The Joel Sierra Regional Human Rights Committee Foundation has reported a wave of recent murders in the municipalities of Arauquita, Tame and Saravena in the eastern Colombian department of Arauca. On July 27 in Tame, meat vendor Alberto Tovar Trujillo was murdered in the community of Alto Cauca and Omar Castaneda was murdered in the village of Botalon. On July 28, Euclides Galvis Moreno and Jose Ananias Duran Moncada were murdered in the community of Santa Clara in Arauquita. On July 30, Pedro Jaimes Rodriguez died in the hospital, a day after being wounded with a knife in Saravena municipality. Also on July 30, Floiran Cuervo Monsalve was murdered in the community of Puerto Nidia in Fortul municipality. Jose Calderon, a medical assistant at the San Ricardo Pampuri hospital in Saravena, was murdered on July 31. The authors and motives are unknown for all of these killings. (Adital, Aug. 4) The murders take place as the National Army carries out a massive military operation in the rural areas of Arauca department, with abuses against the civilian campesino population. The military operation began in early July in Tame and has spread to Fortul, Saravena, Arauquita and the departmental capital, Arauca. (Agencia Prensa Rural, Aug. 1)

Haiti's Collective for Mobilization Against the High Cost of Living held a sit-in on July 25 in front of the Hotel Karibe Convention Center in Port-au-Prince to demand cancellation of Haiti's external debt. The protesters carried signs with such slogans as: "We're not in debt," "We have nothing to pay," "France is the one that's in debt." (Haiti was born from a massive slave rebellion against French colonial rule in the late 18th century.) According to the collective's spokesperson, Guy Numa, Haiti currently pays $60 million each year in interest on an external debt of a little more than $1 billion. (Agence Haitienne de Presse, July 25)

On Aug. 4, a federal court in Buenos Aires, Argentina, sentenced former federal police officer Julio Simon to 25 years of prison for the 1978 abduction and torture of Chilean citizen Jose Poblete Roa and his Argentine companion, Gertrudis Hlaczik, and the theft of the couple's eight-month-old daughter, Claudia Victoria.

It was the first such sentence since Argentina's Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that two amnesty laws passed in the 1980s were unconstitutional, clearing the way for trials over human rights abuses committed during the country's 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Seems like both sides in the Cuban political divide are atempting to co-opt Santeria, which is definitely bad news for the doves and chickens of Miami and Havana. Apparently neither the Fidelistas or the anti-Fidelistas are playing to the animal-rights constituency. From an Aug. 4 Reuters account, dateline Miami:

After Cuba announced on Monday that Castro had stomach surgery and put brother Raul in charge, Rigoberto Zamora, a babalawo, or priest, of what he calls Yoruba, the African name for Santeria, performed a fact-finding ritual.

After sacrificing a couple of black hens and a rooster to satisfy the hunger of the gods, he got the word from them: Castro is already dead; he died on Monday.

This July 30 Chicago Tribune story is suddenly much more relevant, since Fidel ceded executive powers—just one day after it appeared! The existence of groups like Elizardo Sanchez' Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation (about which more below) is anathema to the dogmatists on either side of the Havana-Washington/Miami divide.

U.S. aid unproductive, some Castro foes say
HAVANA - The Bush administration's plans to send an additional $80 million over the next two years to support Cuba's struggling opposition movement is being criticized by the very people the money is intended to help.

A story on new international interest in Cuba's offshore oil rights made the front page of the New York Times in May. But very interesting that the London Times gives it similar top billing Aug. 5, just as Fidel has (ostensibly temporarily) stepped down, ceding executive powers to his younger brother and security chief Raul for the first time since 1959.

Cuban oil grab sparks row in US over embargo of near neighbour
As the Spanish, Chinese and Canadians move in on Cuba's reserves, US politicians are fighting over what their response should be

The undiscriminating nature of aerial warfare is producing some surreal ironies in the Israel-Lebanon mess. As we have noted, Israel appears to be loaning military support to Iraqi Kurds due to mutual enmity for the Arabs, leading Arabs and Turks alike to increasingly view Kurdish separatism as a Jewish conspiracy. Yet the latest Israeli air strike on Lebanon's Bekaa Valley wiped out a bunch of Syrian Kurdish migrant fruit pickers. From Reuters, Aug. 4:

From La Jornada, Aug. 1, via Chiapas95 (our translation):

Guerilla groups will "not permit the imposition"

Chilpancingo, Guerrero, July 31 -- The guerilla organizations Revolutionary Workers Command "Mexico Barbaro"; the Comando Jaramillista Morelense "May 23"; the Popular Revolutionary Command "Fatherland is First", and the Democratic Revolutionary Tendency-Army of the People called for the Mexican people to "not permit the conservative and reactionary right to impose a spurious president, and not accept, under any circumstances, the negation and mockery of the popular will as expressed at the ballot boxes. Do not even diminish your protests!" The communique warned: "if in spite of everything the men of power and money succeed in consumating the usurpation of the government of the Republic, let there be no doubt: sooner rather than later, they will face the consequences!"