A month after the jungle hostage crisis in Peru—when 36 pipeline construction workers were briefly abducted by Shining Path rebels—facts are starting to emerge about the murky affair, and the revelations have prompted the resignation of two cabinet ministers. Defense Minister Alberto Otarola and Interior Minister Daniel Lozada stepped down May 10, when President Ollanta Humala was on a tour of South Korea and Japan. Both were harshly criticized in the deaths of 10 soldiers and police officers over the last month in the conflicted Apurímac-Ene River Valley (VRAE). The toll just over the past month is already higher than that suffered by the security forces in all of 2011, when nine police officers and soldiers were killed in the VRAE.

Plans by Anglo-French oil and gas company Perenco to exploit oil deposits slated to transform Peru's economy have been slammed as a "1970s-era" project and forecast to cause huge unnecessary environmental damage to the Amazon. "The proposed 200 km long pipeline will have a 25 metre cleared right-of-way, big enough for a superhighway. There’ll be a permanent road along the entire length," says Bill Powers, chief engineer at US consultancy E-Tech International, speaking after the April 4 publication of a report he authored on oil industry best practices. "Perenco is following a 1970s-era project design format that is totally inappropriate for the Peruvian Amazon," says Powers, an expert on Peru. "The company is not proposing to use current technology to reduce impact."

Peru announced April 26 that it will implement its own climate change initiative, in light of the continued absence of an international treaty. While Peru is the source of only some 0.4% of the world's carbon emissions, it may be especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The government says the country is experiencing disturbing climactic changes. "If we don't do something we will have problems with water supplies along the coasts, we know there will be more droughts, more rains," said Mariano Felipe Soldán, , head of the government's strategic planning office. "We are already seeing temperature changes." A glacier on Peru's Huaytapallana peak (Junín region) is half the size it was just 23 years ago. A 2009 World Bank report warned that Andean glaciers could disappear in 20 years if no action is taken to slow climate change.* They are already reduced by 22%, resulting in 12% less fresh water reaching the coast—where the majority of Andean region's people live.

Leaders of the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia (CIDOB) announced April 25 that will postpone the start of the Ninth Indigenous March by one day, and change the starting point from the village of Chaparina to the city of Trinidad, departmental capital of Beni, some 275 kilometers to the east—in order to avoid conflict with counter-protesters, who have blocked the highway in order to impede the march. Chaparina was chosen because it was the site of the police repression of last year's similar march, called to halt construction of a highway through Bolivia's northern Amazon region. Supporters of the new highway launched roadblocks at San Ignacio de Moxos, the town closest to Chaparina. CIDOB leader Adolfo Chávez said the decision was taken to avert a confrontation with "our brothers from San Ignacio." Government Minister Carlos Romero meanwhile flew into San Ignacio de Moxos to meet with the counter-protest leaders, and said he had secured an agreement for them to dismantle their blockades. (Erbol, EFE, ANF, April 25)

Peru's Panamericana TV on April 18 broadcast an interview with the leader of the Sendero Luminoso guerillas who last week took hostage some 40 Camisea gas pipeline workers in the lowland rainforest of Cuzco—adding further confusion to the already extremely murky affair. In the interview, Martín Quispe Palomino AKA "Comrade Gabriel" boasts that his forces freed the hostages voluntarily and that the abduction served to lure more government troops into the territory so as to heat up the insurgency. A smiling Comrade Gabriel said: "We asked for a ransom but we knew they [the government] wouldn't pay. We did it so that these hopeless reactionaries would send in the armed forces and we could annihilate them. This was our objective." He added: "Let them militarize the pipeline. We'd have the upper hand and would annihilate the armed forces, right?"

Six days after they were abducted by apparent Shining Path guerillas, hostage Camisea Consortium workers were freed in the rainforest of Peru's Cuzco region April 14, allowing President Ollanta Humala to boast of a "flawless victory" upon his arrival that day at the Sixth Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia—but accounts were typically sketchy and contradictory on exactly how the captives were released. The Defense Ministry said the guerillas let the workers go before dawn after they were encircled by some 1,500 police and army troops, and tried to flee. The Ministry's account said there had been a clash, in which one National Police officer was killed. But press reports said the kidnapped workers walked seven hours through the jungle to the village of Chuanquiri, where they were transferred by bus to Kiteni, another village which was being used as a staging area by security forces. There, some freed hostages disputed the official story, with one telling Peru's Canal N TV: "We were freed voluntarily. Be careful with the press and armed forces saying that we have been rescued."

A National Police helicopter searching for 40 hostages held by presumed Sendero Luminoso guerillas in a rainforest area of Peru's Cuzco region was fired upon April 12, killing a police captain on board, and wounding three others—the pilot, the gunner and a local civilian guide. The shooting happened over Lagunas sector of Echarate district, La Convención province. The government has sent 1,500 soldiers and police troops to the area near the Camisea gas field to try to rescue the construction workers who were seized on April 9. Officials say the guerillas have demanded $10 million in ransom. The administration of President Ollanta Humala has ruled out negotiations. (AP, AAP, Periodismo en Linea, April 12)

In a surprise move, Bolivian President Evo Morales announced April 10 he is rescinding the contract of the Brazilian firm OAS to build a controversial highway through the Amazon rainforest. Morales had already suspended the most contentious section, which was to pass through the Isiboro Sécure National Park Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS)—which was the subject of rival indigenous marches on La Paz for and against its construction. Now he is said he will annul the contract to build the remaining sections of the road that would link Villa Tunari in Cochabamba department with San Ignacio de Moxos in the rainforest department of Beni. Morales told a press conference in La Paz that the company had violated terms of the contract, charging, "OAS suspended construction in these sections without justification or authorization." Morales did not say if the road project would ultimately resume, or if OAS would be compensated. (MercoPress, April 11)