from Weekly News Update on the Americas:

The Second Summit of the South American Community of Nations (CSN), held Dec. 8-9 in Cochabamba, Bolivia, concluded with a declaration that the meeting had laid the "cornerstone" for a regional union with "a space integrated politically, socially, culturally, economically, financially, environmentally and in infrastructure." Eight of the 12 member nations were represented by their heads of state: Evo Morales (Bolivia), Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Brazil), Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Bharrat Jadgeo (Guyana), Nicanor Duarte (Paraguay), Alan Garcia (Peru), Tabare Vazquez (Uruguay), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela). Two presidents-elect attended as observers: Rafael Correa (Ecuador), Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua).

from Weekly News Update on the Americas:

On Dec. 13, some 5,000 people from across Argentina (or as many as 10,000, according to some press reports) took part in a colorful march in scorching weather to the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires to defend the environment and natural resources. Marchers carried banners and puppets (including a giant toilet, flushing polluted waters into the environment), performed street theater and danced to regional traditional carnaval music.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas:

On Nov. 28, a standoff in Bolivia's Senate ended when the rightwing National Unity (UN) party's only senator joined two senators from the rightwing Democratic and Social Power (Podemos) in returning to the session, allowing a quorum. The Senate had been shut down since Nov. 22, when the opposition bloc withdrew its 14 senators, depriving the 27-member body of a quorum. The opposition was stunned by the betrayal of the three senators from the opposition stronghold departments of Beni and Pando. Opposition senators tried to get the dissident senators to withdraw, but only succeeded in removing one of them—not enough to break the quorum.

Voters Reject Traditional Parties in Elections Marred by Violence

by April Howard, Toward Freedom

A soldier running from angry protesters died instantly when he fell off of a cliff, town offices were burned down, and one mayor escaped to Lima, claiming that his constituency was planning to lynch him. In spite of the Organization of American States' report of a normal election, Peruvian President Alan García called on the armed forces to quell violence across the country during and after regional elections held November 19, 2006.

Though García was re-elected as president representing one of the country's oldest and most institutionalized political parties just six months before, these regional elections showed a widespread rejection of such parties, and favor for "independent" parties. The election results challenge García's second presidency and demonstrate the deep social, economic and political divides that continue to run through present-day Peru.

Campesinos Mobilize for Agrarian Reform

by Benjamin Dangl, Toward Freedom

Silvestre Saisari, a bearded, soft-spoken leader in the Bolivian Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), sat in his office in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. The building was surrounded by a high cement wall topped with barbed wire. It looked like a military bunker. This made sense given the treatment Saisairi and other like-minded social and labor organizers received from the city's right-wing elite. In 2005, the young MST leader was attacked while giving a press conference on landowners' use of armed thugs to suppress landless farmers. To prevent him from denouncing these acts to the media, people reportedly tied to landowners pulled his hair, strangled, punched, and beat him. Sitting in his well-protected headquarters, Saisari explained, "Land is a center of power. He who has land, has power... We are proposing than this land be redistributed, so their [elites] power will be affected."

What is Behind Bush's Andean "Anti-Terrorist" Strategy?

by Julian Monroy, WW4 REPORT


Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe Velez—the Bush administration's main ally in the hemispheric war on terrorism and drugs, as well as in the pursuit of free trade policies—was in Washington DC on November 13-4 to meet key legislators. His agenda was to secure continued military aid and the extension of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA), which was to expire at the end of 2006.

His visit took place in the midst of a huge scandal without precedent in Colombia. On November 8, the Criminal Division of the Supreme Court of Justice ordered the capture of Senator Alvaro Garcia Romero and Representative Elkin Morris from the Colombia Democratica Party and Senator Jorge Merlano from Uribe's Partido de la U (for "unity"). All of them are government bigwigs and close friends of the Colombian president.

State Terror and the Struggle for Ecopetrol

by Bill Weinberg, WW4 REPORT

Ijaw Militia Fight the Oil Cartel

by Ike Okonta

"They have taken crafty counsel against thy people; and consulted against thy hidden ones. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation."

—Oboko Bello, president of Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC), quoting Psalm 83:1-5.