Tribal communities across Bangladesh on Aug. 9 observed the International Day of the World's Indigenous People with rallies to demand their constitutional recognition as "indigenous people." An especially large mobilization was held in Rangamati in the southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts. (See map.) The protests were a reaction to recent statements by Foreign Minister Dipu Moni that the tribal peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts are "ethnic minorities" and should not be called "indigenous" to the region. Tribal leaders criticized the government for failure to fully implement Chittagong Hill Tracts peace accord, reached in 1997 to secure land rights for the region's tribal peoples. "There is regular bloodshed in the hills," said Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma, chairman of Chittagong Hill Tracts Regional Council. "Either the peace accord in the hills will be implemented or the Jumma people will be extinct."

China's move to set up a military garrison at Sansha on disputed Yongxing Island (also known as Woody Island) in the Xisha chain (claimed by the Philippines as the Paracels), along with creating a city administration for the island which has heretofore had few permanent inhabitants, is escalating tensions in the South China Sea (or, as Manila has it, the West Philippine Sea)—the key theater in Washington's new cold war with Beijing. On Aug. 4, Beijing summoned a senior US diplomat, the embassy's deputy chief of mission Robert Wang, over State Department criticism of the move. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement the day before that the US is "concerned by the increase in tensions in the West Philippine Sea and [we] are monitoring the situation closely."

Following a wave of protests on Okinawa against the planned deployment of a fleet of MV-22 Osprey aircraft by the US Marine Corps at the island's Futenma Air Station, the US Defense Department and Japan's government announced Aug. 5 that they will delay the deployment pending further tests of the aircraft's safety. The protests had the strong support of Takeshi Onaga, mayor of Naha, Okinawa's capital, and also won the sympathy of Yoshihiko Fukuda, mayor of Iwakuni, the city in southern Honshu's Yamaguchi prefecture where the 12 aircraft were to be assembled. In June, a US Air Force Osprey crashed in Florida, injuring all five airmen aboard, while a crash in Morocco in April left two Marines dead. The Ospreys, a hybrid craft that incorporates elements of both planes and helicopters, were to replace older CH-46 helicopters that are currently deployed at Futenma. (Japan Times, Aug. 5; RTT, July 27; AP, July 23; AP, July 20)

We've warned before that if Israel continues on its accelerating trajectory deeper into Jewish chauvinism and monocultural supremacy, it may have to forfeit its long-touted claim to the title of the "Middle East's only democracy." (Especially given that Israel is ironically fast becoming a more closed society simultaneous with the unprecedented political opening in the Arab world.) We've also warned that one way this chauvinism is manifesting is in the Judaization of geography in Jerusalem, and censoring of old Arab place names by municipal authorities. Now a similar controversy emerges from Tel Aviv. From Ha'aretz, Aug. 10:

More than 500 residents in the campesino community of Tumpa in Yungay province of Peru's central Andean region of Áncash, began blocking roads leading to the local operations of the Mina California company Aug. 6, declaring an open-ended paro (civil strike) to demand a halt to the mine's pollution of local waters. The mine is located near Nevado Huascarán, Peru's highest mountain, and the national park of the same name, which forms the headwaters of several of Peru's major rivers. (Servindi, Aug. 6) That same day, Aymara indigenous residents of Acora community in Puno region announced that a 72-hour paro will begin Aug. 13, to protest President Ollanta Humala's plans to move ahead with the Pasto Grande II irrigation project. The Pasto Grande II project would divert waters from the Lake Titicaca basin for agribusiness tracts on the coast in Moquegua region. The strike, called by the South Puno Natural Resources Defense Front, will also protest contamination of local waters by mining and other extractive industries. (Pachamama Radio, Aug. 10; Los Andes via La Mula, Aug. 6)

On Aug. 1, Peru's President Ollanta Humala signed a decree extending for another 60 days the state of emergency in the remote jungle area called the VRAE, for the Apurímac-Ene River Valley, where a remnant faction of the Shining Path guerilla movement remains active. However, as we have repeatedly noted, the acronym "VRAE" is becoming an elastic term defined by areas where the Shining Path is active rather than by geography. The state of emergency includes Echarate district, in La Convención province, Cuzco region—in the valley of the Urubamba, the next river basin to the east of the Apurímac-Ene. Similarly, districts of Tayacaja province in Huancavelica region are also affected—in the watershed of the Río Mantaro, to the west of the Apurímac-Ene, and on the edge of the central Andean section of the country. Affected districts in Ayacucho and Junín regions constitute the VRAE "proper"—actually within the Apurímac-Ene watershed. Most of the affected districts have been under a repeatedly extended state of emergency since May 2003, but Echarate only came under the decree in April after guerillas took scores of oil pipeline construction workers hostage.

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The president of Peru's Cajamarca region, Gregorio Santos, said Aug. 9 that he sees no purpose in continuing talks with two Roman Catholic priests trying to mediate a peaceful solution to the dispute over the proposed Conga gold-mining project. "The facilitators have already completed their tasks," Santos said. "The facilitators aren't going to make any decisions. The executive branch already knows the position of the people of Cajamarca." The statement came the day after facilitators, Trujillo Archbishop Miguel Cabrejos and dissident priest Gaston Garatea (suspended from the ministry by the Archdiocese of Lima for his populist positions), met with Prime Minister Juan Jiménez and other members of President Ollanta Humala's cabinet. The facilitators issued a statement calling on the central government to lift the state of emergency that was imposed on much of Cajamarca region in early July following an escalations of protests against the Conga project. (Dow Jones, Aug. 9; Andina, Aug. 8; CNA, July 24)