Dozens of Dominican activists demonstrated outside the Supreme Court building in Santo Domingo on Feb. 18 to protest a contract the government signed with the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation for the Pueblo Viejo gold mine in Cotuí in the central province of Sánchez Ramírez. The group called for the court to declare the agreement unconstitutional. Critics say the Dominican Republic will only receive a fraction of the proceeds from the mine while the country will be left with the job of repairing the environmental damage. Opposition deputy Juan Hubieres, who was leading the protest, charged that the government of former president Leonel Fernández (1996-2000, 2004-2012) received US$37.5 million in 2007 to repair the damage caused by the previous management of the mine, the state enterprise Rosario Dominicana, and eventually collected a total of US$75 million. Fernández "will have to explain to the country in what way this has been employed," Hubieres said.

On Feb. 21 former Haitian "president for life" Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier (1971-1986) once again defied an order to appear before an appeals court in Port-au-Prince that is considering whether he can be criminally charged for human rights violations committed during his regime. Duvalier had refused to appear in the court twice before, on Jan. 31 and Feb. 7. Duvalier's defense attorney, Reynold Georges, said the former dictator's presence was unnecessary because he had filed an appeal with the Supreme Court. Georges himself defied the court by arriving 90 minutes late. "I don't lose," Georges announced. "I'm Haiti's Johnnie Cochran." The three-judge appeals panel responded by ordering the public prosecutor to have Duvalier escorted to the court by Feb. 28.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Feb. 25 ordered all US Special Forces out of two key provinces within two weeks, accusing Afghan units under their command of being responsible for the torture, abuse and disappearance of civilians. Wardak and Logar provinces, lying just outside Kabul, are considered strategic gateways to the capital. Karzai's charges reference two apparently recent incidents: The disappearance of nine civilians following a special forces operation, and the death of a student who was taken away during a night raid and whose body was found two days later under a bridge with his throat cut and signs of torture. The US has denied its forces were involved.

Hundreds of people took to the streets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Feb. 25 in the second day of protests following the death of a Palestinian prisoner who PA officials say died as a result of torture. The PA Minister of Detainee Affairs said that results from an autopsy of Arafat Jadarat's body indicate that he died after being tortured in Israeli custody, and not from a cardiac arrest, as Israel's Prison Authority had claimed. Hundreds of people marched from Birzeit University and gathered outside Ofer prison in Ramallah, where Israeli forces fired rubber bullets at the crowds, injuring 11 people. An Israeli army spokeswoman said "500 rioters hurled rocks, firebombs and burning tires at Israeli forces, who responded with riot dispersal means." Six people were hit by rubber bullets, she added.

Trial began Feb. 25 in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana between individuals affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and British Petroleum (BP). The other corporations involved are the rig owner Transocean and well cement services provider Halliburton. The parties bringing suit against BP include the US Department of Justice (DoJ), states bordering the Gulf Coast, and individuals who did not agree to an earlier settlement agreement. The trial is to be conducted in phases with the first part focusing on determining what caused the blowout of the well and assign percentage blame on the companies involved. Other issues that are to be resolved are BP's level of negligence in conjunction with the incident and the amount of oil that escaped into the Gulf of Mexico, both elements are critical to determine BP's penalties under the Clean Water Act (CWA).

Campesino communities in Colombia's oil-rich department of Arauca, on the eastern plains, on Feb. 12 launched a paro, or civil strike, to protest broken promises by the national government and transnational companies operating in the region. A dialogue brokered by the Interior Ministry broke down the day before, and community leaders announced the campaign of civil resistance. Hundreds of campesinos began blocking roads leading to the Caño Limón and Caricare oilfields, both run by a consortium led by Occidental Petroleum of California. The first day of the campaign saw violence as over 1,000 troops of the National Police force's Mobile Anti-Disturbance Squadron (ESMAD) attacked the blockade at San Isidro, on the road to Caricare. Several protesters were beaten, four detained, and food supplies for the bloackde confiscated. The local Joel Sierra Human Rights Foundation has issued an urgent alert calling for the release of those detained, and for demilitarization of the region. Army troops have set up checkpoints on roads leading to zone, and are barring journalists and rights observers. (Colombia Informa, Feb. 13 via UDW)

The March 2013 issue of Smithsonian magazine offers the first account of a flight that confirmed the presence of an isolated indigenous tribe in a remote part of the Colombian Amazon. In 2011 Colombian anthropologist Roberto Franco and photographer Cristóbal von Rothkirch went in search of an "uncontacted" tribe rumored to live in a tract of rainforest between the Caquetá and Putumayo rivers. During a flyover they spotted a maloca—communal hut—in a region with no other human habitation, confirming the existence of the group. A subsequent flyover found four more indigenous structures. The thatch longhouses are thought to be belong to two indigenous groups, the Yuri and the Passé. The groups, which apparently fled to the area to escape the abuses of the early 20th century rubber trade, are believed to be the last isolated tribes in Colombia's Amazon.

The Administrative Tribunal of Colombia's Antioquia department on Feb. 8 ordered the national army to hold a public ceremony officially apologizing for the massacre at San José de Apartadó Peace Community, almost exactly eight years after it was carried out. In the Feb. 21, 2005 attack, six adults and two children were killed at the village in Apartadó municipality of Antioquia's northern Urabá region, where residents had declared their non-cooperation with all armed actors in Colombia's civil conflict.