On March 29, Traditional O’odham leaders and International Supporters gathered in the small village of Quitovac in Sonora, Mexico, to organize against a toxic waste dump that threatens one of the O’odham’s most sacred Ceremonial sites.

“The gathering in Quitovac represented yet another chapter in the fight to stop the building of the toxic dump proposed to be built by the Mexican company CEGIR,” wrote the O’odham Solidarity Project shortly after the gathering came to a close.

“Since early in 2006 the traditional O’odham residing in the occupied territories of Northern Mexico …

Kristin Bricker (mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com) reports that on Tuesday, April 1, “the Chiapas government freed thirty political prisoners in response to years of protests for their freedom, but not before giving some of them one last thorough beating.”

According to the recently released, while they were en route to a government press conference “the police beat them… until their heads and arms were purple and they were bleeding. Their wrists were bound tightly with tape, cutting off circulation to their hands. After the press conference, the police loaded them back into a government vehicle, …

Last month, the Cucapa and Kumiai Indigenous Communities of Baja California, Mexico, announced a multilateral project dedicated to making themselves autonomous, self-sufficient, traditionally-governed Peoples.

As explained in a project overview (see below), years of colonial policies on part of the Mexican government have produced “the almost complete loss of our autonomy, of our natural resources, and our culture, principally our native tongues, and the destruction of the social fabric within our communities and our forms of internal organization.”

Their situation is getting to the point now, they added, where “we will …

Following the standard now synonymous with Canadian mining, Vancouver-based Continuum Resources has reactivated the historic “Natividad” mine site, an area of Oaxaca that’s been looted since before the 17th Century. Largely on Zapotec land, the site is reported to be Oaxaca’s richest gold and silver mine.

Historically, thousands of Zapotec have worked the mine, but today the consequences of development are too well understood. Over the course of 230 years, more than a million ounces of gold and 23 million ounces of silver have been extracted from the site, but …

For more than a decade, the cities of Chihuahua and Juarez, near the US-Mexico border, have been killing fields for young women. Over 400 women have been murdered and an additional 4000 women have gone missing since 1993.

As relayed on the Juarez Project website,

“A significant number of victims work in the maquiladora sector - sweatshops that produce for export, with 90% destined for the United States. The maquiladoras employ mainly young women, at poverty level wages. In combination with lax environmental regulations and low tariffs under the North …

On Wednesday, some 300 indigenous people from the Mexican state of Veracruz marched naked through the streets of the capital to demand restitution for the land they were forcefully evicted from in 1992.

The protesters, made up of members from the organization known as “the Movement of 400 Peoples”, have marched every year since then, but they only started doing it nude in 2002.

According to an article on IPS, after they were evicted from the privately-held land they occupied (reclaimed) in 1988, they traveled to the capital and “demanded …

Living in their Sierra Madre Mountains stronghold, for hundreds of years the Huichol People of Mexico successfully resisted the genocidal impact of the Spanish Conquest. Almost untouched, they were able to maintain their traditional culture, language and spiritual way of life.

“Today, the Huichol Indians are less isolated, increasingly vulnerable and exposed to inroads made by the Mexican Government, modern industry and tourism. Although in some areas of their homeland, their traditional co- operative way of life, intricate dress, diverse art forms and ancient shamanic ceremonials remain strong; elsewhere they have become only haunting echoes of the past.

Huichol culture is …

In response to the increased aggressions of Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)-affiliated armed groups against the community of Bolom Ajaw in the region of the Agua Azul river, civil organizations and members of the Other Campaign in Chiapas have set up an observation camp in the Zapatista community.

The armed group wants to evict/displace the community from their land, because they say it used to be a privately owned tourist and resort area. In 1994 the Zapatista reclaimed the land…

To assist the community, “the Center for Political Analysis and Social and …

Intercontinental Encuentro will still proceed, but the Zapatista have announced they are suspending the second phase of the Other Campaign, because the government has launched a campaign against the Zapatista communities.

Here is the Comminque from Subcomandante Marcos:

The Sixth Commission of the EZLN will suspend the journey of the second phase of the Other Campaign to the states and regions of the center and south of the country that it had announced for the months of October, November, and December of 2007.

In its place, we will carry out civil and peaceful actions in defense of the Zapatista Communities.
Communiqué from the …

Last week, a Judge in the state of Guerrero, Mexico ordered the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) to suspend any further construction of La Parota dam.

The order came as a response to an August 14 request by campesinos for an injunction pending resolution of a lawsuit they filed to stop La Parota altogether. The judge ruled that continuing the project may cause “irreparable damages” to the campesinos. See here for background news and information.

From WW4 Report - On Sept. 13 Mexican federal district judge Livia …