Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Ecuador's president-elect Rafael Correa met in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, Dec. 21, where they spoke in support of a regional integration that goes beyond trade. "This integration must be based on a new model, on complementary coherence, replacing the absurd model imposed by the North of competing with one another," Correa said, repeating his request that Venezuela return to the Andean Community of Nations and said one goal should be the fusion of that organization with Mercosur, the South Common Market. (Periodico 26, Cuba, Dec. 21)

Salvatore Mancuso, top chieftan of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) began testimony Dec. 19 before a special tribunal about the paramilitary newtwork's role in massacres and assassinations. Under a peace deal with the government, the AUC leaders will serve limited prison sentences and receive protection from extradition to the US on drug charges. Some 30,000 fighters have officially laid down arms. (VOA, Dec. 19)

According to the "Joel Sierra" Regional Human Rights Committee Foundation, "armed opposition groups" are believed responsible for a number of recent murders of civilians in Colombia's eastern department of Arauca. The killings include the Nov. 29 murder of campesinos Edgar Marin Munoz, Pablo Tulio Bautista Jimenez and Fernando Vega in the rural community of El Vigia in Tame municipality; the Dec. 10 murder of Elsa Yaneth Martinez Miranda in the rural community of Brisas de Caranal, in Arauquita municipality; and the Dec. 12 abduction and murder of campesino Hector Villamizar Becerra from the rural community of El Botalon, in Tame. On Dec. 10, 11-year-old Natalia Munoz Ramos was wounded by a bullet in the urban center of Arauquita; it is not known who was responsible for the shooting. (Fundacion Comite Regional de Derechos Humanos "Joel Sierra," Dec. 14)

From AP, Dec. 2:

CARACAS -- A Navy captain arrested this week was allegedly about to deliver to opponents of President Hugo Chavez a list of officers disposed to help topple the government, according to a high-ranking military official.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas:

The Bolivian government of President Evo Morales Ayma met on Nov. 25 with right-wing opposition forces to try to resolve a political crisis that came to a head when the rightwing Democratic and Social Power (Podemos) party withdrew its 13 members from the 27-seat Senate on Nov. 22, leaving the body without a quorum to act. The lone senator from the right-wing National Unity party also withdrew. Podemos also pulled its members out of the Chamber of Deputies, but the party's representation there was too small to affect the quorum.

The opposition is upset over three main issues: the voting rules of the Constituent Assembly, which is writing a new constitution for Bolivia; changes to the agrarian law that will allow the redistribution of idle farmland to landless campesinos; and the Morales administration's efforts to exert control over departmental government finances and to retain the power to remove governors who are deemed incompetent or corrupt. The ruling Movement to Socialism (MAS), which has a simple majority in the Constituent Assembly, voted on Nov. 17 to allow approval of new constitutional clauses with a simple majority, instead of a two-thirds vote.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On Oct. 23, after a weekend of intense negotiations, the Achuar indigenous nation reached an agreement with the Peruvian government and the Argentine oil company Pluspetrol, bringing an end to a nearly two-week blockade of oil facilities in the Peruvian Amazon. More than 800 Achuar elders, women and children took part in the blockade, shutting down power to most of the area's oil facilities and blocking access to the region by road, river and air. The Achuar took the radical actions to protest the devastating impact of oil contamination in their territory after two years of failed talks with Peruvian government officials. They ended their blockade and returned to their homes on Oct. 24.

Interventionist Legacy Behind Zulia Separatist Movement

by Nikolas Kozloff, WW4 REPORT

With the Venezuelan presidential election fast approaching on December 3, political tensions have reached a new high. Recently, the Venezuelan Attorney General initiated an investigation to determine whether a right-wing organization called Rumbo Propio ("Our Own Path"), which has placed banners in Zulia state advocating for regional separatism, is guilty of treason. Zulia, located in the westernmost area of the country, is home to much of the country's oil industry. Maracaibo, the Zulia state capital, is the second largest city in Venezuela.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas:

On Nov. 3, environmentalists in the cities of Gualeguaychu and Colon in the eastern Argentine province of Entre Rios blocked the border bridges leading to Uruguay to protest continuing efforts to build a paper pulp mill in Fray Bentos, on the Uruguayan shore of the river that divides the two countries. The protesters in Gualeguaychu built a wall of brick and cement on national highway 136, 15 kilometers from the border bridge, to symbolize the hard position taken by the Finnish company Botnia and by the governments and international institutions in refusing to halt construction of the pulp mill. Environmentalists say the project will contaminate the river and the surrounding ecosystem and destroy the livelihoods of local residents. (La Jornada, Mexico, Nov. 4, 5; El Nuevo Herald, Miami, Nov. 4 from AP) The Spanish company Ence has already backtracked in its plans to build a similar pulp mill along the river.