Commemorations were held in Cuzco, Peru, marking 236 years since claimant to the Inca throne Túpac Amaru II launched his indigenous uprising on Nov. 4, 1780. The ceremony, at the highland city's iconic Túpac Amaru Plaza, was attended by the fabled leader's direct descendant, Pedro Noguera Prada, who came from his home in France for the event. Loaning credence to the claim of royal Inca descent, Noguera asserted that contrary to most historical accounts, his ancestor's given name was not José Gabriel Condocarqui but José Gabriel Túpac Amaru Noguera. He asserted that the leader's 1760 marriage certificate, from when he wedded his later co-revolutionist Micaela Bastidas Puyucahua, remains on file in Canchis municipality, and shows this correct name.

Diyarbakır mayor Gültan Kışanak, a member of the Democratic Regions' Party (DBP), and her co-mayor Fırat Anlı were arrested by Turkish authorities Oct. 30 as part of an anti-terrorism investigation. The Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office charged Kışanak with "being a member of an armed terrorist group," while Anlı was charged with "trying to separate land under the state's sovereignty." Ayla Akat Ata, a former lawmaker of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), forerunner of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), was also detained at a protest against the arrest of the co-mayors. Akat was charged with "managing a terrorist organization." An HDP leader called Akat's detention a "kidnapping, not an arrest." Said HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş: "If you call it an arrest, then you accept that the law made a decision and the legal mechanism works. Arrest is a legal term, but there is no law. This is abduction and kidnapping." (Hurriyet Daily News, Daily Sabah)

An Oct. 23 AFP story relates how Syria's Kurds are restoring ancient names to "Arabized" towns in the country's north (where the regime has collapsed an a Kurdish-led autonomous administration holds power). Writer Delil Souleiman reports from a small town in the "official" governorate of Hasakeh known for decades as Shajra but now once again by the older Kurdish name of Joldara. Said one elderly resident: "Joldara in Kurdish means a plain covered in trees. This was the name of the village before it was Arabized by the Syrian government in 1962 and changed to Shajra," which means tree in Arabic. Joldara is one of hundreds such towns where new road-signs have been raised by the autonomous administration, with the Kurdish names in both Latin and Arabic script. 

The desert town of Kidal in northern Mali is under siege, divided into hostile camps by rival Tuareg factions—the pro-government Platform coalition, led by the GATIA militia, and the separatist Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA). Jihadist insurgents meanwhile harass the UN peacekeeping force MINUSMA in sporadic attacks from the desert. (Reuters, Oct. 17) Now there are signs that the jihadists are again trying to draw the separatist Tuarges into an alliance. On Oct. 9, renegade North African al-Qaeda leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar issued an online statement eulogizing Sheikh ag-Aoussa, a CMA leader who was killed in an explosion in Kidal the day before. Ag Aoussa's car blew up as he was leaving a meeting at the town's MINUSMA compound. Authorities maintain the car hit a land mine, but CMA followers charge that Ag Aoussa was assassinated. (LWJ, Oct. 14)

The farmers and agricultural workers of Tunisia's Jemna oasis have issued an urgent call for solidarity in defense of their communal property against a government-backed land-grab. The Jemna oasis historically belonged to the local farmers, until it was expropriated by French settlers and then by the Tunisian state after independence. İn the aftermath of the 2011 Revolution, the farmers successfully fought to recover title to the lands, organizing production collectively in a "solidarity-based micro-economy." The Tunisian state is now trying to re-expropriate the oasis to turn it over to local or foreign cronies, in what the farmers call a "counter-revolutionary attempt to maintain the capitalist order." Most recently, the government declared the Association for the Protection of Jemna Oasis to be an illegal entity. The Ministry of State Properties and Land Affairs, which leased the land to private operators before 2011, issued a statement threatening to cancel the call for tenders on the Association's' date harvest. It is now harvest season, when dates are sold to vendors and intermediaries through the Ministry's call for tenders. If pressure is not put on Tunis to issue the call for tenders, the harvest will be lost. The oasis accounts for some 10% of the arable land in Tunisia. (Lucha Internacionalista, UIT-CI, TunisiaLive, Oct. 10; Nawaat, Sept. 27)

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in a press briefing Oct. 7 welcomed the presentation of a draft bill on constitutional justice reforms in the Guatemalan legislature. Stating that this "represents an historic opportunity to consolidate the remarkable progress the country has achieved in the fight against impunity and corruption in recent years," the OHCHR expressed hope that the bill would be swiftly approved by the Guatemala Congress. Among other things, the bill seeks to improve access to justice for women and indigenous peoples, recognize indigenous peoples' legal jurisdiction over internal matters, strengthen the independence and objectivity of judges and magistrates, and depoliticize the nomination and appointment of officials in the justice system.

The Pentagon plans to send some 600 additional troops to Iraq to help launch a long-awaited offensive to retake Mosul from ISIS in the coming weeks. Added to the 560 new troops announced in July, this will bring total US troop strength in Iraq to over 5,000. Most of the new troops will be deployed to Qayyarah, an Iraqi air-base also known as Q-West, about 40 miles south of Mosul that has become the key staging base for the offensive. Some also will be deployed to the al-Asad base, which is further west in Anbar province. (LAT, Sept. 28)

The Mohawk band council of Akwesasne in Canada has introduced its own legal system independent of the country's federal system. This marks the first instance of an indigenous people creating its own legal system in Canada. While First Nation band councils have passed and enforced legislation on reserves for years, the new court framework was drafted by the community and is not tied to the Indian Act or any agreement with the Canadian government. Under the proposed legal system, justices and prosecutors are asked to enforce a variety of civil laws, while criminal matters still remain within the purview of the federal or provincial courts. The civil matters range from sanitation to property and wildlife conservation. The new system is underpinned by concepts of restorative justice, as there are no jail terms and offending parties are to use their skills to benefit the community. Questions remain as to what extent Akwesasne law will be recognized by provincial and federal courts.