January 5, 2000: The government brought deportation proceedings against 43 foreigners, including 34 Americans, including Kerry Appel of the Human Bean Company, who joined New Year's celebrations in Zapatista sympathizing communities. Of the foreigners detained at the San Andrés Larráizar military check point, only 17 presented themselves at the INM, all of whom were given departure orders.
January 7, 2000: Church officials decided last month to move Bishop Raul Vera from Chiapas to Saltillo in northern Mexico. Vera had been expected to replace retiring Bishop Samuel Ruiz, who has defended the rights of Indians during the last 40 years. In 1995, Vera was appointed auxiliary bishop to the San Cristobal de las Casas diocese headed by Ruiz, who played a central role in early attempts to seek peace between the government and the Zapatistas.
February 9, 2000: UN Special Relator for Extrajudicial, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, Asma Jahangir visited Mexico and concluded that extrajudicial executions in Mexico are widespread and ongoing, although there has been a decrease in them over the last year. Violence continues to create a tension that is infringing on the right to life of innocent civilians. Involved in this situation and enjoying impunity are federal and local government officials, the Army, paramilitaries and armed opposition groups. The Relator notes that "although the problem of extrajudicial assassinations and impunity might be more well-known in Guerrero and in Chiapas, it exists throughout the country."
February 12, 2000: The Mexican Army entered at least three communities in the municipality of Ocosingo, occupied primarily by sympathizers, causing fear among the population and illegally detaining several sympathizers of the rebel group.
March 17, 2000: To facilitate the entrance of the army to Las Casadas of Oscosingo, dozens of heavily armed Federal Prevention Police (PFP) went to La Candelaria and threatened the indigenous Tzeltals with forced evacuation if they did not voluntarily leave their settlements in the reservation of the Lacandona Jungle.
April 9, 2000: Ted Lewis, the director for Mexico Program of Global Exchange traveling to Mexico to obtain his elections observer visa, was detained by immigration agents in Guadalajara and refused admittance. Immigration officials failed to present cause and forged documents after-the-fact in an attempt to justify the illegal act. The act was potentially part of a government policy of attempting to block international monitoring of domestic political movements and elections, a policy that had been actively pursued for years in Chiapas.
April 20, 2000: PRD and PAN legislators who make up the Commission of Concordance and Peace (Cocopa) demanded concrete actions by the federal government to dismantle paramilitaries operating in the conflict zone in Chiapas.
May 8, 2000: Three Mexican indigenous people were killed and three others injured, including a young girl, in an ambush. Four masked civilians armed with rifles intercepted and fired on a vehicle carrying a group of Tzotzil Indians as they traveled through the Tzanembolom community of the Chenalho municipality. In response to the situation, state legislators accused state and federal officials of creating a false climate of violence in order to justify the incursion by police forces into the state.
May 9, 2000: Authorities in Chiapas launched a drive to disarm groups in the region following violent clashes left three dead and three injured. Zapatistas were not targeted in the disarmament drive.
June 12, 2000: An armed group ambushed municipal and public security officers along the Las Lagunas stretch of highway near the Las Limas community in the municipality of El Bosque, Chiapas. The ambush left seven dead and two seriously wounded, among them the mayor's son.
June 13, 2000: Global Exchange releases its report, Pre-electoral Conditions in Mexico 2000, written by academics whom traveled in Mexico in May to investigate the conditions before the July presidential elections.
June 19, 2000: Ted Lewis, who was refused entry into Mexico in April, was allowed to return and monitor the presidential elections on July 2, 2000. Officials of the Federal Elections Institute (IFE), the independent agency that is organizing the vote, pressed the government to let Mr. Lewis return.