President Hugo Chávez's Venezuelan United Socialist Party (PSUV) scored a string of victories in key state and municipal elections Nov. 23. "A new stage is beginning. For me, as the leader of the Venezuelan socialist project, the people are telling me: 'Chávez, keep on the same path,'" he said after the results were announced the next morning. But in what Colombia's El Tiempo called a "hard blow" to Chávez, the opposition won in Zulia and Miranda, the country’s two most populous states, as well the mayoral race in Caracas. Some 45 percent of the population will now be governed by policitians from the opposition. The PSUV, whose candidates won 21 out of 23 state elections in 2004, still controls 17 governorships. (AFP, Notimex, Bloomberg, Nov. 24)

Despite an intense rain, some 12,000 indigenous marchers from southern Cauca department arrived in the Colombian capital of Bogotá Nov. 21, and established an encampment in the central Plaza de Bolívar. Leaders declared that they would not return to their lands until they were heard by the government. On Nov. 24, the marchers started to return, after the government agreed to establish a commission for what Luis Evelis Andrade, leader of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), called "a dialogue table" with the government to arrive at accords to improve the life conditions of the indigenous." A core of indigenous leaders is to stay in Bogotá for talks on land reform, rural development, and the pending free trade agreement with the US. (El Pais, Cali, Nov. 24; Colprensa, Nov. 22)

The leaders of the 21 nations of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) met in Lima over the weekend, where George Bush continued to push free-trade prescriptions—prompting demonstrations at the US Embassy, where protesters in black hoods and orange jumpsuits representing Guatánamo detainees chanted "¡Bush fascista, tú eres el terrorista!" (Bush, fascist; you are the terrorist!). A large banner at the head the protest read in Spanish, "APEC is hunger and unemployment." (La Nación, Chile, Nov. 24)

The president of a failed Colombian financial firm suspected of laundering drug profits and bilking thousands of mostly poor investors of millions of dollars was arrested in Panama and promptly deported Nov. 20. David Murcia Guzmán, 28, founder of the DMG financial services firm, was detained near Panama City as he prepared to flee to Costa Rica, which has no extradition treaty with Colombia.

From the BBC News, Nov. 18:

UK drug users 'damaging Colombia'
Drug users in the UK are causing an environmental catastrophe in Colombia, the country's vice-president has told a meeting of police chiefs.

Bolivia's first indigenous president, Evo Morales, in Washington DC for an OAS meeting Nov. 19, drew parallels between himself and US President-elect Barack Obama: "Who would have believed 10 or 15 years ago that I could become president of Bolivia? Who would have believed 20 or 30 years ago that a black man could become president of the United States?" He made his comments before the OAS special session, speaking in Spanish.

The New York Times reports Nov. 19 that "President-elect Barack Obama's transition team has signaled to Eric H. Holder Jr., a senior official in the Justice Department in the Clinton administration, that he will be chosen as attorney general... Mr. Holder would be the first African-American to serve as the nation's top law enforcement official." Unfortunately, he would also be the first AG to have defended a multinational corporation in a lawsuit over collaboration with paramilitary death-squads—specifically Chiquita Brands in a case over its payments to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a State Department-recognized "terrorist organization."

Colombian officials declared a state of emergency Nov. 19, boosting their powers of arrest and money seizure to help deal with multimillion-dollar investment scams that have targeted mostly poor investors. President Álvaro Uribe's office said the measure was taken because of a "serious deterioration in public order" in connection with "massive illegal collection of public funds."