Feature Archives

In Oaxaca, Mexico, 24 EZLN (Ejercito Zapatista para la Liberación Nacional) representatives have left their jungle stronghold in Chiapas, undertaking a journey to Mexico City to pressure the government into adopting legislation which will protect the rights of the nation's eleven million indigenous people. A caravan of international supporters is traveling with the Zapatistas to express solidarity and discourage potential violence by the Mexican military. Read the speech given in Oaxaca on Feb 26. Read about the history of the legislation and the San Andres Accords 1, 2. Zapatista backers are calling for international demonstrations in solidarity with the EZLN. Audio report from Willy Underbaggage, a Lakota man from Pine Ridge, SD, who is working closely with the EZLN and other indigenous groups in Mexico and the US. Read More  Meanwhile, police brutalized protesters in Cancun at the latest World Economic Forum on February 26-27.  chiapas.indymedia.org

Nov: Bolivia's US-backed President Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga sent 4,000 troops into the Chapare region to forcibly eradicate coca. The Bolivian press discovered 500 illegal (para)military troops among the force and documented that they are funded by the US to terrorize peasant farmers and social activists. When nine farmers were killed, US Ambassador Manuel Rocha praised the bloodshed, in the Spanish-language press, as "heroic" and "sacrificial." Farmers of the Chapare announced plans to blockade the nation's highways in protest of the military invasion and were soon joined by other social movements, including 250,000 retirees. As the US embassy continues its behind-the-scenes pressure on Bolivia, Bush welcomed Quiroga to Washington on 12/6 to inaugurate coca as "terrorism's twin brother" and reaffirm the "zero coca" campaign; needless to say a gas pipeline is also in the works. Narconews reports that a union leader was assassinated in Bolivia at same the hour as the meeting. Attacks on trade unionists and MP | Death squads target landless peasants and cocaleros

"It's not about one or another dark figure in the halls of power; it's about a ‘click’, of something that broke very deep inside and is not going to be cured with one or two resignations, or with an election." - from 12/29 Argentina IMC Report 

1/4: New president Eduardo Duhalde, of the left-leaning Peronist party, has chosen a cabinet comprised of business leaders and his own party members. He promises to bring Argentina out of the economic abyss it finds itself in at the moment (AP article).

Argentinian's fierce protests, of government corruption and strict banking measures, have catalyzed a movement for a government that protects the interests of its people rather than the greed of a few. Protesters want real change, and they are dedicated to struggling for it. Read more: articles + photos + audio + video | Argentina IMC

Read about violent repressions and detentions against popular movements in Ecuador.

"Although the unspeakable bureaucracy has in no way varied in its chauvinist and conciliatory positions, a push from the working masses has forced union leaders to join the radicalizing fight of that class, which is liberating itself in Bolivia." - 2/6 report from Indymedia Bolivia

2/11: In the 2/9 pre-dawn negotiations with coca growers' leader Evo Morales, the embattled Bolivian government, facing a national crisis resulting from the blockades, cancelled Supreme Decree # 96415. This move relegalized the sale of coca leaf in the Chapare region and reopened the Sacaba Coca Market and the coca farmers' independent media outlet. Signed by the government officials, Evo Morales, indigenous leader Felipe Quispe, and labor leader Oscar Olivera, this agreement calls for a ninety day truce between the government and coca farmers. Details

Mass mobilizations of workers, coca farmers (cocaleros), college students, small debtors, teachers, and the unemployed have erupted in Bolivia. The epicenter of this uprising is in Cochabamba, where demonstrations exploded after the expulsion from Parliament of Evo Morales, a cocalero union leader. Protestors are demanding the abolition of the Bolivian Parliament and the formation of a Popular Assembly to take its place. As the struggle for the liberation of the Bolivian people intensified last week, police shot and killed one protester. Read more
Juventudes Rebeldes (es) + photos | Días de Furia (es)| Bolivia & the brutality of the "War on Drugs" (en) | Narconews | Financial Times article

3/2: Plan Colombia's purpose is defending the operations of Occidental, British Petroleum and Texas Petroleum and securing control of future Colombian fields. The main interest of the United States is oil. -Stan Goff, a former U.S. Special Forces intelligence sergeant, retired in 1996 from the unit that trains Colombian anti-narcotics battalions.
Predictably, US policy is generally interested in one thing: securing economic and political hegemony throughout the western hemisphere and the world. The government's strategy is quite consistent, as evidenced by Plan Colombia, in its effort to eradicate guerrillas fighting the Colombian government. The capitalist struggle in Colombia is essentially about one thing, i.e. oil, and eradicating anyone that gets in the way of unfettered domination by the US and its client states.

U.S. Out of Colombia.org | IMC Colombia (es)| FARC (en) | Chomsky on Plan Colombia | Colombia Action Network | Colombia Support Network | ZNet's Colombia Watch | U'wa Defense Working Group | | Human Rights Watch

3/18: A mobilization is underway in Quito, Ecuador to protest two of the largest neo-liberal programs in the western hemisphere -- Plan Colombia and the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. From 3/14-20, people from more than 20 countries are converging for the International Permanent Camp for Social Justice and the Dignity of People. Organizers say the objective of the camp is to show the correlation between US championed free trade agreements like FTAA and Plan Columbia style military intervention. Protests and direct actions occured over the weekend at the US military base in Manta, which is a central point for Plan Colombia, and in Lago Agrio, where the oleoducto de crudos pesados oil pipeline is located. The camp also includes educational forums, workshops on building sustainable alternatives, networking between campesinas, indigenous, and international activists, and will conclude with a major demonstration in Quito on 3/19. Indymedia Colombia's coverage of the Camp | International Camp Website | Campesinos del Ecuador

More information on Plan Colombia- the massive military operation designed to secure US oil access, and further capitalist economic and political hegemony in the region: US Out of Colombia.org | IMC Colombia (es)| FARC (en) | Chomsky on Plan Colombia | Colombia Action Network | Colombia Support Network | ZNet's Colombia Watch | U'wa Defense Working Group | | Human Rights Watch

4/17: After a failed "change of government" attempt, as dubbed and cheered on by both the US and Venezuelan governments/corporate media, Hugo Chavez has regained the presidency in the oil-rich country South American country after a huge, popular uprising. In what is rightly being called a "coup" by the rest of the world, the three days of social unrest were called for and basically predicted by intellectuals and government lackeys.

Full reports & analysis: IMC Argentina | IMC Barcelona | IMC Brasil | Rebelion.org | Narconews