At least 12 people were injured and 59 arrested July 17 when Honduran police violently cleared several roadblocks set up by protesters demanding a new mining law. Salvador Zuniga, consultant to the Coordinator of Peasant and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), told AFP, "They came at us wielding clubs; we have several injured and 10 arrested." COPINH led the protest at a roadblock 120 kilometers north of the capital, Tegucigalpa.

On July 11 Panama's National Assembly voted 58-3 with one abstention to ratify a "free trade" accord (TLC, the initials in Spanish) which the government signed with the US in Washington, DC, just two weeks earlier, on June 28. The administration of Republican president George W. Bush is expected to have little trouble getting approval from the US Congress, which is controlled by the opposition Democratic Party. The administration and congressional leaders announced a deal on May 10 which gave Democratic support to accords the government had negotiated with Peru and Panama.

Charges of "Acts of Terrorism" will stand against thirteen of fourteen defendants arrested at a July 2nd protest against water privatization in Suchitoto, El Salvador, a judge ruled July 6. Judge Ana Lucila Fuentes de Paz of the Special Tribunal of San Salvador denied bail for the accused, sending them to an estimated 90 days in jail while prosecutors gather evidence for trial.

A shipload of Israeli weapons is busted in Spain—bound for Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan government denies knowing anything about it. Could they have been bound for some kind of neo-contra force? Talk about nostalgia for the '80s... From Prensa Latina, July 5:

Nicaraguan Police and Army denied their responsibility for a cargo of weapons made in Israel, seized in Spain's Port Algeciras, with the Central American nation as final destination.

From CISPES, July 3:

On July 2, various organizations and communities in the municipality of Suchitoto gathered for a protest against the official announcement of the "National Policy of Water Decentralization" by President Antonio Saca. The peaceful protest was brutally repressed by the riot police (UMO) along with specialized forces of the National Civil Police (PNC). In the end, 13 people were arrested by the police and accused of "public disorder," including four leaders of the rural development organization CRIPDES. The riot police eventually opened fire on the protest with rubber bullets, tear gas, and pepper spray, injuring around 75 people. Throughout the day helicopters circled Suchitoto and San Salvador, and the riot police didn't withdraw from the scene until well into the afternoon.

On June 28, the US and Panamanian governments signed a free trade treaty (TLC) at the headquarters of the Organization of American States in Washington. The treaty must still be ratified by the legislatures of the two countries. Panamanian grassroots organizations staged protests around the country on June 28 to protest the signing of the trade pact. The demonstrators are demanding that the complete text of the treaty be published, broadly debated and subjected to a popular referendum where the people can decide on it.

Management of an auto parts plant operated by New York-based Alcoa, Inc. in El Progreso, Honduras, fired more than 50 union leaders and activists from June 8 to June 15, according to the National Labor Committee (NLC), a US labor rights organization. The Alcoa factory—located in El Porvenir Free Trade Zone, an industrial park for the tax-exempt assembly plants known as maquiladoras—assembles electrical wiring harnesses exclusively for export to the US-based Ford Motor Company.

On June 12, Garifuna leader Felix Ordoñez Suazo was assassinated at the community of Punta Piedras, in Colón department on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Community residents identified the killers as members of a group of land invaders who have been encroaching on Punta Piedras' titled lands. The conflict began in 1992, when a group of campesino settlers financed by business interests linked to the military began colonizing the area. Despite the fact that Punta Piedras had title to the lands in question as an ejido since 1921, the National Agrarian Institute (INA) granted the invaders a title to overlapping territory in 1999. Punta Piedras is preparing to bring a complaint in the matter to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (CIDH). (Oil Watch Mesoamerica, June 13)