from Weekly News Update on the Americas

AMNESTY LAW PASSES

On June 20, the last day of ordinary sessions for the Colombian Congress, the Senate approved the "Justice and Peace" law, which paves the way for a "demobilization" and amnesty process under negotiation with the country's right-wing paramilitaries since last July. The law grants the paramilitaries political status, allowing them to potentially benefit from pardons. Under the demobilization program, paramilitary commanders are supposed to confess all their crimes in order to benefit from reduced sentences of 4-8 years in prison. The Chamber of Representatives approved the law on June 21 in an extraordinary session. Colombia's right-wing paramilitaries have historically been strongly supported by the state. (El Nuevo Herald, Miami, June 21 from AP; Inter Press Service, June 22)

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On May 21, residents of the northern Ecuadoran provinces of Sucumbios and Orellana began an open-ended civic strike to demand improvements to roads, schools, housing and health care in the region, which borders on Colombia and Peru. The protesters seized 114 oil wells on nine fields operated by the state-run oil company Petroecuador and blocked access roads to oil facilities, forcing a shutdown of drilling and repair work.

As the strike continued on May 25, President Alfredo Palacio declared a 60-day state of emergency in Sucumbios and Orellana, deeming the oil region a "security territory." The state of emergency allows the restriction of certain civil rights. (La Jornada, Mexico, May 25; AP, May 26)

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

HUALLAGA VALLEY: COCALEROS CLASH WITH COPS

On May 29 in Tocache province, in the Huallaga valley of San Martin in north central Peru, at least 3,500 campesino coca growers (cocaleros) armed with sticks surrounded a group of 230 police agents charged with carrying out coca leaf eradication operations. According to police, the resulting clash left 17 agents hurt--one by a bullet, the rest by beatings. Twenty cocaleros were injured; Tocache mayor Nancy Zagerra said three of them are in serious condition with bullet wounds. (La Jornada, Mexico, May 31 from DPA)

Ecologists Warn of Disaster as U.S. Sprays Glyphosate in Threatened National Parks

by Daniel Leal and combined sources

In the past few months, the people of Quibdo, capital city of the Colombian Pacific coast department of Choco, have observed daily the landing at their local airport of helicopters and small aircraft, packed with "gringos" from Plan Colombia and their Colombian associates.

They have come with one objective: to spray the illicit crops located in the huge territory of Choco. In the Feb. 11 edition of the Colombian news magazine Semana, Choco journalist Alejo Restrepo, writes that biodiversity and watersheds of the region are threatened by this chemical assault.

A Father Waits for Justice as Deadly Accident Reveals Air-Interception Exercises

A tragic air accident on Peru's northern coastline in August of 2001 cost the lives of two exemplary pilots, one Peruvian and one American. It received little notice at the time. But a WW4 REPORT investigation into the incident has exposed a series of blunders, mysterious official silence from both Lima and Washington, and finally a trail of corruption extending from the hand of Peru's former intelligence czar Vladimir Montesinos--now convicted on multiple corruption charges--to the U.S. State Department. The regime of Peru's authoritarian President Alberto Fujimori, ousted in November 2000, is now widely recognized to have allowed drug flights to get through, and the U.S.-coordinated program to shoot the flights down was officially suspended after the embarrassing downing of an innocent missionary plane in April 2001. But training for the program apparently continued at least through 2003 and the State Department won't talk. The father of the Peruvian pilot killed in the 2001 accident wants to know why. And since your tax-dollars may be funding a clandestine military operation in South America that violates official policy--you should too.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

CAUCA: FARC SEIZE INDIGENOUS TOWNS

Around 5 AM on April 14, hundreds of rebels from the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) simultaneously attacked the neighboring municipalities of Jambalo and Toribio in southern Cauca department and fired homemade rockets and other weapons at police. About 98% of the residents of the two municipalities are Nasa indigenous people; their communities have always been clear in rejecting the presence of armed groups in their territory. Toribio is an important town for the Nasa: the Nasa Project, an autonomous indigenous development program, is based there, and Toribio mayor Arquimedes Vitonas is a respected Nasa leader. Vitonas headed a delegation that was held captive for two weeks by the FARC last year.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

PUBLIC OUSTS PRESIDENT GUTIERREZ

On April 19, some 50,000 Ecuadorans--including entire families with children--marched peacefully through the capital, Quito, from La Carolina park to Carondelet, the government palace. They carried Ecuadoran flags, sang the national anthem and chanted "Everyone out"--a demand for the removal of all the politicians and government officials, including President Lucio Gutierrez Borbua. (Servicio Informativo "Alai-amlatina," April 20; ALTERCOM, April 20)

Gutierrez had fired the entire Supreme Court on April 15; on April 18, the 100-member Congress voted 89-0 to ratify the court's dismissal and declare a "judicial vacancy" until agreement can be reached on a non-partisan mechanism for electing judges. Congress declined to invalidate the Supreme Court's April 1 decision to annul corruption trials against ex-presidents Abdala Bucaram (1996-1997) and Gustavo Noboa (2000-2003), and ex-vice president Alberto Dahik (1992-1995). The annulling of the trials, and the three fugitives' subsequent return to Ecuador, were the sparks that set off the current round of protests in Quito. (Prensa Ecumenica/Inter Press Service, April 19)

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's brief Latin American visit covered five countries: Brazil on April 26, Colombia on April 27, Chile April 28-29 and El Salvador in the evening of April 29; she returned to Washington on April 30. According to unnamed "U.S. officials," the trip was intended to forge a new alliance with the growing number of left-leaning Latin American governments. (New York Times, April 27; BBC News, April 30; Miami Herald, April 28, 29, May 1)

Rice was also trying to isolate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who had confirmed on April 24 that Venezuela was ending a longstanding military exchange program with the U.S. "Any exchange of officers...is suspended until who knows when," he said on his weekly television program. "There will be no more joint operations or anything like that." Chavez said some US exchange officers, if not all, had been "carrying on a little campaign" against him "within the Venezuelan military institution." He also revealed that several months earlier a US woman had been arrested and then released when she was spotted secretly photographing a Venezuelan military base; her documents showed she was a US naval officer. (La Jornada, April 25 from AFP, DPA, Reuters]