The Canada-based Linear Gold Corp. ceded to pressure from indigenous communities who oppose plans to exploit gold and silver deposits at Ixhuatán in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas, and announced the closure of its offices in the state on Sept. 28. Along with the company Blackfire Exploration Corporation, Linear Gold Corp. holds most of the concessions granted by the Mexican government to foreign mining outfits in the conflicted state. The company's statement upon closing its Chiapas offices cited the world financial sitaution, and left open the possibility of resuming local operations. The Mexican Network of the Mining-Affected (REMA) had held numerous protests against the project. (No a la Mina, Sept. 28)

Internationally-known Mexican environmentalist and forest defender Felipe Arreaga was killed Sept. 16, while driving his ATV in Petatlan, Guerrero. The longtime campesino leader was struck by a mini-bus and died a few hours later in a hospital in nearby Zihuatanejo. Although Petatlan is the site of a military base, it lacks civilian medical facilities capable of handling serious injuries. The driver of the mini-bus fled the scene of the crash, and many circumstances of the incident are still unclear.

Taking a cue from Argentina's Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, relatives of disappeared persons staged a loud demonstration in Tijuana on Sept. 25. Banging pots and pans, protesters gathered outside the Baja California state government building to demand answers about the whereabouts of 320 people forcibly disappeared or kidnapped. In an action that attracted public attention, relatives of the disappeared plastered pictures of their loved ones on the exterior of the government offices.

Gunmen stormed El Aliviane drug rehab center in Ciudad Juárez Sept. 3 and executed at least 16 people, lining the victims up behind the building and shooting them one by one. (LAT, Sept. 3) Meanwhile in Michoacán, the state sub-secretary for Citizen Protection, José Manuel Revueltas López, was assassinated in a two-truck drive-by shooting just outside the state Public Security Secretariat in Morelia, the capital. Two body-guards and a by-stander were also killed in the attack. (La Jornada, Sept. 3)

The heads of three major Canadian, Mexican and US labor federations responded to the Aug. 10 "Tres Amigos" summit—a meeting of Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and US president Barack Obama in Mexico City—with a joint statement criticizing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a 15-year-old agreement on trade between the three countries. The statement was signed by Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) president Kenneth Georgetti; Francisco Hernández Juárez, president of the National Workers Union (UNT), Mexico's second-largest union federation; and John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, the largest US labor federation.

Mexico's Supreme Court Aug. 12 overturned the sentences of 22 men who were imprisoned in the 1997 massacre of 45 indigenous peasants at Acteal in southern Chiapas state. In a 4-1 vote, the court found that irregularities were committed by prosecutors who handled the case. The cases of 35 more convicted in the massacre are under review. Victor Hugo López of the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center agreed the case should be reopened, but urged a wider probe: "We also agree that some procedures were violated as these people were investigated. But we think there is more to it. We do not think that the Acteal massacre resulted from a conflict between rivaling communities. We think the Mexican state is responsible for this crime." (FSRN, NYT, Aug. 12)

The Mexican Catholic bishops' conference issued a statement criticizing federal police for bursting into a Mass to apprehend an alleged cartel lieutenant Aug. 3. "We make an energetic protest against the lack of respect and the violence exercised on the part of the forces responsible for guaranteeing the security of all persons in our nation...by interrupting a religious act...at the moment in which holy Mass is celebrated," the bishops said in a statement signed by Auxiliary Bishop Jose Gonzalez Gonzalez of Guadalajara, conference secretary-general. "Nothing explains this kind of action inside a religious place and much less in these moments where Mexico is noted internationally as an insecure and violent country." (Catholic News Service, Aug. 4)

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, intervened to block release of a favorable report on Mexico's human rights situation. Leahy's action delays the release of $100 million in US anti-drug assistance. The Merida Initiative, a $1.4 billion, three-year package, requires Congress to withhold 15% of the funding unless the State Department finds that Mexico is respecting human rights.