Charging a "Plan of Extermination" by all actors in Colombia's armed conflict, traditional indigenous authorities in southwest Cauca region on Jan. 22 protested the "assassination" two days earlier of Nasa indigenous leader Rafael Mauricio Girón Ulchur at the village of Jámbalo. The statement said Girón had been ambushed while riding his motorcycle, and that the gunmen were FARC guerillas who fled into the bush after the slaying. The statement charged that he had been targeted for advocating a "Plan of Life" based on indigenous territorial rights, self-determination and protection of natural resources as an alternative to the peace plan being worked out by FARC and government negotiators in Havana, Cuba. It noted that the assassination came the same day that the FARC officially declared an end to the unilateral ceasefire instated for the Havana talks. (ACIN, Jan. 22)

Jan. 12 saw a new mobilization in the northern Peruvian city of Cajamarca against the pending Conga mining project, with some 1,000 local campesinos and their supporters filling the Plaza de Armas with music, banners and slogans. Participants accused the Yanacocha mining company of "intending to privatize" the region's water resources, and of being complicit in the "criminalization of protest." Residents of the community of Baños del Inca proclaimed their readiness to occupy La Shacsa, a nearby mountain within Yanacocha's active concession area, if the Conga project moves ahead. The march was convened by Wilfredo Saavedra, leader of the Cajamarca Environmental Defense Front. (Servindi, Jan. 15)

In the first sign of a thaw in relations between the US and Venezuela, the Caracas government is weighing a request from Washington to allow a high-level DEA official to visit the South American country. Venezuela's ambassador to the Organization of American States, Roy Chaderton, told the Associated Press Jan. 18: "We are open to improving  relations with the United States, but we are not seeking in this overture a good conduct certification on the part of the government or congress of the United States." The US has for the past four years "blacklisted" Venezuela for its alleged failure to take measures against drug trafficking. Chaderton and US deputy assistant secretary of state Kevin Whittaker met in late 2012 in an effort to improve relations between their countries. (AP via Fox News Latino, Jan. 19; Informe, Zulia, Globovision, Caracas, Jan. 18)

Guerillas of Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN) abducted five gold prospectors working for a Canadian company on an exploratory mission in Norosi municipality, Bolívar department, Jan. 19. One of the seized men was from Canada, two from Peru and two from Colombia. Toronto-based Braeval Mining said the three company employees and two consultants were working at its Snow Mine project, where the company is seeking gold, silver and copper. The area, in the San Lucas mountains, is a traditional ELN stronghold. President Juan Manuel Santos announced the following day that three suspected guerillas believed to have taken part in the abduction had been captured. Unlike the larger FARC guerilla organization, now in talks with the government, the ELN has not disavowed ransom kidnappings. (AP, Jan. 21; Fox News Latino, Jan. 19)

Colombia's FARC rebels on Jan. 20 announced the immediate end of a two-month unilateral ceasefire and renewed their call for a bilateral truce to hold peace talks with the government "in a tranquil environment." The FARC had offered to extend the truce if the Colombian government signed a bilateral ceasefire, but President Juan Manuel Santos rejected that idea from the start. Speaking to press in Havana, the leader of the FARC's negotiating team, "Ivan Márquez," said that "with pain in our hearts we must admit that we return to the time of military warfare that nobody wants." Santos responded at a public event in Padilla, a village in southwestern Cauca department hard hit by fighting: "The armed forces, like our army, air force, navy and police, know exactly what to do come tomorrow."

Bolivia was re-admitted to the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs Jan. 11—with a special dispensation recognizing the traditional use of coca leaf as legal within its borders, to officially take effect in one month. Official celebrations are planned for the victory in La Paz and Cochabamba next week. Fifteen countries objected to Bolivia's dispensation—far short of the 62 needed to have blocked it, a third of the 183 signatory states. The dissenting governments were the United States, UK, Russia, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Israel and Ireland. An official US statement said the administration continues to believe that coca legalization "will lead to a greater supply of cocaine and increased cocaine trafficking and related crime."

Peru's Minister of Mines and Energy, Jorge Merino, assured international investors Dec. 21 that his government will make every effort to see the controversial Conga and Tía María mining projects move forward in 2013. The two projects, in Cajamarca and Arequipa region, respectivamente, have both been suspended after campesino protests.  The pledge is part of the Ollanta Humala government's plan to attract $10 million in mining investment in 2013, $10 million more than this year. Merino also vowed to build new compression plants to expand the capacity of the trans-Andean Camisea gas pipeline from 1,200 cubic feet to 1,600. (El Comercio, Dec. 21)

On Dec. 19, some 6,000 campesinos and their supporters filled the streets of Chiclayo, capital of Peru's northern Lambayeque region, demanding the repeal of the National Water Authority's resolutions  089-2012 and 090-2012, which authoritize La Zanja mining company to begin dumping waste water in the canyons of La Pampa and El Cedro, inland across the border in Cajamarca region. These canyons empty into the Río Chancay, which flows back into Lambayeque (where it joins with the Río Reque to meet the sea near Chiclayo). The rally concluded at the Lambayeque regional government headquaters, where representatives of different organizations making up the Lambayeque Unitary Struggle Command (CULL) delivered a message to regional president Humberto Acuña Peralta, demanding that he take immediate action to protect the waters of the Río Chancay.