from Weekly News Update on the Americas

OIL STRIKE IN AMAZON

The Ecuadoran government decreed a state of emergency in the Amazon provinces of Napo, Orellana and Sucumbios on March 8, two days into a strike that shut down oil production in the region. The 4,000 striking workers were employed by subcontractors to provide maintenance, security, transport, clean-up and construction for the state oil company Petroecuador. The workers are owed three months worth of salaries by the subcontractors, who have themselves not been paid by Petroecuador since last September. On March 7, the workers shut down six major oil facilities in the region; the same day, army soldiers used tear gas bombs to eject the strikers from several oil company sites. The workers released three of the sites on March 11 and ended the strike on March 12 after the government promised to arrange payment of the debts and to release three arrested strike leaders. The state of emergency was to be lifted gradually beginning on March 13. (Agencia Pulsar, March 8; AP, March 8, 12; El Comercio, Quito, March 11)

From Knight-Ridder, March 21:

BOGOTA, Colombia - It's pretty easy to tell when Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is angry. The bespectacled president usually airs his grievances in public, particularly against errant generals in his army.

From EFE, March 16:

Bolivia’s attorney general filed charges Thursday against three ex-presidents and eight former energy ministers for signing contracts with foreign petroleum firms that violated the laws of the Andean nation. The accusations are directed against Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, Jorge Quiroga and Carlos Mesa.

Paula Palmer writes for Global Response Action Alerts:

In late January at the World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuelan indigenous leaders asked Global Response to support them in their struggle to stop construction of open-pit coal mines in their territories. I joined them in an all-day march through the streets of Caracas, carrying banners saying "No al Carbon!" (No to Coal).

From Prensa Latina, March 8:

A call to return illegally owned lands was launched by Bolivia´s President Evo Morales, while warning his administration will put an end to unproductive large landed estates.

Coca Eradication Brings War to Endangered National Parks

by Memo Montevino

Last June, following months of political contest between the administration of President Alvaro Uribe and environmentalists, Colombia's government announced that the aerial spraying of glyphosate to wipe out coca crops would be extended to the country's national parks. Claiming 11 of Colombia's 49 national parks had been invaded by cocaleros, Uribe named three parks slated for imminent fumigation: Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria, a northern snow-capped peak which is a UN-recognized biosphere reserve; and two in the lush cloud-forests where the eastern Andean slopes fall towards the Amazon basin. This cloud forest belt is the most biodiverse zone of Colombia, and among the most conflicted. These two parks—Cataumbo, in Norte de Santander department, and La Macarena in Meta—are both in areas hotly contested by Colombia's military and guerillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

CAUCA: ARMY KILLS CIVILIANS

On Jan. 8, Colombian army troops from the No. 26 Cacique Piguanza Infantry Battalion, headed by Lt. Hoyos, shot to death 17-year-old Hortensia Neyid Tunja Cuchumbe and Manuel Antonio Tao Pillimue and wounded William Jose Cunacue Medina in Inza municipality, in the southern department of Cauca. On the night of Jan. 7 Tunja left her home in the community of San Antonio, accompanied by Cunacue, to attend a party in the nearby community of Belen. At 4 AM Tunja's mother was informed by neighbors that her daughter was wounded on the road about 100 meters from Belen. When the mother arrived, she found her daughter dead, lying face down on the side of the road with bullet holes in her body. Uniformed and hooded soldiers threatened Tunja's mother and told her that her daughter was a leftist rebel who had been killed along with a rebel "commander." The soldiers then forced the mother to leave her daughter's body at the site and go to Belen; they claimed they were waiting for officials from the attorney general's office to come to the site to officially record the deaths.

Hugo Chavez threatens to cut oil to the US at the same time that he makes it available at a subsidized rate to low-income US consumers. Capitol Hill Republicans go apoplectic that a developing country could stand up to Uncle Sam while making shrewd overtures to the working people of the United States. Sometimes Chavez really seems to have his eye on the ball, even if we don't like his bluster about building nuclear power plants. From AP, Feb. 27: