Two left-wing parties in Colombia, the Patriotic March and Patriotic Union, have chosen to support the re-election campaign of President Juan Manuel Santos in the upcoming second round of presidential elections, citing the ongoing peace process with the FARC as the main reason. In a May 30 press conference, UP leader Aida Avella stated, "At this moment, we believe it is best to support the candidate who has opened dialogues, and seeks a political and negotiated solution [to the armed conflict]... Our desire is for Colombia to not return to the conflict." Avella was the first-round running-mate for Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA) presidential candidate Clara López. PDA senator-elect Ivan Cepeda took to Twitter to express his support for Santos and the peace process: "I don’t want a paramilitarized country, I want a democratic country. I will vote in favor of the peace process in Havana, Cuba that is being constructed by this government and the FARC." Cepeda's father was a senator for the Patriotic Union, assassinated in 1994 by state agents—along with an estimated four to six thousand other members since the establishment of the party in 1985. Leader of the Patriotic March, controversial politician Piedad Córdoba, similarly stated that the end of the conflict is the "greatest desire" for all Colombians.  The June 15 run-off race will pit Santos against hardline Oscar Ivan Zuluaga of ex-president Alvaro Uribe's new Democratic Center party. (Colombia Reports, May 30)

Colombian crude production sank to a 20-month low of 935,000 barrels per day in April as guerilla attacks and community protests curbed output. Technicians from parastatal Ecopetrol were barred for over a month by indigenous protesters from repairing the Caño-Limon pipeline after it was damaged in a March 25 guerilla attack. Ecopetrol was forced to declare force majeure on at least 25 delivery contracts due to the stoppage. U'wa indigenous at Toledo municipality, Norte de Santander, agreed to lift their blockade May 1 after the Mines & Energy Ministry agreed to suspend  the nearby Magallanes gas exploration project to evaluate its environmental impacts and to despatch a team to demarcate the boundaries of U'wa territory. But the very next day, the pipeline was blown up again, at Cubará muncipality, Boyacá. The first attack was attributed to the FARC rebels, now in talks with the government. The second one was blamed on the ELN guerillas, which may be hoping to pressure the government to similarly open talks with them. There were 33 pipeline attacks in the first quarter of this year and a total of 259 in 2013. (UDW, May 28; El Tiempo, May 8; InfoSur Hoy, Bloomberg, May 6; EBR, May 5; Reuters, May 2)

Mexico's government has pledged to deploy more security forces to Tamaulipas—right on the Texas border, and one of the country's most violent states. Mexican Governance Minister Miguel Angel Osorio promised a "new phase" of action against the state's warring drug cartels. The move was prompted by the May 5 assassination of Salvador Haro Muñoz, the Tamaulipas state government intelligence chief, in an ambush on his car in the state capital, Ciudad Victoria. Ten officers from the Tamaulipas state police force have been arrested by federal authorities in connection with the hit, which was said to have been carried out by the Zetas narco-paramilitary network. Also detained was José Manuel López Guijón, security chief for Tamaulipas Gov. Egidio Torre Cantú.

Chinese officials in the western region of Xinjiang on May 27 held a public rally at a sports stadium for the mass sentencing of criminals, in which 55 individuals were sentenced before a crowd of 7,000 people. While three received death sentences for crimes including "violent terrorism," other prisoners' crimes ranged from "separatism" to "membership in terror groups." Rights groups such as Human Rights Watch have accused China's policies of being discriminatory against Uighurs, Muslims who speak a Turkic language. All individuals named at the sentencing rally [in the city of Yining, Yili prefecture] have Uighur names. This public stand against terrorism and extremism appears to be a response to the recent attacks in Xinjiang's capital of Urumqi.

Authorities in Ecuador on May 27 announced, via Twitter, the issuance of an arrest warrant for former president Jamil Mahuad on the grounds that he allegedly misappropriated public funds during the late 1990s. Interior Minister Jose Serrano stated that a "red notice" had been issued by Interpol. Authorities sought a red notice against Mahuad in 2012, but their request was denied. The former president has been on trial in absentia for 13 years, but the trial has now halted in Mahuad's absence. The former president fled the country during a coup and was last known to be teaching in the US.

A new communique from Subcommander Marcos of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) (online at Enlace Zapatista, and in translation at Roar Magazine) states that he is stepping down as the public voice of the indigenous Maya rebel army in Mexico's Chiapas state. It says he is to be replaced by a "Subcommander Galeano," named for the nom de guerre of José Luis Solís López, the Zapatista adherent killed on May 2 in a confrontation with a rival campesino group. "I declare that the one known as Insurgent Subcommander Marcos ceases to exist," the statement reads. "The Zapatista National Liberation Army will no longer speak through my voice." The text cites changes in the rebel movement since it announced its existence to the world in a brief armed uprising launched on New Years Day 1994, the exact moment that NAFTA took effect:

Mexico's government on May 10 started to swear in members of the "community police" vigilante network in Michoacán state for a new rural police force, which is supposed to bring the self-defense militias under state control. An initial 240 "community police" members gathered for the ceremony in the village of Tepacaltepec, a stronghold of the movement, where they received new blue uniforms and registered their rifles, or turned them in for state-issued AR-15s. The ceremony was overseen by the federal pointman for Michoacán, Alfredo Castillo, who waxed florid for the occassion: "Those who 15 months ago said 'Enough' and decided to confront those who did them harm—because of them today we have the State Rural Force that carries the same conviction of justice, of courage, valor, bravery needed to protect those, who we love the most, our families."

Latin American activists joined thousands of environmentalists and farmers around the world in an international protest May 24 against genetically modified (GM) crops and Monsanto, the Missouri-based multinational that dominates the transgenic seed industry. This was the third March Against Monsanto since May 25 last year, and organizers expected the day of action to include protests in some 351 cities in 52 countries.