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Author: Antonio Castillo

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Closing the gates of violence in Colombia

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 26 July 2016
    1 Comment

    It has been little more a month since Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos and Timochenko, the nom de guerre of the leader of the FARC, the oldest guerrilla group in the world, proclaimed a cease-fire. In La Habana on 23 June, the two concluded four years of negotiations to end the 50 year old Colombian civil war, the longest armed conflict in the western hemisphere. The development is hopeful, but Colombian peace attempts are nothing new, and the conditions won't be easy to meet.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Raul Castro's diplomatic love match with Pope Francis

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 13 May 2015
    2 Comments

    They spoke in Spanish and there was genuine Latin American warmness between them during Sunday's historic 55 minute meeting at the Vatican. They will meet again when Francis visits Cuba in September. Castro promised Francis that he would be attending every one of his masses, reminding him that he is a Jesuit alumnus: 'I'm as Jesuit as the Pope'.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Pope's Romero move could heal Latin American divisions

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 10 February 2015
    19 Comments

    Forces inside the Vatican stalled and blocked it for 20 years. But earlier this month, Pope Francis issued the declaration that Salvadorian Archbishop Oscar Romero was murdered 'in hatred of the faith' and not for political reasons. He is no longer officially suspected of being a Marxist sympathiser. In fact liberation theology itself has been undergoing a quiet rehabilitation during Francis' pontificate.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Hong Kong not in the mood for love

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 03 October 2014
    3 Comments

    Over the last 20 years, every time the people of Hong Kong have heard some 'menacing' messages from Beijing, they have responded and become politically active. The menacing message this time is the one I heard two years ago in the office of Leung Kwok-hung – better known as 'Long hair' – in the Legislative Council offices far from the epicentre of the protests: 'Beijing won’t honour its pledge’.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Central American ganglands spark child refugee crisis

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 23 July 2014
    2 Comments

    The exodus of thousands of unaccompanied and undocumented children from Central America countries to the US — via Mexico's unforgiving northern border — has become a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented dimensions. While organised crime continues, economic violence remains unresolved and the US doesn't get its migration policy right, such children will keep risking their lives.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2013: Losing Chavez the indispensable

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 08 January 2014
    2 Comments

    With Hugo Chavez's death Latin America has arguably lost the most influential political leader of the last two decades. Chavez was one of those men that Bertolt Brecht called the 'indispensible ones'. He has been the champion of the socially and economically marginalised since he came to power in 1999.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Losing Chavez the indispensable

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 06 March 2013
    16 Comments

    With Hugo Chavez's death Latin America has arguably lost the most influential political leader of the last two decades. Chavez was one of those men that Bertolt Brecht called the 'indispensible ones'. He has been the champion of the socially and economically marginalised since he came to power in 1999.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Remembering the other 9/11

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 14 September 2010
    24 Comments

    At least those of us who survived Chile's 9/11 didn't have to stomach the phoney sombre Australian journalists 'live from New York' or the sight of a former Prime Minister crossing the Brooklyn bridge wearing an ACB tracksuit. But more than 30 years on, the Chilean people are still waiting for the United States' admission of guilt.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Chile's tremble

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 04 March 2010
    7 Comments

    Concepción, the second largest city in Chile, was worst affected by the weekend's earthquake. I was there little more than a month ago, visiting old comrades and my sister and her family. At the moment of writing I have been unable to contact them.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Guerilla president cements Uruguay's left

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 09 December 2009
    1 Comment

    Four decades ago 'Pepe' Mujica was a ferocious Latin American guerrilla leader. His election as president of Uruguay shows that the Latin American people continue to reject the neoliberal experiment that has brought so much poverty and injustice.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Beginning of the end for US Cuban embargo

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 22 April 2009
    4 Comments

    The Fifth Summit of the Americas will be remembered for Obama's pledge to 'seek a new beginning with Cuba'. He could be the statesman to end the Cuban embargo, the foreign policy blunder that has caused much pain to Cuba and its people.

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