Indigenous groups in Peru ended more than a week of militant protests Aug. 20 at key energy sites after lawmakers agreed to overturn a new land law issued by President Alan García, which sought to ease corporate access to communal territories. García had issued the law by decree earlier under special powers Congress granted him to bring Peruvian law into compliance with a new free-trade deal with the US. A congressional commission voted to revoke the law Aug. 19, and a floor vote is expected later this week. "We have lifted the strike," said Alberto Pizango, head of Amazon indigenous alliance AIDESEP. "We have faith and expect Congress to follow through." (Reuters, Aug. 20)

Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon are demanding the presence of Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo in peace talks the government has brokered following days of angry protests. Marcial Mudarra, subdirector of the Regional Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples (CORPI), is representing the communities in talks with Peru's General Directorate of Original and Afro-Peruvian Peoples. (AIDESEP, Aug. 15) EFE reports that Pluspetrol suspended part of its operations at Bloc 56 of the Camisea natural-gas fields after armed protesters seized the facilities in the Amazonian region of Cuzco Aug. 9. Protesters oppose the government's new polcies promoting oil exploration on indigenous lands. On Aug. 16, the Amazonian indigenous coalition AIDESEP announced that talks had broken down and the occupation would continue, EFE reported. (EFE, Aug. 16; Bloomberg, Reuters, Aug. 12; EFE, Aug. 11)

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva arrived in Bogotá on July 18 for a three-day visit to Colombia that included joining Colombian president Alvaro Uribe in the inauguration of a meeting of business leaders from the two countries. On July 19 Lula and Uribe met in the Hatogrande estate on the outskirts of the capital to sign accords on investment, the environment and biofuels, and on security along the 1,500-km border Brazil and Colombia share in the Amazon region.

The Matsés, a tribe of 2,500 people in the remote Peruvian Amazon, have rejected plans by the Peruvian government to explore for oil on their land. The government has created five exploration "lots" overlapping Matsés territory, and signed deals opening them to two companies, Pacific Stratus Energy and Occidental Oil & Gas of Peru. "No adequate process of consultation was carried out during the creation of these lots, not as the lots were being auctioned, nor when the contracts were signed between the oil companies and the Peruvian government," said a statement from Matsés Council. "This is in clear contravention of the International Labor Organization's Convention 169 and the United Nations' Declaration of Indigenous Peoples' Rights."

Uncontacted indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon are being killed and having their houses burned to the ground by illegal loggers, according a statement from the International Indigenous Committee for the Protection of Peoples in Voluntary Isolation (CIPIACI). The loggers have invaded the Murunahua Territorial Reserve, a remote area near the Brazilian border set aside in 1997 for uncontacted indigenous peoples, and built an illegal network of roads, the statement charges.

'Uncontacted' Amazon tribesmen" title="'Uncontacted' Amazon tribesmen" class="image thumbnail" height="75" width="100">'Uncontacted' Amazon tribesmenMembers of one of the world's last "uncontacted" peoples were spotted and photographed from the air in a remote part of Brazil's Acre state near the Peruvian border. The flights were undertaken by the Brazilian government to prove the existence of uncontacted tribes in a region under danger from illegal logging. One of the images, released May 29, shows two men covered in bright red body paint poised to fire arrows at the aircraft. Another photo shows about 15 near thatched huts, some also preparing to fire arrows at the aircraft.

Brazilian federal police May 5 occupied the indigenous reserve of Raposa/Serra do Sol, in the Amazonian state of Roraima, after 10 indigenous people were shot in an attack a day earlier. Three of the wounded were in serious condition and had to be taken to hospitals in the state capital, Boa Vista. The incident happened as the Brazilian supreme court was reviewing a government decision to expel invaders from the reserve.

A Brazilian court sentenced the accused killer of American missionary Sister Dorothy Stang, to 28 years yesterday—but acquitted rancher Vitalmiro Moura, known as "Bida," who was accused of having ordered the killing. Rayfran das Neves Sales confessed to the 2005 shooting of Stang at Anapu, in the Amazonian state of Pará. Stang had been campaigning on behalf of the landless rural farm-workers and against the pillaging of the forest by illegal cattle ranches.