From Amnesty International, April 19:

Political activist David Venegas was arbitrarily detained by state police in central Oaxaca City on 13 April, and reportedly tortured. He has been charged with serious criminal offences, on the basis of evidence which appears to have been fabricated. He may be at risk of further ill-treatment and unfair judicial proceedings. Human rights lawyer Isaac Torres Carmonas was with him when he was arrested, and the police reportedly threatened him.

The Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) has joined with members of the Union of Mexican Jurists in a "Popular Court" to judge the repression and rights violations in southern Mexico's Oaxaca state over the last year of social conflict. The Popular Court is to collect evidence on "crimes against humanity perpetrated against the people," and submit the findings to national and international legal bodies. APPO Spokesman Florentino Lopez said that over the course of the conflict, police violence has claimed 27 lives, while 43 activists remain in prison—including APPO leader Flavio Sosa, held in isolation at El Altiplano maximum security prison 23 hours a day. (Prensa Latina, April 21)

The Other Campaign of Jovel—local chapter of the Zapatista civil initiative in the Chiapas highland city of San Cristobal de Las Casas—has turned over to the agrarian authorities in the state capital, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, a critical analysis of land conflicts in the restive southern Mexican state. The analysis accuses the federal Agrarian Reform Secretariat and the local Agrarian Tribunals of favoritism in approving land claims by those seeking to expel Zapatista communities. A statement in support of the analysis is signed by over 200 grassroots and non-governmental organizations, and more than a thousand individuals.

Representantives of dozens of ejidos (agricultural collectives) in the northern zone of Mexico's Chiapas state issued a statement denouncing the approval of illegal sales of collective lands. The protesters, mostly Chol Maya from the municipalities of Tila and Salto de Agua, acused the federal Certification Program for Eijdo Rights and Land Titles (PROCEDE) of skirting regulations by approving sales which had not been agreed upon by all collective members, as required by law. The statement said the illegal sales have "left entire families without their patrimony."

The president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), Florentín Menéndez, was in Mexico April 11 to meet with officials from the federal Government Secretariat. Menéndez urged officials to seek a solution to the ongoing teachers' strike in the conflicted southern state of Oaxaca. (El Universal, April 11) The meeting came days after the Government Secretariat had declared the Oaxaca crisis over. Florentino López Martínez, spokesman for the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) said the Secretariat was "gravely mistaken." He accused the government of trying to avoid sitting at the dialogue table with APPO, and pledged "the movement and the strugggle have not ended." (La Jornada, April 7)

Mexico, Colombia and seven Central American nations held a 24-hour summit April 10 in Campeche, issuing a nine-point plan for revitalizing the regional development alliance known as the Puebla-Panama Plan (PPP). Joining Mexico's President Felipe Calderon were the presidents of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia, and the prime minister of Belize. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was represented by his vice-president, Jaime Moreno. "Latin American integration is not a dream," President Calderón told the gathering. "As our Octavio Paz saw, it's a reality that we're constructing day by day." The major achievement of the summit was an agreement to pursue a region-wide oil refinery, to be located in an as-yet undetermined Central American country. Officials said four companies have expressed interest in bidding on the project.

Amado Ramírez Dillane, 50, Acapulco-based correspondent for Mexico's Televisa network and host of the daily news program "Al Tanto" on local Radiorama, was shot to death near the city's main square April 6. He had apparently just left Radiorama's studio when he was gunned down. According to Misael Habana de los Santos, Ramírez's co-host at Radiorama, the journalist had received several death threats on his cellular phone prior. Habana wrote in the national daily La Jornada that Ramírez had not paid attention to the threats, and refused to inform local police.

Mexico's Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat (Semarnat) announced that six more setlements—some which have been established for 70 years—have been slated for relocation from the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in the lowland rainforest of Chiapas, the Lacandon Selva. The named settlements are San Antonio Miramar, Rancho Corozal, Salvador Allende, Nuevo Salvador Allende, El Buen Samaritano and Nuevo San Gregorio. The communities are made up of some 60 families, covering around 5,000 hectares.