On Dec. 13, an observer who works for an international body set up to monitor Colombia's demobilization process received a death threat while visiting a poor neighborhood in Medellín. Since 2004, the Mission to Support the Peace Process (MAPP), under the auspices of the Organization of American States, has had teams of observers in different parts of Colombia and produces periodic reports. The member who was threatened in Colombia was in a meeting when a man on a motorcycle drove up to her car and told her driver that his boss would be killed if she failed to abandon her work.

Bolivia's new constitution, which is being attacked by the lowland oligarchs as centralizing too much power in the hands of President Evo Morales, actually devolves many powers to "indigenous nations and peoples," recognizing their right to "free determination and territoriality." It states that indigenous institutions will be "part of the general structure of the State." It officially identifies 36 indigenous peoples, stating that "their traditional knowledge and wisdom, their traditional medicines, their languages, their rituals and their symbols and dress will be valued, respected and promoted." These 36 ethnicities are also guaranteed "collective title to their territories." The document recognizes Bolivia as a "Unitary Social State of Plurethnic Communitarian Legal Character [Derecho], free, autonomous and decentralized; independent, sovereign, democratic and multicultural [intercultural]." It calls for "political, economic, juridical, cultural and linguistic pluralism." (EFE, Nov. 27)

The Technical Investigative Corps (CTI) of Colombia's Fiscalía General has opened an official probe of Chiquita and the local banana companies Probán, Unibán and Sunisa-Del Monte for their links to paramilitary groups in the conflicted banana-growing zone of Urabá. Those named in the investigation include current and former Chiquita officials Robert Fisher, Steven G. Wars, Carl H. Linder, Durk Jaguer, Jeffrey Benjamin, Morten Amtzen, Roderick Hills, Cyrus F. Freidheim (ex-general director), and Robert Olson (ex-corporate lawyer). (El Tiempo, Bogotá, Dec. 20)

At a Dec. 9 ceremony hosted by outgoing Argentine president Nestor Kirchner in the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, the heads of six South American countries signed an agreement formally creating the Bank of the South, a development bank to be financed by South American countries to promote infrastructural projects and to aid companies from the region. Bolivian president Evo Morales, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa, Paraguayan president Nicanor Duarte Frutos and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez attended the signing. Argentine president-elect Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was also present; she was to succeed her husband on Dec. 10. Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez decided to skip the Dec. 9 ceremony and wait until Dec. 10 to sign the accord; his absence reflected strains between Argentina and Uruguay over the Botnia paper mill being built in Uruguay.

After a 10-year trial, on Dec. 12 Bolivian judge Angel Arias sentenced three former officers to 30 years for their involvement in the 1980 military coup in which Luis Garcia Meza overthrew President Lidia Gueiler. Socialist leader Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz and legislative deputy Carlos Flores Bedregal were murdered soon after the coup in an assault on the offices of the Bolivian Workers Central (COB). Judge Arias convicted Felipe Froilan Molina Bustamante, Franz Pizarro Solano and Javier Hinojosa Valdez of armed uprising and the organization of irregular groups. The judge did not find them guilty of murder, leading to shouts of "murderers" and "neither forgetting nor forgiving" from friends and relatives of Flores Bedregal and Quiroga Santa Cruz in the courtroom. Another 14 defendants were found guilty of coverup and false testimony; they received sentences of two to four years. Former dictator Garcia Meza began serving a 30-year sentence in 1995; charges against him included sedition, genocide and the theft of the diaries of Argentine-born guerrilla leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara. (La Jornada, Mexico, Dec. 13)

On Dec. 15, tens of thousands took to the streets of La Paz to cheer President Evo Morales and celebrate Bolivia's new constitution. Simultaneously, tens of thousands took to the streets of the eastern lowland cities Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni and Pando to celebrate declarations of local autonomy—in defiance of Morales. These departments announced signature drives to get the legal 8% quorum to approve referendums on the local rule. The governors of Cochabamba and Chuquisaca have also announced such proposals. Bolivia's three remaining western highland departments—La Paz, Oruro and Potosi—stand firmly behind Morales. In La Paz, Morales warned that "the armed forces...are here to make sure that the country never disintegrates."

In an unusual ruling, a Danish court acquitted seven leftist activists—who had sent funds to the FARC in Colombia and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—of sponsoring terrorism. The panel of judges ruled that though both groups were branded as terrorist groups by the United States, the European Union, and Denmark, "their actions were not meant to intimidate the population or destroy a political and economic system. They were therefore not guilty of any terrorism." The Danish leftists—members of an activist organization calling itself Fighters and Lovers—plan to continue transmitting the profits of their FARC and PFLP t-shirts to support the "non-violent" operations of both rebel groups. (The Guardian, Dec. 14)

Security forces are on alert in Bolivia ahead of rallies planned in four eastern departments to inaugurate declarations of autonomy. Rejecting the draft constitution recently completed by supporters of President Evo Morales, regional assembly members in Santa Cruz Dec. 13 voted up a statute giving the department power to keep two-thirds of its tax revenues. Three other eastern departments—Tarija, Beni and Pando—are planning similar declarations at rallies on Saturday. Once the autonomy charters are declared, they will be put to the local populations for approval. Morales has ordered 400 extra national police troops to Santa Cruz, with the army prepared to protect public buildings.