Little more than a week after the Canadian government announced the completion of free trade talks with Colombia, that country's national daily, El Tiempo, reports [June 14] that the Águilas Negras (Black Eagles), a violent right-wing paramilitary organization, has sent threatening emails to the Canadian Embassy in Bogotá.

Two weeks after completing the exhumation of the largest mass grave found in Peru's history, the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) returned to Putis [June 18] to begin work on exhuming four additional graves from a December 1984 massacre. As the Peruvian government faces renewed pressure from the human rights community to divulge the names of those responsible for the massacre, EPAF returned to the remote site high within the Andes where 123 men, women, and children were shot more than two decades ago by the Peruvian military.

Chinese mining company Chinalco has gained rights to exploit copper at Peru's Mount Toromocho, to be used in electrification projects in China. The $3 billion project will entail the removal of the entire town of Morococha (Yauli province, Junín region). Residents voted to approve the relocation across the valley last year, on promises of government aid. But nearly half the residents supported a "no" campaign, rejecting the terms as inadequate. (BBC, June 17)

Colombia's coca crop grew by 27% last year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported June 18, calling the increase "a surprise and a shock" given ongoing US-funded eradication efforts. Coca cultivation was also up 4% in Peru and 5% in Bolivia, the annual survey found.

In a June 13 statement, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa announced that his government has decided not to join the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the integration initiative led by Venezuela. The statement said Ecuador would continue to pursue regional integration through the OAS and Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC) reports nine were injured June 13 when a unit of the National Police Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) attacked more than 300 indigenous protesters participating in a land occupation at Hacienda la Emperatriz, near the indigenous reserve of Huellas Caloto, Cauca department. The ONIC statement said the nine protesters were receiving medical attention at a clinic in Toez village, but the attack had not broken the occupation, and urgently called for intervention from human rights monitors.

Peru sent tanker ships carrying food and fuel June 13 to its southernmost coastal region of Tacna, where thousands of residents are stranded by a general strike over mining royalties in neighboring Moquegua region. More than 5,000 Moquegua residents have blocked roads, including the Panamerican highway, cutting off access to the Ilo smelter and Cuajone mine of Grupo Mexico's Southern Copper, the country's largest producer. They are demanding a greater share of profits for local governments in the region. Several provincial and district leaders have started a hunger strike in support of the campaign.

Police in Quito arrested three Colombians and one Ecuadoran in an alleged plot to assassinate President Rafael Correa. Two were arrested on the capital's Independence Plaza, where Carondelet presidential palace is located. The suspects were detained by agents of the elite Anti-Kidnapping Unit (UNASE), and had numerous photos of the palace and maps of the square. Ecuadorean Security Minister Gustavo Larrea told Caracol Radio the suspects were carrying weapons, but failed to say what kind. Spanish press agency EFE said one of the Colombians confessed to be from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) paramilitary network. Prosecutor General Washington Pezantes said the men were being investigated for their links to armed groups. But Correa himself raised the possibility they are "simply scam-artists" (estafadores).