Chiapas: Zapatistas to host "Festival of Dignified Rage"

The Sixth Intergalactic Commission of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) has announced a "First World Festival of Dignified Rage" (Festival Digna Rabia), to be held in January at San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas. Participants have been confirmed from some 20 countries around the world. Among the Mexican participants are the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), representatives from maquiladora workers in Baja California and Tamaulipas, and from the Lomas de Poleo land struggle at Ciudad Juárez. International participants include a delegation from the ACIN indigenous alliance in Cauca, Colombia; Spain's anarcho-syndicalist General Workers Confederation (CGT); and representatives from the labor struggle in Iran. Invited writers include Mexico's Adolfo Gilly, Ireland's John Halloway, the USA's Michael Hardt, and India's Arundhati Roy. (La Jornada, Nov. 29)

http://ww4report.com/node/6454

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission Blames Plan Mexico for APPO Arrests

Official human rights ombudsman says the government believed Plan Mexico funds were conditioned on resolving Brad Will case

The Mexican government's human rights watchdog, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH in its Spanish initials) slammed the Federal Attorney General's office (PGR) yesterday over the arrests of Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) supporters in the Brad Will murder case.

The PGR arrested three APPO supporters and has issued warrants for eight more in the Will case. José Luis Soberanes Fernández, the head of the CNDH, said that with the arrests, the PGR made the decision "to ignore the body of evidence that we sent it" regarding the case.

One principal component of the CNDH report that the PGR explicitly rejected was that Will was shot from a distance of 35-55 meters, not the 2 meters that the PGR claims. Despite the fact that a forensic video specialist hired by the Will family has found bullet streaks in the last two frames of Will's video, and that anyone who shot Will at close range would have appeared in his video since he was shot head-on, the PGR maintains that the APPO supporters standing around Will were the ones who murdered him.

The CNDH and the PGR have exchanged harsh criticisms since the APPO arrests. The CNDH accuses the PGR of making arrests "on a whim" and that its behavior "lacks professionalism and responsibility."

The PGR criticized the CNDH after it publicly released its report and recommendations in the Will case, saying that the CNDH had "leaked" information about the case, and threatened legal action as a result.

The CNDH's Soberanes Fernández shot back, saying, "Whatever. There will be more [threats]. They've gotten into that nasty little habit recently. It's all part of the job. It's a very despicable way for the PGR to fight: instead of using reason and arguments, it fights with threats. This dispute will have to go to court."

It's all about the money

Soberanes Fernández believes Plan Mexico is to blame for the recent and sudden arrests in the Will case. He says the government arrested the APPO supporters "because in the United States they are pressuring them," he responded. "It's said that they weren't going to give them the Merida Initiative resources if they didn't resolve this case, and therefore they had to clear it up at any cost, and now we see the results."

While Plan Mexico funds are not legally conditioned on resolving the Will case, an earlier House version of Plan Mexico did call for a "thorough, credible and transparent investigation" of the murder, along with investigations into police behavior in San Salvador Atenco, where 26 women reported physical, verbal, and sexual violence--including gang rape--perpetrated against them by police. This language was removed from the version of the bill that was signed into law, but it remains in an explanation that accompanies the bill.

Mexico and the United States are currently in final negotiations over the release of Plan Mexico funds. The arrests in the Will case came just six days before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited with her Mexican counterpart to discuss Plan Mexico, and just one day prior to US drug tsar John Walters' visit to Mexico city to discuss the release of funds.

Human rights conditions backfire

Friends of Brad Will, an organization of Will's friends and family who are fighting for justice in the murdered Indymedia journalist's case, have opposed Plan Mexico since it was first proposed in October 2007. They were joined in their opposition by Global Exchange, Witness for Peace, the Center for International Policy's Americas Program, the AFL-CIO, Tikkun, CISPES, Alliance for Democracy, Maryknoll Global Conerns, the Latin American Solidarity Committee, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.

According to Robert Jereski from Friends of Brad Will, his organization chose to oppose Plan Mexico outright instead of pushing for human rights conditions because "we saw what happened with Plan Colombia and those human rights conditions. They didn't stop that country from becoming the worst country in the world for rights for labor activists, where hundreds have been assassinated by the government or government-supported paramilitaries. We saw how ineffective the conditions were, that [Plan Colombia] resulted in 4 million displaced people driven off of resource-rich land by the same thugs the US government has been supporting through the Uribe government and military. We had serious doubts about value of human rights conditions."

The big players in human rights, however, remained silent throughout much of the debate over Plan Mexico. Human Rights Watch did not take a stance on the initiative until after it was passed. Amnesty International only weighed in publicly after the measure had passed both houses of congress. Its Mexico office circulated a letter calling US collaboration with Mexico "appropriate and timely" and simply requested that human rights conditions be included in the final version that would be sent to the president.

Only the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) testified before Congress regarding the initiative. WOLA strongly criticized the bill, saying that it would not lead to an overall reduction in drug trafficking and noting that US training has often backfired in Mexico, as in the case of Los Zetas, an elite special forces team that defected from the Mexican military to become the armed wing of the Gulf drug cartel. WOLA did not, however, oppose the bill; it merely offered suggestions for how to improve the military and law enforcement strategy of combatting drug cartels, such as "be careful who you train."

When Plan Mexico passed, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch praised the human rights conditions and failed to take a strong stance on further US support for corrupt and brutal Mexican military and police forces and the continuance of the failed policy of using the military to combat cartels. Amnesty International's post-passage press release stated, "the final bill is an important first step to prevent military and police abuses, including torture."

Those organizations that opposed Plan Mexico from the beginning were horrified--but not at all surprised--that the human rights conditions regarding the Will case backfired. Laura Carlsen of the Center for International Policy's Americas Program, said, "Of the cases that Congress demanded progress on as a precondition to releasing finds under Plan Mexico, both have resulted in movement by the Mexican government--to scapegoat the protesters. One was Brad Will where pressure by the family and Friends of Brad Will has kept the issue alive and made it impossible for the US government to ignore. The Amendment Three to the House version demanded proof of progress within 45 days of enactment although the final version omitted this particular demand. Now the government has imprisoned not the government-affiliated thugs directly implicated by videos and forensics examinations, but APPO members."

Carlsen noted that Will's case was not the only one that seemed to be affected by Plan Mexico's human rights conditions. Plan Mexico also called for a "thorough, credible and transparent investigation" of police behavior in San Salvador Atenco in May 2006. According to Carlsen, "the response [in this case] was to sentence movement leaders to 69 years while granting impunity to the police and politicians who orchestrated the rape, torture and beatings of protesters in police custody."


http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2008/10/mexicos-national-human-rights-commission-blames-plan-mexico-appo-ar

(Bullshit)Oaxaca: APPO Activists arrested for the murder of Brad Will

By Kristin Bricker NarcoNews

Mexican federal police arrested five Oaxacan activists on Thursday afternoon. At least two were arrested for supposedly murdering US citizen and Indymedia journalist Brad Will on October 27, 2006.

Brad Will was assassinated while reporting and filming the 2006 uprising in Oaxaca. Multiple witnesses say he was shot by paramilitaries who are seen in photos shooting towards Will. The paramilitaries are: Juan Carlo Soriano, municipal police officer; Manuel Aguilar, council personnel chief; Able Santiago Zarate; and Pedro Carmona, mayor of Felipe Carrillo Puerto de Santa Lucia del Camino.

The government claims that Will was shot at close range, therefore implicating the APPO activists around him. To prove this claim, the government at one point stated that the autopsy found powder burns on Will's body consistent with a close-range shooting. However, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy contradicted this claim, saying he did not find powder burns on Will's body.

The man the government accuses of being the intelectual author of Will's murder is Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno. Martínez Moreno has supported the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO in its Spanish initials). Martínez Moreno made headlines in 2007 when he was kidnapped along with two other APPO members while performing election observation in Santa Lucía del Camino, where Will was murdered in October 2006. The kidnappers beat the three APPOistas severely in the face and abdomen under a bridge and then dumped them in a community 38 kilometers from Oaxaca City.

Police also acknowledged arresting Octavio Perez Perez for covering up the crime. Perez participated in the 2006 uprising in Oaxaca.

The Angry White Kid blog reports that three other activists have been arrested: Lirio Lopez, Miguel Lopez, and Guadalupe (last name unknown). It is unknown if these activists are also accused of Will's murder or if the arrests are part of a larger crackdown on dissent in Oaxaca.

According to Angry White Kid: "Activists here first learned of the detention of Juan and joined his family this evening at the Penitenciaria Central de Santa Maria Ixcotel, Oaxaca. Juan's mother and wife have not been allowed in to see him. Later it was learned four others had been detained. A planton is planned at the Ixcotel penal beginning at 9am on Friday."

APPO activists and members of the Indigenous Popular Council of Oaxaca (CIPO) say the government is blaming activists for Will's murder in order to cover up its own involvement in the crime.

Chiapas Massacre Update

Posted by Kristin Bricker - October 9, 2008 at 12:34 am

State police summarily executed three peasants in front of a child

The Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) issued a press release on denouncing the October 4 police operation in Chincultik that left six peasants dead, 17 wounded, and 36 detained. Of the wounded, ten were beaten and six were shot. Three men were gravely injured: one was transfered to a hospital in Mexico City, and the other to a hospital in the Chiapas capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez.

According to a communique from the state attorney general's office, about 40 police had entered the community to carry out subpoenas against 28 people whom it suspected were involved in the takeover of the Chincultik ruins and the booth at the entrance to the ruins where visitors are charged an entrance fee. The police entered on horseback, in vehicles, and on foot, shooting tear gas and kicking down doors in various houses.

The townspeople, who claim that the government does not properly maintain the ruins and that the tourism proceeds from the ruins should benefit the town, defended themselves from the attack. They surrounded the police and disarmed them, guarding the 77 police weapons in the town. The residents detained the police officers, holding them in the town office.

Hours later, 300 State Preventative Police officers entered the community, again shooting tear gas at the residents. The peasants responded with sticks and stones, at which point the police opened fire, injuring several residents.

Agustin Alfaro Alfaro, his wife Eloisa Margarita Espinoza Morales, and their young son arrived from a neighboring ranch to transport four of the injured men to the nearest hospital. However, before reaching the hospital the State Preventative Police intercepted their truck and opened fire. A bullet struck Alfaro in the leg. The police pulled him from the car and shot him in the chest. Then they summarily executed three of the injured men: Rigoberto López, Alfredo Hernández, and Miguel Antonio Martínez. Espinoza Morales and her son were uninjured.

During the operation, police also shot Ignacio Hernández López and Ricardo Ramírez Ramírez, who died on the way to the hospital.

The 36 peasants who were detained during the operation were released the following day in exchange for the weapons the peasants confiscated from the police they detained.

Frayba reports that state and federal authorities have decided to pay the dead peasants' families MX$35,000 (USD$2,851.31) in funeral costs and MX$75,000 (USD$6,109.95) in "economic support." They've also promised residents food rations, community development projects to build tourist hostels or restaurants. The residents are offended by the offer.

Meridiano90 released the following photo montage of the operation and its aftermath:

"You don't mess with the government, idiots": Six killed at archealogical site occupation in Chiapas, Mexico

Mexican police on Friday shot and killed six peasants during and after an operation to end the popular occupation of an archealogical tourist site near Miguel Hidalgo, Chiapas.

The site at Chinkultic had been occupied by members of its surrounding villages since 7 September, following what villagers saw as its neglect by the INAH (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia) - the state institution charged with maintaining the country's thousands of ruins sites - and the concentration of profits from tourism in the municipality (one of the poorest in Mexico) outside of its inhabitants.

The municipality of La Trinitaria, which encompasses Miguel Hidalgo and Chinkultic, ranks as one of the very poorest in Mexico. Some days before the successful eviction of the occupiers on Friday, villagers had successfully apprehended, detained and disarmed some 77 policemen sent to arrest the occupation's "ringleaders".

Although the deaths were written off by the state and federal police as an unfortunate necessity of the rescue of their officers, weapons and the site itself, evidence is now beginning to surface of some of the deaths happening a long way from Chinkultic and following its return to the police.

La Jornada today quotes Eloísa Margarita Espinosa Morales, a woman who was travelling with her husband in his pickup truck carrying injured villagers from Miguel Hidalgo towards the nearest hospital in Comitán (some 40km away). A police roadblock detained them several kilometres up the road and although they stated the intention of their journey, the police told them to "get down on the ground, you dogs!" before taking Morales' husband into wasteland and firing seven fatal bullets into him.

"You don't mess with the government, you idiots", the police told the truck's passengers. When Morales protested her innocence, she was robbed of her jewlry and told to "shut up if you don't want to die like those fools".

Monday saw the intervention of the Chiapas state governor, one Juan Sabines from the social democratic PRD (Partido Revolucionario Democrático) party. In exchange for some conciliatory words about the massacre (he promised to investigate "four of the six deaths", declaring that "justice is always with the people") in a meeting with villageleaders and relatives of the deceased, the police weapons were returned and an agreement was reached on the Chinkultic issue.

By Tuesday La Jornada was reporting "the return of normality" to both Miguel Hidalgo and the site of Chinkultic, however it appears to be far from the end of the story. Communities within the region of the Lagunas de Montebello, a 60km squared national park which sits around 10km east of Miguel Hidalgo on the Guatemalan border, have also called for the expulsion of INAH officials from the park in favour it being administered by they themselves.

The regions of La Trinitaria and Lagunas de Montebello also sit very close to the 32 autonomous municipalities of the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional) and have seen plenty of social unrest in the last few years.

http://www.libcom.org/news/you-dont-mess-with-government-idiots-six-killed-archealogical-site-occupation-chiapas-mexic

Mexico: teachers' strike spreads up the Pacific coast while Oaxaca cautiously holds firm

The annual teachers' strike in Oaxaca has been bolstered by soldarity strikes of other sections of the Sindicato Nacional de los Trabajadores en la Educación (SNTE) stretching up and down the Mexican Pacific coastline, while in Oaxaca itself, occupations and blockades continue apace in support. Most analysts however have already doomed the strike to failure.

On Friday 30th, the strike by the Oaxacan SNTE local (Sección 22, around whose strike coalesced the 2006 revolt) entered its 12th day, with more motorways blocked, more tollbooths closed down and more education buildings occupied throughout the state. Teachers have also managed to close down various shopping malls throughout Ciudad de Oaxaca itself, while the occupation of the Zócalo (central square) is maintained.

Encouragingly, the strike, supported since day one by SNTE members in the state of Michoacán, has also seen solidarity by other SNTE members in the states of Guerrero (directly to the north of Oaxaca) and Chiapas (directly to the south), although workers have now returned to classrooms in both states.

In Oaxaca, the SNTE strike is now an annual event, yet some of the teachers' demands (such as the democratization of the SNTE) are now being picked up by teachers in other parts of the country. In Tabasco, a caravan convoy of SNTE members has now departed for Mexico City, some 1500km away.

In Oaxaca and Michoacán, responding to criticisms from some quarters which claim that the schoolchildren will lose out on their education, teachers have found various ways to avoid that scenario while maintaining industrial action. In Oaxaca, teachers have held 3 day long strikes each in rotation, depending on their region, with each region marching on the plantón (encampment) in the Zócalo of Cuidad de Oaxaca in order to relieve the last.

Meanwhile, the local government awaits the response of Sección 22 to their latest offer. The strike is still scheduled to run nine more days, but most seem to be relatively confident an agreement will be made before its official end. Indeed, the mood in Oaxaca seems to be relatively negative, with street vendors around the Zócalo and the proprietors of the plaza's various cafes and restaurants joining with the local government to condemn the strike and occupation. For most Oaxacans, the memories of 2006 are still too fresh to even consider this movement going any further.

An informative article about Oaxaca two years on from the revolt: http://www.narconews.com/Issue53/article3113.html