Since 1994, campesinos in Chiapas have recuperated over 600,000 acres of land. A rust and turquoise building in the San Manuel autonomous county was just one end of the plantation owner’s jungle mansion, but is now used as a grocery warehouse by the Zapatistas. However, now this recuperated land is in dispute between the government (fronting for corporate interests) and the Zapatistas. […]
This November, Mexico will play host to the follow up to the Copenhagen climate talks. Activists around the country are already preparing for the 16th Conference of Parties summit, which will take place in Cancun. I spoke with Gustavo Castro Soto, an activist, agitator and organizer based in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas.
As Mexico continues to be plagued by organized crime, governmental corruption and high unemployment, citizens look forward to the 2012 presidential elections. Due to it’s position as a recipient of federal funds never accounted for, but assumed diverted to the governor’s pocket, the poor state of Oaxaca emerges in a position to have a powerful financial effect on deciding who will be Mexico’s next president.
The face of Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno on the day he finally gained release from the infamous prison of Ixcotel showed fear overlaid with joy. On February 18, 2010 he stepped free into the tearful embraces of his wife, children and sister; of a crowd comprised of Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE, in its Spanish initials)[i] led by its Secretary General Aziel Santiago Chepi; of well-wishers; and of journalists.
On a pleasant autumn day in 1890 the Cuauhtémoc brewery was founded in Monterrey, Mexico. This brewery, which also specialized in ice production, went on to become Mexican Economic Development Inc. (FEMSA), brewing such beers as Dos Equis, Tecate and Sol. Recently the Dutch brewing giant Heineken bought FEMSA, bringing over half of the world’s beer production into the hands of just four mega-corporations. One Mexican columnist wrote of the merger in La Jornada, “Just a bit more globalization and we will all be lost.”
Santa Gertrudis, Sierra Juarez, Oaxaca – The 4th annual Zapotec Feria of the Cornfield – Globalization and the Natural Resources – was held in Santa Gertrudis, Sierra Juarez on February 7-8. Organized by the Union of Social Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO), this year´s event was attended by representatives of UNOSJO´s 24 affiliated communities, participants from all over Mexico, along with a large international presence of activists from Uruguay to Wales, Turkey to the United States, as well as a 15-strong delegation of German Organic farmers.
It has been noted, perhaps somewhat unfairly, that by this stage there are probably more books and papers written about the Zapatistas than there are actual Zapatista milicianos. Niels Barmeyer’s new work, Developing Zapatista Autonomy: Conflict and NGO Involvement in Rebel Chiapas adds to this cannon, but distinguishes itself by coming from the perspective of a militant anthropologist, an embedded solidarity activist investigating— from below—the inner workings of the EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation) and the solidarity and NGO organizations surrounding it. It also distinguishes itself by being more critical than most, certainly of those ostensibly coming from a sympathetic position. […]
The recent financial crisis has only intensified the already acute post-NAFTA woes of Mexican workers. Last month, the government’s firing of 44,000 electricity workers, members of the county’s most combative and independent union, SME (Mexican Electrical Union), became catalyst for a movement of people deeply angry at both an unfair economic system, and towards a president who, most studies admit, used fraud to win the elections in 2006.
[…]
I met Jose Hernandez, a leader of the Mexican Union of Electricity workers (SME) at a metro station called Obrera (Worker), unsurprisingly located in a working class area of Mexico city, and from there we walked back to his house. “I’m very tired, I’m exhausted,” he said, smiling, as he made me tea. “I haven’t stopped for days.” What follows is his account of the recent events in his union and the electricity company Fuerzas y Luces, after 6000 federal police and soldiers occupied it on 10 October.
Gloria Arenas Agís was released from prison around 7:30PM on October 28, ten years after Mexican federal agents abducted, tortured, and then—after several days of being held incommunicado—arrested her and her husband Jacobo Silva Nogales on charges ranging from terrorism and homicide to rebellion. One day later, on October 29, Jacobo Silva was released from federal prison in the state of Nayarit, to where he had been recently transferred after nine and a half years inside Mexico’s highest security prison, known as the Altiplano. […]
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