Zapatista Subcommander Marcos, continuing his "Other Campaign" tour of northern Mexico, arrived once again on the US border Nov. 22 when he stopped in Nuevo Laredo, Tamualipas, a border town which has been torn by narco-fueled violence in recent months. Marcos drew attention to the ongiong social crisis on the border which has been overshadowed by media reports of spectacular violence, meeting with shanty-dwellers who work in the maquiladoras but are squatting lands near the town garbage dump, with no legal title to their homes or access to running water or other services. (La Jornada, Nov. 23 via Chiapas95)

He next moved on to Matamoros, where he met with an group of prostitues organized in the National Network of Sex Workers, who complained of violence and exploitation by the authorities. (Hoy Tamualipas, Nov. 24)

In a meeting with fishermen on Matamoros' Playa Bagdad, Marcos invoked the struggle in Oaxaca and openly called for revolt againt Matamoros Mayor Baltazar Hinojosa Ochoa and Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernández Flores, both of the same Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that rules in Oaxaca. "Here in Tamaulipas there are also PRIista governments, and this is dangerous; therefore, we trust the governor and the mayor of Matamoros are going to fall." (El Mañana, Matamoros, Nov. 24)

See our last posts on Mexico, the Zapatistas and Oaxaca, the Other Campaign and the struggle for the border.