After nearly 30 years of legislation, the Organization of American States (OAS) has adopted a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples  at its General Assembly meeting in the Dominican Republic from June 13 to 15, 2016. The OAS General Assembly initiated steps towards a declaration in 1989.

On June 27th, 2016, the director of Public Prosecutions of Belize dropped the criminal charges against the Santa Cruz 13, allowing those who had unfairly been held prisoner to go free. The director stated that he had “no intention to lay charges against the accused in the future.” This is a victory for Indigenous people in Belize, since the government has acknowledged the innocence of the Santa Cruz 13 and the violations of due process and rule of law, as well as racial discrimination, that have plagued the trial.

By Giulia McDonnell

This morning, on June 28, 2016, the Director of Public Prosecutions discontinued the charges against the Santa Cruz 13. The Director also confirmed the state had “no intention to lay charges against the accused in the future.”

Sabino Romero, chief of the Indigenous Yupka community in the Sierra of Perijá, Venezuela, was murdered in March of 2013. The Yupka community claims that the suspected murderers were hired by cattle ranchers attempting to take the ancestral lands of the Yupka people. Romero was a lands activist who defended his community’s ancestral lands from cattle ranchers and mining companies.

By Laura Hobson Herlihy

The Miskitu people (pop. 185,000) live in Muskitia, a rainforest region that stretches along the Central American Caribbean coast from Black River, Honduras to just south of Bluefields, Nicaragua. Two-thirds of Muskitia and the Miskitu people reside in Nicaragua. The Miskitu people in Nicaragua today are in a crisis situation. Armed mestizo colonists are attacking their communities, pillaging and confiscating their rainforest lands. This article is a cry for help.