Henry Castellanos GarzĂłn, AKA “Romaña,” a leader of Colombia’s FARC guerillas, was sentenced in absentia to 22 years in prison—a year after Colombian authorities reported that he had been killed in an army raid.
Five ZenĂş indigenous people were killed in the Lower Cauca region June 24-26 in the communities of La 18 and La UniĂłn-Pato in Zaragoza municipality, according to the Colombian Ombudsperson’s Office.
The Colombian army admitted that a man killed weeks earlier in the eastern department of Arauca—originally reported to be a “financial leader” of the FARC guerillas—was actually the noncombatant leader of a local indigenous community.
Venezuela’s Telecommunications Commission has opened sanction proceedings against news channel Globovision, accused of spreading “anxiety in the population” by broadcasting images of the deadly violence at El Rodeo prison.
Indigenous protest leader Walter Aduviri in Puno, Peru, announced a halt to the civil strike that has paralyzed the region for more than 40 days—and called for reconstitution of the “Aymara nation,” now divided between Peru, Bolivia and Chile.
Regional leaders across Peru have issued a demand that outgoing President Alan GarcĂa be investigated for the serial acts of deadly repression in his six-year term. The call comes after new deadly violence in Puno and Huancavelica.
Bolivia is to start delivering increased volumes of natural gas to Argentina though a new pipeline starting at the end of this month, in what leaders hailed as a key step in South America’s alternative integration.
Amid protests over food prices, Bolivia’s Evo Morales government instated a new law to achieve “food sovereignty” and protect the campesino sector. But is a sop to agbiz, the law also lifts restrictions on GMO crops.
Representatives of the Aymara protest movement in southern Peru’s Puno region met with leaders of the mining ministry in Lima, who agreed in principle to put a halt to the operation that sparked the protests.
Obama and congressional leaders “are within striking distance of a deal” to ratify free trade accords with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, says Chamber of Commerce president Thomas Donohue.
Walter Aduviri, leader of the Aymara protest movement in Peru’s conflicted Puno region, launched a protest vigil at the congress chambers in Lima, demanding his right to address the body, after an arrest warrant against him was dropped.
Rolando Páucar of the Lima-based Institute for the Investigation of Energy and Development (IEDES) hailed Peru’s cancellation of the mega-scale Inambari hydro-electric plant, but called for development of nuclear power as an alternative.
