The special panel charged with conducting a review of the environmental impact study for the controversial Conga gold mining project in Peru's northern Andean region of Cajamarca handed its findings in to the central government April 17, and the 260-page document was posted to the website of the Environment Ministry (MINAM). The review calls for "better guarantees" of protection of local watersheds, and states that "alternatives should be evaluated" to filling alpine lakes with mine tailings. But both Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar Vidal and the document's authors—three European experts, two Spaniards and one Portuguese—emphasized that the study's purpose is just to make "technical recommendations," not to determine the Conga project's viability; This is a reversal of how the review was portrayed for months prior to its release. (Reuters, April 18; Peru This Week, RPP, EFE, La Republica, April 17)

At the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, US President Barack Obama announced approval of Colombia's supposed progress in protecting labor rights, allowing the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement to take effect next month. US trade representative Ron Kirk said at a Cartagena press conference that the agreement provides "an opportunity to help stand up for the rights of workers... This is a significant milestone." Kirk said Colombia has taken a number of important steps to implement the "labor action plan" that was a prerequisite for putting the trade deal into place. The plan included enforcing laws recognizing the rights of workers to organize and prosecuting past cases of violence against labor leaders. "We believe this is an historic step in the development of our relationship with Colombia," Kirk said.

Colombia is topping news headlines in the United States for a change following accusations that members of President Obama's security detail at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena this week brought local sex workers back to their hotel rooms. Security clearance for 11 Secret Service agents has been revoked, and investigators believe that up to 20 Secret Service and military personnel were involved. Cartagena Mayor Campo Elias Teran said local authorities are investigating whether some of the sex workers involved in the scandal were minors. (Colombia Reports, April 17)

Much of Peru's northern Andean region of Cajamarca was shut down in a 24-hour civil strike or paro April 11, the latest action in the campaign against the US-owned Conga gold-mining project. Organizers claimed participation in all 13 of Cajamarca's provinces. Public transport and most commercial activity came to a halt in Cajamarca city as protesters held a mass meeting in the Plaza de Armas, or central square. Hundreds of campesinos from the outlying provinces of Celendín and Bambamarca marched on the city, and students occupied the campus of the National University of Cajamarca. Campesinos in Jaén province, organized by a local ronda (peasant self-defense patrol), erected barricades of rocks and tree-trunks on the road through their territory, blocking traffic for hours. No violence was reported, despite a huge presence of National Police and army troops in the region, and threats from authorities in Lima. "What we aren’t going to allow are acts of violence that threaten the freedom of transit for other Peruvians who are not participating in the demonstration," cabinet chief Oscar Valdés told RPP radio network on the eve of the strike.

Reuters reports April 11 that it has been leaked documents revealing that a complaint has been filed at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) over the 1992 disappearance of two campesinos at the village of Madre Mia in Peru's conflicted Upper Huallaga Valley—a case in which President Ollanta Humala was accused. The 21-page complaint mentions Humala nine times, and was filed confidentially in early 2010, bearing the signature of Ronald Gamarra, then head of Peru's National Coordinator of Human Rights. At the time of the incident, Humala was a solider leading counterinsurgency operations against Sendero Luminoso guerillas in the area of Madre Mia (near the border of San Martín and Huanuco regions). The IACHR complaint says Peru's judiciary improperly dismissed a suit against Humala over the incident in 2009.

Over the past 10 years, more than 40% of Colombia's national territory has been leased to, or is being solicited for leasing by, multinational corporations, according to a report released last year by the NGO PBI Colombia, "Mining in Colombia: at what cost?" (PDF). Of Colombia's total territory of 114 million hectares, more than 8.4 million have been licensed for mineral exploration and more than 37 million for oil exploration. Colombian business website Portafolio.com reported April 8 on a February report by the Colombian Geological Survey indicating that 18 multinational mining companies own the rights to over 1.5 million hectares—with the two largest, Anglo Gold Ashanti and Mineros SA, accounting for 59% of the total figure. Portafolio.com reported Jan. 15 that US multinational Cargill recently purchased 90,000 hectares in Meta department for grain production, and is seeking more. Foreign agribusiness interests from Argentina, Switzerland, Israel and other countries have procured some 100,000 hectares around Colombia for production of "biofuels" and other cash crops—particularly in the Magdalena Medio region.

Nine informal miners were rescued April 11 after six days trapped in a tunnel at the Cabeza de Negro copper mine in Yauca del Rosario district, Ica province, Peru. President Ollanta Humala was on hand to greet them as they emerged—and in his public comments said the incident pointed to the dangers of informal mines. He said that informal mining companies that operate outside the law are "exploiting" workers, and that he will instruct the Public Ministry to toughen measures against them. The Cabeza de Negro mine was abandoned more than 20 years ago, but its entrance had never been dynamited as the law prescribes. In recent years, informal miners re-entered the tunnel, selling the copper on the gray market that is widely tolerated. Media reports emphasized that the miners were trapped by a cave-in triggered by an explosion they themselves had set. (AP, RPP, Andina, El Periodico.com, Spain, April 11)

Colombia's FARC guerillas responded to reports that they have been weakened, and asserted that the rebels' "struggle for a socialist Colombia" is legitimized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In a video recorded on March 24 and published on YouTube two days later, FARC commander Luciano Marín Arango AKA "Iván Márquez" said "there exists no end to the guerrilla as propagandized by the pawns of the trans-nationalization of the economy of Colombia. What does exist is an intense political and military confrontation and a growing mobilization of the social sectors." The guerrilla leader rejected the FARC's international label as terrorist organization, claiming that "the revolutionary violence, the rebellion against unjust and tyrannic regimes is an irrevocable universal right."