Gerson Adair Gálvez Calle AKA "Caracol" (The Snail), Peru's most wanted fugitive drug lord, was arrested by Colombian National Police at a shopping center in Medellín and promptly deported on May 1. National Police director Gen. Jorge Hernando Nieto called the apprehension "a powerful shot against transnational crime." Peruvian authorities had offered a reward of $150,000 for information leading to the arrest of El Caracol, who is considered Peru's biggest exporter of cocaine.

Fernando Meléndez, president of Peru's northern rainforest region of Loreto, announced April 29 that he will seek a referendum on seceding from the country, charging that the central government "has no interest" in addressing the region's needs. "Loreto will take historic decisions in the coming days to determine its destiny," he told local media. "If the government does not listen at the dialogue table, we will decide to seek a referendum and see the possibility of going down another path." He said that despite the "patriotic spirit" of Loreto, Lima has mainly seen the region as a source of oil wealth, abandoning its people to underdevelopment. He said that last year Loreto received only 600,000 soles ($180,000) in compensation for oil exploitation in the region. "This is inconceivable. Loreto is a region that over 40 years has given the national treasury billions of dollars, and therefore we demand that the government give compensation; all of the budgets in our region are broken."

Maxima Acuña, a campesina grandmother from Peru's northern Cajamarca region, has been named the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize winner for South and Central America for her struggle to defend her family's lands from Newmont Mining. "A subsistence farmer in Peru's northern highlands, Maxima Acuña stood up for her right to peacefully live off her own land, a property sought by Newmont and Buenaventura Mining to develop the Conga gold and copper mine," the prize's official webpage indicates. At the award ceremony in San Francisco April 18, Acuña denied being a social leader, saying: "I only want them to leave me in peace on my land and that they do not contaminate my water." Considered the "Green Nobel," the Goldman Prize honors grassroots activists for significant achievements in protecting the environment worldwide.

Reuters takes relief that Peruvian markets jumped on April 11 as results showed two "free-market candidates" emerging victorious from the previous day's first-round presidential race. "Conservative" Keiko Fujimori, with an estimated 40% of the vote, will now face "centrist" Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, with some 22%, in a June run-off. Markets evidently reacted favorably to the failure of "nationalist" Veronika Mendoza to make the second round, winning only some 18%. As the headline put it: "Two pro-business candidates make Peru runoff, markets rise." The BBC News calls Fujimori "centre-right." New York Times also calls Kuczynski "centrist" and (more accurately) Keiko "right-wing." These labels reveal illusions, and the degree to which what used to be the right is now considered the "center." Kuczynski (known by his initials PPK) is a former World Bank economist and veteran cabinet minister under the presidency of Alejandro Toledo. He is the one who is actually the "conservative" of the "center-right"—a standard neoliberal technocrat. Fujimori's intransigent and unapologetic defense of her father Alberto Fujimori—who ruled as a dictator in the '90s and is now imprisoned for assassinations and human rights abuses—clearly places her on the far right.

Some 50,000 Peruvians filled Lima's Plaza San Martín to recall the April 5, 1992 "autogolpe" (suspension of civil government) by then-president Alberto Fujimori—and to repudiate the presidential ambitions of his daughter Keiko Fujimori, front-runner with the election just five days away. (La República) The mobilization came just as candidate Fujimori (of the right-wing Fuerza Popular party) and three of her rivals have been implicated in the "Panama Papers" revelations. Prime Minister Pedro Cateriano announced via Twitter that the revelations must be investigated promptly. The 11 million documents leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca name political figures from around the world as hiding assets in offshore accounts. Peruvian public-interest media outlet Ojo Publico was a key conduit for the leak. (PeruThisWeek, Andina)

Peruvian journalist Walter Chávez, widely named in the press as a key campaign advisor to Bolivian president Evo Morales, was arrested in Argentina March 16, and may face extradition to Peru, where he faces charges of having served as an operative of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), a now-defunct guerilla group. Chávez was granted political asylum in Bolivia in 1992, and worked on Morales' campaigns between his election in 2005 and his most recent re-election in 2014. Bolivia refused a Peruvian extradition request in 2007. Chávez was arrested in Argentina's northern city of Salta, apparently having crossed the border some three weeks earlier. (Peru.com, March 17; InfoBae, Argentina, Eju!, Bolivia, March 16) In response to the controversy, Bolivia's cabinet chief Carlos Romero denied that Walter Chávez had ever been an official advisor, saying he did not work out of the presidential palace but "particiapted voluntarily" in Morales' campaigns. (Terra, March 17)

Members of the Wampis community of Mayuriaga in the northern Peruvian Amazon seized a grounded military helicopter March 6, holding crew members and eight officials who were on board to press for inclusion in the emergency response plan to last month's devastating oil spill in the region. The eight officials, from state company PetroPerú, were released two days later, after the government agreed to a meeting to discuss indigenous demands, including to improve electricity and other services for the remote area. The Wampis were angered that Supreme Decree 012-2016, instating the emergency response plan, did not actually include their community in the clean-up zone. Some  1,000 barrels spilled when PetroPerú's trans-Andean pipeline rupturted Feb. 3 at Mayuriaga, which lies in Morona municipalty, Datem del Marañón province, Loreto region. Nine days earlier, a second leak further west on the pipeline spilled some 2,000 barrels. The Oleoducto Norperuano is 40 years old, and has been repeatedly cited in recent years by environmental regulator OEFA for poor maintainence. (TeleSur, March 8; RPP, Reuters, March 7)

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)