Colombia's main opposition party, the Polo Democratico, has issued a strong statement against Plan Colombia. The communique is also a grim assessment of Alvaro Uribe's Democratic Security policy, heavily influenced by Washington. The Polo cites the increase of human rights violations and forced displacement among communities targeted for crop eradication. Furthermore, the Polo asserts that under Plan Colombia, paramilitary groups have strengthened, achieving greater political, economic and social control throughout several regions.

Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, chief of the Colombian presidency's anti-corruption program, resigned Dec. 12—days after Miami's El Nuevo Herald reported documents showing his father, Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, had warned before his 1984 assassination that relatives of current President Alvaro Uribe might try to kill him.

On Dec. 13, an observer who works for an international body set up to monitor Colombia's demobilization process received a death threat while visiting a poor neighborhood in Medellín. Since 2004, the Mission to Support the Peace Process (MAPP), under the auspices of the Organization of American States, has had teams of observers in different parts of Colombia and produces periodic reports. The member who was threatened in Colombia was in a meeting when a man on a motorcycle drove up to her car and told her driver that his boss would be killed if she failed to abandon her work.

Bolivia's new constitution, which is being attacked by the lowland oligarchs as centralizing too much power in the hands of President Evo Morales, actually devolves many powers to "indigenous nations and peoples," recognizing their right to "free determination and territoriality." It states that indigenous institutions will be "part of the general structure of the State." It officially identifies 36 indigenous peoples, stating that "their traditional knowledge and wisdom, their traditional medicines, their languages, their rituals and their symbols and dress will be valued, respected and promoted." These 36 ethnicities are also guaranteed "collective title to their territories." The document recognizes Bolivia as a "Unitary Social State of Plurethnic Communitarian Legal Character [Derecho], free, autonomous and decentralized; independent, sovereign, democratic and multicultural [intercultural]." It calls for "political, economic, juridical, cultural and linguistic pluralism." (EFE, Nov. 27)

Survivors and their supporters gathered in the mountain hamlet of Acteal in southern Mexico's conflicted Chiapas state Dec. 22 to mark the tenth anniversary of the massacre of 45 unarmed Tzotzil Maya peasants by a paramilitary group linked to the ruling political machine. Las Abejas (The Bees), the Maya Catholic pacifist group targeted in the attack, said in a statement: "The massacre plan was designed by ex-president Ernesto Zedillo; by the ex-general Enrique Cervantes, ex-secretary of National Defense; [and] by Julio César Ruiz Ferro, ex-governor of Chiapas." The statement charged that "the Mexican state" was responsible for the massacre through both "action and omission."

Workers march in Baghdad
Striking teachers rally
Iraq's teachers and healthcare workers are uniting with other public-sector employees to demand the government take action on improving working conditions, and pledge to begin a campaign of public sit-ins in Baghdad Dec. 26. The teachers union representing education workers in 15 provinces marched in Baghdad Dec. 16 in a one-day strike, pledging to escalate actions if the government doesn't deal next month. The teachers are demanding the same pay as colleagues in the safer Kurdistan region, and for greater investment in deteriorating schools. Security is also a key demand, following the slaying of a Baghdad school director last month. Speaking to the Baghdad newspaper al-Mada, the deputy head of the Teachers' Syndicate, Burhan Nema, said "Iraqi teachers will stage a sit-in as part of a protest campaign that calls for improving the living standards of 500,000 families living in poverty."

The empire strikes back—against California. From the Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 21:

The Environmental Protection Agency's decision to refuse California's request to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles is all but certain to provoke lawsuits that could tie the matter up in court, potentially delaying action to curb those emissions for years.

Pakistan's security forces have been waging a "secret war" in the Baluchistan region since the death of tribal leader Mir Balaach Marri in combat last month. Peter Tatchell writes in The Guardian, Dec. 21: "The often indiscriminate attacks on civilian settlements are taking place mostly in the Kahan and Dera Bugti regions, and involve the deployment of heavy artillery, fighter aircraft and helicopter gunships. Pakistan's attacks have reportedly, so far, resulted in deaths of at least 100 men, women and children. More than 200 houses and other buildings, including schools and clinics, have been bombed and burned to the ground. Many farm animals were also killed in the attacks, depriving already poor people of their livelihood."