from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Some 200 Ecuadoran campesinos occupied the roads leading to the Coca-Payamino installation of the French oil company Perenco on the morning of June 19 to protest the company's "indifference" to the environmental damage they said it had caused. The campesinos came from three communities--15 de Abril, Asociacion Campesina Payamino and Asociacion Campesina Punino--in Orellana province in northeastern Ecuador. The campesinos said company representatives repeatedly failed to come to meetings called to resolve the problems.

During the morning the approximately 20 Ecuadoran soldiers that had been guarding the facility for the last three weeks were reinforced by 20 soldiers arriving in helicopters and by six local police agents coming on foot, according to local residents. The governor of Orellana and a ranking military officer also arrived and ordered the removal of the campesinos at noon. "The police and military forces repressed the campesinos by hurling a large number of tear gas grenades and shooting rubber bullets, resulting in two people wounded, two arrested and the end of the occcupation of the oil installation," the Human Rights Office of the Coca reported.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On June 1, Colombian chief federal prosecutor Mario Iguaran announced that an army platoon had deliberately killed 10 agents from a US-trained anti-narcotics unit of the Judicial Police Department (DIJIN) on May 22 in the village of Potreritos, Jamundi municipality, in Valle del Cauca department. "This was not a mistake, it was a crime--a deliberate, criminal decision," said Iguaran. "The army was doing the bidding of drug traffickers."

The police agents had arrived at the site of a planned raid when a platoon of 28 soldiers ambushed them. A ballistics investigator found that the soldiers fired 150 bullets and seven grenades at police. A civilian informant who led police to the raid scene, promising they would find a large stash of cocaine, was also killed with a bullet to the head. Gen. Carlos Alberto Ospina, the top commander of Colombia's armed forces, claimed the attack was an accident, and that soldiers had mistaken the agents for leftist rebels. But ballistic investigators said some of the victims were shot in the back and at a range of only a few yards. And when police reinforcements arrived at the scene with lights flashing, they were driven back by gunfire.

The dust is being blown off one of the more bizarre schemes to emerge from Washington's so-called "War on Drugs"—which is really a war on plants, on biotic life. Jeremy Bigwood writes for In These Times, June 6:

On April 16, the New York Times ran a full-page ad from contact lens producer Bausch and Lomb, announcing the recall of its "ReNu with MoistureLoc" rewetting solution, and warning the 30 million American wearers of soft contact lenses about Fusarium keratitis. This infection, first detected in Asia, has rapidly spread across the United States. It is caused by a mold-like fungus that can penetrate the cornea of soft contact lens wearers, causing redness and pain that can lead to blindness—requiring a corneal replacement.

Violent student protests in the historic town of Merida in Venezuela's high Andes seem to have accrued little international coverage. This very opinionated account from the very pro-Chavez Venezuela News Bulletin, May 31:

Riots and 'guarimbas' are running wild in southwestern Merida State, led by the delinquent student leader, United States CIA and "opposition" stooge Nixon Moreno.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Some 5,000 people marched in Quito on May 9 to demand that the government cancel its contract with the US oil company Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) within 15 days, and end all negotiations on the Andean Free Trade Agreement which the US is promoting with Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. Most of the marchers came from Ecuador's Amazon region and were also demanding approval of a law that would increase oil revenues to the six Amazon provinces by $0.50 per barrel. A group of about 100 protesters broke through police lines at the Carondelet presidential palace and tried to sing the national anthem in front of Independence Monument. But 300 riot police agents attacked the group, shoving journalists and spraying several protesters with some kind of colored liquid tear gas. (El Diario- La Prensa, NY, May 10 from EFE; Altercom, May 9)

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On May 1, in a ceremony at the San Alberto oilfield in Carapari, Tarija department, Bolivian president Evo Morales Ayma signed supreme decree 28.701, ordering the nationalization of the country's hydrocarbons resources. "The looting is over," Morales announced as he ordered the armed forces to seize control of all the oil and gas fields. With the decree, the Bolivian state "recovers the property, possession and total and absolute control of these resources," said Morales. Foreign companies now have six months to renegotiate their oil and gas contracts with the government; in the meantime they must give up control of their facilities and channel all sales through the newly refounded state oil company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB). Morales also ordered the confiscation of the shares necessary to guarantee more than 50% state control of the oil companies operating in Bolivia. (Resumen Latinoamericano, May 1; New York Times, May 2)

A "Secret Formula" Against Colombia's Guerillas?

by Paul Wolf

The US State Department has developed the secret formula to dismantle the armed groups of Colombia's war. Or so it believes. It is believed that the demobilization of 28,000 members of the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) was the result of threatening its leaders—notably Salvadore Mancuso and Don Berna—with extradition to the US.

Fear of extradition, accompanied by promises of amnesty, convinced large numbers of paramilitaries to lay down their arms, confess their crimes, and put their faith in the government to restore order in Colombia.

Bolivian Gas in State and Corporate Hands

by Benjamin Dangl

Years before the arrival of the Spanish, Bolivia's indigenous people used "magic water" to cure wounds and keep fires going. With the invention of the automobile in the 1880s this black liquid took on a new importance. Since then, the oil and gas has been more of a curse than a blessing for the Bolivian people. On May 1 of this year, the history of these resources entered a new phase.

Bolivian President Evo Morales announced that the oil and gas will be nationalized and put into the hands of the state-run oil and gas company, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos, (YPFB). Though what this nationalization plan truly entails may not be known for weeks, the move raises the question: will state control of resources be more beneficial to the Bolivian people than corporate control?