Groups in Argentina, Brazil, France, England, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and the US are planning events in the May 15-22 "Week of Global Struggle for the Liberation of Alberto Patishtán Gómez and Francisco Sántiz López," two indigenous prisoners from the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas. The week of actions was initiated by the New York-based Movement for Justice in El Barrio.

The body of Honduran journalist and LGBT rights activist Erick Alex Martínez Avila was found by a highway in the Tegucigalpa metropolitan area on May 7. He had reportedly been strangled, and the murder is believed to have taken place the day before. Martínez Avila was the communications director for Kukulcan, an organization that defends the rights of the LGBT community, and he was a founder of the Movement of Diversity in Resistance (MDR) and a member of the leftist group Los Necios Political Organization (los necios means "the obstinate ones"). Martínez Avila was also running in the Nov. 18 primary elections to be a candidate for legislative deputy in 2013 on the line of the Freedom and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), a new party formed by the grassroots National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP).

The Peruvian military held a ceremony at its Chorrillos base, near Lima, on April 20 to commemorate a commando operation 15 years earlier that freed 71 hostages who had been held by rebels from the leftist Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) for 126 days at the Japanese ambassador's residence in the capital. One hostage, two soldiers and all 14 rebels were killed in the operation, which took place on April 22, 1997. The raid, codenamed Operation Chavín de Huántar, was ordered by the government of former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), then a US ally; Fujimori is now serving a 25-year prison term in Peru for corruption and for ordering killings and kidnappings.

A US military training center in the port city of Concón, in the central Chilean province of Valparaíso, will be used for exercises "clearly oriented toward the control and repression of the civilian population," according to an open letter that more than 20 human rights organizations sent Defense Minister Andrés Allamand on May 7. The US government has spent $460,000 constructing the installation, which opened on April 5 at the Chilean military's Fort Aguayo naval base. UPI Business News writes that the site "is growing into a major destination for regional military trainers and defense industry contractors."

Nicaraguan revolutionary Tomás Borge Martínez died in a Managua military hospital on April 30 at age 81 from pneumonia and other health problems. He was the last surviving member of the small group, including Carlos Fonseca Amador, that founded the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1961. At the time of his death he was serving as Nicaragua's ambassador to Peru.

About 100 Haitian unionists and activists observed International Workers Day on May 1 with a march in Port-au-Prince to demand better wages and conditions for the country's assembly workers, who mainly produce apparel for sale in North America. Groups organizing the march included the Textile and Garment Workers Union (SOTA), the leftist workers' organization Batay Ouvriye ("Workers' Struggle"), the Women's Network of the Bureau of International Lawyers (BAI) and the Mobilization Collective for Compensation for Cholera Victims (Komodevik). SOTA and Batay Ouvriye have been working since the fall to organize assembly plant workers in the capital.

Left-leaning independent unions dominated celebrations of International Workers Day in Mexico on May 1, while some centrist labor federations decided not to hold marches, reportedly because of concern over security. Tens of thousands of unionists, campesinos and other activists participated in the independent unions' annual march to Mexico City's main plaza, the Zócalo; the left-leaning daily La Jornada reported that more unions and more unionists took part than in previous years.

Many of the traditional celebrations of International Workers Day on May 1 this year had the minimum wage as a central theme—in some cases because governments marked the occasion by increasing wages, in other cases because the governments refused to do so. Between 40,000 and 100,000 Chileans marched in Santiago on May 1 in a demonstration organized by the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT) and bringing together unionists and protesters from the student movement. CUT president Arturo Martínez called for "a real minimum wage, which this year should reach 250,000 pesos" a month (about $520). According to Labor Minister Evelyn Matthei this "isn't possible"; she claimed it would cause an increase in unemployment. As frequently happens in Chile, violence broke out at the end of the peaceful protest: some 200 hooded youths threw rocks at police agents, journalists and other demonstrators. Six agents from the carabineros militarized police were reportedly injured and some 20 people were arrested.

The Chamber of Deputies of the Haitian Parliament abruptly ended its session on April 17 when a group of armed men in uniforms entered the legislature's grounds in two vans. The men claimed to be former soldiers from the Armed Forces of Haiti (FAd'H), which was officially disbanded in 1995 during the first administration of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004). Chamber president Levaillant Louis Jeune refused to meet with the men and suspended the session. "It's a serious issue when a working parliament is besieged by armed bandits," he said. Groups of former soldiers have been seen since the beginning of the year carrying out exercises in various parts of the country, sometimes using old military bases and training camps; apparently the government has done nothing to interfere.

A 16-year-old Chilean youth was seriously wounded with metal pellets on April 20 when agents from the carabineros militarized police raided the indigenous Mapuche community of Temucuicui in the southern region of Araucanía. The youth, Lautaro Naín, was rushed to the city of Victoria for emergency treatment. According to Mijael Carbone, the community's werken (spokesperson), about 100 uniformed police burst into the village and began firing at houses. The Chilean Foundation in Support of Children and Their Rights (Anide) denounced "the violence exercised by the police forces against the Mapuche communities, a violence which once again has a child as its victim." The organization called for an end to police raids against Mapuche communities in Araucanía and for negotiations to end "the conflict created by the Chilean state by dispossessing the Mapuche communities of their ancestral land." The Mapuche Territorial Alliance (ATM) demanded the immediate removal of local prosecutor Luis Chamorro from investigations in the area, charging that he had an anti-Mapuche attitude and constituted "an obvious public danger." (Prensa Latina, April 22)