Mexico

Communal Lands: Theater Of Operations For Counterinsurgency

August 12, 2014 Renata Bessi, Santiago Navarro F. and Translated Miriam Taylor, www.truth-out.org Create! Indigenous Rights, Mexico, Mining, School of Americas, Surveillance, Violence

In 2006, a team of geographers from the University of Kansas carried out a series of mapping projects of communal lands in southern Mexico's Northern Sierra Mountains. Coordinated by Peter Herlihy and Geoffrey B. Demarest, a US lieutenant colonel, the objective was to achieve strategic military and geopolitical goals of particular interest for the United States. The objective was to incorporate indigenous territories into the transnational corporate model of private property, either by force or through agreements. Demarest's essential argument is that peace cannot exist without private property. "The Bowman Expeditions are taking places with the counterinsurgency logic of the United States, and we reported them in 2009. These expeditions were part of research regarding the geographic information that indigenous communities in the Sierra Juarez possess. The researchers hid the fact that they were being financed by the Pentagon. And we believe that this research was a type of pilot project to practice how they would undertake research in other parts of the world in relation to indigenous towns and their communal lands," said Aldo Gonzales Rojas in an interview with Truthout. A director for the Secretary of Indigenous Affairs in the state of Oaxaca, Rojas ensures that indigenous laws are being instituted and applied correctly in the state.

Mexico: Electoral Reform Threatens Sovereignty Of Indigenous Peoples

August 6, 2014 Renata Bessi, Santiago Navarro F. and Translated Miriam Taylor, www.truth-out.org Educate! Elections, Indigenous Rights, Mexico

At the end of May, Mexico’s National Congress approved a political-electoral reform that will organize federal and local elections for the year 2015. Such a reform represents a step backward for indigenous towns in Mexico because it does not consider the way in which they elect authorities through their own system of "uses and customs" legitimate. Despite efforts by citizens, academics, organizations and indigenous movements, who turned in a series of proposals to senators and congress members from Oaxaca long before the reform was passed, the self-determination of indigenous towns and communities has not been guaranteed. "By not guaranteeing the right to autonomy and political representation in these towns, the diversity of political organization that exists in this country is being denied," says Aldo Gonzales Rojas, of indigenous Zapotec descent and a director for the Secretary of Indigenous Affairs in the state of Oaxaca, where he ensures that indigenous laws are being instituted and applied correctly. "A legal gap has been created given that this other system exists, but is not recognized. Indigenous communities should have juridical certainty," he continues.

International Day Of Protest To Free Nestora

August 4, 2014 Free Nestora, www.freenestora.org Resist! Mexico, Political Prisoner, Self Defense

August 21, 2014 will be the one year anniversary of Nestora’s arrest and imprisonment. For 12 months, she has been denied the right to see her lawyers. Orders to free her by a federal judge have been ignored. Kept in isolation without medical attention, she represents hundreds of people in self defense groups who have been jailed for defending their communities against powerful, politically connected criminal cartels. In June, the Mexican government expanded its occupation and repression in Michoacán, arresting Dr. José Mireles and nearly 100 of his followers. They were on their way to regain public control of Lázaro Cárdenas port, the largest seaport in Mexico, from a drug cartel known as the Knights Templar. This criminal syndicate used the port to export goods and resources stolen from the people of the region. Today Nestora Salgado and Dr. José Mireles are powerful symbols of popular resistance against Mexican government corruption and unbridled crime. As U.S. military aid to Mexico increases, the violence continues. August 21 will be a day of International protest calling for the release of Nestora, Dr. Mireles, and all political prisoners. Join a location near you in international solidarity!

Laws That Kill Protesters In Mexico

August 4, 2014 Daniela Pastrana, www.ipsnews.net Resist! Law, Mexico, Repression

People in this town in the central Mexican state of Puebla found out the hard way that protesting can be deadly. A new law passed in Puebla makes it possible for police to use firearms or deadly force to break up demonstrations. Local inhabitants felt the impact of the measure during a harsh crackdown on a protest against another law that they say undermines their autonomy. A dead 13-year-old boy, another who lost three fingers, a third with a broken jaw and teeth knocked out, a driver who lost an eye, and 37 others injured by beatings and tear gas were the price this Nahua indigenous town of 3,900 people paid for blocking a road to demand the repeal of a state law that transferred responsibility over civil registries from local community authorities to the municipalities. “It’s not fair that they attack the people like this just because we are asking that our community life, our authorities, be respected,” Vianey Varela, a first year high school student, told IPS. On Jul. 9, when local residents blocked the Puebla-Atlixco highway some 150 km from Mexico City, the state police first used the powers given to them by the Law to Protect Human Rights and Regulate the Legitimate Use of Force by the police, which the state legislature passed in May. The “Ley Bala” or Bullet Law, as it was dubbed by journalists, allows Puebla state police to use firearms as well as “non-lethal weapons” to break up “violent” protests and during emergencies and natural disasters.

Mexican Farmers Oppose Expansion Of GMO Crops

July 16, 2014 Emilio Godoy, www.ipsnews.net Resist! Beans, Food and Agriculture, GMO, Mexico

Bean grower Manuel Alvarado is part of the majority of producers in Mexico who consider it unnecessary to introduce genetically modified varieties of beans, as the government is promoting. “There is no study showing superior yields compared with hybrid or regional seeds. People are still unaware of what transgenic products are, nor the effects they have, but some of the things that are known about them are not good,” said Alvarado, the head of Enlaces al Campo, a bulk beans sales company in the city of Fresnillo, in the northern state of Zacatecas. "There can be no biosecurity with transgenics: they cause genetic erosion (loss of genetic diversity)." -- Silvia Ribeiro Genetically modified organisms (GMO) may cause a number of problems, among them the possibility that “transgenics will contaminate native and hybrid seeds, which have higher germination rates than transgenics,” Alvarado told IPS. Bean farmers in Mexico face a context of overproduction, low prices and increasing imports, in a country where there are 300,000 bean producers, half of them small scale farmers.

The Zapatista “Struggle Is Our Struggle, Everywhere . . .”

July 5, 2014 Brad Evans, www.truth-out.org Educate! History, Mexico, Zapatistas

Nearly a decade ago, while en route from the United Kingdom to the Zapatista communities of Chiapas, Mexico, I had the privilege of meeting the late John Ross. I arrived late afternoon at the Hotel Isabel in Mexico City, which he continued to call "home." A New York-born activist, radical thinker, studious reader and poet of the beat generation, Ross was well equipped to offer incisive commentary on a movement that was radicalizing everything we thought we knew about political thought and practice. Ross had captured wonderfully the importance of the Zapatistas in the titles of his dedicated books that take us on an inspiring journey from The War Against Oblivion to Making Another World Possible. As we sat discussing the dignity of Zapatistas into the early hours of the morning, John spent considerable time explaining how they had broken new ground by moving away from the capture of state power; how their politics demanded a new temporality that didn't comply to the efficiency of neoliberal markets; how they understood their plight in terms of global systems of oppression of which the nation state had become a mere proxy; how they realized that new political imaginaries require a new vocabulary, which, moving beyond the sad militancy of theory, speaks in a more poetic style; and how their commitment to autonomy radicalized both their sense of spatiality and political agency in ways that we were still yet to fully comprehend.

The US-Mexico Caravan For Peace Takes On The Drug War

July 3, 2014 Chris Moore-Backman, www.truth-out.org Resist! Children, Drug War, Immigrant Rights, Mexico, Prison

Like many people in the United States, I've had a vague notion that in recent years, things have gone from bad to worse in Mexico. A notion characterized by images of chaos and sporadic violence related to narco-trafficking. I've pictured skirmishing between competing drug cartels, with disorganized and corrupt law enforcement thrown into the mix. And I realize that the image of Ciudad Juarez with its reputation as the world's most murderous city, has somehow worked as a reference point for me as I've thought of Mexico, every now and then. A few months ago, I was talking with an old friend that I had been out of touch with for some time, and I was describing for him the radio documentaries I've been working on which focus on race, criminal justice and the drug war, and on the growing movement to end mass incarceration. He wasted no time in asking me if I was planning to do a show on the international aspects of the Drug War, and more specifically, he was wanting to know if I was going to do anything about what was happening in Mexico. He said that he thought the movement to end mass incarceration in the United States and the movement to end the drug war in Mexico were deeply connected, but that very few people were seeing it yet or talking about it. He told me that a bi-national caravan was about to travel the length of the US calling for an end to the drug war. He said that many of the people with the caravan would be family members of those who had been killed or disappeared in the drug war violence in Mexico.

Worldwide Protests Erupt Over Racist, Failed War On Drugs

June 28, 2014 Owen Poindexter, www.alternet.org Resist! International Law, Mexico, Protests, War On Drugs

“There is complete ignorance of the dynamics of the phenomenon and the most convenient ways to fix it,” said Torres of the drug war and its social costs. (Prof. Torres’ quotes are translated from Spanish.) “One ton of cocaine impounded at the international airport is an achievement that will benefit the government in power politically, but it will not solve the underlying problem of drug trafficking in the long term.” These politically popular but ultimately meaningless victories in the war on drugs are hardly restricted to Peru. Niamh Eastwood, an organizer at Release, a London-based drug reform advocacy group, said in a press release: “In the UK…the two main parties – the Conservatives and Labour – are reluctant to engage in the debate preferring a ‘tough on crime, tough on drugs’ stance. That is why it is the job of civil society in the UK to highlight the damage the current criminal justice approach does and why, especially the Labour Party, needs to consider how our drug laws are interconnected with issues of social justice.” Organizers in Mexico City found that the sheer number of street protests and demonstrations in Mexico makes people tune them out, so instead they are using the June 26 day to launch a microsite (a small, targeted website) packed with interviews, infographics and op-eds on why Mexico’s drug policies are detrimental to every one of its citizens.

Imperialist Boomerang: Humanitarian Child Migrant Refugee Crisis

June 22, 2014 Hector Luis Alamo, Jr., www.latinorebels.com Educate! Guatemala, Honduras, Immigration, Mexico

The U.S. government’s primary objective in Honduras, as with the rest of Latin America, has never been to establish a safe and prosperous society for its citizens. The Honduran government has simply been a proxy for U.S. business interests, first the United Fruit Company, and now the U.S. military-industrial complex. And because Washington’s game plan has been so successful in Honduras, we have our glimpse at what could be in store for Central America and beyond. Order and peace is desired by policymakers insofar as it creates an environment for the U.S. government and the governments it controls can impose neoliberal policies on the region and extract wealth. It’s no surprise then that Honduras, the original banana republic, and the poster child for U.S. meddling run amok, should today be the country of origin for the greatest number of child migrants. The United States’ vampirish policy toward Honduras has drained that country.

Teachers, Unions, Students Build Trinational Movement

June 10, 2014 Roshan Bliss, www.PopularResistance.org Organize! Canada, Education, Mexico, North America, Student Activism

The significance of winning the struggle for education was summed up in the remarks that CNTE's Juan Melchor shared about the three goals that have guided the CNTE teachers' fight in Mexico: first, democratize the teachers' union. Second, democratize the schools. Third, democratize the country. If the teachers, students, and education activists of the Trinational Coalition In Defense of Public Education are successful, it would mean much more than better schools. It would mean more critical and engaged citizens. It would mean a blow to corporate imperialism and control. It would mean a more just society where education is seen as a human right and a public good, not as a private commodity or an economic market. With the 2016 Trinational Conference In Defense of Public Education tentatively slated to take place in Vancouver, the education activists of the Trinational Coalition have their work cut out for them. But they can count on a growing base of support as more and more people across the continent - and across the globe - start to realize the harm that corporate education reform is doing to our communities, our schools, and our future. So as the Mexican delegation's favored chant from the weekend says, "La lucha sigue, sigue!"

Murder of Indigenous Activist Opposing Mega Dam Project

June 7, 2014 Mexico Voices, www.mexicovoices.blogspot.sg Educate! Environment, Mexico, Protest, Repression, River

The assassination of Antonio Esteban Cruz, leader of the Independent Movement of Urban and Popular Workers and Farmers (MIOCUP), on June 4, confirms the atmosphere of terror and repression of activists living in the state, PRD deputy Roxana Porquillo Luna charged. The federal lawmaker urged the government of Rafael Moreno Valle [of the PAN] to promptly solve this crime that makes even more worrisome the situation of persecution that various social movements and organizations of the state are experiencing. "The wave of terror that exists in Puebla and that has resulted in the murder of a leader of a major organization for the Sierra Norte [Northern Mountains region] is confirmed. It is worrisome. The strategy is clear: first intimidate, imprison and now there is the death of a fellow leader. All this in the climate of a campaign by the state government against the citizens of the state and their organizations," she lamented. Antonio Esteban Cruz, an indigenous leader opposing the project to build a hydroelectric plant in the municipalities of Cuetzalan and Ayotoxco, was shot four times on Wednesday morning in “El Rincón” ["The Corner"], on the banks of the Apulco River, a tributary that he was defending. At a press conference with members of the National Movement Los de Abajo, [Those From Below] Roxana Luna agreed with other activists that the death of Antonio Esteban has a political background, but she desisted from directly saying that the state government was responsible.

Leaked Photos: Children Packed In Border Facilities

June 7, 2014 Kolten Parker, www.sfgate.com Educate! Border, Children, Immigrant Rights, Mexico

Photos leaked Thursday from a U.S. Border Patrol facility in the Rio Grande Valley show overflowing holding facilities of immigrants, many of whom are children. The photos, obtained by the conservative website Breitbart, show hundreds of immigrants believed to be in the country illegally from Central America and Mexico being held in crowded concrete rooms similar to a jail cell. Many of the children appear to be teenagers but some clearly are younger. The photos have a timestamp of May 27, 2014. A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the agency has not “officially released any photos at this time in order to protect the rights and privacy of unaccompanied minors in our care.” “The influx of unaccompanied children across the southwest border has resulted in an urgent humanitarian situation,” the CBP spokesperson said. “It requires a whole of government coordinated and sustained response.” President Barack Obama has directed an effort, lead by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to provide resources and “humanitarian relief to affected children,” which is a “priority,” the spokesperson said. It is unclear who leaked the photos to Breitbart.

We All Must Become Zapatistas

June 3, 2014 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com Strategize! Mexico, Organizing, Solidarity, Zapatistas

Subcomandante Marcos, the spokesman for the Zapatistas (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, or EZLN), has announced that his rebel persona no longer exists. He had gone from being a “spokesman to a distraction,” he said last week. His persona, he said, fed an easy and cheap media narrative. It turned a social revolution into a cartoon for the mass media. It allowed the commercial press and the outside world to ignore traditional community leaders and indigenous commanders and wrap a movement around a fictitious personality. His persona, he said, trivialized a movement. And so this persona is no more. “The entire system, but above all its media, plays the game of creating celebrities who it later destroys if they don’t yield to its designs,” Marcos declared. The Zapatistas form the most important resistance movement of the last two decades. They are a visible counterweight to the despoiling and rape of the planet and the subjugation of the poor by global capitalism. And they have repeatedly reinvented themselves—as Marcos has now done—to survive.

Free Zapatista Textbooks Now Available In English

June 3, 2014 John Ahni Schertow, www.intercontinentalcry.org Educate! Education, Mexico, Solidarity, Zapatistas

Put on your thinking caps because three of four Zapatista textbooks from last year’s widely popular escuelita (little school) have been translated to English. For those who are not yet familiar, the Zapatista Escuelita (Zapatista little school), brought 1630 students from around the world to learn what it really means to be Zapatista. Contrary to what some might believe, there’s a lot more to the Zapatista than “smashing the state” or looking good doing it! You can download the first three books by clicking the corresponding links below. The remaining textbooks/links will be posted here as they become available.

Town Of Ameyalco, Mexico Resists To Save Their Water

May 23, 2014 Revolution News, www.revolution-news.com Resist! Mexico, Water

Today residents of the town of San Bartolo Ameyalco, Mexico resisted the diversion of their natural spring well. Around 100 to 120 people were injured in what has been over a year long struggle to keep the towns spring from being diverted and overused. The tension began in the morning, when, guarded by 1500 riot police officers, workers of the Water System of Mexico City (Sacmex) resumed laying pipe on the old road to Mixcoac. As they have done in the past, the townspeople rang the church bells to warn people to guard the spring. People armed with pipes, sticks and stones, tried to prevent the construction. Reports are saying that 50 to 70 of the towns people were injured during the resistance, many of them hospitalized, and some seriously injured. 4 policeman were overtaken, and 2 of them seriously injured and hospitalized. 50 other policeman were injured, and several police vehicles were destroyed. San Bartolo Ameyalco delegation is in Alvaro Obregon, in the western part of Mexico City. It is a town founded in 1535, although there is evidence of its existence before the arrival of the Spanish invasion. Tepatecas originally settled in this area. Ameyalco has a spring that has supplied centuries of the population and other neighboring settlements on the delegation Álvaro Obregón. It is considered a cultural heritage of the people, even as it is named: Ameyalco comes from the Nahuatl ameyalli , which means “place where the water flows clean.”

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