Despite the mobilization of some 500 National Police troops, the streets of towns in Colombia’s northern Urabá region have been cleared by threats from Los Urabeños paramilitary network, which has declared an “armed strike.”
More than 950 relatives of inmates launched a protest occupation of a Venezuelan prison over the New year holiday, saying they will refuse to leave the facility until authorities agree to their demand for faster trials for their loved ones.
Protests in Peru’s north-central region of Cajamarca resumed with a thousand gathering in the city square to protest against the Conga gold mining project. The regional council voted to declare the project “unviable.”
Peruvian authorities finally allowed paroled US citizen Lori Berenson to leave for a brief visit to her family in New York; meanwhile, ex-president Alberto Fujimori is hoping to get a pardon.
Even as the White House censures Venezuelan officials for “narco-terrorist” ties, the Hugo Chávez government handed a top Colombian drug trafficking suspect, Maximiliano Bonilla Orozco AKA “Valenciano,” over to US authorities.
Peru’s President Ollanta Humala called off the state of emergency in Cajamarca region after local leaders agreed to suspend their civil strike against Newmont Mining Corp.’s Conga gold project pending talks with the government.
The Colombian Armed Forces have created three new “joint task forces” aimed at targeting the core of the FARC guerilla army, in what the government is plugging as a final offensive against Latin America’s oldest insurgency.
A deliberate strategy by Colombia’s former intelligence agency to undermine NGOs and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has been revealed in secret documents. The Administrative Security Department (DAS) was recently disbanded.
Peru’s Prime Minister Salomón Lerner resigned after failed attempts to negotiate an end to the Cajamarca protests—to be replaced by Oscar Valdés, a former army officer who as interior minister has overseen the police repression in Cajamarca.
Following an appeal from Christian Salazar, representative to Colombia for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the FARC rebels said they will go ahead with plans for the unilateral release of “war prisoners.”
President Ollanta Humala of Peru went on national TV to announce that he has imposed a state of emergency in Cajamarca region, the scene of a general strike in opposition to a mega-scale mining project that threatens local water resources.
Some 400 protesters clashed with police as they attempted to occupy the site of the planned Conga gold mine in Peru’s highland region of Cajamarca. Protesters say they will keep up their regional strike until the project is cancelled.
