XPost: alt.activism, alt.activism.underground, alt.california   
   XPost: alt.california.illegals, alt.military, alt.military.police   
   XPost: ba.politics, ca.politics   
   From: nocapitalism@tall.kid   
      
   MEXICO CITY: From his first statements early this morning on Mexico City's   
   historic Alameda, Zapatista Insurgent Subcomandante Marcos was clearly   
   informed about - and visibly bothered by - the police riot underway in the   
   nearby city of Texcoco, where 800 heavily armed riot cops stormed the local   
   flower growers' market in the dawn's early light, leading to a violent   
   nationally televised standoff between the firearms of above and the   
   worktools of below. By the afternoon - after "Delegate Zero" traveled   
   through downtown Mexico City by foot, by subway and by motorcycle, through   
   its most working-class neighborhoods, listening to the grievances of the   
   people - he exploded in the Plaza of the Three Cultures: The Zapatistas have   
   gone on Red Alert, the Other Campaign is suspended, and Marcos is heading to   
   the scene of the crime to confront the Mexican State.   
      
   "To the death, if that's what it takes," as he said two days ago during a   
   mass meeting in front of the national palace.   
      
   And now, the Red Alert.   
      
   The first clue came at 10 a.m. During a gathering with "sexual dissidents" -   
   gays, lesbians, transvestites, "other loves" and sexual workers who have   
   adhered to the Zapatista "Other Campaign" - on the historic central park of   
   this metropolis known as La Alameda Marcos referred to the police raid   
   underway in Texcoco: "If those above think that they are going to continue   
   repressing us, they are mistaken. The Other Campaign is not just a movement   
   of words. It is also a movement of action." He announced that meeting with   
   campaign adherents in downtown Mexico slated for six o'clock would be   
   suspended to deal with the conflict underway, less than an hour from Mexico   
   City.   
      
   After all, the compañeros and compañeras in the line of fire in Texcoco were   
   the Other Campaign adherents of San Salvador Atenco, where, in 2001 and   
   2002, they chased out the federal government with machete swords and   
   defeated an international airport imposed on their farmlands. These are men   
   and women that Marcos visited on April 25 and 26 and urged to come to the   
   aid of their neighbors; to show the rest of Mexico how to stand up for, and   
   win, its rights and autonomy. This morning the men and women of Atenco went   
   to nearby Texcoco and, together with the local people, drove out the   
   invading police. The government response: to send more police, and thus what   
   the TV news called a riot (in fact, a police riot) ensued.   
      
   Later, around noon, during a meeting with workers in Mexico City's largest   
   marketplace of La Merced, after listening to the complaints of the   
   shopkeepers and others about how the governments - national, state and   
   local - are trying to destroy the Mexican market to make room for Wal-Mart   
   and similar shopping malls and supermarkets, Marcos again referred to the   
   battle underway nearby, "the attack on the small businesspeople of Texcoco,   
   because they are ugly, because they are dirty, and if we scratch the surface   
   we will find a municipal mayor that wants to put a Wal-Mart there. They know   
   that the shopkeepers there sell the better product, that is better than a   
   damn tomato that looks nice but is made of plastic like the ones sold in a   
   supermarket."   
      
   All afternoon long, as don Marcos of la Selva found himself in the deepest   
   corners of the concrete jungle of Mexico City, the country's two national TV   
   stations - the duopoly of Televisa and TV Azteca - broadcast, live, horrid   
   scenes of violence, teargas, blood and death from the market and highway of   
   Texcoco. At various points during the live broadcasts, women armed with   
   machete swords forced the TV "reporters" to stop their distortions, at one   
   point chasing a previously macho - but suddenly terrified, as he gazed at   
   the sharpened swords of the women - Televisa reporter down stairs as the   
   camera went dark.   
      
   At almost six o'clock, an hour away, the Zapatista Caravan, now at the Plaza   
   of Three Cultures in Tlalteloco, received a phone call that a young boy had   
   been assassinated by police in Texcoco. In a speech that will live in   
   history from a plaza where, on October 2, 1968, more than a thousand young   
   Mexicans were assassinated by the federal army for the crime of having   
   demonstrated peacefully against a dictatorship of a government, Marcos spoke   
   with rage and coherence. It was as if the dead themselves spoke through the   
   voice of the spokesman of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN,   
   in its Spanish initials):   
      
   "Years ago, here in the Plaza of the Three Cultures, there was a massacre.   
   The government said that the army was attacked.. Today the media, including   
   the radio, don't ask what the public security forces are doing in San   
   Salvador Atenco."   
      
   He called upon all the Other Campaign adherents to organize "blockades" of   
   highways and streets, and other actions, beginning at 8 a.m. tomorrow,   
   Thursday, May 4.   
      
   He announced that the guerrilla troops of the Zapatista Army of National   
   Liberation were now on Red Alert; that the Good Government Councils of   
   Chiapas were closed for tomorrow; that the events of the Other Campaign were   
   cancelled until this situation is resolved; and he offered, if the people of   
   San Salvador Atenco ask, to come physically to their aid tomorrow.   
      
   Nobody doubts that the people of Atenco will call him - and the rest of the   
   Other Campaign - into battle.   
      
   In the Plaza of the Three Cultures - where the dead still speak - Insurgent   
   Subcomandante Marcos called, again, for a "civil and peaceful" rebellion,   
   starting tomorrow, Wednesday, the Fourth of May.   
      
   The following day, the Fifth - El Cinco de Mayo - Mexico celebrates its   
   victory against French colonialists. (And Narco News - our reporters today   
   released from jail after two long nights behind bars in Oaxaca, but still   
   seeking justice for the crime of the Mexican State and the U.S. Embassy   
   against press freedom - now calls for a demonstration on Friday, Cinco de   
   Mayo, in New York City, at 12:30 p.m., at the Mexican Consulate in New York   
   City, 27 East 39th Street -be there and let the world media capital know   
   that Mexico is still a dictatorship ruling with violence and repression.)   
      
   Thunderclouds are clapping above the central region of Mexico tonight, and   
   from below, too. It's a Red Alert. What happens from here on out is up to   
   people like you, and maybe you, too.   
   .   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)