The Los Angeles Times reported March 25 on new CIA intelligence indicating that the Colombia's army chief, Gen. Mario Montoya, collaborated extensively with right-wing paramilitaries that Washington considers terrorist organizations. The report circulated within the CIA and obtained by the LAT claims Montoya and a paramilitary group jointly planned and carried out a 2002 "Operation Orion" to eliminate guerrillas from poor areas around Medellin. Operation Orion sent 3,000 Colombian army troops and police, supported by helicopter gunships, into the vast guerilla-controlled shantytowns ringing Medellin. At least 14 people were killed in the operation, and rights observers say dozens more disappeared in its aftermath. The UN and Organization of American Stateshave investigated the reports, and Colombian Sen. Gustavo Petro, an opponent of Uribe, publicly charged that 46 disappeared during the operation.

Early on March 20 in Tirua, in Chile's Region VIII, police arrested Jose Huenchunao Marinan, a Mapuche community leader (werken) and activist who had been in hiding for nearly three years. Huenchunao, a member of the Arauco-Malleco Mapuche Coordinating Committee, was sentenced in August 2004 to 10 years in prison for a December 2001 arson attack against the Poluco Pidenco estate, property of Forestal Mininco, a subsidiary of the Compania Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones (CMPC), in Ercilla, Region IX. A number of other activists, including Patricia Troncoso Robles, Juan Carlos Huenulao and brothers Juan and Jaime Marileo Sarabia, were also sentenced to 10 years in the same case. (Argenpress, March 23 via Resumen Latinoamericano; La Tercera, Santiago, March 22; UPI, March 20 via Terra Noticias; Santiago Times, March 21 via UNPO)

On March 24 Salvador Garcia Ledesma, general operations director of the Mexican mining company Luismin, offered to pay the community of Nuevo Carrizalillo, Eduardo Neri municipality, in the southern state of Guerrero, an annual rent of 8,000 pesos (about $726) for each of the 900 hectares of land the company is mining for gold. Community residents, who along with some miners have blockaded the Los Filos-El Bermejal mines at various times since Jan. 8, rejected the offer, although it was more than eight times the payment the company originally committed to. The community is now holding out for 50,000 pesos ($4,538) a year for each hectare; in January they demanded 92,000 for each of 700 hectares. Garcia Ledesma says that Luismin, the Mexican mining division of the Vancouver-based Goldcorp Inc., has lost about $180,000 so far in the dispute. (La Jornada, March 25)

During the week of March 19, federal officials transferred all 72 children out of a Texas detention facility for unaccompanied minors amid allegations that staff there had sexually abused some of the detainees. The 72 children held at the Texas Sheltered Care facility in Nixon were transferred to several destinations, said Tara Wall, a spokesperson at the federal government's Office of Refugee Resettlement. Some were sent to other child detention facilities in Texas, while others were deported. "No person who had made allegations of abuse was deported," according to Wall.

Early on March 19, ICE agents raided an apartment building in the village of Mount Kisco, in the lower Hudson Valley area of New York state, allegedly searching for a fugitive. Local police said the fugitive, Estanslao Lopez, is an immigrant with multiple criminal convictions—though they wouldn't release his rap sheet. Village police Lt. Patrick O'Reilly referred questions to immigration officials. "It was their operation," he said. The raided apartment building was apparently Lopez's last known address.

On March 23, a three-judge panel of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Alexandria, Virginia, unanimously affirmed a civil contempt ruling against former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian activist who has refused to testify in front of a federal grand jury investigating Islamic charities in northern Virginia. Al-Arian had argued that a plea agreement in his Florida prosecution exempts him from testifying before the grand jury.

From Military Families Speak Out, March 23:

House Votes to Continue Funding Iraq War;
Military Families Tell Pelosi: "You Bought This War—Now You Own It"
Today, Military Families Speak Out, the largest organization of military families speaking out against a war in the history of the United States, issued a "Certificate of Ownership for the Iraq War" to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and all who voted with the House Leadership to give President Bush the funding needed to continue the US military occupation of Iraq.

Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Elmar Mamediarov and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed a memorandum of understanding on energy cooperation in Washington March 22. Azerbaijan announced it is seeking political support from the US to build new gas export pipelines, amid rising competition with Russia. Azeri news agency APA quoted US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza as saying the memorandum will express support for "new generation" pipelines to carry gas from the Caspian Sea to European markets.