On Sept. 11, a judge revoked 10 arrest warrants that had been issued against community leaders in the Guatemalan municipality of Barillas, Huehuetenango, for alleged crimes against the Spanish firm Hidro Santa Cruz, which plans to build a dam on a river outside the village. A civil court in Santa Eulalia found the warrants were issued in violation of proper procedures. The 10 were accused by the company of property destruction, kidnapping and terrorism, among other charges, after riots broke out following the murder of a community leader, Andres Fransisco Miguel, who had been an outspoken opponent of the plans to dam the Río Q'am B'alam (also rendered Canbalam). Nine community members still remain detained in Guatemala City's central prison. Saturnino Figuero of the Assembly of Peoples of Huehuetenango for the Defense of the Territory expressed hope that these would be released too, saying, "We are convinced that because this case has become national and international news, the actors in the justice system will begin to align their actions more closely with the law." (Cultural Survival, Sept. 17)

Honduran National Congress president Juan Orlando Hernández announced on Sept. 4 that the government’s Commission for the Promotion of Public-Private Alliances (COALIANZA) had signed an agreement for the first of three "model city" projects—semi-autonomous regions mandated under a 2010 constitutional amendment. COLIANZA claims the project, which still needs approval from the Congress, will create 5,000 direct and indirect jobs this year, 15,000 jobs in 2013, 30,000 in 2014, and 45,000 in 2015.

On Sept. 4 the giant California-based fruit and vegetable producer Dole Food Company, Inc. finally began funding a settlement it made more than a year earlier with some 5,000 former banana workers in Central America who said their health had been damaged by exposure to the pesticides Nemagon and Fumazone, brand names for dibromochloropropane (DBCP). Dole had refused to pay until all judgments against it had been dismissed and each of the plaintiffs had signed a release agreeing not to sue Dole again for injuries linked to DBCP.

Nicaragua will no longer send military personnel to the US military's controversial Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA), President Daniel Ortega said during a meeting with a delegation of human rights activists in Managua on Sept. 4. Nicaragua will be the first Central American country to withdraw from the school, which critics say has trained many of Latin America's most notorious human rights violators since its founding in 1946. Five South American nations have ended their relations with SOA/WHINSEC: Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Venezuela, and, as of June 27, Ecuador.

The US embassy in Guatemala  on Aug. 30 praised the decision of the Guatemalan Constitutional Court allowing former president Alfonso Portillo to be extradited to the US on charges of embezzling foreign donations. Upon extradition Portillo will stand trial in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on charges of laundering US$1.5 million in Taiwanese foreign donations, which were supposed to be used to buy schoolbooks for Guatemalan children. Instead Portillo allegedly deposited the funds in various banks for his personal use. Portillo was president from 2000 to 2004 and was tried last year in Guatemala on  charges of embezzlement  under which he allegedly diverted approximately USD $15 million in funds from the Ministry of Defense. His extradition to the US was approved by a Guatemalan criminal court in March 2010.

A Honduran campesino, Marvin Orlando Rivera Mejía, was killed around 6 am on Sept. 1 during a confrontation between security guards and a campesino group at the Boleros estate, at the edge of Trujillo in the northern department of Colón. The victim was reportedly not involved in the confrontation and was shot unintentionally. A guard, José Reyes González, was hit by a bullet in the back and was taken to a clinic in the city of San Pedro Sula. The campesinos fled when police and soldiers arrived; an unknown number were wounded. Departmental police chief José Mejía claimed the campesino group was heavily armed.

Swiss prosecutors announced Aug. 31 that Erwin Sperisen, former commander of Guatemala's National Civil Police, was arrested in Geneva. The arrest is based on evidence submitted in 2011 by Guatemalan authorities linking Sperisen to extrajudicial killings. Sperisen, 42, holds both Swiss and Guatemalan nationalities; because of his Swiss citizenship he cannot be extradited, but authorities say he will be put on trial in Switzerland. He is accused in at least 10 homicides carried out in Guatemala's prison during his time as police commander from 2004 to 2007, thought to be part of a campaign of "social cleansing."

Some 45 campesinos from the Lower Aguán Valley in northern Honduras were arrested during protests on Aug. 21 and Aug. 22 demanding that the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) issue rulings in favor of campesino struggles for land. The protests were sponsored by a number of organizations—including the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA) and the Authentic Claimant Movement of Aguán Campesinos (MARCA)—that have led land occupations and other demonstrations since 2009 in an effort to obtain farmland that they say big landowners acquired illegally during the 1990s.