Central America and Mexico Regional Office
Our regional office in Mexico City coordinates the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s work with partner organizations in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Cuba
(Kopie 1)
In Mexico and Central America, the majority of the population is exposed to violence and persecution on a daily basis and forced to cope with precarious living conditions. In Mexico, a growing number of people are “disappearing”. According to official sources, more than 33,000 people are currently missing, but there is a high number of unreported cases involving migrants in particular. Most are presumably abducted and murdered by criminals, police or soldiers. The 43 students taken by security forces in Iguala in the Mexican state of Guerrero and handed over to criminals to be “disappeared” are just one example, proving that often state institutions and organized criminals do more than just collaborate. In many cases, they have evolved into a single network. The country is ruled by corruption and impunity, with less than 2 percent of crimes being investigated.
Guatemala has the region’s largest indigenous population, the majority of whom are included in the 70 per cent of the country’s inhabitants defined by the UN as poor. They are particularly exposed to repression and social exclusion.
Amidst the region’s shift to the right, Cuba faces the challenge of implementing economic reforms without abandoning the achievements gained through socialism and practical humanism that have come to define the country.
Across Central America and Mexico, the neoliberal offensive of recent years has exacerbated social inequality, and is gradually undermining cultural and social achievements as well as eroding labour rights. Mega-projects and the predatory exploitation of natural resources threaten to destroy many people’s livelihoods. Another set of issues is raised by the many migrants either leaving or travelling through the region to reach Mexico, the United States and Canada. Thousands of them have disappeared on their journey north, most presumed killed. Others face discrimination and exploitation.
Yet despite this overall situation, creative and diverse forms of resistance are nevertheless being developed across the region. The Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung helps civil society organisations that envision social and sustainable alternatives to expand their networks. It also acts as a hub, promoting democratic discourse among grassroots activists and left-wing actors.
Activities
- Political Participation
In Central America, social organizations and collectives with visions for a just society are primarily able to intervene in public discourse. The office promotes democratic participation from below and organizes civic education events for socially and politically marginalized segments of the population.
Alongside these activities, the foundation also brings them into dialogue with left-wing and progressive parties in order to facilitate access to political participation. In this context, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s focus is on global social rights and their enforcement. We strengthen trade unions, indigenous organizations, women’s collectives as well as LGBTI and human rights groups in their capacity to utilize their political rights and increase their social impact. Here, our work focuses heavily on the rights of indigenous groups, women, young people and members of the LGBTI community. - Socio-Ecological Alternatives, Land, and Territory
In rural areas across Mexico and Central America, an economic model based on the predatory extraction of natural resources and agricultural monoproduction is destroying the livelihoods of a largely indigenous population. Not only do the extractive industries (mining, oil, and shale gas) and agro-businesses fail to benefit local economies, they also have disastrous environmental and social impacts that have left entire swaths of land uninhabitable. These issues are aggravated by mega-projects such as dams. Instead of generating energy sustainably, they contribute to the destruction of habitats and nature.
But local communities are developing their own alternative approaches to this form of predatory capitalism, and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation supports them in articulating and carrying forward viable solutions. - Migration
Faced with destroyed livelihoods, excessive violence, and repression on a daily basis, many Mexicans and Central Americans have no other option but to leave their homes. The foundation supports migrants and their advocates in pushing for their right to migration, which must include their human rights and their right to bodily integrity as much as their right to remain and to a decent life in their home communities.
Mexico City Regional Office
Director: Caroline Kim
Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Mexico Office
Calzada General Pedro Anaya 65
Colonia San Diego Churubusco
Delegación Coyoacán
México D.F. C.P 04120
México
+52 (55) 5544 5500 / 5544 3097