From Dec. 15 to Dec. 17 Latin American and Caribbean countries held overlapping meetings of several regional groups in Costa do Sauipe, a luxurious tourist complex near Salvador in the eastern Brazil state of Bahia. The overall intention was to increase regional cooperation and integration in response to a growing world economic crisis and the waning influence of the US.

At 4 AM on Dec. 16, indigenous leader Edwin Legarda Vázquez was killed by the Colombian army as he was driving a pickup truck belonging to the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), in which his partner, Aida Quilcué often traveled in. CRIC leader Quilcué gained national stature for her role in the indigenous rights campaign that mobilized thousands throughout Colombia this fall.

Indigenous leaders from the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) ended a three-day meeting in La Paz Dec. 19 with a call for international unity in the struggle against neoliberalism. Delegates from Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia denounced the privatization of natural resources and their delivery to corporate transnationals, while expressing support for the pending constitutional reform in the host country.

A dynamite charge was set off in the early hours of Dec. 18 in front of Radio Atlántica, a station owned by Guido Guardia, an opposition senator in the eastern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, leaving a sizeable crater and causing damage to the outside of the building. The station is located in the compound where Sen. Guardia lives. Threats were made against the senator in a note left near the site of the blast.

On Dec. 10 human rights organizations in Latin America celebrated the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by holding ceremonies, staging protests and issuing reports on the situation in their countries.

The Colombian human rights organization CODHES has released a new analysis, entitled "The numbers do not add up," challenging the government's statistics of claimed successes against illegal armed groups (principally the FARC). The armed forced claim some 114,000 killed, captured or surrendered over the last six years. Yet those armed groups, according to previous government estimates, do not exceed 30,000 members. Even allowing for recruiting to replenish depleted ranks, the figures indicate eight fighters killed every single day in Colombia—something not substantiated by any other sources. (Radio Australia, Dec. 14; BBC News, Dec. 13)

Enrique Portocarrero, dubbed "Captain Nemo" in Colombia, is accused of building up to 20 fiberglass submarines for narco-traffickers to haul cocaine to Central America and Mexico. Following a three-year investigation involving US and British intelligence, Colombia's Department of Administrative Security (DAS) arrested Portocarrero last month in the port city of Buenaventura (Norte del Valle department), where he apparently led a double life as a shrimp fisherman. A raid on Portocarrero's hidden "shipyard" in a mangrove swamp down the Pacific coast near Tumaco (Nariño department) turned up two of the vessels, each capable of carrying eight tons. (LAT, Dec. 14)

Calling continued payments "immoral" and "illegitimate," Ecuador's President Rafael Correa followed through on pledges to default on the country's foreign debt Dec. 12, announcing his government will not make a $31 million payment due in two days on the 2012 Global Bonds series. This is Ecuador's second debt default in a decade. Ecuador's external debt totals $3.8 billion. The default comes after a national audit commission identified numerous irregularities in Ecuador's debt and recommended suspension of payments. Oil accounting for 60% of Ecuador's exports, and the recent slide in prices—from $147 a barrel to $45—has hit the country's finances hard. Win Thin, senior currency analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman, called the announcement "disappointing and a bit surprising." (EFE, MarketWatch, Dec. 12)