On Sept. 13 Costa Rican vice president and planning minister Kevin Casas took a leave of absence pending an investigation by the Supreme Elections Tribunal (TSE) into charges that he used public resources improperly to support a campaign in favor of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Costa Rica signed the accord—which reduces trade barriers between Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the US—in 2004, but it hasn't obtained the required approval from its legislature. CAFTA is already in effect in the other countries.

From FPcN InterCultural, Sept. 6:

Gloria Ushigua and Rosa Gualinga, two indigenous leaders, were attacked on Sunday August 26, after months of receiving death threats for their efforts to protect the territory of the Zapara people in the Ecuadorian Amazon. They were beaten until unconscious, thrown in the trunk of a car, and later, apparently, left for dead.

Some 5,000 people, according to police estimates, marched in Chile on Sept. 9 to mark the anniversary of the military coup in which Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte overthrew democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende on Sept. 11, 1973. The peaceful march—the first of the annual commemorations to take place since Pinochet's death on Dec. 10, 2006—was met with a heavy police presence and street closures. The march ended with a rally at the Santiago General Cemetery, where a memorial honors the nearly 3,000 people who were killed or disappeared under Pinochet's 17-year military regime. During the rally, several hooded individuals split off from the larger group and provoked incidents with the police, who then tried to break up the demonstration with tear gas and water cannons. Some demonstrators responded with rocks and sticks. More than 100 people were arrested. (AFP, Sept. 9 via La Jornada, Mexico)

On Sept. 7, hundreds of Argentines rallied in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires in solidarity with jailed activists Fernando Esteche and Raul Lescano, who have been on hunger strike since Aug. 21 at the Ezeiza prison. Esteche and Lescano, members of the radical leftist group Quebracho Patriotic Revolutionary Movement, are demanding they be released pending trial. The two were jailed on Apr. 5 for a vandalism attack on the party offices in Buenos Aires of Jorge Sobisch, rightwing governor of the southwestern province of Neuquen, during a march organized by Quebracho to protest the police killing of high school chemistry teacher Carlos Fuentealba. Police shot Fuentealba in the head at close range with a tear gas canister at a demonstration on Apr. 4 in the provincial capital of Neuquen; he died on Apr. 5. (Quebracho news release, Sept. 8)

On Sept. 13 Mexican federal district judge Livia Lizbeth Larumbe Radilla, based in Acapulco in the southern state of Guerrero, ordered the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) to suspend further construction of La Parota hydroelectric dam across the Papagayo River. The judge's order came in response to an Aug. 14 request by campesinos living in Guerrero's Cacahuatepec municipality for an injunction against construction pending resolution of a lawsuit they have filed to stop the dam. Larumbe Radilla ruled that continuing the project might cause "irreparable damages" to the campesinos.

Valerie Taliman of the Indian Law Resource Center writes for Indian Country Today, Sept. 14:

NEW YORK - After three decades of drafts, deliberations and delays, the United Nations General Assembly voted Sept. 13 to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The majority, 143 countries, voted in favor. As expected, the only countries opposing the adoption were the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The main objections of these countries centered on indigenous peoples' control over land and resources, their right to self-determination, and that the declaration might give indigenous peoples veto authority over development on their lands and territories.

Zapatista and anti-Zapatista Chol Maya peasants clashed with machetes Sept. 12 at the Cascadas de Agua Azul eco-tourist zone, in Tumbalá municipality of southern Mexico's conflicted Chiapas state. One anti-Zapatista was wounded and three Zapatistas captured by their adversaries before state and rebel authorities managed to negotiate a truce. The agreement called for the placing of 25 state police agents to keep the peace between both sides, and avoiding the interference of the military. The clash originates in a land dispute between the pro-Zapatista Ejido San Jerónimo and the anti-Zapatista Ejido Agua Azul, which controls the tourism site. Ejido Agua Azul protested that Ejido San Jerónimo had established a checkpoint to tax tourists on their way to the waterfalls. Zapatista commanders from La Garrucha were called in to mediate the truce. (Proceso, Sept. 12)

Mexico's Special Investigative Sup-Prosecutor for Organized Delinquency (SIEDO) says it is probing plans by the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) to kidnap high federal government officials and bomb foreign embassies. The plans were supposedly revealed by Hermenegildo Torres Cruz, a member of the Democratic Popular Left (IDP), under interrogation after being detained as a "witness" by the Public Ministry. (La Jornada, Sept. 16) Meanwhile, the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People (ERPI) has released a statement denying any connection to Arturo Duque Alvarado, arrested by Guerrero state police on charges of being a leader of the organization Aug. 26 in the community of Camacua de Michelena, Coyuca de Catalán municipality. The statement also protested the "disappearance" of supposed EPR militants Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Gabriel Alberto de la Cruz Sanchez as part of a "campaign of state terror," calling them "prisoners of war in the military installations of the Mexican narco-state." The statement explicitly did not make any judgment for or against the recent EPR attacks on oil pipelines in Veracruz. (El Universal, Sept. 12; La Jornada, Aug. 26)