Retired Colombian army colonel Alfonso Plazas Vega was sentenced to 30 years in prison June 9 for his role in the forced disappearance of 11 civilians in the 1985 army siege of the Palace of Justice, which had been taken over by M-19 guerrillas. The Bogotá judge stated that although Vega did not directly commit the crimes, he was the commander of the military during the raid and was therefore responsible for the actions of his men. Vega was found to have ordered the 11 civilians who escaped from the besieged building to a nearby military school, after which they disappeared.

On June 2, a heavily armed commando of the Colombian National Army leapt over the security fence at BP's Tauramena Central Processing Facility in Casanare department to attack group of striking workers who have been occupying the complex. Oscar Garcia, of the National Oil Workers Union said, "This shows how BP is bent on war against workers who are only demanding that their fundamental rights be respected."

Colombian presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos of the ruling Social Party of National Unity ("Partido de la U") has won the first round in the May 30 election, but will now face a second-round run-off with Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus. Santos has 46.57% of the 14,760,255 votes counted, followed by Mockus with 21.49%. They are followed by Cambio Radical candidate German Vargas Lleras and the Polo Democratico's Gustavo Petro with about 10% each. The turnout was high, with 49% of eligible voters going to the polls, 4% more than in 2006. (Colombia Reports, May 30)

The government of Bolivia announced a preliminary study for a program of uranium exploration in the southern department of Potosí this month, and broached the possibility of uranium exports to Venezuela. The program, projected at costing $500,000, will be financed by the Potosí departmental government and carried out by the National Mineral Geological and Technical Service (Sergeotecmin). The Bolivian Institute of Nuclear Technology, a moribund agency since its uranium processing plant in Potosí was closed 25 years ago, may be revived if the exploration program is successful.

Four lion cubs freed under Bolivia's circus-animal ban arrived at San Francisco International Airport this week, heading to a new life in a northern California refuge built with the help of TV personality Bob Barker and the Performing Animal Welfare Society. The deal was arranged by Animal Defenders International. The Bolivian law, to take effect in July, prohibits circuses from having any animals, the world's most comprehensive ban. (ADI press release, May 26 via Business Wire; AP, May 27; KTVU, San Francisco, May 22)

The Bolivian government says it will negotiate with an indigenous group that apparently lynched four police officers on May 23. Government rights ombudsman Rolando Villena said he was travelling to the southern department of Potosí to try to convince the group to hand over the officers' bodies. An assembly of "Ayllus Guerreros" (generally translated as "Warrior Clans," although ayllu is perhaps better rendered as "community") has declared the local municipality of Uncía a "zona roja," and are barring authorities from entering to search for the bodies.

New Yorker Lori Berenson was paroled from a Peruvian prison May 25 after spending 15 years behind bars, Judge Jessica León Yarango rejecting prosecutors' warnings that she remains a "dangerous" terrorist. In her ruling, León said Berenson had "completed re-education, rehabilitation and re-socialization," and demonstrated "positive behavior." Berenson, 40, and her year-old prison-born son, are to be freed in the coming days, reports say.

A former Colombian police major, Juan Carlos Meneses, has come forward to allege that Santiago Uribe, younger brother of President Alvaro Uribe, led a paramilitary group in the 1990s in the northern town of Yarumal, Antioquia department, that killed petty thieves, guerrilla sympathizers and suspected "subversives." In an interview with the Washington Post, Meneses said the group's hit men trained at La Carolina, a ranch owned by the Uribe family, in the early 1990s. "This is what we have been hoping for—that something like this could come out, and we could show what these paramilitary groups were," said María Eugenia López. She said five of her relatives were killed by paramilitaries in Yarumal in 1990.