By Brenda Norrell

TUCSON --The death squads of the Zetas, trained at the US School of the Americas, are now carrying out murders for Mexican drug cartels and hired as killers in Iraq. The Kaibiles, Guatemalan death squads trained by US Special Forces, are now responsible for murders and rapes in the Congo and around the world. In Mexico, US trained death squads attack and murder Indigenous Peoples, including the Zapatistas, struggling for dignity, autonomy and survival. The United States training of death squads and torturers is one of the most censored issues in the media.

Urging news reporters to report the facts, reader Swaneagle writes, "The following is critical under-reported urgent news. Zetas are mutinous Mexican army troops who graduated from School of the Americas. Hired by the cartels, they are directly responsible for an astounding rise in brutal, grisly killings, including many of the murders of women in Juarez, which are up to 75 this year.

"Zetas have also been hired as mercenaries in Iraq. The spread of the SOA template must be halted." Swaneagle adds, "I wonder how many follow the pattern of child soldiers in Africa."

State police summarily executed three peasants in front of a child

The Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) issued a press release on denouncing the October 4 police operation in Chincultik that left six peasants dead, 17 wounded, and 36 detained.  Of the wounded, ten were beaten and six were shot.  Three men were gravely injured: one was transfered to a hospital in Mexico City, and the other to a hospital in the Chiapas capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez.

According to a communique from the state attorney general's office, about 40 police had entered the community to carry out subpoenas against 28 people whom it suspected were involved in the takeover of the Chincultik ruins and the booth at the entrance to the ruins where visitors are charged an entrance fee.  The police entered on horseback, in vehicles, and on foot, shooting tear gas and kicking down doors in various houses.

The townspeople, who claim that the government does not properly maintain the ruins and that the tourism proceeds from the ruins should benefit the town, defended themselves from the attack.  They surrounded the police and disarmed them, guarding the 77 police weapons in the town.  The residents detained the police officers, holding them in the town office.

By Brenda Norrell

SELLS, Arizona - The Tohono O'odham mother of a teenager who was ran over and killed by the US Border Patrol made a plea for help so she can continue to pursue court action and charge the Border Patrol agent with murder.
Bennett Patricio, Jr., 18, was ran over and killed during the predawn hours in a remote area of the Tohono O'odham Nation in 2002. Although the family's civil case reached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the family was abandoned by their attorney.
Angelita Reino Ramon, Bennett's mother, made an appeal for help on Sunday.
"We sold all our furniture, our truck and our car, so we could get to San Francisco and the Ninth Circuit Court," Angelita said.
"We are in a very desperate situation," she said. Angelita said now the family has no car to take the children to school, go shopping for food or look for jobs.
"No one wants to help us. We are in a really difficult situation."
"We're looking for someone who can help us with Bennett Patricio, Jr.'s case. We want to take it back to court in Tucson and file a murder charge. We need a lawyer who isn't afraid of the government and will stick with it all the way through.
"Our attorney stole the money from us, our fear is now, ‘Who can we trust?'"

Dear readers,

The lines below are a translation of an article written by Jose Melendez, from San Jose, CR. It was published in El Universal (Mexico City) on Sunday, July 20, 2008. It appears linked in this notebook.

Narco Submerges to Elude Radars
Traffic Along Colombia - Mexico Route Using Submarines
by Jose Melendez, correspondent for El Universal
translation by Marc Van Riper

A small submersible attempted to cross the Panama canal, tied to the propellers of a ship, to carry 35 kilos of cocaine to Europe, during May of this year. Two other small submarines were detected in front of the coasts of Guatemala and Costa Rica, in the Pacific Ocean, in 2006 and 2007, with 8 (metric) tonnes of cocaine on board.

By Brenda Norrell

TUCSON -- Congratulations to the thirty winners of Native American Music Awards at the 10th annual celebration on the Seneca Nation in New York Saturday night. The sounds and performances revealed the pursuit of excellence from traditional sounds to rock, reggae, folk and hip hop. The award ceremony was broadcast live on the web, with a rapid fire chat room.

They were attacked by state and federal police, according to an ejido representative. Ten wounded and thirty detained reported.

by Elio Henriquez, correspondent for La Jornada
translation and update by Kristin Bricker

Miguel Hidalgo Ejido, Chiapas. State and federal police shot and murdered six peasants from this ejido [communally owned land] in La Trinitaria county, which for almost a month has controlled the Chinkultic archaeological ruins, located three kilometers from the ejido.

Jose Velazquez, one of the ejido representatives, stated to the press that the incidents that occurred in the ejido late Friday night resulted in over ten wounded and more than thirty people detained who are recovering in a hospital in the city of Comitan.

Blood trails, scatted spent high-caliber casings, and bullet holes could be seen in the streets and in some houses.

Dear readers,

Here are some numbers concerning the two subjects covered by this web site. I will try to keep the numbers somewhat updated. The perspective is largely on democracy/political evolution with brief notes on articles, including links to original aritcles in either Spanish or English.

READ HERE

Tohono O'odham Nation transports O'odham home from pilgrimage, as drug violence and threats escalate

By Brenda Norrell

Updated: Oct. 3, 2008 12:10 am

SELLS, Arizona -- The Tohono O'odham Nation sent vans to Sonora, Mexico, on Thursday, offering an option to O'odham on pilgrimage to return home. As violence and threats of violence increased from competing drug cartels in the region, Tohono O'odham Chairman Ned Norris issued a statement and discouraged O'odham from attending an annual festival in Magdalena de Kino this weekend.

"We strongly advise members of the nation to not travel in Mexico," Chairman Norris said.

On Thursday evening, an emergency worker with the Tohono O'odham Nation said it is unknown whether Tohono O'odham were killed as they walked on pilgrimage from the US border to Magdalena, Sonora, Mexico, for the San Francisco Xavier Festival. Some O'odham returned home from the 60-mile pilgrimage, while others remain on pilgrimage or unaccounted for.

This article was produced for the UK Zapatista Solidarity Network for a meeting to be held at the Anarchist Bookfair in London on October 18th 2008.

We are others, the other. If this world does not have a place for us, then another world must be made. With no tool other than our rage, no material other than our dignity. We still must encounter each other more, know each other better. What is missing is yet to come...

The Zapatista communities in resistance, with their autonomous schools, clinics and decision-making structures, have been an inspiration to the anti-capitalist movement. Now Zapatista villages and lands are sustaining increasingly violent attacks by the state and paramilitaries.

Over the years I have learned to hear things not said when someone speaks or prays.

Having been fucked over a time or ten thousand I also notice facial expressions and posture that lead to that fucking. The arrogant wink. Speaking with the hands, pursing of the lips, the arched eye-brow. I see wheels turning behind the mask.

That is one of many reasons I know we just got fucked (George Carlin once stated; don’t trust anyone that won’t say fuck).

By Brenda Norrell

LOS ANGELES -- Made in L.A. tells the story of three women, and of all women, who sacrifice for their children, and struggle against all odds. But it also tells the story of courage, the courage of all people who are called on to give more than they think they can. Ultimately, Made in L.A. is the story of America, of the United States, and the blindsightedness and denial that keeps Americans shopping for low prices without regard for the consequences to others.

This is part three in a series that analyzes the recently released spending plan for the Merída Initiative, also known as Plan Mexico.  Part one analyzed Plan Mexico's funds for Mexico, and part two discussed Plan Mexico in Central America.

Narco News has made the entire Merída Initiative spending plan available.

In February 2004, Haitian paramilitaries left their bases in the Dominican Republic and marched towards Haiti with the goal of ousting democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide for the second time.  When they arrived in Haiti, many were wearing Dominican Republic National Police uniforms.

Ecuadorians went to the polls yesterday to decide on a new constitutional referendum; exit polls indicate that about 65% voted in favor of the new constitution. Unlike similar referendums passed in Bolivar and Venezuela the new constitution does not nationalize the nation’s resources, telecommunications, or electricity, but instead gives the executive branch increased powers to regulate the economy; though some opposed to the changes fear that the new centralized economic powers could potentially threaten private property rights in the future.

Last night Mexican police transferred Omar Yoguez Singu, 32, to the Oaxacan attorney general's custody for murdering 20-year-old Marcella "Sally" Grace Eiler.  The AP reports that he claims he had consensual sex with Sally, then killed her with a machete during an argument.

In my memories of Sally Grace, she looks just like the photograph of her that her friends published along with the communique denouncing that she was raped and murdered--laughing and smiling with a camera in her hand.

Sally told me she was a wanderer who had her strongest ties to Arizona. When she arrived in Oaxaca in the summer 2007 to help out local organizations in the popular struggle against Gov. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, she published her photos, updates, and translations from the Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca - Ricardo Flores Magon (CIPO-RFM) and the APPO on Arizona Indymedia. When she went back to Arizona for a visit in March, she organized fundraising events and reportbacks where she showed photos and videos from the streets of Oaxaca and sold artisanry woven by CIPO women.