A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against Dole Food Co. on behalf of 73 people, survivors of murdered trade unionists and farmers in the banana-growing region of north Colombia, accusing the company of funding paramilitaries to carry out assassinations and terror tactics in order to protect its banana operations.

On May 20 some 17,500 banana workers in Colombia's northwestern Urabá region ended a strike they began on May 8 over pay and benefits. The workers won an 8% wage hike for the first year of the two-year contract and a cost-of-living adjustment for the next year; this is based on the Consumer Price Index (IPC in Spanish), which is expected to rise by 5% or less this year. The strikers also won benefits including funds for housing, recreation and culture, a bonus, and pay for the days lost to the strike.

Venezuela's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by just 0.3% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period the year before, the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) reported on May 19. Miguel Carpio, an economist at Banco Federal CA in Caracas, projected a zero growth rate for the year. Finance Minister Ali Rodríguez attributed the situation to the global economic downturn, which has cut the price of Venezuelan oil from an average of $87 per barrel last year to an average $42 per barrel so far in 2009; oil accounts for more than 90% of the country's exports.

A total of nine people have been kidnapped in Colombia by victims of pyramid schemes, authorities said May 23. According to Harlan Henao Serna—director of Fund for the Defense of Personal Liberty (Fondelibertad), the government agency in charge of keeping track on kidnappings—the "collapse" of some of the pyramids led to "unexpected reactions" by those who had invested money in the fraudulent schemes. He said kidnappers are trying to recover close to 13 million pesos (US$6,000), with the nine people currently held captive. Police have arrested 18 pyramid victims on kidnapping charges.

Colombia's second largest guerrilla army, the National Liberation Army (ELN), asked the rival Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to end hostilities between the two groups. ELN supreme commander Nicolás Rodríguez Bautista AKA "Gabino" wrote an open letter to his FARC counterpart, "Alfonso Cano" asking him to "stop to fratricidal war between our two forces," the ELN website shows. In the letter, the ELN chief says he is still waiting for reply to earlier missives urging the FARC commander for a bilateral meeting and resolve the conflict between the two guerilla armies. (Colombia Reports, May 24)

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe on May 23 named armed forces chief Gen. Freddy Padilla de Leon as his new defense minister. Padilla will retain his current post while taking over the defense portfolio from Juan Manuel Santos, who recently resigned to prepare a possible run for president in 2010. Santos was a mastermind of the current administration's crackdown on FARC guerillas, who have seen their leadership decimated during Santos' near three-year tenure. (AFP, May 23)

The Bolivian Senate announced May 21 that an impeachment trial for Chief Justice Dr. Eddy Walter Fernández Gutiérrez of the Bolivian Supreme Court will be held on June 3. The Chamber of Deputies, Bolivia's lower congressional house, impeached Fernández and suspended his title earlier this month after convicting him on the charge of "retardation of justice." Fernández denounced his impeachment as a politically motivated endeavor to clear room in the Supreme Court for a justice more likely to represent the interests of President Evo Morales.

Venezuelan police and soldiers on May 21 raided a property belonging to Guillermo Zuloaga, president of the country's opposition Globovisión news network amid a growing confrontation between the station and the government of President Hugo Chávez. Judicial police chief Wilmer Flores Trossel said authorities found 24 Toyota vehicles on the Caracas property. "The owners of the residence will have to explain what these vehicles are doing there and why they aren't in a dealership," he said.