From the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), April 3:

On the tenth anniversary of the massacre at the Catholic Church in Liquiça, ETAN urges the international community to finally respond to the demand for justice of the victims of this and other horrific crimes committed during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor (Timor-Leste). Those responsible for the many crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide committed during Indonesia's illegal occupation of East Timor between 1975 and 1999 must be held accountable.

Twenty years after a military regime killed hundreds of mostly black Mauritanians, another military government is promising to compensate their families. While some victims' associations welcome reparations, other affected families and many NGOs say compensation equals impunity for those who ordered the killings—and remain in power.

As protests at the London G20 summit start to wind down, police have arrested some 100 protesters in Strasbourg, France, on the eve of a two-day summit marking the 60th anniversary of the NATO alliance. Police said protesters vandalized bus shelters, smashed shop windows, built street barricades, and set rubbish bins on fire. Police used teargas to prevent the protesters from entering the city center. (Radio Netherlands, April 2)

On March 18, the mayor of the municipality of Libertador in Caracas, Jorge Rodriguez, from the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), signed an agreement with Coca-Cola to take over its land located in the low-income suburb of Catia, and use it for public housing.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, on a visit to Iran as the G20 summit opens in London, denounced capitalism and announced the founding of a Iranian-Venezuelan binational bank. Chávez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad officially opened the Tehran-based commercial bank April 3, aimed at spurring trade and industrial projects between the two countries. The two leaders facetiously referred to their nations as the "G2."

The head of Peru's state oil company has announced that it will auction off up to twelve new "lots" for oil and gas exploration, according to reports. The announcement was made by Perupetro's chairman, Daniel Saba, who has previously said that companies can even explore in reserves inhabited by uncontacted indigenous tribes.

Indigenous leaders delivered a lawsuit in Quito in late March before Ecuador's Constitutional Court asking that the country's new mining law be declared unconstitutional. The case is the next step that the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) is taking to try to put the brakes on large scale metal mining which has achieved unwavering support from President Rafael Correa's administration.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said April 1 that Venezuela would be willing to accept detainees from the Guantánamo Bay military prison. Chávez made his statements in an interview with Arabic TV channel al-Jazeera while attending the Second Summit of Arab-South American Countries in Qatar. In the interview, Chávez also called for US President Barack Obama to complete the release of all Guantánamo detainees and completely return Guantánamo to Cuba. Given the tense relationship between the US and Venezuela, it is unlikely that detainees will be sent to Venezuela.