A Peruvian air force M-17 helicopter crashed Sept. 2 in the coca-growing region known as the Apurímac and Ene River Valley (VRAE) after being hit with rifle fire from presumed Sendero Luminoso insurgents, killing the pilot and co-pilot and gavely wounding an army solider on board. The attack occurred at San Antonio de Carrizales, Santo Domingo de Acobamba district, Huancayo province, Junín region, where the crew were attempting to rescue three soldiers wounded in a confrontation with presumed senderistas that morning. A second helicopter on the mission returned to the military base at Pichari, Cusco region. The rescue operation was abandoned. (El Comercio, La Republica, Lima, Sept. 3)

A hip-hop artist who works with youth cultural programs in the violence-torn Medellín district of Comuna 13 was killed Aug. 25 by gunmen on a motorbike in the city's barrio of Eduardo Santos. Identified only as "Colacho," the youth rapped with the group C15, according to the Medellín anti-militarist group Red Juvenil (Youth Network). The group states that hundreds of youth have been assassinated this year in Medellín's popular barrios. (Red Juvenil, Aug. 28)

South American leaders met a special UNASUR summit in Buenos Aires at the end of August to discuss Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's proposal for permanent US military bases on his teritory, after Uribe refused to attend the UNASUR sumit in Quito earlier in the month. The Argentina summit failed to produce an explicit declaration rejecting the US bases, only stating broadly that "the presence of foreign military forces cannot threaten the soveriegnty of any South American country." (PTS, Argentina, Sept 3) The regional group also extended an invitation to Washington to attend the next summit and put forth its case on the issue. US amabassador to Colombia William Brownfield said the US will accept the invitation. (Colombia Reports, Sept. 2)

As National Police marched in a parade at the Plaza de Armas in the southern Peruvian city of Arequipa for the Santa Rosa de Lima celebration Aug. 30, peasant cooperatives from the region rallied in the middle of the square and later held their own march to protest government plans to turn state lands over to Chilean agribusiness interests. At issue are some 475 hectares of state-owned lands at Valle de Majes that the government proposes to sell to Grupo Layconsa, which is already producing artichokes for export to the US at nearby Pampabajas. "We are the owners of our lands, not the Chileans," says protest leader Luis Calderón Lindo, asserting that Layconsa is controlled by Chilean investors.

A total of 15, including two police officers, were injured Aug. 27 when the village of Cocachacra, in Islay province of Peru's southern Arequipa region, exploded into angry protest following the release of an environmental impact statement at a public hearing on the Tía María mining project proposed by the US-based Southern Copper Corporation. (RPP, Peru, Aug. 27)

Six years after the final report of the Truth and National Reconcilliation Commission (CVR) on Peru's 1980-2000 "dirty war" against the Sendero Luminoso guerillas, the citizens group Para Que no se Repita (roughly translated as "Never Again") has pledged a new campaign to raise awareness of human rights in the Andean nation. The move comes in response to comments by Defense Minister Rafael Rey calling the CVR's findings "false, unjust and calumnious." (La Republica, Aug. 27; RPP, Aug. 26)

Two Peruvian army troops and four presumed narco-senderistas—remnant Shining Path guerilla fighters turned drug gangsters—were killed Aug. 26 in a shoot-out at San Antonio de Carrizales, Huancayo province, Junin region, in the coca-producing zone dubbed the VRAE, for the Apurimac-Ene River Valley. The confrontation brings to 30 the number of soldiers killed in the VRAE since October 2008.

The closing festival of the Primer Encuentro de Culturas Andinas in the southern Colombian city of Pasto was suspended Aug. 27 "as a gesture of solidarity" following the massacre of 12 members of the Awá indigenous group in the region. The Encuentro brought together more than 1,000 representatives of indigenous peoples from seven Andean nations, as well as Mexico, Guatemala and the US.