Four people are reported to have been killed in Bolivia last week by local residents acting in the name of "community justice." In Colquechaca, Potosí, a youth of 16 was buried alive by local Quechua residents after being accused of raping and killing a local woman. A district prosecutor reported that he was thrown alive into the same grave as his purported victim. Two men, 17 and 21, were reportedly burned alive at Tres Cruces, Potosí, accused of having killed a local taxi driver. The fourth fatality took place in an unnamed pueblo in the Chapare region of Cochabamba department, where an accused thief was beaten to death. "Community justice" is enshrined in Bolivia's new constitution, amid provisions instating local autonomy for indigenous peoples, but the government considers such incidents to be lynchings. (InfoBAE, NY Daily News, June 7)

The death of former Argentine dictator Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla (1976-1981) on May 17 brings to seven the number of Latin American and Caribbean de facto heads of state who are now in prison or facing criminal charges for their acts while in power. All but one were charged in the last decade.

Seven social leaders in Bolivia's aliplano city of Oruro have been on a public hunger strike for 10 days now to protest the decision to change the name of the local airport to Juan Evo Morales, after the sitting president. The strike began after the Oruro departmental assembly, dominated by the president's supporters, voted to approve the change from the current name of Juan Mendoza, an aviation hero who was born in the region. The airport has been named for Mendoza since it opened in 1945. Over the past week, hundreds of supporters of the hunger strike, organized by the Civic Committee of Oruro and the Departamental Workers Central (COD), repeatedly blocked roads in the city. (Los Tiempos, Cochabamba, March 10; Los Tiempos, EFE, March 5)

Four suyus (traditional Aymara territories) in Bolivia's Oruro department appealed Feb. 15 to the region's Superoir Court of Justice, demanding that authorities recognize the Aymara system of justice. "The mechanism of conflict resolution in the ayllus, markas and suyus of the Department of Oruro has a position of equal rank with ordinary justice," the complaint reads. The suyus of Suras, Jach'a Carangas, Jatun Quillacas and Uru Chipayas brought the case through the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu (CONAMAQ), demanding modification of Bolivia's Autonomy and Decentralization Law. (El Potosí, Feb. 15)

Some 2,000 Bolivians marched Feb. 20 through central La Paz to the Chilean consulate to demand the liberation of three Bolivian soldiers held since Jan. 25 after crossing the border into the neighboring country. At the consulate, protesters delivered an open letter addressed to Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, demanidng that he comply with his "historic obligation" to answer Bolivian demands for sea access. The march was led by an alliance of popular organizations, including Bolivia's campesino federation, CSUTCB.

Bolivia's Aymara indigenous alliance CONAMAQ issued an open letter Jan. 27 to President Evo Morales, the official rights watchdog Defensoría del Pueblo, and the independent Permanent Human Rights Association of Bolivia (APDHB),  charging that the ruling Movement to Socialism-Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (MAS-IPSP) is seeking to divide their organization. The statement warned of the possibility for violence at CONAMAQ's upcoming Mara Tantachawi, or annual gathering. "The MAS-IPSP government of Evo Morales...in the different suyus [regions] is organizing and mobilizing groups of confrontation led by ex-authorities suspended by CONAMAQ...to sabotage [hacer fracasar] this event and take over by force the CONAMAQ council for political ends," the statement reads.

In a ceremony at Los Tajibos hotel and convention center in Santa Cruz, Bolivia's President Evo Morales on Jan. 11 promulgated Law 337 on Support of Food Production and Forest Restitution, part of his plan to boost food production under the Patriotic Agenda 2025 program, building towards the bicentennial of the country's independence. The law establishes a "special regime" forgiving owners of predios (private collective land-holdings) who engaged in illegal deforestation between July 1996 and the end of 2011. The measure applies only to private lands cleared without permission of the National Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Innovation (INIAF), and not to lands illegally cleared in forest reserves or other protected areas. Normally, landowners who clear their lands without authorization face a fine and are obliged to reforest the areas, a penalty known as "reversal." The decree chiefly concerns the eastern lowland region of the country in the Amazon Basin, known as Oriente.

Bolivia was re-admitted to the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs Jan. 11—with a special dispensation recognizing the traditional use of coca leaf as legal within its borders, to officially take effect in one month. Official celebrations are planned for the victory in La Paz and Cochabamba next week. Fifteen countries objected to Bolivia's dispensation—far short of the 62 needed to have blocked it, a third of the 183 signatory states. The dissenting governments were the United States, UK, Russia, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Israel and Ireland. An official US statement said the administration continues to believe that coca legalization "will lead to a greater supply of cocaine and increased cocaine trafficking and related crime."