Miami, September 16 – Featuring leading experts, policymakers, academics, and statesmen, the Interamerican Institute for Democracy, Infobae, and Florida International University will host the forum “Organized Crime and Democracy in Latin America” at the U.S. Capitol on October 9.

The event will take place in Room 200 of the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. It will be broadcast live in English, with simultaneous translation into Spanish, and streamed via Infobae and the Interamerican Institute for Democracy's YouTube channel.

Opening remarks will be delivered by U.S. Congressman Carlos Giménez, followed by more than a dozen distinguished speakers from across the Americas and the United States, who will share their perspectives on the intersection of organized crime and democracy in the region through a series of panel discussions.

For years, research, publications, and forums organized by the Interamerican Institute for Democracy and its members have warned about the political power seized by organized crime in Latin America. The issue has taken on new urgency this year, as the United States—framing it as a matter of national security—has begun identifying these criminal groups, narco-terrorist organizations, cartels, and gangs as direct aggressors against regional democracies.

One of the most notorious examples is the “Cartel de los Soles,” long identified as a power broker in Venezuela and recently designated by the White House as a terrorist organization.

This new U.S. foreign policy has prompted shifts in the foreign policies of several Latin American countries—including Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic—while facing resistance from the so-called “21st Century Socialist” dictatorships entrenched in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia.

This complex reality will be the focus of analysis by speakers from Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, the United States, and other Latin American countries, who will assess its impact on regional political and social stability, as well as its present and future consequences.

Among the case studies to be presented are international researcher Douglas Farah's works Feudal Argentina and Transnational Criminal Convergence: Santiago del Estero, which detail how authoritarian provincial governments in the country have consolidated power over decades, intertwining with criminal networks and with the Kirchner administrations.

Press Department
Interamerican Institute for Democracy
ehulechpress@intdemocratic.org