Having already barred two pro-independence parties (3DM and Askatasuna) from taking part in the Basque Country's regional parliamentary elections March 1, Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón last week banned all their activities and ordered the closing of their offices and websites. Eight people remain in prison for trying to organize pro-independence election platforms.

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe clashed with the country's prosecutor general over the head of state's proposal to re-criminalize possession of personal quantities of drugs. Prosecutor General Mario Iguarán expressed his support for a recent statement by a number of former Latin American presidents, including Colombia's César Gaviria, that drug addiction should be treated not as a criminal issue, but a healthcare issue. Uribe said Iguarán should have consulted with him before speaking publicly on the issue. Uribe also accused: "It seems to me he is misleading the public opinion when he says the government will take the addicts to jail. This can not happen like that." (Colombia Reports, Feb. 23)

On the evening of Feb. 19 French president Nicholas Sarkozy met in Paris with elected officials from the French overseas department of Guadeloupe and promised to work to restore calm to the Caribbean island, which has been paralyzed by a general strike since Jan. 20. He also announced 580 million euros ($737 million) in aid for France's overseas departments, with emphasis on the Active Solidarity Revenue (RSA), a social welfare program.

On Feb. 16 Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) published its definitive list of candidates for the April 19 elections, which will fill 12 posts in the Senate. The lists did not include the candidates of the Lavalas Family (FL). The CEP had insisted that it needed official confirmation from the party's leader, former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, now living in South Africa, in order to confirm the FL's candidates. According to Maryse Narcisse, the leader of one of the party's rival factions, Aristide refused to sign documents before consuls appointed by people who forced him from power in 2004. (Haiti Support Group New Briefs, Feb. 17 from Reuters; AlterPresse, Feb. 17)

A US federal judge has placed 30,299 Haitians under final deportation orders, the US government announced the week of Feb. 16. The government suspended deportations of Haitians living in the US in September, after four tropical storms ravaged Haiti in one month, devastating crops and killing at least 800 people; the US resumed deportations in December. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bureau was only holding about 600 of the deportable Haitians as of Feb. 9; 243 others were being monitored with electronic ankle bracelets. The government says it expects the other Haitians with deportation orders to leave voluntarily. Otherwise, they will be sought by "fugitive alien teams," according to ICE spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez.

A Colombian refugee living in Panama was killed on Feb. 18 near the town of Boca de Cupé in Darién province, a jungle region bordering Colombia that has experienced incursions in the past by Colombian armed groups. Government and Justice Minister Dilio Arcia said the victim was killed when he went outside with his son to work on his property. Local media reported that the victim was named Aureliano Graciano Sepúlveda ("Bolaños" and "Mono Bolaños"); he was granted asylum in 1996, they said, and the three armed men who killed him were probably from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). (Telemetro Reporta, Panama, Feb. 18; Univision, Feb. 18 from AP; Crítica en Línea, Panama, Feb. 19)

On Feb. 17 the Agencia de Noticias Nueva Colombia (ANNCOL) published a Feb. 11 communiqué from the Antonio José de Sucre column of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) taking responsibility for the killing of eight people on Feb. 6 at Río Bravo, Barbacoas municipality in the southwestern department of Nariño. The communiqué charges that the eight victims had collaborated with the military and that due to "their responsibility in the death of numerous guerrilleros and their undeniable active participation which involves them in the conflict, they were executed." The FARC didn't specify the ethnicity of the victims but insisted that the "action was not against indigenous people." The communiqué didn't comment on any other recent killings of indigenous people attributed to the FARC in the same area. (ANNCOL, Feb. 17)

On Feb. 16 some 150 people greeted the brothers Antonio and Héctor Cerezo Contreras as they left a medium security prison in Morelos state, close to Mexico City. The Cerezos were arrested in 2001 along with their brother Alejandro after three small bombs exploded at Mexico City banks. Many people believe the arrests were connected to reports that their parents, Francisco Cerezo Quiroz and Emilia Contreras, are leaders in the rebel Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR). The brothers were never charged in the bombing but convicted of weapons and explosives possession. Alejandro was released in February 2005 after a court overturned his conviction.