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Colombia’s Minga Under Pressure

The 2008 Indigenous and Popular Minga in Colombia: Civil Resistance and Alternative Communication Practices

Embattled Cauca: A New Wave of Violence and Indigenous Resistance

Every year the United States spends millions of dollars to help the war-ravaged country of Colombia. But help it with what? In Colombia and the U.S. Mario Murillo explores the misdirected and devastating impact that U.S. military "aid" continues to have on the war torn-people of Colombia. Beginning with a brief history of Colombia, Murillo analyzes the complex forces driving Colombia's current decades-old guerilla war, U.S. involvement, media perceptions, and possible paths to peace. Whether it has been the U.S.-led war against "drug trafficking," the newly constituted "war against terrorism," or, as we have seen over the last two years, a convenient marriage of the two, the main effect has been to allow the U.S. to further expand its role in Colombia. The foundations of Colombia's social, political, and military conflict are rarely addressed by U.S. policy. Murillo describes Colombia's history of institutionalized corruption, state neglect, far-reaching poverty, and political violence and how they precede by decades the introduction and expansion of the drug trade.Colombia and the U.S. argues that the conflict in Colombia is not about drugs, nor guerrillas, nor "terrorism," but rather about the unwillingness of the country's elite to open up spaces for truly democratic participation in areas of economic and social development and political representation.

Colombia and the United States : War, Unrest, and Destabilization (Open Media Series)

While 1998 marked the 100th anniversary of the United States' invasion and takeover of Puerto Rico, it wasn't until 1999 that the island's political movements reappeared on the radar screen of the American people. That year, two major developments occurred that transformed the relationship between Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.: the limited clemency granted by then-President Clinton to eleven Puerto Rican Nationalists, and the death of Puerto Rican civilian security guard David Sanes, killed by missile fragments from U.S. naval bombing tests on the island municipality of Vieques.How does Vieques fit into the political future of Puerto Rico? While anti-Navy protesters are careful not to mix the island's political status options with their battle against the Navy, it is important to understand the role Washington has played in shaping Puerto Rico's current reality and how it has allowed the Navy to use Vieques as a bombing range for 60 years. It also helps one begin to predict what is the future of Puerto Rico. Is it to be a colony? Fifty-first state of the United States? Sovereign nation?In Islands of Resistance, Mario A. Murillo approaches these questions by examining how Puerto Rican politics have been shaped as much by 100 years of U.S. economic, military, and cultural domination of the territory, as by the enduring grassroots resistance of the Puerto Rican people. Islands of Resistance puts the contemporary situation in Puerto Rico into an historic context that will help people understand what is at stake in Vieques, not only for Viequenses, but for Puerto Ricans, both on the island and in the diaspora.

Islands of Resistance: Vieques, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Policy

Topics of interest include:

Mario Alfonso Murillo is Professor in the Radio, Television, Film department in the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication at Hofstra University, where he teaches courses in radio journalism and documentary production, media studies, and Latin American studies, among other subjects. As a journalist, radio documentarian, writer and researcher, he has focused much of his attention on the cultural and social role public interest, community-oriented radio plays in local and national contexts, and considers citizen’s media to be a fundamental tool of cultural affirmation, artistic expression, civic engagement, and political participation, all of which are the underlying themes of his current project, the manuscript Voices of Resistance: Indigenous Media and the Struggle for Social Justice in Colombia.

Radio journalism 

Human Rights and Policy

Latin American Media and Politics

U.S./Latin American Policy

Latino Culture and History

Community Radio

Documentary Production 

Civic Engagement

Spanish

Hofstra University Faculty Profile

Colombians Reject Peace Deal in Stunning Referendum, Advocates Cite Climate of "Intimidation & Fear"

Colombia & FARC Agree to Ceasefire in Historic Peace Deal, Begin Long Process of Implementation

Immigration issues addressed at Hofstra conference

Activists and Journalists Struggle to Make Colombia’s War Visible in the U.S.

Colombian Indians Stand Up to Violence

Vice Dean, Professor of Radio, Television, Film, LHSC

Mario Murillo, chair of Radio, Television and Film in the School of Communication at Hofstra University, discusses the current state of radio, how it's reinventing itself and the radio program at Hofstra.

Mario Murillo on Radio

Learn all about The Center for Civic Engagement at Hofstra University from the center's co-director, Mario A. Murillo.

For more information, visit http://www.hofstra.edu/cce

Center for Civic Engagement: Mario A. Murillo

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