from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On Jan. 5, paramilitaries who identified themselves as members of the "Autodefensas del Llano" (Plains Self-Defense) group murdered four people in the community of Matabambu, in Puerto Lleras municipality, in the southern Colombian department of Meta. The victims were campesinos Arelis Diaz, Alcibiades Pachon, Luis Guillermo Gonzales and Rafael Quinto Orjuela Diaz. The paramilitaries also forcibly disappeared four siblings--Rafael, Amir, Yurley and Esteban Rodriguez--from the La Laguna farm owned by Rafael Rodriguez in Matabambu. The two youngest siblings are minors: Yurley is 17 and Esteban is 13. Among the paramilitaries were two men recognized as active duty soldiers from the army's Counter-Guerrilla Battalion No. 42.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On Dec. 20, a group of about 20 guerrillas from the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) rebel group ambushed a police contingent and killed eight agents in Aucayacu, Leoncio Prado province, in the central Peruvian region of Huanuco. On Dec. 5, alleged Sendero rebels ambushed two police vehicles farther south in the Apurimac river valley, killing five police agents and wounding a police agent and a prosecutor.

President Alejandro Toledo responded to the attacks on Dec. 21 by decreeing a 60-day state of emergency in the jungle provinces of Maranon, Huacaybamba, Leoncio Prado and Huamalies in Huanuco region, Tocache in San Martin region and Padre Abad in Ucayali region. The decree, which took effect on Dec. 23, allows the armed forces to take control of the provinces and suspends certain constitutional rights, including freedom from unwarranted searches and the rights to free assembly and travel. (Resumen Latinoamericano, Dec. 27; Miami Herald, Dec. 23; El Nuevo Herald, Dec. 24, 25; AP, Dec. 23)

by Benjamin Dangl

After winning a landslide victory on Dec. 18th, Bolivian president-elect Evo Morales announced plans to nationalize the country's gas reserves, rewrite the constitution in a popular assembly, redistribute land to poor farmers and change the rules of the US-led War on Drugs in Bolivia. If he follows through on such promises, he'll face enormous pressure from the Bush administration, corporations and international lenders. If he chooses a more moderate path, Bolivia's social movements are likely to organize the type of protests and strikes that have ousted two presidents in two years. In the gas-rich Santa Cruz region, business elites are working toward seceding from the country to privatize the gas reserves. Meanwhile, US troops stationed in neighboring Paraguay may be poised to intervene if the Andean country sways too far from Washington's interests. For Bolivian social movements and the government, 2006 will likely be a trial by fire.

Chavez Bloc Races with Oil Cartel to Grid the Continent

by Bill Weinberg

As the left-populist Evo Morales takes office in Bolivia, a clear anti-imperialist bloc is consolidating in South America, led by Venezulea's Hugo Chavez and also including Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and potentially Chile. Days before Morales was inaugurated Jan. 22, Chavez and other regional leaders met in Brasilia to announce ambitious plans for new gas and oil pipelines spanning the continent, linking national markets across vast areas of rainforest and towering mountains.

Now a race is on between a series of pipeline projects already being developed under the auspices of multinational corporations and the proposal unveiled at Brasilia: the first predicated on extracting resources from South America with the minimum return to the continent's inhabitants; the other on harnessing those resources to lift the continent's masses out of poverty.

You can almost feel blood pressures rising on Wall Street and in corporate board rooms. From Dow Jones Newswire, Jan. 23:

Bolivia Pres Names Cabinet; Marxist In Energy Post
Bolivian President Evo Morales on Monday announced his 16-member Cabinet, which includes a Marxist journalist to drive Bolivia's energy policy and a street protest leader to head the new Ministry of Water.

The appointment of Andres Soliz Rada as Minister of Hydrocarbons could signal a tough fight for the multinational gas and oil companies operating in Bolivia.

Days before the historic inauguration of Evo Morales in Bolivia, the Andean nation scored another victory—in its struggle against Bechtel, the California engineering giant which had sued the impoverished nation before a World Bank trade court to demand compensation for a water-system privatization contract cancelled by a popular uprising in 2000. Apparently sensing the turning tide, Bechtel has withdrawn its suit. This Jan. 19 account from The Democracy Center in Cochabamba:

Evo Morales was sworn in as Bolivia's president before assembled foreign dignitaries at the congressional building in La Paz Jan. 22, dressed in a sports jacket and white shirt but no tie. One day before, he celebrated with his indigenous supporters at the pre-Columbian ruins of Tiwanaku, dressed in full indigenous regalia, including a head-dress embroidered with the wiphala, symbol of the Quechua-Aymara peoples. This marked the first time that Bolivia's traditional indigenous authorities, known as mallkus (condors), handed over a staff of command and ceremonial vestments to a Bolivian president-elect. (IPS, Jan. 19)

From the AP, via Israel's Ha'aretz, Jan. 22:

CARACAS - Hundreds of Venezuelan intellectuals expressed "shock and consternation" in a public condemnation Saturday of allegedly anti-Semitic remarks made recently by President Hugo Chavez.