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)

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Some 22,000 residents of the northeastern Ecuadoran province of Orellana began a "progressive strike" on June 28 to protest environmental damage by the French oil company Perenco and repression by the military. The protest began with residents of the provincial capital, Francisco de Orellana, blocking roads leading to one of Perenco's installations and threatening to block all the roads in the province, where much of the country's oil production is concentrated. "The number [of protesters] will grow with the actions, because the communities will no longer put up with disrespect from the government and the oil companies," Orellana province prefect Guadalupe Llori told the media.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

In the early morning of June 28 Peru's Congress voted 79-14 with six abstentions to ratify the Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA, known locally as the Free Trade Treaty, or TLC), a trade pact Peru signed with the US in December. Some 1,000-2,000 protesters began a march in the streets of Lima to reject the TLC, which they said will destroy Peruvian agriculture and industry through competition with US products. The night before, as Congress was debating the ratification, a group of political leaders from the party of nationalist former presidential candidate Ollanta Humala pushed their way into the Congress building and forced legislators to suspend the session for a half hour.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Thousands of Paraguayan campesinos continued to occupy estates and block roads during the week of July 17 to demand that the government of President Nicanor Duarte Frutos address the problems they face. The protests began on July 12 as part of a National Campaign for Integral Agrarian Reform.

On July 19, at least 800 campesinos from the National Coordinating Committee of Campesino Organizations (MCNOC) blocked Route 8 at a crossroads in Numi district, on the border between Guaira and Caazapa departments. Police responded with violent repression: in a communique issued the same day, MCNOC reported that eight people were badly hurt and taken to the hospital in Villarrica, Guaira, including a man with a serious head injury; 51 people were detained at the Villarrica police station, including children, a pregnant woman and two MCNOC leaders; and 200 campesinos, men and women, "were savagely tortured for more than two hours, naked, face down," by police and possibly soldiers. (MCNOC communique, July 19 via Minga Informativa de Movimientos Sociales; Adital, Brazil, July 20; La Nacion, Paraguay, July 20)

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On June 8, Peruvian campesinos held a day of protest against the Andean Free Trade Agreement (known in the region as the Free Trade Treaty, or TLC) which Peru's government signed with the US last December. (The regional pact includes Colombia and Ecuador, but the US has carried out negotiations with each country separately, and the talks with Ecuador have been suspended since March.) Hundreds of campesinos marched on the Panamerican South highway in Chincha, Ica region, blocking traffic for hours. The campesinos are demanding that Peru's Congress make changes to the pact so it won't hurt small-scale farmers, especially those producing cotton and corn. More than 3,000 campesinos marched to the central plaza of Tarapoto, in San Martin region, from areas including Altomayo and Huallaga Central. They threw rice during the protest to draw attention to the negative impact the TLC will have on Peruvian rice producers. (Cadena Peruana de Noticias, June 8) On June 7 or 8, before the protests began, the Constitution Commission of Peru's Congress ruled out holding a referendum on the TLC. (Adital, June 8)