Most media commentary, for and against the process of change and deep-going transformation that the government of President Hugo Chavez is leading, focuses on Venezuela’s cities.
Julie Webb-Pullman
Although slated to run on July 20-28, the Zapatista Intergalactica gathering really began on July 19 in Tuxtla Gutierrez, with an event in the main square in support of the People in Defence of the Land. Several busloads of Zapatistas from Mexico City arrived to join those already there in demanding indigenous land rights.
For more than six months, the people of Oaxaca in southern Mexico have been mobilising to oust the hated state governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. The repression of the uprising has been severe, with ongoing savage attacks including killings on movement activists by the military-style Federal Preventative Police.
On October 16, the Mexicos national ombudsman, Jose Luis Soberanes Fernandez, delivered the recommendations of his report into the killing of two young men and the detention of another 207 people by municipal, state and federal security forces on May 3 and 4 in the municipalities of Texcoco and San Salvador Atenco. The clashes were sparked by attempts to remove flower venders without licences from a market.