Extractive Companies Privatize Repression and Counterinsurgency in the Americas
Hundreds of police officers attend an operation in illegal gold mining area of La Pampa, in Madre de Dios, southern Peru, on July 13, 2015.
Sebastian Castaneda / Anadolu Agency / Getty Images
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As activists increasingly confront extractive industries, militarized repression of those protests has become a growing and lucrative business. This phenomenon is salient across much of the world, including the U.S., where fossil fuel companies are funneling money to police departments that repress anti-racist and environmental justice movements. However, private security is a particularly growing business in Latin America, which is also the world’s deadliest region for water and land protectors.