Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina rose to power in 2011 on the promise of crushing organized crime. The former army general pledged high-security prisons, an increased police force and the deployment of soldiers in the fight against drug gangs, which have transformed Guatemala into one of the most violent places in the world.

Alberto Alonso-Fredejas on the narrative contexts in which land grabs are presented and legitimized, and how such activities lead to questions around capital, labor and community relations.

Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina has called last week’s approval by Uruguayan lawmakers in the lower house of the legalization of recreational marijuana an “important step” in the fight against international drug trafficking. Pérez Molina said the initiative – which if passed by the Senate would task the Uruguayan government with the production and sale of marijuana – opens “a new space for discussion” on the merits of legalization of illicit drugs.

Guatemalan President Otto Perez said he is feeling less alone in his drive to re-think the fight against drug-trafficking than a year ago, when he shocked fellow Central American leaders with a proposal to decriminalise drugs. Perez has proposed what he calls a "third way" in between all-out drugs legalisation and complete prohibition. He says the latter approach has failed as illegal drug use remains high despite decades of being outlawed around the world.

This is at the heart of the awakening in Latin America, a feeling that drugs prohibition has allowed rich and powerful cartels to rise to such prominence that they threaten the institutions of the state – the police, the judicial system, the army, the media, and the body politic. In Latin America it is not about rehab and criminality, it is about an existential threat to the state.

A special issue of the Canadian Journal of Development Studies introducing a previously under-explored geographic region into the emerging land grab literature. Available for free till end of May.