Mexico

The Teachers Union of Oaxaca has been camping out in the main square of Mexico City, the Zócalo, in protest of the new education reform implemented by President Peña-Nieto. The teachers, who have been protesting for almost a month, have denounced the reform saying it chips away their labor rights, fails to recognize the diverse needs of students in rural indigenous communities, and paves the way for school privatization. Teachers from Chiapas, Michoacán, and Veracruz have joined them in the capital.

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Indigenous communities throughout Mexico are once again tightening the weave on their distinct, yet interrelated struggles to challenge and undermine the ever-deepening threats and realities of territorial and cultural dispossession.

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As the media stopped paying attention, many believe that the Zapatista rebellion no longer exists. Quietly, away from the spotlight and cameras, they have deepened their autonomous construction to the point that one can now speak of a different society, governed by rules, codes, and laws distinct from those of the mainstream world.

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“The Yaqui River is a structural part of our life and with this theft of our water, they are condemning us to death as a people,” said Mario Luna, secretary of the traditional authorities of the Yaqui tribe, warning that his people are facing the greatest ever threat to their existence: the dispossession of the waters that give them economic and cultural sustenance.

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Every day in Mexico it is increasingly dangerous to be a journalist. During protests or events criticizing the Mexican government, public security forces often take or even destroy journalists’ equipment. According to a list published by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Mexico is among the top twelve countries in terms of impunity for the murder, disappearance, and abuse of journalists.

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The backdrop of the whole situation, declares the former Naa Savi coordinator, includes mining projects and companies who want to enter the area. “If we allow the army to enter communal territory, they will never leave. The government has its eye on exploiting the mines, they want us to fight amongst ourselves, so that they can come in and militarize the territory. That’s the bottom line here.” Carrasco believes it’s false that the government is fighting organized crime because “they are fighting the Indigenous people, that’s their goal.”

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From August 12-16 the zapatistas opened the doors to their caracoles, communities and hearts to 1630 students enrolled in the first grade of “the escuelita (the little school): freedom according to the zapatistas.” The escuelita didn’t have formal classrooms with a rigid schedule and teachers imparting their knowledge. Instead it featured immersion based learning, grounded in the daily tasks of constructing autonomy. This included grinding corn, weeding onion crops, collecting firewood, and washing your clothes in the river.

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There will be a before and after the Little Zapatista School; of the recent one and those that will come. It will be a slow, diffuse impact, which will be felt in some years but will frame the life of those below for decades. What we experienced was a non-institutional education, where the community is the educational subject. Face-to-face self-education; learning with the spirit and with the body, as the poet would say.

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After spending nearly 17 years in the same prison cell just outside of Oaxaca City, seven indigenous Loxicha political prisoners were transferred this month—twice.  The transfers, which enraged and frightened their families and supporters, were part of a nationwide shuffle of existing prisoners to fill beds at newly opened facilities that were financed by Mexican and United States drug war money.

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Dozens of activists, human rights defenders, intellectuals and cultural figures held a rally on Wednesday in front of the Council of the Federal Judiciary in Mexico City to demand the immediate freedom of political prisoner Alberto Patishtán Gomez.

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