Central America is said to have the highest rate of femicides—misogynist murders—in Latin America, and many women's rights organizations marked International Women's Day on March 8 with street protests demanding that the region's governments take measures to stop the killings.

Rightwing Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli announced in San Félix, Chiriquí, on March 3 that he would ask the National Assembly to rescind a mining law that opponents said would encourage open-pit mining for metals by foreign companies and endanger the environment. "A president like me will always listen to his people," Martinelli wrote in his Twitter account, following nearly a month of demonstrations led by the Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous group. Polls reportedly showed 75% of Panamanians opposing the mining industry. (Adital, Brazil, March 3)

Some 25,000 people in Honduras' second city of San Pedro Sula joined a march against rising criminal violence Feb. 27. Dressed in white, the protesters marched in silence to press their demand that the government do more to improve public security, with banners reading "We want peace" and "respect life." The march was organized by the conservative National Democratic Alliance (ADN). One incident that sparked the march was the slaying of the president-elect of the Association of Evangelical Pastors while walking his pet schnauzers Feb. 21. He was apparently shot by thieves who attempted to steal the dogs. It was the second slaying of an evangelical pastor in Honduras this year. (Worthy Christian News, Feb. 28; BBC News, EFE, La Prensa, San Pedro Sula, Feb. 27)

A US diplomatic cable released by the WikiLeaks group on Jan. 29 has raised new questions about possible corruption in the de facto regime that ruled Honduras between the June 28, 2009 coup against then-president José Manuel ("Mel') Zelaya Rosales and the Jan. 27, 2010 inauguration of current president Porifirio Lobo Sosa.

On Feb. 15 some 5,000 members of Panama's Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous group held a day of national protests against changes to the Mining Resources Code that they said would encourage open-pit mining for metals by foreign companies. The protests, organized by the People's Total Struggle (ULIP), started at 10 AM in San Félix, in the Ngöbe-Buglé territory in the western province of Chiriquí. Demonstrators interrupted traffic on the highway leading to Costa Rica and reportedly attacked Deputy Labor Minister Luis Ernesto Carles, who had been sent to talk with them. At noon there were demonstrations in front of the Banco General in Santiago, Veraguas province, and the Aquilino Tejera Hospital in Penonomé, Coclé province. Actions continued in the afternoon with protests at the Central Avenue in Changuinola, Bocas del Toro province, and at Vía España in Panama City.

Some 100 members of Los Zetas, a Mexican drug gang, had settled in the north central Guatemalan city of Cobán, capital of Alta Verapaz department, by early 2009 and were enjoying protection from "corrupt" police who were reportedly "allied with traffickers," according to a Feb. 6, 2009 confidential diplomatic cable by US ambassador Stephen McFarland. The cable was one of about 3,000 US diplomatic cables from the WikiLeaks organization that were given to the Mexican daily La Jornada because they dealt with issues relating to Mexico. The Los Zetas gang grew out of a group of Mexican Special Forces soldiers, some of them reportedly trained in counterinsurgency by the US military.

Campesinos leaders report a wave of abuses against local indigenous peasants in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz since a "state of siege" was declared there in response to the alleged presence of Los Zetas narco-network. Officially, authorities have arrested 22 "traffickers," and confiscated five small planes, 28 vehicles and 239 assault weapons. But the National Indigenous and Campesino Coordinator (CONIC) says army troops have invaded and occupied peasant villages where there has been no sign of drug trafficking.

The National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) marched in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, Feb. 4 in solidarity with the protest movement in Egypt. Under the slogan "Down with the imperialist pharaohs of the world, long live the people's uprising in Egypt," the marchers blocked traffic on a major thoroughfare. (El Heraldo, Tegucigalpa, Feb. 4)