by Stefan Baskerville, Diplo

Rusty buses lined the wide road, their roofs packed with men, sitting, crouching and lying down.

Families sat and stood in the back of old pick-up trucks. The people arrived in droves, by truck, bus or on foot, carrying banners and flags. The Wiphala, a flag composed of multi-coloured squares, was held aloft, draped around shoulders and hung from the small trees in the grassy central divide of the road. It represents the indigenous people of Bolivia who make up nearly two thirds of the population, those descended from the people who inhabited the land before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. Not only the majority, they are also overwhelmingly the poorest. As one of their leaders said, they are often condemned to work as "peons" or serfs for wealthy landowners, "latifundistas." This is a situation generations have faced for five hundred years.

Jennifer Pagonis, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees offered the following comments on the situation in Colombia Aug. 8 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. From the UNHCR website:

To mark World Indigenous Day tomorrow, UNHCR in Colombia will call on all armed groups in the country to keep the country's indigenous population out of the armed conflict and respect the distinction between combatants and non-combatants. UNHCR has repeatedly warned that indigenous groups in Colombia are increasingly at risk of violence and even disappearance as a result of the ongoing conflict. Indigenous groups are increasingly forced to flee their ancestral lands into neighbouring countries to find safety.

Simon Romero writes for the New York Times, Aug. 21 (emphasis added):

Venezuela, Tired of US Influence, Strengthens Its Relationships in the Middle East
CARACAS — Venezuela has long cultivated ties with Middle Eastern governments, finding common ground in trying to keep oil prices high, but its recent engagement of Iran has become a defining element in its effort to build an alliance to curb American influence in developing countries.

Peru's populist hero of the left faces charges in an atrocity from the "dirty war" against leftist guerillas in the early '90s. From Lima's La Republica via Living in Peru, Aug. 16:

Arturo Campos Vicente, district attorney of Tocache, has finally decided to formally press penal charges against Peru's ex-presidential candidate and retired Army commander Ollanta Humala Tasso related to the events at Madre Mia in 1992.

Colombian authorities detained 14 top paramilitary leaders Aug. 16, saying they were not complying with the amnesty law. The leaders, who include two former commanders wanted in the United States on drug-trafficking charges, were taken into custody in various parts of Colombia, with some of them voluntarily surrendering to police.

On Aug. 3, some 600 demonstrators, including many people of Palestinian and Lebanese descent, marched in Bogota to protest Israel's military aggression against Lebanon. The march was called by the Platform of Colombians in Solidarity with Palestine and Lebanon, a coalition of leftist parties and labor and grassroots organizations. When the marchers arrived at the Israeli embassy, an officer of the diplomatic police in charge of security for the building ordered two of his agents to take down a demonstrator who was trying to spray-paint "Free Palestine and Lebanon" on the building facade. A brief clash ensued, and after it had ended a group of mounted riot police from the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) arrived with a tank and attacked demonstrators with tear gas and water cannons.

From Canada Free Press, Aug. 7 (links, annotation and emphasis added by WW4 REPORT):

With world attention trained on Israel and Hezbollah, the situation is tense in Bogota, Colombia, today as President Alvaro Uribe prepares for his inauguration for a second four-year term.

The Joel Sierra Regional Human Rights Committee Foundation has reported a wave of recent murders in the municipalities of Arauquita, Tame and Saravena in the eastern Colombian department of Arauca. On July 27 in Tame, meat vendor Alberto Tovar Trujillo was murdered in the community of Alto Cauca and Omar Castaneda was murdered in the village of Botalon. On July 28, Euclides Galvis Moreno and Jose Ananias Duran Moncada were murdered in the community of Santa Clara in Arauquita. On July 30, Pedro Jaimes Rodriguez died in the hospital, a day after being wounded with a knife in Saravena municipality. Also on July 30, Floiran Cuervo Monsalve was murdered in the community of Puerto Nidia in Fortul municipality. Jose Calderon, a medical assistant at the San Ricardo Pampuri hospital in Saravena, was murdered on July 31. The authors and motives are unknown for all of these killings. (Adital, Aug. 4) The murders take place as the National Army carries out a massive military operation in the rural areas of Arauca department, with abuses against the civilian campesino population. The military operation began in early July in Tame and has spread to Fortul, Saravena, Arauquita and the departmental capital, Arauca. (Agencia Prensa Rural, Aug. 1)