Bolivia's lower house Chamber of Deputies on Sept. 4 voted to extend until Dec. 7 the process of consultation with impacted indigenous communities on the controversial highway through the Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS), days after the deadline for the consultation process ran out. The Aug. 26 deadline was set by Law 222, passed in February to establish a framework for the consultation—above the protests of indigenous communities opposed to the project.

A retired Colombian army general accused by prosecutors of forming a "macabre alliance" with illegal paramilitary groups was sentenced to 25 years in prison Aug. 24 in connection with the 1997 murder of a peasant leader. The sentencing of former general Rito Alejo del Río Rojas brings closure to a case that has long languished in the Colombian justice system and focuses renewed attention on the collaboration between top military officers and paramilitaries affiliated with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

Colombia's Prosecutor General said Aug. 28 that judicial authorities are weighing whether to request that the US extradite back a former top-ranking army and National Police officer who one week earlier was arraigned before a federal court in Virginia. Gen. Mauricio Santoyo, security chief to Colombia's then-president Álvaro Uribe from 2002-2006, pleaded guilty to collaborating with the outlawed AUC paramilitary network, while pleading not guilty to drug trafficking charges. Santoyo is accused of providing the AUC with intelligence from wiretaps and other sources about suspected guerilla collaborators.The AUC, officially demobilized in 2006, is considered a terrorist organization by the US. Support of terrorist organizations holds a maximum penalty of 30 years. Santoyo, who arranged his surrender to the DEA in Bogotá in June, will be sentenced in November. He still faces no charges in Colombia.

A massive gas leak explosion at Venezuela's sprawling Amuay refinery on Aug. 25 killed 48 people and badly damaged 1,600 homes—the worst industrial disaster in the country's history, and the worst refinery accident anywhere on Earth in over a decade. The refinery on the Paraguana Peninsula (see map) is South America's largest and one of the world's largest, run by the state oil company PDVSA. Hundreds of residents of the poor Alí Primera and La Pastora districts near the facility have been left homeless. As the inferno blazed for four days, prompting an exodus from the stricken districts, gangs of looters descended, breaking into the still-standing homes to carry away refrigerators and TV sets. Opposition critics charge that PDVSA failed to carry out maintenance work or improve safety standards following a string of accidents and unplanned outages at the refinery in recent years.

Swiss prosecutors announced Aug. 31 that Erwin Sperisen, former commander of Guatemala's National Civil Police, was arrested in Geneva. The arrest is based on evidence submitted in 2011 by Guatemalan authorities linking Sperisen to extrajudicial killings. Sperisen, 42, holds both Swiss and Guatemalan nationalities; because of his Swiss citizenship he cannot be extradited, but authorities say he will be put on trial in Switzerland. He is accused in at least 10 homicides carried out in Guatemala's prison during his time as police commander from 2004 to 2007, thought to be part of a campaign of "social cleansing."

Amnesty International reports that 45 families from the Quilombo Pontes community in Pirapemas municipality, in Brazil's northeastern Maranhão state, are being systematically threatened and intimidated by gunmen who are patrolling the area. The gunmen are employed by local ranchers who are trying to push the community off the land. Crops and property belonging to the community have been destroyed, and its members are now struggling to provide food for their families. The Pontes community was officially recognised as a quilombo territory—communities of descendants of escaped slaves—in December 2011, but the authorities have not intervened to guarantee the integrity of their land.

Authorities in Venezuela pledge to investigate breaking reports that illegal gold miners in southern Amazonas state carried out a "massacre" of an isolated Yanomami indigenous community. Witnesses of the aftermath described finding "burnt bodies and bones" at the community of Irotatheri, Alto Orinoco municipality, near the Brazilian border in the headwaters of the Río Ocamo, an Orinoco tributary. (See iTouch Map; Venezuela political map) Blame is being placed on illegal miners, known as garimpeiros, who cross the border from Brazil to prospect for gold and have attacked indigenous peoples before.