President Hugo Chávez condemned the Jan. 30 attack on Venezuela's main synagogue in a Feb. 5 statement—but warned it was being used to fan unrest ahead of a referendum next week on his bid for unlimited re-election. "They accuse me of being anti-Semitic. I don't hate Jews, and I call on all Venezuelan Jews not to let themselves be used," Chávez said during a military parade in Maracay.

Survival International has received reports that indigenous communities of the Sierra de Perijá in Venezuela are being threatened by Colombian rebels. Survival reports that members of the FARC, Colombia's largest rebel group, have been settling among Barí and Yukpa indigenous communities in the border area. The rebels bring in weapons and drugs, entice young people to their ranks, and squat on indigenous land.

Two striking workers were shot dead on Jan. 29 during a confrontation with the authorities at the Mitsubishi Motors Corp (MMC) Automotriz auto factory in the Los Montones de Barcelona industrial park outside Barcelona in the eastern Venezuelan state of Anzoátegui. Strikers said state police agents fired the shots that killed Pedro Jesus Suárez Poito, an MMC employee, and Javier Marcano, who worked at the nearby Macusa auto parts factory and was present in an act of solidarity. (According to some reports Marcano was the MMC employee and Suárez worked at Macusa.) Members of the New Generation Union (Singetram) took over the factory on Jan. 12 to protest management's decision to lay off 135 contract workers. Workers had voted 863-21 at a mass assembly in favor of the occupation.

On the morning of Feb. 1 the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) released three captured police agents and one soldier to a humanitarian mission in the jungles of the southern Colombian department of Caquetá. The prisoners, all captured in 2007, were the first of six FARC detainees scheduled to be released over a period of four days. The rebel group said it would free former governor Alan Jara on Feb. 2 and former legislator Sigifredo López on Feb. 4. Jara was kidnapped on June 5, 2001; López has been held since Apr. 11, 2002.

A group of 15 gunmen took over the oldest synagogue in Caracas the night of Jan. 30, ransacking the sanctuary, desecrating Torahs and spray-painting walls with anti-Semitic slogans in what Venezuelan Jewish leaders called the worst attack ever on their community. A security guard was overpowered and tied up at around 10 PM; the gunmen remained in the temple until 3 AM. Slogans left on the walls read "Damn the Jews," "Jews get out" and "Israel assassins." A crude representation of the devil was also scrawled on a wall.

In an official statement, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hailed the "peaceful climate" in Bolivia during the Jan. 25 constitutional referendum. The statement said he "congratulates the people of Bolivia for this demonstration of civic responsibility," and urges "all political leaders in Bolivia to work together henceforth to build a prosperous and inclusive future for their country." (Xinhua, Jan. 27)

Bolivia’s new constitution was passed in a national referendum Jan. 25, as thousands gathered in La Paz to celebrate. Standing on the balcony of the presidential palace, President Evo Morales addressed a jubilant crowd: "Here begins a new Bolivia. Here we begin to reach true equality... The colonial state ends here. Internal colonialism and external colonialism ends here. Sisters and brothers, neoliberalism ends here too." Polls conducted by Televisión Boliviana determined that the document passed with 61.97% support from some 3.8 million voters. By region, the charter was voted up in La Paz, Cochabamba, Oruro, Potosí, Tarija, and Pando; it was rejected in Santa Cruz, Beni, and Chuquisaca. (Upside Down World, Jan. 26)

Colombian president Alvaro Uribe and Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez met in Cartagena in the northern Colombian department of Bolívar on Jan. 24 to discuss economic cooperation in response to the global crisis. They set up an economic commission which started working immediately "to design a package of new tools, to review the ones that exist and to strengthen them," Chávez said during a press conference after the meeting. The two presidents also agreed to create a $200 million joint fund to extend credits to small and medium businesses and to stimulate trade between the two countries; in addition, they plan a fund for infrastructure work in the areas along the Colombia-Venezuela border.