policy depends on Congress. And since the times of Clinton, this is a matter of who is the one in control of Congress. And the policy of isolation, it once again makes Cuba a victim of Washington. And Cuba, by the way, is not isolated from the rest of the world. So the U.S. is incredibly, I would say, powerless with regard to the lack of democracy and human rights in Cuba. And at the time, offers a fantastic justification for the Cuban government to present itself as a victim. I think that is the—this is one of the most serious mistakes of the U.S. foreign policy in Latin America that I hope that one day will be—will be addressed effectively. The case of Nicaragua and Venezuela is different, in the sense that we are looking into countries that—Venezuela in particular—have democracy for—a very questionable democracy, very weak, subject of tremendous corruption, and so on and so forth. But they have a system of political parties, free media, and so on, for many, many years. And they end up electing a populist leader whose marching orders and, you know, actually first majors was to establish some effective control of the judiciary. And the Supreme Court became an appendage of the government many, many, many years ago, which means that they managed during the Chavez administration to run the country with some sort of facade of democracy. Today, under Maduro it's no a longer a façade, it's a clear dictatorship responsible for atrocities. Fortunately, it is under investigation by the ICC. And the case of Nicaragua is an extreme case, similar to Venezuela. And it's—it's a dictator who has managed to put in prison everyone who is not in full alliance with the government, including religious leaders, and academics, and opposition leaders, civil society, et cetera. The case of Nicaragua is more complicated because Nicaragua is subject of sanctions by the U.S. government, and the European Union, and Canada, and some governments in the region. But still, we don't see much progress there. FASKIANOS: Great. I'm going to go next to Nassar Nassar, who has a raised hand. You can unmute yourself and state your affiliation. Q: Yes. Hello. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you. Q: Hi. My name is Nassar Nassar. I'm from Lewis University. So my question is, which are the most significant actors in the global governance of human trafficking? And how effective are they in tackling that? VIVANCO: Well, this is a matter that is usually—the main actors—so this is organized crime. This is organized crime. This is a question regarding—this is a—it's a huge business, and extremely profitable. And if you want to address these kinds of issues, you need regional cooperation, which is very challenging. Keep in mind that at a local level, in many of the most democratic countries in the region, you have tremendous tensions among the local police and different police. For instance, the local FBI—equivalent to an FBI, is usually in tension with other branches of law enforcement. And if you expect to have cooperation from the rest of the countries in the region, it's extremely challenging. So these type of issues require effective cooperation, adjustment on legislation. Require more better intelligence. The reason why you have this type—proliferation of this type of business is because, obviously, corruption and lack of accountability. So this is—my point is that it is a reflection of how weak is our law enforcement system, and how unprofessional, and subject many times of corruption. FASKIANOS: Just to follow up on that, a written question from Patricia Drown, who's at Regent University. How are the cartels and mafia being armed, and by whom? VIVANCO: Well, in the case of, for instance, Mexico, weapons comes from the U.S. Sometimes even legally. You know, the Second Amendment plays a role here. It's so easy to have access to weapons, all kind of weapons, in the U.S. So that helps. And a lack of actually an effective control mechanism to stop that type of traffic. The amount of money that cartels moved in countries like Mexico, but Colombia as well, and this mafia scene in Central America is significant. So they do have capacity to corrupt local enforcement officials that belongs to the police, the army, even the judiciary. And as long as you don't address the root cause of the problem, which is the lack of presence of the state—in other words, there are vast—as you know, there are regions of Colombia that are not under the control of the government, the territories in Colombia. And there are regions of Mexico that, unfortunately, are increasingly under more effective control of cartels than law enforcement and legitimate officials. So that unfortunately, is the—in my view, one of the reasons why it is relatively easy to witness this type of proliferation of illegal business. FASKIANOS: Fantastic. I think we are out of time. We have so many written questions and raised hands. Maybe I'll just try to sneak in one more from Andrea Cuervo Prados. You have your hand raised. I think you also wrote a question. So if you can be brief and tell us who you are. Q: OK. Hello. I'm adjunct faculty at Dickinson State University. And, Mr. Vivanco, I have a question related to Colombia. What do you think about the state of the human rights in Colombia under the new leftist president, Gustavo Petro, compared to the previous president, Ivan Duque? VIVANCO: Andrea, I think it's pretty much the same. When we witness actually an improvement of human rights conditions in Colombia, it was during the negotiations with the FARC. I'm referring to the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos. And with the signature of the peace agreement, when they signed the peace agreement, the numbers shows a serious decline in the cases of, for instance, internally displaced people, torture cases, executions, abductions, and many other of those typical abuses that are committed in Colombia in rural areas where this organized crime and irregular armed groups are historically present. But then the policies implemented during the Duque administration were actually not very effective. There was a sort of relaxation during that period, and not effective implementation of those commitments negotiated with the FARC. That had an implication in terms of abuses. And today I don't see a major shift. My sense is that the local communities are subject of similar abuses, including human rights activists as well as social leaders, in areas where there is a very weak presence of the state. FASKIANOS: Thank you very much. José Miguel Vivanco. We really appreciate your being with us today. And I apologize. Great questions. I'm sorry, we couldn't get to all of the written ones or raised hands. It's clear we will have to do this—focus in on this again and have you back. You can follow José Miguel on X at @VivancoJM. And the next Academic Webinar will be on Wednesday, November 29, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Shibley Telhami, who's a professor at the University of Maryland, will lead a conversation on public opinion on Israel and Palestine. And in the meantime, I encourage you to learn about CFR paid internships for students and fellowships for professors at CFR.org/careers. You can follow us at @CFR_Academic. And visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues. Again, José Miguel, thank you very much for today, and to all of you for joining us. VIVANCO: Thanks a lot. FASKIANOS: Take care. (END)

CFR On the Record
Academic Webinar: Human Rights in Latin America

CFR On the Record

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 8, 2023


José Miguel Vivanco, adjunct senior fellow for human rights at CFR and former executive director of the Americas division at Human Rights Watch, leads the conversation on human rights in Latin America. FASKIANOS: Welcome to today's session of the Fall 2023 CFR Academic Webinar Series. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. Today's discussion is on the record. The video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org, if you would like to share them with your colleagues or classmates. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We are delighted to have José Miguel Vivanco with us to discuss human rights in Latin America. Mr. Vivanco is an adjunct senior fellow for human rights at CFR and partner at Dentons Global Advisors. He formerly served as the executive director of the Americas Division at Human Rights Watch, where he supervised fact-finding research for numerous reports on gross violations of human rights and advocated strengthening international legal standards and domestic compliance throughout the region. He is the founder of the Center for Justice and International Law, an international civil society organization providing legal and technical assistance with the Inter-American Human Rights System. So, José Miguel, thank you very much for being with us today. I thought you could begin by giving us an overview of what you see as the most important human rights challenges and advances in Latin America today. VIVANCO: Well, thank you very much for this invitation. It is a pleasure to be with you all and to talk for an hour about human rights problems, human rights issues in Latin America. Let me first make a couple of points. First, I think it's very important that, in retrospect, if you look at Latin America in the 1960s, 1970s, and even 1980s, it was a region that was pretty much run by military dictatorships. So if you look at historically, the region is not in such a bad shape. I know that this comment is quite controversial and many experts who follow the region closely might disagree with that statement, but objectively speaking I think we need to recognize that most of the region is run today—with the exception, obviously, of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua—by democracies, weak democracies, the kind of democracies that we have in Latin America are facing very serious challenges and with endemic problems such as corruption, abuse of power, lack of transparency, lack of proper accountability, and so on and so forth. But in general terms, this is a region that has a chance to conduct some self-correction. In other words, electoral democracy is a very, very important value in the region, and the citizens—most of the people are able to either reward or punish the incumbent government at the times of elections. That is not a minor detail. It is extremely important, especially if you take into account that during the last twenty years in Latin America, if I'm not wrong, the vast majority of the governments elected were from the opposition. The statistics, I think, show that in eighteen of the twenty last presidential elections, the winner has been the party of the opposition; which means that even though our democracies in Latin America are dysfunctional, weak, messy, slow, you know, short-term-oriented, obviously, but at least citizens take their rights seriously and they exercise their powers so that is why you see a regular zigzag or, you know, transfer of power from a left-wing government to a right-wing government or vice versa. And that is, again, something that is, obviously, a very, very important tool of self-correction. And that, obviously, includes or has an impact in terms of the human rights record of those countries. You know, I'm not—I'm not addressing yet—I will leave it for the Q&A section—conditions in those three dictatorships in Latin America. Let me just make some few more remarks about one of the biggest challenges that I see in the region. And that is, obviously, the rise of autocracy or autocratic leaders, populist leaders, leaders who are not interested or as a matter of fact are very hostile to the concept of rule of law and the concept of independence of the judiciary. And they usually are very charismatic. They have high level of popular support. And they run and govern the country in a style that is like a permanent campaign, where they normally go against minorities and against the opposition, against the free media, against judges and prosecutors who dare to investigate them or investigate the government. Anyone who challenges them are subject of this type of reaction. And that is, unfortunately, something that we have seen in Mexico recently and until today, and in Brazil, especially during the administration of President Bolsonaro. The good news about, in the case of Brazil, is that, thanks to electoral democracy, it was possible to defeat him and—democratically. And the second very important piece of information is that even though Brazil is not a model of rule of law and separation of power, we have to acknowledge that, thanks to the checks-and-balance exercise by the Supreme Court of Brazil, it was possible to do some permanent, constant damage control against the most outrageous initiatives promoted by the administration of President Bolsonaro. That, I think, is one of the biggest challenges in the region. Let me conclude my—make crystal clear that there are serious human rights problems in Latin America today regarding, for instance, abuse of power, police brutality, prison problems. Prisons are really, in most of the countries in the region, a disaster. And you know, a big number of prisoners are awaiting trial, in detention and unable to really exercise their rights. And unfortunately, populist leaders use the prison system or essentially criminal law, by expanding the practice and enlarging the numbers of crimes that could be subject of pretrial detention, and—you know, regardless of the time that it will take for that case to be prosecuted in full respect for the rule—due process, and so on and so forth. And that—the reason is very simple. There is a real demand in Latin America for policies that will address insecurity, citizen security. If you look at statistics in terms of crime rate, it is going up in most of the country. Obviously, there are big difference between countries like Mexico, for instance, or Colombia, and if you link—if you look at the power of cartels and big mafias, and gangs in other countries, or petty crime impacting the daily life of the citizens. Regardless of that point, one of the biggest demands in Latin America is for better and more public security. And that's why political leaders, usually the solution for that request and demand is to put people in prison with essentially no real due process and increase the number of prisoners without conviction. There are challenges for free speech occasionally, of those leaders who resent scrutiny of their practice. And normally there is a campaign against free media. And there are some attempts in some countries to constantly look for ways to undermine the independence of the judiciary. Keep in mind, for instance, that now in Argentina the whole Supreme Court is under impeachment, and it's essentially an impeachment promoted by the current government because they disagree with the rulings, positions of the Supreme Court. All the justices on the Supreme Court are subject of this political trial conducted by the Argentine Congress. That is a concrete example of the kinds of risks that are present for judges and the judiciary in general, when they exercise their power and they attempt to protect the integrity of the constitution. So let me stop here and we can move on to the most interesting part of this event. FASKIANOS: Well, that was quite interesting. So, thank you, José Miguel. We appreciate it. We going to go to all of you now for your questions. (Gives queuing instructions.) We already have some hands up. We will go first to Karla Soto Valdes. Q: My name is Karla Soto. I'm from Lewis University. My question is, what specific measures could be implemented to address and/or prevent trafficking within the asylum-seeking community during their journey to the U.S.? VIVANCO: Irina, are we going to take several questions, or? FASKIANOS: I think we should do one at a time. VIVANCO: Well, Karla, there are multiple tools to address that specific issue. But this applies to essentially most of the human rights problems all over the world. The menu is pretty ample, but depends on one important factor—whether the government involved cares about its own reputation. That is a very important premise here, because if you we are dealing with a democratic government, once again, it's not—when I refer to a democratic government, I don't have in mind a sort of Jeffersonian model, I'm referring to the kind of democracies that we have in Latin America. But, if the leaders in charge are—you know, they care about their own reputation, they care about domestic debate, very important, because these types of revelations usually have ramifications at the local level. If they pay close attention to those issues, I think it's possible to apply, essentially, the technique of naming and shaming. In other words, collecting information, documenting what exactly is happening, and revealing that information to the public, locally and internationally. That is going to create naturally a reaction, a process, an awareness, and local pressure is—hopefully, it's not just twenty-four hours news, so splash—big splash, but also will trigger some dynamics. If we are dealing with a country that is run by a dictatorship, it is a very, very different question, because normally you're facing a leader, a government, who couldn't care less about its own reputation. They have taken already and assume the cost of doing business in that type of context. Now, sometimes conditions are kind of mixed, where you have democratic country in general—so there is still free media, there is an opposition, there is Congress, there are elections. But the government in charge is so—is run by an autocratic leader. That makes, you know, quite—a little more challenging to just document and reveal that information. And you need to think about some particular agenda, governmental agenda. Some specific interests of the government in different areas. Let me see—let me give you an example. Let's say that the Bolsonaro administration is seriously interested in an incorporation into the OECD in Paris. That is an important piece of information. Whatever you think that is relevant information regarding the record of that government, you could provide information to an entity that is precisely evaluating the record of the government. And the government will be much more willing to address those issues because they have a genuine interest in achieving some specific goal at the international level. FASKIANOS: Fantastic. We're going to go to Nicole Ambar De Santos, who is an undergraduate student at the Washington University in St. Louis: When we consider weak democracy in a more personal sense, like Peru, the controversy of obligation to help these nations arises. How much third party or other nations, such as the United States, intervene? VIVANCO: Tricky question. Peruvian democracy is quite messy. Part of the problem is that the system, the political system, needs some real reform to avoid the proliferation of small political parties and to create the real link or relationship between leaders, especially in Congress, and their constituencies, and so they are much more accountable to their community, the ones who elected them. I don't think the U.S., or any other government, has a direct role to play in that area. My sense is that when we are looking into a dysfunctional democracy that deserve some probably even constitutional reforms, that is essentially a domestic job. That is the work that needs to be done by Peruvians. Without a local consensus about the reforms that need to be implemented in the political system, my sense is that it's going to be very difficult for the U.S. or any other large democracy, to address those kinds of points. It's very different, that type of conversation, from a conversation or an assessment of universal values, such as human rights. When we are looking into cases of police brutality, for instance, the international community has a role to play. But if I were part of the conversation or evaluation by the U.S. government or the European Union with regard to this dysfunctional democracy in Peru, I would approach very carefully by suggesting creating the right type of incentives, more than questions of punishment, or sanctions. It's incentives for them to create the right conditions to address the domestic problem that is—has become quite endemic, in the case of Peru. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to take the next question from Matthew. Matthew, you don't have a last name, so can you identify yourself? Q: Hello. Yes, my name is Matthew. I am a junior student from Arizona State University studying business, but working on a thesis that has to do with human rights and the ethics of supply chain management. My question is, you were talking at the very beginning kind of just about history and how understanding history is important. And what I was hoping to get was, why is understanding history and culture important when working to address human rights issues, history of dictatorship, colonialism? In cultures it's socially acceptable things, like child labor, in some countries, that's not acceptable in Western ideology. So, yeah, just how is history and culture important when working to address human rights for the future? VIVANCO: Matthew, I think you're referring to two different issues. History is central. It's really, really relevant. Because that helps you—if you—if you follow your history, especially periods of time when massive and gross violations were committed in Latin America, it's important to put things in context and value what you have today. And the job is to—not only to preserve democracy, but also to look for ways to strengthen democracy. Because part of the problem is that domestic debate is so polarized today, not just in Latin America, all over the world, that sometimes people—different, you know, segments of society—in their positions, they're so dismissive of the other side, that they don't realize that we need to frame our debate in a constructive way. Let me put it—one specific example. If the government of Argentina, who is a government very receptive and very sensitive to vast and gross violations of human rights committed during the military dictatorship, so in other words, I don't need to lecture that government on that subject. They are actually the people who vote for the current government of Argentina—not the new government, the current government of Argentina—is deeply committed to those kinds of issues. I think that one of the biggest lessons that you should learn from the past is the relevance of protecting the independence of the judiciary. If you don't have an independent judiciary, and the judiciary becomes an entity that is an appendix of the ruling party or is intimidated by politics, and they could be subject of impeachment procedures every time that they rule something, that the powerful—the establishment disagree, I think they're playing with fire, and they're not really paying attention to the lessons that you learn from recent history in Latin America. That would be my first comment regarding that type of issue. And the second one, about you mentioned specifically cultural problems, culture, tensions or conflicts. And you mentioned—your example was child labor. And, and you suggested that that—the combination of child labor is something typical of Western ideology. If I'm not wrong, that was the language that you used. I would—I would push back on that point. And because this is not just a Western or European commitment. This is a universal one. And this is reflected on international treaties, and that are supposed to eradicate that kind of practice. If you give up to the concept of local traditions, you know, cultural, you know, issues that you need to pay attention, sure, as long as they are not to be in conflict with fundamental human rights. Otherwise, in half of the planet you're not going to have women rights, and women will be subject of traditional control. And you wouldn't have rights for minorities, and especially—and not only, but especially—the LGBTQ community. And you wouldn't have rights for racial minorities, or different religious beliefs. So, we have to watch and be very careful about what type of concessions we make to cultural traditions. I am happy to understand that different communities in Latin America might have different traditions, but there is some firm, solid, and unquestionable minimum that are the these universal human rights values that are not the property or monopoly of anyone. You know, these are—and this is not an ethical conversation. This is a legal one, because these values are protected under international law. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to combine or take two questions. The first question is from Lindsay Bert, who is at the department of political science at Muhlenberg College, who asks if you could speak on the efficacy of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in addressing the human rights violations you described. And the second question is from Leonard Onyebuchi Ophoke, a graduate student at Cavendish University in Uganda: Why is it almost impossible to hold the actors that violate human rights accountable? What could be done to make the mechanism more enforceable? VIVANCO: The inter-American system of human rights protection, there is nothing similar to inter-American system of human rights protection in the Global South. You don't have something similar in Asia, or Africa, or the Middle East. In other words, you don't have a mechanism where ultimately a court, a court of law—not just a commission, a court of law—handle individual cases, specific complaints of human rights abuses, and governments participate in public hearings. The parties involved have the obligation to present evidence before the court, and the court finally ruled on the specific matters where its decisions are binding. The number of issues that have been addressed by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the last thirty years in Latin America are really incredible. And the impact—this is most important point—the impact at a local level is remarkable. In the area, for instance, of torture, disappearances. I'm referring to the elaboration of concepts and the imposing the obligation of local governments to adjust their legislation and practice, and to address specific problems or issues by providing remedies to victims. That is quite unusual. And the court has remarkable rulings on free speech, on discrimination issues, on indigenous populations, on military jurisdiction. One of the typical recourse of governments in the region when security forces were involved in human rights atrocities was to invoke military jurisdiction. So they say, no worries, we are going to investigate our own crimes. And the court has been actually very, very firm, challenging that notion to the point that I don't think there is a single case in Latin America today—once again, with the exception of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, that I hope that somebody will ask me a question about those three countries—and I don't think there is a single case where today security forces try to—or attempt to shield themselves from investigation invoking military jurisdiction. And the credit is to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. I can elaborate, and give you—provide you with a long list of examples of areas where the court has been actually really, really critical in advancing human rights in the region. Let me give you actually one last example that I think is very—is very illustrative, very revealing. In Chile, something like probably twenty years ago or fifteen years ago, full democracy. Full democracy. No Chile under Pinochet. The Supreme Court of Chile ruled that a mother who was openly lesbian did not qualify for the custody of her children because she was lesbian. And she had a couple. So that was sufficient grounds to rule in favor of the father, because the mother didn't have the moral grounds to educate her own kids, children. And this was decided by the Supreme Court of Chile. Not just a small first instance tribunal. And I will point out that the vast majority of the—I mean, the public in Chile was pretty much divided, but I'm pretty sure that the majority of Chileans thought that the Supreme Court was right, you know? The case went to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. And fortunately, after a few years, the court not only challenged that decision of the Supreme Court, forced Chile to change its legislation, and to change the ruling of the Supreme Court of Chile, which is supposed to be the last judgment in the country. And the impact of that one, not only in Chile, in the rest of the region, because it shapes the common wisdom, the assumptions of many people. It helps for them to think carefully about this kind of issues. And the good news is that that mother was able to have the custody of her kids. And not only that, the impact in Chilean society and in the rest of the region was remarkable. Now, the second question that was asked was about how difficult it is to establish accountability for human rights abuses against the perpetrators of those abuses. I mean, it's a real challenge. It depends on whether or not you have locally an independent judiciary. If you do have an independent judiciary, the process is slow, it's messy, it's complicated. But there is a chance that atrocities could be addressed. And that is— especially human rights atrocities or abuses committed during the military dictatorship. There are countries in the region, like for instance, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, where there are people in prison for those type of atrocities. In Brazil, thanks to an amnesty law that was passed in 1978, real investigation and prosecution of those atrocities actually never happened. And an important lesson that you could bear in mind is that Brazilian military are very dismissive of these type of issues, of human rights issues. But not only that, my sense is that Brazilian military officers at very high level are not afraid of stepping into politics, and give their opinion, and challenge the government. In other words, they were actually very, very active, and I'm referring to top officials in the Brazilian Army, during the Bolsonaro administration. There were top leaders who actually publicly argued that if they have to organize a coup again in Brazil, they are ready. That kind of language you don't find in Argentina, in Chile, in other countries where there have been some accountability. For one simple reason, the top military officers running the show are very much aware that if they get involved in politics, that they are part tomorrow of a coup d'état or something like that, at the end of the day they will be responsible. And they might be subject of criminal prosecution for atrocities committed during that period. And so there is a price to pay. So their calculation is much more, shall we say, prudent regarding this issue. But again, once again, how difficult it is? It's very difficult to establish accountability, and much more difficult when you're dealing with dictatorship, where you need to rely on the work done by, for instance, the ICC, the International Criminal Court, which is pretty active in the case of Venezuela. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to take the next question from Fordham. Q: Good afternoon, Mr. Vivanco. My name is Carlos Ortiz de la Pena Gomez Urguiza, and I have a question for you. El Salvador is currently battling crime and gangs with strategies such as mano dura, which have shown a significant decrease in crime at the cost of violating human rights. Do you see a possible effective integration of such policies in high-crime-rate countries, such as Mexico, to stop the growth of narco and crime gang activity? And if so, how? VIVANCO: Well, look, yeah, Carlos, very good question. Bukele in El Salvador is a real, real challenge. It's really, really a complicated case, for several reasons. He's incredibly popular. No question about it. He has managed to—thanks to that popularity—to concentrate power in his own hands. He fully controls Congress. But, much more relevant, he fully controls the judiciary, including the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court today is subordinated to the executive branch. And he is constantly going after the civil society, and free media, and the opposition. Now, in violation of the Salvadorean constitution, he's going to run for reelection. And he will be reelected, because he's also very popular. And his policies to go after gangs are cruel, inhuman, and without—not even a facade of respect for due process. Essentially, the policy which is not sustainable and is—I don't think is something that you could export to other countries—is a policy—unless you have full control, unless you have some sort of dictatorship or quasi dictatorship. Which is based, in essence, in the appearance, in the number of tattoos that people, especially in the marginal communities in the periferia in El Salvador, where shanty towns are located. The police has a, you know, green light to arrest anyone who fit that profile. And then good luck, because it's going to be very, very difficult for that person to avoid something like several months in prison. The whole point of having an independent judiciary and due process is that law enforcement agencies have the—obviously, not only the right, the duty to prevent crimes and to punish criminals. Not physically punish them. You know, it's to arrest them, to detain them, and to use proportional force to produce that attention. But they need to follow certain rules. They cannot just go around and arrest anyone who they have some sort of gut feelings that they are involved in crimes, because then you don't—you're not—the whole system is not able to distinguish and to make a distinction between potential criminals and innocent people. But it is complicated, the case of Bukele, because, for instance, I was referring initially to the technique of naming and shaming as a technique, as a methodology to expose governments with deplorable human rights record. But in the case of Bukele, he couldn't care less about. In other words, actually, I think he used the poor perception that exists, already that is established outside El Salvador as a result of his persecution of gangs in El Salvador—he used that kind of criticism as a way to improve his support domestically. In other words, when the New York Times published a whole report about massive abuses committed by Bukele's criminal system, in the prison system in El Salvador, what Bukele does is to take that one, that criticism, as actually ammunition to project himself as a tough guy who is actually, you know, doing the right thing for El Salvador. It's a question of time. It's a question of time. All of this is very sad for El Salvador, one of the few democracies in Central America with some future, I think, because I think they managed after the war to create institutions that are—that were much more credible than in the neighboring countries, like Guatemala, Honduras, and I'm not going to even mention Nicaragua. But under the control of this strongman, everything is possible today in El Salvador. He will be able to govern El Salvador this way as long as he's popular. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has relaxed its attention and pressure on that government, based on the question of migration. So they are hostage by the cooperation of Bukele government to try or attempt to control illegal immigration into the U.S. So that point trumps or, I mean, supersedes everything else. And that is actually very unfortunate. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to take the next two questions, written questions. One is on the subject that you wanted, from Brittney Thomas, who is an undergraduate at Arizona State University: How come the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are socialist or communist while other Latin America countries are predominantly democracies? And then from Roger— VIVANCO: I'm sorry, I couldn't understand the question. Obviously, it's about Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, but? FASKIANOS: Why are they socialist or communist while other Latin American countries are predominantly democracies? VIVANCO: Oh, I see. OK. FASKIANOS: Yeah. And then the next question is from Roger Rose, who is an associate professor of political science at University of Minnesota, Morris: Given the recent decline in the norms of U.S. democracy in the last seven years, does the U.S. have any credibility and influence in the region in promoting democracy? And, again, if you could comment specifically on nations with the least democratic systems—Venezuela, Nicaragua—how could the U.S. play a more constructive role than it is currently? VIVANCO: The U.S. is always a very important player, very, very important. I mean, it's the largest economy in the world and the influence of the U.S. government in Latin America is huge. However, obviously, I have to acknowledge that our domestic problems here and serious challenges to the fundamentals of the rule of law, and just the notion that we respect the system according to which one who wins the election is—you know, has the legitimacy and the mandate to form a new government. If that notion is in question, and there are millions of American citizens who are willing to challenge that premise, obviously undermines the capacity of the U.S. to exercise leadership on this—in this context. And the autocrats and the autocracies in the region—I'm not referring to the dictatorships, but I'm referring to the Andrés Manuel López Obrador, once again, from Mexico, or Bolsonaro in Brazil—they take those kinds of developments in the U.S. as green lights to do whatever they want at local level. So that is a serious—obviously, it's a serious problem. And what is going on here has ramifications not only in the region, but also in the rest of the world. Now, Cuba is a historical problem. It's going to be too long to address the question in terms of why Cuba is a dictatorship and the rest of the region. Part of the problem with Cuba is that you have a government that violates the most fundamental rights and persecutes everyone who challenges the official line. And most of the Cubans today are willing to leave the country and to go into exile. But the problem is that we don't have the right tool, the right instrument in place, to exercise pressure on Cuba. And the right instrument today is the embargo. And that embargo, that policy is a total failure. The Cuban government is the same, exactly the same dictatorship. There has been no progress. And there's going to be no progress, in my view, as long as the U.S. government insist on a policy of isolation. You should be aware that every year 99 percentage of the states in the world condemned the isolation against Cuba, with the exception and the opposition of the U.S. government, Israel, and in the past was the Marshall Islands. Now, I don't think even the Marshall Islands joined the U.S. government defending that policy. So the policy is incredibly unpopular. And the debate at international level is about the U.S. government policy on Cuba and not about the deplorable human rights record of Cuba. That's why I was actually very supportive of the change of policy attempted during the Obama administration. Unfortunately, the isolation policy depends on Congress. And since the times of Clinton, this is a matter of who is the one in control of Congress. And the policy of isolation, it once again makes Cuba a victim of Washington. And Cuba, by the way, is not isolated from the rest of the world. So the U.S. is incredibly, I would say, powerless with regard to the lack of democracy and human rights in Cuba. And at the time, offers a fantastic justification for the Cuban government to present itself as a victim. I think that is the—this is one of the most serious mistakes of the U.S. foreign policy in Latin America that I hope that one day will be—will be addressed effectively. The case of Nicaragua and Venezuela is different, in the sense that we are looking into countries that—Venezuela in particular—have democracy for—a very questionable democracy, very weak, subject of tremendous corruption, and so on and so forth. But they have a system of political parties, free media, and so on, for many, many years. And they end up electing a populist leader whose marching orders and, you know, actually first majors was to establish some effective control of the judiciary. And the Supreme Court became an appendage of the government many, many, many years ago, which means that they managed during the Chavez administration to run the country with some sort of facade of democracy. Today, under Maduro it's no a longer a façade, it's a clear dictatorship responsible for atrocities. Fortunately, it is under investigation by the ICC. And the case of Nicaragua is an extreme case, similar to Venezuela. And it's—it's a dictator who has managed to put in prison everyone who is not in full alliance with the government, including religious leaders, and academics, and opposition leaders, civil society, et cetera. The case of Nicaragua is more complicated because Nicaragua is subject of sanctions by the U.S. government, and the European Union, and Canada, and some governments in the region. But still, we don't see much progress there. FASKIANOS: Great. I'm going to go next to Nassar Nassar, who has a raised hand. You can unmute yourself and state your affiliation. Q: Yes. Hello. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you. Q: Hi. My name is Nassar Nassar. I'm from Lewis University. So my question is, which are the most significant actors in the global governance of human trafficking? And how effective are they in tackling that? VIVANCO: Well, this is a matter that is usually—the main actors—so this is organized crime. This is organized crime. This is a question regarding—this is a—it's a huge business, and extremely profitable. And if you want to address these kinds of issues, you need regional cooperation, which is very challenging. Keep in mind that at a local level, in many of the most democratic countries in the region, you have tremendous tensions among the local police and different police. For instance, the local FBI—equivalent to an FBI, is usually in tension with other branches of law enforcement. And if you expect to have cooperation from the rest of the countries in the region, it's extremely challenging. So these type of issues require effective cooperation, adjustment on legislation. Require more better intelligence. The reason why you have this type—proliferation of this type of business is because, obviously, corruption and lack of accountability. So this is—my point is that it is a reflection of how weak is our law enforcement system, and how unprofessional, and subject many times of corruption. FASKIANOS: Just to follow up on that, a written question from Patricia Drown, who's at Regent University. How are the cartels and mafia being armed, and by whom? VIVANCO: Well, in the case of, for instance, Mexico, weapons comes from the U.S. Sometimes even legally. You know, the Second Amendment plays a role here. It's so easy to have access to weapons, all kind of weapons, in the U.S. So that helps. And a lack of actually an effective control mechanism to stop that type of traffic. The amount of money that cartels moved in countries like Mexico, but Colombia as well, and this mafia scene in Central America is significant. So they do have capacity to corrupt local enforcement officials that belongs to the police, the army, even the judiciary. And as long as you don't address the root cause of the problem, which is the lack of presence of the state—in other words, there are vast—as you know, there are regions of Colombia that are not under the control of the government, the territories in Colombia. And there are regions of Mexico that, unfortunately, are increasingly under more effective control of cartels than law enforcement and legitimate officials. So that unfortunately, is the—in my view, one of the reasons why it is relatively easy to witness this type of proliferation of illegal business. FASKIANOS: Fantastic. I think we are out of time. We have so many written questions and raised hands. Maybe I'll just try to sneak in one more from Andrea Cuervo Prados. You have your hand raised. I think you also wrote a question. So if you can be brief and tell us who you are. Q: OK. Hello. I'm adjunct faculty at Dickinson State University. And, Mr. Vivanco, I have a question related to Colombia. What do you think about the state of the human rights in Colombia under the new leftist president, Gustavo Petro, compared to the previous president, Ivan Duque? VIVANCO: Andrea, I think it's pretty much the same. When we witness actually an improvement of human rights conditions in Colombia, it was during the negotiations with the FARC. I'm referring to the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos. And with the signature of the peace agreement, when they signed the peace agreement, the numbers shows a serious decline in the cases of, for instance, internally displaced people, torture cases, executions, abductions, and many other of those typical abuses that are committed in Colombia in rural areas where this organized crime and irregular armed groups are historically present. But then the policies implemented during the Duque administration were actually not very effective. There was a sort of relaxation during that period, and not effective implementation of those commitments negotiated with the FARC. That had an implication in terms of abuses. And today I don't see a major shift. My sense is that the local communities are subject of similar abuses, including human rights activists as well as social leaders, in areas where there is a very weak presence of the state. FASKIANOS: Thank you very much. José Miguel Vivanco. We really appreciate your being with us today. And I apologize. Great questions. I'm sorry, we couldn't get to all of the written ones or raised hands. It's clear we will have to do this—focus in on this again and have you back. You can follow José Miguel on X at @VivancoJM. And the next Academic Webinar will be on Wednesday, November 29, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Shibley Telhami, who's a professor at the University of Maryland, will lead a conversation on public opinion on Israel and Palestine. And in the meantime, I encourage you to learn about CFR paid internships for students and fellowships for professors at CFR.org/careers. You can follow us at @CFR_Academic. And visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues. Again, José Miguel, thank you very much for today, and to all of you for joining us. VIVANCO: Thanks a lot. FASKIANOS: Take care. (END)

Monocle 24: The Monocle Daily
Friday 6 October

Monocle 24: The Monocle Daily

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 6, 2023 38:29


We explore the scale of Ukraine's current landmine problems, preview Sunday's general election in Luxembourg and speak to Juan Manuel Santos, former president of Colombia. Plus: our panel of Monocle photographers explores some of the forthcoming print highlights as well as the top Comedy Wildlife photos of 2023.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Union Radio
Román Lozinski - ¿Por qué las disidencias de las FARC están atacando antes de negociar con Petro?

Union Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2023 10:51


Esta semana, anunciaron que el gobierno de Gustavo Petro pondría en marcha una negociación de paz con el mayor  grupo de disidencias de la extinta guerrilla de las FARC en Colombia, el de Iván Mordisco. También en los últimos días, hubo una ola de ataques terroristas en el Cauca que incluyó un coche bomba que dejó a dos muertos y dos heridos. Petro acusó a la mayor disidencia de estos ataques. Emisoras de radio en Valle del Cauca, Colombia, han tenido que cerrar sus micrófonos tras la fuerte violencia de la población. Las bandas criminales dedicadas al tráfico de droga que operan en la zona han intimidado con volantes a los periodistas a quienes les han prohibido cubrir a candidatos a la alcaldía de la ciudad de Tuluá. Ricardo González, periodista y analista político de la Universidad del Rosario en Bogotá, aseguró que este grupo disidente que empezaría negociaciones de paz nunca estuvo en los diálogos que se dieron en La Habana en Cuba y siempre se negaron a firmar con el gobierno colombiano. Explicó que el grupo de Iván Mordisco tuvo un cese al fuego a principios de este año que incumplieron a lo largo de este asesinando a dos niños. «Luego de pedirle a Petro negociar  desde el 8 de octubre, incurren en estos delitos, atacan bases militares, estaciones de policía y en uno de esos ataques causan daños en un colegio y un hospital, ocasionando la muerte de una profesora» añadió. González indicó que esta disidencia es más fuerte de lo que la había dejado Juan Manuel Santos, ya que, durante el gobierno de Petro, la falta de ocupación en algunos territorios, hizo que este grupo creciera. También te puede interesar: ¿Colombia logrará la «Paz Total»?: Así serán las conversaciones sobre el alto al fuego de las FARC. Recordó que este es uno de los grupos armados más grandes del sur del país y el gobierno colombiano está tratando de actuar desde le diálogo. «Sus ataques violentos luego de pedir la negociación son una vieja y cruel estrategia en la que quieren llegar fuertes y poderosos en la mesa de negociación para exigir condiciones» acotó. Sin embargo, destacó que Camilo González Posso, negociador del gobierno, le decía al grupo disidente en una entrevista que esa estrategia los deslegitima.

Entrevistas La FM
Secreto Darcy Quinn: Entrevista de Gustavo Petro deja rupturas y molestias entre aliados

Entrevistas La FM

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 28, 2023 5:36


En la entrevista, Gustavo Petro habló de Juan Manuel Santos, Armando Benedetti, Day Vásquez y Nicolás Petro.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4987527/advertisement

6AM Hoy por Hoy
Estos son los detalles de la cumbre santista en Bogotá: ¿Por qué se reunieron?

6AM Hoy por Hoy

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 24, 2023 4:21


El expresidente Juan Manuel Santos se reunió a puerta cerrada con varios políticos para discutir temas importantes del país, como el famoso nombre del alto funcionario colombiano involucrado en el escándalo de Odebrecht, entre otros.

La Silla Vacía
Huevos Revueltos con los cabos sueltos entre Odebrecht y Santos

La Silla Vacía

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 23, 2023 9:59


Dos documentos de las autoridades estadounidenses dan pistas sobre cómo actuó la corrupta empresa brasilera Odebrecht con el gobierno de Juan Manuel Santos, especialmente para la campaña de reelección de 2014. La Fiscalía misma ha admitido que Odebrecht dio plata para las campañas de Santos y su contendor, el uribista Oscar Iván Zuluaga, pero que la diferencia entre los dos casos es que Santos está aforado, por ende no tiene cómo investigarlo. A Zuluaga ya le imputaron cargos por enriquecimiento ilícito este año. Hoy tratamos de explicar los cabos sueltos que sigue existiendo en el caso: por dónde entró la plata, cuánta fue y quiénes podrían responder luego de casi nueve años de impunidad.Para saber más puede leer:Sigue la impunidad: cabos sueltos de los sobornos de Aval y OdebrechtLa plata que se movió alrededor de la campaña de Santos en 2014 Viva en primera fila nuestro periodismo con una membresía a los Superamigos de La Silla. Puede ser parte de nuestra comunidad acá. Un espacio de cuña en Huevos Revueltos puede ser suyo. Si tiene interés, escriba a fgiraldo@lasillavacia.com. Chequeo de datos: Ana León, periodista de La Silla Vacía.Producción: Sergio García y Fernando Cruz, periodistas de La Silla Vacía.

Noticias de América
Bolivia: ¿qué liderazgo para un MAS fracturado?

Noticias de América

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 23, 2023 2:36


En Bolivia, el divorcio entre el presidente Luis Arce y el ex mandatario Evo Morales, parece ya irreversible. El Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) debe decidir qué candidato presenta para los comicios de 2025 y la fractura no hace más que ahondarse día tras día entre estos dos ex aliados que quieren repetir en la Presidencia. La situación podría incluso desembocar en dos Congresos y en dos candidatos. No es un fenómeno nuevo en América Latina: un presidente escoge a su sucesor, lo aúpa y, una vez instalado en el poder, se convierte en su principal rival. Ocurrió en Colombia, entre Alvaro Uribe y Juan Manuel Santos; en Ecuador, entre Rafael Correa y Lenín Moreno; y ahora se repite el guión en Bolivia, entre el presidente Luis Arce y el exmandatario y líder del MAS, Evo Morales. Y eso que Arce fue ministro de Economía de Morales del 2006 al 2017 y es presentado como el padre del milagro económico boliviano.¿Por qué ahora hay esta fractura? Para entender esta pugna entre estos dos sectores del MAS hay que remontarse a la elección de Arce como presidente en 2020 en medio de la crisis política que estaba viviendo Bolivia.“Todo el movimiento al socialismo sabía que Luis Arce simplemente era un candidato de emergencia que posteriormente, pasado el mandato del 2025, Evo Morales iba a retornar a la presidencia de Bolivia”, explica Gabriel Villalba Pérez, Director del Centro de Estudios Geopolíticos CENAC de Bolivia.“Ese es el principal óbice que se encuentra actualmente en el movimiento al socialismo, porque el presidente Luis Arce y todo su equipo de la mano, fundamentalmente de David Choquehuanca, asumen que ellos podrían repostularse con las siglas del movimiento al socialismo y ellos podrían continuar pasado el 2025 una gestión más”, agrega.Esto podría desembocar en una escisión del MAS que se está cristalizando en acusaciones entre lo que el analista llama MAS orgánico y MAS burocrático, incluso con enfrentamientos como pudimos ver el fin de semana pasado durante el Congreso de la Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia: 450 heridos y dos directivas, una reconocida por el gobierno y otra por Morales. Ante este panorama, ya se habla de una tercera vía, la que podría representar Andrónico Rodríguez de 34 años, sindicalista cocalero y presidente de Senadores. “Creo que Andrónico Rodríguez va a ser el presidente de Bolivia, pero no el 2025. Creo que le falta una madurez política que todavía no está consiguiendo. Él es bastante joven y los espacios donde le ha tocado estar la presidencia de la Cámara de Senadores no ha sido del todo gratificante para que se siga fortaleciendo su liderazgo político a nivel nacional”, estima Villalba Pérez.“Sin lugar a dudas es un personaje muy importante de la política boliviana. El futuro del proceso de cambio me animaría a decir, pero creo yo que le debe también muchísimo a Evo Morales, porque es el vicepresidente de las seis federaciones del trópico de Cochabamba puesto en ese cargo justamente por Evo Morales. Podríamos decir el pupilo de Evo Morales en una construcción de evolución de ese sujeto histórico indígena, originario y campesino, que sin lugar a dudas tiene que cohesionar mucho más al ámbito rural con el ámbito urbano. Y esa va a ser su ganancia”, concluye el director del CENAC.

La Silla Vacía
Huevos Revueltos con el contraataque de la Ñoñomanía

La Silla Vacía

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 13, 2023 9:50


Bernardo “El Ñoño” Elías fue uno de los senadores consentidos por la mermelada de Juan Manuel Santos y un hombre clave en su reelección en 2014. Luego ser condenado a 6 años de prisión por recibir plata de la corrupta Odebrecht, volvió en hombros a su natal Sahagún, pueblo cordobés en el que construyó CAI, estadio, terminal de transporte y dio empleo a quienes votan por él. Su maquinaria siempre siguió viva y busca mantenerse en las regionales de 2023.Hoy, con Ever Mejía, periodista de La Silla Vacía; y el sociólogo sahagunés, Jorge Buelvas, tratamos de responder ¿Por qué Sahagún recibió como héroe a uno de los más icónicos símbolos de la corrupción colombiana?Para saber más puede leer: La parábola del Ñoño.Ñoño Elías vuelve en hombros: por qué Sahagún celebra a su corrupto.El Pacto Histórico busca a los Ñoños para unirse a Petro.La Ñoñomanía, franquicia de la corrupción. Columna de opinión de Jacobo Solano en La Silla LlenaQueremos saber qué anda haciendo nuestra comunidad de oyentes en estas vacaciones para colegios y universidades. Cuéntenos qué anda haciendo y qué plan nos propone.Mande una nota de voz con su plan, nombre y ciudad acá https://wa.me/message/REZNCUCAMUJXI1 y saldrá al aire en los Huevos de los viernes!Viva en primera fila nuestro periodismo con una membresía a los Superamigos de La Silla. Puede ser parte de nuestra comunidad acá. Chequeo de datos: Ever Mejía, periodista de La Silla Vacía.Producción: Fernando Cruz y Sergio García, periodistas de La Silla Vacía.

La Silla Vacía
Huevos Revueltos a la sazón de Odebrecht en la campaña de Zuluaga

La Silla Vacía

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 14, 2023 7:29


El escándalo de Odebrecht en Colombia solo tocó, por ahora, a mandos medios del poder político del país. Casi nueve años después de que explotara en el continente —tumbando hasta presidentes— la Fiscalía imputará varios cargos al excandidato presidencial Oscar Iván Zuluaga, por la entrada de plata de esa multinacional corrupta a su campaña.La decisión le pone un clavo más a la decaída carrera política del otrora elegido de Álvaro Uribe y puede abrir la puerta para que la entidad revise la financiación de más campañas, como la del expresidente Juan Manuel Santos —que también fue salpicado por Odebrecht— y la del actual presidente, Gustavo Petro, cuyos gastos tienen todavía datos dudosos.Para saber más puede leer:La expiación de Odebrecht, vía ZuluagaLas cinco verdades que ‘sincera' OdebrechtLos caminos cruzados de la coima de Odebrecht y la campaña de Santos en 2014Los “Duda” de Petro: pagos a tres estrategas que no reportó la campaña:Viva en primera fila nuestro periodismo con una membresía a los Superamigos de La Silla. Puede ser parte de nuestra comunidad acá. Curso de herramientas para comunicar ideas con impactoChequeo de datos: Jineth Prieto, editora de investigaciones de La Silla Vacía. Producción: Fernando Cruz y Diego Quintero, periodistas de La Silla Vacía.

Point of Relation with Thomas Huebl
EP14 | William Ury - Russia, Ukraine, & the Vicious Cycle of Humiliation & Trauma

Point of Relation with Thomas Huebl

Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2023 61:56


Please note that this episode was recorded during the first months of the war in Ukraine, and William and Thomas' commentary is relevant to that time. Since then, circumstances may have changed. Humiliation is reflected in most major historical events, especially in wars. Throughout the centuries, humans continue to be stuck in the same pattern of humiliation. And it has become even more significant in the present. With COVID-19 bringing a sense of interconnectedness and the whole world tuning in to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, author and anthropologist William Ury dissects the root cause of this cycle. He explains that empathy is our most powerful tool in negotiation, as it enables us to understand our "opponents" and communicate with them effectively. *Please note that this episode was recorded during the first months of the war in Ukraine, and William and Thomas' commentary is relevant to that time. Since then, circumstances may have changed.* Key points include: ✔️ How doing our inner work helps us to act more effectively toward the betterment of the collective ✔️ Using strategic empathy to better understand an “opponent” and find a constructive way out of conflict ✔️ How both COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine galvanized the world and made us aware of our interconnectedness ✔️ Fear and crises tune our collective instrument, and we can use them as an opportunity for positive transformation ✔️ Being a “possible-ist” - someone who can see both negative and positive possibilities and potentials, and can act accordingly to move situations in a positive direction --------------- William Ury is one of the world's leading experts on negotiation and mediation. As the co-founder of the Program on Negotiation, he is a driving force behind many new negotiation theories and practices. Ury is the co-author with Roger Fisher and Bruce Patton of Getting to Yes, a 15-million-copy bestseller translated into more than 35 languages, and the author of several other books including the award-winning Getting to Yes with Yourself. Over the last four decades, Ury has served as a negotiation advisor and mediator in conflicts ranging from the Cold War to ethnic and civil wars in the Middle East, Chechnya, Yugoslavia, and most recently in Colombia, where he serves as a senior advisor to President Juan Manuel Santos. In addition to teaching negotiation and mediation to tens of thousands of executives, Ury is the founder of the Abraham Path Initiative, which seeks to bring people together across cultures by opening a long-distance walking route in the Middle East that retraces the footsteps of Abraham and his family. In recognition of his work, he has received the Cloke-Millen Peacemaker Award, the Whitney North Seymour Award from the American Arbitration Association, and the Distinguished Service Medal from the Russian Parliament. --------------- Thomas Hübl is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator whose lifelong work integrates the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since 2004, he has taught and facilitated programs with more than 100,000 people worldwide, including online courses which he began offering in 2008. The origin of his work and more than two decades of study and practice on healing collective trauma is detailed in his book Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds Connect with Thomas here: Website: https://thomashuebl.com/ Facebook: https://facebook.com/Thomas.Huebl.Sangha/ Instagram/Twitter: @thomashuebl YouTube: https://youtube.com/@thomashuebl Sign up for updates by visiting our website:

Point of Relation with Thomas Huebl
EP03 | William Ury - Practicing Spaciousness and Empathy for Conflict Mediation

Point of Relation with Thomas Huebl

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 21, 2023 57:23


"The single biggest block to getting a yes in any kind of conflict is yourself,” says author and expert negotiator William Ury. In this episode, William Ury shares his expertise in demonstrating spaciousness and empathy in conflict-laden situations, mediation as an intrapersonal exercise, and dissecting trauma in an unsettled society. ▶️ Practicing Spaciousness and Empathy for Conflict Mediation with William Ury Key Points to Discover:  ✔️ Practice the palm pinching technique. Standing in the middle of conflict can be terrifying. Step back and find perspective within by pinching your palm. “It gives you momentary pain, but it'll keep you alert,” William Ury retells. ✔️Befriend your emotions. Trauma brings about emotions we perceive as negative – such as anger, resentment, jealousy, hatred, and fear. William Ury says, “Befriend these emotions. Welcome them. Don't judge them. Host them. Don't suppress them.” Every emotion contains a message. If we're open and paying attention, we can better understand it. ✔️ Conflicts have three sides. The third side is called the whole – the larger community to which the two parties belong. “It's not a conflict between individual A and individual B. It's a collective,” he explains. This unseen side holds a huge responsibility to mediate and gather the two parties to reach a resolution. ✔️ Empathy requires putting yourself in your own shoes. It's hard to put yourself in others' shoes when you have preconceived ideas about them. Be in a place of clarity and gather as much information as you can about the conflicts you witness. This is where real and deep empathy begins. ✔️ The absent parts of ourselves are filled with the past. When we aren't fully integrated with the painful experiences of others, it blocks us from developing genuine empathy, and we might instead find that we're filled with fear, physical tension, and numbness. Healing from intergenerational trauma requires us to feel the fears of our ancestors – merging them into our present flow. This allows us to cultivate greater empathy for the people in our lives. ✔️ Mediation means seeing a way forward. Finding the way forward in conflict calls for inner spaciousness. As a mediator, William Ury recommends taking a step back and viewing the situation from what he calls “going to the balcony” - a removed position from which we can be more present, empathetic, and objective. Take off the blinders of your own biases and see the larger picture. --------------- William Ury is one of the world's leading experts on negotiation and mediation. As the co-founder of the Program on Negotiation, he is a driving force behind many new negotiation theories and practices. Ury is the co-author with Roger Fisher and Bruce Patton of Getting to Yes, a 15-million-copy bestseller translated into more than 35 languages, and the author of several other books including the award-winning Getting to Yes with Yourself. Over the last four decades, Ury has served as a negotiation advisor and mediator in conflicts ranging from the Cold War to ethnic and civil wars in the Middle East, Chechnya, Yugoslavia, and most recently in Colombia, where he serves as a senior advisor to President Juan Manuel Santos. In addition to teaching negotiation and mediation to tens of thousands of executives, Ury is the founder of the Abraham Path Initiative, which seeks to bring people together across cultures by opening a long-distance walking route in the Middle East that retraces the footsteps of Abraham and his family. In recognition of his work, he has received the Cloke-Millen Peacemaker Award, the Whitney North Seymour Award from the American Arbitration Association, and the Distinguished Service Medal from the Russian Parliament. --------------- Sign up for updates by visiting our website pointofrelationpodcast.com. Thomas Hübl is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator whose lifelong work integrates the core insights of the great wisdom traditions with the discoveries of science. The focus of his work is collective trauma and global healing. Webpage: https://thomashuebl.com/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Thomas.Huebl.Sangha LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomashuebl/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thomashuebl/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/thomashuebl Twitter: https://twitter.com/thomasHuebl "Healing Collective Trauma" is the book by Thomas, published in five languages: https://www.collectivetraumabook.com

Dig: A History Podcast
Race and Nation in Latin America: Whitening, Browning, and the Failures of Mestizaje

Dig: A History Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 5, 2022 56:31


Producer's Choice series. #4 of 4. Justiniano Durán had carefully painted Colombian President Nieto Gil's official presidential portrait from life some time around 1861. After Nieto's death in 1866, his portrait was sent to Paris for an alteration, intended to make it look more “distinguished.” This is where his face acquired the strange whitish-blue tint observed by historian Fals Borda over 100 years later. Once the portrait was returned to Colombia, there was very little interest in it. Eventually, it ended up being abandoned in the Inquisition Palace. Just as his dark-faced portrait was lightened, the reality of Nieto's African ancestry was obscured and lost to history. Fals Borda was intent on rectifying this wrong. He had the portrait restored, that is re-darkened, that year. It wasn't until 2018, however, that the restored portrait and Nieto's black ancestry, was recognized and celebrated by the Colombian state. In August of that year, former president Juan Manuel Santos presided over the installation of a replica of Nieto's original portrait to the presidential palace in Bogata. Perhaps the 19th-century Colombian authorities' effort to erase the African roots of its fourteenth president is unsurprising to those who know Latin American history. But the story of race and nationalism in Latin America is much more complicated than meets the eye. Join us as we dig in. Find show notes and transcripts here: www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices