Thousands of members of Black and indigenous groups in Honduras marched on the capital, Tegucigalpa, on April 1, to commemorate 214 years since the arrival of the Garífuna people in the country (following their deportation by the British from St. Vincent), and to protest recent repression by the regime of Porfirio Lobo. Noting that the UN has declared 2011 the International Year for People of African Descent, protesters demanded respect for their territorial rights. “Today there is nothing to celebrate. We come here today to denounce that we are being usurped of our territory and living a second expulsion from our lands," said Miriam Miranda, president of the Black Honduran Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH). On March 28, Miranda was beaten by police and then allegedly tortured in custody when she was arrested at a march in Tela, Atlántida department. She was held by police for 12 hours before being turned over to a hospital with lesions on her stomach. (KoasEnLaRed, Spain, April 2; Revistazo, Honduras, March 29)

Honduran riot police threw a tear gas canister at journalists Lidieth Díaz and Adolfo Sierra from TV Cholusat Sur (Channel 36) as they were trying to film a protest by striking teachers on March 21 in Tegucigalpa, according to Channel 36 owner Esdras Amado López and other sources. Two other journalists, Radio Gualcho director Sandra Maribel Sánchez and Globo TV camera operator Uriel Rodríguez, also reported being assaulted by the police. "I was filming the military and the police when one of them fired rubber bullets, injuring both of my legs," Rodríguez said. "Then another group of police rushed at Sandra Maribel Sánchez to take her camera."

Honduran teacher Ilse Ivana Velásquez Rodríguez died around noon on March 18 in a Tegucigalpa hospital from injuries she received that day when riot police and the special Comando Cobra unit attacked a demonstration of thousands of teachers in front of the National Institute of Teachers' Social Security (Inprema). Protesters initially said Velásquez was hit in the face by a tear gas grenade and was then run over by a police vehicle. The Spanish wire service EFE later reported that she fell in the confusion when the police attacked and was hit by a vehicle belonging to a local television station; EFE said the driver, Carlos Eduardo Zelaya Ríos, turned himself in to the police that evening.

Central America is said to have the highest rate of femicides—misogynist murders—in Latin America, and many women's rights organizations marked International Women's Day on March 8 with street protests demanding that the region's governments take measures to stop the killings.

Rightwing Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli announced in San Félix, Chiriquí, on March 3 that he would ask the National Assembly to rescind a mining law that opponents said would encourage open-pit mining for metals by foreign companies and endanger the environment. "A president like me will always listen to his people," Martinelli wrote in his Twitter account, following nearly a month of demonstrations led by the Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous group. Polls reportedly showed 75% of Panamanians opposing the mining industry. (Adital, Brazil, March 3)

Some 25,000 people in Honduras' second city of San Pedro Sula joined a march against rising criminal violence Feb. 27. Dressed in white, the protesters marched in silence to press their demand that the government do more to improve public security, with banners reading "We want peace" and "respect life." The march was organized by the conservative National Democratic Alliance (ADN). One incident that sparked the march was the slaying of the president-elect of the Association of Evangelical Pastors while walking his pet schnauzers Feb. 21. He was apparently shot by thieves who attempted to steal the dogs. It was the second slaying of an evangelical pastor in Honduras this year. (Worthy Christian News, Feb. 28; BBC News, EFE, La Prensa, San Pedro Sula, Feb. 27)

A US diplomatic cable released by the WikiLeaks group on Jan. 29 has raised new questions about possible corruption in the de facto regime that ruled Honduras between the June 28, 2009 coup against then-president José Manuel ("Mel') Zelaya Rosales and the Jan. 27, 2010 inauguration of current president Porifirio Lobo Sosa.

On Feb. 15 some 5,000 members of Panama's Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous group held a day of national protests against changes to the Mining Resources Code that they said would encourage open-pit mining for metals by foreign companies. The protests, organized by the People's Total Struggle (ULIP), started at 10 AM in San Félix, in the Ngöbe-Buglé territory in the western province of Chiriquí. Demonstrators interrupted traffic on the highway leading to Costa Rica and reportedly attacked Deputy Labor Minister Luis Ernesto Carles, who had been sent to talk with them. At noon there were demonstrations in front of the Banco General in Santiago, Veraguas province, and the Aquilino Tejera Hospital in Penonomé, Coclé province. Actions continued in the afternoon with protests at the Central Avenue in Changuinola, Bocas del Toro province, and at Vía España in Panama City.