At least 24 undocumented Haitians died as they were being smuggled into the Dominican Republic in a small truck near the northern city of Dajabon on Jan. 10. The victims died of asphyxiation while riding with about 45 other Haitians in the unventilated truck, according to Dominican police, who said the smugglers threw out some of the bodies while the truck was still moving. Eleven of the bodies were found on Jan. 10 in La Mina de Cacheo, and 13 more were found on Jan. 11, police said; both communities are in the northwest. Police detained two Dominicans who allegedly drove the truck, according to police spokesperson Gen. Simon Diaz. (AP, Jan. 11) On Jan. 12 Dominican sources put the total number of deaths at 25. (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, Jan. 13)

Lt. Gen. Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar, the Brazilian head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), was found dead in his room at Port-au-Prince's Montana Hotel on Jan. 7 after apparently shooting himself in the head, according to United Nations (UN) officials. The Brazilian military initially described the incident as a "firearm accident," while reports circulated that Teixeira had killed himself the evening of Jan. 6 after a dispute with the UN general secretary's special representative in Haiti, the Chilean Juan Gabriel Valdes.

Following a meeting with representatives of Haitian political parties on Dec. 30, Max Mathurin, president of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), announced the postponement of the presidential and legislative elections previously scheduled for Jan. 8. "Following our work schedule, some preparation operations will go on past Jan. 8," he said. "This explains why it is impossible for this date, set for the first round, to be respected." He did not announce a new schedule.

More than 1,000 people marched in the western Puerto Rican town of Hormigueros on Oct. 8 to protest the killing of nationalist leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios there on Sept. 23 by agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The march was organized by pro-independence groups, including the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) and the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, but participants included people who want Puerto Rico to join the US as a state. Some marchers were local residents who knew Ojeda as "Don Luis" during the time he lived in Hormigueros clandestinely. "He was a beautiful person; he lived quietly on his little farm," said store owner Luis Garcia, who remembered Ojeda occasionally coming by to get a beer. (El Nuevo Dia, Puerto Rico, Oct. 9)

On Oct. 10 interim Haitian prime minister Gerard Latortue announced that the first round of this year's presidential and legislative elections will be rescheduled from Nov. 20 to a date several weeks later, probably the second week of December. "We've had problems," he said. "We've accumulated sizeable delays in implementing the logistics and in finalizing the list of candidates." Latortue insisted that the postponement won't prevent the next president from taking office on Feb. 7, as required by the Constitution. (Haiti en Marche, Miami, Oct. 12 from AFP)

US immigration judge William L. Abbott issued a written ruling on Sept. 26 in El Paso, TX, that the Convention Against Torture (CAT) bars the US from deporting Cuban-born right-winger Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela. Abbott accepted the contention by Posada's legal team that he might be tortured in Venezuela, where he is a naturalized citizen. Abbott also ruled out Cuba as a destination for Posada but didn't rule out deportation to a third country.

On Sept. 26 Puerto Rican governor Anibal Acevedo Vila told reporters that US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Robert Mueller had ordered an inquiry into the fatal Sept. 23 shooting of nationalist leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios by FBI agents in the western town of Homigueros. The announcement came as questions grew about how and why Ojeda Rios died when FBI agents assaulted the farmhouse where he was living, ostensibly to arrest him for his role in a 1983 robbery of a Wells Fargo depot in Connecticut.

Violence continues to escalate in Haiti, with the world paying very little note. In a grim irony, the latest massacre—carried out with the complicity of police forces—took place at a football match organized to promote peace. UN "peacekeeping" forces are also implicated in recent attacks on civilians. Amidst the bloodshed, peasants rallied last week, protesting that a "neoliberal" economic model is being imposed that will further entrench the majority in poverty.