Bolivian President Evo Morales ate a coca leaf in front of delegates at the Vienna meeting of the UN Commission for Narcotic Drugs (CND) March 12, to press his demand that the crop be removed from the UN's list of prohibited drugs. "We're for the coca leaf but against cocaine," Morales said. "The coca leaf should no longer be vilified and criminalized!"

In the Peruvian village of Huanta, Ayacucho region, forensic workers March 9 began exhuming the remains of 49 people from a mass grave, thought to be victims of a massacre during the nation's 1980-2000 conflict with Maoist guerillas. Some 200 relatives of the disappeared gathered at the site, chanting "We demand justice," as the exhumation began on orders of the local prosecutor's office. A lawyer for the relatives, Karim Ninaquispe, said the victims went missing in July and August of 1984. Investigators believe they were taken to Huanta's municipal stadium, where the Peruvian navy had established a base. "In that place they were tortured, executed and their bodies were later made to disappear," Ninaquispe said.

Bolivia's President Evo Morales expelled a US diplomat March 9, accusing him of conspiring with opposition groups. Last week, Morales accused the diplomat, Francisco Martinez, of "coordinating contacts" with a former Bolivian national police captain, Rodrigo Carrasco, who is in turn accused of infiltrating the state oil and gas company on behalf of the CIA. Morales said that "deep investigations" had determined that Martinez "was in permanent contact with opposition groups." The State Department rejected the allegations and called the move "unwarranted and unjustified."

President Hugo Chávez called Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos a "threat to the peace in South America" and pledged to hit back hard if Colombia made any military incursion into Venezuela. "Sadly, and it would hurt me to the bottom of my soul, I would immediately have the Suhkoi fighters fired up and the armored tanks; I am not going to let anyone disrespect Venezuela's sovereignty for anything in the world," Chávez said on his weekly TV broadcast "Aló, Presidente."

One of Colombia's most feared paramilitary commanders was extradited to the US March 5—over the protests of local human rights groups concerned that details of atrocities and government collusion with paras may never be revealed. US Drug Enforcement Administration officials escorted Hebert Veloza Garcia AKA "HH" onto a plane headed for New York, where he faces drug-trafficking charges.

Meeting with members of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities impacted by floods, displacement and violence in Colombia, the top United Nations relief official last week called for stepped up assistance for these minority groups. Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes travelled to the northwest Chocó department, where leaders in the Afro-Colombian community of Bebedó described the destruction of their homes by severe flooding last year, when the San Juan River broke its banks. Also in the same town, he met with representatives of the Wounaan indigenous people who told him how they had been uprooted from their traditional lands in 2005 by armed gangs.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez over the weekend ordered the army to seize control of all the the country's rice processing plants, citing the companies' failure to adhere to price control regulations. "I have ordered the immediate intervention in all those sectors of agro-industry, intervention by the revolutionary government," Chávez said in a nationally televised address March 1. "This government is here to protect the people, not the bourgeoisie or the rich." He also warned that he would nationalize the country's rice industry if the processing companies do not respect price controls.

Venezuela and Bolivia Feb. 26 condemned the new US State Department human rights report that singles out the two South American countries, saying Washington has no right to pass judgment. The government of President Hugo Chávez said it categorically rejects the report, which cited a politicized judiciary and harassment of Venezuela's political opposition and the news media. Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said the report is "plagued with lies." He added: "No government in the world has the right to use a report to meddle in, judge or qualify the situation in other nations."