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(Departamento del Ciudadano Alicia)
"Everything for Everyone and Nothing for Ourselves"
-Subcomandante Marcos
According to the government official, the country's new political Constitution guarantees Bolivian native people the right to free determination, self-governing and to manage their own financial resources.
Garcia told members of the Eastern Bolivia Indigenous People Confederation that the Evo Morales government will outline mechanisms to transfer management resources to the indigenous communities.
There is no need to hold a referendum on the indigenous autonomies, because they are already legal. They just need to be implemented, the Vice President claimed.
Garcia questioned the autonomy referendums being promoted by authorities from the departments of Benu, Pando, Santa cruz and Tarija, and dubbed such attempts as divisive.
The official said that unlike indigenous autonomies, which do not need of a referendum to become legal, department autonomies must be legally voted upon by the people.
He also criticized Santa Cruz authorities for having launched a campaign threatening to jail citizens who refuse to vote in the May 4 polls.
"It would send most young people to the countryside, to cut sugarcane. It is a declared policy. It would attempt to steal the artistic and scientific talents Cuba has nurtured, as it has done in other countries in our hemisphere," the leader of the Cuban Revolution warned in his reflection: "Bush, Millionaires, Consumption and Under-Consumption," released here.
He stressed that "having more than 70,000 specialists in general comprehensive medicine and hundreds of thousands of other professionals, helping others, the poorest included, and exporting these services, is a sin of which a Third World country cannot be forgiven.
Ultimately, we have held our ground in spite of the blockade, their aggressions and their brutal acts of terrorism for nearly half a century.
Prensa Latina is posting below the full text of Fidel Castro´s reflection.
Reflections by comrade Fidel
BUSH, MILLIONAIRES, CONSUMPTION AND UNDER-CONSUMPTION
No one requires additional proof of the growing hatred that drives the slaughter in Iraq, a country where 95 percent of the population is Muslim —of these, over 60 percent are Shiites and the remainder Sunnis—or the killings in Afghanistan, where over 99 percent of the population is also Muslim —80 percent Sunni and the remainder Shiite. The two nations are also made up of nationalities and ethnic groups of diverse origins and locations.
In addition to U.S. soldiers, troops from nearly all European states are based in Afghanistan, including the French reinforcements sent by Sarkozy.
The Russians didn’t jump onto the war's bandwagon; far too much of their blood was spilt there, and the invasion's political cost was incalculable. It is likely that citizens of Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia and the Ukraine perished on Afghan soil fighting as Soviet soldiers. Today, as former Soviet republics, these states are part of or aspire to join NATO.
Another significant detail is the fact that the struggle against heroin traffic goes unmentioned in a country where war has turned poppy growers into the only people capable of satisfying the country's medical demand of opium and, in addition to this, of supplying countless people with the drug.
The Russian president notes that NATO has grown from 16 to 28 members. Bush declares he looked into the eyes of his Russian counterpart and read his thoughts —that’s what he uses the teleprompter for— but he didn’t say whether it was written in English or Russian.
Over 500 billion dollars were siphoned out of Russia through capitalist Western European countries, a significant part of which was invested in highly profitable companies or luxury homes. The rest was deposited in U.S. banks, with the government’s consent. It was completely illegal and immoral. Before its collapse, the USSR was the victim of acts of sabotage, such as the detonation of a Siberian gas pipeline, using devices run with U.S. software, the empire's Trojan horse. The USSR then fell apart from within before Reagan, as has been demonstrated.
I cannot help but recall the Monday of April 3rd, when I laid down the voluminous international news bulletin and opened that day's Granma edition to distract myself a while. I began by perusing the last page. What a surprise! Juan Varela offered a nearly flawless description of the differences between the 24-hour roadside cafeteria and gas station center of Aguada de Pasajeros, in the province of Cienfuegos, and Nueva Paz, in the province of La Habana. In the first, the battle, which was and is still being fought, has for now been won. In the second, though the battle is being waged, victory has not yet been attained.
What does Juan Varela tell us? “The peddlers arrive from different places; they operate as some sort of association and employ a clever warning system. Using signals, they alert each other of the presence of law enforcement or state officials. Showing feline stealth, in a few minutes they can dismantle their stage of operations and transport the goods to a previously agreed to location. There, they await the signal announcing that the coast is clear".
Where do the goods sold by this fifth column in Nueva Paz come from? They are stolen from factories, means of transportation, warehouse or distribution facilities. Those who extol egoism and oppose all forms of restrictions by the State, which they consider meddlesome, will never be capable of building a solid and lasting society, a society which, today, thanks to the development of the productive forces, can only be the fruit of education and conscience, of values which must be sown and cultivated.
Thinking is not forbidden. Neither is dreaming. But thinking does not harm to anyone, while dreaming can doom an entire country and even more than that: the human species itself. The development of productive forces by science has been accompanied by the parallel development of destructive forces. Can anyone dispute this?
Turning the Granma's page that same day, I came across the section titled "Chasing the News", written by columnist Elson Concepción Pérez. The article, which I quote, is priceless:
“Not one article in the mainstream press refers to the social differences, the unemployment, the inflation and the other evils that arrived with capitalism.
"On the Internet, however, you can see the other side of the coin: a group of 300 Romanians —the richest in the country—, have accumulated more than US $33 billion, which, according to the ‘Top 300’ section of the weekly magazine Capital, is equivalent to 27 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
“While those living below the poverty line are in the millions, the Eastern European nation has one citizen with a fortune calculated at between US $3.1 and $3.3 billion. His name is Dinu Patriciu, and he recently sold a part of the Rompetrol oil company to Kazakhstan’s Kazmunaigaz group for $2.7 billion euros.” Nearly 4 billion dollars.
“Dinu dethroned (…) Losif Constantin Dragan, who fell to seventh place with a fortune of between US $1.5 and $1.6 billion, according to the publication.
“Gigi Becali, owner of the Steaua Soccer Club, is now in second place with a fortune of at least US $2.8 billion, accumulated primarily in the real estate industry.
“Former tennis player and businessman Ion Tiriac, the second richest Romanian in 2006, with interests in banking, insurance and automobiles, is now third with a fortune of over US $2.2 billion.”
Thus reports Elson, in detailed fashion, in this section of Granma.
Let us not forget that Romania was a socialist country with a fairly well developed oil and petrochemical industry, blessed with a fertile soil and a climate favorable to the production of protein and calorie-rich foods, to name but a few sectors.
As in Cuba, there were those with theories about easy access to consumer goods: imperial ears and eyes hungry for these dreams.
Another threat posed by developed capitalism is climate change. An AFP cable reports on the declarations of James Hansen, NASA’s chief climate expert. Created by Eisenhower on July 29, 1958, NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is an institution that has been decisive in the consolidation of the United States’ current level of power.
"We've already reached the dangerous level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," James Hansen, 67, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, told AFP here.
"But there are ways to solve the problem" of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which Hansen said has reached the "tipping point" of 385 parts per million.
“(…) The major obstacle to saving the planet from its inhabitants is not technology, insisted Hansen, named one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2006 by Time magazine.”
"(…) What's become clear to me in the past several years is that both the executive branch and the legislative branch are strongly influenced by special fossil fuel interests," he said (…).
"(...) The industry is misleading the public and policy makers about the cause of climate change. And that is analogous to what the cigarette manufacturers did. They knew smoking caused cancer, but they hired scientists who said that was not the case."
“(…) Last year Hansen testified before the U.S. Congress that "interference with communication of science to the public has been greater during the current administration than at any time in my career."
“Government public relations officials, he said, filter the facts in science reports to reduce 'concern about the relation of climate change to human-made greenhouse gas emissions.’"
“(….) The policy makers, 'the people who need to know are ignorant of the actual status of the matter, and the gravity of the matter, and most important, the urgency of the matter,’ he charged.”
Another important fact I want to underscore is this: the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a bulwark of the developed capitalist system imposed on humanity, possesses 3,217 tons of gold.
The United States, which controls 17 percent of the votes —a privilege granted the superpower after the conclusion of World War II— can veto any decision, even if all other members of the Fund have approved it.
The institution, burdened by an oversized bureaucracy, decided to sell off 403.3 tons of gold, to function "more efficiently". The real reason for this is that it has lost all its customers because of the unfair conditions it imposes on its loans. The 403.3 tons of gold, at the current price, are equivalent to 12 billion dollars. This is a paltry sum: the U.S. government forces the same amount into circulation, to save its banks, in a matter of hours.
The empire’s colossal disinformation apparatus which, among other things, referred to my message to intellectuals claimed that Fidel was attacking the use of computers, portraying me as someone detached from reality.
During his closing remarks at the UNEAC Congress, Minister of Culture and prestigious intellectual Abel Prieto brilliantly replied to the intrigue, invoking the more than 600 Computer Youth Clubs that have been opened across Cuba in the last 20 years, where over 200,000 Cubans complete computer sciences training programs every year.
He also referred to the University of Information Sciences, visited by Congress participants, where over 1,600 well-trained engineers graduate in the specialty every year, and the investment made, during the Special Period, to undertake the nearly impossible project of reconstructing the Cubanacan Art Schools.
The persuasive, realistic and cogent words of Esteban Lazo, a black, white-haired man with a voice that resounds with his 64 years of experience, an exceptional witness to these processes having been the Party's First Secretary in Havana and other provinces before that, gave Abel's arguments even more strength.
If the empire managed to secure control of Cuba again, not one of these higher institutions created by the Revolution would remain to guarantee young people this right. It would send most young people to the countryside, to cut sugarcane. It is a declared policy.
It would attempt to steal the artistic and scientific talents Cuba has nurtured, as it has done in other countries in our hemisphere. Having more than 70,000 specialists in general comprehensive medicine and hundreds of thousands of other professionals, helping others, the poorest included, and exporting these services, is a sin of which a Third World country cannot be forgiven.
Ultimately, we have held our ground in spite of the blockade, their aggressions and their brutal acts of terrorism for nearly half a century.
I had the privilege of listening to important speeches, delivered by invitees from Latin America and other countries, at the 7th Hemispheric Meeting for the Struggle against FTAs and the Integration of Peoples. I thank them for their words of solidarity and join in their causes, which they defend with so much talent and courage. Building awareness and mobilizing the people politically is indeed a lofty slogan!
Fidel Castro Ruz
April 10, 2008
7:06 p.m.
In a major change in Cuba's state-controlled system, Raul Castro is allowing thousands of renters to gain title to their homes, AP is reporting. It's his first formal decree since he succeeded his brother Fidel as president in February.
Cubans — especially military families, sugar workers, construction workers, teachers and doctors — will be able to pass their homes or apartments to family members.
No word yet from Cuba's official paper, Granma (English, Spanish).
It's the latest in a series of moves by Castro to relax the restrictions Fidel instituted when he came to power nearly 50 years ago.
Yesterday, Reuters reported that Castro had scrapped limits on how much Cubans can now earn.
Argentinian writer and journalist Stella Calloni said she came to Caracas to rescue words from those who use it to kill for the world needs justice, brotherhoods and solidarity.
Calloni expressed concern on the ways that corporate media misinform to destabilize nations when the US abrogates the right to launch preemptive attacks against any country.
Alternative Nobel Peace Award Marton Almada called to attract the youth and make them actors of the struggle for social justice at countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador and Bolivia.
Almada hopes his country, Paraguay, soon join the countries that defend their sovereignty and self-determination from an imperialism "increasingly decadent, aggressive and dangerous."
He added that the seminar "will plan strategies to annul campaigns ran through the media which he finger points as first step in an attack to a country, and mentions as example the experiences of the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mexican John Saxe Fernandez spoke on the need to close the US military bases around the world as inexcusable example of colonization.
The goal is to prevent the governments at countries the US manipulate to violate the sovereignty of other peoples like Colombia's recent military attack on Ecuador.
by Julie Webb-Pullman
On 10 April, a petition signed by more than 30 New Zealanders was delivered to the Mexican Ambassador to New Zealand, Angélica Arce, declaiming ongoing human rights abuses of indigenous Mexicans, impunity for the perpetrators, and marking the 89th anniversary of the assassination of Mexican indigenous revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, whose fight for justice for indigenous Mexicans still continues.
The petition demanded the release of political prisoners participating in hunger strikes in Chiapas and Tabasco, the security and protection of those released since the hunger strike began, and the cessation of human rights abuses and miscarriages of justice.
The recent hunger strike has highlighted the paucity of justice for poor and indigenous campesinos in Chiapas. The stories of the protesters are a litany of arbitrary detentions (without an arrest warrant), fabricated charges, confessions obtained under torture, and imprisonment for crimes not committed. (see http://www.narconews.com/Issue52/article3048.html) As all the protesters were members of social organizations, the hunger strike also dramatized the use of torture and other human rights abuses to silence free speech and social dissent.
Unfortunately, such abuses also occur in other heavily indigenous southern states of Mexico, including Guerrero and Oaxaca, where on Tuesday two community journalists, Teresa Bautista Merino and Felicitas Martínez Sánchez, were murdered. Both women worked with the radio station "The Voice That Breaks the Silence" (La Voz Que Rompe El Silencio), and were ambushed while on their way to Oaxaca city to participate in the State Forum for the Defense of the Rights of the Peoples of Oaxaca, where they were to co-ordinate the working group for Community and Alternative Communication: Community Radio, Video, Press, and Internet.
Already several international organisations such as The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, Article 19, and Reporters Without Borders are calling for the punishment of all those responsible for the murder of these journalists, the guaranteed safety of the three surviving victims of the attack, and an end to the impunity that allows the ongoing repression, disappearances, and murders of journalists and mediamakers in general, which makes Mexico the most dangerous country for journalists in the Americas.
Maybe if Mexico was hosting the Olympics, more people might notice, or even care. Religious repression is not confined to Tibet, as local Mexican Roman Catholic organisations such as The Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) are well aware - they also have been demanding an end to the rampant injustices and impunity in Chiapas and elsewhere, including against Catholics. The Tres Cruces case, for instance, involves Zacario Hernandez Hernandez, the indigenous prisoner who initiated the hunger strike on February 12, and three other Tzotziles from Chamula, who in 2003 were accused of murder, arrested and had been confined in the state's El Amate prison ever since. Zacario is a catechist from San Juan Chamula municipality and a member of Pueblo Creyente (Believing People), a Catholic organization in the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas. Frayba has suggested that Zacario was falsely accused of the crimes because he was affecting the interests of local political bosses by practicing the Catholic religion as a catechist.
On February 19, approximately ten thousand Catholics belonging to Pueblo Creyente marched through the streets of San Cristóbal de las Casas. Singing, carrying banners and accompanied by their priests and bishops, they demanded the release of Zacario Hernández Hernández and the three others imprisoned in the Tres Cruces case. Pueblo Creyente stated "they have suffered a judicial process full of falsities, injustices and corruption."
The Voice of El Amate (an organization of political prisoners confined in the El Amate prison) joined in the hunger strike at the end of February. From there, the hunger strike and partial fast spread to 3 Chiapas prisons (Cereso 5, Cereso 14 and Cereso 17) and Tacotalpa in Tabasco, where two Zapatista political prisoners from Chiapas are incarcerated.
In all, a total of 46 political prisoners and members of 5 organizations participated in the protest, and members of the Other Campaign in Chiapas, relatives of the prisoners, and members of various social organizations set up an encampment on the front steps of the government palace in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital of Chiapas, in support of the hunger strike.
Following increasing local, national and international attention, Zacario Hernandez Hernandez was finally released from prison on March 17, after 35 days without food. On March 30 and 31, the government released another 29 of those participating in the protest. Upon their release, many of the hunger strikers joined the Tuxtla encampment in support of the 17 who still remain in prison.
The New Zealand petition demanded that the Mexican Government free all of the political prisoners still confined in Ceresos 5 and 14 in Chiapas and the two more in Tacotalpa, Tabasco. Still imprisoned in Cereso 5 are: Tiburcio Gomez Perez, Diego Rodriguez Hernandez, Agustin Rodriguez Jimenez, Antonio Diaz Perez, Miguel Diaz Lopez, Juan Díaz Lopez, Nicolas Perez Nuñez. In Cereso 14: Alberto Patistan Gomez, Julio Cesar Perez Ruiz, Marcelino Días gonzalez, Jose Perez Perez, Jesús Lopez Lopez, Maria Delia Perez Arizmendi, Antonio Gomez Días and Miguel Gomez Gomez. In Tacotalpa, Tabasco: Angel Concepción Perez Gutierrez and Francisco Perez Vazquez.
Mexican Ambassador to New Zealand Angélica Arce on Friday advised the petitioners that their concerns will be forwarded to the Mexican authorities "As we do not currently have any detailed information about the specific cases to which you refer, we shall write to the appropriate officials in the hope of clarifying the situation," she added.
One can only hope that the murders of Teresa Bautista Merino and Felicitas Martínez Sánchez will also be 'clarified', and that not only Winston Peters, but all New Zealanders, will put as much pressure on our other most recent free-trade partner as they have on China, to extend the enjoyment of basic human rights, especially justice, to all of their citizens.
The Triqui indigenous community of San Juan Copala, which declared autonomy on January 21, 2007, has suffered the bitter loss of two young women. Felicitas Martinez, age 20, and Teresa Bautista, age 24, were traveling in a rural part of Oaxaca state on route to the statewide meeting “For the Defense of the Rights of the Peoples of Oaxaca,” when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle late Monday. The gunfire killed the two women, and wounded three others in the vehicle, a man and wife and their three-year-old child, the Oaxaca attorney general’s office said in a statement.
The office said the assailants used high-powered assault rifles in what it described as an ambush. No arrests have been made. And to make a point: in Oaxaca, daily assassinations occur of organized crime members, narco-traffickers, wealthy people, business people, drug dealers, indigenous people, of police and military officials, plus local and international reporters. Arrests are never made. Crimes are never solved. The daily newspaper prints photos of corpses, newly discovered or recently excavated, and that’s that.
Despite repeated condemnations by human rights groups within the state, nationally and internationally, the government response is rhetorical. Instead, the state of Oaxaca is highly militarized. While I sit at my computer in the morning I hear the helicopters buzzing overhead, with armed troopers hanging out the doors – a bit of theater which serves only to intimidate. The most publicized clean-up attempt thus far has been to rotate military and police units in an effort to break their allegiances with organized crime.
The two assassinated women worked for a community radio station called “The Voice that Breaks the Silence” in San Juan Copala where activists in January of 2007 declared San Juan Copala an autonomous municipality in a challenge to state officials. This declaration included the local Triqui movement united for struggle, MULT, which had been corrupted by the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI, in its Spanish initials). The new Triqui municipality, through its organization called MULTI (the Independent United Triqui Movement for Struggle), called for union of all Triquis and implicitly rejected the PRI and government paramilitary, thus breaking their hegemonic control in the region.
The government of San Juan Copala employs the traditional indigenous practice of usos y costumbres with a council of elders and open decisions by the majority in assemblies. The autonomous community came about as an act of rebellion against caciques and their hired guns, said to be responsible for killing more than 60 Triquis in the Mixteco Baja, twelve of which deaths occurred in 2006 during the teachers popular movement.
The San Juan Copala municipality unified San Juan Copala, Yoxoyuzi, Santa Cruz Tilaza, Guadalupe Tilaza, Tierra Blanca, Paraje Pérez, El Carrizal, Sabana, Yerba Santa, San Miguel Copala, Yutazani, Unión de los Angeles, Río Metates, Río Lagarto, Cerro Pájaro and Cerro Cabeza, among others, for a total of about 15,000 indigenous people. The total Triqui population is about 24,000.
The work of Felícitas Martinez and Teresa Bautista, who broadcast on the frequency 94.9 FM, validated the autonomy of San Juan Copala, as does the creation of community radios all over the state. These local radio stations, whose efforts provide meaningful information, are frequently shot up or burned down. The two MULTI broadcasters were scheduled to participate in an indigenous statewide meeting entitled “Meeting for the Defense of the Peoples of Oaxaca” in a worktable dealing specifically with community radio. They left the radio station at 1:00 in the afternoon of April 7, 2008 to travel to Oaxaca.
Omar Esparza of the human rights group, Working Together Center for Community Support, described the assassinated women by saying that they “had gone out to report, to tape people. They were Indian reporters.”
On April 9 and 10, 2008, that indigenous statewide meeting took place in the Hotel Magisterio (the Teachers Union Hotel, site of many past meetings for the social movement in Oaxaca) “to strengthen our struggles and defend in an effective manner our rights, we convoke this state Meeting.” (website OaxacaLibre. com). The worktables discussed the following themes:
1. Community and alternative communication; community radio, video, press and internet.
2. Community defense of natural resources: land, water, biodiversity, air, woods, electricity and oil.
3. Repression of human and constitutional rights, freedom for political prisoners; cancellation of arrest orders and presentation alive of the disappeared.
4. Organization and social movement in Oaxaca, and construction of an alternative organization by the people and for the people.
The meeting participants devoted a moment of silence to the assassinated women. About 200 representatives of 43 indigenous organizations were present, including reporters, human rights groups, and community authorities from around Oaxaca. Also in attendance were national observers from Puebla, Veracruz, Mexico DF and Chiapas, as well as international observers from the Basque Country, Canada, the United States, Spain, France and Italy.
The speakers denounced the climate of repression, the militarization and constant violence in the state in violation of human rights. The community authorities of Yosotatu, a small Mixteca town, made public the campaign of repression against them, which has put several of their townspeople in jail and also caused the deaths of several land owners. The most recent is the assassination of Plácido Lopez Castro, whose killers have not been arrested. (What a surprise.)
The representatives of the community of Xanica denounced the imprisonment of three of their companions and the privatization of the River Copalita. The goal of the privatization is to provide water for the mega-tourist project, Bahías de Huatulco on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca. Further, several representatives of communities in the Isthmus de Tehuantepec denounced the taking of lands by the Spanish businesses constructing the wind electricity generators. The community spokespersons said that threats and deceit has been used and now more than 3,000 hectares have been occupied. Recently, 73 campesinos from the Ejido La Venta were accused by the Federal Electric Commission of the crime of defending their lands for common use.
The meeting proclaimed that this latest assassination, of the Triqui women, will not go unpunished, and there will be an exhaustive investigation on the part of the Special Commission for Crimes against Journalists by the federal attorney general’s office (PGR). At the same time the forum demanded that the government of Ulises Ruiz halt its campaign of hostilities against San Juan Copala. It called for the liberation of the political prisoners Pedro Castillo Aragon, Flavio Sosa, Miguel Angel Garcia, Adan Mejía, Victor Hugo Martinez Toledo, Miguel Juan Hilaria,Roberto Cardenas Rosas, Reynaldo Martinez Ramírez, Juliantino Martínez Garcia, and of those of Yosotatu, Guevea de Humbolt, Xanica, San Blas Atempa among others.
The seventeen Oaxaca indigenous groups participating, joined by two from Mexico, were: Municipal Authorities of San Pedro Yosutatu, Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, Indian Organizations for the Oaxaca Human Rights (OIDHO), Union of indigenous Communities of the North Zone of the Isthmus (Ucizoni), Autonomous Magonista Collective (Cama), Center of Community Aid Working Together (Cactus), Magonista Zapatista Alliance (AMZ), Committee of Citizen Defense (Codeci), Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Rights of Santiago Xanica (Codedi-Xanica), Union of Indigenous Organizations of the Chinantla (Unorinchi) Council of Indigenous Organizations and Products of Oaxaca AC (COIPAC), Indigenous Zapatista Agrarian Movement (MAIZ), Front of the Peoples of the Isthmus in Defense of the Land, Network of Community Radios of the Southeast, Solidarity Group La Venta, Center of Studies of the Region Cuicateca Tepeuxila, Commonwealth of San Juan Jaltepec Yaveo, Mexican Alliance for Auto-determination of the People; from Mexico DF: Magonista Libertarian Alliance (Alma), University Assembly of the UAM-A.
In a separate show of the necessity to unify the indigenous populations against the lawlessness of Oaxaca, four municipalities of the Mixteco , Tezoatlán de Segura y Luna, of the district of Huajuapan; Santos Reyes Tepejillo; San Juan Mixtepec and San Martín Itunyoso, of the district of Santiago Juxtlahuaca, formally signed an agreement of “brotherhood,” to constitute a Front of Municipal Presidents. Their objective is to promote a regional project to benefit more than 150 indigenous communities of the region, declared Lorenzo Rojas Mendoza, from the municipality of Tepejillo.
A town councilor, Lorenzo Rojas Mendoza said that the inhabitants of the region have many “past unmet demands,” so the four municipalities decided to unify to further projects such as a hospital, schools, roads and highways.
Rojas Mendoza stated that their priority is the construction, broadening and paving of a road of approximately 30 kilometers to reach the head town of Tepejillo.
The march commemorating the anniversary of the death of Emiliano Zapata, with several goals, took place on April 10, repeating many of the demands and ideas of the Meeting for the Defense of the Peoples of Oaxaca. The march, a political event sponsored by the remaining Popular Revolutionary Front -APPO structure, and Section 22 of the National Education Workers Union (SNTE), demanded freedom for political prisoners, cancellation of arrest orders, and the handing over to Section 22 of about 80 schools still held by Section 59. Section 59 has been screwed, because despite being hired by government agents, those “teachers” never had a contract, and never were paid, except under the table with cash for relatives of members of the state education board, I was told by Section 59 members. They tried to emulate Section 22 tactics by maintaining an encampment in the zocalo of Oaxaca, but were advised to disperse prior to Semana Santa, the big Easter tourist week.
On the national level the Section 22 march protested “restructuring reforms” (the privatization of PEMEX, the Mexican national oil company), the Treaty for Free Commerce (TLC, or NAFTA), militarization, the doubled cost of fertilizers, and demanded the repeal of the law of ISSSTE which privatizes some social security benefits. A national work stoppage is planned.
According to APPO spokesperson Cesar Mateos Benitez, the APPO condemns the government for trying to link the APPO and the Committee of Women of Oaxaca (COMO, a group of women who took over the state television channel in 2006) with the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), which constituted “the media assault of the week” in the mainstream Oaxaca press. Along with organized crime, the PRI wing uses false accusations to justify the militarization of the state, and to send in intelligence or spy agencies. In other words, the propaganda justifies whatever repression the government seeks, by linking the social movement to armed revolutionaries.
An encampment presently in the zocalo next to the cathedral with personnel from the Popular Revolutionary Front (FPR) demands the presentation of the state’s disappeared, including the indigenous Chatino man Lauro Juarez whose bones were presented, but not accepted as authentic. Las Noticias (an article by Pedro Matias) reported on April 8 that another Chatino indigenous man was gravely wounded on April 6 by the paramilitary run by the PRI operator Fredy Gil Pineda. Specifically, the attack was carried out by a paramilitary group of about 100 persons headed by Ponciano Torres Quintas. On March 30 they took over by force the government building of Santa Maria Temaxcaltepec, throwing out the actual president and illegally imposing as president this Ponciano Torres, who is protected by Fredy Gil Pineda. The paramilitary pack governs the region by violence, committing assassinations, arbitrary detentions, etc.
This includes the disappearances of indigenous persons, one by one, a genocide trickle.
To my eye, it looks very much like that with the failure of Oaxaca state as a governable unit, the mini civil war that now prevails resembles a turf-battle of human wolves, to control territory and money. This means not only incoming federal monies and drug money, but even more, new wealth to be extracted from geographical territory rich in natural resources. Indigenous people remain, to the extent they have not been driven to emigrate, as an obstacle to the exploitation of minerals, wind, water, woods, petroleum, shoddy road and school construction, and glittering beach-front resorts, in a grand sell-off to international companies.
According to sources from the Hydrocarbon ministry, the decision was adopted in a cabinet meeting and could go into effect by the beginning of next month, two years after nationalization of hydrocarbons.
The measure includes emphasis on industrialization and covers a restructuring of the YPFB, former president of the MAS party, Santos Ramirez, told Prensa Latina.
Last March, Ramirez explained that the Executive set a time period until April 30 to recover state control of the four transnational oil companies that include, Andina, a Spanish-Argentine branch of Repsol YPF.
Other companies scheduled for nationalization are Chaco of British Petroleum, Transredes of the British Ashmore and a company of storage and transportation CLHB of Peruvian and German capital.
According to YPFB reports, control of the companies comes after the nationalization decreed on May 1, 2006.
That law stipulated that transnationals operating in Bolivia are under shared risk in offering services to YPFB.
The 224-195 vote throws the Colombia free-trade agreement into uncertainty, with only a faint hope that the deal could be voted on after the presidential election in November and before the new president takes over in January.
The White House had cast a free-trade deal with Colombia as necessary to support a stalwart U.S. ally in Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. The administration also pushed the pact as an opportunity to provide more export-based jobs by opening South America's second-most populous market to more U.S. goods and services.
In a gloomy statement after the vote, President Bush called the action "unprecedented and unfortunate" and "damaging to our economy, our national security and our relations with an important ally."
He said the House had sent a "damaging message to the world that Congress cannot be counted on to keep its promises."
Democrats said that they were looking for the House to recover its standing as the gatekeeper of trade deals and that the administration had long ignored Democratic demands to provide more assistance to U.S. workers affected by free trade.
Bush denied that the White House had ignored the Democrats.
"During the 16 months since the Colombia free-trade agreement was signed," Bush said, "my administration has gone above and beyond any reasonable effort to achieve a bipartisan path for considering this agreement. At the expense of our economy and our national security, the House has instead chosen to take a shortsighted and partisan path."
Bush attempted to use a "fast-track" provision that would have forced Congress to vote on the agreement within 90 legislative days.
But the move backfired after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moved to strip the provision, an unprecedented action in the 34 years that fast track has existed.
The vote underscored a popular mood that has soured on trade, with Democratic candidates coming under pressure from the party base and organized labor to reject all free-trade deals.
In the House debate, Democrats honed in more on U.S. economic difficulties and less on previous concerns of the deaths of union members in Colombia. Pelosi noted that Colombia could be taken up at a later time.
"This isn't about ending anything," said Pelosi. "It's about having a timetable that respects the concerns, the aspirations, the challenges faced by the American people. We are the people's House; their timetable should be our timetable."
Pelosi said the vote should not be "misconstrued" as a vote against Colombia. She said she had respect for the leadership of Uribe, who has tirelessly lobbied for the agreement.
Colombian officials argued the agreement would attract more foreign investment by making its access to the U.S. market permanent. A study last year by two Colombian universities concluded that a failure to approve the pact could cost Colombia — which is long locked in a deadly conflict with armed groups and drug traffickers — 460,000 jobs.
Republican lawmakers echoed the administration's position, with California Rep. David Dreier calling the Pelosi initiative the "Hugo Chavez rule," in a reference to the Venezuelan leader and U.S. foe.
Republicans also argued that the United States had lost negotiating credibility on trade pacts and that the agreement didn't cost U.S. jobs because Colombia already exported duty-free to the United States, while U.S. products faced tariffs to enter Colombia. The agreement would have made Colombia's access permanent and extend other protections to U.S. investors.
They suggested that Democrats were holding up the Colombian deal to get other, unrelated concessions, such as extending to service workers a government program for U.S. manufacturing workers displaced by foreign competition, known as Trade Adjustment Assistance.
"This action today," said House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, "is nothing short of political blackmail."
Only 10 Democrats joined 185 Republicans in opposing the move.
Other Democrats said the vote was broader than Colombia.
"What we're really talking about," said Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., "is the effects of globalization on the American economy."
The Arrival
At 5:30 am the plaza outside the San Cristóbal bus station is quiet other than the sound of birds, crickets and the occasional distant motor, as an unseen vehicle turns onto an unknown road. These streets are still wet with the remains of an earlier rain and the smell of the damp mixes with that of the soil and the stone. How is it that stone smells? It seems implausible but there it is. Even the plaster and paint is there and, of course, the poo01. Dogs live their perilous lives out here on these streets, cowering in the darkened spaces where safety from some unknown threat seems elusive. As night’s darkness slowly succumbs to the dominance of day’s light, it soon becomes apparent that the writing is on the wall. Down every street, unheard voices speak through the medium of paint. This could be the time when they normally shout silently their words of anger and frustration, but at this moment they’re invisible. What lingers is an echoing of feelings, the traces of a part of society that is disenfranchised and relegated to communicating their message in the dark of night02.
Though the graffiti of the streets may speak more directly than the scent of soil, both these experiences, and a myriad more, contribute to a sense of place. They are aesthetic experiences that contribute to a greater understanding03, experiences that can help bring one closer to a state of empathy04. My hope is, that by being here, I get closer to both these experiences05.
Homecoming
Normally, walking down darkened streets can be an unsettling experience. But these streets feel safe somehow—if not for the dogs—at least for me. The shadows and fog bring with them a spirit and an energy, a revitalisation after a long winter in the north that seems to have sapped my strength. Walking this last mile to my destination, I’m happy as I begin to hear a familiar clip-clopping sound. It sounds like a horse, but I’ve been fooled before by this sound, so this time I don’t need to look to know its just a car approaching over the cobblestones. I realise that this is something of a homecoming.
Destination & Departure
San Cristóbal de las Casas is both a destination and a departure point for a journey toward understanding. It is a centre of cultural commerce for the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, and the centre of a long struggle for social justice. The people who come to this place all have their own personal reasons for doing so and traditionally it hasn’t been an easy place to get to, so its rare that someone arrives by accident. And yet all of us who have come to this place have arrived somewhere else. Our own past experiences and our own intentions06 inform our perception of this place and individualise our experience of it. This will impact each of us in ways that will affect our ability to connect with the place and the people here.
Intention
I have come to San Cristóbal to investigate the communication approach of a sociopolitical organisation called the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. I’m interested in the apparent success they’ve had in communicating their message to a wide international audience and the difficulties they’ve had communicating locally and nationally. As a result of this interest, I’m drawn to the various images that I associate with communication and how these images are presented. Others have come to gain a better understanding of the social concerns of the people who are living their often difficult lives both here, in San Cristóbal, and beyond the mountains that surround us.
Communication
These streets are a mix of economic and political activity. Retail stores, restaurants, internet cafés, art galleries and book stores populate the city just like any other. But look more closely and you’ll see that there is something different about many of these establishments. Propaganda t-shirts are a popular product in both retail spaces and in the markets, many restaurants are meeting places for activism, and fliers in internet cafe’s announce political meetings or documentaries taking place in one of the town’s many underground cinemas. Yet its the bookstore that speaks to the unique nature of this place. Virtually every one is stocked to the ceiling with an incredible selection of knowledge from philosophy and poetry to sociology, anthropology and political science. The vast majority of the material is Spanish language and intended for a local audience rather than the tourist market. This reflects the highly literate and critically engaged nature of the local population, a characteristic that becomes all the more obvious when you speak with them. This isn’t to say that everyone is engaged and thoughtful but they appear to be more so than other communities.
This could be one reason why the communication campaign by the Zapatistas is primarily focused on words, its the understanding that both San Cristóbal and the larger Mexican community are very sociopolitically literate. In fact it appears that the verbal and written aspect of the Zapatista organisation is almost the only official vehicle for such communication. It is expressed in print through authorised publications of the words of Subcomandante Marcos—these often take the form of poetry, prose or indigenous myth07—and by an internet presence through sites such as Radio Insurgente and Enlace Zapatista. Here text, audio, and video files are disseminated to a wider national and international audience, and while images do mix with the words, they take a back seat. Even the ubiquitous socialist red star is slowly disappearing as the symbol for the organisation, being replaced by that of the Sexta Campaña or simply not being used at all—though its hard to tell at this point whether this is deliberate or merely incidental.
Rhetorical Currency
What is certain though is that, while there exists only a limited amount of official visual communication, there is an immense collection of apparently accepted unauthorised material. This largely takes the form of t-shirts, posters, books, dvds, and thematic hand-crafted objects, all of which is for sale and most of which appears to be directed toward the political tourist market. These products are distinctive for their direct attempt to convey messages of support and many of them appear to reflect a growing change in the organization’s policy and identity. Though many of these objects could be considered arts or craft, the fact that they are intended primarily as political messages makes it more difficult to accept them as art08.
Culture
Other objects of art and craft exist here too. Pieces that reflect the culture of various indigenous communities that live in San Cristóbal and throughout Chiapas. In many respects these objects appear more authentic than those whose original intention is to communicate a political message. They are personal expressions, and as such, bring us closer to the lives of the people who create them09. Through encounters with these cultural artefacts and conversations with local people in the community, I am beginning to feel that I may have lost sight of the forest for all the trees. I worry that this will affect my work and its practical intentions, but most of all I worry that I’m not doing justice to the issues or the people concerned.
Another Destination
I’ve been thinking about the larger systemic problems lately, and wondering about how design can play a more constitutive role in addressing them. These problems are messy but I think that design’s own knowledge and its iterative approach to problem solving, can play a role here. Recent ideas in design thinking, such as co-creation and collaboration, might also prove to be invaluable10.
It’s a new day—it’s almost hot—and for the first time I can wear a t-shirt and shorts. I’m hanging out my laundry to dry on the roof of the family home where I’m staying. The city I’ve been experiencing for the past week or so is all around me but I’m being beckoned by the mountains in the distance and the unknown that lies beyond them. I realise that to get a greater understanding of the larger problems behind this movement, I need to go there. So tomorrow, a friend and I will hop into the VW and quite literally head for the hills, except we won’t be running from something, we’ll be running to it. I don’t know what I’ll find there, though I have some ideas. I just hope it brings me closer to the answers I’m seeking, whatever they end up being.