In a new report, Human Rights Watch charges that Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) is adept at documenting abuses—but has failed to prevent them. Said HRW Americas director Jose Miguel Vivanco: "While it does a decent job documenting abuses and identifying problems, it doesn't take crucial steps needed to bring about change. The (commission) should be a catalyst for human rights progress, not merely a chronicler of the status quo." The 128-page report focuses on the police crackdown on peasant protesters at Atenco village, the rapes and killings of villagers by troops in Michoacán and Coahuila states, and the unsolved murders of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez. Too often, the report found, the commission merely recommend fixes to government agencies and then failed to check if they were ever implemented. The study found that backroom deals remain the norm. (Houston Chronicle, Feb. 13)

On Feb. 11, ski-masked gunmen stopped a bus on the road between San Cristobal de Las Casas and Ocosingo in the conflicted southern Mexican state of Chiapas, threatening passengers and robbing them of cameras, cell phones, ID documents and other possessions. The assault comes days after local Zapatista supporters were illegally detained by members of the OPDDIC paramilitary group, who accused them of being bandits. (La Jornada, Feb. 12) That same day, seven OPDDIC militants, including leaders Carlos Moreno Hernández and Pedro Chulín Jiménez, were freed from prison on the orders of a federal judge, who issued an amparo protecting them from arrest or prosecution. (La Jornada, Feb. 12)

Lorenzo Fernández Ortega, a 38-year-old bricklayer and member of the Organization of the Indigenous Mepha'a People (OPIM), was stabbed to death Feb. 10 in Ayutla de los Libres, a village in the conflicted Mexican state of Guerrro. The group had been protesting a campaign of forced sterilizations of indigenous women in the region, and charged that the federal army is establishing paramilitary groups which have carried out recent attacks on indigenous activists. OPIM's statement on the murder said, "our compañero Lorenzo was assassinated by paramilitaries that work for the 48th Infantry Battalion of the Mexican Army, headquartered at Cruz Grande." (OPIM statement via Zapateando; La Jornada, Feb. 12)

A group of five men armed with AK-47 and AR-15 rifles and 9mm pistols shot and killed Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, director of the Auxiliary, Industrial, Bank and Commercial Police for the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, on Jan. 30 as he was jogging on the track at the Bosque El Tequio sports complex near Oaxaca city. Also killed in the military-style ambush were one of Barrita Ortiz's bodyguards, Juan Eduardo Prado Perez; government employee Rafael Alonso Muñoz; and sports trainer Virginia Galan Rodriguez, who won the state sports prize in 2003. Two other people were wounded. It was not clear whether Muñoz and Galan were with Barrita Ortiz's group.

Local schoolteacher Felipe Hernández Yuena was detained Feb. 5 in the municipal government building at Venustiano Carranza, a conflicted town in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, accused of "sedition and riot." Showing bruises on his face, arms and abdomen, Hernández Yuena said that while in custody he was beaten and tortured by masked men he believed were from military intelligence, who questioned him about whether recent anti-NAFTA protests in the state capital, Tuxtla, were organized by the clandestine Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR). (La Jornada, Feb. 7)

After meeting with UN Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour, Mexican President Felipe Calderón announced Feb. 6 that he would gradually remove army troops from drug enforcement duty, replacing them with newly-trained police units. Use of the military in Mexico's war on the drug cartels has been harshly criticized by rights groups, including the official National Human Rights Commission. However, the official plan still posted to the website of Mexico's Federal Registry says military forces will remain involved in drug enforcement through the end of Calderón's term in 2012. (Bloomberg, Feb. 6)

As of Jan. 29 Mexican officials and representatives of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM) said they had agreed on a "no aggression" pact and were ready to negotiate starting on Jan. 30. The union and the government have had a series of confrontations since February 2006, when the Labor and Social Security Secretariat removed SNTMMRM general secretary Napoleon Gomez Urrutia from his post for alleged corruption. Topics for negotiation were to include the removal of police and soldiers from the giant Cananea copper mine, site of a six-month strike; the disposition of bodies neverrecovered from the Pasta de Conchos coal mine after a February 2006 explosion that killed 65 workers; mine safety issues; strikes likely to break out in the mining industry; and wage and contract issues. Union representatives say they expect Gomez Urrutia to return to Mexico from the US by March at the latest. (La Jornada, Jan. 29)

Mexico formally protested use of tear gas by the US Border Patrol, the Exterior Secretariat sending a letter to the US Embassy requesting a probe of an incident last month in which Cristian Saldana, 15, was struck in the nose by a gas canister after he reportedly threw stones at Border Patrol agents near Tijuana. "Launching tear gas does not contribute in any way to a climate of understanding and collaboration," an Exterior Secretariat statement said Jan. 31, calling the practice "unacceptable."