Thousands of students marched in the northwestern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on Aug. 28 to protest plans to reinstitute compulsory military service. "The current government isn't legitimate, " student leaders said, referring to the de facto government put in place by a June 28 military coup, "and we don't want to waste time; we want to study." The draft was replaced by voluntary service under former president Roberto Reina (1994-1998), but de facto president Roberto Micheletti's administration is reportedly seeking to bring it back. Jaime Guifarro, student council president at the Technological Institute of Business Administration (INTAE), said the plan was "a step backwards for Honduras" and would hurt "the poor, not the children of the rich."

On Sept. 3 US secretary of state Hillary Clinton held a meeting in Washington, DC with Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, who was removed from office on June 28 in a military coup. Shortly after the meeting, the State Department announced that the US was taking three steps that would send a "very clear message" to the de facto regime: the cancellation of all non-humanitarian aid, the revocation of the visas of members of the de facto government, and a warning that the US would not recognize the results of the scheduled Nov. 29 general elections if they are held under the current conditions.

The Canadian mining company Goldcorp Inc is continuing to press charges against five indigenous Mam in connection with a June 12 incident in which a pickup truck and an exploration drill rig were set on fire at the Marlin gold mine in San Miguel Ixtahuacán municipality in the western Guatemalan department of San Marcos. An arraignment was scheduled for the San Marcos courts in the city of San Marcos on Sept. 7. According to the Canadian-based Rights Action organization, 98% of crimes go unpunished in Guatemala.

Guatemalan community leader and environmental advocate Sofía Vidal Osorio was slain by unknown gunmen Aug. 17 at Morales, Izabal department. Vidal served as the elected leader of the community of La Ceiba, and was coordinator of the Inter-Comunitarian Council for the Sierra Caral Special Protected Area, an advocacy group seeking creation of a reserve to save the threatened forests of the small mountain range overlooking Lake Izabal. She had three times testified before Guatemala's congress in favor of declaring the protected area. Guatemala's Foundation for Eco-Development and Conservation (FUNDAECO) is calling on the government to declare the reserve in honor of Vidal, and take measures to end the state of lawlessness in the region. (National Council of Protected Areas—CONAP, Guatemala, Aug. 21)

Christian Poveda, a French film-maker who wrote a documentary about gangs in El Salvador, was shot dead at Tonacatepeque, near San Salvador, Sept. 2. Police say Poveda was driving back from filming in La Campanera, an poor outlying district that is a stronghold of the Mara 18 gang, when he was apparently ambushed. His latest film, La Vida Loca, focused on the hopeless and brutal lives of fantastically tattooed members of Mara 18. (London Times, AlJazeera, Sept. 3)

Before the June 28 coup, some in the Honduran left and grassroots movements had looked to the scheduled Nov. 29 general elections as a chance to break the monopoly on power held for decades by the Liberal Party (PL) and National Party (PN). Currently the two parties control 95% of electoral posts and government positions; of the 15 Supreme Court justices, eight are from the PL and seven from the PN. But the social movement was divided: union leader Carlos Humberto Reyes was registered as independent presidential candidate, while legislative deputy César Ham was running as the candidate of the small leftist Democratic Unification (UD) party.

On Aug. 25 the US State Department announced that it had temporarily stopped issuing visas to Hondurans in an effort to pressure the de facto Honduran government to allow President Zelaya's return to office; there will be exceptions for emergencies and for people who are immigrating to the US. On Aug. 26 US deputy assistant secretary for Andean, Brazilian and Southern Cone affairs Christopher McMullen indicated that the US might apply additional sanctions. More than half of Honduras' trade is with the US.

The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) announced on Aug. 26 that it was freezing credits to Honduras as a result of a coup that removed Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales from power two months earlier, on June 28. The move is provisional, since the banks' governors are still considering whether to join the many multilateral agencies and foreign governments that have suspended financing for aid projects until Zelaya is returned to office. The BCIE has provided about $971 million in financing for Honduras over the last five years. (Associated Press, Aug. 27)