Four Honduran campesinos were killed and 11 were wounded in an ambush March 29 at the Marañón estate, near the city of Trujillo in the northern department of Colón. The victims were members of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), one of several organizations struggling to gain farmland in the Lower Aguán Valley. MUCA vice president Juan Chinchilla told the Associated Press wire service that the victims "were leaving for work and were traveling in various vehicles where they were attacked by armed men without having a chance to flee or defend themselves." About 50 campesinos have been killed in the Aguán region since 2009, mostly in disputes with major landowners; some died in unexplained violence sometimes attributed to criminal gangs. (AP, March 29, via Univision) (Juan Chinchilla himself was the victim of a kidnapping in January 2011.)

Some 1,500 indigenous campesinos arrived in Guatemala City on March 27 after an eight-day, 214-kilometer walk from Cobán, Alta Verapaz department, to promote their demands for land, debt cancellation and a halt to mining operations. Supporters joined them as they approached the capital, and the number of marchers eventually swelled to about 10,000, forming a line that stretched for 6 km. The protesters announced that they would stay encamped in the central Plaza de la Constitución until their main demands were met.

Thousands of Chileans turned out in Santiago on March 30 for the funeral of Daniel Zamudio, a young gay man killed by a group of neo-Nazis. Many people brought flowers and signed petitions calling for an end to discrimination; almost 100 vehicles accompanied the cortege from the Zamudio family's home to the General Cemetery. Rightwing president Sebastían Piñera responded to the news of Zamudio's death by announcing "the government's total commitment against all arbitrary discrimination and for a more tolerant country." After criticism from the Homosexual Integration and Liberation Movement (Movilh), even the conservative Episcopal Conference of the Catholic Church finally denounced "the intolerance, aggression and violence" in the attack on Zamudio.

The Director of National Intelligence released a report drafted with the Defense Intelligence Agency last month warning that competition for increasingly scarce water in the next decade will fuel instability in strategic regions around the world. "These threats are real, and they do raise serious security concerns,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a speech at the State Department, which requested the report. Depleted groundwater for agriculture, which uses 70 percent of water, could contribute to price spikes such as those last year that have led to international food riots in recent years. "Many countries important to the United States will experience water problems—shortages, poor water quality, or floods—that will risk instability,” the study found. "North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia will face major challenges coping with water problems." (Bloomberg, March 22)

Did you happen to notice this one? Just before last month's notorious purge of Bo Xilai, the populist Chinese Communist Party chief in Chongqing, World Bank President Robert Zoellick lectured the People's Republic that its economic model is "unsustainable," and it is in danger of falling into a so-called "middle-income trap" if it fails to reform. "This is not the time just for muddling through," Zoellick said at a late February Bejing conference. "It's time to get ahead of events and to adapt to major changes in the world and national economies." At the conference, the World Bank submitted a hefty report making policy recommendations—of course with special criticism for the state sector. (LAT, Feb. 27) Further details on the report are provided by the NY Times Economix blog March 5, via the Trade Reform website:

Two Tibetan monks set themselves on fire in Maerkang, Sichuan province, on March 30—bringing the total of protest self-immolations in little more than a year to over 30. The monks came from a monastery 80 kilometers away. When fellow clergy learned of the immolations, they set out for the city only to be blocked by police about halfway to Maerkang (known to Tibetans as Barkham). (AP, March 30) Four days earlier, Tibetan exile Jampa Yeshi self-immolated at a protest march New Delhi, ahead of President Hu Jintao's scheduled arrival in India. (NYT, March 26)

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) fighters overran a military checkpoint at al-Milah in Lahj province of southern Yemen March 31, killing 17 soldiers during an intense battle that also resulted in the deaths of 13 AQAP fighters. The AQAP militants seized two tanks and other weapons. Yemeni warplanes killed three AQAP fighters while attacking one of the seized tanks; it is unclear if the tank was destroyed. AQAP fighters fell back to the city of Ja'ar in neighboring Abyan province, one of several towns now under AQAP control. Ansar al-Sharia, or Partisans of Islamic Law, AQAP's political front in Yemen, claimed credit for the attack in text message, according to Reuters. "The holy warriors of Ansar al-Sharia this morning carried out the raid of dignity on the al-Hurur military checkpoint in Abyan, resulting in the deaths of around 30 [soldiers]," the statement said. (Long War Journal, March 31)