At a press conference in Tegucigalpa on Sept. 29, a reporter asked conservative Honduran president Porfirio ("Pepe") Lobo Sosa about calls from unions and grassroots organizations for a constituent assembly to rewrite the country's 1982 Constitution. "But what's the problem with that?" Lobo responded. "What's the problem?" The president said he considered it his "moral duty…to invite the sectors that promote it to hold a dialogue... Let's sit down and discuss [these things]. That isn't the problem."

The National Front of Popular Resistance and other organizations protested the participation of the Honduran de facto president, Porfirio Lobo, in the sessions of the UN General Assembly. In an open letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, the signatories state that Lobo's presence in the forum violates the spirit of the UN resolution of June 30, 2009, which condemned the coup in Honduras. The letter points out that the resolution remains in force, and charges that political persecution and human rights abuses continue in the Central American country. The letter also states that Lobo's government has given no guarantee for a safe return of ousted president Manuel Zelaya to Honduras. "Consequently, we reject the presence of Mr. Lobo in this forum, set up to ensure democratic freedoms, fundamental freedoms and human rights," reads the text. The letter was also signed by the Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees, the Center for Women's Rights and FIAN-Honduras. (Inside Costa Rica, Sept. 24)

On Sept. 16 Miami federal district judge William Zloch sentenced former Guatemalan soldier Gilberto Jordán to 10 years in prison for concealing his role in a 1982 massacre when he applied for US citizenship. Jordán, a member of the notorious Kaibil counterinsurgency force, is one of 14 soldiers wanted in Guatemala for the brutal murder of some 250 campesinos in the village of Las Dos Erres, Sayaxche (or Libertad), in the northern department of Peten. He moved to Miami in 1990 and became a US citizen in 1999. Arrested by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency on May 5 this year, he pleaded guilty in July to charges of lying on a citizenship application. Ten years is the maximum sentence for the offense.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) made an agreement in principle in Tegucigalpa on Sept. 10 for a standby loan to the Honduran government. This gives the country immediate access to $196 million and will clear the way for loans of $80 million from the Inter-American Development Bank, $40 million from the World Bank, $52 million from the European Union (EU), $7 million from Germany and an unspecified amount from Taiwan.

On Sept. 9 military units began carrying out street patrols in Honduran cities, mainly Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, the northern industrial center, in what the government said was an effort to help the police fight crime. The authorities didn't set an end date for the patrols, whose duties include searches of individuals and vehicles for drugs and illegal arms. "The idea is to fight without truce against crime and to bring tranquility to Hondurans," Minister Oscar Alvarez explained. (EFE, Sept. 10)

Central American is again being hit by devastating floods, in a rainy season that has wreaked destruction across the isthmus. Officials in Guatemala have called off the search for 15 people missing after deadly landslides, fearing fresh mudlsides after the heaviest rains in 60 years. The decision by the Guatemalan disaster response agency CONRED Sept. 7 came as rescuers resumed their grim task of digging for corpses in a ravine next to the Pan-American Highway in Santa Ana Mixta, Sololá department.

Honduran police have blamed street gangs linked to Mexican drug cartels for the killing of at least 18 employees in a shoe factory in the northern industrial city of San Pedro Sula on Sept. 7. Up to four men armed with assault rifles burst into the factory and opened fire on the workers. All the victims were said to be young men. Several others were wounded. San Pedro Sula's police chief, Hector Mejia, said the attack was part of an escalating dispute between the rival Mara Salvatrucha and Mara 18 gangs. "This massacre is linked to the drugs the gangs receive as payment from the Mexican and Colombian cartels for helping to move drugs through the country," Mejia told Reuters. (BBC News, Reuters, Aug. 17)

A Guatemalan judge ruled Sept. 8 that three soldiers charged in connection with a 1982 peasant massacre that left more than 260 dead will face trial. Of the 17 soldiers accused in the case, three were captured in Guatemala and four others have been detained in the US by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for illegally concealing their past military service and involvement in the killings on US immigration forms. The charges against the soldiers are based on the findings of a Truth Commission investigation monitored by the UN and completed in the late 1990s, which uncovered vast human rights abuses. The trials are the first for massacre crimes committed during the civil war years.