Following two weeks of escalating protests by local campesinos, two were killed as National Police troops opened fire June 23 at Ocaña in Colombia's Norte de Santander department. There were reports of injuries on both sides in similar clashes in recent days. At least 10,000 from the Catatumbo Valley have joined the protests that erupted on June 10, demanding the government declare the area an autonomous "campesino reserve zone," and halt the eradication of coca crops. Protesters claim that cocaleros have not been offered alternatives to provide for their families. Juan Carlos Quintero, vice president of the Catatumbo Campesino Association, said "we directly blame President Juan Manuel Santos" in the deaths, accusing him of having ordered the repression. Authorities said that protesters had set fire to the municipal building and the local prosecuter's office in Tibu, and also charged the FARC is involved in the campaign. The FARC, whose leader "Timochenko" is believed to be operating from the Catatumbo area, issued a statement calling on authorities to lower the level of violence. (Colombia Reports, AP, June 23)

On June 4 Bolivia's Justice Minister Cecilia Ayllon presided at a meeting in Sucre that brought together the country's leading jurists, including members of the Constitutional Tribunal, with traditional indigenous authorities from the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu (CONAMAQ), the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Oriente of Bolivia (CIDOB), the Unitary Confederation of Campesino Workers of Bolivia (CSUTCB), and the Sindical Confederation of Intercultural Communities of Bolivia (CSCIB). At the meeting, aimed at hashing out a common position on indigenous autonomy as guaranteed by Bolivia's new constitution, conflict emerged over Ayllon's assertion that the guarantees should be applied to 36 ethnic groups. CONAMAQ's David Crispín asserted that there are actually 50 indigenous peoples and nationalities within Bolivia under the standards outlined in the constitution. CONAMAQ's legal authority Simón Antonio Cuiza offered to provide documentation for the claim to jurists and lawmakers, and work with them to truly establish Bolivia as a "plurinational state." (CONAMAQ via Facebook, June 7)

Vladimiro Huaroc, head of Peru's National Office of Dialogue and Sustainability (ONDS), weighed in on the controversy over the country's new Prior Consultation Law June 14, in comments published in the official newspaper El Peruano. "There are many sectors that want the government to execute these actions as soon as possible, and we do not understand the trouble," he wrote. Seeming to address assertions by President Ollanta Humala that the law should not apply in the country's sierras, Huaroc invoked Peru's responsibilities under ILO Convention 169 and stated, "Probably, there are sectors that are not adequately informed" about the government's responsibilities to indigenous communities. "Prior consultation means informing the population; the Executive must do everything possible so that communities know in detail the economic processes that will be realized." 

Four people are reported to have been killed in Bolivia last week by local residents acting in the name of "community justice." In Colquechaca, Potosí, a youth of 16 was buried alive by local Quechua residents after being accused of raping and killing a local woman. A district prosecutor reported that he was thrown alive into the same grave as his purported victim. Two men, 17 and 21, were reportedly burned alive at Tres Cruces, Potosí, accused of having killed a local taxi driver. The fourth fatality took place in an unnamed pueblo in the Chapare region of Cochabamba department, where an accused thief was beaten to death. "Community justice" is enshrined in Bolivia's new constitution, amid provisions instating local autonomy for indigenous peoples, but the government considers such incidents to be lynchings. (InfoBAE, NY Daily News, June 7)

After a meeting on March 21 in Temuco, the capital of the southern Chilean region of Araucanía, indigenous leaders called for the rapid implementation of self-government for the Mapuche, the country's largest indigenous group. The leaders also repeated their rejection of plans announced by the government of rightwing president Sebastián Piñera for an indigenous council, a consultation process and a special law for Araucanía. Piñera, Interior Minister Andrés Chadwick and other officials made the proposals in January after an outbreak of violence in the region exacerbated a longstanding struggle between the Mapuche and settlers and forestry companies over lands that the Mapuche claim. Indigenous leaders responded to Piñera's proposal by holding a summit at the Cerro Ñielol park in Temuco on Jan. 16 and forming a new alliance, the Mapuche Pact for Self-Determination.

Indigenous peoples in Peru's Amazonas region have held demonstrations over the past weeks at the site of the June 2009 massacre at Curva del Diablo, in the municipality of Bagua. The action was called to protest that 54 indigenous leaders are now facing life terms if convicted in the Bagua violence, while only one member of the National Police is behind bars in the affair, with another two already released. On Feb. 26, when the road at "Devil's Curve" was blocked by hundreds of members of the Awajún and Wampis peoples, one large group of participants refused to join in the singing of Peru's national anthem that opened the gathering. Carlos Altamirano Rafael, leader of the Interests Front of Condorcanqui, said he believed that no justice is possible within Peru, and that the two peoples should declare independence or unite with Ecuador.

Malaysian security forces remain in a stand-off with some 100 men they say are armed insurgents from a rebel faction in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao, who are accused of having taken over a village in a remote part of Sabah state on Borneo Feb. 14. But the Philippine government maintains the men are unarmed Filipino peasant migrants who had been promised land in the area. The Malaysian inhabitants of the village, named as Kampung Tanduao, have reportedly been forced to flee. Malaysian police forces say the invaders procialmed themselves the "royal army" of the Sultanate of Sulu, which has an historic claim to the area. By some accounts, the men have raised the Philippine flag in the village, which is now surrounded by Malaysian troops. The Philippine military has meanwhile deployed naval vessels and an aircraft to the coast of Malaysian Borneo. 

Thai soldiers killed at least 17 insurgents who attacked Bacho military base, Narathiwat province, in an audacious pre-dawn raid Feb. 13—the deadliest episode since the conflict flared nine years ago. Authorities say some 100 insurgents were involved in the attack near the Malaysian border, and the rebels displayed a greater degree of military organization than ever before—dressed in army fatigues of the same kind worn by Thai soldiers, and armed with AK-47 and M-16 assault rifles. One unnamed "military source" told Thai media the insurgents have formed a "Pattani Army."