Three campesino leaders from Tarqui village in Ecuador's southern highland province of Azuay began an eight-day jail term in the provincial capital Cuenca on March 21, convicted of having disrupted the local water supply during a May 2010 protest against the Quimsacocha mining project, run by Canadian multinational Iamgold. Residents say the Quimsacocha project (also rendered Kimsacocha) will degrade and deplete local water sources. Ironically, the jail term for the three leaders—Carlos Pérez Guartambel, Efraín Arpi and Federico Guzmán—began on the eve of World Water Day, March 22, when a march on Cuenca had already been planned to demand local water rights and oppose large-scale mining projects. The march, which brought out several hundred, began with a ceremony in support of the jailed leaders at Cuenca's judicial building. "This is called the criminalization of struggle," said Delfín Tenesaca, president of the highland indigenous alliance ECUARUNARI. (El Tiempo, Cuenca, Kaos en La Red, March 22; La Tarde, Cuenca, Ecuavisa, March 21)

The Andean Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations (CAOI) and the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC) on March 15 jointly presented a report to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR) warning that 65 the 102 indigenous ethnicities in Colombia are now at risk of cultural or physical "extinction." The report noted that Colombia's Constitutional Court has ordered special protection for these 65 peoples, but asserted that risks posed by the armed conflict and lawless resource extraction on their lands have not abated. The report charged that violations of indigenous rights are not merely "collateral damage" in the ongoing civil conflict, but often an actual aim of armed actors.

In the early hours of March 15, a clash broke out as troops from the elite Special Operations Directorate (DINOES) of Peru's National Police force evicted a group of informal miners from their encampment at La Bonita, in northern La Libertad region, leaving two miners dead. As the encampmen of some 500, in Retamas district, Pataz province, was set upon by a force of some 200 police agents, hundreds of other miners from the area converged on the scene to defend their comrades. In addition to the two dead, several were hurt on both sides, and two miners detained. The eviction of the camp had apparently been ordered by a local judge.

Peru's Yanacocha mining company, majority-owned by the world's number two gold producer, Newmont Mining of Colorado, on March 7 denied press reports that it is planning to leave the gold-rich northern region of Cajamarca no later than 2016. In a statement, Yanacocha CEO Javier Velarde said the company will continue to exploit its massive mine in Cajamarca at least through 2015, while evaluating new projects elsewhere in Peru. The Yanacocha mine's plans for expansion have been the focus of protest campaigns in Cajamarca for more than a year now. "We have openly acknowledged the challenges ahead, but we never said the company was leaving Cajamarca by 2016," said Velarde in the statement. (Mining.com, March 8; Gato Encerrado, March 7)

Seven social leaders in Bolivia's aliplano city of Oruro have been on a public hunger strike for 10 days now to protest the decision to change the name of the local airport to Juan Evo Morales, after the sitting president. The strike began after the Oruro departmental assembly, dominated by the president's supporters, voted to approve the change from the current name of Juan Mendoza, an aviation hero who was born in the region. The airport has been named for Mendoza since it opened in 1945. Over the past week, hundreds of supporters of the hunger strike, organized by the Civic Committee of Oruro and the Departamental Workers Central (COD), repeatedly blocked roads in the city. (Los Tiempos, Cochabamba, March 10; Los Tiempos, EFE, March 5)

Colombia's Supreme Court of Justice on March 7 found former lawmaker César Pérez García guilty of being complicit in the November 1988 massacre at the village of Segoiva, Antioquia department. He now awaits sentencing, and may face 30 years in prison. Pérez García was named by a liuetenant of notorious paramilitary commander "el Negro Vladimir" as having financed the massacre to eliminate a stronghold of support for the electoral left.

At this hour, Venezuelans are gathering in central Caracas, many in tears and holding portraits of their late leader Hugo Chávez, who passed after a long illness. In more well-heeled parts of the city, celebratory fireworks are going off. The right-wing opposition, and its allies in Washington and Miami, will doubtless see this as their hour. At stake is not merely the future of Venezuela, but all Latin America, given Chávez's leadership of the continent's anti-imperialist bloc. This was made clear last month when Ecuador's Rafael Correa "dedicated" his re-election to Chávez. We hope we can take Chávez at his word about how his movement transcends his personality cult. Weeks before his passing, he said: "They're thinking that Chávez is through. Chávez is not through. What's more and what I'd better tell you, when this body really gives out, Chávez will not be through, because I am no longer Chávez. Chávez is in the streets and has become the people, and has become a national essence, more than a feeling, a national body."  (Quoted in Reuters, March 5)

Sabino Romero, cacique (traditional chief) of the Yukpa indigenous people in Venezuela's Sierra de Perijá, was assassinated on the night of March 3, when unknown gunmen ambushed his vehicle on a road in Machiques municipality, Zulia state, as he was traveling to a community meeting at the village of Chaktapa. Supporters immediately said he had been targeted for opposing extractive industries, particularly coal mining, in the Yukpa territory. Said human rights group PROVEA in a statement: "Sabino Romero had suffered a constant ciminalization by the authorities due to his mobilization in defense of the rights of the Yukpa people. He suffered privation of his liberty for 18 months, and was permanently harassed by police functionaries."