Thousands of Mexican miners held a one-day strike Feb. 19, marking the one-year anniversary of the underground blast that killed 65 at the Pasta de Conchos coal mine in northern Coahuila state. Relatives of the victims celebrated a Mass and rallied outside the mine's gates to press their demands for better working conditions and recovery of the victims' remains. To date, only two bodies have been found.

We have noted repteated claims and denials that veterans of the feared Guatemalan counter-insurgency troops known as the Kaibiles are active in Chiapas and collaborating with Mexico's narco-mafias. But these Kaibiles, caught in the new Chiapas immigration sweeps, seem to have fallen on hard times. From El Universal, Jan. 25, our translation:

Mexican President Felipe Calderón announced Feb. 18 that he is dispatching some 3,300 army troops and federal police to combat narco-traffickers in Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, two states that border Texas. Nuevo Leon capital Monterrey and the Tamaulipas border town of Nuevo Laredo, both plagued by drug violence in recent months, are especially targeted, Defense Secretary Guillermo Galvan said. Soldiers have already set up roadside checkpoints in and around Monterrey to search vehicles for weapons and drugs. Since taking office Dec. 1, Calderón has already ordered 24,000 troops and federal police into Tijuana, Acapulco and Michoacan state in response to narco-violence that claimed over 2,000 lives last year. (San Antonio Express, Feb. 19)

The evangelical Journal Chretién features a commentary Feb. 12 on religious violence in Mexico's conflicted southern state of Chiapas which is rife with dangerous distortions, and smacks of a propaganda job against the Zapatista rebels. Although writer Aloys Evina begins by boasting of his "many years as a reporter," his garbled report reveals either deep ignorance or willful denial of the realities of Chiapas. The implausible account concerns a supposed Zapatista "lynch-mob" attack on a Maya evangelical preacher.

In a new communique, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) denounces Mexican President Felipe Calderon's escalated campiagn against narco-trafficking as a "farce" and a "mere pretext to augment the already disproportionate militarization of rural Chiapas." The communique, signed by Subcommander Marcos, draws an analogy between the new crackdown and last year's contested elections, saying "the supposed campaigns against narcotrafficking carried out by the government are a farce. Just like that which brought Mr. Calderon Hinojosa to power."

From El Universal, Feb. 7:

The Supreme Court voted 7-4 Tuesday to launch an investigation into state and federal police conduct during the arrests last May of some 240 men, women and children in the State of Mexico town of San Salvador Atenco.

An international commission of human rights observers announced Jan. 21 that at least 23 people were killed and a number of cases of physical abuse and sexual assaults against women were recorded during the months-long conflict in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca last year. The Barcelona-based International Civil Commission for Human Rights Observation (CCIODH), headed by Spain's Ignacio Garcia, presented a preliminary report on the violations of the rights of civilians, teachers and activists of the Oaxaca People's Assembly (APPO).

In his first published interview with the foreign press since he became Mexico's president last month, Felipe Calderon told the Financial Times: "The United States is jointly responsible for what is happening to us... [I]n that joint responsibility the U.S. government has a lot of work to do. We cannot confront this problem alone."