Under pressure from a citizen mobilization for peace, Colombia's government is scrambling to revive the FARC disarmament and demobilization process after it nearly broke down.
Enemies of Colombia's peace process are dealt propaganda assistance by the fact that as the long civil war has wound down, coca leaf production in the country has been soaring.
President Evo Morales signed into a law a bill passed by Bolivia's congress that nearly doubles the area of national territory open to coca leaf cultivation for the legal market.
Hundreds of peasant coca-growers shut down a main highway through southern Colombia to oppose the government's renewed "forced eradication" campaign in the region.
Gen. John Kelly, Trump's choice for Homeland Security secretary, is ex-chief of the Pentagon's Southern Command who clashed with Obama over his hardline views.
Peru's new defense minister, Jorge Nieto Montesinos, announced that he will focus on wiping out remnant Shining Path guerillas operating in the country's main coca-producing region.
Bolivia broached legislation that would impose criminal penalties for illict coca cultivation—just as the government has turned to Russia for military and anti-narcotics aid.
Five campesino leaders were assassinated by presumed paramilitary hitmen on the same day that the Colombian government's official ceasefire with the FARC took effect.
Outlaw mining operations are a growing sideline for Colombia's narco networks, in a nexus with paramilitaries and companies operating on the margins of the law.
Once again, gains against coca production in one of the two big Andean producers have only squeezed production into the other one, in a case of the "balloon effect."
Amid moves toward peace in Colombia, the goad of the war—the country's lucrative cocaine trade—clearly remains robust, as record-breaking hauls are reported.
Colombia's Defense Ministry announced that it will resume use of glyphosate to eradicate coca crops—less than a year after suspending the program on cancer concerns.
