A day after his symbolic 30-minute return to Honduras, ousted President Manuel Zelaya has established a camp near the border in Nicaraguan territory. In a speech inaugurating the camp July 25, Zelaya invoked Central American liberation icons Francisco Morazán and César Sandino, pledging to return and reclaim the Honduran presidency. De facto President Roberto Micheletti dismissed the affair as a "silly" "publicity stunt," and the army released a statement saying Zelaya would have been arrested if he had proceeded into Honduran territory. The daytime curfew in the border zone has been extended. (BBC News & World Service, July 26)

In a minga (popular mobilization) called in response to growing violence on their territories, some 10,000 indigenous residents of Colombia's Cauca department marched 140 kilometers between the towns of Santander de Quilichao and Corinto July 23-4. On July 19, Corinto was the scene of a clash between FARC guerillas and government forces in which three local residents were killed and 17 wounded. Jorge Arias of the Association of Indigenous Cabildos of North Cauca (ACIN) told the crowd in Corinto at the march's end: "We come here to honor the memory of our dead, and to say to the armed groups, legal and illegal, enough with all this violence!" (El Tiempo, Bogotá, July 24)

Traditional indigenous authorities in Antioquia department issued a statement protesting that three residents of the Embera Eyabida reserve Jaidezabi, in Tarazá municipality, were killed by men identified as members of the FARC's Front 18. Luis Orlando Domicó Majore, 32, was killed near his home July 20. The gunmen announced they were seeking other residents. Two days later, Ana Luz Soto, 40, of the indigenous pueblo of Senú, was was shot in the back numerous times in the center of the nearby village of El Bagre.

Community leaders in Vistahermosa, a village in Colombia's eastern Meta department, reported to local human rights observors the disappearance of campesino Luis Enel Moreno Romero on July 22. He was last seen near his lands in the vereda (settlement) of Caño Animas. Vistahermosa has seen 65 extrajudicial executions by paramilitary groups, sometimes acting in overt concert with the army, since 2005. Over the past three months, a strong presence of the Águilas Negras paramilitary, dubbed by the authorities as an "emergent criminal band," has been reported in the zone. (Comisión de Seguimiento a los Derechos Humanos, Meta, July 24, via Anarcol, Bogotá)

Fears that the de facto regime in Honduras is availing itself of expertise in repression from the bloody years of the 1980s were vindicated by reports that coup-installed President Roberto Micheletti has appointed as special advisor one Billy Joya Améndola—named as one of the principal leaders of the 316 Battalion death squad.

More than two weeks after the Honduran military blocked his jet at the Tegucigalpa airport, deposed President Manuel Zelaya made a second attempt to return to the country July 24—sparking another confrontation between his supporters and security forces. This time, he approached by land from Nicaragua, in a motorcade that that included journalists, political supporters and the foreign minister of Venezuela, as well as an escort of Nicaraguan police. At the Honduran border post of Las Manos, a thick line of soldiers held back hundreds of Zelaya supporters chanting "Viva Mel!"

Speaking at a military ceremony in Caracas July 21, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez accused neighboring Colombia of making an "unfriendly gesture" towards his country with its plan to open its territory to permanent US military bases. Accusing the US of attempting to foment a coup in Venezuela, while staging destabilization efforts on its borders in Colombia's Guajira region, Chávez addressed Bogotá: "You are opening your house to an enemy of your neighbor." (El Observador, Caracas, Prensa Latina, July 23)

Ecuador signed a deal to export some 3 million barrels of crude oil to China through the Petrochina company, with the Andean country to receive $1 billion as an advance payment, the statal Petroecuador announced July 23. The first payment represents 28% of the total value of the oil that Ecuador has agreed to export. Ecuador produced over 485,000 barrels of crude oil per day in May. Quito is also negotiating a $1 billion loan with China, economic minister Diego Borja said earlier this week. (Reuters, July 23)