Guatemalan union leaders and their families filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan against Coca-Cola Co., accusing the world's biggest beverage company of complicity in violence against labor leaders. Lead plaintiff José Armando Palacios says he was repeatedly targeted in attempts on his life after he joined the union at a Coca-Cola processing plaint in Guatemala City, owned by Industria de Cafe or Incasa, in 2004. Thugs he charges were hired by Coke invaded his home, held his wife and family at gunpoint, and threatened to shoot them. Palacios fled to the United States in 2006, where he was later joined by his family.

Guatemalan police forces, together with army troops and DEA agents, destroyed 319 million opium plants and 250,000 marijuana plants, together valued at an estimated $780 million, in a four-day operation last month in Ixiguan and Tajumulco municipalities of San Marcos department, near the border with Mexico. The National Civil Police said San Marcos is considered to be a "sanctuary" of opium cultivation. (EFE, Feb. 5)

Guatemalan authorities March 2 arrested three top anti-narcotics officials—days before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due to visit the Central American nation to discuss Drug War strategy. Baltázar Gómez Barrios, chief of the National Civil Police (PNC), was detained along with "Drug Czar" Nelly Judith Bonilla and her advisor Fernando Carrillo at the Division of Anti-Narcotics Analysis and Information (DAIA). They are accused of running a corruption ring linked to a gun-battle last April between traffickers and police over a 700-kilo consignment of confiscated cocaine in Amatitlán. Five DAIA agents were killed in the gun-fight, and 13 have been since been arrested in connection with it. (NYT, FT,* Siglo XX1, Guatemala, March 3; El Periodico, Guatemala, March 2)

Thousands of Guatemalan public school teachers blocked roads on Feb. 22 to push their demand for the government of President of Alvaro Colom to give them a 16% pay raise this year. According to Joviel Acevedo, head of the 80,000-member National Teachers Assembly (ANM), the protesters obstructed highways connecting Guatemala with Honduras, El Salvador and México, and blocked roads accessing Guatemala City. Amilcar Montejo of the Municipal Transit Police (PMT) told reporters the blockages had caused chaos in various routes leading to the center of the capital. A group of unionists including Acevedo occupied the Education Ministry (Mineduc).

The new Honduran government of President Porfirio Lobo brought fresh corruption charges last week against the exiled Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted as president by last June's coup d'etat. Prosecutors charged Zelaya with diverting $1.5 million in welfare funds to his campaign for a referendum on reforming the constitution. Zelaya said in a statement from the Dominican Republic that the charges "seek personal revenge and worsen the political persecution against me, forgetting national reconciliation." (AP, Feb. 27)

Thousands of adherents of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) marched in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa Feb. 25 to protest the slaying of civil resistance leaders under what they still consider to be the "de facto regime" of President Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo despite the change in government last month. The rally concluded in front of the National Congress building, where the march was blocked by a military cordon.

Honduran President Porfirio Lobo is not invited to the second Summit of Latin American and Caribbean Unity, organizers of the regional confab announced. Mexico, which will host the event on February 22-23 in the resort city of Cancún, said the Honduran government should be recognized by the Organization of American States (OAS) before it can take a seat at the summit. (RIA-Novosti, Press TV, Feb. 21)

On Feb. 11 the National Front of Resistance Against the Coup d'Etat, a coalition of grassroots organizations that formed after the June 28 coup in Honduras, issued a communiqué charging that Porfirio ("Pepe") Lobo Sosa was planning to lay off a large number of public employees and that the National Association of Public Employees of Honduras (ANDEPH) had received threats that its current leadership might be replaced. The Lobo administration was on its way to "intensifying the application of the neoliberal model, which would allow [big business owners] to go on concentrating wealth at the cost of [labor] exploitation, and the theft and destruction of natural resources." (Communiqué #47, Feb. 11)