Mexico Week In Review: 11.13-11.17

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 11.13-11.17
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Published since 1994, 'Mexico Week In Review' is a service of the
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.

To view newsletter archives, visit: 
http://lists.mutualaid.org/pipermail/mexico-week/

"Para Todos, Todo; Para Nosotros Nada"
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
--