Los Angeles Indymedia : Activist News

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 ]

Unionists in South Korea, farm and factory workers in India, labourers in Iran and activists in Bolivia joined thousands of people around the world by taking to the streets November 9th to protest the Qatar WTO meetings, globalization, and the root of the problem: capitalism. Reportage from Bangkhok, Bolivia, New Delhi , Manila, Washington D.C. , Berlin , London , Ottawa, NYC and many others.


[ WTO Declares Kyoto Protocol Illegal | Netsrike Virtual Sit In | USA Strategy Summit | No New Round Radio | Research Foundation for Science,Technology and Ecology | Labor Notes | Arundhati Roy Interview | Naomi Klein: Doha's Kamikaze Capitalists | Greg Palast: WTO Hidden Agenda ]


[ Infoshop N9 WTO Reports | WTO-QATAR FEATURE PAGE | radio.indymedia.org ]