Colombian guerilla leader Jorge Enrique Rodríguez Mendieta AKA "Ivan Vargas" was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a District Court in New York March 19 for conspiring to import cocaine into the US. Mendieta, who was extradited in 2007, pleaded guilty in December to the charges, admitting that he was commander of the FARC's 24th Front from 1998 to 2004.

On March 15, Jhonny Hurtado, 59, president of the local Human Rights Committee in the community of La Catalina, La Macarena municipality, Meta department, was killed while working in outlying fields. Witnesses said he fled when he heard gunfire, and was shot while running. The independent Human Rights Commission of the Bajo Ariari zone said in a statement: "There is fear throughout the region of the Río Guayabero, because the zone is militarized, and military unites...have threatened social leaders and human rights defenders." (DH Colombia, March 16)

The Conservatives tabled the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement in Ottawa's Parliament last week, reviving a deal opposed by labor and human rights activists. "International trade is critical to our economic recovery," said Minister of International Trade Peter Van Loan in a press release. "As we move beyond stimulus spending and diversify opportunities for Canadian business abroad, this free trade agreement will help Canadians prosper."

For a second consecutive day March 19, presumed narco-gunmen blocked highways in the area of Mexico's northern industrial hub of Monterrey, seizing private automobiles, buses and ambulances from motorists and using them to clog the lanes. The Nuevo Leon state Public Security Secretary reported more than 30 roadblocks using more than 60 vehicles in the metropolitan area on the second day of the action, which they said was apparently aimed at halting army operations on the northern border. A shoot-out with army troops was reported in the suburban municipality of China. (Reuters, La Jornada, March 19)

A night raid carried out by US and Afghan troops led to the deaths of two pregnant women, a teenage girl and two local officials in an atrocity that NATO then tried to cover up, survivors told the Times of London. The Feb. 12 operation was a botched pre-dawn assault on a police officer's home outside Gardez, capital of Paktia province. In a statement after the raid titled "Joint force operating in Gardez makes gruesome discovery," NATO claimed the force had found the women's bodies "tied up, gagged and killed" in a room. But more than a dozen survivors, officials, police chiefs and a religious leader interviewed at and around the scene of the attack maintain that the perpetrators were US and Afghan gunmen. The identity and status of the soldiers is unknown. (London Times, March 13)

A controversial policy that gives US forces in Afghanistan four days to question detainees is being changed to give soldiers more time to interrogate the captives, Gen. David Petraeus said March 16. Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee that US troops will now be able to hold detainees for up to 14 days before either releasing them or turning them over to the Afghan government. In some cases, longer detention will be an option, he said. (CNN, March 17)

Ethiopian and Eritrean scholars each laid the blame for the antagonism of their respective peoples on dictatorial rulers and extremist "liberation fronts" that took secession as the only viable solution to a complex problem. Speaking at the Ethiopian and Eritrean Friendship Conference held March 12-4 in San Jose, Calif., panelists and attendees emphasized the need to start a process of healing, renewal and normalization of people-to-people relations—in repudiation of succeeding rulers and political elites that never represent the interests and desires of their people.

Four homes occupied by Roma families in the town of Siófok near Lake Balaton in Hungary were the target of a coordinated Molotov cocktail attack in the early morning hours of March 18. There were no injuries, as only one device actually exploded. The houses were occupied by families with small children. "We have moved out of the house since the attack," one of the Romani residents said. "We are afraid." Romani activist Zsolt Németh said the attacks were racially motivated. No serious conflicts between the Roma and the majority population have been noted in the area to date. (Romea, Prague, March 18)