An unknown assailant killed retired Mexican general Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro Escapite with three shots to the head on the evening of April 20 at an auto shop in the Anáhuac section of Mexico City; the general had just brought his car there for repairs. The killer and an accomplice escaped on a motorcycle. This was the second attack against the general in two years; he was shot in the abdomen in Mexico City on May 18, 2010, in a supposed robbery attempt.

Eight indigenous Purépecha were shot dead the morning of April 18 near the autonomous community of Cherán in the western Mexican state of Michoacán. Two of the victims were from Cherán, which has been engaged in a year-long struggle to protect local forests from illegal loggers; six of the people killed were from the town of Casimiro Leco, better known as El Cerecito, where many of the loggers live.

Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced on April 16 that her government planned to take control of 51% of the shares in YPF SA, the country's largest oil company. The Spanish company Repsol has had majority ownership of the Argentine company, formerly known as Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, since 1999. Later in the week the government took control of YPF Gas, which is also owned mostly by Repsol. A tribunal is to determine how much Argentina will pay in compensation to the companies' private shareholders.

In a dramatic show of force, more than 3,500 Honduran campesino families occupied land in estates in different parts of the country early in the morning of April 17 to demand implementation of an effective national agrarian reform policy. The mobilization, the Honduran activity for the International Day of Campesino Struggles, was organized by a coalition of 10 campesino groups, including the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA) and the Honduran branch of the international rural workers' movement Vía Campesina. In a statement issued on April 17, the organizers said protesters had occupied a total of 12,000 hectares in eight of the country's 18 departments: Cortés, Yoro, Santa Bárbara, Intibucá, El Paraíso, Choluteca, Comayagua, and Francisco Morazán.

Campesino groups around the world planned more than 250 activities to mark the International Day of Campesino Struggles on April 17, according to the international rural workers movement Vía Campesina. The day of action—which was announced at the International Campesino Conference held in Mali last Nov. 14-17—was intended to bring attention to the need for carrying out agrarian reform, for stopping the concentration of land in the hands of wealthy landowners, and for maintaining agricultural production based on campesino farming and the principles of food sovereignty. A special focus this year was to be opposition to monoculture for export and to the production of bio-fuel crops.

UN Special Rapporteur on Rights of Indigenous Peoples James Anaya will visit the United States from April 23 to May 4 to launch the UN's first ever investigation into the rights situation of Native Americans. Anaya will be looking into the rights of Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians, and meeting with government officials throughout the nation. One main goal of his investigation is to determine how the Unites States' endorsement of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in December 2010 has affected the rights of these groups, and what improvements may still be needed. Anaya will report his findings and make recommendations to US federal and state officials during his trip.

President Ollanta Humala spoke April 20 on the new "expert review" of the controversial Conga gold mine project proposed for Peru's northern Cajamarca region, assuring local residents that they would be ensured an ample water supply. Echoing recommendations of the report, Humala said two high mountain lakes slated to be destroyed by the project—known as Azul and Chica—should not be drained and filled with mine waste. He added that his government will spend about $1.8 billion on infrastructure in Cajamarca. Minera Yanacocha, owner of the Minas Conga project, said it will seek technical "alternatives" in order to allow work to resume on the stalled $4.8 billion project. The company said in a statement: "The report by the international experts has ratified unquestionably the environmental impact study, or EIA, approved by the Peruvian government in October, 2010. While the experts have proven that the EIA meets with national and international standards, we recognize that every study can be improved." (AP, April 21; Dow Jones, April 20)

Laid-off workers from the Doe Run Peru metal smelting complex—closed due to toxic pollution—held a protest in front of the Labor Ministry in Lima April 19 to demand that Peru's government save their jobs by allowing the plant to re-open. The rally came in response to a decision April 11 by the smelter's creditors—including the Peruvian state, due to numerous unpaid fines—to reject a restructuring plan from Doe Run Peru, a unit of Missouri-based Renco Group, casting doubt on the future of the idled complex at La Oroya, in Junín region. Once one of the largest smelters in Peru, it has been shut since 2009 due to insolvency and a stalled environmental clean-up plan. A May 1 deadline for the company to come up with an acceptable clean-up plan—officially dubbed the Environmental Adjustment and Management Program (PAMA)—has been pushed back to June by the Ministry of Energy and Mines. But the case is now mired in multiple lawsuits—and the local community at La Oroya is bitterly divided.