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.

Military officers in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have been selling significant amounts of heavy weaponry to drug trafficking organizations in Colombia and Mexico, according to US diplomatic cables and criminal charges filed in a US court against a retired Salvadoran captain. The sales have been made possible by what US diplomats called "lax controls" by military authorities and also by the authorities' failure to bring criminal charges against officers who have been caught.

On April 8 a German development bank, DEG Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH, cancelled a previously approved loan to Grupo Dinant, a large Honduran company that produces snacks, other food products and cooking oil; the loan was reportedly worth $20 million. Shortly afterwards, EDF Trading, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the French energy firm Electricité de France SA, cancelled a contract to buy carbon credits from a Dinant subsidiary, Exportadora del Atlántico, under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) for carbon trading.

A meeting on April 14 between the Honduran government and teachers' union representatives in Tegucigalpa seemed to be heading towards a settlement of a month-long national strike by 60,000 teachers over pension issues and a decentralization plan that they say would lead to privatization of the schools. The strike, which has continued with some interruptions since March 7, has been characterized by militant demonstrations on the teachers' side and violent repression from the police and military, with the death of an assistant principal at one protest and several attacks on journalists covering demonstrations. At least two government cabinet meetings included debates between ministers on the human rights situation and its possible effect on Honduras' international standing.

In a series of raids last month, some 1,000 soldiers and national police troops evicted more than 3,000 Q'eqchi Maya campesinos from lands claimed by an agribusiness firm in the Polochic Valley of Alta Verapaz department, Guatemala. During the eviction, the security forces torched or bulldozed the campesinos' homes. One person was killed and nearly a dozen injured during the principal operation on March 15. After the evictions, private security guards of the Chabil Utzaj sugar mill destroyed the community's crops, despite a court injunction blocking the company from taking actions that fall within the jurisdiction of the security forces. A complaint by the Committee for Campesino Unity (CUC) said the evicted campesinos had been been living and working on the land for 30 years. (IPS, March 29)

Thousands of Hondurans demonstrated on March 30 in a "National Civic Strike" called by teachers' unions and the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a coalition of unions and grassroots organizations. The action was called to support teachers striking to oppose an education reform plan that they say will lead to the privatization of schools. The protesters were also demanding the approval of a general minimum wage increase, a reduction of the price of fuel, and a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the country's Constitution.

Thousands of members of Black and indigenous groups in Honduras marched on the capital, Tegucigalpa, on April 1, to commemorate 214 years since the arrival of the Garífuna people in the country (following their deportation by the British from St. Vincent), and to protest recent repression by the regime of Porfirio Lobo. Noting that the UN has declared 2011 the International Year for People of African Descent, protesters demanded respect for their territorial rights. “Today there is nothing to celebrate. We come here today to denounce that we are being usurped of our territory and living a second expulsion from our lands," said Miriam Miranda, president of the Black Honduran Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH). On March 28, Miranda was beaten by police and then allegedly tortured in custody when she was arrested at a march in Tela, Atlántida department. She was held by police for 12 hours before being turned over to a hospital with lesions on her stomach. (KoasEnLaRed, Spain, April 2; Revistazo, Honduras, March 29)