As populist leaders in Bolivia and Venezuela are determined to nationalize their oil industries, Colombia's government is insisting on a privatization plan for its state-run oil company. By selling off 20% of Ecopetrol, Colombia hopes to net some $5 billion and finance new exploration to boost production, according to Armando Zamora, president of the National Hydrocarbon agency. He warns that if more crude isn't discovered soon, Colombia will begin importing oil in 2011, with devastating results for the government's finances, which depended on Ecopetrol for 7% of last year's $41 billion budget. In 2005, Ecopetrol had sales of close to $6.5 billion. The Colombian government is expected to release details of the sale in the coming weeks.

Carlos Castaño, patriarch of Colombia's far-right paramilitary movement, is confirmed dead at the age of 39. Mario Iguaran, Colombia's chief prosecutor, said a skeleton unearthed from a shallow grave was that of Castaño, the long-missing leader of the feared Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The government "has the full identification that this is Castaño," Iguaran said, pointing to a 99.99% match between Castaño's DNA and that of the skeleton.

And not a moment too soon. This is sure to bring a smile to followers of the Global Anti-Golf Movement (GAGM). Chris Kraul reports for the Los Angeles Times, Aug. 31:

In Caracas, the Poor Shall Inherit the Golf Course
CARACAS, Venezuela — Perched in a green and forested aerie in the city's southern hills, the exclusive Valle Arriba Golf Club has long offered its members a breathtaking view and a pleasant escape from urban cacophony and congestion.

Now, a staunch ally of President Hugo Chavez wants it.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On Aug. 16, members of the Shipiba indigenous community of Canaan de Cashiyacu seized nine oil wells operated by the Maple Gas Corporation in Maquia district, Ucayali province, in the Peruvian Amazon region of Loreto. The Shipiba are protesting the failure of Maple Gas to fulfill accords it signed a year ago, and demanding that the company now leave the area.

Robert Guimaraes of the Inter-Ethnic Development Association of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP) said the company's unfulfilled promises include payment for the use of the land and programs to monitor the health of the population. The Shipiba say Maple Gas never obtained authorization of any kind from their community to operate in the area, in violation of Peruvian law and Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO).

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On July 29, thousands of Venezuelan campesinos and supporters marched in the city of San Felipe, capital of Yaracuy state, to demand land reform and protest attacks on campesino leaders. The March for Dignity, Peace and Against Terrorism was headed by Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel. It was called in response to the July 22 assassination attempt against campesino leader and legislative deputy Braulio Alvarez. (AP, July 29)

The "Joel Sierra" Regional Human Rights Committee Foundation, based in the Colombian department of Arauca, has reported that four of the seven campesino family members murdered on July 20 on the Adi ranch in La Victoria, in the western Venezuelan state of Apure, were Colombians—including a five-year-old boy. The ranch is located close to the border with the Colombian municipality of Arauquita, in Arauca department. The massacre was apparently carried out by a member of the Venezuelan military. (Fundacion Comite Regional de Derechos Humanos "Joel Sierra," undated, via Adital, July 28)

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

During the week of Aug. 14, some 500 indigenous Guarani people began an occupation at the Parapeti station of the Yacuiba-Rio Grande gas pipeline (GASYRG) near Charagua, in the eastern Bolivian department of Santa Cruz, to demand that the Transierra company pay the Guarani people $9 million in exchange for allowing the pipeline to operate on their land. Transierra agreed in a 2005 accord to provide that amount to benefit the Guarani people; the company says the funding was to be distributed over a 20-year period, and it has so far provided $255,887.

Urban Gardening and Self-Sufficiency in Caracas

by April M. Howard, Toward Freedom

In the middle of the modern, concrete city of Caracas, Norali Verenzuela is standing in a garden dressed in jeans and work boots. She is the director of the Organopónico Bolivar I, the first urban, organic garden to show its green face in the heart of the city.

One afternoon while international crowds swarmed the city for the World Social Forum, I visited the "organoponic" garden to talk with Verenzuela about the garden's place in the city and Venezuelan politics. To Verenzuela, the garden represents a shift in the ways that Venezuelans get their food. "People are waking up," she had recently told the press. "We've been dependent on McDonald's and Wendy's for so long. Now people are learning to eat what we can produce ourselves." [1]