On Oct. 19,
a prominent Mexican human rights attorney was found shot to
death in her office in Mexico City.
Digna Ochoa y Placido
, winner of Amnesty International's Enduring Spirit Award, was widely
recognized for defending two jailed peasant farmers,
Rodolfo Montiel
and Teodoro Cabrera, who protested logging by local political bosses and were
imprisoned in May 1999 on questionable
gun and drug charges
. However, the Mexico City daily
La Jornada
on 11/8 reported that they may actually be released "in a matter of hours." Their release was later confirmed Friday in the
NY Times.
Among organizations that signed a
letter of condemnation
, with demands for an investigation, included
Amnesty International
,
Global Exchange
, the Fray Francisco de Vitoria Human Rights Center, the
Social Communication Center (Cencos)
, and
Christians for the Abolition of Torture
.
Communiqué on the Assassination by Subcomandante Marcos.
In
Nicaragua's presidental election
, the US's favoured
candidate, Enrique Bolanos of
the ruling Liberal party, defeated the
Sandinista
leader Daniel Ortega, who came to power in the 1979 revolution and led
throughout the 1980s. The Sandinistas are named after
Augusto Cesar Sandino
, a Nicaraguan who led a guerilla war from 1927-33 against invading US Marines.
The US waged a decade long war against the Sandinistas by backing the Contra rebels, killing 50,000 people and destroying
the economy.
Nicaragua
is still among the poorest countries
in the Western Hemisphere.
Now similarly with
Plan Colombia
, the US confirmed it's going to
expand its war on terrorism
and provide Colombia with further aid to fight guerrillas
that are on America's terrorist list.
Yesterday Carlos Geovanny Blanco Leguzamo was shot dead during an
anti-war protest in Bogota
.
Police deny responsibility for the shooting
but witnesses confirm the shot came from behind police lines. Police
remained on campus the whole afternoon and by nightfall students were camping
in the university and preparing protests for Thursday.
Update 11/9: two more students killed
.
More information:
[
The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
|
Schools for Chiapas
|
AMERICAS.ORG
|
Narco News
|
Year 501
by Noam Chomsky
|
Eduardo Galeano
|
A Zapatista Reading List
from The Nation
|
En Español:
IMC-Chiapas
|
IMC-Colombia
|
EZLN
|
La Jornada
|
PROCESO
|
Revista Cambio
]
