With the Ninth Indigenous March, called to protest construction of a road through the Isiboro Sécure National Park Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS), now resting at Caranavi, in the Yungas region of La Paz department, a new blow to the movement was registered June 8 as leaders loyal to President Evo Morales affected a change of leadership in the main organization behind the march, the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian Oriente (CIDOB). After an "extraordinary assembly" in Santa Cruz, 10 regional CIDOB leaders announced that they had voted to "disown" the organization's president, Adolfo Chávez, for "violating" internal norms. They said a Grand National Assembly of Indigenous Peoples (GANPI) would be held in 30 days to chose a replacement for Chávez, the main leader supporting the Ninth March.

The Transportation and Communications Commission of Peru's Congress on June 7 approved Law 1035-2011, introduced by the fujimorista bloc, that would declare the "public necessity and national interest" of a new highway between Puerto Esperanza, Purús province, Ucayali department, and Iñapari, Tahuamanu province, Madre de Dios department—cutting through Alto Purús National Park, and territory believed to shelter isolated or "uncontacted" indigenous bands. Peru's Amazonian indigenous alliance AIDESEP and its Madre de Dios regional affiliate FENAMAD protested that the region's native inhabitants had not been consulted on the measure, and charged that the road would impact the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve for isolated peoples. The law now goes to the full Congress for debate. But Verónika Mendoza, leader of the Commission on Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian Peoples, insisted that her commission should have to sign off on the bill before it goes to the floor as well. (InfoRegión, June 11; La Republica, June 10; AIDESEP, June 7)

Responding to outcry over civilian casualties, the Pentagon is preparing to deploy a new generation of drones the size of model planes, with miniscule warheads that can allegedly be delivered with pinpoint accuracy. The Predator and Reaper drones now in use typically carry 100-pound laser-guided Hellfire missiles or 500-pound GPS-guided "smart bombs" that can reduce buildings to smoldering rubble. The new Switchblade drone weighs less than six pounds and are supposedly designed to kill a sniper on a rooftop without destroying the building. (LAT, June 11) The announcement comes days after UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on a visit to Pakistan said: "Drone attacks do raise serious questions about compliance with international law. The principle of distinction and proportionality and ensuring accountability for any failure to comply with international law is also difficult when drone attacks are conducted outside the military chain of command and beyond effective and transparent mechanisms of civilian or military control... I see the indiscriminate killings and injuries of civilians in any circumstances as human rights violations." (AFP, June 7)

Burma's President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in western Rakhine (formerly Arakan) state June 10 following an uprising by the Muslim Rohingya people, in which hundreds of homes of Buddhist villagers were put to the torch. At least seven have been killed since the incident that sparked the violence. The rape and murder of a Buddhist woman was blamed on Rohingyas; a bus full of Muslim pilgrims was then waylaid by a mob, who beat 10 of the passengers to death. The pilgrims, who were returning to Rangoon from Thetsa Masjid in the Rakhine town of Thandwe, appear not to have even been Rohingyas. The Rohingyas are a stateless people; the Burmese government maintains they are "illegal" immigrants from Bangladesh, and periodically rounds them up by the hundreds to deport them across the border—where, far from being welcomed, they languish in refugee camps. (See map.) In Burma, they face harsh restrictions on their movements, and are denied the right to have more than two children per family by law. "The government needs to recognize...that its discriminatory policies against the Rohingyas that [have] denied them citizenship and subjected them to such restrictions need to be lifted," said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch. "They need to be treated as people of Burma and recognized as such." (Radio Australia, The Telegraph, June 11; AFP, June 9; The Voice of Rohingya, June 4)

With anger still growing in Honduras over the May 11 raid on the village of Ahuas that left four dead, the White House shows no sign of reconsidering the Central American Regional Security Initiative, under which the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Pentagon's Southern Command are coordinated with regional security forces. Officials boast the new cooperation is working, stating that last year the US monitored more than 100 small planes from South America landing at isolated airstrips in Honduras, with no interference. In contrast, two such flights were intercepted in May—including the one involved in the deadly raid at Ahuas. "In the first four months of this year, I'd say we actually have gotten it together across the military, law enforcement and developmental communities," William R. Brownfield, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, told the New York Times. "My guess is narcotics traffickers are hitting the pause button. For the first time in a decade, air shipments are being intercepted immediately upon landing."

On June 1, a tribunal of the World Bank's International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) granted jurisdiction to Canada's Pacific Rim Mining Corp, allowing the final phase of the company's arbitration case against El Salvador to go forward. The tribunal dismissed objections filed by the Government of El Salvador, ruling that the case can proceed under El Salvador's own Foreign Investment Law. Since 2009, the Vancouver-based company has been seeking $100 million from El Salvador for having turned down the company a permit to mine gold in the northern region of Cabañas.

Three prominent lawmakers publicly resigned from President Ollanta Humala's ruling Gana Perú coalition June 4 over the government's handling of protests against the Xstrata Tintaya copper mine in Cuzco's Espinar province. Legislators Rosa Mavila and Javier Diez-Canseco issued a joint letter addressed to Humala, charging that his government had taken a "confrontational" stance against protesters, and rejected dialogue. "Those who were defeated in the elections have become co-governors," the legislators said, referring to Humala's tilt to the pro-corporate politics he campaigned against last year. Cuzco region congress member Veronika Mendoza issued her own statement, calling a press conference to announce her resignation from the Gana Perú bloc, at which she wielded a Health Ministry study on the Xstrata Tintaya mine she said had been suppressed. "In this document, it is confirmed that the maximum limits for arsenic and mercury have been exceeded" in the area around the mine, she said. "Quantities of heavy metals above the permitted levels were found in water used for human consumption." (Cronica Viva, Peru.com, June 7; Peruvian Times, June 5; RPP, June 4)

Chinese state media say 17, including 12 children, were wounded in an explosion at an "illegal" Islamic school in Hotan, a city in restive Xinjiang province June 6. Official sources say staff at the school set off explosives when police came to "rescue" children who were being held at the school, after receiving complaints from parents. Dilxat Raxit of the German-based World Uyghur Congress, however, said the children were hurt when police used tear gas in the raid. (AP, China Daily, June 6)