By: Raúl Zibechi

The managerial and media elites quickly pronounced campaigns with the Seventh Summit of the Pacific Alliance, held in Cali (Colombia) between May 20 and 24. The gathering summoned abundant delegations of directors of big corporations and the presidents of the four member countries that belong to it: Enrique Peña Nieto, Sebastián Piñera, Ollanta Humala and Juan Manuel Santos. The prime minister of Canada and the presidents of Spain, Costa Rica, Panama and Guatemala also attended.

Delegations from Uruguay, Australia, Japan, Portugal, New Zealand and the Dominican Republic, who already had observer status, also gathered in Cali. Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Honduras, Paraguay and Portugal and were added this time.

We’re dealing with a gathering to oil businesses and exploit the export of commodities that the president of Colombia persisted in calling “integration,” as he did a year ago in Antofagasta upon assuring that we are facing “the most important process of integration that Latin America has made.” [1] Without anyone asking him, he emphasized that the alliance “is not against anyone,” although it is evident that it is oriented against the Mercosur and the Unasur and, more concretely, seeks to isolate a Brazil.

The Alliance’s defenders emphasize that it represents 35 percent of the Latin American GNP and 55 percent of the region’s exports to the rest of the world, and that during 2012 the four countries had greater growth than the rest of the region. However, they don’t contribute any basic data. It is certain that they export more than the Mercosur (573 billion dollars compared to 438 billion), but their exports are concentrated in raw minerals and hydrocarbons. Only 2 percent of the exports are directed to other countries of the Alliance, while 13 percent of what the Mercosur members export is intra-zone trade, which always entails greater value added.

If we look back a little further, the data are even more convincing. The Pacific Alliance’s intra-zone trade increased 215 percent in the last 10 years, while Mercosur’s internal exchange expanded 376 percent in the same lapse. [2] In Parallel, the four presidents of the alliance made ridiculous announcements that they put into evidence: they created a fund of one million dollars (250,000 dollars per country) to support projects against climate change, in favor of science and technology, corporations and social development.

Theotonio dos Santos is right when he was asked about the Pacific Alliance: “What is it that the United States government can offer the countries of the Pacific area? Trade with the United States.” And he clarifies: “The countries that enter into such an association do not make agreements with each other, each of them makes an agreement with the United States: that is not integration. It is more, each one of them in the relationship with the United States is going to become a debtor.”

In effect, the Pacific Alliance has three objectives: One: to subject countries of the Pacific as exporters of natural wealth, consolidating them as countries without industry with enormous inequalities and, therefore, with increasing doses of internal militarization; two: to impede the consolidation of regional integration and isolate Brazil, but also a Argentina and Venezuela; and three, and what its defenders never say: to form the American leg of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which the United States wants to convert into the economic arm of its military mega-project to contain China.

Since the Left has appropriately denounced that the Pacific Alliance is inscribed in the United States policy of consolidating its hegemony in the region, which passes for impeding that blocks emerge out of its control. They do not explain, nevertheless, why the Mercosur is stuck and in crisis, to the point that the Uruguay of José Mujica propones to enter the Pacific Alliance. Nor does one talk about the reasons for which the Banco del Sur (Bank of the South) does not advance or that it takes suspiciously slow steps. Nor are the reasons in depth for the chronic trade crisis between Argentina and Brazil mentioned.

Bringing up these problems would be much like submitting the policies of the region’s progressive governments to scrutiny. Perhaps the biggest limitation of progressivism is its inability to confront, ideologically and politically, the corporate elites, above all on the part of Brazil and Uruguay, but also of Bolivia and Ecuador. Where there is certain confrontation, in the cases of Venezuela and Argentina, it is due to the offensives of the right but country models are not debated and they continue gambling on an extractivism that carries water to the mill of the Pacific Alliance. Regional integration doesn’t matter for exporting oil, soy, beef and wool to China.

The right speaks clearly. Roberto Gianetti, of the Federation of Industries of the San Pablo State, proposed being free from “Mercosur’s straitjacket” and reducing it from a customs union to a free trade zone. “We are not going to conclude any agreement having Argentina and Venezuela as associates,” he said in relation to the 14 years that the Mercosur has negotiating a FTA (free trade agreement) with the European Union.

Aécio Neves, candidate of the right in Brazilian elections next year, said that the Mercosur is paralyzed and proposed transforming it into “a free trade area that permits each member State to sign trade agreements with other countries” and places the Pacific Alliance as an example of dynamism. The ineffable Domingo Cavallo, one of those most responsible for the Argentina Crisis, says the same thing. It is evident that we are facing an offensive of the right allied with Washington that launch a challenge to which the Left doesn’t know how to or does not want to respond. The Pacific Alliance does not grow because of its own merit but rather because of the ambiguities of progressivism.

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[1] (http://m.elespectador.com/economia/articulo-351449-alianza-del-pacifico-proceso-de-integracion-mas-grande-de-americ)

[2]       http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1589843-la-region-mira-al-pacifico-alianzas-que-dejan-fuera-al-mercosur

[3]       http://alainet.org/active/64680

Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Chiapas Support Committee

Friday, June 14, 2013

En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/06/14/opinion/017a2pol

ZAPATISTA NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY

MEXICO

 June 2013.

To: adherents to the Sixth in Mexico and the World:

To: those invited to the little Zapatista School:

From: Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.

Compañeras and compañeros of the Sixth and students of the little school:

Receive Zapatista greetings, everyone.  We want to let you know how we’re doing with preparations for our little school.

Good, well there’s good news and bad news:

First the bad news:

There is no longer space for attending classes in a community on the August 12 to 16 2013 dates.  And space for the course in CIDECI, en San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, is also about to fill up.

There are many compañer@s want to attend the little schools in our Zapatista communities.  Many more than what we expected. More than what the people believed that changed their allegiance saying that the Zapatistas were no longer fashionable, that their initiatives were no longer ‘attractive,’ and the foolishness that those that have nothing to do repeat.

Then, what we want to report to you is that all the spaces for those who attend in a community in August are already full, all the little classrooms are full; in other words, there is no more space, there is no more room for students.  Because not only are we dealing with receiving them, we also have to see that they are housed and fed well, according to our humble abilities, of course.

First we had prepared to receive 500 students in the Zapatista community. It filled up quickly.  Later we expanded to 1,000 students, and that didn’t last.  Now we made space for 1500 students and now that’s also full.  And we are no longer able to fit more this time around because we think about taking good care of them and keeping them happy.

But don’t be sad, or get discouraged; to the contrary, because we are looking for another date, for another month, for those that will not be able to enter into the little school in a community this time. We’ll advise you of the date later.  What’s most certain is that it will be for next December-January.

And now the good news:

Our Zapatista compañer@s, the ones that will be the teachers, are now finishing their preparations for being teachers.

Yes, they are finishing their preparation because all of the Zapatista peoples will participate in the school. You will have three teams of teachers: the compañeras and compañeros from the communities who will receive, house, and feed you; the compañeras and compañeros who will accompany you at all times and who will take care of you, that is, the guardians, or your “VOTAN”; and also your teachers in the little school.

But SupMarcos, in a separate communiqué, will explain further the three teams of teachers and how things will be in the schools. His computer is almost fixed.

In addition there will be teachers for the videoconference, and for the DVD version they have almost finished recording the class lectures.

The textbooks are also ready. We only need to add the DVDs, filmed by our own compañeras and compañeros in the Zapatista media, which show what we have done in every Zapatista corner here in Chiapas.

Don’t forget that afterwards there will be videoconferences or you can request these materials.

And we are also thinking of sending, later, a team of teachers to other places where there are people who would like to understand our struggle for freedom. Of course, only if they are invited.

In another communiqué, SupMarcos will give you some more information about how everything is going with the students. For now, I will just let you know that the vast majority are young people.

I would also like to take this opportunity to extend a general invitation to everyone who would like to come for the party to celebrate 10 years of the Good Government Juntas.

I also remind you of the “Seminar Tata Juan Chávez Alonso,” which is open to everyone that wants to attend, and that will be celebrated in the CIDECI of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, starting August 17, which is also when all the students are leaving the communities, so that those that are in the community will also be able to attend and to listen to the word of other original peoples of Mexico that struggle for indigenous rights and culture.  Precisely in the month of July, we will have a meeting of the Organizing Commission, in other words of those who call everyone to the homage for our beloved compañero Don Juan Chávez Alonso.

It is all for now.  We await you here.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés,

Mexico, June 2013

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En español: http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2013/06/13/cupo-lleno-en-comunidades-para-la-escuela-zapatista/

Click on the link above to listen and watch the videos below that accompany this text:

The song “The Anarchist” by Paradoxus Luporum. Dedicated to the anarchist compas, the new major enemy of the institutional “left.”

Mario Benedetti, in his own voice, “What can the young people do?” also for the anarchists.

So that you can start practicing your steps for the party on the 10 year anniversary of the caracoles and the Good Government Councils: Zapatista Band in Oventik.

En Chiapas

1. Noticias actualizadas sobre Alberto Patishtán – El 27 de mayo, la Corte Suprema de México remitió al Primer Tribunal Colegiado del Vigésimo Circuito en Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas el expediente penal de Alberto Patishtán trasladado por vía terrestre. No se dió explicación en los informes de los medios de comunicación por el largo retraso.  Sin embargo, los abogados de Patishtán esperan que haya una decisión en junio (antes del periodo vacacional en el mes de julio).  Los informes de los periódicos también indican que trasladaron a Patishtán a la Ciudad de México dos veces para revisiones médicas en el Instituto Nacional Neurología y Neurocirugía después de su cirugía cerebral, una vez en abril y la otra en mayo, pero estos reportes no dan ninguna información sobre los resultados de las revisiones.

2. Sigue la disputa legal por la caseta de cobro en San Sebastian Bachajón – El 16 de mayo, un tribunal en Chiapas emitió una decisión en el caso de San Sebastian Bachajon (SSB).  La decisión ordena reemplazar el procedimiento que supuestamente autorizó al gobierno quitar varias parcelas del ejido – muy oportunamente todas las parcelas pertenecen a adherentes a la Sexta Declaración del EZLN – para instalar una caseta de cobro donde los visitantes a las Cascadas de Agua Azul pagan por el acceso.  Los adherentes del SSB reclamaron a la corte que el procedimiento utilizado para otorgar al gobierno la autoridad para tomar sus parcelas era ilegal.  Pidieron que la corte les devuelva sus parcelas y que emita una orden que impida al gobierno quitárselas.  La decisión no les devuelve la tierra, sino ordena que el asunto sea presentado ante la asamblea ejidal para su decisión en este asunto legal. A los adherentes de SSB les preocupa que la facción pro-gobierno del ejido, especialmente el comisionado,  vayan a manipular el proceso. Por lo que dos adherentes de SSB fueron a la Ciudad de México para presentar su perspectiva ante un miembro de la Corte Suprema.  También visitaron las oficinas del Alto Comisionado de Naciones Unidas para Derechos Humanos pidiendo su intervención, y las oficinas de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, buscando medidas cautelares después del asesinato el mes pasado (24 de abril) de un líder comunitario, Juan Vasquez Gomez.

3. Dos campesinos asesinados en Venustiano Carranza - El 5 de mayo, dos campesinos murieron por heridas de bala durante un enfrentamiento ocurrido en el municipio de Venustiano Carranza que al parecer tuvo que ver con conflictos agrarios y políticos. Además de los dos muertos, 20 hogares también fueron quemados ó destruidos, y hubo vari@s herid@s. De acuerdo a informaciones periodísticas, el ataque tuvo que ver con un conflicto por el control de la Casa del Pueblo, que se profundizó con la llegada de un nuevo presidente municipal en enero del 2013, quién había sido acusado de haber “perdido” 67 cabezas de ganado. El conflicto radica entre la Organización Campesina Emiliano Zapata-Casa del Pueblo (OCEZ-CP) y un grupo disidente interno. Este grupo, compuesto por 49 familias, sufrió de expulsión forzada el año pasado, y actualmente ocupa unos edificios gubernamentales, y sus integrantes exigen poder volver a sus propios hogares. Los que dirigen la OCEZ-CP quieren que el gobierno del estado reubique a los disidentes. Al parecer, 12 de los integrantes de la OCEZ-CP fueron detenidos acusados de haber participado en la violencia del 5 de mayo. La organización y los que la apoyan han instalado una protesta pública en la plaza frente a la Catedral de San Cristóbal. Los del lado de la OCEZ-CP dicen que grupos paramilitares apoyados por el estado tienen la responsibilidad en el caso de la violencia. Los dos grupos en este conflicto no tienen ninguna relación con el EZLN, pero se rumora que simpatizan con el EPR.

4. Maestr@s chiapanec@s resuelven paro – El 15 de mayo, Día Nacional del Maestr@, l@s maestr@s chiapanec@s comenzaron un paro laboral para protestar contra la reforma federal de educación que se había aprobado por el Congreso federal. L@s maestr@s de varias partes de México iniciaron movilizaciones masívas el 15 de mayo en contra de la reforma, que niega algunos de sus derechos laborales y también la establidad del contrato de trabajo, además de que podría promover la privatización de la educación. El paro terminó 5 días después de que los representativos sindicales llegaran a un acuerdo con el gobierno estatal, que firmó un documento donde se compromete a no estandarizar las evaluaciones de maestros de manera punitiva, en tal manera que no afectaría los derechos laborales de los obrer@s de la educación. La administración estatal también se comprometió a garantizar que el acuerdo entre el consejo del Pacto por México, el gobierno federal, y la CNTE “será ratificado por el gobierno estatal de Chiapas.” La reforma educativa forma parte de los cambios neoliberales que el gobierno de Enrique Peña Nieto está promoviendo.

Por otras partes de México

1. Siete años después del terrorismo policiaco en Atenco - El 3 y 4 de mayo, la comunidad de San Salvador Atenco conmemoró el séptimo aniversario del brutal ataque  policiaco que resultó en la muerte de dos jóvenes, el encarcelamiento de más de 150 personas y el acoso sexual de policías contra 26 mujeres que se encontraban detenidas. Como resultado de este terrorismo policiaco, los líderes del Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra (FPDT) fueron encarcelados en una prisión de máxima seguridad con sentencias más largas que la duración de una vida humana. El FPDT es la organización basada en San Salvador Atenco que exitosamente resistió (con machetes alzados) al plan gubernamental de tomar sus tierras agrícolas para usarlas en la construcción de un nuevo aeropuerto internacional  en la Ciudad de México. La acción de la policía estatal y federal el 3 y 4 de mayo de 2006 fue vista por muchos como una venganza por la resistencia exitosa del FPDT’s contra el aeropuerto; mas su significado fue más allá de la resistencia contra el aeropuerto. Durante ese tiempo, las y los zapatistas estaban viajando a través del país durante la “Otra campaña” y acababan de estar en Atenco solo un par de días antes del ataque policiaco. La represión policial en San Salvador Atenco paralizó a la Otra campaña por varios meses y, en general, fue un mensaje a los movimientos  sociales de qué esperar en el futuro. El 3 y 4 de mayo del 2006, el gobernador del estado de México, donde está localizado Atenco, era Enrique Peña Nieto. Ahora es el presidente de México y una vez más hay planes de construir un aeropuerto, un parque industrial y suburbios en las tierras que pertenecen a Atenco y otros ejidos circundantes.

2. Amnistía Internacional emite informe sobre la violencia en México – Amnistía Internacional (AI) recientemente emitió su informe de 2013 sobre derechos humanos. Se refiere al sexenio de Felipe Calderón. Un gran número de abusos a los derechos humanos son detallados, incluyendo el hecho de las autoridades mexicanas  de no reconocer la gravedad del problema y la complicidad de funcionarios públicos en los abusos. El informe completo sobre México puede ser leído aquí. De acuerdo con las cifras emitidas por el gobierno federal y publicadas en La Jornada, hubo 5,296 homicidios en México, presuntamente vinculados al crimen organizado, durante los primeros 151 días de la presidencia de Enrique Peña Nieto; en otras palabras, del 1 de diciembre del 2012 hasta el 30 de abril del 2013. Esto representa una disminución leve durante el mismo périodo del año anterior bajo el gobierno de Calderón, pero es, sin embargo, un número trágico de muertos.

En Los Estados Unidos

1. El Presidente Obama visitó México el 2 de mayo – El Presidente de los Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, visitó México a partir del 2 de mayo. Se reunió con el Presidente Peña Nieto y pronunció un discurso ante una audiencia de estudiantes y gente de negocios. Informes de prensa indican que los dos presidentes hablaron menos sobre seguridad y más sobre economía. Obama dijo que estaba esperanzado en que se dé la reforma migratoria, pero no tanto sobre las restricciones a las armas. La economía mexicana se beneficia de el dinero (remesas) que los mexicanos que viven y trabajan en Estados Unidos envían a sus familias en México. Las remesas son una de tres fuentes superiores de ingresos de México. Los Estados Unidos también es el proveedor más grande de México de armas ilegales que terminan en manos de grupos del crimen organizado lo cual alimenta la violencia en México.

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Compilación mensual hecha por el Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas.

Nuestras principales fuentes de información son: La Jornada, Enlace Zapatista y el Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de las Casas (Frayba).

_________________________________

Chiapas Support Committee/Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas

P.O. Box  3421, Oakland, CA  94609

Email: cezmat@igc.org

www.chiapas-support.org

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chiapas-Support-Committee-Oakland/86234490686

http://compamanuel.wordpress.com

By: Raúl Zibechi

The greater part of the political analyses, with anti-systemic intentionality, are oriented to comprehending how the big multinational corporations and the whole capitalist economy function, the role that the nation-states play, and geopolitical power relations at the national, regional and global level; in sum, on the way in which the powerful dominate. We also count on a good fistful of studies about the social and political struggles of the popular sectors, from local struggles to the wider coalitions that they establish at a national and global level, and how these forms of action are changing throughout time.

One could say that a good part of these analyses and studies give an account of the reality of the system and of the different anti-systemic realities. Nevertheless, we have very few works about what Fernand Braudel calls the “material life,” which he also called “the ocean of daily life,” the kingdom of self-consumption, “the habitual, the routine,” the basic sphere of human life that in his opinion is the “great absence of history” (The Dynamic of Capitalism, Alianza). And, one would have to add, the great absence in revolutionary theories and in emancipatory proposals.

As we know, Braudel defined three spheres: the material life, which is the kingdom of use value; the economic life or market economy, dominated by the exchanges and exchange value, and on top of both capitalism or the anti-market, “where big predators forage and the law of the jungle reigns.” In this peculiar view of the world the State does nothing but aid capitalism and is antithetical to the market economy, as Immanuel Wallerstein remembers.

To complete the analysis, one has to repeat with Braudel that capitalism sinks its roots in the material life but never penetrates it. The accumulation of capital is basically produced in the sphere of the monopolies where the market doesn’t function, not in the material life and not in the economic life. It is certain that the upper strata is supported in the lower (strata), on which they also depend, but it’s not less certain that daily or material life is relatively autonomous and is never completely subordinated to the sphere of accumulation.

The interest and actuality of Braudel’s way of looking consists of the idea that the anti-systemic struggle is basically anchored in the material life and, in some way, in the economic life, but cannot be supported in the spheres of capitalism, be they the corporations or the states. The enormous power of the current anti-systemic territorial movements, the rural as much as the urban, is that they collectively organize the ocean of material life, and they are related from that place to the economic life, the markets, and from there they resist capital and the state.

It’s even in the big cities. Experiences of this type teem in the heart of a mega-city like Buenos Aires, which can also be found in many other Latin American cities (see cipamericas) and, of course, abound in rural zones. A broad network of spaces (outdoor restaurants, popular eateries, health centers, popular primary and high schools, women’s centers, work groups, communications media) give a collective form to the material life of the poorest, converting daily life into spaces of resistance but also as an alternative to the system.

In that way “the routine,” “the daily,” acquire a new sense. The popular organizations, at least those that are not limited to living off of the material life, working for organizing self-consumption beyond the family space. Above all, they recommend that within that space of autonomy that is daily life it be the most integral (complete) possible, which encompasses not only urgent necessities like food, which is the ground where the Argentine piquetero movement began to flourish, but also that expands to areas like la education and health, women’s dignity, children’s games and the organs of decision-making, like assemblies.

Organizing the material life, to deepen collective and communitarian consciousness, is to politicize it and to give it more autonomy to face the other spheres, very in particular in front of the multi-nationals and the states. That also happens by providing it with organs for adopting decisions and making them comply, for defending themselves in front of the other spheres; in other words, organs of power. When the material life organizes as anti-systemic movements, the assemblies fulfill that function.

How do they stand up to the monopoly capitalists? In the case that I comment on, the movements of the villas de Buenos Aires, recuperate what they need through direct action. To get medications for their health centers, they do pickets in front of the big pharmaceutical distributors, impeding the exit and entry of trucks; the same for getting food from the municipio or the city government. They got the camera that a community television uses by taking it from a five-star hotel; and so with everything.

Is it possible to revolutionize society from the material or daily life? It depends on the concept of revolution that each one manages. The material life is, among many other things, the space of the common people, which can limit or give wings to capitalism. Other spaces don’t exist where something different is able to be born and to grow than the world of accumulation. Things viewed like that, social change is a systematic way of removing making the material life less dependent on capitalism.

A new and different world cannot be born in any other stratum. I don’t mean that the material/daily life does not contain oppression, like machismo. One can only construct the new from relations seated in use value, and ordered by the common people. Doing it from other spaces is like reproducing domination or installing a new dominant class.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Translation: Chiapas Support Committee

Friday, May 31, 2013

En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/05/31/opinion/019a2pol

JUNE 3, 2013

TRAVELING SEMINAR “TATA JUAN CHÁVEZ ALONSO”

June 2013.

We are the Indians that we are, we are peoples, we are Indians.
We want to continue to be the Indians that we are; we want to continue to be
the peoples that we are; we want to continue speaking the language we speak;
We want to continue thinking the words that we think;
we want to continue dreaming the dreams that we dream;
we want to continue loving those we love;
we want to be now what we already are;
we want our place now; we want our history now, we want the truth now.
Juan Chávez Alonso. Words presented at the National Congress.
March 2001. Mexico.

Brothers and Sisters:

Compañeras and compañeros:

This is the word of a group of indigenous organizations, native peoples, and the EZLN. With this word we want to bring among us the memory of a compañero.

After one year without him, with his memory as company, we want to take another step in this long struggle for our place in the world.

His name is Juan Chávez Alonso.

We were and are the path for his step.

With him, the Purépecha people became travellers amongst the people who gave birth to and who sustain these lands.

Tata was, and is, one of the bridges that we built with others in order to see ourselves and recognize ourselves as what we are and where we are.

His heart was and is the perch from which the indigenous peoples of Mexico look, even though we are not seen, from which we speak but are not heard, and from where we resist, which is how we walk through life.

His path and his word always sought to give voice and echo to the pains and grievances of that Mexico below (the “basement” of Mexico).

The National Indigenous Congress is one of the great houses that his hands helped to build.

The struggle for the recognition of indigenous rights and culture has, in him, in his memory, a reason and an engine to persevere.

Rather than fleeting condolences and a quick forgetting of his absence, we, a group of indigenous organizations and peoples, have looked for the way to extend his walk with us, to raise his voice with ours, to expand the heart that, with him, we are.

We, as the collective color of the earth, have agreed in our hearts and minds to build a space in which the word of the indigenous peoples of Mexico and this continent that we call “America” can be heard without intermediaries. This space will carry the name and history of this brother and compañero.

We have decided to name this space the “Seminar Tata Juan Chávez Alonso,” in order to emphasize how much our native peoples have to teach others during these calendars of pain that now shake all the geographies of the world. In this space we will be able to listen to the lessons of dignity and resistance of the native peoples of America.

As a continuation of the efforts that took shape during the “First Encounter of Indigenous Peoples of America” celebrated in October of 2007 in Vicam, Sonora, on the territory of the Yaqui tribe, the seminar “Tata Juan Chávez Alonso” will hold its sessions at different locations of indigenous America throughout the continent, in accordance with the geographies and calendars agreed upon by those who convoke this seminar and those who join along the way.

This seminar is meant to build a forum in which the indigenous peoples of the continent can be heard by those who have an attentive and respectful ear for their word, their history, and their resistance.

Indigenous organizations and representatives and delegates of native peoples, communities, and neighborhoods will have the floor.

In order to inaugurate this forum, we will hold the:

FIRST SESSION OF THE

TRAVELING SEMINAR “TATA JUAN CHÁVEZ ALONSO”

Here different native peoples, organizations, and communities will speak in their own voice about their histories, pains, hopes, and above all, their resistance.

This first session will have the following characteristics:

1. The first session of the Seminar “Tata Juan Chávez Alonso” will be held Saturday and Sunday August 17-18, 2013, at CIDECI in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México.

2. The organizations that have convoked this seminar now constitute the “Organizing Commission,” which will invite the participation of other indigenous peoples and agree upon all things related to the method of this first session.

3. The “Organizing Commission” will extend a special invitation to organizations, groups, and individuals who have consistently accompanied the struggle of the indigenous peoples.

4. Those who have convoked the forum and those indigenous peoples and organizations of Mexico and the American continent invited by the “Organizing Commission” will participate in this first session with their word.

5. The various sessions of this seminar will be open to the general public.

6. More information regarding the calendar and schedule of participation will be made public by the Organizing Commission at the appropriate time.

Within the framework of the Seminar “Tata Juan Chávez Alonso,” and with Don Juan’s gaze as our horizon, the participating indigenous organization and peoples will also meet on their own to propose (extending an even wider invitation) the re-launching of the National Indigenous Congress of Mexico, and simultaneously make a call to the indigenous peoples of the continent to resume our encounters.

For recognition and respect for indigenous rights and culture.

CONVOKED BY:

Nación Kumiai

Autoridades Tradicionales de la Tribu Yaqui

Tribu Mayo de Huirachaca, Sonora

Consejo Regional Wixárika en Defensa de Wirikuta

Comunidad Coca de Mezcala

Radio Ñomndaa de Xochistlahuaca, (Pueblo Amuzgo), Guerrero

Comunidad Zoque en Jalisco

Organización de Comunidades Indígenas y Campesinas de Tuxpan (Pueblo Nahua), Jalisco

Comunidad Nahua en Resistencia de La Yerbabuena, en Colima

Colectivo Jornalero de Tikul (Pueblo Maya Peninsular), Yucatán

Comunidades Purépechas de Nurío, Arantepacua, Comachuén, Urapicho, Paracho, Uruapan, Caltzontzin, Ocumicho

Comuneros Nahuas de Ostula

Comunidad Nahua Indígena de Chimalaco, en San Luis Potosí

La Otra indígena Xilitla (pueblo Nahua)

Comunidad Mazahua de San Antonio Pueblo Nuevo, Edomex

Comunidad Ñahñu de San Pedro Atlapulco, Edomex

Centro de Producción Radiofónica y Documentación Comunal de San Pedro Atlapulco (Pueblo Ñahñu), Edomex

Comunidad Nahua de San Nicolás Coatepec, Edomex

Ejido Nahua de San Nicolás Totolapan, DF

Comuneros Nahuas de San Pedro Atocpan, DF

Mujeres y Niños Nahuas de Santa Cruz Acalpixca, DF

Mazahuas en el DF

Centro de Derechos Humanos Rafael Ayala y Ayala (Pueblos Nahua y Popoluca), de Tehuacán, Puebla.

Asamblea Popular Juchiteca (Pueblo Zapoteco), Oaxaca

Fuerza Indígena Chinanteca “KiaNan”.
Consejo Indígena Popular de Oaxaca-Ricardo Flores Magón, (Pueblos Zapoteco, Nahua, Mixteco, Cuicateco), Oaxaca.

Comité de Bienes Comunales de Unión Hidalgo, (Pueblo Zapoteco) Oaxaca

Unión Campesina Indígena Autónoma de Río Grande (Pueblo Chatino y Afromestizo), Oaxaca

La Voz de los Zapotecos Xichés en Prisión, Oaxaca.

Temazcal Tlacuache Tortuga de la comunidad de Zaachilá, (Pueblo Zapoteco), Oaxaca

Colonia Ecológica la Minzita, (Pueblo Purépecha), Morelia, Michoacán.

Colectivo Cortamortaja de Jalapa del Marqués (Pueblo Zapoteco), Oaxaca.

Radio Comunitaria Totopo de Juchitán (Pueblo Zapoteco), Oaxaca

CIDECI-UNITIERRA, Chiapas.

CCRI-CG del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (Pueblos Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Chol, Tojolabal, Zoque, Mame y Mestizo), Chiapas.

Mexico, June 2, 2013.

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See and listen to the videos that accompany this text:

In memory of Don Juan Chávez Alonso. Produced by the Cooperativa de Condimentos para la Acción Cinematográfica.

El Comandante Guillermo, introduces Don Juan Chávez Alonso at the Festival of Dignified Rage (Digna Rabia), in CIDECI, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México.

Baile tradicional “Los Viejitos,” performed by students of the Casa del Estudiante Lenin, Michoacán, México.

Translated by El Kilombo Intergaláctico

MAY 2013 ZAPATISTA NEWS SUMMARY  

Is this where they want to sell beaches, coastal regions, borderlands and oil?

 In Chiapas

1. News Update on Alberto Patishtan - On May 31, the FPDT (Atenco), Las Abejas and Alberto Patishtan’s son, Hector, released a short documentary on YouTube about Alberto’s case. On May 27, Mexico’s Supreme Court sent its file on the Alberto Patishtan case to the federal circuit court in Chiapas via ground transportation. There is no explanation in these press reports for the long delay. However, Patishtan’s lawyers are hoping for a June decision (before the July vacation break). Newspaper reports also indicate that Patishtan was taken twice to Mexico City for medical follow-up on his brain surgery at the National Neurology and Neurosurgery Center, once in April and recently in May, but these reports give no  information about the results of the examinations.

2. San Sebastián Bachajon Legal Dispute Over Ticket Booth Continues – On May 16, a Chiapas court issued its decision in the case of San Sebastián Bachajon (SSB). The decision orders a replacement of the procedure allegedly authorizing the government to take several parcels of land away from the ejido, conveniently all on land belonging to adherents to the EZLN’s Sixth Declaration, for use as a ticket booth where visitors to the Agua Azul Cascades pay an entry fee. The SSB adherents went to court claiming that the procedure used to grant the government authority to do that was unlawful. They asked the court for the return of their land and an order restraining the government from taking it. The decision does not return the land to them, but rather orders that the matter be presented to the Ejido’s Assembly for its position in a lawful procedure. The SSB adherents are concerned that the pro-government contingent in the ejido, especially the ejido commissioner, will manipulate the process. Consequently, two SSB adherents went to Mexico City to present their position in the matter to a member of Mexico’s Supreme Court. They also visited the offices of the UN’s High Commissioner on Human Rights, asking for intervention, and the offices of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, seeking precautionary measures following last month’s (April 24) assassination of the community leader Juan Vasquez Gomez.

3. Two Campesinos Murdered in Venustiano Carranza – On May 5, two campesinos died of gunshot wounds in a confrontation that occurred in the municipality of Venustiano Carranza, allegedly over agrarian and political disputes. Two campesinos were killed in the confrontation and 20 houses burned or damaged. There were also injuries. According to newspaper accounts, this attack stemmed from an old dispute for control of the Casa del Pueblo, which was aggravated with the arrival of a new president (in January of last year), who accused his predecessor of “misplacing” 67 heads of cattle. The dispute is between the Emiliano Zapata Campesino Organization-Casa del Pueblo (OCEZ-CP) and an internal dissident group. The dissident group of 49 families was expelled last year and is sheltered in government buildings near the state capital and demands a safe return to their homes. Those in the current OCEZ-CP leadership want the state government to relocate the dissidents. It arrears that 12 OCEZ-CP members have been arrested in connection with the May 5 violence and that the organization and its allies have set up an encampment and are occupying Cathedral Plaza in San Cristóbal. Supporters allege that paramilitary groups backed by the state government are responsible for the violence. The groups involved are not connected to the Zapatistas in any way, but are part of a large leftist campesino organization in Chiapas.

4. Chiapas Teachers Settle Strike - On May 15, National Teachers Day, Chiapas teachers belonging to Local 7′s Democratic Block went on strike over reforms to the federal education law passed in the federal Congress. Teachers throughout much of Mexico staged massive demonstrations on May 15 against the reforms which take away some of their union rights and job security, and can also lead to the privatization of education. The strike ended 5 days later after union negotiators reached an agreement with the state government. The state government signed a memorandum with the teachers committing that “the entry (hiring), promotion, recognition and permanence (job security) of education workers “will not be conditioned by any standardized evaluation with punitive character that might affect their labor rights.” The state administration also committed to guarantying that the agreements between the rector council of the Pact for Mexico, the federal government and the CNTE “will be ratified by the Chiapas government.” The education reform is part of Peña Nieto’s package of neoliberal reforms. See our blog for more information about the teacher protests and the education reform. Also see: http://newpol.org/content/mexican-teachers-rebel-against-governments-educational-reform

In Other Parts of Mexico 

FPDT Leaders

1. Seven Years After the Police Terrorism in Atenco - On May 3 and 4, the community of San Salvador Atenco commemorated the 7-year anniversary of the brutal police repression that resulted in 2 young people dead, more than 150 jailed and 26 women sexually assaulted by police while in custody. As a result of this police terrorism, the leadership of the Peoples Front in Defense of Land (FPDT, its initials in Spanish) were placed in a maximum-security prison with sentences longer than the lifespan of a human being. The FPDT is the San Salvador Atenco-based organization that successfully resisted (with raised machetes) the government’s plan to take away their agricultural lands in order to use them for building a new Mexico City international Airport. The state and federal police action of May 3 and 4, 2006 was seen by many as “payback” for the FPDT’s successful resistance to the airport; but, its significance went beyond the airport resistance. At that time, the Zapatistas were traveling the country during the “Other Campaign” and had visited Atenco just a couple of days before the police action. The police repression in San Salvador Atenco halted the Other Campaign for several months and, in general, put Mexico’s social movements on notice of what to expect in the future. On May 3 and 4, 2006, the governor of the state of Mexico, where Atenco is located, was Enrique Peña Nieto. He is now Mexico’s president and once again there are plans to build an airport, industrial park and urban sprawl on lands belonging to Atenco and surrounding ejido lands.

2. Amnesty International (AI) Issues Report on Mexico Violence – Amnesty International (AI) recently issued its 2013 Report on human rights. It refers to the term of Felipe Calderón. A number of human rights abuses are described, including the fact that Mexican authorities do not recognize the gravity of the problem and that there is complicity in these abuses by public servants. The complete report on Mexico can be read  here. According to numbers released by the federal government and published by La Jornada, there were 5,296 murders in Mexico, allegedly related to organized crime, during the first 151 days of Enrique Pena Nieto’s presidency; in other words, from December 1, 2012 to April 30, 2013. This represents a slight decrease from the same time period  the previous year under Calderón, but it is, nevertheless, a tragic number of deaths.

In the United States

1. President Obama Visited Mexico on May 2 – United States President Barack Obama visited Mexico beginning May 2. He met with President Peña Nieto and gave a speech to an audience of students and business people. Press reports indicate that the two presidents talked less about security and more about economics, thereby prompting the shopping cart cartoon above. Obama said he was hopeful on immigration reform, but not so hopeful about restrictions on guns. The Mexican economy relies on money (remittances) that Mexicans living and working in the United States send to their families in Mexico. Those remittances are one of Mexico’s top three sources of income and foreign exchange. The United States is also Mexico’s largest supplier of illegal weapons that end up in the hands of organized crime groups and thus feed the current violence in Mexico.

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Compiled monthly by the Chiapas Support Committee.The primary sources for our information are: La Jornada, Enlace Zapatista and the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba).

We encourage folks to distribute this information widely, but please include our name and contact information in the distribution. Gracias/Thanks.

Click on the Donate button of  www.chiapas-support.org to support indigenous autonomy.

_______________________________________________________

Chiapas Support Committee/Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas

P.O. Box  3421, Oakland, CA  94609

Email: cezmat@igc.org

www.chiapas-support.org

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chiapas-Support-Committee-Oakland/86234490686

Special Report, Part I

On the eve of May Day 2013, the drum beat of protest and revolt beats loudly in southern and southwestern Mexico. First beginning as a teachers’ strike against a new federal education law last February, the protest is now transforming into a broad popular movement against not only the much-touted Pact for Mexico policies of new President Enrique Pena Nieto, but the political and economic structures from which they spring as well.

In the bigger scheme of things, the movement is squarely challenging an economic and educational agenda endorsed by the International Monetary Fund, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and Wall Street.

If the movement could be said to have an epicenter, it is in the Pacific state of Guerrero, where the protest against the federal education reform took a big leap this month with the founding of the Guerrero Popular Movement (MPG). Opponents of the law passed last December by the Mexican Congress argue that a new evaluation system imposed on teachers jeopardizes labor rights, and contains other provisions that will foster privatization and increase the cost of sending children to school.

Formed by unions, small farmer organizations, indigenous communities and youth activists, the MPG declared its opposition to the education reform, new mining projects in indigenous communities, any privatization of the national oil company Pemex, and proposals to increase the 16 percent sales tax.

“Now this is not just a movement of teachers,” proclaimed the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities, the leadership body of the community police and justice system in scores of Guerrero’s indigenous communities. “It’s a struggle of all small farmers, parents, students, political and social organizations.”

Government officials routinely minimize support for the teacher strike, but the MPG flexed its muscles with two large demonstrations that paralyzed the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo earlier this month. According to different estimates, each action drew between 50,000 and 120,000 people.

As its first order of business, the MPG supported an unsuccessful attempt by striking teachers to modify the federal education reform law by passing union-drafted legislation at the state level.

Represented by the Guerrero State Coordinator of Education Workers (CETEG), a large dissident organization within the official SNTE teachers’ union, the strikers combined street protests and occupations of government buildings with intense legislative lobbying efforts and on-and-off again negotiations with Guerrero Governor Angel Aguirre.

At one point sensing victory within its grasp, the CETEG suddenly suffered a major setback when state lawmakers from President Pena Nieto’s PRI party, backed by allies from other political parties including members of the once-emblematic PRD opposition party, approved a state law last week that ignored the CETEG’s main proposals and upheld the federal reform. The pro-reform lawmakers asserted that any legislation differing significantly from the federal law would not pass constitutional muster. They deny the reform will bring educational privatization.

Next act, Chilpancingo exploded

On April 24, as many as 9,000 CETEG and MPG supporters surged through the streets chanting slogans and denouncing the legislators. After a rally, protest leaders urged demonstrators to return to the strikers’ encampment in the capital city.

Whether due to manipulation by publicly unknown elements or spontaneous and uncontrollable rage, a large crowd that turned rowdy ignored the post-rally plans and began heading for the headquarters of the major political parties-left, right and center.

The crowd then trashed the party buildings- without political distinction- but dished out special treatment to the PRI, whose headquarters was thoroughly ransacked and torched. Columns of black smoke poured from the building before the blaze was extinguished.

“When the people rise up for bread, freedom and land, the powerful will tremble, from the Gulf to the Sierra!” the rioters chanted.

While some journalists were reportedly rousted, no one was injured in the violence, except for one protestor who suffered a hand injury.

The April 24 Chilpancingo incident put the CETEG and MPG on the defensive, as the Mexican commercial media, which has treated the strike with hostility since the get-go, flashed images of the vandalism and the PRI fire. A litany of denunciations flowed from the political and business classes.

While in Acapulco for a bankers’ convention, President Pena Nieto curtly condemned the Chilpancingo violence. Faulting unidentified “external forces” for stoking a violent and intolerant movement, PRD Guerrero Governor Angel Aguirre announced that 39 arrest warrants were ready for strike leaders. Graco Ramirez, governor of neighboring Morelos state, called strike leaders “true delinquents” who should be detained.

Mumblings from shadowy government and media sources variously blamed the mayhem, with no concrete proof, on the EPR and ERPI guerrilla groups and even on left opposition leader and two-time presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Acapulco Mayor Luis Walton reiterated an appeal to the CETEG to refrain from blockading the Mexico City-Acapulco freeway, a tactic that led to recent confrontations with the Federal Police. Walton urged the strikers to conduct themselves in a manner that would not affect tourism in Acapulco, which accounts for 40 percent of the economic activity in impoverished Guerrero.

“Of course, the Federation should intervene,” added Walton. “It’s a federal law that motivated this problem. There has to be dialogue. If not, this will not be solved…”

Conversely, more than a few messages praising the trashing and arson attack on the PRI circulated on the Internet, with writers reflecting the seething anger a large sector of Mexican society holds for the government and all the political parties represented in it.

CETEG spokespersons eventually acknowledged that some of its supporters were to blame for a rampage not sanctioned by the leadership.

If the conflict over the education reform law wasn’t enough to literally inflame a political crisis, a Guerrero state court added fuel to the fire the same week as the Chilpancingo upheaval when it freed two state policemen accused of killing two students from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers’ college, Gabriel Echeverria de Jesus and Jorge Alexis Herrera, during a demonstration in December 2011.

Ayotzinapa is legendary for its student militancy, and the school is the alma mater of the locally revered guerrilla leaders Genaro Vazquez Rojas and Lucio Cabanas Barrientos of the 1960s and 1970s.

Indeed, a favorite chant of thousands of demonstrators in recent weeks has been, “Cuidado, cuidado, cuidado con Guerrero, estado guerrillero.” Simply put, the chant warns the government not to mess with a guerrilla state.

Last week, Ayotzinapa’s current generation of pupils lived up to the college’s reputation when students- reinforced by thousands of supporters from the CETEG and MPG- briefly blockaded the Mexico City-Acapulco freeway in Chilpancingo in a protest against a judge’s decision to free the alleged killers of their classmates.

Rocks were tossed at a contingent of federal officers monitoring the march, who responded with obscene finger gestures, but no major escalation of violence ensued.

For teachers, their movement has entered a critical phase. Trial balloons of replacing the strikers are floating in the air, and students stand to lose an entire semester if the conflict drags on much longer. Regrouping during the past few days, the CETEG and MPG are organizing May Day marches in Chilpancingo, Acapulco and other towns.

While Guerrero simmers, allied popular movements in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Morelos and Michoacan are turning up the heat in their localities. All four states have very active local affiliates of the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE), the CETEG’s national organization, and are witnessing the formation of broad popular fronts like Guerrero’s MPG. The CNTE plans an escalation of protests after May 1, when a large national march with other unions will also be convened in Mexico City.

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http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/2013/04/30/the-fire-this-time-mexico’s-new-revolt-from-below/

By: Raúl Zibechi

This week the strategy of tension and chaos that United States agencies promote to destabilize governments was in evidence. If we take into account the most recent experiences, including the “Arab Spring,” we are able to conclude that State coups are just one of the various paths possible for evicting disturbing governments. Neither the Pentagon nor the White House bet on just one strategy for obtaining their ends, but they rather put into play a fan of converging and complementary actions.

The global economic crisis and the necessary contention for military expenditures (apparently the Southern Command saw its budget reduced by 26 percent, but it can have hidden entries) grant priority to “soft power;” in other words, mechanisms not so apparent as tanks and bombarding of government palaces. The communications media, legal and semi-legal action, including the masses in the streets, which always serve to legitimate unnamed projects, are some of the tools in use.

In the case of Venezuela and the destabilizing escalation that was staged hours after the publication of the electoral results, a group of messages emerge that time will permit completely unveiling, but that show the appearance of new and more refined strategies. To show not just the negative aspects of the juncture, one would have to mention that the almost unanimity of the Unasur members showed their support to Nicolas Maduro, including a rapid recognition on the part of Colombia’s President, Juan Manuel Santos.

In the South American region only the Paraguay of Federico Franco, who has only been in charge for a short time, is aligned with the United States. That is relevant because it shows Washington’s isolation and the growing autonomization of governments like Colombia. It seems evident that the destabilizing strategy is not convenient for anyone in this part of the world, very particularly a government that seeks peace que with the guerrillas with the opposition of the best ally of the warmonger George W. Bush, ex president Álvaro Uribe.

The consolidation of the regional institutions and alliances, as much the Unasur as the Mercosur, is proving to be an efficient barrier against the North’s interference in the South American region. Nevertheless, just like we establish that some governments don’t mechanically follow United States policy (Ollanta Humala and Sebastián Piñera don’t add themselves to Washington either), it is very probable that we are facing a relative autonomization if the laws of those same power centers.

I want to say that the laws do their own reading of the global reality and they also play their own game; above all when the tendencies toward a multipolar world are intensified. Five of the world’s 10 principal economies no longer use the dollar in their exchanges with China (Russia Today, April 14, 2013); among them, Russia, India and Brazil, but also Japan, an important US ally. Australia, another Washington ally, is the last country to set the dollar aside in its trade with China. India and Japan also started to effectuate transactions in their respective national currencies.

The new global reality hits in such a way at the imperial center that even its military expenditures fell, for the first time in 20 years. The United States has a 40 percent smaller participation of global military expenditures, which in 2012 alone fell 6 percent, while the military expenditure of NATO members in Europe contracted 10 percent (SIPRI, April 15, 2013). In contrast, military expenditures of the emerging nations grew continuously, although they are very far from the Pentagon’s defense budget.

Nevertheless, other less visible forces operate but just as destabilizing or more than the ones that we have known for a long time. I refer to the extractive model or “extractivism.” “With the extractive model of mega-mining and agro-businesses one cannot deepen democracy,” assures Diego Montón, a member of the Union of Rural Workers Without Land of Mendoza (Argentina) and the new continental coordinator of CLOC-Via Campesina (Página 12, April 17, 2013).

Extractivism is much more than a productive model and a model of accumulating capital. Strictly speaking, it forms part of the complex financial speculation that now dominates the world. It has predatory effects in our countries: it is creating a new power block, politically corrupting, polarizing, socially exclusive and environmentally predatory.

In the political, the extractive model needs a group of agents that feed on their immense profits (soy, open pit mining and several mono-crops), which hide their interests (universities, national or local governments, media and intellectuals). Hardly exaggerating, extractivism plays a disintegrating role similar to drug trafficking, because it destroys the social fabric, expels campesinos from their lands, swells cities to unsupportable limits and kills people, particularly the poorest, who don’t have access to a quality health care system.

In all the countries of our region, extractive paradises of global speculative capital or of expansionist interests of emerging countries like China, a long decade of extractivism has done nothing but strengthen the (political) right. I do not refer only to political parties or conservative politicians, but to a diffuse right, social and cultural, which promotes individualism, an atrocious and predatory consumerism with social links, almost fascist behavior towards the poor; in other words, against the youth of the popular barrios, in particular the people of the color of the earth.

Denouncing the coup d’etat is indispensible. Defending oneself from the Pentagon is urgent. Increasing militancy is key (not just declarations and deployments); but the extractive model continues breeding and creating gangs of conservative young people that seek ultra-right leaders.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Translation: Chiapas Support Committee

Friday, April 19, 2013

En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/04/19/opinion/025a1pol

145 ORGANIZATIONS ASK PRESIDENTS TO RE-EVALUATE REGIONAL SECURITY POLICIES

Dear Honorable

President Barack Obama

President Enrique Peña Nieto

President Laura Chinchilla

President Otto Pérez Molina

President Porfirio Lobo

President Mauricio Funes

President Daniel Ortega

President Ricardo Martinelli

Attorney General & Minister of Foreign Affairs Wilfred Elrington

April 30, 2013

We, the undersigned civil society organizations from throughout the region, are writing to you on the eve of your meetings in Mexico and at the Summit of the Central American Integration System (SICA) in Costa Rica.. W   We welcome the opportunity for our nations to discuss cooperation on critical cross-border issues and urge our States to address our concerns about the dire human rights crisis in Mesoamerica.

Our organizations have documented an alarming increase in violence and human rights violations. While we recognize that transnational crime and drug trafficking play a role in this violence, we call on our governments to acknowledge that failed security policies that have militarized citizen security have only exacerbated the problem, and are directly contributing to increased human suffering in the region.

It is time to refocus regional dialogue and resource investment to address the root causes of violence, understanding that for many citizens and communities, drug trafficking is not the principal cause of insecurity. Harmful “development” policies have similarly caused increased conflict and abuses, while forced migration and criminalization of migrants and human rights activists continues to divide families. Most importantly, the region’s challenges must be addressed without violating fundamental rights and human dignity.

We offer further analysis and recommendations of the key issues that require urgent attention:

1.  Militarization of the drug war has caused increased violence and has failed to provide citizen security. Human rights abuses against our families and communities are, in many cases, directly attributable to failed and counterproductive security policies that have militarized our societies in the name of the “war on drugs.” The deployment of our countries’ armed forces to combat organized crime and drug trafficking, and the increasing militarization of police units, endanger already weak civilian institutions and leads to increased human rights violations.

• In Mexico, drug-related violence and the militarized response has killed an estimated 80,000 men, women, and children in the past six years. More than 26,000 have been disappeared, and countless numbers have been wounded and traumatized. With little civilian control over security forces, massive deployments across the country have contributed to increases in forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture and attacks on human rights defenders. Meanwhile, prohibited narcotics continue to flow into the U.S. market virtually unabated.
• In Guatemala, rates of violence have again reached wartime levels, and rampant impunity for these crimes continues. As the nation only begins to address past atrocities committed by the armed forces against the civilian population, controversial “security” policies have placed the military back onto the streets. This has placed the peace process in jeopardy, and with it, the fragile democracy built on the 1996 Peace Accords. The Guatemalan army´s massacre of six indigenous protesters in October 2012 is tragic evidence of these misguided policies.
• Perhaps the starkest example of a breakdown of democratic institutions today is Honduras. Since the coup d’état that forced the elected president into exile in 2009, the rule of law has disintegrated while violence and impunity have soared. We are witnessing a resurgence of death squad tactics with targeted killings of land rights advocates, journalists, LGBT activists, lawyers, women’s rights advocates and political activists. Both military and police are allegedly involved in abuses and killings but are almost never brought to justice.
• Even the host country, Costa Rica, which has no army and a constitutional mandate for peace, finds itself drawn into a mounting military effort to confront drug trafficking that compromises its independence and tranquility.
• The U.S. government’s domestic and regional policies that promote militarization to address organized crime directly affect the human rights situation in Mesoamerica, resulting in a dramatic surge in violent crime, often reportedly perpetrated by security forces themselves. The narrow focus of these policies have proven ineffective in addressing other, often related human security issues, such as sex and labor trafficking and femicides, which have increased at an alarming rate throughout the region. Meanwhile, the lack of effective gun control in the U.S. has led to the massive and nearly unrestricted transfer of arms to criminal networks throughout the region.

2.  The imposition of large-scale extractive projects on marginalized communities does not constitute “development.” The violence we face today has its roots in the poverty, injustice and inequality of our societies. National and bilateral investment policies enshrined in Free Trade Agreements exacerbate these problems. Large-scale “development” projects are imposed on the region’s most vulnerable populations with little or no regard for their lives or livelihoods. This results inforced displacement, especially of indigenous, peasant, and Afro-descendant communities; bloody conflicts over resources; environmental destruction and impoverishment. Governments and businesses routinely violate communities’right to consultation. Communities across the region that oppose large-scale transnational projects have suffered repressionat the hands of government security forces, and we have documented systemic patterns of threats, criminalization, and attacks against land rights activists.

3. Violations of migrant rights continue while policies disregard the root causes of migration. The harmful consequences of U.S. regional security policies such as the “war on drugs” and the imposition of mega-development projects have displaced hundreds of thousands of people from their land and communities and limited local economic opportunity. Many are left with few options other than to migrate to the United States in search of safety and economic opportunity. Meanwhile, the United States has criminalized and detained immigrants in ever-greater numbers within its own borders. Any humane and sensible immigration reform must consider the impact of policies that force persons to migrate.

To meet these regional challenges, we must first and foremost make the protection of fundamental human rights – economic and social, civil and political –a focal point of this SICA gathering and future regional dialogues. We ask our governments to:

1. a.     Take executive action in the United States to stop the flow of assault weapons and other firearms across the U.S.-Mexico border.
2. b.    Recognize and protect human rights defenders, with specific attention to the contributions of women, indigenous and Afro descendant defenders, and acknowledgement of the risks they face.
3. c.     Propose a new model for security cooperation that provides alternatives to the ongoing war on drugs, such as regulation rather than prohibition, strong regional anti-money laundering efforts, and withdrawal of the armed forces from domestic law enforcement. We call on the U.S. government to end military aid and instead channel scarce public resources into strengthening the institutionalization of the rule of law in our countries.
4. d.    Promote development through democratic dialogue, not repression, with respect for human and environmental rights, and with prior consultation of affected communities as mandated in ILO Convention 169.
5. e.     Address the root causes of migration and stop the criminalization and deportation of migrants; investigate and prosecute crimes against migrants as they travel through Mexico, as well as human rights violations at the border and within the United States.

We hope to see these concerns reflected in final statement of the SICA conference and in ongoing bilateral conversations about security, investment, development and immigration reform.

To see all the organizations that signed on:

http://www.justassociates.org/sites/justassociates.org/files/eng_letter_to_heads_of_states_-_sica_april_30_2013.pdf

Viaje de shopping

En Chiapas

1. Asesinato político de líder pro-zapatista en San Sebastian Bachajón – El miércoles 24 de abril, Juan Vázquez Gómez, líder de los pro-zapatistas en San Sebastian Bachajon, fue asesinado por individuos no identificados mientras caminaba hacia su casa. Era dirigente de los ejidatarios adherentes a la Sexta Declaración de la Selva Lacandona en su resistencia al despojo de sus tierras por parte del gobierno para la explotación turística.  Es el primer asesinato político en Chiapas contra zapatistas o pro-zapatista en un largo rato, y puede indicar un aumento en la represión ahora que el PRI está en el poder.

2. Amenazas de desalojo forzado continúan en San Marcos Avilés, caravana  recibe amenazas – El 19 de abril, la Junta de Buen Gobierno en Oventik publicó una denuncia que enumera todas las amenazas contínuas y actos de hostigamiento sufridos por los bases de apoyo zapatista en el ejido San Marcos Avilés desde julio del 2011.  La Red por la Paz en Chiapas luego anunció que el 21 y 22 de abril una Caravana de Observación Civil iría a San Marcos para escuchar testimonios de los zapatistas.  La Caravana fué amenazada por “miembros de partidos políticos” en San Marcos Avilés.  Amenazaron con quitarles los vehículos a la caravana y que “correrá sangre” si no se los entregaban.  Afortunadamente, las amenazas no se convirtieron en acciones y la caravana logró recopilar testimonios sobre las contínuas amenazas de muerte, incluyendo amenazas con matar a niños, y robo de tierras.

3. Marcha en Chiapas por la liberación de Patishtán – El 19 de abril, el movimiento a favor de la liberación de Alberto Patishtán organizó una movilización en Tuxtla Gutiérrez, capital del estado de Chiapas, para exigir su libertad.  En la marcha participaron much@s tzotziles de los Altos del estado, además de la organización católica Pueblo Creyente, Las Abejas, y el Bloque Democrático de la Sección 7 del Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación, quiénes en total sumaron unos 15,000 manifestantes.  Los inconformes marcharon hacia la sede del Poder Judicial federal en el estado, donde se espera se pronuncie una decisión sobre el caso de Patishtán en los próximos dias.

4. La Suprema Corte mexicana libera a otros 15 hombres encarcelados por el caso de la masacre de Acteal – El 11 de abril, la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación liberó a otros 15 de los indígenas procesados y sentenciados por su participación en el asesinato en Acteal de 45 indígenas tzotziles el 22 de Diciembre de 1997.  Esta liberación y reconocimiento de inocencia, al igual que en los casos anteriores, estuvo basada   en la falta de pruebas y violaciones al debido proceso. De los 87 que originalmente fueron condenados por el crimen, ya sólo permanecen 6 en   prisión.  El obispo Felipe Arizmendi, de la diócesis de San Cristóbal de Las Casas, lamentó esta nueva liberación de los sentenciados, muchos de cuáles habían confesado su participación en la masacre.  En su rechazo a esta nueva liberación, la Organización Civil Las Abejas denunció que muchos de ellos ya se han visto caminando por los alrededores de Acteal y comunidades cercanas.  Tanto Las Abejas como el obispo Arizmendi se preguntan, “Si los hombres anteriormente condenados y ahora liberados no son los responsables de la masacre, ¿quién fué?”.

Por otras partes de México

1. Las comunidades forman sus propias patrullas de policías - Como resultado del crecimiento dramático del crimen organizado y la total incapacidad de las fuerzas de seguridad de México para tratar con él, un fenómeno nuevo está surgiendo. Algunas comunidades están tratando de proteger a sus residentes formando sus propias patrullas de policías comunitarias. Hasta el momento, al menos 40 comunidades en ocho estados han formado tales patrullas. Mientras mucha de la violencia que está plagando a las comunidades está vinculada al narcotráfico y los oficiales gubernamentales, la policía y los militares corrompidos por las narco pandillas, las comunidades también están buscando protegerse de la tala ilegal y la invasión de compañías mineras y sus “guardias” armadas. Algunas comunidades indígenas siguen la tradición de elegir a los policías/guardias que protegen a las comunidades de crímenes comunes como el robo o la embriaguez en vía pública, y los crímenes relacionados. Han estado haciendo esto por más de 15 años. Estas policías comunitarias tiene sus armas de caza, machetes y garrotes, ningunos de los cuales son ilegales. Sin embargo, otras comunidades tienen policías armados con armas de alto calibre que son ilegales. Los gobiernos estatales y federales están preocupados sobre este nuevo acontecimiento y quieren poner estas patrullas comunitarias bajo el control de autoridades locales con rango oficial. Pero las comunidades ven a las autoridades locales como parte del problema.

En Los Estados Unidos

1. El presidente Barack Obama visitará México y Costa Rica el 2-4 de Mayo – El presidente de los Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, tiene planes para visitar México el 2 de mayo. Mientras que México espera  lograr un acuerdo sobre más dinero para la Iniciativa Mérida, el Secretario  de Estado estadounidense John Kerry, dice que el presidente Obama también quiere enfocar su visita en tratar asuntos económicos y de comercio. Organismos de derechos humanos, sin embargo, enviaron una carta al Presidente Obama, al presidente de México Peña Nieto y a los presidentes de Centroamérica solicitándoles, entre otras cosas, re-pensar el modelo de seguridad regional (la guerra contra las drogas) y considerar la regulación de las drogas en lugar de su prohibición. También,  23 congresistas estadounidenses, de ambos partidos, enviaron una carta al Secretario Kerry para expresar su preocupación por el incremento en cinco veces más de las quejas contra personal militar sobre abusos en los derechos humanos en los últimos 6 años . La congresista Barbara Lee, de Oakland, firmó la carta.

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Compilación mensual hecha por el Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas.

Nuestras principales fuentes de información son: La Jornada, Enlace Zapatista y el Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de las Casas (Frayba).

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Chiapas Support Committee/Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas

Email: cezmat@igc.org

www.chiapas-support.org

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chiapas-Support-Committee-Oakland/86234490686