With Colombia's Constitutional Court still reviewing a December measure recriminalizing "personal quantities" of drugs, President Alvaro Uribe March 22 announced that pending a decision on the penalty for possession, police will for now only be permitted to confiscate drugs rather than make an arrest. The recriminalization move was predictably hailed by Colombia's National Police, with public security director Gen. Orlando Paez Baron stressing the importance of the "fight against micro-traffickers." (Colombia Reports, March 22)

At least six people were killed and 20 others injured when a car bomb exploded outside the mayor's office in the Colombian Pacific port city of Buenaventura March 25. Gen. Freddy Padilla, the head of Colombia's armed forces, blamed the country's guerillas. "Surely this was the FARC," he said. President Alvaro Uribe announced a $150,000 reward for information leading to those responsible. (AlJazeera, March 25)

Clodomiro Castilla, 49, publisher of Colombia's El Pulso del Tiempo newspaper—known for his exposés of official corruption and paramilitary terror—was shot dead by unknown gunmen in an attack on his home in the city of Montería, Córdoba department. Castilla had received death threats in recent months, after having testified in court that officials from the ruling party of President Alvaro Uribe had contacts to the outlawed paramilitary groups. He had been given police protection, but it was withdrawn shortly before the shooting. Castilla had also been arrested numerous times on drug and theft charges that his defenders claimed were fabricated. Last year, seven journalists were murdered in Colombia.

The retired general who captured legendary guerilla leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara in 1967 was summoned March 19 by Bolivian authorities for questioning in an alleged plot against President Evo Morales. Ex-Gen. Gary Prado Salmón allegedly exchanged "ultrasecret" encrypted e-mail with Eduardo Rozsa Flores, a Bolivian-born Hungarian who was killed in an April 2009 raid by an elite police unit in the eastern city of Santa Cruz. Authorities maintain that Rozsa and two others killed in the raid—an Irishman and an ethnic Hungarian from Romania—were involved in a conspiracy to create a separatist right-wing militia in the eastern Santa Cruz region. Morales said after the raid that a plot to assassinate him had been foiled.

Colombian guerilla leader Jorge Enrique Rodríguez Mendieta AKA "Ivan Vargas" was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a District Court in New York March 19 for conspiring to import cocaine into the US. Mendieta, who was extradited in 2007, pleaded guilty in December to the charges, admitting that he was commander of the FARC's 24th Front from 1998 to 2004.

On March 15, Jhonny Hurtado, 59, president of the local Human Rights Committee in the community of La Catalina, La Macarena municipality, Meta department, was killed while working in outlying fields. Witnesses said he fled when he heard gunfire, and was shot while running. The independent Human Rights Commission of the Bajo Ariari zone said in a statement: "There is fear throughout the region of the Río Guayabero, because the zone is militarized, and military unites...have threatened social leaders and human rights defenders." (DH Colombia, March 16)

The Conservatives tabled the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement in Ottawa's Parliament last week, reviving a deal opposed by labor and human rights activists. "International trade is critical to our economic recovery," said Minister of International Trade Peter Van Loan in a press release. "As we move beyond stimulus spending and diversify opportunities for Canadian business abroad, this free trade agreement will help Canadians prosper."

The governor of Bolivia's Chonchocoro prison has been sacked after a number of violent incidents at the facility, as well as revelations that former military ruler Luis García Meza was being housed in a luxury cell. Investigators searched the facility after several prisoners were injured in a turf war between inmates that involved a grenade attack and a shooting. They found that García Meza's quarters included a gym, sauna, tennis table, dining room and barbecue grill. He is serving a 30-year term for abuses dating back to his period in power in the early 1980s. Interior Minister Sacha Llorenti said prison governor Col. Gilmar Oblitas and other police officers would face penalties. (BBC News, March 16)