Wola Podcast

The condition of Nicaragua's democracy has steadily deteriorated over the course of President Daniel Ortega's regime. Recently, in anticipation of the country's coming elections, President Ortega and his wife/Vice President Rosario Murillo have arrested more than a dozen of their significant political opponents under a new law that labels them as "traitors to the homeland." To understand the current political crisis, and to understand what, if any, prospects there are for a solution, Adam is talking to Dr. Christine Wade.

Peruvians vote on June 6 in a runoff between two presidential candidates who represent populist extremes, and who reflect growing divisions exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. WOLA Senior Fellow Jo-Marie Burt explains the tense pre-election moment.

Brazil is the second largest country in the hemisphere but its many complex issues rarely make news in the U.S. This week, Camila Asano, Director of Programs at the Brazilian human rights NGO Conectas joins Adam and Moses to paint a picture of attacks on human rights and democracy there.

Protests that began April 28 in Colombia are maintaining momentum and a broad base, despite a heavy-handed government response. Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, WOLA's director for the Andes, sees a movement coalescing—and a need for a more decisive U.S. approach.

Top Biden administration officials, including Vice-President Kamala Harris, are developing a new approach to Central America. The theme is familiar: addressing migration's "root causes." WOLA President Geoff Thale and Citizen Security Director Adriana Beltrán discuss.

The Biden administration is asking Mexico to do more to limit or stop arrivals of asylum-seeking migrants from Central America and elsewhere. Several WOLA experts discuss Mexico's military deployments, expulsions of families, and the view from El Paso.

Yael Shacher, senior U.S. advocate at Refugees International, is a historian of U.S. asylum policy. She offers an invaluable perspective on the current increase in asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, and how the system should work.

This series from the Washington Office on Latin America will share the stories of social leaders in Colombia who, every day, under threat to their lives, search for truth and work toward reconciliation, fight for justice for victims of the Colombian conflict, and ensure the government lives up to the guarantees it made to ethnic and rural communities in the historic 2016 peace accord. Social leaders often face off with a Colombian government that refuses to admit its failures, and they stand up to armed groups terrorizing their communities. Hundreds of them have been killed, yet they persist. In this series you will hear why, directly from them. Rebuilding Peace was created by the Washington Office on Latin America for the Con Líderes Hay Paz Campaign. If you would like to learn more about the campaign and this podcast, please head over to conlidereshaypaz.org. You can subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your favorite podcasts. 

El Salvador's popular but authoritarian-leaning president, Nayib Bukele, may enjoy a congressional supermajority after February 28 elections. Mauricio Silva and José Luis Sanz discuss the many implications for Salvadoran democracy and U.S. policy.

WOLA's Director for Mexico and Migrant Rights, Stephanie Brewer, walks us through the late 2020 arrest and release of Mexico's last defense secretary, and what Mexico's handling of the case tells us about the military's power and U.S.-Mexican relations.

Populist and authoritarian leaders have made important gains in Latin America, and the U.S. government has been inconsistent in its dealings with them, and in its support for civil society. WOLA's Geoff Thale and Geoff Ramsey outline a better way forward.

The New York Times recently ran a short film by Sean Mattison about how victims of Argentina's 1976-83 dictatorship creatively called out the ex-military killers and torturers who, benefiting from an amnesty, were living in their midst.

Corruption is "endemic: a system, a network, a web of relations" that underlies many other problems in Latin America. Adriana Beltrán and Moses Ngong discuss how the US and other international actors can support the region's anti-corruption reformers.

The U.S. government is transitioning between two different visions of migration, while human mobility increases throughout Latin America. Adam Isacson and Maureen Meyer discuss what a humane and effective policy would entail, at home and region-wide.

The presidential transition means a shift between two very different visions of US relations with Latin America. A group of WOLA staff takes stock of the Trump years' impact on US credibility in the region, and challenges facing the Biden administration.

Peru's Congress abruptly removed President Martín Viscarra from office this week. It looks like another example of an all-too-familiar recent pattern in Latin America: backlash against anti-corruption reforms. WOLA Senior Fellow Jo-Marie Burt explains.

A discussion with Eduardo “Eddie” Canales, founder and director of the South Texas Human Rights Center in Falfurrias, Texas.   Website: https://southtexashumanrights.org/   Falfurrias is in Brooks County, an area of ranchland 80 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. It is also one of the deadliest places for migrants. Dozens each year get lost while trying to walk around checkpoints that Border Patrol has placed on highways, and end up dying of dehydration and exposure in the south Texas heat.    The South Texas Human Rights Center works to prevent this, putting out dozens of water and aid stations. This involves negotiations and relationship-building with ranchers in an area where most land is private property.   It also involves cooperating with efforts to identify the remains and alert relatives in the deceased migrants’ home countries. Many times a year Eddie, and the technicians with whom he cooperates, help give some closure to parents, spouses, and children who don’t know what happened to a loved one

Even as it has been hit very hard by COVID-19, Peru has just gone through an “express impeachment” and other corruption turmoil, while elections approach. We discuss Peru with IDL Reporteros journalist Gustavo Gorriti and Senior Fellow Jo-Marie Burt.

This month, Adam Isacson, WOLA's Director for Defense Oversight, interviews Francisco Cantú, author of The Line Becomes a River (2018) who spent four years in the Border Patrol. They discuss the often toxic culture of CBP and the current impact the agency has on the United States' approach to migration. Cantú currently lives in Arizona, is a full-time writer and teacher of creative writing, and that a volunteer with the Kino Border Initiative’s migrant accompaniment program, which provides support to asylum seekers detained in the ICE contracted/for-profit (CoreCivic) Eloy Detention Center. Beyond the Wall is a segment of the Latin America Today podcast, and a part of the Washington Office on Latin America's Beyond the Wall advocacy campaign. In the series, we will follow the thread of migration in the Americas beyond traditional barriers like language and borders. We will explore root causes of migration, the state of migrant rights in multiple countries and multiple borders and what we can do to protect hu

The effort to assert democratic civilian control over armed forces is not over, Kristina Mani of Oberlin College reminds us. Latin American civilians, she points out, often use militaries for non-defense purposes, even more so during the COVID-19 crisis.