The ICPJ LAC, U of M Latin American & Caribbean Studies, Wayne State University Center for Latino/a & Latin American Studies & Huron Valley DSA are bringing you important speakers and discussions on-line on select Tuesdays at 7:00 p.m.
There is no cost for these events, but your donations to ICPJ help us to continue educating and mobilizing in our communities.
“U.S. Guns & Militarism in Mexico”
Speaker John Lindsay-Poland
Tuesday, January 11th, 7pm
John has written about, researched and organized action for human rights and demilitarization of U.S. policy, especially in Latin America, for more than 30 years. He left his studies at Harvard University to participate in international disarmament organizing and to accompany Central Americans threatened with political violence. From 1989 to 2014, he served the interfaith pacifist organization Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), as coordinator of the Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean, and as research director, and founded the FOR Colombia peace team.
John is the author or co-author of numerous reports on U.S. military policy and human rights in Latin America, including most recently Invisible Weapons, Indelible Pain: The Urgent Necessity for Transparency in the U.S. and Mexican Gun Trade and Deadly Trade: How Europeans and Israeli Arms Exports are Accelerating Violence in Mexico. He is also the author of Plan Colombia: U.S. Allies, Atrocities and Community Activism (2018) and Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the U.S. in Panama (2003), both published by Duke University Press.
His research has focused on the relationship between foreign military assistance and respect for human rights, foreign military bases, and military spending. Recently he has begun developing tools and curriculum for researching militarism on behalf of activist campaigns. He is currently co-director of the California Healing Justice program of the American Friends Service Committee, with a focus on police demilitarization. He coordinates Stop US Arms to Mexico, a project of Global Exchange.
“The Biden Administration’s Approach Toward the Northern Countries of Central America”
Speaker: Lisa Haugaard
Tuesday, February 8th, 7pm
Lisa is the Co-director of the Latin America Working Group, has led advocacy efforts on human rights issues and U.S. policy towards Latin America for a coalition of human rights, faith, labor and nongovernmental groups for over 20 years. She collaborated with Colombian human rights groups to document, denounce and demand accountability for escalating extrajudicial executions, a collective effort that resulted in a dramatic drop in new abuses and hundreds of cases shifting from military to civilian courts. She has participated in international verification missions on human rights defenders, election monitoring and migrant rights. Lisa has testified before and headlined briefings in the U.S. Congress, addressed press conferences and led workshops in Latin America, and conducted advocacy at all levels of the State and Defense Departments, USAID, Southern Command and Congress.
Lisa serves as a juror for the National Human Rights Prize for Colombia and the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award. She completed PhD exams in Political Science at Columbia University, a Master’s in Latin American Studies from New York University, and a BA in English and Latin American literature with High Honors from Swarthmore College, and was a recipient of Fulbright and MacArthur fellowships.
Her recent publications are “Protect Colombia’s Peace,” (with Coordinación Colombia Europa Estados Unidos, et al, July 2020), “Serve Your People: A Roadmap for Transforming Relations between the United States and the Northern Countries of Central America,” July 2020, “Testimony before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, Hearing on Human Rights and Corruption in Honduras,” Latin America Working Group Education Fund, December 11, 2019 and “A Wake-Up Call: Colombia’s Peace at Risk,” Latin America Working Group, October 2019.
This event is hosted by The Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice Latin America Caucus, the University of Michigan Latin American & Caribbean Studies, Wayne State University Center for Latino/a & Latin American Studies, and Huron Valley DSA
“Current Realities in El Salvador“
Speaker: Danielle Mackey
Tuesday, March 8th, 7pm
Danielle, a member of The New Yorker‘s editorial staff, based in New York, lived mostly in El Salvador from 2008 until 2021 and was a freelance investigative, longform reporter. Her work has appeared online in The New Yorker, The New Republic and The Atlantic, among others. She still writes and speaks as an independent journalist.
Her ongoing projects include a series of investigations into narco-activity and corruption in Honduras, with Contracorriente, supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism, Columbia University’s Center for Mexico and Central America, and the Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística. Another project involves policing, gangs, and non-carceral and tertiary responses to violence in Central America and in U.S. foreign policy. She has conducted years of reporting on this, funded by grants from various journalism foundations.
Danielle has worked as an adjunct professor in the journalism department at CUNY Lehman College and on the research team at The Intercept, among other media posts. Before journalism, she was an NGO-worker and horse trainer. She is an alum of the NYU M.A. in Global Journalism and Latin American Studies.
“Borders, Homeland Security & Bridges”
Speaker: Todd Miller
Tuesday, April 12th, 7pm
Todd Miller writes a weekly post for The Border Chronicle. He has researched and written about border issues for more than 15 years, the last eight as an independent journalist and writer. He resides in Tucson, Arizona, but also has spent many years living and working in Oaxaca, Mexico. His work has appeared in the New York Times, TomDispatch, The Nation, San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, Guernica, and Al Jazeera English, among other places.
Miller has authored four books: Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders (City Lights, 2021) Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World (Verso, 2019), Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security (City Lights, 2017), and Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security (City Lights, 2014). Todd is a contributing editor on border and immigration issues for NACLA Report on the Americas and its column “Border Wars”.
“The Struggle for Environmental, Racial & Human Rights in Honduras”
Speaker Mary Anne Perrone
Tuesday, May 10th, 7pm
Mary Anne is an educator, an activist and a spiritual guide. For over 30 years her area of focus has been on human rights in Latin America. She has worked in the U.S. to raise consciousness about the U.S.’s role in human rights violations in Latin America and the need for substantive change in our foreign policy. In the last two decades, this work has taken her on multiple human rights delegations to several Latin American countries, connecting with and accompanying courageous people working in their own countries to defend those whose human rights are highly threatened. She has been part of the Latin America Caucus of Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice (ICPJ) in Ann Arbor for decades.
Since 2009, Mary Anne has traveled to Honduras a dozen times or more on various human rights delegations, often with SOA Watch. In the last few years she has been part of several SHARE Foundation delegations to Honduras addressing crucial moments in the volatile recent history. Her most recent delegation was in December 2021 in the wake of the historic election process there.
For questions or more information contact ICPJ at Info@icpj.org.