Colombia's Constitutional Court President Mauricio González announced Feb. 26 that the court had voted 7 to 2 against the proposed referendum to allow President Alvaro Uribe to run for a third term, calling the idea "unconstitutional in its entirety." González said the court struck down law 1354-2009, created by the government in order to call the referendum. The ruling not only blocks Uribe from seeking a third consecutive term, but from ever running to regain the presidency.

Thousands of adherents of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) marched in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa Feb. 25 to protest the slaying of civil resistance leaders under what they still consider to be the "de facto regime" of President Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo despite the change in government last month. The rally concluded in front of the National Congress building, where the march was blocked by a military cordon.

NGOs in Mexico's conflicted southern state of Chiapas are protesting the "forced displacement" by state and federal police of two peasant settlements in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. The operations took place Jan. 21 and 22 at the settlements of Laguna El Suspiro and Laguna San Pedro—the last one a base community of the Zapatista rebel movement. Homes were destroyed, and the inhabitants forcibly taken by helicopter to the nearby town of Palenque, where they were given temporary shelter in resettlement center—and interrogated by federal agents about supposed marijuana cultivation on their lands. Officials from the Federal Prosecutor for Environmental Protection and National Commission for Protected Areas were helicoptered in along with the police contingents to oversee the evictions.

The US has temporarily closed its consular office in the Mexican border city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, after a wave of armed violence between narco gangs in the area. The office, located across from McAllen, Tex., will remain closed until further notice. The "Warden Message" was issued by the consulate in Matamoros "to advise US citizens of recent gun battles in Reynosa, Mexico, and cities surrounding Reynosa in the last week."

The UN International Narcotics Control Board, in its annual report released Feb. 24 called on Peru's government to take measures to reduce the country's growing illicit coca cultivation. The 2009 report finds that the area under coca cultivation decreased in South America by 8% to 167,800 hectares in 2008, largely due to a major decline in Colombia, the world's top producer. But for a third consecutive year, cultivation increased in Peru, the second largest producer.

An army sergeant was killed and another wounded Feb. 26 in a Sendero Luminoso attack on Bajo Somabeni Counter-Terrorist Base at San Martín de Pangoa, Junín department, in Peru's conflicted Río Apurímac-Ene Valley (VRAE). With the death of Sgt. Ronald Gabriel, the number of soldiers killed in the VRAE, a remaining pocket of Sendero activity, since Aug. 30, 2008 reaches 43. (AP via Univision, Reuters via Terra, Feb. 26)

Juan José Quispe, attorney with Peru's independent Pro-Human Rights Association representing survivors of last June's Bagua massacre, issued a statement Feb. 26 protesting Defense Minister Rafael Rey's proposal for an internal military hearing instead of a trial on homicide charges for two generals of the Peruvian National Police (PNP) accused of ordering the violence. The generals, Luis Muguruza and Javier Uribe, have been formally charged with the deaths of four indigenous residents in the June 5 confrontation at Curva del Diablo, a stretch of road in Bagua, Amazonas department, where police opened fire on protesters. It is now believed that 34 were killed in the incident. Quispe said Rey sought to protect the generals' "impunity."

Representatives of Peru's Amazonian indigenous alliance AIDESEP and affiliated regional organizations opened meetings in Lima Feb. 15 with the National Institute for the Development of Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian Peoples (INDEPA) to arrive at a "plan for protection of indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact."