A judge in Guyana's high court ruled Jan. 17 that indigenous groups do not have the right to expel "legal" miners from their lands. The judge, Diana Insanally, found that if the miners in question held a government-approved license then the local community had no right to dispute the operations. The ruling has sparked protests by indigenous groups and is expected to be appealed. "We are deeply disappointed and worried with this ruling and what it means to our village and to Amerindian communities in general," read a press release from the indigenous community Isseneru. "[I]t has serious environmental and social impacts for us. The miners have, for example, brought with them problems related to drugs and prostitution."

Bolivia's Aymara indigenous alliance CONAMAQ issued an open letter Jan. 27 to President Evo Morales, the official rights watchdog Defensoría del Pueblo, and the independent Permanent Human Rights Association of Bolivia (APDHB),  charging that the ruling Movement to Socialism-Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (MAS-IPSP) is seeking to divide their organization. The statement warned of the possibility for violence at CONAMAQ's upcoming Mara Tantachawi, or annual gathering. "The MAS-IPSP government of Evo Morales...in the different suyus [regions] is organizing and mobilizing groups of confrontation led by ex-authorities suspended by CONAMAQ...to sabotage [hacer fracasar] this event and take over by force the CONAMAQ council for political ends," the statement reads.

Informal miners in Peru's southern Arequipa region declared an open-ended paro (civil strike) Feb. 6, briefly blocking the Pan-American Highway at various points before being cleared by the National Police. Hundreds of miners armed with sticks gathered at several villages along the highway, erecting barricades to press thier demands for "formalization" of their mineral claims and a system of social security including a pension plan. The largest protest was in Ocoña, Camaná province, where some 2,000 marched. The srtike is being coordinated by the National Confederation of Artisenal Miners of Peru (CONAMI). (Sin Patrones, Feb. 6)

Villages in the area to be impacted by the controversial Conga gold mine in Peru's Cajamarca region announced last week that they will hold a referendum on the project—with the support of the regional government but not Lima. The vote will be held in Celendin and Bambamarca provinces in July, said a statement from the Cajamarca Unitary Struggle Command (CUL). "A consultation will be held on the Minas Conga project in order to see what the population thinks," said the CUL's Marco Arana. The consultation is being organized by traditional village authorities, and seems not to have been endorsed by the provincial governments. The mayor of Huasmin district in Celendín, José Eriberto Marín Agusti, is backing the referendum.

The Peruvian Press Association on Jan. 26 noted the 30th anniversary of the massacre of eight journalists and their local guide at the village of Uchurachay, Ayacucho department, where they themselves had been investigating reports of massacres. But a commentary in the left-leaning Lima daily El Popular decried that the violence against Uchurachay's campesinos was "more invisible." Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR) found that in the months around the slaying of the journalists, 135 members of the community of 470 were killed—hanged, hacked or stoned to death, their bodies thrown into canyons to be eaten by dogs. Most of the killings seem to have been ordered by village authorities in an effort to purge sympathizers of the Shining Path guerillas. (La Republica, Feb. 1; La Republica, La Republica, Jan. 29; El Comercio, Jan. 26; El Popular, Jan. 21)

Costa Rica's Constitutional Tribunal, a panel of the country's highest court, on Feb. 6 unanimously rejected a case brought by the country's Mining and Industry Association challenging the 2010 ban on open-pit mining. The Association argued that the ban on license renewal for existing open-pit mines is unconstitutional and applied in a discriminatory manner. The judges found that the prohibition on renewals violates no constitutional rights, and applies to all firms—not only foregn ones, as the Association argued. (OCMAL, Feb. 6)

The media are suddenly abuzz with reports that the CIA has been operating a secret airbase for unmanned drones in Saudi Arabia for the past two years, from which it has launched numerous strikes on purported militants of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in neighboring Yemen—including those that killed Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both US citizens who had never been charged with any crimes by the US government. The relevation follows the leaking to NBC this week of a confidential Justice Department memo finding that the US can order the killing of its own citizens if they are believed to be "senior operational leaders" of al-Qaeda or "an associated force"—even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the US.

Tunisia's Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali announced that he will dissolve the Islamist-led administration and form a new "technocrat government" as protests rocked the country Feb. 6 following the slaying of opposition leader Chokri Belaid. The headquarters of the Ennahda party, which rules in a fractious coalition with secularists, was set ablaze as Belaid's body was taken by ambulance through Tunis from the hospital where he died. Police fired tear-gas on some 20,000 protesters at the Interior Ministry, who chanted for the fall of the government. Despite calls for calm from the administration, thousands also took to the streets in Mahdia, Sousse, Monastir and Sidi Bouzid—the cradle of the revolution, where police fired tear-gas and warning shots as protesters set cars and a police station on fire.