Leaders of local peasant organizations marched on the offices of the judicial authorities in Piura in northwest Peru Dec. 10 to demand justice in the deaths of Vicente Romero Ramírez and Cástulo Correa Huayama, shot by police Dec. 2 in the hamlet of Cajas Canchaque, Huancabamba province. Police were apparently attempting to arrest local comunero Lorenzo Rojas García, suspected in a Nov. 1 attack on the "Henry's Hill" mining camp, run by Rio Blanco Copper, local venture of the Chinese Zijin Consortium with the UK's Monterrico Metals. Two security guards and the mine site manager were killed in the armed attack. The site has been the focus of repeated violent protests over land rights and environmental impacts, which have left two other local campesinos dead since 2004. (CNR, Dec. 10; UDW, Dec. 7; LAHT, Dec. 3)

Colombian officials are continuing to investigate three Chiquita Brands officials suspected of involvement in the payment of paramilitary death squads in the name of the banana company. According to a report by Bogotá's El Tiempo Dec. 7, Colombian prosecutors requested that the US Department of Justice notify Chiquita Brands executives John Paul Olivo, Charles Dennis Keiser and Dorn Robert Wenninnger that they are under investigation by the Colombian government for having financed paramilitary operations in the region of Urabá totaling $1.7 million between 1997-2004.

According to exit polls by three different firms, Bolivian president Evo Morales appears to have won a second five-year term in general elections on Dec. 6 with 61-63.2% of the vote. Right-wing former Cochabamba governor Manfred Reyes Villa was projected to get 23-25%, followed by center-right business owner Samuel Doria Medina with 7%.

Our November issue featured the stories "Venezuelan Labor Between Chávez and the Golpistas" by Venezuelan journalist Rafael Uzcategui writing for the Spanish anarchist journal Tierra y Libertad, and "Venezuela: Demarcation Without Land" by José Quintero Weir writing for the Caracas anarchist journal El Libertario. The stories documented, respectively, repression against unionists and indigenous peoples under the Hugo Chávez regime. Our Exit Poll was: "Are we traitors to the Revolution for airing an anarchist critique of Bolivarian Venezuela?"

Tensions between Colombia and Venezuela have deepened after Colombian ministers failed to attend a regional summit in Ecuador. The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) meeting in Quito was intended to defuse the crisis. But Bogotá refused to send its foreign and defense ministers, saying respectful discussions were "impossible"—sending only what what it called a "technical delegation." Venezuela called the move an act of "contempt." (BBC News, Nov, 28)

Venezuelan media activist Mijail Martinez, the son of a former state deputy for the chavista Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), was assassinated in a drive-by shooting Nov. 26 at his home in the city of Barquisimeto, Lara. Martínez, 24, was a cameraman and activist with the Victims' Committee Against Impunity in Lara state (CVCI-Lara) and an audiovisual producer on the TV program of his father, Victor Martínez, a longtime Bolivarian militant. Victor had recently been making a series of official complaints in which he had implicated a host of high governmental and police figures in corruption and human rights violations. (El Libertario, Caracas, Nov. 28 via Anarkismo.net; El Nacional, Caracas, Nov. 26)

The government of Peru has officially apologized for the first time to its citizens of African descent for centuries of "abuse, exclusion and discrimination." The executive resolution, published Nov. 28 in the official newspaper El Peruano, states that discrimination against black Peruvians still exists and is "a barrier for social, economic, labor and educational development." Women and Social Development Minister Nidia Vilchez said the government hopes its apology will help promote the "true integration of all Peru's multicultural population." But critics point out that the apology does not explicitly refer to slavery or state plans for reparations or changing the status quo for Afro-Peruvians.

Magaly Janeth Moreno Vega AKA "La Perla", wanted by Interpol and Colombia as a key fugitive leader of the outlawed AUC paramilitary network, was arrested by Venezuelan authorities in Maracaibo. There was no immediate word on whether Venezuela would extradite. Upon her arrest, Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami again accused Colombia's government of supporting the illegal paramilitaries and using them to subvert Venezuela. El Aissami, speaking on state television, accused Colombian President Alvaro Uribe of "institutional and moral decay" for his government's ties to paramilitary groups that "attack our people and threaten peace and order." (LAT, Nov. 23)