Former Colombian Senator Teodolindo Avendaño was sentenced to eight years house arrest June 3 for not voting on the 2006 re-election of President Alvaro Uribe in exchange for favors. Avendaño, theretofore a vociferous opponent of the constitutional change, disappeared on the day of the vote that would allow the 2006 re-election of Uribe. According to the prosecution, the senator received 200 million pesos (US$97 thousand) for his failure to show up for the vote.

Colombian paramilitary operative Diego Alberto Ruíz Arroyave was sentenced to seven and a half years in a US prison June 2 for trying to acquire anti-aircraft missiles, grenade launchers and other powerful weapons for $25 million worth of cocaine. Ruíz Arroyave pleaded guilty in October to conspiring to provide material support and resources to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), designated a foreign terrorist organization by the US government.

A judge in Chile has charged a former soldier in the 1973 murder of internationally renowned Chilean folk singer Víctor Jara. Up to now, the only person prosecuted in the case was the commanding officer at the temporary prison camp where the songwriter was killed shortly after the Sept. 11, 1973 coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

On May 20 about 100 residents of seven rural communities in Cunduacán municipality in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco blocked access to the Madrefil-1 oil well to demand compensation for what they say is damage to their lands. Drilling on the well, which belongs to Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), the government's giant oil monopoly, started at the beginning of the year. The campesinos say the work has already killed their crops and livestock and damaged their homes. "We asked the PEMEX engineers to take us into account, but they didn't pay any attention," one protester told the media.

Indigenous protesters June 1 seized two valves on the pipeline that moves natural gas from Peru's Camisea field in the Amazon rainforest to the Pacific coast—the lastest escalation in a campaign across the region to force the government to resist new laws that would ease corporate access to natural resources on indigenous lands. Transportadora de Gas del Peru (TGP), a consortium of energy firms that includes Argentina's Pluspetrol and US-based Hunt Oil, said about 50 protesters took control of the valves over the weekend. The operators said flows have not yet been affected. (Reuters, June 1)

Peru's largest labor organization, the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), held a one-day nationwide strike on May 27 in support of indigenous people who have been protesting since April 9 in the country's northeastern Amazon region against a package of laws they say will open up their lands to mining and drilling without consultation with local communities. The CGTP strike came on the second day of a May 26-27 strike called by the Inter-Ethnic Association for Development of the Peruvian Forest (AIDESEP), an indigenous organization which has led the protests in the Amazon region.

Dozens of prisoners escaped from Bagua Grande prison, in Peru's Amazonas region, and fled into the jungle in a daring jailbreak May 31. At least 44 inmates escaped, taking an AK-47 rifle with them, after ambushing prison guards and threatening them with knives, authorities said. The majority of those who escaped were convicted or facing trial for violent robbery. Authorities are seeking agreement with indigenous leaders to stop and search vehicles in the area, and a senior official from Peru's national penal authority has been flown in to coordinate the man-hunt. (BBC News, May 31)

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama on May 31 dismissed calls from Amnesty International to publish the official death toll during the finals weeks of the armed conflict that ended last month. Bogollagama said that only Sri Lankan courts will be permitted to investigate both alleged human rights violations and the number of civilian deaths that occurred during the final weeks of the conflict. AI has called for an independent investigation into the matter, while the UN Under-Secretary General John Holmes has said that it will be very difficult to accurately assess such a number. Media sources have continued to question the numbers circulated by Sri Lankan authorities and the UN as potentially up to three times below the actual number of deaths.