From SOA Watch, Oct. 12, via Upside Down World: We are very excited to share that President Evo Morales announced Tuesday that Bolivia will gradually withdraw its military from the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as… Read moreBolivia pulls out of SOA
Local Colombian officials have accused two US soldiers, Michael J. Cohen and César Ruiz, of sexually assaulting a 12 year-old girl on Aug. 25. The soldiers are stationed at the Tolemaida Airbase near Melgar, Tolima, as part of Plan Colombia…. Read moreColombia: US troops accused in sexual assault of girl, 12
On Oct. 12 Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez joined Colombian president Alvaro Uribe in Ballenas, in the northern Colombian department of La Guajira, to inaugurate the 224 km Trans-Oceanic Gas Pipeline, which will bring as much… Read moreAndean states sign pipeline pact
At least 21 Afro-Colombian barequeros, or small-scale miners, are dead and 28 others injured after a hillside collapsed Oct. 13 following several days of heavy rains on the banks of the Rio Cauca, near Suarez, Cauca department. The open-pit mine… Read moreColombian gold miners killed in landslide
An Oct. 13 New York Times story, “Energy Crunch Threatens South American Nations,” poses the problem in terms of “growth…outpacing fuel supplies”—but actually sheds much light on the continent’s political fault lines, which persist despite the predominance of populist or… Read moreEnergy populism divides South American nations
From the Colombia Support Network (CSN), Oct. 12: The Colombia Support Network (CSN) has received word from the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó that two members of the Peace Community, Arley Tuberquia and Martha Basquez, were detained by… Read moreColombian peasant pacifists detained by Israeli authorities
In several radio interviews Oct. 9, Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe charged the country’s Supreme Court offered benefits including a reduced sentence to imprisoned paramilitary commander José Moncada in exchange for testifying that the president ordered the killing of another incarcerated… Read moreColombia: high court accuses Uribe of obstruction in paramilitary case
On Oct. 10, rural popular organizations mobilized in several regions of Colombia, marching towards the capitals of their respective departments. They are protesting the pending free trade agreement with the United States, legislation which would roll back Colombia’s agrarian reform… Read moreColombia: national campesino mobilization follows threats, detentions
Commemorations taking place nearly throughout Latin America 40 years after the death of Ernesto "Che" Guevara on Oct. 8, 1967, indicate just how much the world has changed since then—for better and for worse. Most significantly, in Bolivia—where he met… Read moreChe Guevara legacy contested 40 years after his death
A federal judge in Washington DC declared a mistrial Oct. 4 in the cocaine trafficking trial of Colombian guerilla leader Ricardo Palmera, AKA Simón Trinidad. AP writes: “The US government had hoped a conviction would underscore its view that the… Read moreMistrial declared in US case against FARC leader —again
From Editor & Publisher, Oct. 5: Gonzalo Guillen, a reporter for The Miami Herald’s Spanish-language daily El Nuevo Herald, has fled Colombia after President Alvaro Uribe accused him of ghost-writing a book linking the president to the notorious drug dealer… Read moreReporter flees Colombia following Uribe-Escobar link claims
On Sept. 25 the Ways and Means Committee of the US House of Representatives voted to approve the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement (FTA, or TLC in Spanish), moving the agreement closer to approval by the full Congress. The bilateral trade… Read morePeru FTA moves forward in Washington —despite protests
