Southern Cone
Chile: ‘terrorist’ attacks in Mapuche region
The Chilean government prepared to step up repression against Mapuche activists after an elderly couple died in a fire set at their estate by some 20 masked men.
Tag: land
Central America
Honduras: two more campesinos killed in Aguán
Two campesinos were shot dead as violence continued in land disputes in the Lower Aguán Valley; the victims had been occupying land claimed by a university.
South Asia
India: institutionalized rape targets ‘untouchables’
The deadly gang-rape in Delhi has sparked outrage across India—but it remains to be seen if protests will address the institutionalized use of rape to enforce the caste system.
Central Asia
China: Han-Tibetan solidarity emerging
Human rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong, who defends Chinese peasants struggling to keep their lands, proclaims his support for the Tibetans and calls for Han solidarity with their cause.
The Amazon
Peru: Amazonian leaders press land demarcation
Amazonian leaders issued an open letter to President Ollanta Humala demanding that funds for the continued demarcation of indigenous lands be included in Peru's 2013 budget.
The Amazon
Peru: will land titling undercut Sendero?
Peru is titling campesino lands in the Huallaga Valley in a bid to undercut support for Sendero Luminoso—but communal title is being phased out under neoliberal dogma.
East Asia
China: Amnesty protests forced evictions
Violent forced evictions in China are on the rise as local authorities seek to offset debts by seizing and selling off land in suspect deals with developers, Amnesty International charges.
Southeast Asia
Vietnam: peasant protests over land-grab
Residents of Van Giang outside Hanoi marched to oppose the seizure of their lands for an “EcoPark” development project hailed by the government as a model of sustainability.
Mexico
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An indigenous environmental activist was killed in Mexico's south-central state of Morelos, three days ahead of a planned referendum on an energy development project that he opposed. Samir Flores Soberanes was a leader of the local Peoples in Defense of Land and Water Front and community radio station Amilzinko. He was slain by unknown gunmen in an attack at his home in the village of Amilcingo, Temoac municipality. He was a longtime figure in local opposition to the planned Huexca power plant and associated natural-gas pipeline, pushed by the government under the Morelos Integral Project. (Photo: Somos el Medio)
The Andes
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Under pressure to address the ongoing wave of targeted assassinations in Colombia, President Iván Duque for the first time spoke before the National Commission to Guarantee Security, formed by the previous government to address continuing violence in the country—which has only worsened since he took office last year. Duque said 4,000 people are now under the government's protection program for threatened citizens. But his office implied that the narco trade is entirely behind the growing violence. Interior Minister Nancy Patricia Gutiérrez told the meeting: "This great problem is derived from the 200,000 hectares of illicit crops that we have in Colombia." However, it is clear that the narco economy is but part of a greater nexus of forces that fuel the relentless terror—all related to protecting rural land empires and intimidating the peasantry. (Photo via Contagio Radio)
The Andes
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Gilberto Valencia, a young Afro-Colombian cultural worker, became 2019's first casualty of political violence in Colombia, when a gunman opened fire on a New Years party he was attending in his village in Cauca region. As the death toll from around the country mounted over the following weeks, the UN Mission to Colombia warned President Iván Duque that he must address "the issue of the assassinations of social leaders and human rights defenders." Colombia's official rights watchdog, the Defensoría del Pueblo, acknowledges that there was an assassination on average every two days in the country last year—a total of 172, and a rise of more than 35% over 2017. (Photo via Caracol Radio)
The Andes
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Trump, the great enthusiast for dictators, suddenly develops a touching concern with democracy in Venezuela, grasping at the opportunity for long-sought regime change. Predictably overlooked in the world media's Manichean view of the crisis are voices of Venezuela's dissident left that takes a neither/nor position opposed to both the regime and the right-wing leadership of the opposition. Also unheard are voices of indigenous dissent and resistance. In an episode that received little coverage, December saw protests in the remote Orinoco Basin after a leader of the Pemón indigenous people was killed in a confrontation with elite Military Counterintelligence troops. The military operation was ostensibly aimed at clearing the region of illegal mining—while the Pemón themselves had been protesting the mining. The indigenous leaders view the militarization of the region as intended to make way for corporate exploitation under the Orinoco Mineral Arc plan. (Photo: EcoPolitica Venezuela)