Two people are dead and at least five missing after a paramilitary group ambushed a human rights caravan April 27 in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Beatriz Cariño Trujillo, a coordinator of the Mexican Network of People Affected by Mining (REMA) and a member of the Center for Community Support Working Together (CACTUS), and Tyri Antero Jaakkola, a Finnish human rights observer, were killed when gunmen believed to be linked to the Union for the Social Wellbeing of the Triqui Region (UBISORT) attacked the caravan, which was traveling towards the municipality of San Juan Copala.

Unidentified assailants threw an explosive over the fence of the US consulate in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, on April 11. The blast caused some damage but no injuries. Authorities are investigating the explosion and have temporarily closed the consulate, as well as another in nearby Piedras Negras. "The Consulate General and Consular Agency will reopen when we are confident that we have adequate security to keep our visitors safe," a press release said. (Latin America News Dispatch, April 12; BBC News, April 11)

On April 11 the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) announced that some 2,300 members were planning to start a mass hunger strike in Mexico City's central plaza, the Zócalo, as part of the union's continuing protest against President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's sudden liquidation of the government-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) the night of Oct. 10. The union says 17,247 of the 44,000 LFC workers laid off in the liquidation have refused to accept the government's severance package; they are demanding either the reopening of the LFC or jobs at the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), which has taken over LFC's operations. These workers have carried out a series of protests, often large and militant, over the last six months, but without success.

As of March 26 sources in the Mexican military had admitted that it was probably soldiers who killed two graduate students the early morning of March 20 in front of the prestigious Institute of Technology and Higher Education's Monterrey campus (ITESM) in the northern state of Nuevo León. The sources said that the soldiers had just been in a firefight with sicarios (hit men) from a drug cartel and probably confused the students with the men they had been fighting.

Our March issue featured the story "Plan Juárez: Echoes of Chiapas on Mexico's Northern Border" from Frontera NorteSur news service, noting how Mexican President Felipe Calderón's militarized response to the escalating violence on the Rio Grande mirrors the counterinsurgency against the Zapatistas a decade ago. Our Exit Poll was: "If violence continues to escalate in northern Mexico, will the US intervene militarily? Will it happen this year?" We received the following responses:

Top leaders from the US and Mexico agreed to emphasize intelligence coordination in the next $331 million phase of the Merida Initiative following discussions in Mexico City on March 23. Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Government Secretary Fernando Francisco Gómez-Mont hosted the meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, and National Intelligence director Dennis C. Blair.

For a second consecutive day March 19, presumed narco-gunmen blocked highways in the area of Mexico's northern industrial hub of Monterrey, seizing private automobiles, buses and ambulances from motorists and using them to clog the lanes. The Nuevo Leon state Public Security Secretary reported more than 30 roadblocks using more than 60 vehicles in the metropolitan area on the second day of the action, which they said was apparently aimed at halting army operations on the northern border. A shoot-out with army troops was reported in the suburban municipality of China. (Reuters, La Jornada, March 19)

At least 15 people were killed March 13—four of them beheaded and left in public places—in and around Mexico's popular beach resort of Acapulco, just as foreign tourists start arriving for spring break. Among the dead were six municipal police and the brother of the city's ex-mayor. It was part of a wave of violence in which a total of 29 were killed in 24 hours around Guerrero state. The worst bloodshed was in Ajuchitlán del Progreso, where a confrontation between army troops and sicarios left 11 dead, including one soldier.