At the start of December, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez conceded defeat in his referendum on constitutional reform—but stated: "This is not a defeat. This is another 'for now.'" The proposed amendments included some populist measures (formal prohibition of torture and incommunicado detention, reduction of the workday to six hours and prohibition of forced overtime, reduction of the voting age to 16, a social security program for "informal" workers) as well as some authoritarian ones (press censorship and suspension of habeas corpus in states of emergency, suspension of the presidency's two-term limit, raising the signatures needed for presidential recall votes)—and some which were both populist and authoritarian (expropriation of private property by presidential decree, executive branch control over the central bank). There may be a paradoxical unity in these two faces of chavismo. As we asked our readers: "Should this be read as a carrot-and-stick tactic: wealth redistribution and social security guarantees to sweeten the pot as an authoritarian state is consolidated? Or are the populist and repressive measures more fundamentally unified: draconian measures will be necessary in order to effect the wealth redistribution—especially given the demonstrated putschist designs on Chávez by Washington and its local proxies?"

On Dec. 14 US president George W. Bush signed legislation approving the Peru Free Trade Agreement (FTA, or TLC for its initials in Spanish), which will eventually eliminate tariffs between the two countries. The signing took place at a ceremony in the White House in Washington, DC, which Peruvian president Alan Garcia attended along with diplomats and members of the US Congress. According to an opinion poll by the Apoyo firm published in the daily Comercio on Dec. 16, 66% of Peruvians favor the accord and only 25% oppose it. Apoyo says the poll was carried out among 1,017 Peruvians between Dec. 12 and 14 and has a 3.1% margin of error. (El Diario-La Prensa, Dec. 17 from AP)

Colombia's main opposition party, the Polo Democratico, has issued a strong statement against Plan Colombia. The communique is also a grim assessment of Alvaro Uribe's Democratic Security policy, heavily influenced by Washington. The Polo cites the increase of human rights violations and forced displacement among communities targeted for crop eradication. Furthermore, the Polo asserts that under Plan Colombia, paramilitary groups have strengthened, achieving greater political, economic and social control throughout several regions.

Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, chief of the Colombian presidency's anti-corruption program, resigned Dec. 12—days after Miami's El Nuevo Herald reported documents showing his father, Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, had warned before his 1984 assassination that relatives of current President Alvaro Uribe might try to kill him.

On Dec. 13, an observer who works for an international body set up to monitor Colombia's demobilization process received a death threat while visiting a poor neighborhood in Medellín. Since 2004, the Mission to Support the Peace Process (MAPP), under the auspices of the Organization of American States, has had teams of observers in different parts of Colombia and produces periodic reports. The member who was threatened in Colombia was in a meeting when a man on a motorcycle drove up to her car and told her driver that his boss would be killed if she failed to abandon her work.

Bolivia's new constitution, which is being attacked by the lowland oligarchs as centralizing too much power in the hands of President Evo Morales, actually devolves many powers to "indigenous nations and peoples," recognizing their right to "free determination and territoriality." It states that indigenous institutions will be "part of the general structure of the State." It officially identifies 36 indigenous peoples, stating that "their traditional knowledge and wisdom, their traditional medicines, their languages, their rituals and their symbols and dress will be valued, respected and promoted." These 36 ethnicities are also guaranteed "collective title to their territories." The document recognizes Bolivia as a "Unitary Social State of Plurethnic Communitarian Legal Character [Derecho], free, autonomous and decentralized; independent, sovereign, democratic and multicultural [intercultural]." It calls for "political, economic, juridical, cultural and linguistic pluralism." (EFE, Nov. 27)

The Technical Investigative Corps (CTI) of Colombia's Fiscalía General has opened an official probe of Chiquita and the local banana companies Probán, Unibán and Sunisa-Del Monte for their links to paramilitary groups in the conflicted banana-growing zone of Urabá. Those named in the investigation include current and former Chiquita officials Robert Fisher, Steven G. Wars, Carl H. Linder, Durk Jaguer, Jeffrey Benjamin, Morten Amtzen, Roderick Hills, Cyrus F. Freidheim (ex-general director), and Robert Olson (ex-corporate lawyer). (El Tiempo, Bogotá, Dec. 20)

At a Dec. 9 ceremony hosted by outgoing Argentine president Nestor Kirchner in the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, the heads of six South American countries signed an agreement formally creating the Bank of the South, a development bank to be financed by South American countries to promote infrastructural projects and to aid companies from the region. Bolivian president Evo Morales, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa, Paraguayan president Nicanor Duarte Frutos and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez attended the signing. Argentine president-elect Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was also present; she was to succeed her husband on Dec. 10. Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez decided to skip the Dec. 9 ceremony and wait until Dec. 10 to sign the accord; his absence reflected strains between Argentina and Uruguay over the Botnia paper mill being built in Uruguay.