At the Summit of the Americas, President Obama announced approval of Colombia’s supposed progress in protecting labor rights, allowing the Free Trade Agreement to take effect next month—to protests of the country’s embattled trade unions.
Revelations that Secret Service agents protecting Obama at the Cartagena summit hired local sex workers puts Colombia briefly in the news—while the four car bombs that went off during the summit barely rate a mention.
Much of Peru’s northern Andean region of Cajamarca was shut down in a 24-hour civil strike or paro, the latest action in the protest campaign against the US-owned Conga gold-mining project.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is hearing a case involving a “dirty war” atrocity in which President Ollanta Humala was implicated—sparking a frenzy of conspiracy theories among Peru’s political class.
Over the past 10 years, more than 40% of Colombia’s national territory has come under the control of multinational corporations for oil, mineral and biofuel production—part of what critics decry as a global land-grab.
Nine miners were rescued after six days trapped in a tunnel at an “informal” copper mine in Peru. President Ollanta Humala said the incident points to the dangers of informal mines—but several such disasters have recently struck legal mines.
In a YouTube statement, Colombia’s FARC guerillas responded to reports that they have been weakened, and asserted that the rebels’ “struggle for a socialist Colombia” is legitimized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Ecologists say “marine bubble” technology used in offshore oil explorations is behind the mysterious dolphin die-off on the Peruvian coast. An estimated 3,000 dolphins have washed up on the coast so far this year.
Hundreds of National Police and army troops have been mobilized to Peru’s northern Andean region of Cajamarca ahead of an announced resumption of the civil strike there in opposition to the Conga gold mining project.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) released the last 10 members of the security forces they were holding captive—but over 400 civilians remain held in the guerillas’ jungle camps, receiving less priority from the government.
A Colombian judge overturned the conviction of FARC commander “Grannobles,” finding he could not be held responsible for the deaths of civilians in a Colombian air force strike on a village where he killed captive soldiers.
Colombia’s armed forces boast of wiping out FARC guerilla forces on the eastern plains, winning international coverage. But ongoing paramilitary terror against campesinos seeking restitution of usurped lands gets no coverage outside Colombia.
