The same depressing story that we've heard from Bosnia to Baghdad now reaches us from Kenya. From the New York Times, Feb. 15, "Signs in Kenya of a Land Redrawn by Ethnicity ":

Kenya used to be considered one of the most promising countries in Africa. Now it is in the throes of ethnically segregating itself. Ever since a deeply flawed election in December kicked off a wave of ethnic and political violence, hundreds of thousands of people have been violently driven from their homes and many are now resettling in ethnically homogenous zones.

On Feb. 11, ski-masked gunmen stopped a bus on the road between San Cristobal de Las Casas and Ocosingo in the conflicted southern Mexican state of Chiapas, threatening passengers and robbing them of cameras, cell phones, ID documents and other possessions. The assault comes days after local Zapatista supporters were illegally detained by members of the OPDDIC paramilitary group, who accused them of being bandits. (La Jornada, Feb. 12) That same day, seven OPDDIC militants, including leaders Carlos Moreno Hernández and Pedro Chulín Jiménez, were freed from prison on the orders of a federal judge, who issued an amparo protecting them from arrest or prosecution. (La Jornada, Feb. 12)

Danish newspapers this week reprinted the notorious cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb for a turban, a day after three people were arrested for allegedly plotting to kill the artist who drew it, Kurt Westergaard, a 73-year-old illustrator with the daily Jyllands-Posten. Several other newspapers, including Politiken, Berlingske Tidende and the Ekstra Bladet tabloid, also decided to run the picture, in an act of defiance to intimidation. At least three newspapers in Sweden, Holland and Spain also reprinted the cartoon. "We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech that we as a newspaper will always defend," Copenhagen's Berlingske Tidende said. "Regardless of whether Jyllands-Posten at the time used freedom of speech unwisely and with damaging consequences, the paper deserves unconditional solidarity when it is threatened with terror."

Mindanao anarchists

In Davao City, on the conflicted Philippine island of Mindanao, a group of nonviolent anarchists known as the "As A Whole" Collective have for the past two years been feeding homeless youth and the elderly as a local Food Not Bombs chapter, as well as holding rallies against corporate exploitation, and were part of a successful activist campaign that resulted in a complete ban of aerial pesticide spraying on banana plantations. The group has now established a space called Saydee's Kitchen, from which they are offering free meals twice a week, feeding up to 100 youth and elderly. While local markets are donating food, Saydee's Kitchen is requesting donations of stoves, large cooking pans and kitchen utensils, or money to purchase these items.

Lorenzo Fernández Ortega, a 38-year-old bricklayer and member of the Organization of the Indigenous Mepha'a People (OPIM), was stabbed to death Feb. 10 in Ayutla de los Libres, a village in the conflicted Mexican state of Guerrro. The group had been protesting a campaign of forced sterilizations of indigenous women in the region, and charged that the federal army is establishing paramilitary groups which have carried out recent attacks on indigenous activists. OPIM's statement on the murder said, "our compañero Lorenzo was assassinated by paramilitaries that work for the 48th Infantry Battalion of the Mexican Army, headquartered at Cruz Grande." (OPIM statement via Zapateando; La Jornada, Feb. 12)

Anti-draft protest, Medellín

Under the slogan "Servicio Militar: Y Mi Vida, Que?" (Military Service: What About My Life?), the Colombian anti-war group Red Juvenil (Youth Network) held a rally attended by thousands of of young people at Medellín's Atanasio Girardot stadium Feb. 12. The rally was held partly to celebrate the Jan. 26 release of Carlos Andrés Giraldo Hincapié, a conscientious objector from Yondó, Antioquia department, from forced military service. Giraldo Hincapié was press-ganged into the army at the village of La Soledad in August 2006 and taken to Casabe Military Base, in what Red Juvenil calls a violation of his freedom of conscience. (Red Juvenil, Feb. 13; War Resisters International, July 18, 2007)

Just two weeks after saying he hoped oil prices would "stabilize" at under $100 a barrel, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez this week threatened to send them soaring to $200 a barrel in response to his growing dispute with Exxon. Chávez called Exxon's threat to freeze the assets of Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA part of Washington's "economic war" against his government, and vowed that Venezuela would not be intimidated. "They will never rob us again, those bandits of ExxonMobil, they are imperialist bandits, white collar criminals, corruptors of governments, over-throwers of governments, who supported the invasion and bombing of Iraq and continue supporting the genocide in Iraq," he said on his weekly TV show "Aló Presidente" Feb. 11.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Iraq Feb. 10 just before the first anniversary of the troop "surge." Gates said in Baghdad that he supports a pause in troop draw-downs from Iraq after about 30,000 soldiers have been sent home by July. His comment that the security situation in Baghdad remained "fragile," was emphasized by two car bombings that left 19 people dead. "I think that the notion of a brief period of consolidation and evaluation probably does make sense," he told reporters after a two-hour meeting with the US commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus. The 157,000-strong US force is officially on track to come down from 19 brigades to 15 by July, a reduction of at least 20,000 troops plus another 7,000 to 10,000 members of support units. (AFP, Feb. 12)