Reuters reports that Muslims are "disappearing" from villages in central Burma, as Buddhist attacks spread from the coastal area where they began last year. A reporter in the village of Sit Kwin (Thayarwady district , Bago division, see map), says the some 100 Muslim residents have all fled, some to displaced persons camps, after a wave of attacks in which their homes, shops and mosques were destroyed, and several killed. Since 42 were killed in violence that erupted March 20 in Meikhtila town (Mandalay division), attacks led by Buddhist militants have spread to at least 10 other towns and villages in central Burma, with the latest only a two-hour drive from the commercial capital, Yangon (Rangoon). (Reuters, March 29) 

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on March 28 called on the government of Sri Lanka to begin its investigation into war crimes by examining the role of its own Deputy Minister of Resettlement. HRW alleged that Deputy Minister Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, known as Colonel Karuna, is a former leader of the the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is accused of war crimes committed during a 26-year civil war. Ultimately, Karuna and his unit changed sides, joining forces with the Sri Lankan government. In March, Karuna called for an investigation of war crimes by the LTTE. HRW released a statement, saying, "Karuna's call for war crimes investigations should not allow him to airbrush out his own role in atrocities. His LTTE forces were implicated in some of Sri Lanka's most horrific abuses, so the government's long-stalled war crimes investigations might as well begin with him." 

Following the slaying March 25 of a "Community Police" commander in Tierra Colorada, on the Acapulco-Mexico City highway in Guerrero state, members of the popular militia (usually refered to as "vigilantes" in English-language accounts) set up roadblocks on the town's main arteries, occupied public buildings, and detained 12 of the municipality's "official" police as well as the public security director. The town's mayor, Elizabeth Gutiérrez Paz, was also briefly detained with her bodyguards. The others are still being held to demand justice in the slaying, which the Community Police say was carried out with the complicity of official authorities. The bullet-ridden body of Guadalupe Quinones Carbajal, 28, was found in a nearby town. Guerrero's Prosecutor General Martha Elba Garzón has been dispatched to Tierra Colorada, which is the seat of Juan R. Escudero municipality, to negotiate with the Guerrero Union of Pueblos and Organizations (UPOEG), which coordinates Community Police forces in the state. (Global News Desk, Christian Post, March 28; La Jornada Guerrero, March 27; Sipse, Grupo Fórmula, Reforma, March 26)

At least 163 were reported dead March 28 in clashes at Okello, in Pibor county of South Sudan's Jonglei state, pitting government troops against a rebel force whose commander David Yau Yau is said to be among the slain. (See map.) South Sudan accuses Khartoum of supporting the rebels, with military spokesman Col. Philip Aguer saying a seized airstrip was used for arms drops. He suggested Sudan is arming the rebellion in a bid to block the South's plans to build an oil pipeline through Ethiopia to a port in Djibouti. Aguer said the South's military, the SPLA, would continue to "deal with the militia group." (The Guardian, March 28) A Kenyan route for the pipeline has also been broached, with the aim of freeing the South from having to export oil through Khartoum's territory.

Human rights lawyers on March 26 filed an emergency motion (PDF) in the US District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that guards at Guantánamo Bay have denied drinking water and sufficient clothing to a Yemeni prisoner. The motion was filed only a day before a fact-finding visit to the US detention center in Cuba by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the lawyers contend that such treatment is being used to undermine an ongoing hunger strike by Musa'ab Omar al-Madhwani and 30 additional inmates.

As tens of thousands of activists from around the world converge on Tunisia for the World Social Forum, the annual anti-globalization confab, the country is facing a pending peckage of austerity measures as the condition of a $1.78 billion emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund—two years after economic misery sparked an uprising in the country that unleashed the Arab Revolutions. "We need to have economic reforms that work for the people, not for the global economy," Mabrouka Mbarek, a member of Tunisia's constituent assembly, told Al Jazeera. "It seems they have forgotten our history." (Al Jazeera, March 26)

Suncor Energy is one of Canada's top tar-sands oil producers and a big pusher for the Keystone XL Pipeline (see Globe & Mail, Oct. 25, 2011). They are, of course, key players in the continental NAFTA shadow government. So why are we reading about their contamination of the Athabasca River in the Edmonton Journal (March 26) and not the New York goddam Times? Just asking.

Tainted water poured for hours before broken Suncor pipe sealed
EDMONTON — A waste-water pipe at Suncor’s oilsands plant leaked into a pond of treated water Monday, and the resulting diluted water flowed into the Athabasca River, a company official said Tuesday.

Michel Djotodia, leader of rebel forces behind a coup in the Central African Republic (CAR), declared in a radio address March 25 that the country's constitution is dissolved and he is now the nation's leader. Djotodia, a leader of the Seleka rebel alliance that seized the country's capital over the weekend and caused President Francois Bozize to flee the country, also declared the dissolution of the CAR parliament and government. The Seleka rebels' actions in taking control of the country ran afoul of a peace deal brokered in January between Bozize and the group. Seleka claims, however, that its actions are justified because the Bozize government first failed to uphold elements of the agreement, including a promise to remove South African troops from Bangui. Djotodia intends to serve out the rest of Bozize's term, which is set to end in 2016.