Two members of Panama's militant Only Union of Construction and Similar Workers (SUNTRACS) were murdered on Aug. 14 and 15. Osvaldo Lorenzo was killed by a member of a company union when Lorenzo was protesting working conditions in the construction of a highway between Panama City and Colon. The Odebrecht company, Brazilian in origin, is running the project. Luigi Arguelles was shot at close range by a sergeant in the National Police in a tourist center in the Las Perlas Archipelago. The center's owner, a Colombian investor, had previously threatened the workers. According to Panamanian sociologist Marco A. Gandasegui, elements in the government of President Martin Torrijos are creating "ghost unions" and using them to destroy SUNTRACS. (Servicio Informativo "Alai-amlatina," Aug. 28). The union has had a leading role in protests against neoliberal economic policies. (See WNU, May 8, 2005)

On Aug. 30 thousands of workers marched in Mexico City from the Angel of Independence to the central plaza, the Zocalo, to protest what they called the "anti-union and anti-worker" policies of President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, of the center-right National Action Party (PAN). The organizers, the National Workers Union (UNT) and the Mexican Union Front (FSM), timed the march to precede Calderon's first state of the union report, to be delivered on Sept. 2. Police estimated the crowd at 20,000; organizers put attendance at 50,000. Despite several successful demonstrations, the UNT and FSM have repeatedly failed in their efforts to call a national strike against the government's plans for more privatization and other neoliberal economic policies.

A Mexican federal judge in Chiapas sentenced 18 Tzotzil Maya men to 26 years in prison Aug. 28 on homicide and weapons charges for having participated in the massacre of 45 unarmed Tzotzils at the hamlet of Acteal on Dec. 22, 1997. They were also ordered to pay a total of 800,000 pesos (approx. $800) in damages. Of 87 followers of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) detained in Chenalhó municipality in the aftermath of the massacre, 79 remain imprisoned. The longest sentence, 40 years, was brought against Alfredo Hernández Ruiz. (La Jornada, Sept. 2)

Members of the "Other Campaign" activist network marched in Mexico City Aug. 26 in protest of the recent evictions of campesino communities from the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in the conflicted southern state of Chiapas. (Expreso Chiapas, Aug. 27) On Aug. 31, Amnesty International issued a statement calling for an "immediate" suspension of evictions from the reserve. The statement expressed concern about the health conditions at the shelter in La Trinitaria where the expelled campesinos—including two pregnant women—are being held. The organization also expressed concern about the six arrested in the evictions, calling for their release and for transparency in the cases against them. (La Jornada, Sept. 2)

Juan Carlos "El Konan" García Cruz, a member of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) was sentenced to three years in prison by a Mexican federal court in Oaxaca City Aug. 26 on arms possession charges. While several APPO supporters remain behind bars pending charges, García Cruz is the first to be formally sentenced. APPO legal spokesman Gilberto Hernández Santiago called the sentence "inadmissible," saying that García Cruz had been illegally arrested by unaccountable plainclothes paramilitary forces, that he had been tortured, and the arms "planted" on him. (La Jornada, Aug. 28)

State police in Guerrero, Mexico, announced they had discovered a cache of 14 firearms with home-made bombs and camo uniforms hidden in a corn warehouse (bodega de maiz) in the community of Chamacua de Michelle, Coyuca de Catalán municipality. Authorities said insignia identified the cache as belonging to the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People (ERPI). One resident, Arturo Duque Alvarado, was detained on charges of belonging to the guerilla organization. (Cronica de Hoy, Aug. 27; La Jornada, Aug. 26) Meanwhile in Santiago Pinotepa Nacional, Oaxaca, soldiers of the 47th Infantry Battalion carried out searches in districts under the control of the Democratic Civic Union of Barrios and Colonias (Ucidebac), on suspicion that the neighborhood organization is collaborating with armed groups. Ucidebac leader Librado Baños Rodríguez accused soldiers of menacing residents at gunpoint. (La Jornada, Aug. 29)

In Chicontepec, Veracruz, members of the "Other Campaign in la Huasteca" activist network issued a statement Aug. 31 protesting the "disappearance" of three of the 10 Nahua campesinos detained at a June land occupation and since freed pending charges against them. All ten had gone to a local federal courthouse to check in and sign documents as a condition of their release, and three never returned. The others said they had been detained at the courthouse by elements of the Federal Agency of Investigation (AFI), and are presumably being held at the federal prison at Tuxpan. However, authorities deny any record of their arrest. (La Jornada, Sept. 1)

On Aug. 29, the Tzotzil Maya community of Ejido 28 de Junio in the municipality of Venustiano Carranza, Chiapas, was occupied by troops of the Mexican federal army, who arrived in two trucks and four armed personnel carriers. Establishing checkpoints at the entrances to the community, the troops then spread out through the streets and surrounding fields, questioning residents about the supposed presence of Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) guerillas. Helicopters conducted overflights, searching for a supposed EPR training camp.