On the eve of the May 4 autonomy referendum in the lowland department of Santa Cruz, Bolivia is increasingly polarized—with the central government of President Evo Morales refusing to accept the legitimacy of the Santa Cruz vote, and the Santa Cruz leadership refusing to accept the pending constitutional reform which would establish a process for achieving local autonomy. Bolivia's ambassador in ally Venezuela, Jorge Alvarado, called on the OAS to stand firm before "the separatist pretensions of the Departament of Santa Cruz." The opposition prefect (governor) of Santa Cruz, Rubén Costa, assured there would be no violence, announcing to the crowd at the closing rally of the autonomy campaign: "We don't want dynamite, nor clubs, nor rancor. The democratic vote is our only weapon." However, a photo of the rally in Ecuador's El Diario, showed one attendee holding a giant slingshot in the firing position. A popular banner slogan at the rally was "We have no fear!" (¡No tenemos miedo!). (El Diario, Puerto Viejo, Ecuador, May 3)

Colombia's Caño-Limon oil pipeline was paralyzed for a third day after it was blown up by FARC guerillas on April 29. Military-escorted engineers are working to repair the pipeline, which carries 100,000 barrels of oil a day from a field jointly run by the state company Ecopetrol and Occidental Petroleum. Some 4 million barrels of petroleum have contaminated the local Rio Tibú, leaving many residents without potable water. The FARC also blew up the Padre-Nieto bridge, in nearby Catatumbo, leaving several small communities cut off across a large area of Norte de Santander department.

A new report released by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) demonstrates that intensive aerial herbicide spraying of coca crops in Colombia has backfired badly, contributing to the spread of coca cultivation and cocaine production to new areas of the country and threatening human health and the environment. It also suggests alternative development proposals that should be seriously considered.

Jesús Caballero is one of the latest trade union leaders to be assassinated in Colombia. A labor unionist with the State Training Institute in the Caribbean town of Sabanalarga, Caballero disappeared on April 16 and his body was found two days later, with signs of torture. He was also one of the organizers of the March 6 international demonstrations against state-sponsored and paramilitary violence and in solidarity with all victims. That made him the sixth person involved in the March 6 mobilization to be murdered. Such frontal targeting of the March 6 organizers has been linked to remarks made by President Alvaro Uribe's advisor José Obdulio Gaviria in Colombian media that protest organizers were guerrillas. [Semana, April 23]

Power returned slowly to Venezuela April 29, hours after outages blacked out nearly half the country, halting the Caracas subways and forcing hospitals and oil facilities onto emergency generators. An explosion is being investigated at the Guri hydroelectric power station, Caracas Mayor Juan Barreto said. (CNN, April 29) CA Electricidad de Caracas was administered by US-based AES Corp. until last year. AES agreed to sell its majority stake in the national utility to the government in February 2007 after President Hugo Chavez announced plans for the government to take over the power sector. (Bloomberg, April 29)

A cocaine trafficking case against Colombian rebel leader Ricardo Palmera (AKA Simón Trinidad) ended in a mistrial April 21—the second time a jury has deadlocked in a trial the US hoped would provide a symbolic victory against the FARC guerillas. A first trial ended last year with a jury deadlocked at 7-5 favoring acquittal. Palmera—who became the first FARC member to be extradited in 2004—is already serving a 60-year term on a hostage-taking charge. It is unclear whether the government will bring the drug case to trial for a third time. (AP, April 21)

According to the US-based Colombia Support Network (CSN), the Northern Block of the Black Eagles, a rightwing paramilitary group, has threatened three activists in Tiquisio, a community in the northern Colombian department of Bolivar. The threat names Father Rafael Gallegos, Marta Lucia Torres and Said Echevez, members of Citizens Process for Tiquisio, and mentions their opposition to the "democratic security" policies of Colombian president Alvaro Uribe Velez. The government is promoting development of the area around Tiquisio by AngloGold Ashanti, a South African-based multinational gold mining company. CSN charges that the paramilitaries are seeking to force campesino communities off their lands "to make them available for the multinationals to extract gold."

Chile's lower-house Chamber of Deputies April 17 approved a resolution calling upon Exterior Minister Alejandro Foxley to "condemn the violence and repression in Tibet and request that the Government of China open direct conversations with the Dalai Lama to find a peaceful solution" to the conflict. It passed 35-8, with one abstention. (MapuchExpress, April 19) The government of President Michele Bachelet opposed the resolution. Her spokesman to the National Congress, Presidency Minister José Antonio Viera Gallo, warned lawmakers the move could invite similar criticisms of their own country. Noting outstanding conflicts with indigenous peoples in Chile's south, he said: "I don't know if we would like it if a foreign parliament opined on situations like that of the Mapuche." The Chilean pro-indigenous website MapuchExpress commented: "The government of Bachelet and Viera Gallo know that they have their own Mapcuhe Tibet."