Some 70,000 teachers in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca suspended classes on Feb. 14 to participate in rallies in Oaxaca city and other cities; the rallies were organized by Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) and supported by members of the leftist Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). The strikers called on the national union to expedite internal elections and demanded that the government drop charges against teachers and others for their participation in five months of militant strikes and protests in 2006. Section 22 members also protested efforts by another SNTE local, Section 59, to take over some Oaxaca schools. Oaxaca governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz discounted the possibility that the 2006 social conflict would be renewed. The state government and Section 22 were now handling disputes through a "permanent dialogue," he said. (La Jornada, Feb. 16)

On Feb. 13, Mexico's El Economista reported that the Mexican Senate's Energy Commission, led by Juan Bueno Torio of President Felipe Calderón's conservative National Action Party (PAN), has called for a "special program of private investment" for Pemex, the state oil monopoly. While Bueno Torio emphasized "Pemex will not be privatized," he said new investments were needed to meet Mexico's growing energy demands.

A lunchtime blast that killed one and injured two on Chapultepec Ave. in the Roma district near Mexico City's tony Zona Rosa Feb. 15 was the work of narco gangs and not leftist guerillas, authorities say. Federal District police say the bomb contained C4 explosive of the type used by the Mexican military. They also note that the blast came two days after Federal District police uncovered an "arsenal" in the nearby Portales district and arrested nine men they said were linked to the Sinaloa Cartel. The bomb went off some 150 meters from the headquarters of the Federal District Public Security Secretariat (SSP-DF), which authorities say was the intended target. (La Jornada, El Universal, Milenio, Feb. 16)

In a new report, Human Rights Watch charges that Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) is adept at documenting abuses—but has failed to prevent them. Said HRW Americas director Jose Miguel Vivanco: "While it does a decent job documenting abuses and identifying problems, it doesn't take crucial steps needed to bring about change. The (commission) should be a catalyst for human rights progress, not merely a chronicler of the status quo." The 128-page report focuses on the police crackdown on peasant protesters at Atenco village, the rapes and killings of villagers by troops in Michoacán and Coahuila states, and the unsolved murders of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez. Too often, the report found, the commission merely recommend fixes to government agencies and then failed to check if they were ever implemented. The study found that backroom deals remain the norm. (Houston Chronicle, Feb. 13)

On Feb. 11, ski-masked gunmen stopped a bus on the road between San Cristobal de Las Casas and Ocosingo in the conflicted southern Mexican state of Chiapas, threatening passengers and robbing them of cameras, cell phones, ID documents and other possessions. The assault comes days after local Zapatista supporters were illegally detained by members of the OPDDIC paramilitary group, who accused them of being bandits. (La Jornada, Feb. 12) That same day, seven OPDDIC militants, including leaders Carlos Moreno Hernández and Pedro Chulín Jiménez, were freed from prison on the orders of a federal judge, who issued an amparo protecting them from arrest or prosecution. (La Jornada, Feb. 12)

Lorenzo Fernández Ortega, a 38-year-old bricklayer and member of the Organization of the Indigenous Mepha'a People (OPIM), was stabbed to death Feb. 10 in Ayutla de los Libres, a village in the conflicted Mexican state of Guerrro. The group had been protesting a campaign of forced sterilizations of indigenous women in the region, and charged that the federal army is establishing paramilitary groups which have carried out recent attacks on indigenous activists. OPIM's statement on the murder said, "our compañero Lorenzo was assassinated by paramilitaries that work for the 48th Infantry Battalion of the Mexican Army, headquartered at Cruz Grande." (OPIM statement via Zapateando; La Jornada, Feb. 12)

A group of five men armed with AK-47 and AR-15 rifles and 9mm pistols shot and killed Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, director of the Auxiliary, Industrial, Bank and Commercial Police for the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, on Jan. 30 as he was jogging on the track at the Bosque El Tequio sports complex near Oaxaca city. Also killed in the military-style ambush were one of Barrita Ortiz's bodyguards, Juan Eduardo Prado Perez; government employee Rafael Alonso Muñoz; and sports trainer Virginia Galan Rodriguez, who won the state sports prize in 2003. Two other people were wounded. It was not clear whether Muñoz and Galan were with Barrita Ortiz's group.

Local schoolteacher Felipe Hernández Yuena was detained Feb. 5 in the municipal government building at Venustiano Carranza, a conflicted town in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, accused of "sedition and riot." Showing bruises on his face, arms and abdomen, Hernández Yuena said that while in custody he was beaten and tortured by masked men he believed were from military intelligence, who questioned him about whether recent anti-NAFTA protests in the state capital, Tuxtla, were organized by the clandestine Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR). (La Jornada, Feb. 7)