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.”

By Anna Hernandez

As recent high profile corruption cases continue to bring worldwide attention to Guatemala’s government and military institutions, other, less-known human rights cases have been overlooked.

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 Anna Hernandez

When Bolivia passed the Law for the Defense of Mother Earth in December 2010, those behind the law, Indigenous leaders, conservationists, and the president were looking to the future. The law would be presented in the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in April in Cochabamba, Bolivia and would go on to become the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth, which was taken to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meetings in 2011.

On May 30th, 2016, environmental and social activists from Indigenous Communities across Colombia came together to take part in the National Agrarian, Peasant, Ethnic and Grassroots Mobilization (Minga).