On Sept. 13 Mexican federal district judge Livia Lizbeth Larumbe Radilla, based in Acapulco in the southern state of Guerrero, ordered the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) to suspend further construction of La Parota hydroelectric dam across the Papagayo River. The judge's order came in response to an Aug. 14 request by campesinos living in Guerrero's Cacahuatepec municipality for an injunction against construction pending resolution of a lawsuit they have filed to stop the dam. Larumbe Radilla ruled that continuing the project might cause "irreparable damages" to the campesinos.

Zapatista and anti-Zapatista Chol Maya peasants clashed with machetes Sept. 12 at the Cascadas de Agua Azul eco-tourist zone, in Tumbalá municipality of southern Mexico's conflicted Chiapas state. One anti-Zapatista was wounded and three Zapatistas captured by their adversaries before state and rebel authorities managed to negotiate a truce. The agreement called for the placing of 25 state police agents to keep the peace between both sides, and avoiding the interference of the military. The clash originates in a land dispute between the pro-Zapatista Ejido San Jerónimo and the anti-Zapatista Ejido Agua Azul, which controls the tourism site. Ejido Agua Azul protested that Ejido San Jerónimo had established a checkpoint to tax tourists on their way to the waterfalls. Zapatista commanders from La Garrucha were called in to mediate the truce. (Proceso, Sept. 12)

Mexico's Special Investigative Sup-Prosecutor for Organized Delinquency (SIEDO) says it is probing plans by the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) to kidnap high federal government officials and bomb foreign embassies. The plans were supposedly revealed by Hermenegildo Torres Cruz, a member of the Democratic Popular Left (IDP), under interrogation after being detained as a "witness" by the Public Ministry. (La Jornada, Sept. 16) Meanwhile, the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People (ERPI) has released a statement denying any connection to Arturo Duque Alvarado, arrested by Guerrero state police on charges of being a leader of the organization Aug. 26 in the community of Camacua de Michelena, Coyuca de Catalán municipality. The statement also protested the "disappearance" of supposed EPR militants Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Gabriel Alberto de la Cruz Sanchez as part of a "campaign of state terror," calling them "prisoners of war in the military installations of the Mexican narco-state." The statement explicitly did not make any judgment for or against the recent EPR attacks on oil pipelines in Veracruz. (El Universal, Sept. 12; La Jornada, Aug. 26)

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions announced in Geneva that it will review the arrests of followers of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) in Mexico. On the eve of leaving for the Working Group's session in Geneva, president of the Center for the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples (CEDHAPI), Maurilio Santiago Reyes, told a press conference in Oaxaca City, "The UN will come to realize...that activists were detained arbitrarily, beaten and tortured physically and psychologically." (La Jornada, Sept. 10) The state of Oaxaca has agreed to create a special fund to indemnify victims of torture and illegal arrest. The move was taken in response to Recommendation 15/2007 issued by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH). (La Jornada, Sept. 12)

The Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) claimed responsibility for Sept. 10 attacks on Pemex oil pipelines in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz. Authorities say an inscription in red on a section of pipeline read: "They were taken alive, we want them alive—EPR-PDPR." This seems to be a reference to recently "disappeared" militants associated with the Popular Democratic Revolutionary Party (PDPR), the EPR's political wing.

Some 10,000 members of the Section 22 teachers union and the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) marched in Oaxaca City Sept. 1 to demonstrate their rejection of Mexico's President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, the same day he delivered his first address to Congress. Another 7,000 Oaxacans gathered in Mexico City's Plaza de la Constitución for a "contrainforme," a public speak-out conceived as a corrective to Calderón's address. (La Jornada, Sept. 2)

On Aug. 30 thousands of workers marched in Mexico City from the Angel of Independence to the central plaza, the Zocalo, to protest what they called the "anti-union and anti-worker" policies of President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, of the center-right National Action Party (PAN). The organizers, the National Workers Union (UNT) and the Mexican Union Front (FSM), timed the march to precede Calderon's first state of the union report, to be delivered on Sept. 2. Police estimated the crowd at 20,000; organizers put attendance at 50,000. Despite several successful demonstrations, the UNT and FSM have repeatedly failed in their efforts to call a national strike against the government's plans for more privatization and other neoliberal economic policies.

A Mexican federal judge in Chiapas sentenced 18 Tzotzil Maya men to 26 years in prison Aug. 28 on homicide and weapons charges for having participated in the massacre of 45 unarmed Tzotzils at the hamlet of Acteal on Dec. 22, 1997. They were also ordered to pay a total of 800,000 pesos (approx. $800) in damages. Of 87 followers of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) detained in Chenalhó municipality in the aftermath of the massacre, 79 remain imprisoned. The longest sentence, 40 years, was brought against Alfredo Hernández Ruiz. (La Jornada, Sept. 2)