The Guatemalan government is planning not to honor a year-old order from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish) to suspend operations at the Marlin gold mine in the western department of San Marcos, according to members of the Sipacapa and San Miguel Ixtahuacán Mayan communities. The IACHR, a Washington, DC-based agency of the Organization of American States (OAS), issued the order in May 2010 in response to charges from the two communities that the mine was causing significant damage to residents' health and the local environment. The Marlin mine is owned by Montana Exploradora de Guatemala, SA, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining company Goldcorp Inc.

Representatives of the governments of Mexico and the Central American countries wrapped up a fifth round of talks on a regional free trade agreement last week. The negotiations took place in Mexico City, with the next round of talks to be held in August in El Salvador. The aim of the talks is to create a single free trade agreement that consolidates Mexico's 1995 pact with Costa Rica, its 1998 agreement with Nicaragua and its 2001 accord with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador into a single deal. Mexico's trade with Costa Rica has soared by 2,100% since the signing of the trade agreement, while trade with the other Central American republics has increased by between 200 and 300%. (EFE, June 1)

Thousands of Hondurans gathered at Tegucigalpa's Toncontín International Airport on May 28 to greet former president José Manuel ("Mel") Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009) as he returned from a 16-month exile. After arriving in a Venezuelan plane proceeding from Managua, Zelaya told the crowd at the airport that he would continue to fight for a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the 1982 Constitution; a similar call for a Constituent Assembly was the pretext for a military coup that removed Zelaya from office on June 28, 2009. "We are going to power with the popular resistance," he said.

Former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, ousted by a coup d'etat nearly two years ago, met May 22 with the Central American republic's current sitting president, Porfirio Lobo, and signed a pact that will allow him to return to the country. The accord also opens the way for Honduras to re-join the Organization of American States (OAS), from which it was suspended after the coup. The meeting took place in Cartagena, Colombia, and the pact was brokered by the governments of Colombia and Venezuela. "This agreement is great news to Latin Americans because it normalizes the situation in the inter-American system," Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said in a statement after the signing. (BBC News, CNN, May 22)

A combined unit of the Guatemalan army and national police arrested a presumed leader of the Zetas narco-paramilitary network May 18, who authorities believe to be commander of the assassination squad that carried out this week's grisly massacre of 27 farmworkers at a ranch in the northern jungle department of Petén. The detained man is named as Hugo Álvaro Gómez Vásquez, who also goes by "Comandante Bruja" or simply "La Bruja" (The Witch, despite his gender). He was apprehended in Tactic, Alta Verapaz department, following a raid earlier that day on a Petén ranch known as La Mula, just 15 kilometers from Los Cocos ranch where the massacre took place. Authorities say a Zetas encampment was discovered at La Mula, in La Libertad municipality, along with clues on the whereabouts of Gómez Vásquez (see map).

Honduran campesino Henry Roney Díaz was killed on May 7 when soldiers, police and private guards tried to remove campesinos occupying an estate in the Aguán River Valley in the northern department of Colón. Díaz was a member of the El Despertar cooperative, one of the groups forming the Authentic Claimant Movement of Aguán Campesinos (MARCA). Manuel Vásquez, another member of the cooperative, was wounded in the same clash.

Guatemalan authorities announced May 15 the discovery of 27 bodies—all but one decapitated—at a ranch known as Los Cocos in La Libertad municipality of the northern jungle department of Petén. The Public Ministry and National Civil Police (PNC) said the victims were farmworkers who were massacred by a narco-trafficking cell known as "Z-200," believed to be an arm of the Mexico-based criminal paramilitary network Los Zetas. The PNC was alerted to the ranch by local campesinos, and found the bodies spread out on the patio. Only six have thus far been identified.

This year many of the traditional International Workers Day marches on May 1 focused on demands for wage increases and for fighting the high cost of living following recent jumps in food and fuel prices.