On Dec. 22, 4,000 Mayan indigenous people marched two and a half miles from Polho to Acteal, Mexico, to mark the one-year anniversary of the Acteal massacre, in which a Mexican government-trained paramilitary group slaughtered 45 people in a church in Acteal in Chiapas state. Most of the victims of the Acteal massacre were women and children. Earlier in the week, the Mexican justice department released a report showing that local Mexican police had trained and armed the paramilitary group responsible for the killings. Amnesty International has also documented paramilitary activity in the region over the past year and says that Mexican police and the military still work in close cooperation with paramilitary groups.--Maria Tomchick

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) claimed on Dec. 29 that they have killed Carlos Castano, head of a paramilitary organization blamed for massacres against peasants suspected of supporting FARC. Castano, the leader of a nationwide alliance of death squads known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), employed blood-thirsty tactics against peasant civilians, including: burning victims alive, skinning them alive, and mutilating and beheading them with chainsaws. Set up in the 1960s, Colombia's paramilitary groups were legally outlawed in the 1980s, but international human rights groups say the AUC continues to receive aid directly from the Colombian government. FARC says the AUC is part of a counter-insurgency movement originally set up by U.S. advisors under the cover of the "drug war." While the U.S. government claims that FARC is responsible for running drugs in Colombia, Castano and his AUC are widely known to be involved in drug trafficking and arms smuggling, as are many top members of the Colombian military. And the prime coca-growing regions of Colombia are in the south of the country, not the north, where FARC is based. Roughly 80% of the cocaine and 60% of the heroin sold in the U.S. comes from Colombia. Meanwhile, in 1998, Colombian police and military forces received $329 million in aid from the U.S. government--making Colombia one of the largest recipients of U.S. aid funds. Most of that money will be used to fight FARC, which has been active in Colombia for over 40 years and now controls almost half of the country.--M.T.

The Russian government is finally beginning an investigation into financial corruption within the Russian Central Bank, especially during the financial collapse last August. It's now widely acknowledged that the central bank used money that was supposed to be used to pay off state workers to bolster the value of the ruble instead. During a week-long period in August, the central bank propped up the economy just long enough for bankers and investors to close their own personal accounts and get their money out of the country before the ruble plunged in value. But that's not the end of it: more than 250,000 economic crimes have been committed in Russia this year, causing over $1 billion in damage, according to Russia's Interior Minister. Chief among these is non-payment of taxes by large businesses and corporations.--M.T.

After three years of preparations, the Tahitan government this fall put on trial several dozen of the protesters that managed to halt a series of French nuclear tests in September 1995. After widespread international protest against the French government had failed to stop the first test on Sept. 6, outraged Tahitans occupied Pape'ee's airport runway, provoking violent police response from a government that portrayed the protest as a threat to the island country's tourist-based economy. Most of the defendants were convicted of misdemeanor crimes such as obstructing air traffic; the trials themselves were an extensive testimonial to the impotence of the Tahitan government before both French colonialism and the determination of its own citizens. The protests halted a series of ten nuclear detonations the Chirac administration had planned for Murorua and Fangatauga atolls.--Geov Parrish