Two masked men forced their way into the Catholic diocese's Human Rights Center in Saltillo, in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, on the evening of Dec. 20. The men struck Mariana Villarreal, who works in the center's legal and educational programs, and kept her locked in a bathroom while they rummaged through the center's files, according to Bishop Raul Vera, who was in the southeastern state of Chiapas at the time, attending commemorations of the 10th anniversary of the massacre of 45 campesinos in the community of Acteal by rightwing paramilitaries. Two weeks earlier Villarreal received an anonymous phone call saying her sister, who heads the center's legal department, had been killed in an accident. The sister hadn't been harmed; Vera called the message "psychological warfare."

On Dec. 28 a number of Mexican campesino organizations announced plans for protests starting on Jan. 1, when tariffs will be eliminated on the importation of corn, beans, sugar and powdered milk from Canada and the US under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Labor and human rights organizations in both Mexico and the US plan to support the demonstrations, saying the free flow of government-subsidized US agricultural products will continue the deterioration of Mexican rural production.

At the start of December, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez conceded defeat in his referendum on constitutional reform—but stated: "This is not a defeat. This is another 'for now.'" The proposed amendments included some populist measures (formal prohibition of torture and incommunicado detention, reduction of the workday to six hours and prohibition of forced overtime, reduction of the voting age to 16, a social security program for "informal" workers) as well as some authoritarian ones (press censorship and suspension of habeas corpus in states of emergency, suspension of the presidency's two-term limit, raising the signatures needed for presidential recall votes)—and some which were both populist and authoritarian (expropriation of private property by presidential decree, executive branch control over the central bank). There may be a paradoxical unity in these two faces of chavismo. As we asked our readers: "Should this be read as a carrot-and-stick tactic: wealth redistribution and social security guarantees to sweeten the pot as an authoritarian state is consolidated? Or are the populist and repressive measures more fundamentally unified: draconian measures will be necessary in order to effect the wealth redistribution—especially given the demonstrated putschist designs on Chávez by Washington and its local proxies?"

Turkish military authorities announced Dec. 26 that fighter jets again hit bases of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, in a third confirmed cross-border air raid in the past 10 days. Ankara called the raids an "effective pinpoint operation" targeting eight caves and other hideouts being used by the PKK in the Zap Valley near the Turkish border.

From the Committee for the Freedom of the University Students, support group for dissident students at Amir Kabir University of Technology (formerly Tehran Polytechnic), Dec. 19:

Turn December 28 Into An International Day of Protest Against the Arrests of Students In Iran
It has been two weeks since 43 students and political activists from Iran's universities were either abducted in the middle of the night on Dec. 2 or arrested during various commemorations of Students Day on Dec. 7 and then imprisoned.

Honduras officially joined Petrocaribe on Dec. 21 during the group's Fourth Summit, held in Cienfuegos, Cuba. The 16-member Petrocaribe is a mechanism for providing Venezuelan oil to other Caribbean countries at full price but on easy terms which include payment in goods and services rather than hard currency. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who initiated Petrocaribe in June 2005, told the meeting that he hoped to broaden the group to become a "new Caribbean economic space, respecting those that already exist," a reference to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). Most Petrocaribe nations are also part of CARICOM, which is seeking to become a common market for the region. The summit concluded with the opening of a refinery at Cienfuegos. (EFE, Dec. 21; La Jornada, Mexico, Dec. 23)

Leftist Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa declared a state of exception (which suspends some legal norms) in the southeastern village of Dayuma on Nov. 29 following protests there. Dayuma's 2,800 residents live in poverty despite petroleum extraction operations in the area by a number of companies, including Chinese Andes Petroleum; on various occasions residents have confronted the military in demonstrations to demand better roads and jobs at the oil companies. In the latest incident, residents say soldiers burst into their homes, beating women and children and arresting the men. Some 25 people were taken prisoner, including Orellana province prefect Guadalupe Llori.

On Dec. 18 Argentine judge Ariel Lijo gave seven former military officers and one former police agent prison sentences of 20-25 years in connection with the disappearance of some 20 members of the rebel Montonero organization in 1980. This was the first time since 2003 that former officers received prison sentences for crimes committed during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship; the Due Obedience and Final Point laws had shielded officers from prosecution until they were annulled in 2003. In 1980 a group of Montoneros, who had originally been allied to the left wing of the Justicialist Party (PJ, Peronist), tried to return to Argentina to fight the dictatorship but were captured by the military. Most remain disappeared, although the shot-up bodies of some have been found.