Three popular Mexican musicians met violent deaths in six days this week. José Luis Aquino Lavariega, 33, trumpet-player with the band Los Conde, was found Dec. 5 under a bridge in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, bound with a plastic bag over his head. On Dec. 3, the tortured body of Sergio Gomez, 34, singer for K-Paz de la Sierra, was found the night after he was abducted while leaving a stadium concert in Morelia, Michoacán. Zayda Peña, 28, singer for Zayda y Los Culpables, survived an attempt on her life only to be shot to death in the hospital in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Dec. 1. A friend and hotel manager were killed in the initial attempt Nov. 30. Eight popular musicians have been murdered this year in Mexico.

More than 100 of Mexico's elite Federal Preventative Police attacked student protesters from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, Nov. 30. Fifty-six were detained, and two gravely injured. The students were staging a protest occupation of a toll booth at La Venta, outside Acapulco on the highway to Mexico City—the latest in a series of actions over school budgets and related demands. The students did not block cars, but attempted to collect the fares on the Autopista del Sol—a federal highway with some of the highest tolls in Mexico, despite its deteriorating condition. In a hearing Dec. 2 in Acapulco, 39 of the detainees were freed, and 17 held pending charges. (IMC Mexico, Dec. 2)

Federal judicial authorities in the State of Mexico have granted an amparo, or order of protection, to 27 residents of San Salvador Atenco village, giving immunity from arrest until charges against them are reviewed. The Ninth District court in Nezahualcóyotl found insufficient evidence for carrying out pending arrest orders for involvement in clashes with police at the conflicted village in May 2006. (La Jornada, Dec. 8) Two Atenco leaders, Felipe Álvarez Hernández and Ignacio del Valle Medina, were also cleared of charges of leading violent attacks on police in the disturbances. However, they remain incarcerated at Altiplano maximum security prison on charges of illegally detaining State of Mexico officials at the village a few weeks before the riots broke out. (La Jornada, Dec. 5)

Diego Arcos Meneses, arrested over a year ago in the massacre at the rainforest settlement of Viejo Velasco on what Amnesty International called "fabricated and deficient" evidence, was freed Dec. 4 by order of state authorities in Chiapas, Mexico. Amnesty hailed the dropping of charges against Arcos, but demanded both restitution to him and his family, as well as a renewed investigation to find those responsible for the attack, in which four were killed, another four abducted, and scores forced to flee. (Amnesty International, Dec. 6)

Land conflicts between communities loyal to the Zapatista rebel movement and the state's traditional political machine continue to generate violence in Chiapas, Mexico. The Zapatista Good Government Junta (JBG) Corazón del Arcoiris de la Esperanza announced that on Nov. 24, the community of Bolom Ajaw, Autonomous Municipality Olga Isabel, was attacked by members of the OPDDIC paramilitary group. The force of some 80 men armed with pistols, rifles, clubs and machetes arrived when the community's men were working in the fields, with only women, children and elders at home. They briefly held the community hostage, beating one ill resident unconscious with clubs. (La Jornada, Nov, 26)

Antonio Vázquez Secum, named by Mexico's Prosecutor General of the Republic (PGR) as the author of the December 1997 Acteal massacre, died Nov. 17 at his home in the village of Quextic, Chiapas. Secum, who was over 70 years old, was freed from Cerro Hueco prison last year when he contracted pneumonia. The PGR's "white book" on the affair said he led a group of eight men from Miguel Utrilla Los Chorros hamlet in the attack on nearby Acteal (both in Chenahló municipality) in retaliation for the slaying of his son, Agustín Vázquez. He was among the first arrested for the massacre early in 1998. (La Jornada, Nov. 20)

Militarization and the "Mérida Initiative"

by Laura Carlsen, Foreign Policy in Focus

After months of talks, President George W. Bush finally announced the "security cooperation" plan for Mexico. On Oct. 22, he sent a request for $500 million in supplemental aid for 2008 as part of a $1.4 billion dollar multi-year package.

Mario Zavala Navarrete, a leader of alumni of the Raul Isidro Burgos de Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, reported that he was assaulted by armed, masked assailants the night of Nov. 22. He said they followed him in a white van as he was heading home to Tixtia on a public bus after leaving the college. They caught him when he left the bus and beat him unconscious.