Colombia's armed forces are scouring the country's southwest region in the hopes of capturing FARC guerrilla leaders following a of audacious and deadly attacks. President Juan Manuel Santos called the FARC "hypocrites" playing a "double game" for committing "terrorist acts" weeks after raising the prospect of peace talks. Following a security council meeting in the Pacific coast town of Tumaco—where a bomb planted in a tricycle killed nine people and wounded 76 outside a police station on Feb. 2—Santos said such violence "rejects everyone and it moves us away from any possibility of peace." A 3-year-old girl, a 19-year-old woman and a police commander were among the six people killed in in another Feb. 2 attack, on a police post in the town of Villa Rica, Cauca department. Santos offered a reward of $668,000 for the capture of FARC commander "Rambo," believed to be responsible for the new attacks.

On Jan 29, former militants of the Alfaro Vive Carajo (AVC) guerilla group turned over to Ecuador's President Rafael Correa the swords of revered 19th century presidents Eloy Alfaro and Pedro J. Montero, stolen by the guerillas from a Guayaquil museum in 1983. The handover took place at a ceremony commemorating the centenary of Alfaro's death, at his birthplace Montecristi in coastal Manabí province. The AVC said in a statement signed by 39 militants that after holding the swords in their custody for 28 years, they decided to return them to deepen the "revolutionary democratic process."

The Kichwa Confederation of Ecuador (ECUARUNARI) announced a national mobilization that will converge on Quito from points around the country next month to oppose what leaders called President Rafael Correa's policies in favor of the resource industries. The "Great Pluriethnic March for Water, Life and Dignity of the People of Ecuador" is set to depart March 8 from the southeastern town of Zamora, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. (See map.) ECUARUNARI president Delfín Tenesaca said the organization "rejects the entrance into the territories of [indigenous] nationalities of mineral companies, without consulting anybody and disrespecting the constitution." He called for participation from other provinces of the country affected by mineral and oil interests. The effort has the support of Salvador Quishpe, prefect of Zamora-Chinchipe province,* who stated, "We call upon all social organizations in the country to unite in this great march of reclamation... It cannot be that 'Correismo' tries to silence the Ecuadoran people." (Servindi, Feb. 1)

Some 2,000 peasants and cocaleros from the Indigenous Council of the South (CONISUR) arrived in La Paz Jan. 31, after a 40-day march from Isinuta in the Chapare region of Cochabamba department, to demand that President Evo Morales move ahead with plans to build a highway through their lands on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. Morales put the project on hold last year after a larger cross-country march in opposition to it met with police repression. Several thousand supporters of Morales' Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) swelled the ranks of the CONISUR marchers as they passed through El Alto, the sprawling working-class city on the altiplano above La Paz. El Alto's MAS mayor, Édgar Patana, welcomed them as "illustrious guests" of the city before their final descent into La Paz. (NACLA News, Feb. 3; AFP, Cambio, La Paz, Jan. 31)

Opponents of the US-owned Conga mining project in Peru's northern Cajamarca region launched a cross-country National March for Water on Feb. 1, some 500 participants symbolically departing from Laguna Cortada, one of the high mountain lakes to be threatened by the proposed mine. The march hopes to arrive in Lima Feb. 10 in time to convene a National Forum on Hydraulic Justice. A hundreds-strong solidarity march was also held in Arequipa, capital of the southern region of that name which has been the scene of recent protests over mineral development. Organizers expect thousands to join the march on its way to Lima.

After two days of reviewing the draft proposal for regulations implementing Peru's new Law of Prior Consultation for Indigenous and Original Peoples, indigenous leaders from the Southern Macroregion announced that they rejected it as illegitimate Jan. 25. Meeting in the city of Cuzco, some 700 indigenous leaders from the regions of Tacna, Moquegua, Arequipa, Puno, Apurímac, Madre de Dios and Cuzco were joined by lawmakers Sergio Tejada and Verónica Mendoza and representatives of the indigenous affairs agency INDEPA. Participants concluded the proposed regulations did not meet standards for prior consultation established by Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO-169). A week later, a similar conclusion was announced at a meeting for the Northern Macroregion, held in the Amazonas region town of Bagua and bringing together indigenous leaders from Amazonas, Cajamarca and San Martín.

Survival International has released new close-up pictures of an "uncontacted" indigenous band in Peru, exactly a year after aerial photos of an "uncontacted" indigenous band in Brazil astonished the world. The new photographs taken in Peru's southeastern Madre de Dios region show a family believed to be from an "uncontacted" (or voluntarily isolated) band of the Mashco-Piro ethnicity. Uncontacted Mashco-Piro bands are known to inhabit Manú National Park, and sightings of them have increased in recent months. Many blame illegal logging in and around the park and low flying helicopters from nearby oil and gas projects, for forcibly displacing the bands from their forest homes. The Mashco-Piro are one of just some 100 "uncontacted" peoples in the world. The new photos are the most detailed images yet revealed of "uncontacted" indigenous peoples.

The number of civilians casualties in the Afghan conflict has risen for the fifth year in a row, according to the annual report of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which documents 3,021 civilian deaths in 2011 compared with 2,790 in 2010 and 2,412 in 2009. Most deaths were caused by insurgents, the report said, finding that improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were being used more widely and suicide attacks had become deadlier. However, it also said the civilian toll from air strikes in support of the Afghan government rose in 2011. The 2011 "Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict" said a total of 11,864 civilian lives had been claimed by the conflict since 2007.