At least 16 people were killed and dozens injured June 15 in armed clashes that erupted as police evicted landless campesinos who had invaded a privately-owned "forest reserve" in Paraguay. The 2,000-hectare "reserve" is within the sprawling Morumbí hacienda, outside Curuguaty town in fertile Canindeyu department, near the borders with Brazil and Argentina. (See map.) The ranch is owned by Blas Riquelme, a former senator with the Colorado Party. Some 300 police were mobilized to the site, backed up with helicopters. Authorities said the campesinos were armed with M-16s and other assault rifles, and opened fire as police moved to eject them. The dead included six police and at least 10 campesinos.

An elaborate ploy by ranchers in Paraguay to trick an indigenous tribe into allowing them to build a new road that would cut their lands in half has backfired, with an official investigation now underway by the country's Indigenous Affairs Department (INDI). Leaders of the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode people had been visited by the ranchers' agents, demanding they sign a "friendly agreement" (acuerdo amistoso) allowing the ranchers to bulldoze a road through the middle of their territory. When indigenous leaders refused, the ranchers allegedly forged their signatures and sent the "agreement" to government officials. But just days later the same government office received a letter from the Ayoreo denouncing the ranchers' strong-arm tactics. If built, the road would have facilitated escalation of the illegal forest destruction which has already ravaged much of the Ayoreo's land, including areas inhabited by isolated or "uncontacted" bands. INDI warned in a statement that the scam "could lead to countless violations against environmental laws and against uncontacted indigenous families."

A de-escalation is reported in the Espinar mining conflict in Cuzco, Peru, as a judge ordered the release of the province's imprisoned mayor, Oscar Mollohuanca. In an unusual move, he had been ordered imprisoned in Ica region—which does not even border Cuzco—while awaiting trial on charges of abetting violent protesters against the Xstrata Tintaya copper mine. Although the charges have not been dropped, Mollohuanca upon his release June 14 immediately headed for Lima, where he said he will establish a dialogue with the administration of President Ollanta Humala. (La Primera, June 14; AP, June 12)

Telma Yolanda Oqueli, a community leader in San José del Golfo municipality outside Guatemala City, was shot in the chest and gravely wounded by a gunman on a motorbike June 13. She was returning home from a protest vigil when she was intercepted by the two men on the motorbike. Residents of San José del Golfo and neighboring San Pedro Ayampuc have since March 2 been daily blocking the entrance to the Tambor/Progreso 7 Derivada run by Exploraciones Mineras de Guatemala, SA (EXMINGUA), local subsidiary of Canadian junior Radius Gold Inc. The North Metropolitan People's Resistance Front (FRENAM) is asserting the communities' right to a consultation, or local plebiscite, on the mining project. The project began exploratory operations earlier this year without any consent from the local population; nor has the government of Guatemala, carried out any consultation. Oqueli, a leader of the blockades, had received FRENAM has issued an urgent call for the Guatemalan state to guarantee of the communities. (Noticias Comunicarte, CoDev, June 13; MiMundo, June 4 via UDW)

In a wee-hours raid on June 12, heavily armed FBI and Border Patrol agents in 15 vehicles swept into the Ruidoso Downs Racetrack and Casino, in Ruidoso, NM, seizing dozens of racehorses. A simultaneous raid was carried out at Zule Farms, in Lexington, Okla, which apparently supplied horses to the Ruidoso track. A total of seven were arrested in the raids, accused of using the horse trade to launder money for Los Zetas drug cartel. Indicted in the case are accused Zeta commanders Miguel Angel Treviño Morales AKA "Z-40" and his brother Oscar Omar Treviño Morales AKA "Z-42"—who are presumed to remain at large in Mexico. (El Paso Times, AP, June 13; El Paso Times, June 12)

Since Azawad broke away from Mali in April, we've been wondering how long the world powers will tolerate the situation. On one hand, the logistical nightmare of a potentially protracted war against a hydra-headed insurgency of mutually hostile Tuareg rebels and jihadi factions in the most remote part of the Sahara; on the other, a vast and resource-rich swath of Africa outside the control of any state. One thing that may have held up intervention was the change of administration in France. Now new president François Hollande appears to remove doubts that he is ready for war. In a Paris meeting with Niger 's President Mahamadou Issoufou, he warned: "There is a threat of terrorist groups setting up in northern Mali. There is outside intervention that is destabilizing Mali and setting up groups whose vocation goes well beyond Mali, in Africa and perhaps beyond." (AFP, June 11) We can imagine that French uranium interests in what is now "Azawad" may color Hollande's thinking on this question.

In the wake of the May 25 massacre in Houla, shock and revulsion reverberate across the world—except among "anti-war" voices in the West, those supposedly most concerned with war crimes and mass killings of civilians. Kind of funny, eh? Amnesty International calls for action from the International Criminal Court, finding: "The Syrian military's barrage of shells, mortars and rockets and raids on the residential area of Teldo...left at least 108 dead, including 34 women and 50 children." Said AI's Middle East director Philip Luther: "The high civilian death toll—including scores of women and children—in Houla must spur the Security Council to act in unison and immediately refer the situation in Syria to the ICC." Since then, the annual UN "Children and Armed Conflict" report has been released, accusing the Assad regime of torturing kids:

With the Ninth Indigenous March, called to protest construction of a road through the Isiboro Sécure National Park Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS), now resting at Caranavi, in the Yungas region of La Paz department, a new blow to the movement was registered June 8 as leaders loyal to President Evo Morales affected a change of leadership in the main organization behind the march, the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian Oriente (CIDOB). After an "extraordinary assembly" in Santa Cruz, 10 regional CIDOB leaders announced that they had voted to "disown" the organization's president, Adolfo Chávez, for "violating" internal norms. They said a Grand National Assembly of Indigenous Peoples (GANPI) would be held in 30 days to chose a replacement for Chávez, the main leader supporting the Ninth March.