The “re-election” of Daniel Ortega earlier this month in Nicaragua is the most dramatic example of Latin America’s sliding backwards. Ortega was a young dictator in the 1980s in a region rife with authoritarians of all sorts. Political power was corrupt; human rights abuses abundant.
Remarkably, out of all that agony a better continent emerged, symbolically led by Violeta Chamorro’s defeat of Ortega in 1990. The authoritarian regimes of the 1980s were replaced with democratically legitimate rulers, and transfer of power at the ballot box returned. All the dictators were gone, save for the Castros in Cuba. A pro-market “Washington Consensus” restored a measure of economic stability and growth, not without bumps along the way.
Early in the decade the death of Hugh Chavez in 2013 offered new hope for Venezuela. His successor, Nicolas Maduro, has instead continued the economic follies of Chavismo — Venezuela was already in trouble when oil prices were high — such that Venezuelans were reduced to scavenging for food. Millions have fled; neighbouring Colombia alone has a million refugees. Political violence is unleashed upon opponents of the regime.
Latin America’s pain has been visible on the southern border of the United States, where caravans of migrants from Central America endure long and debilitating treks to escape the violence and poverty back home. Violence in Mexico itself has risen sharply over the last decade, as drug cartels carry out open warfare in more than a few Mexican cities.
This article was great! It showed how informed Fr. de Souza is on a few violent things. No information about what lead to the violence though. Typical of the Nat post
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