After a meeting on March 21 in Temuco, the capital of the southern Chilean region of Araucanía, indigenous leaders called for the rapid implementation of self-government for the Mapuche, the country's largest indigenous group. The leaders also repeated their rejection of plans announced by the government of rightwing president Sebastián Piñera for an indigenous council, a consultation process and a special law for Araucanía. Piñera, Interior Minister Andrés Chadwick and other officials made the proposals in January after an outbreak of violence in the region exacerbated a longstanding struggle between the Mapuche and settlers and forestry companies over lands that the Mapuche claim. Indigenous leaders responded to Piñera's proposal by holding a summit at the Cerro Ñielol park in Temuco on Jan. 16 and forming a new alliance, the Mapuche Pact for Self-Determination.

With some 500 people packed into the courtroom, the trial of former Guatemalan military dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt (1982-83) for genocide and other crimes against humanity began in Guatemala City on March 19. The charges include the deaths of 1,771 indigenous Ixil Mayan civilians in the central department of Quiché as part of the "scorched-earth" policy implemented during Ríos Montt's dictatorship, which was marked by some of the worst atrocities in a 36-year counterinsurgent war that left an estimated 200,000 people dead, mostly indigenous civilians. Ríos Montt's former intelligence chief, Gen. José Rodríguez, is on trial with him. The proceedings are expected to involve some 130 witnesses and 100 experts and to last several months. Ríos Montt, 86, could face a sentence of up to 50 years.

Two Bahraini human rights activists have intensified their hunger strike and are refusing fluids, according to a report released March 25 by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR). According to the report Zainab al-Khawaja and her father, prominent human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja began refusing fluids in response to being denied visits from their families. Earlier this month, the Bahrain court of appeals overturned the acquittal of Zainab al-Khawaja, who has been accused of insulting a government employee, and sentenced her to three months of imprisonment. She began her hunger strike on March 18. Abdulhadi al-Khawaja was sentenced to life in prison for his role anti-government protests by a military tribunal in June 2011. The Bahraini government has denied the report.

The US gave full control of Bagram Prison to Afghanistan on March 25, winding down the US military presence in the country. President Hamid Karzai sought to regain control of the detention center in efforts to reclaim sovereignty over the country, as the US prepares to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. The US was concerned that turning over the prison would put the secure detention of suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda members at risk. The official handing over of control to Afghan authorities took place after an agreement was reached during a phone call between US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Karzai on March 23. US Secretary of State John Kerry made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan in an attempt to strengthen the relationship between the two countries.

Officially, US State Department aid to the Honduran National Police must bypass units under the direct supervision of the force's overall commander, Director General Juan Carlos Bonilla AKA "El Tigre"—who in 2002 was accused of three extrajudicial killings and links to 11 more deaths and disappearances in so-called "social cleansing" operations. He was tried on one killing and acquitted; the other cases were never fully investigated. But an investigation by the Associated Press, based on interviews with unnamed Honduran officials, finds that all police units are actually under Bonilla's direction. Speaking on record was Celso Alvarado, a criminal law professor and consultant to the Honduran Commission for Security and Justice Sector Reform, who said the same. "Every police officer in Honduras, regardless of their specific functions, is under the hierarchy and obedience of the director general," he said.

Radio Espinar, the local transmitter in Espinar province of Peru's Cuzco region, issued a public protest charging that it was arbitrarily ordered closed by the Transport and Communications Ministry (MTC) March 18, charaterizing the move as "repression." The MTC said the decision not to renew the license was taken because the station had failed to pay an application fee and its equipment was found inadequate. But Matilde Taco Llave, daughter and legal representative of station owner Marcelino Taco Quispe, called the closure a disproportionate move, and said it was really motivated by the station's aggressive coverage of last year's local protests against the mineral operations of multinational Xstrata. "This is a consequence of having given information about what happened in the social conflict," she said. "We are sure that this is the cause."

Peru's Amazonian indigenous alliance AIDESEP released a statement March 20 protesting what they charged are irregularities in the criminal case over the June 2009 violence at Bagua. Days earlier, the local court that had been hearing the case, the Transitory Liquidative Penal Chamber of Bagua, adbicated its authority in the case against several indigenous leaders and turned it over to the National Penal Chamber, based in Lima. The National Penal Chamber officially only hears cases involving terrorism or arms and drug trafficking. AIDESEP said the transfer of the case is intended to imply that "the just struggles of indigenous peoples for the survival of their communities and humanity, as ocurred in the indigenous mobilization of 2008-2009, are acts of terrorism, and this we will not allow." (AIDESEP, March 20)