In a dawn raid on Oct. 8, the Colombian National Police special Mobile Anti-disturbance Squad (ESMAD) stormed the Technological University of Chocó in the departmental capital of Quibdó, using tear gas to evict students had had been occupying the campus. Several students were injured, and one, Edwin Córdoba, is in critical condition at the city's hospital. Organizers say 12 students were arrested and two have been "disappeared." Students are continuing to demonstrate in front the university. 

Venezuela's populist President Hugo Chávez of the United Venezuelan Socialist Party (PSUV) was re-elected by 54.42% of the vote, with 90% of the ballots counted as results of the hard-fought race came in the night of Oct. 7. Young opposition candidate Henrique Capriles of the Primero Justicia coalition had 44.97%. Over 80% of Venezuela's 19,119,809 registered voters participated in the election. As the results were announced, Chávez supporters poured into the streets, with a massive and spontaneous party breaking out in front of the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas. (VenezuelAnalysis, Reuters, AVN, Aporrea, Oct. 8)

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, meeting with President Ollanta Humala in Lima Oct. 6, secured an agreement to re-negotiate Washington's 60-year-old defense cooperation pact with Peru. Panetta said updating the 1952 accord would "improve our ability to conduct joint activities, to do training and other exchanges. Ultimately that will help us deal with shared security challenges in the future." On the eve of the visit, the Department of Defense issued a press release broadly outlining new measures called for in the 2012 Western Hemisphere Defense Policy Statement—including plans to invite Peru to participate in a US program of Ministry of Defense Advisers (MODA), currently being pioneered in Afghanistan. "If Peru accepts, MODA will embed a technical expert in the Ministry of Defense for up to two years," the DoD statement said. "The expert will provide consistent technical advice on issues like budgeting, acquisition, procurement, planning and strategic planning." (Reuters, Oct. 7; Peruvian Times, Oct. 6; DoD press release, Oct. 5)

In an open letter Sept. 20, Human Rights Watch urged Peru's President Ollanta Humala to take steps to prevent the unlawful killing of protesters, noting growing incidents of deadly force. Local media report that at least 19 have died in protests over mineral projects since Humala took office last year. On the same day HRW issued the letter, National Police killed a protester at Barrick Gold's Pierina mine in Áncash region. The confrontation came as residents from Mareniyoc and other local villages pushed their way onto the company's property, prompting police guarding the entrance to open fire. Barrick temporarily suspend production at the mine following the clash, in which four campesinos were also injured.

On Oct. 1, the indigenous village of San Juan Bautista de Cañaris in Peru's northern region of Lambayeque announced the results of a consulta, or community consultation, on the proposed Cañariaco Norte open-pit copper mine, saying 1,896 members of the pueblo of some 4,000 voted by 95% to reject it. The results were immediately forwarded to the Energy and Mines Ministry (MINEM). Vancouver-based Candente Copper, which hopes to develop the project, issued a statement rejecting the consulta, saying the community had already approved the project in a "general assembly" held on July 8. The statement noted that the "general assembly" has been called for judicial authorities after Cristobal Barrios, the president of the Cañaris Campesino Community, had refused to convene it. The statement said the "general assembly" had been confirmed as "legally binding" by MINEM, and charged that Barrios had called the consulta "unilaterally" in violation of Peru's General Law of Campesino Communities (PDF). Cañaris community representatives, in turn, noted that more residents participated in the consulta than in the "general assembly," and insisted that the new vote represents the will of the community. (Marketwire Canada, Bloomberg, Oct. 2; El Comercio via Gato Encerrado, Diario Correo, Oct. 1)

Peru's coca crop increased by some 5.2% in 2011, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)—marking the sixth consecutive year that cultivation increased in the Andean nation. Some 64,400 hectares of coca cultivation were detected in satellite images, compared to the estimated 61,200 hectares cultivated in 2010. While the Upper Huallaga Valley and Apurímac-Ene River Valley (VRAE) continued to account for some 50% of Peru's illegal coca crop, the area under cultivation in these zones increased by only 1%. However, cultivation was up by over 40% in northern Peru, with the provinces of Putumayo and Bajo Amazonas (both in Loreto region) especially named—areas newly opened to cultivation, where the government carries out no eradication campaigns. "Drug traffickers are becoming more efficient," said Flavio Mirella, chief of UNODC's Peruvian office, during a presentation of the report in Lima. "Traffickers need less coca leaf to produce more cocaine. Routes of supply are diversifying and producing areas are getting closer to certain routes of exit" toward Bolivia and Brazil, he said. (Bloomberg, UNODC press release, Sept. 27; BBC News, Sept. 26*)

As of Sept. 18 six students at the Fusagasugá campus of the University of Cundinamarca, in the central Colombian department of Cundinamarca, were continuing a hunger strike they began on Sept. 10 to demand university authorities negotiate with students on educational issues. The strikers say tuition is too high and sometimes is higher than the legal minimum wage; they are also protesting the university's use of professors with four-month contracts rather than permanent teaching staff, and the reduction of the semester to just 16 weeks.

Authorities from four countries cooperated in a months-long operation that led to the arrest Sept. 18 of Daniel Barrera AKA "El Loco"—dubbed the "last of the great capos" by Colombia's President Manuel Santos—on a street in San Cristóbal, a town in Venezuela's western Táchira state. Barrera was apprehended while making a call from a phone booth, allegedly after one of his relatives had given up his location. The arrest followed four months of cooperation between Colombia's National Police, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the UK's MI6 and Venezuela's National Anti-Drug Office (ONA). According to Colombia's defense minister, Juan Carlos Pinzón, the kingpin had been in Venezuela for the past eight months and was running his business while moving between several towns near the Colombian border.