Giordano: Vote Recount;
Davies: Victims of Oaxaca Dirty War; Salazar:
Other Campaign Crossing Borders
August 9, 2006
Please Distribute Widely
Don't miss the latest commentary from Nancy Davies in Oaxaca, where the revolutionary, teacher-led social movement
continues to fight against government repression and for popular control of the state. Davies writes:
"On Monday morning a red alert was broadcast. Both the teachers' station, Radio Plantón using 96.8 FM, and the students'
station Radio Universidad 1400 AM went on the air to broadcast the alarm.
"The previous night, August 6, about 300 Federal Preventative Police (PFP) arrived in Oaxaca. Monday at 10:00 AM an
attack by about thirty police who arrived in five pickup cars, some in civilian clothes and some wearing ski masks, took
place in the Colonia Reforma neighborhood, where APPO people were blocking the office of the Department of Finance.
"Radio Universidad reported as shots were fired and tear gas was used. After the APPO people fought back with stones and
sticks the police were repelled, leaving several APPO members injured by blows but only one woman by gunfire, in the
leg. This woman may have been hit by the Coordinator of Public Security, Aristeo López Martinez, the Oaxaca head of
special police operations, who was using an AR-15 rifle, according to La Jornada. The newspaper reported that when the
APPO men gave chase, López Martinez began to shoot for the body, not in the air. The pursuers hit the ground, and all
the police escaped, López Martinez on a black BMW motorcycle.
"The wounded woman later went to the radio station to speak, so I assume she was not badly hurt. In the attack three
municipal policemen were wounded in the head by stones and a teacher was injured on his spine by a sharp blow.
"It is not legal for police to be dressed in plain clothes, nor for them to be arriving in private cars, nor for them to
attack a peaceful civil protest.
"And that was just the morning."
See Narco News' special page on Oaxaca for the full story:
Also new in the Narco News Bulletin this week, journalist Wes Enzinna reports from Bolivia on the ongoing land reform
being enacted by the Evo Morales administration. Enzinna writes:
"The reform officially began on May 2 of this year with the issuing of seven decrees. As Evo explained to the crowd on
August 2, 'the goal of this agrarian revolution is to break up oligarchic land holdings and distribute and redistribute
land to those who need it.' This sentiment is legally codified in the first of the May 2 decrees. This decree (28733)
states that the goal of reform is 'the distribution of lands exclusively to peasants and indigenous communities without
land or who possess insufficient lands.'
"There are approximately 2.5 million farmers currently in Bolivia who meet these criteria, out of a population of 8
million. On the other extreme, it is estimated that 400 individuals own 70 percent of the nation's productive
properties.
"Since May 2, Morales has used the decrees-which also, among other things, prioritize land ownership for peasant women
and outline the process by which lands may be expropriated-as a legal springboard from which to alter Bolivia's
lop-sided ratio of land ownership. To date, 3.8 million hectares (9 million acres) of land have been given to sixty
indigenous communities, and 2.2 million hectares (5.5 million acres) have been recovered by the State in preparation for
the re-distribution process. Over the next five years, the administration promises to award 20 million hectares (49
million acres), a fifth of the nation's total land area, to land-starved farmers."
Read the full story online, here:
Also, don't forget to keep watching the Narco News front page for the latest news and links on Mexico's post-electoral
crisis and the massive popular rejection of the official voting results.
From somewhere in a country called América,
Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin