Because of my travels this week, I no doubt missed a lot of important analysis and coverage. But from what I managed to see, here are five recommended reads.

  • Alberto Pradilla, a journalist for Mexico’s Animal Político who wrote a well-received book about migrant caravans last year, was on hand in Chiapas this week for the Mexican National Guard’s heavy-handed breakup of a new caravan attempted by thousands of fleeing Hondurans.
  • A reporter for Colombia’s main newsmagazine who had uncovered scandals in the U.S.-backed military learned—luckily—that hitmen had been dispatched to murder him. This is part of a pattern of daily threats suffered by reporters who’ve dared to report on Colombia’s army, and by some of the military whistleblowers themselves. El Espectador reports.
  • Kendrick Foster, ”From Selfies to Progress in El Salvador”: in the Harvard Political Review, a nuanced look at El Salvador’s hard-to-pin-down, social media-obsessed young president, Nayib Bukele. Is he really going after corruption? Is he really approaching gangs in a new way?
  • “The Guerrillas Are the Police” is the title of a new Human Rights Watch report on the disastrous security and human rights situation in Arauca, Colombia (where I was last October) and across the border in Apure, Venezuela.
  • Russian disinformation campaigns and bots are not responsible for the surge of popular protests in Latin America recently, but Moscow has definitely worked to encourage them, according to State Department analyses obtained by the New York Times.