Some 1,500 indigenous campesinos arrived in Guatemala City after an eight-day, 214-km walk from Cobán to promote their demands for land, debt cancellation and a halt to mining operations.
Former general Pedro Pimentel has been sentenced to 6,030 years in prison for his participation in a 1982 massacre of 201 civilians–most of them women and children–in the village of Dos Erres.
Ngöbe-Buglé leaders reached an agreement with the Panamanian government that would ban mining in the group’s territory and limit hydroelectric projects–but there is strong opposition.
Women in the Honduran branch of the international campesino movement Vía Campesina launched a new campaign on March 8 under the slogan “for women’s dignity, we demand our right to the land.”
The Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous group suspended talks with Panamanian officials and resumed a blockade of the Pan American highway after four young protesters were wounded by rubber bullets.
US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended the US-backed war on the drug cartels, despite growing violence in Mexico and Central America—while Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla called for a regional debate on legalization.
The Honduran government signed an accord with two campesino organizations to finance the purchase of land for campesino cooperatives in an area where land disputes have left more than 50 dead in two years.
A federal immigration judge in Florida decided that former Salvadoran defense minister Gen. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova can be deported for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during El Salvador’s civil war.
Hundreds of relatives of inmates who burned or suffocated to death at the Comayagua prison fire in Honduras pushed past security guards to force their way into a morgue to demand the remains of loved ones. Police cleared the morgue with tear gas.
Human Rights Watch called for the reduction of overcrowding to improve poor prison conditions in Latin America following a prison fire in Honduras. The fire killed more than 300 inmates while injuring dozens more.
Honduras is in shock after a fire at a triple-capacity Comayagua prison left at least 360 dead, many burned or suffocated to death in their cells. Reports said guards hurled keys away before fleeing, abandoning the prisoners.
A pact between indigenous leaders and the government of right-wing president Ricardo Martinelli ended more than a week of massive protests over mineral and territorial rights that led to at least two deaths and dozens of arrests.
