Raúl Hasbún, alias Pedro Bonito, a banana plantation owner turned paramilitary chieftain, gave preliminary testimony in Medellín about his participation in several massacres, including against the Peace Community [of San José de Apartadó]. Massacres were a practice to ensure control of perceived guerrilla-controlled areas, and were seen as a mean to do business in the Urabá region. In his preliminary testimony on July 23, Hasbún implicated the former Army Fourth Brigade commander, Gen. Alfonso Manosalva Flórez, and said paramilitary meetings occurred at the brigade headquarters. [La FM, Medellín; Semana, Bogotá, July 24]

Two more Colombian paramilitary commanders pleaded guilty July 29 in US federal court to drug conspiracy charges. Ramiro Vanoy Murillo, 60, and Francisco Javier Zuluaga Lindo, 38, entered their pleas before US District Judge K. Michael Moore in Miami. Under a plea agreement, Vanoy Murillo faces up to 19 years and Zuluaga Lindo more than 17 years in prison, as well as up to $4 million each in fines. The Bush administration agreed not to seek life sentences as a precondition of their extradition.

The body of Colombian unionist Guillermo Rivera Fuquene was found buried in a garbage dump in a rural area of Ibague, Tolima department, on July 15. Rivera Fuquene, an economist in the Bogotá Controller's Office and the president of the Public Services Union of Bogotá (Sinserpub), disappeared on April 22 after putting his daughter on a school bus in the Tunal section of the capital. According to his wife, Sonya Betancur (also given as "Sonia Betancourt"), the last news she heard after his disappearance was that he had been detained by the police. The center-left Democratic Alternative Pole (PDA), of which Rivera Fuquene was a member, said it had indications from a witness and videotapes that the Bogota police were involved. The authorities in Ibague determined that Rivera Fuquene was strangled and then buried on April 28.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced July 24 that it had received eight of ten persons detained by the FARC guerillas July 17 when their boat was stopped on the Río Atrato in Chocó departament. The captives, all civilians, were students, teachers, local functionaries and merchants from Quibdó, capital of Chocó. Their capture sparked a large mobilization of government troops to Chocó. (ANSA, July 24)

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos share a joint op-ed in the New York Times July 23, "Colombia's Gains Are America's, Too," shamelessly trading off the apparent hostage rescue operation to shill for the pending US-Colombia free trade agreement. Let's deconstruct this exercise in sinister propaganda:

In mid-July Citgo—the US oil distributor owned by the Venezuelan state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA)—began a program to distribute compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) to low- and middle-income families in Houston and Corpus Christi, Tex.; Lamont, Ill.; Lake Charles, La.; and Washington, DC. Ultimately the program is intended to supply some 460,000 of the energy-saving lightbulbs to homes in these cities and in Boston, Philadelphia, New York City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Madison, Wisconsin.

Some 10,000 Venezuelans protested in Caracas July 12 to demand the country's supreme court overturn a "blacklist"—or "inhabilitación política"—barring several opponents of President Hugo Chávez from running in upcoming state and municipal elections. Chanting "freedom!" and waving Venezuelan flags, the demonstrators marched on the Supreme Justice Tribunal building, where they urged justices to strike down the list.

"Venezuela and Colombia today open a new epoch in our relations," Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez told reporters after a meeting with his Colombian counterpart Álvaro Uribe in Caracas July 11. "I want to make clear that the intention exists to relaunch and fortify relations between Venezuela and Colombia, because these brother nations are destined to be united." (ABN, Venezuela, July 11) Construction of a rail link through Colombia giving Venezuela access to the Pacific is said to have been discussed in the meeting. Uribe told a recent Colombian cabinet meeting, "President Chávez has offered to make this railway. We are ready to do it." (El Tiempo, Bogotá, July 12)