* CHIAPAS: ETHNIC WARFARE IN LACANDON RAINFOREST LEAVES 14 DEAD
* OAXACA ASSEMBLY PLAN TO OUST RUIZ MAY ALSO TARGET CALDERON
* EX-NEWSPAPER GM SLAIN IN MEXICO CITY
* DIRTY WAR UPDATE: GOVERNMENT IDS 2 KILLED IN '70S CAMPAIGN
* U.S., MEXICO ACTIVISTS FIGHT WAL-MART
* AMLO SEEKS FUNDING FOR PARALLEL GOVERNMENT
* CHIAPAS CAMPESINOS AGAIN BLOCK ROADS FOR OAXACA
Committee of Indigenous Solidarity (CIS). CIS is a Washington, D.C.
based activist group committed to the ongoing struggles of Indigenous
peoples in the Americas. CIS is actively supporting the struggles
of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico while simultaneously combating
related structures of oppression within our own communities.
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"Para Todos, Todo; Para Nosotros Nada"
Note: Next publication will be December 03.
CHIAPAS: ETHNIC WARFARE IN LACANDON RAINFOREST LEAVES 14 DEAD
The organization Maderas del Pueblo [Timber for the People], which
has a presence in the Selva Lacandona confirmed that up to nine
campesinos were assassinated in the community of Viejo Velasco. In an
interview, Miguel Garcia Aguirre said that according to reports from
indigenous who abandoned the community, the following residents were
killed in an attempted eviction: Marta Perez Perez, Maria Perez
Hernandez, Maria Nunez Gonzalez, Pedro Nunez Perez, Oliver Benitez
Perez, Antonio Perez Lopez, Dominga Perez Lopez and Felicitas Perez
Parecero. Also killed were two children: Noile Benitez, eight years
old, and a recently born boy, who "still had not been baptized,"
explained Garcia Aguirre. The groups confronted them with firearms,
clubs and machetes in the community of Viejo Velasco, some 400
kilometers north of Tuxtla Gutierrez, capital of Chiapas state.
The Lacandon indigenous, who have lived for centuries in the jungle
near the border with Guatemala, oppose supported by the Zapatistas
who have arrived in the zone from higher lands to colonize farmland.
The Zapatistas support the new colonists because they consider the
small farmers the best protectors of the tropical forest. An
in-determined number of wounded were able to escape into the jungle,
and Maderas del Pueblo is calling for aid from the Red Cross.
But peasants' and human rights groups put the toll at 14 dead. The
Chiapas state government said in a news release that "a group of
Lacandon (Indians) entered the land at Viejo Velasco with the aim of
evicting a group of squatters, who resisted, and they clashed with
fists, stones and some firearms." Maderas del Pueblo said in a
statement that six men, six women and two children were killed in
Monday's clash. Ten victims were recent settlers backed by Maderas
del Pueblo and the other four were Lacandon Indians, the group said.
Chiapas human rights group Fray Bartolome de las Casas also released
a statement saying 14 people had been killed.
It seems the government's divide-and-rule strategy - to pit the
Lacandon Maya against the Highland Maya colonists in the rainforest
who support the Zapatistas - is bearing grim fruit. We are not yet
ready to line up with those (e.g. Narco News) who are calling this a
"massacre" by "paramilitary" forces. If, as early news accounts
indicate, Viejo Velasco was attacked by Lacandones, this is on a very
different model from the paramilitary violence which has long been
endemic in the Chiapas Highlands. Agrarian conflict in the Highlands
is largely between small peasant communities and the big ranchers of
the oligarchy or the caciques (regional bosses) that control
indigenous lands through patronage and terror. In the Selva, the
conflict is between indigenous groups who have overlapping land
titles due to the government's policy of settling landless peasants
from the Highlands in the rainforest - then granting title to their
new lands to the Lacandones when the colonists turned pro-Zapatista.
Sources: http://ww4report.com: 11/15; El Universal: 11/14
====
OAXACA ASSEMBLY PLAN TO OUST RUIZ MAY ALSO TARGET CALDERON
The Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) announced the
beginning of an action plan to insist on the removal of Gov. Ulises
Ruiz. Reinstallation of barricades, occupation of public offices and
roadblocks are among the measures they will implement in the regions
of that southern Mexican state. According to APPO leader Zenen Bravo
Castellanos, demonstrations could even extend against president-elect
Felipe Calderon if on Dec 1, Ruiz is still in the post.
Meanwhile, the constitutive congress of that organization, ending
Monday, decided that APPO will be collectively run without a
particular leader. A state council composed by 260 people will
represent the eight regions of Oaxaca and the different sectors in
the movement. Former political prisoners and those who have arrest
warrants against them for participating in the movement will be honor
members.
Source: Prensa Latina: 11/14
====
EX-NEWSPAPER GM SLAIN IN MEXICO CITY
A former general manager of one of Mexico's oldest newspapers was
found slain in his apartment in the capital, officials said, a week
after he went public with his book criticizing the federal
government, the business community and newspaper employees. Jose
Manuel Nava, 53, who was the last top administrator and editor of the
Excelsior newspaper when it was still being run as a cooperative, was
found by a cleaning lady who entered his apartment, said Mexico City
Police Department spokeswoman Patricia Espinoza.
It appeared that Nava had been stabbed to death, said authorities at
the scene who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to speak on the record to the media. Espinoza said Nava's
death was being considered a homicide, but she could not say
immediately how he was killed.
One of Mexico's oldest newspapers, Excelsior was founded on March 18,
1917. The glory days of the cooperative owned by its employees came
in the 1960s and 1970s, when it criticized the government despite
official and business-interest pressures. Nava worked for the
newspaper for 30 years, including 16 years as a correspondent in
Washington, and rose to director and general manager, said Lidia
Maldonado, his former secretary. In January 2003, a private offer to
buy the paper from its employees for $150 million fell through,
forcing the paper to plead in a full-page ad for donations from the
public. The newspaper was sold in January 2006 to radio station
owners Grupo Imagen. Last week, Nava presented a book in which he
blamed government officials, newspaper employees and the business
community for the newspaper cooperative's downfall, Mexican news
media reported.
Source: Associated Press: 11/16
====
DIRTY WAR UPDATE: GOVERNMENT IDS 2 KILLED IN '70S CAMPAIGN
Prosecutors said they have identified the remains of two men gunned
down more than 30 years ago in a government campaign against
suspected rebels and their supporters. Investigators said they were
able to identify the skeletal remains of Lino Rosas Perez and Esteban
Mesino Martinez from DNA samples taken from their sisters.
The two men were killed on Dec. 2, 1974, along with legendary
guerrilla leader Lucio Cabanas, in a gun battle with authorities in
the village of Otatal in southern Guerrero state. Juan Carlos Sanchez
Ponton, the investigative director for the special prosecutor's
office on past crimes, said investigators were certain that
government forces were involved in the killings, though it's unclear
whether they were shot by local police, federal officers or the
military. Cabanas' remains have never been located, but the bodies of
the two other men were buried by local residents in a nearby
cemetery. They were exhumed by investigators in June 2005. The men
were presumed to have been members of Cabanas' Party of the Poor, a
guerrilla group that fought several skirmishes with authorities in
the early 1970s.
The government launched the Dirty War in the 1960s and 1970s to
counter attacks by small bands of Marxist guerrillas against the army
and federal agents. The National Human Rights Commission has
documented the disappearance of at least 275 people from that time.
President Vicente Fox created a special office to investigate past
crimes, but it has had little success in prosecuting former top
government officials.
Source: Associated Press: 11/14
====
U.S., MEXICO ACTIVISTS FIGHT WAL-MART
U.S. and local activists formed a common front to fight the expansion
of Wal-Mart stores in Mexico, saying small stores and the national
culture are under threat from what is already the world's biggest
retailer. Activists from several U.S. groups and 10 Mexican labor,
community and commercial organizations wrapped up a two-day meeting
dubbed the First Binational U.S.-Mexico Meeting Against Wal-Mart.
In a statement, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said that it had opened four
more discount outlets, a Sam's Club, two restaurants and a clothing
store in Mexico in recent days, bringing the chain's total number of
stores under various nameplates in the country to 870. But company
officials were not immediately available to respond to the activists'
claims that the chain's boxy stores are a blight on the landscape and
are changing Mexicans' work, shopping and eating habits.
"We think Mexico should mount a defense of its cultural and
historical legacy," said Ruben Garcia of Global Exchange, an activist
group based in San Francisco, Calif. "They (Wal-Mart) want to open
stores in Comitan, Juchitan, in Oaxaca, in Patzcuaro, in many places
we consider historic," Garcia said, referring to several picturesque,
largely Indian cities in southern Mexico. "If Wal-Mart could open a
store in the Zocalo (Mexico City's historic main plaza), they would,"
said Garcia, who was accompanied at the meeting and subsequent news
conference by activists from U.S.-based groups like ACORN
(Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and the
International Labor Rights Fund.
In October Wal-Mart won preliminary approval to build a store in Cabo
San Lucas, in Baja California Sur - the only one of Mexico's 31
states where it currently does not have an outlet. Responding to
fears expressed by small business owners there, Antonio Ocarranza, a
spokesman for Wal-Mart de Mexico, said at the time that the company
would contribute positively to the community. "We not only generate
benefits for our customers, but also for businesses, who benefit from
the traffic generated by our firm," he said.
Juan Salazar, the outreach secretary of Mexico's Democratic
Association of Public Markets, called on Mexicans to shop instead at
the country's many public marketplaces, where small vendors sell
meat, produce and other goods. "Our country's culture is precisely
that of the public market, because it is the bastion of nutrition for
our people," Salazar said. "That's where we should go, and buy
products from our own producers." Garcia said Wal-Mart benefits from
the business brought in by grocery vouchers - which the government
hands out to low-income families and public employees - that are for
the most part only redeemable in supermarkets. The activists called
on officials to allow shoppers to use them at public markets.
Source: Associated Press: 11/12
====
AMLO SEEKS FUNDING FOR PARALLEL GOVERNMENT
Passing the hat for donations may seem like an unlikely way to fund a
government. But aides to former presidential candidate Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador said he will do just that, seeking contributions from
ordinary Mexicans to support a parallel, "legitimate" administration
he declared after losing the July 2 elections to President-elect
Felipe Calderon by a razor-thin margin. Lopez Obrador, who claims he
was robbed of the victory by fraud, has already named a Cabinet. He
plans to be "sworn in" to office on Monday, Mexico's Revolution Day,
in the capital's main square.
Calderon will be sworn in as the country's official president on Dec.
1. According to Lopez Obrador's Web site, the campaign has opened
bank accounts where Mexicans can donate anywhere from about $9 to
$2,800. Lopez Obrador has not said exactly what the money will be
used for. "We're doing this because otherwise, we wouldn't have the
means to survive or get funds for the movement," said Lopez Obrador
spokesman Cesar Yanez. "We trust that people will donate, little by
little."
Based in Mexico City, the parallel government will not try to collect
taxes or make laws. Rather, it will focus on organizing supporters
around the country and waging a resistance campaign to
President-elect Felipe Calderon during his six-year term that begins
Dec. 1. Lopez Obrador's claims of fraud and requests for a full
recount were rejected by the Federal Electoral Tribunal. Following a
partial recount, the court confirmed Calderon's victory over Lopez
Obrador by less than 1 percentage point.
Source: Associated Press: 11/16
====
CHIAPAS CAMPESINOS AGAIN BLOCK ROADS FOR OAXACA
Campesinos organized by the National Front of Struggle for Socialism
(FNLS) blocked four central highways in Mexico's southern Chiapas
state Nov. 10, including the Panamerican Highway and the coastal
frontier highway, in solidarity with the Popular People's
Organization of Oaxaca (APPO) and to demand the withdrawal of federal
police from the embattled neighboring state. The mobilization also
commemorated the death of the founder of the Clandestine
Revolutionary Workers Movement-Union of the People (PROCUP), Hector
Eladio Hernandez Castillo, who was killed in a confrontation with the
police in the streets of Guadalajara on Nov. 10, 1978. The Chiapas
FNLS said the action was part of a "Day of Action to Rescue the
Historical Memory of Our People" (Jornada por el Rescate de la
Memoria Historica de Nuestro Pueblo) called by the group's national
leadership at a meeting in Guadalajara earlier this month.
The blockades of the coastal highway in the Soconusco region were led
by the FNLS' local affiliate, the Coordinator of Independent
Democratic Organizations-Ricardo Flores Magon (CODI-RFM), named for
the famous Oaxacan anarchist who was an early leader of the Mexican
Revolution. The blockades on the San Cristobal-Ocosingo road through
the Highlands were led by the Emiliano Zapata Campesino Organization
(OCEZ), as well as members of the Section 7 teachers' union. In a
third blockade at Altamirano, OCEZ was joined by members of the
Popular Resistance Movement of the Southeast (MRPS). The fourth
blockade, near Tila in the Zona Norte of Chiapas, was led by the MRPS
and the People's Union in Defense of Electric Energy (PUDEE), which
demands greater public control over the state's grid and hydro-dams.
Meanwhile, the Chiapas command of the clandestine Popular
Revolutionary Army (EPR) issued a communique condemning the crackdown
in Oaxaca. In addition to attacking President Vicente Fox and Oaxaca
Gov. Ulises Ruiz, the statement warned that Chiapas' new Gov. Juan
Sabines will continue the "fascist and repressive" policies of his
predecessor Pablo Salazar. "Pablo Salazar, with his fascist and
'modernizing' policy, will only clean the facade with the
construction of more bad roads, 'modern' airports, commercial and
tourist centers that do nothing to benefit the poor; football teams
to try to relieve social discontent, wasting the money of the public
treasury in 'works' that do not benefit the exploited class and do
not resolve the social surplus," the statement read.
Source: http://ww4report.com: 11/13
====
The above articles were originally published and copyrighted by the
listed sources. These articles are offered for educational purposes
which CIS maintains is 'fair use' of copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
end: Mexico Week In Review: 11.13-11.17
--
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