Spanish prosecutors on Nov. 14 charged an alleged member of the Basque separatist group ETA with training members of the Colombian guerrilla group FARC in computer skills. Iraitz Guesalag was arrested in France days earlier and will be extradited to Spain. The FARC training allegedly took place in Venezuela, and was arranged by Arturo Cubillas, an ETA operative in the Venezuelan Ministry of Agriculture. Spain issued an extradition request for Cubillas in March 2010, charging the official for his ties to ETA, which the Venezuelan government denies. (Colombia Reports, Jan. 14)

Protesters in the southern Chile region of Magallanes y Antártica Chilena have erected road blockades, halting traffic and leaving hundreds of foreign tourists stranded. The strike was triggered by a government plan to increase gas prices in southern Chile by nearly 17%. On Jan. 11, two young Chilean women were killed when a truck smashed through one of the blockades. Protesters have repeatedly clashed with police, who have used teargas to restore order. The crisis has prompted a cabinet shake-up, with energy minister Ricardo Raineri removed by President Sebastian Piñera for mis-handling talks with the protesters. (BBC News, LAHT, Jan. 15; BBC Mundo, Jan. 12)

After years of waiting—during which they suffered from violent attacks and the degradation of their ancestral lands—the Ingaricó, Macuxi, Patamona, Taurepang and Wapichana indigenous peoples of Raposa-Serra do Sol in Brazil's Roraima state have received a favorable decision by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). During its last session at the end of October, the IACHR issued an admissibility decision in their case against the government of Brazil. The decision signaled that the government's treatment of indigenous peoples in Raposa may constitute a violation of their human rights. The IACHR is next set to issue a formal judgment on the matter.

As oil companies with pending contracts in the Peruvian Amazon continue to deny the existence of indigenous "peoples in isolation" in remote forest areas, new evidence has emerged. In November, Peru's National Institute of Development of Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvians (INDEPA) released video footage of a newly "discovered" tribe in the Kugapakori Nahua Nanti reserve (Upper Camisea River, Cuzco region).

A decade after the end of Peru's 1980-2000 counterinsurgency war was officially declared, the army broke its silence, to give its own version of events. The report, "In Honor of the Truth," based on officers' field dispatches, contradicts the findings of the official Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR) that nearly 70,000, mainly indigenous peasants, were killed or forcibly disappeared in the war against the Shining Path guerillas.

Writers, academics and indigenous groups in Argentina are lobbying for Julio Argentino Roca, an army general who served as president from 1880-86 and 1898-1904, to be recognized as a political criminal who exterminated indigenous peoples and doled out their lands to cronies. In recent weeks, two cities—Santa Cruz and Tucumán—have renamed Julio Argentino Roca avenues after Néstor Kirchner, the former president who died in October. Other initiativess call for removing Roca from the 100-peso note and replacing his statue in Buenos Aires with a bronze figure of an indigenous woman. A leading writer and historian, Osvaldo Bayer, said he felt ashamed every time he passed Roca's statue.

Chilean police evicted indigenous Rapa Nui protesters who had occupied the central plaza and a luxury hotel in Hanga Roa, capital of Easter Island, over the new year. At least 17 Rapa Nui are facing charges from the occupation and were ordered to appear in court this week. The occupation was launched to press ancestral land claims over 16 sites on the island. The eviction order came from Mayor Raul Celis of Valparaiso, Chile, which has jurisdiction over Easter Island despite being more than 2,000 miles away. (Radio New Zealand International, Jan. 13; UPI, Jan. 4)

A March 2009 US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks reports that Peru's new military head was involved in narco-corruption, a charge that the general adamantly denies. The document, written by then-Ambassador Michael McKinley, stated that an unnamed source "saw signs that officers may have continued to cooperate with drug traffickers." The document referenced a 2007 meeting between Peruvian Gen. Paul da Silva and a local fishing industry boss, Rolando Eugenio Velasco Heysen, where the two allegedly discussed drug shipments. In October 2007, Velasco was arrested on charges that he attempted to export 840 kilograms of cocaine hidden in frozen fish.