On July 25 US District Judge David Proctor in Birmingham, Alabama, dismissed a 2009 lawsuit seeking to hold the Alabama-based Drummond Co. Inc. coal company liable for killings by right-wing paramilitaries near a Drummond mine in Colombia. The suit, Balcero Giraldo v. Drummond Co., charged that the company had been paying the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which the US listed as a terrorist organization in 2001, to protect a rail line used to ship Drummond coal. Judge Proctor based his decision on the US Supreme Court's April 17 decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, which sharply restricted the use of the 1789 Alien Tort Statute for foreign nationals to sue for human rights violations that took place outside the US. Proctor ruled that under the Kiobel decision the plaintiffs would need to present sufficient evidence that the alleged crimes were planned in the US; the judge said they had failed to do so.

A court in Trujillo, Peru, issued a ruling July 23 absolving former National Police colonel Elidio Espinoza and nine troops who served under him in the deaths of four suspected "delinquents" in the coastal city in 2007. Espinoza, who was accused of operating a "death squad" within the National Police, had been sentenced to life in prison by the Public Ministry, the branch of Judicial Power with authority over government officials, for the crimes of kidnapping, homicide, and abuse of authority. After the ruling was issued, Espinoza led his supporters in a public celebration in Trujillo's Plaza de Armas. (Peru21, RPP, July 23)

This is too funny. Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles last week demanded that President Nicolás Maduro, political heir to Hugo Chávez, clarify his citizenship status: "Where were you born, Nicolás? Venezuelans want to know. Will you lie? Show your birth certificate." It began with the claim that Caracas-born Maduro—son of a Colombian mother and Venezuelan father—holds a dual Venezuelan-Colombian citizenship, which would disqualify him from the presidency. But it quickly escalated as the opposition began distributing a supposed facsimile of his birth certificate, showing that Maduro was born in Cúcuta, Colombia. The Colombian authorities (no friends of the chavistas, needless to say) immediately issued a statement dismissing the facsimile as a crude forgery. (Bloomberg, Aug. 2) This is made doubly amusing by the fact that during the presidential race last year, chavistas utilized ugly propaganda implying that Capriles' nativist creds were in question because of his Jewish ancestry.

After a lengthy dispute with global mega-firm AngloGold Ashanti, the people of the central Colombian town of Piedras passed a referendum July 23 to halt the mining company's ambitions in their municipality for good. AngloGold Ashanti (AGA) has consistently insisted that they "100% owned" the site at La Colosa near Piedras, Tolima, despite having been investigated for illegal mining activity earlier this year.  Of the potential 5,105 eligible voters, 2971 people voted against the company's plans while just 24 voted in support of AGA's mining plans. According to Law 134 of 1994, this decision is legally binding; at least a third of eligible voters took part and the motion was passed by at least 50% of the vote. AGA was defeated by a sweeping 99.1% of the vote.

Three of FARC’s most senior figures on Aug. 1 admitted that their rebel group  has made mistakes, an apparent step towards an apology for crimes committed by the guerillas. In an interview published on the rebel group's website, FARC commanders "Ivan Marquez," "Pablo Catatumbo" and "Rodrigo Granda" talked about the possibility of apologizing, something the FARC so far has refused to do in spite of numerous sentences for war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law. It is Catatumbo who admitted that "we have made mistakes, some serious indeed... I have no problem in telling a woman or a family: 'I feel sorry about the pain we have caused with the death of your loved one.'" 

On July 27, the day before Peru's independence day celebrations, the country's General Workers' Confederation (CGTP) and the activist network #Tomalacalle (Take the Streets) marched through the center of Lima, seizing avenues in defiance of riot police backed up with armored vehicles, to protest the new Civil Service Law passed earlier this month. CGTP secretary-general Mario Huamán pledges to launch a general civil strike in August to demand repeal of the law. The bill's passage in early July saw angry protests in cities throughout the country, with tear-gas used to disperse demonstrators in Arequipa and elsewhere. The law, introduced to Congress by President Ollanta Humala, limits collective bargaining for public-sector employees to work conditions and not wages, yet restricts the right to strike to only after "mediation or negotiation mechanisms have been exhausted." It also imposes strict evaluation measures the CGTP says threaten job security. Lawmaker Verónika Mendoza (Popular Action/Broad Front) is preparing a measure to have the law annulled as unconstitutional. (La Republica, July 28; Peru21, July 27; El Comercio, July 19; El Comercio, July 4; La Republica, July 3)

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos on July 25 intervened in the public hearing of the Constitutional Court to defend the Framework for Peace, a constitutional amendment that brought about peace talks with the FARC rebels. Rights groups, including the Colombian Commission of Jurists (CCJ), challenged the amendment because it vests the congress with the discretion to decide which acts of war are applicable to the justice system. According to the CCJ and Human Rights Watch (HRW), this discretion could lead to loopholes that allow violent criminals to escape justice. Santos defended the amendment as a vital prerequisite for peace, "Our commitment to the expectations and rights of the victims is serious," Santos said. "It's not about sacrificing justice to reach peace but how to achieve peace with the most justice." The representative for the CCJ responded, "In this case the cure could end up being worse than the disease." The Constitutional Court's decision has not yet been released.

The Penal Chamber of Peru's Supreme Court on July 21 affirmed its acquittal of imprisoned former intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos of homicide charges related to the 1997 military raid on the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima after it was seized by guerillas of the now-defunct Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). Two commandos, one hostage, and all 14 of the guerillas were killed in the operation, code-named "Chavín de Huantar." Two commandos who oversaw the operaiton, Nicolás Hermoza Ríos and Roberto Huamán Azcurra, were also cleared of homicide charges in the ruling. The three had been acquitted last October, but prosecutors requested a review of the earlier ruling on the basis of forensic evidence. The high court admitted that at least one of the "terrorists" (as the guerrillas are almost universally refered to in Peru's press), Eduardo Cruz Sánchez AKA "Tito," had been "executed"—shot to the head after he had already surrendered to the commandos. But the court found that it could not be determined who shot him, or if orders were given for the killing.