Mexico
EZLN

Zapatistas reorganize autonomous zone structure

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) indigenous rebel group in southern Mexico has announced the dissolution of its “autonomous municipalities” in the mountains and jungle of Chiapas state. A statement signed by Zapatista leader Subcomandante MoisĂ©s said the decision was taken “after a long and profound critical and self-critical analysis.” The Zapatista Rebel Autonomous Municipalities (MAREZ), overseen by rotating Good Government Juntas, have been maintained since the Zapatistas’ initial uprising in 1994. MoisĂ©s said that future communiques “will describe the reasons and the processes involved in taking this decision,” as well as “what the new structure of Zapatista autonomy will look like.” The communique did, however, mention a new pressure in the growing power of “disorganized crime cartels” in Chiapas, a reference to the narco-gangs seeking to control “the entire border strip with Guatemala.” (Wikimedia Commons via Mexico New Daily)

Mexico
Mexico

US leans on Mexico to increase deportations

Mexico will step up efforts to deport asylum-seekers and migrants to their countries of origin in order to “depressurize” northern cities bordering the United States, the country’s National Migration Institute announced following a meeting with US officials. Texas border cities such as El Paso and Eagle Pass are scrambling to find shelter space as thousands now cross the border on a daily basis, overwhelming reception capacity. But thousands more still wait in northern Mexico, trying to make appointments using a government cell phone application to enter the US and lodge asylum claims. (Map: PCL)

Mexico
Moisés Gandhi

Protest paramilitary attacks on Zapatistas

An international mobilization was held, with small protests in cities across the world, in response to a call for support by the Zapatista rebel movement in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas. According to the statement, the Zapatista base community of MoisĂ©s Gandhi is coming under renewed attack by the local paramilitary group ORCAO. In a May armed incursion at the community, a resident was struck by a bullet and gravely injured. Several families were displaced as ORCAO gunmen briefly occupied parts of the community. The statement charges: “Chiapas is on the verge of civil war, with paramilitaries and hired killers from various cartels fighting for the plaza [zone of territorial control]…with the active or passive complicity of the governments of [Chiapas governor] Rutilio EscandĂłn Cadenas and [Mexican president] AndrĂ©s Manuel LĂłpez Obrador.” (Photo: Chiapas Support Committee)

Mexico
Chimalapas

Mexico border change leaves locals ‘stateless’

The Oaxaca state congress voted to modify the border with neighboring Chiapas state, complying with a March 2022 order from Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice (SCJN). A 162,000-hectare territory of montane forest known as the Chimalapas is ostensibly to be returned to Zoque indigenous communities of Oaxaca, who have protested to demand that the state comply with the SCJN ruling. The decision came as the result of a decades-long campaign by the Zoque communities, who filed a case with the SCJN in 2012, arguing that their rightful lands had been invaded by ranchers and loggers from Chiapas with approval of that state’s government. However, the border change also impacts campesino communities that have since settled in the area from the Chiapas side. Mexico’s National Electoral Institute has stopped issuing credentials to 20,000 residents of these settlements until it is determined whether they are legally citizens of Oaxaca or Chiapas. (Map via Wikimedia Commons)

Mexico
maiz

Podcast: Mexico and the struggle for the genetic commons

In Episode 166 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses how a little-noted US-Mexico dispute on trade and agricultural policy has serious implications for the survival of the human race. Washington is preparing to file a complaint under terms of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement over Mexico’s decree banning imports of GMO corn, slated to take effect in January 2024. Concerns about the (unproven) health effects of consuming GMO foods miss the real critique—which is ecological, social and political. GMO seeds are explicitly designed as part of an “input package” intended to get farmers hooked on pesticides and petrochemical fertilizers, and protect the “intellectual property” of private corporations. Agribusiness, which can afford the “input package,” comes to dominate the market. Eased by so-called “free trade” policies, agbiz forces the peasantry off the market and ultimately off the land—a process well advanced in Mexico since NAFTA took effect in 1994, and which is related to the explosion of the narco economy and mass migration. The pending decree holds the promise of regenerating sustainable agriculture based on native seed stock. It is also a critical test case, as countries such as Kenya have recently repealed similar policies in light of the global food crisis. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image: Sin MaĂ­z No Hay PaĂ­s)

Mexico
Bad Mexicans

Podcast: Magonismo hits the mainstream

In Episode 162 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg reviews Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands by Kelly Lytle Hernández. It is definitely a very hopeful sign that a briskly selling book from a mainstream publisher not only concerns anarchists, but actually treats them with seriousness and presents them as the good guys—even heroes. The eponymous “bad Mexicans” of the sarcastic title are the Magonistas—followers of the notorious MagĂłn brothers, early progenitors of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920, who first raised a cry for the overthrow of the decades-long, ultra-oppressive dictatorship of Porfirio DĂ­az. “Bad Mexicans” was the epithet used by both Mexican and US authorities for this network of subversives who organized on both sides of the border. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Mexico
Mexico

Mexico: 140 missing in wake of Sinaloa violence

Residents of JesĂşs MarĂ­a barrio in Culiacán, capital of Mexico’s Sinaloa state, marched on the governor’s palace demanding action on the whereabouts of 140 community members they say have been missing since violence engulfed the city after the arrest of a top cartel kingpin. The youngest of the missing residents is said to be 12 years old. Protesters also denounced abuses by the military troops that have been patrolling Culiacán since the outburst, including illegal detentions and home searches. The arrest of Ovidio Guzmán LĂłpez—son of the infamous “El Chapo” Guzmán—set off days of street-fighting between cartel gunmen and the security forces. (Map: PCL)

Mexico
madres

Mothers of the disappeared march in Mexico

On Mexico’s Day of the Mother, thousands of mothers and other family members of the disappeared held a March for National Dignity in the capital, calling for action on their missing loved ones. The march, which filled the main avenues of Mexico City, was organized by a coalition of 60 regional collectives of survivors of the disappeared from around the country. In the days before the march, a group camped out at the National Palace, demanding a dialogue with President AndrĂ©s Manuel LĂłpez Obrador. (Photo via Twitter)

Mexico
nuevo laredo

Mexico: gunfire, explosions rock Nuevo Laredo

Gunfire and explosions were reported from the Mexican border town of Nuevo Laredo following the arrest of a local gang leader by federal police and army troops. Juan Gerardo Treviño, AKA “El Huevo” (The Egg), is said be leader of the Tropas del Infierno (Troops of Hell), paramilitary arm of the Cartel del Noreste (Northeast Cartel), an offshoot of the notorious Zetas. Facing charges both sides of the border, he was nonetheless turned over to US authorities, apparently because he is a US citizen. He was handed over at a border bridge in Tijuana, far to the west of Nuevo Laredo, presumably to avoid attempts to free him. In the outburst of violence that greeted his arrest in Nuevo Laredo, the city’s US consulate was hit with gunfire. Gang members also closed off streets with burning vehicles, attacked army outposts, and lobbed grenades at buildings. (Photo: social media via Laredo Morning Times)

Mexico
michoacan

Mexico: narco-massacre in militarized Michoacán

As many as 17 people were killed in a massacre in Mexico’s west-central state of Michoacán, with video of the grisly incident going viral on social media. The victims were lined up along the outer wall of a house and shot dead execution-style after armed men forced them out of a wake they were attending in the pueblo of San JosĂ© de Gracia. The perpetrators removed the bodies in trucks and took them to an unknown location. It appears to be the worst massacre in Mexico under the presidency of AndrĂ©s Manuel LĂłpez Obrador, who came to office in 2018 pledging to de-escalate violence in the country. Michoacán, where the Jalisco New Generation Cartel is fighting regional rivals, has been particularly hard hit by recent violence. Contrary to his promises to eschew military solutions, LĂłpez Obrador has responded by flooding the state with army troops. (Photo via RedMichoacán)

Mexico
Pemex

Control of oil behind Mexico-Spain tensions

Mexico’s President AndrĂ©s Manuel LĂłpez Obrador called for a “pause” in relations with Spain, in a speech that explicitly invoked the legacy of colonialism going back to the Conquest. But the speech was aimed principally at Spanish oil company Repsol, which had been favored during the presidential term of Felipe CalderĂłn. Specifically, LĂłpez Obrador questioned the granting of gas contracts in the Burgos Basin, in Mexico’s northeast. He charged that Repsol operated the fields less productively than the state company Pemex had. “In the end, less gas was extracted than Pemex extracted” before the contracts, he charged. Repsol is meanwhile under investigation by Spanish prosecutors on charges of graft related to the company’s efforts to fend off a take-over bid by Pemex. (Photo via Digital Journal)

Mexico
narco-fosa

Mexico approaches 100,000 ‘disappeared’

A year-end report by Mexico’s government registered a figure of 95,000 missing persons nationwide, with an estimated 52,000 unidentified bodies buried in mass graves. The report by the ComisiĂłn Nacional de BĂşsqueda de Personas (National Missing Persons Search Commission) found that the great majority of the disappearances have taken place since 2007, when Mexico began a military crackdown on the drug cartels. Alejandro Encinas, the assistant interior secretary for human rights, said that there are 9,400 unidentified bodies in cold-storage rooms in the country, and pledged to form a National Center for Human Identification tasked with forensic work on these remains. He admitted to a “forensic crisis that has lead to a situation where we don’t have the ability to guarantee the identification of people and return [of remains] to their families.” (Photo via openDemocracy)