Michael McCaughan

A virtual state of siege prevails in Oaxaca City where thousands of military police have occupied the central square and surrounding streets, clearing barricades and detaining dozens of opposition activists. The city’s emergency services are idle while banks and schools remain closed and the city center, usually bustling with tourists, has the air of a ghost town. The hub of activity has shifted to the Santo Domingo church where thousands of activists gather daily to swap news, make plans and denounce police brutality.

The federal police occupation began on October 28 with an aggressive push toward the Zocalo (town …

By Patrick Harrington - Nov. 1 (Bloomberg) — Ulises Ruiz, governor of the Mexican state of Oaxaca, said he will not heed calls that he resign to restore order after more than five months of protests.

The country’s congress, which passed a resolution Oct. 30 urging Ruiz to leave his post, is violating state sovereignty, Ruiz said during a radio interview on Grupo Formula.

Mexican President Vicente Fox sent more than 4,500 federal police to occupy Oaxaca City after protests against Ruiz had led to 13 deaths.

Other Recent News:

Oaxaca teachers agree to return to work

Mexico: Oaxaca barricaded again…

A Call from the Zapatistas: Oaxaca Is Not Alone
Shut-Down of Roads, Highways and the Media on November 1;
General Strike Called for November 20
By the Sixth Commission of the EZLN, The Other Mexico

October 30, 2006

Message from the CLANDESTINE REVOLUTIONARY INDIGENOUS COMMITTEE-GENERAL COMMAND of the ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION MEXICO.

October 30, 2006.

To the people of Mexico:
To the people of the world:
To the Other Campaign in Mexico and the other side of the Rio Grande:

To the entire Sixth International:

Compañeros and compañeras:
Brothers and sisters:

It is now known publicly that yesterday, 29th of October 2006, Vicente Fox’s federal forces attacked the people of …

Two Indigenous Comandantes Will Travel to Live in Each State; Later, “We Will Travel To Every Part of the United States and Canada”

By Simon Fitzgerald
The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign in Baja California
October 21, 2006

On the night of Thursday, October 19, at the end of two days of meetings, rallies, and events with the Other Tijuana and the Other Campaign on the Other Side, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos explained in more detail how the Other Campaign will function after the current tour around the country ends in Mexico City on November 30.

In the MultiKulti Theatre in downtown Tijuana, Marcos clarified …

By Greg Berger, October 22, 2006

Only six short months ago, the town of Texcoco, in Mexico State, was made infamous throughout Mexico and the world as the place where one of the worst police massacres in recent Mexican history began. Today the town of Texcoco is making history yet again, but this time as the site of an historic encounter of representatives from three of the Mexican left’s most significant political movements: The Other Campaign of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), the Peoples’ Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT) from San Salvador Atenco, and the Popular …

Delegate Zero Presents Seven Zapatista Comandantes to the Other Campaign in Mexico City
By Al Giordano, The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign in Mexico City

October 2, 2006

MEXICO CITY, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2006: Two thousand organizers of the Zapatista Other Campaign convened today in the Pantitlán neighborhood of Mexico City for a conference to “analyze the national situation,” a task made still more complicated nineteen hours earlier when the Mexican Armed Forces conducted helicopter surveillance flights on Saturday over the city of Oaxaca, six hours to the south of the nation’s capital. The flagrant participation by the national army added the …

From the Mexican news agency APRO, Sept. 20 via Chiapas95 (our translation):
JALAPA - Protesting the failure of authorities to indemnify hundreds of families left homeless by a flood this past June, and to complete public works in the region, hundreds of indigenous people of the Sierra Soteapan closed the valves of the Yuribia Dam that supplies water to an important southern zone of Veracruz.

The occupation of the Yuribia installations since last Sunday leaves the municipalities of Coatzacoalcos, Minatitlan and Cosoleacaque without drinking water.

No agreement has been reached to re-establish the supply, confirmed the governor, Fidel Herrera Beltran.

The inhabitants of various …

Associated Press (AP) - Defeated leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rejected a court decision awarding Mexico’s presidency to Felipe Calderon, insisting he will never recognize his rival’s legitimacy and vowing to create a parallel government from the streets. Calderon celebrated his long-delayed victory by reaching out to the millions of Mexicans who did not vote for him and calling on his main adversaries, including Lopez Obrador, to help heal the nation’s divisions.

Lopez Obrador’s supporters threw trash at the headquarters of Mexico’s Federal Electoral Tribunal, whose seven magistrates voted unanimously to declare Calderon president-elect. The decision rejected …

Pedro Jiménez Gómez and Juan Jiménez, Adherents of the Zapatista Other Campaign, Are the Latest Political Prisoners in Mexico
By Al Giordano
The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign in Chiapas
September 9, 2006

On Friday, Juan Jiménez, 33, and Pedro Jiménez Gómez, 18, armed with gardening rakes, walked out to work the field where they cultivate radishes, cucumbers, carrots and flowers to sell in the markets of San Cristóbal, Chiapas. Agents of the federal attorney general’s office (PGR, in its Spanish initials) seized their rakes and placed the two men under arrest. As of Saturday morning they were still imprisoned in the PGR …

Words of the Sixth Comission of the EZLN for the Second Indigenous Gathering of the Yucatan Peninsula
By Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, The Other Mexico

SECOND PENINSULAR INDIGENOUS REUNION
Candelaria, Campeche, Mexico

August 2006

Compañeras and compañeros:

We thank the Peninsular Indigenous Coordination and the National Indigenous Congress, who have given us a space for this meeting.

We also thank our friends of Candelaria, Campeche, for being the place where our words and thoughts find their place and march onward.

This is our word as the Zapatista indigenous that we are, not only greeting the Mayan roots that unite us to the Indian peoples who dignify the lands and …