Latin America in A View of Last Week of March

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was in the Middle East last week, seeking to bring a fresh outlook to the peace process on a trip to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan.

Meanwhile Israel's foreign minister confirmed last week that he boycotted meetings with the visiting Brazilian president; Lieberman said he was upset at Silva's decision not to visit late Zionist leader Theodor Herzl's grave, especially while agreeing to lay a wreath at the tomb of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

According to a Human Rights Commission’s report since deployment of Mexico’s troops combating drug trafficking since December 2006, there has been a dramatic increase in complaints of military abuse. From 2007 to the end of 2009, Mexico's National Human Rights Commission received 3,388 complaints of human rights violations by the military. Of these, it

has already concluded that in at least 38 cases the military was in fact responsible for abuses.

Meanwhile three people with ties to the American consulate were killed in a drug-plagued Mexican city.

President Barack Obama expressed outrage over the killings, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon promised a swift investigation. The number of U.S. citizens killed in Mexico has more than doubled to 78 in 2009 from 37 in 2007, according to the U.S. State Department's annual count.

Spanish Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega said last week that Spain has the support of Venezuela in the fight against the armed Basque separatist group ETA, as it occurs with other countries like France or Portugal.

José Mujica, the president of Uruguay, has said that he wants to help improve relations between Venezuela and Colombia and is willing to "talk to everybody."

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko offered to help Venezuela strengthen its military, while saying last week that President Hugo Chavez's government should not have to worry about foreign threats.

The Venezuelan government plans to increase its fuel consumption by a third in 2010 to fuel thermoelectric plants with which President Hugo Chávez hopes to overcome the energy crisis.