LASC Zapatista Meeting

dublin | anti-capitalism | event notice Monday June 19, 2006 11:43 by Martha

Zapatista Meeting in LASC to continue with the discussionof "the other campaign" and to see the posibilities to re establish a zapatista solidarity group in Dublin.
This Tuesday 20th of June
@ 7:30 in LASC/ 5 Merrion row

At down on the morning of the 3rd and 4th of May, several thousand heavily armed Mexican police effected a military – style occupation of the town of San Salvador Atenco, close to Mexico City. They terrorised the neighbourhood, dragging people from the streets and from their beds in apparently random fashion. A 14 year old boy was killed by a plastic bullet and another young student has since died from bullet wounds fired from a pistol.
Over 250 people were taken into custody illegally - there being no arrest warrants in existence – where extreme beatings, rapes and sexual abuse occurred. Most of these have since been released but some 27 people remain in prison.
Atenco is a poor area which has attracted national attention because of its successful opposition to large-scale evictions intended to clear the way for an airport, and their current participation in the movement for participatory democracy “The other Campaign” which has called for the building of democracy from below.
Now Oaxaca, another state of Mexico is experiencing the most horrendous repression and violence by the mexican police where teachers were on a strike broadcasting from the camp in the main square of the town of oaxaca. Still unknown number of people killed or injured.

The other campaign
The Other Campaign is not just another kind of political campaign it is literally a campaign of others, “the others”. It is much more of an anti-electoral campaign, the Other Campaign vs. Politics as Usual.
This campaign is made up of diverse groups of Mexico’s dispossessed – from neighbourhood groups to indigenous peoples, housewives, gays and lesbians, young and old. It has focussed its energy on exposing the corruption and chicanery of political parties campaigning for the Mexican presidency.
Instead of running candidates, the Other Campaign calls for the enactment of a new national constitution that would bar privatization of public resources and other neo-liberal outrages, and insure indigenous autonomy for Mexico's 57 distinct Indian peoples.

Zapatista Meeting in LASC .
This tuesday 20th of June
@ 7:30 in LASC/ 5 Merrion row