El Enemigo Común

We of the space called Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Freedom (VOCAL) are writing to denounce the serious climate of harassment, criminalization, and persecution that the Ulises Ruiz Ortiz government and the local news media have directly unleashed against some of our members in recent weeks.

In particular, the repression began to get heavier after the events of June 20, 2008, when the organized people impeded Ulises Ruiz Ortiz’s presence in a public act convened by the municipal government of Zaachila.

They are blaming our members for initiating violence, when this was provoked by the PRI party municipal President Noe Perez, and his father, Mr. Natalio Pérez, who pistol in hand, fired at people peacefully protesting to defend themselves against the imposition of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz’s presence in their lands. This aggression is documented in photos and videos.

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The Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Rights (CODEDI) denounces aggression against Abraham Ramírez Vázquez

On Thursday June 12 around 10:00 o’clock in the morning, the political prisoner Abraham Ramírez Vázquez was taken out of his cell for an audience with prison warden Raúl Dávalos Zavala. Without allowing time for anyone to interview him, he was handcuffed and put into a patrol car and taken to the court in Santa Maria Huatulco, without his consent, to sign a legal document.

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Plan Mexico, officially called the Merida Initiative, is a $1.4 billion U.S. aid package to Mexico in order to “fight drugs.” Mexico’s law enforcement is extremely corrupt; its members consume the drugs themselves and commit hundreds of human rights violations with impunity. This video shows a peaceful community in southern Mexico that was recently invaded and threatened by Mexican law enforcement, shortly after the U.S. House voted to approve Plan Mexico. Our tax dollars would be spent on these kinds of abuses. It’s important to urge the Senate to stop this initiative.

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June 2008

As Congress enters the final stages to approve the Merida Initiative, an aid package to Mexico and Central America that seeks to further militarize the region under the guise of the U.S.’s “war on drugs/war on terror,” we find manifold reasons to stand in opposition:

1) Money for Central America through the Merida Initiative would mark a significant increase in funding for military/police equipment and training in the region at a time when the need is for anti-poverty and crime-prevention programs.

The Merida Initiative, also known as Plan Mexico, builds on the troubling model of Plan Colombia, which has poured billions of dollars into a failed military approach to combating drugs while doing little to address rural poverty and urban unemployment.

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by Simón Sedillo
Originally published in the Summer 2008 issue of ¡Presente! - newspaper of SOA Watch

Neoliberals believe that somehow they have finally discovered a socially responsible, or socially democratic, way of taking people’s land, labor, and resources by force, for profit.

It’s not possible. This is the myth of neoliberalism. This imposed political economy reduces human beings and natural resources into variables in an economic equation. Every day the human variable in this equation is considered more expendable. Indigenous people, farm workers, women, youth, and poor people everywhere are reduced to variables in this equation. When no longer considered economically viable by the powers that be, communities become economically expendable. If a group of people can be treated as disposable for “not fitting in,” imagine how that group is treated when they organize or resist this imposition. Historically they have been treated as a virus which must be eliminated.

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There will be several days worth of events surrounding the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) meeting in New Orleans, taking place April 21st and 22nd.

The SPP is a series of meetings between the heads of state of Mexico, the United States, and Canada and security officials and CEOs from the 3 nations to strengthen free trade regulations and discuss integrating security measures between the 3 nations. Some have referred to the SPP as “NAFTA on steroids.”

The People’s Summit New Orleans

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