Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro June 2 told reporters that US Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte—leading Washington's delegation to the 38th session of the Organization of American States general assembly in Medellín—is "a little official with a criminal record." Then, before the assembly, he accused Washington of sponsoring a campaign to "spread violence in the region." Maduro was reacting to Negroponte's remarks earlier that day that the Colombia's FARC guerillas "sought refuge in Venezuela." Without naming Venezuela, Negroponte asked Colombia's neighbors to help prevent guerillas from taking shelter on their soil. The US "categorically rejects" the Maduro's epithets, said US delegate to the OAS Héctor Morales. (El Universal, Caracas, June 3)

At the 47th US-Mexico Interparliamentary Commission, held June 6 in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexican politicians from all of the three leading parties protested the imposition of human rights conditions on aid recently approved by Washington under the Mérida Initiative, popularly known as "Plan Mexico." Ruth Zavaleta of the left-opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), president of the Chamber of Deputies, joined with Sen. Santiago Creel Miranda of the ruling conservative National Action Party (PAN) in decrying the conditions as patronizing and hypocritical. They were joined by Nuevo León Gov. José Natividad González Parás of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who also spoke out against construction of the border fence. (El Universal, Mexico, June 7)

On June 4, a detachment of some 200 Mexican army troops and federal police in a convoy of ten vehicles led by an armored personnel carrier occupied several communities around the Zapatista settlement of La Garrucha, on the edge of the Chiapas rainforest, on an ostensible marijuana eradication mission. The Zapatista Good Government Junta (JBG) "El Camino del Futuro," based at La Garrucha, said residents mobilized to defend their homes with sticks, machetes and slingshots as troops spread out to the corn fields, taking photographs and "intimidating the population." The troops found no marijuana, but reportedly warned that they would return in 15 days.

On May 29 and 30, the Medellín anti-militarist group Red Juvenil (Youth Network) received e-mail messages from the address redesnegras (at) hotmail.com, reading "DEATH TO ANARCHISTS DISGUISED AS PACIFISTS, NO MORE COMMUNIST DRUG CONCERTS, NO MORE WARNINGS." It named eight people associated with Red Juvenil, and was signed "GRUPO AGUILAS NEGRAS". The Aguilas Negras (Black Eagles) are a paramilitary network which has survived the "demobilization" of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The e-mail handle "redesnegras" means "black networks." On May 17, Red Juvenil held a free rock concert in Medellín's Parque Boston. Two days before that, the group's office was broken into. (Red Juvenil statement, received via e-mail, June 6)

We've noted before Barack Obama's alarming bellicose tendencies. They were out in profligate display at his notorious address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference in Washington June 4. Here's the most ominous one from the Washington Post's transcript:

Police in Tibet arrested 16 Buddhist monks and accused them of involvement in bombings on April 5, 8 and 15 in villages near Qamdo. All three bombings involved homemade explosives and caused only property damage, authorities said. (NYT, June 6) While the claims were picked up by the NY Times, ongoing harsh repression in Tibet is noted only by the India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). On May 30, Chinese security forces arrested twelve monks of Dingri Shelkar Choedhe Monastery during a night raid for resisting the "patriotic re-education" campaign—meaning they had refused to denounce the Dalai Lama. (TCHRD, May 31)

An Iranian government spokesman confirmed that a group of Bahai religious leaders have been arrested—but said that the charges against them related to security and not religion. The spokesman, Gholam Hossein Elham, said the group had "acted against the country's interests" and had links with Israelis, according to the state news agency IRNA. Elham did not mention the number of people arrested, but Bahai exile groups abroad say the sect's entire leadership, consisting of seven senior members, was arrested last month and in March. (NYT, June 5)

The New York Times deigns to cover the conflict in Western Sahara (which the paper calls "nearly forgotten"—true enough, thanks in large part to the "newspaper of record") June 4—on the occasion of a Washington press affair featuring former residents of the Polisario Front's refugee camps in Algeria, who complained bitterly of authoritarianism and corruption by the camp's administrators. Dissidents are persecuted and international aid shunted to the black market by Polisario commissars, they said. The refugees, now receiving Moroccan aid in occupied Western Sahara, were generally circumspect about what political future they supported for the territory—but one openly said "We would like the Western Sahara to remain part of Morocco, of course." Only towards the end of the piece are we told the press affair was organized by the Moroccan American Center for Policy—loaning credence to Polisario Washington representative Mouloud Said's gripe to the Times: "These people are brought by the Moroccan public relations companies here, so they have to mislead."