Over 41,000 Colombian judicial workers demonstrated at the Paloquemao Judicial Complex in downtown Bogotá on March 25 to protest the murders of judicial officers. The protest was part of a one-day national strike that the National Association of Employees of the Judicial Branch (Asonal Judicial) had called after the murder of Judge Gloria Constanza Gaona. The judged was shot dead on March 22 while on her way to a municipal court in the town of Saravena in the northeastern department of Arauca.

Hours after the government concluded the restitution of some 63,000 acres of usurped lands to Afro-Colombian communities in Chocó department, illegal armed groups raided and burned several acres of crops, Colombia's Caracol Radio reported March 21. The Interior and Justice Minister German Vargas Lleras, along with Agriculture Minister Juan Camilo Restrepo, visited the Chocó towns of Curvarado and Jiguamiando to conclude the legal restoration of lands to Afro-Colombians in the region last week. Hours after their visit, paramilitary armed groups allegedly attacked the area of Curvarado, torching 12.35 acres of corn that had been planted by those who live there.

A spokesperson for the UK's Metropolitan Police Service last week confirmed the arrest of a 46-year-old Peruvian national on suspicion of crimes against humanity and torture. He is suspected of involvement with the Shining Path, a Maoist guerilla organization, believed to be responsible for the deaths of thousands in two decades of conflict in Peru. The man, whose name has yet to be released, was arrested on March 15 and is being held while police conduct searches of several addresses in the area linked to him. The man is the first to be arrested under the Coroners and Justice Act of 2009, which allows UK courts to hear cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by nonresidents between 1991 and 2001.

On March 3 Venezuela's highest court, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), ordered the conditional release of union leader Rubén González, who had been in prison since Sept. 29, 2009. Just two days before the TSJ order, Bolívar state judge Magda Hidalgo sentenced González to seven and a half years in prison for instigating a job action and blocking a highway in Ciudad Guayana at the government-owned Ferrominera Orinoco (FMO), an iron ore mining subsidiary of CVG, the national heavy industry holding company. González is general secretary of the Ferrominera Workers Union (SINTRAFERROMINERA). Under the terms of the conditional release, he is required to report every 15 days to the authorities in Ciudad Guayana.

As the price of gold climbs to $1,441 an ounce, new illegal mines are springing up across Colombia, helping fund the armed conflict and damaging the environment, the New York Times reported March 4. Colombia's largest guerilla group, the FARC, have taken up the illegal mining of gold to finance their armed conflict with the state, President Juan Manuel Santos said in January. Their paramilitary adversaries have been swept up in the "gold rush" as well. Competition over the gold trade between two so-called "neo-paramilitary" gangs, the Urabeños and Rastrojos, has led to a homicide wave in the town of Caucasia in the north of Antioquia department (Bajo Cauca region).

The foreign ministers of Colombia and Venezuela have signed 13 agreements intended to increase cooperation between the neighboring countries, according to a March 3 report on the Colombian Exterior Ministry website. The agreements were signed at the conclusion of a Binational Economic Meeting between the two countries in Caracas, focusing on themes such as border security and the renewal of commercial relations following last year's bilateral crisis.

Colombian "neo-pramilitary" groups containing former armed forces personnel were able to infiltrate the state by exploiting past military connections, according to a WikiLeaks cable. The cable, dated Feb. 13, 2007, relates how the then-director of the Rural Security Police, Gen. Jesus Gómez Méndez, told a US official that the three main difficulties in dismantling these organizations were topography, money and infiltration. Gómez said infiltration allows paramilitaries to receive information through collaborators in the armed forces notifying them of an imminent operation against their activities.

Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, the Peruvian former secretary general of the United Nations, publicly lamented Feb. 28 that the hundreds of US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks have become an issue the presidential campaign underway in his country. "It is embarrassing that information from WikiLeaks has become part of the campaign, because it contains foreign opinions, not from Peruvians," he said. "Candidates should debate with ideas and not verbal attacks. We hope that candidates will calm themselves during this month." (Living in Peru, Feb. 28)