Following a trial lasting seven years and four months, a court in Peru's Amazonas region on Sept. 22 absolved 52 indigenous leaders in charges related to the 2009 Bagua massacre. Initially, charges were brought against 53, but one defendant died over the course of the proceedings. The Penal Chamber of Bagua district found insufficient evidence that the accused indigenous protesters had handled firearms at the scene of the massace, in which at least 32 lost their lives. The defendants faced charges in the deaths of 12 police officers at the scene. The violence began when National Police troops attacked protesters blocking the road at Devil's Curve on June 5, 2009—yet no police officer or commander has served time for the massacre. The incident came amid indigenous protests over changes to Peru's land tenture system pushed through in preparation for the Free Trade Agreement with Washington and aimed at opening the rainforest to oil exploitation.

China's Foreign Ministry called on Kyrgyzstan to take urgent measures to ensure the safety of Chinese nationals and institutions following a deadly blast at Beijing's embassy in Bishkek, capital of the Central Asian naiton. China says it will assist Kyrgyzstan in the investigation into the Aug. 30 suicide car-bomb blast that killed the driver and injured three embassy employees. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion has fallen on the Turkestan Islamic Party, a Uigur separatist organization formerly known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. China has growing economic interests in Kyrgyzstan under the "Silk Road" initiative, land route of the "One Belt, One Road" trade and infrastructure scheme which also includes a maritime leg through the Indian Ocean. (SCMP, Sept. 1; RFE/RL, Aug. 31; Nikkei Asian Review, The Standard, Hong Kong, Aug. 30)

The US Supreme Court on June 6 declined to hear an appeal by the government of Ecuador of a $96 million arbitration settlement awarded to Chevron oil company. The high court let stand a 2015 decision by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, upholding the 2013 award in Chevron's favor issued by The Hague's Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Netherlands. Texaco, which was acquired by Chevron in 2001, originally brought suit in Ecuador for breaking terms of oil contracts and international agreements. Chevron initiated the arbitration proceeding at The Hague in 2006, seeking to hold Ecuador's government liable for damages from pollution of the rainforest. Chevron claimed Ecuador violated provisions of a 1997 investment treaty by failing to resolve lawsuits in a timely fashion. With interest, the arbitration award stands at approximately $106 million, Chevron said. Other Chevron cases related to matter before The Hague panel remain pending. (AP, Reuters, OilPrice, June 6; Chevron press release, Aug. 31, 2011)

Campesinos launched a strike across Colombia May 31, with some 100,000 blocking highways and effectively shutting down at least half of the country's 32 departments. One is reported dead from clashes at a roadblock outside the main Pacific port of Buenaventura, and four soliders were briefly detained by protesters on the Quibdó-Medellín highway. The "indefinite" strike, or National Agrarian Minga, was called to protest the economic policies of President Juan Manuel Santos, and especially to press him on promises made in 2013 to end a similar national strike that left dozens dead. "They have not complied with 30% of the accords," said Robert Daza of the Agrarian Summit. He charged Santos with drawing up a National Development Plan that corresponds to the needs of the Free Trade Agreement with Washington rather than Colombia's small producers. Daza said Santos is "putting the strategic resources of the nation up for sale [and] distributing the land in an unequal manner."

International environmentalists are condemning Vancouver-based Eco Oro Minerals' announcement that it will initiate arbitration against Colombia over its new policy to protect sensitive highland ecosystems. Eco Oro has stated its intention to sue Colombia under the investment chapter of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement over suspension of its proposed Angostura gold mine in Santurbán, Santander department, seeking "monetary compensation for the damages suffered." The case concerns a ruling of Colombia's Constitutional Court last month that revoked all licenses granted to companies that sought to carry out mining activities on páramos, the high alpine meadows that protect watersheds. The company maintains the Colombian government did not adequately demarcate the Santurbán paramó before giving a license for the project, which has received backing from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.

Protesters opposed to the Trans-Pacific Parternship marched through downtown Lima Feb. 25 and engaged in clashes with police, as a break-away group vandalized the headquarters of the APRA party. Lima has seen at least four protests against the TPP since Peru signed the agreement in New Zealand on Feb. 4, but these were the first to end in violence. Police used tear-gas after protesters threw rocks and set fires. "The TPP is the most dangerous trade agreement signed in history because it threatens national sovereignty, access to medicine and the Internet, healthy eating and a clean environment," read flyers passed out by the protesters. Protest organizers Dignity Collective denied having vandalized the APRA building in a statement the following morning, while also condemning "excessive repression" by the police and demanding that the 20 arrested protesters be freed. Former Cabinet chief Jorge del Castillo responded in comments to the media that the protesters were sympathizers of the Shining Path. (Peru Reports, Feb. 26; Prensa Latina, Feb. 25)

Kingi Taurua, a prominent elder of the Nga Puhi, an iwi (naiton) of New Zealand's Maori people at Te Tii Marae, Waitangi, North Island, has sent a formal "notice of veto" of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement to the embassies and trade departments of its proposed partner countries, and has requested that the Queen of Great Britain intervene on the issue. The document cites the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and the 1835 Declaration of Independence of New Zealand, and states that the New Zealand government does not have "due authority" to sign the TPP without the agreement of Maori elders, "which [agreement] has not been given." Taurua claims that the TPP would be void in respect of New Zealand's involvement as a result, and should not be signed. Release of the document sent by Taurua, entitled "Notice of Non-Assent to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and Exercise of Constitutional Power of Veto in Respect Thereof," came just a day before the TPP was due to be signed in Auckland on Feb. 4 by leaders from countries around the Pacific.

World War 4 Report has been keeping a dispassionate record of Barack Obama's moves in dismantling, continuing and escalating (he has done all three) the oppressive apparatus of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) established by the Bush White House. This year, the stakes got much higher, with multiple foreign interventions in Syria and ISIS striking in Europe. On the night of Obama's 2016 State of the Union address, we offer the following annotated assessment of which moves over the past year have been on balance positive, neutral and negative, and arrive at an overall score: