On Jan. 3 a five-member panel of the Peruvian Supreme Court unanimously upheld a 25-year prison sentence for former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) for deaths and serious injuries caused by a paramilitary unit during his administration; Supreme Court justice César San Martín Castro had handed down the sentence on April 7, 2009. The panel also voted 4-1 to confirm Fujimori's conviction for two kidnappings. The ex-president, 71, could remain in prison until 2032; the two years since he was arrested in Chile in 2007 count as time served. He would be eligible for parole in 2025.

Some 400 prisoners revolted on New Years Eve at Huancas prison in the northeastern Peruvian city of Chachapoyas, taking several guards hostage and seizing part of the facility. Two inmates were killed by guard gunfire, and at least six guards are still being held hostage. The prisoners are demanding better food and conditions, speedier trials, and that administration of the facility be transfered to the National Police from the National Penitentiary Institute (INPE), which they accuse of corruption. A commission led by Deputy Justice Minister Gerardo Castro has been sent to the prison to negotiate. (Periodismo Peru, LAHT, Jan. 2)

Colombian senator Piedad Córdoba announced on Dec. 26 that she had asked the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to state whether they are responsible for the Dec. 21 abduction of Luis Francisco Cuéllar, governor of the southern department of Caquetá, whose body was found with a slashed throat outside the state capital, Florencia, on Dec. 22. Police agent Javier García Gutiérrez was also killed in the incident, and two agents were injured. The government of right-wing president Alvaro Uribe immediately blamed the FARC for the kidnapping and deaths. Agencia de Noticias Nueva Colombia (ANNCOL), a news agency which carries communiqués from the rebels, called the government's claim "irresponsible," but as of Dec. 26 there had been no denial from the FARC.

At a ceremony in La Paz marking International Migrants Day on Dec. 18, Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca said the leftist government of President Evo Morales had an "obligation" to help Bolivian migrants return to their country. "The recovery of our natural resources is important for us so that Bolivians who for different reasons have gone abroad to look for work or to study can return to our country and can build [their] dreams in our lands," Choquehuanca said, linking the issue to the government's nationalization policies. He also announced accords with Spain to make it easier for Bolivian immigrants to Spain to get drivers' licenses there.

The governor of the southern Colombian department of Caquetá, Luis Francisco Cuellar Carvajal, was found murdered in the rural part of his department Dec. 22. The FARC guerillas had reportedly had kidnapped him the day before. The body was found by security forces taking part in the search for the governor. Troops were not able to immediately recover the body as it was found in the middle of a mine field, presumably planted by the guerillas to exact further casualties.

After two days of talks in Caracas, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation signed a deal to help develop the Boyaca 3 bloc in the Orinoco belt—part of Venezuela's effort to boost oil sales to China to 1 million barrels per day from the current 400,000 bpd. Under President Hugo Chávez, Venezuela has tried to reduce oil exports to the US and sought new markets. The US remains the main destination for Venezuela oil, with sales averaging around 1 million bpd.

The US-based Colombia Support Network (CSN) is calling for letters to Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot (wsj.ltrs@wsj.com) to protest a Dec. 14 opinion piece about the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó in the northwestern Colombian department of Antioquia. In the article the paper's Latin America correspondent Mary Anastasia O'Grady repeated charges from a former rebel commander, Daniel Sierra Martinez AKA "Samir", that despite the community's claim of rejecting the presence of all weapons and armed groups, it is really a "safe haven" for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). "Samir" also claimed that when he was a rebel leader, "the supposed peaceniks who ran the local NGO"—the faith-based human rights group Justice and Peace—"were his allies and an important FARC tool in the effort to discredit the military," O'Grady wrote.

Dole Food Company and Chiquita Brands International paid a Colombian terrorist organization to perform protection services that included murdering trade unionists, demobilized paramilitary José Gregorio Mongones said in an affidavit released Dec. 6. The testimony is the centerpiece of two civil lawsuits against Chiquita and Dole filed by family members of victims of paramilitary violence in Colombia. Both lawsuits accuse the companies of funding the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), the country's largest paramilitary organization, formally demobilized in 2006.