By KRISTIN BRICKER - July 3, 2008

The existence of a training led by a US defense contractor to teach Mexican police torture tactics in order to combat organized crime...is particularly disturbing considering the US government's recent approval of the $1.6 billion Plan Mexico...Plan Mexico is an aid package specifically designed to support President Felipe Calderón's deadly battle against organized crime. It will fund more US training for Mexican police and military, in addition to providing them with riot gear...Plan Mexico allows funds for the deployment of up to fifty US defense contractors to Mexico.

The Zapatista uprising began 15 years ago under the banner of democracy, justice, and liberty. Over the course of those 15 years, indigenous and peasant communities have upheld their struggle despite the government’s counterinsurgency agenda.

What does war smell like? How much pain does its odour cause? Half a year has passed since close to fifty humanists from various countries met in the University of the Land in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas. They responded to a call of the Sixth Commission of the EZLN. When the colloquium was at the point of ending Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos spoke to say: “Those of us who have been at war know how to recognize the paths through which it is prepared and nears us. The signals of war in the horizon are clear. War, like fear, also has an odour. And now we begin to breathe its fetid odour in our lands” (December 16, 2007).

SIDE NOTE: Naomi Klein was present at the International Colloquium mentioned in this article.

¿A qué huele la guerra? ¿Cuánto duele su olor?

What does war smell like? How much pain does its odour cause?

By Tom Sandborn

Mexicans seeking work were tricked, detained, and deported.

A desperate journey in search of work and a better future in Canada turned into an expensive, dead end nightmare for 80 Mexican citizens.

By Tom Barry - June 16 2008

What began as a war on terrorists has become a war on immigrants. The Department of Homeland Security says that it prioritizes its immigration enforcement actions by "targeting the greatest national security and public safety threats"—an approach not taken prior to 9/11...Faced with failure, the Bush administration's stated resolve to dismantle international terrorism has devolved into an attack on a far more vulnerable and proximate target—Latin American immigrants.

Despite a setback, the North American Union SuperCorridor remains viable.

Zapatistas and the War on Drugs
In the context of Plan Mexico, the US government’s material support for Mexican president Felipe Calderón’s deadly war on drugs which has already claimed over 4,100 lives, it’s worth taking a look at where all that new military hardware will go in the south. Despite having never caught a Zapatista [...]

Desde la insurrección de enero de 1994 los distintos gobiernos federales han querido asociar al EZLN con el narcotráfico. Nunca han podido demostrarlo, pero de cuando en cuando lo intentan.
Apenas el pasado 4 de junio el gastado guión volvió a repetirse. Sólo que ahora la amenaza es mayor que en el pasado. En esa fecha [...]

Madrid, 11 de junio. El protocolo estipulado para las visitas de Estado en España sigue siempre el mismo guión que, en el caso de Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, se alteró ligeramente para reforzar las medidas de seguridad en torno a la figura presidencial, sobre todo en las inmediaciones del Congreso de los Diputados. El temor: que [...]

[T]he radical Oaxacan section of the Latin American education workers' union Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores en la Educación (SNTE), has finally signed deals with both the SNTE hierarchy and Oaxacan local government.

The SNTE executive bowed to the Oaxacan local's demands of new union elections within the state this coming September, a core demand of the strike in the context of the national union leadership's breaking of the 2006 strike in Oaxaca in the midst of a statewide revolt.

"Comrades of the Other Campaign in Mexico and other countries, we ask you to be on the alert because the soldiers said they’ll be back in two weeks. We don’t want war. We want peace with justice and dignity. But we have no other choice than to defend ourselves, resist them, and eject them when they come looking for a confrontation with us in the towns of the Zapatista support bases...All we can tell you is to look and see where the provocation is coming from. We’re now informing you of what’s going on, hopefully in time."

By John Gibler - Znet

This past Wednesday, June 4, a military convoy of about 200 Mexican soldiers and federal and municipal police attempted to enter Zapatista villages under the pretext of searching for marijuana plants; something patently absurd in communities that have maintained a self-imposed "dry law," prohibiting all drugs and all forms of alcohol throughout Zapatista territories for nearly fifteen years.