Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos announced Sept. 4 that his government and the FARC guerrilla organization have signed an agreement to start peace negotiations. In a televised speech, Santos said the talks will consist of three phases. In phase one, which has been concluded, "we defined a closed agenda, rules and procedures to move forward," Santos said. The second phase, to begin now, "will be a discussion, without interruptions and without intermediaries, about agreed points to reach the final agreement." The third, post-conflict phase will consist of "the simultaneous implementation of all agreements, with the appropriate safeguards, verification mechanisms and citizen participation." Five points for the talks have been outlined: rural development, guarantees for political participation, an immediate end of the armed conflict, drug trafficking, and victims' rights. Santos said these points "constitute an integral formula for the effective termination of the conflict and to advance the construction of a stable and lasting peace."

A retired Colombian army general accused by prosecutors of forming a "macabre alliance" with illegal paramilitary groups was sentenced to 25 years in prison Aug. 24 in connection with the 1997 murder of a peasant leader. The sentencing of former general Rito Alejo del Río Rojas brings closure to a case that has long languished in the Colombian justice system and focuses renewed attention on the collaboration between top military officers and paramilitaries affiliated with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

Colombia's Prosecutor General said Aug. 28 that judicial authorities are weighing whether to request that the US extradite back a former top-ranking army and National Police officer who one week earlier was arraigned before a federal court in Virginia. Gen. Mauricio Santoyo, security chief to Colombia's then-president Álvaro Uribe from 2002-2006, pleaded guilty to collaborating with the outlawed AUC paramilitary network, while pleading not guilty to drug trafficking charges. Santoyo is accused of providing the AUC with intelligence from wiretaps and other sources about suspected guerilla collaborators.The AUC, officially demobilized in 2006, is considered a terrorist organization by the US. Support of terrorist organizations holds a maximum penalty of 30 years. Santoyo, who arranged his surrender to the DEA in Bogotá in June, will be sentenced in November. He still faces no charges in Colombia.

A massive gas leak explosion at Venezuela's sprawling Amuay refinery on Aug. 25 killed 48 people and badly damaged 1,600 homes—the worst industrial disaster in the country's history, and the worst refinery accident anywhere on Earth in over a decade. The refinery on the Paraguana Peninsula (see map) is South America's largest and one of the world's largest, run by the state oil company PDVSA. Hundreds of residents of the poor Alí Primera and La Pastora districts near the facility have been left homeless. As the inferno blazed for four days, prompting an exodus from the stricken districts, gangs of looters descended, breaking into the still-standing homes to carry away refrigerators and TV sets. Opposition critics charge that PDVSA failed to carry out maintenance work or improve safety standards following a string of accidents and unplanned outages at the refinery in recent years.

A reconstituted paramilitary group, "Los Rastrojos Urban Commandos," made a series of death threats the week of Aug. 13 against members of four human rights organizations and one union in Barrancabermeja in the northern Colombian department of Santander. The first threats came in a manila envelope found on Aug. 14 at the home of human rights activist Himad Choser. The envelope contained a 9 mm bullet and a pamphlet by "Los Rastrojos" declaring Choser an enemy because he had been "denouncing and attacking our economic structure, based on drug trafficking in the region." The pamphlet described Choser as "at the service of the FARC," the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The pamphlet also named four organizations and the National Union of Food Industry Workers (SINALTRAINAL) as collaborators with Choser.

A group of former employees of GM Colmotores, the Colombian subsidiary of the Detroit-based General Motors Company (GM), announced on the morning of Aug. 24 that they had agreed to enter into mediation to resolve a dispute with the company. As part of the agreement, they were ending a liquids-only hunger strike that 12 workers started on Aug. 1 to pressure Colmotores to reinstate them and compensate them for injuries. They said that until the dispute was settled, they would continue an encampment in front of the US embassy in Bogotá which they have maintained for more than a year.

The comunarios (communal peasants) of Marka La Joya, on the morning of Aug. 21 initiated an occupation of the installations of the Inti Raymi Mining Company at La Titina, outside the Altiplano city of Oruro, in protest of the pollution of local water sources with cyanide and other toxins. Traditional Aymara authorities of the ayllus (agricultural communities) of Jach'a Carangas, Jakisa, Sura and Uru, which together constitute  Marka La Joya, charged that the government of President Evo Morales and the Plurinational Legislative Assembly are making laws that favor the mineral industry, without the involvement of indigenous communities impacted by mining projects. "We view with profound concern...that the government, through the corresponding ministries, has drawn up—without consultation—the projects of the Mining Laws, the Rights of Mother Earth, Water, Prior Consultation...without the participation of social sectors, and especially of the indigenous nations and original peoples," the statement read. (OCMAL, OIDEC, Aug. 21; La Opinón, Cochabamba, Aug. 20)