Internecine violence in the militant campesino movement escalates in Las Cañadas, the canyonlands on the edge of the Lacandon Selva, the Chiapas rainforest which is the primary support base of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). From the Mexican news agency APRO, June 13, via Chiapas95 (our translation):

A new conflict between the Zapatista support bases and campesino organizations is growing in Las Cañadas of the Lacandon Selva.

In the community of El Carrizal, munipality of Ocosingo, a confrontation between indigenous Zapatistas and followers of the Emiliano Zapata Campesino Organization-Casa del Pueblo (OCEZ-CdP), accused of having relations with the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), has reached the point of residents being threatened with firearms and having their crops destroyed.

In a pre-dawn raid yesterday, Oaxaca state police with helicopters, tear gas and firearms evicted several thousand striking school teachers from the plantón, or ongoing protest encampment, they had been maintaining for two weeks in Oaxaca City's central plaza. Witnesses said police fired and the crowd, and local radio reports claim two dead. Two police officers were being held hostage by teachers, state officials said. (Reuters, June 14) Mexico City leaders of the National Coordinating Body of Educational Workers (CNTE) also claimed two teachers had been killed in the attack, and six "disappeared." (El Universal, June 15) Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz denied in an official TV and radio address that any teachers had been killed. (Notimex, June 14) Police also destroyed the equipment of Radio Plantón, a micro-station that has been continuously transmitting from the plaza. (Indymedia Mexico, June 14)

The Think Progress blog notes this disturbing confluence of news stories:

The New York Times reports [June 11] that the Bush administration is making plans to keep tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely:

Mr. Bush on Friday made clear that the American commitment to the country will be long-term. Officials say the administration has begun to look at the costs of maintaining a force of roughly 50,000 troops there for years to come, roughly the size of the American presence maintained in the Philippines and Korea for decades after those conflicts.

Yesterday's multiple coordinated suicide attacks in Kirkuk, leaving over 20 dead, seemed intended not only to demonstrate that the "insurgency" (a rather too flattering word) is still alive despite the killing of al-Zarqawi, but also to advance the late jihad leader's aim of pushing Iraq into sectarian civil war. Kirkuk is simmering with ethnic tensions, with Arab, Kurdish and Turkoman residents (who had been cynically played off against each other under the Saddam dictatorship) vying for turf and political power. (See WW4 REPORT #48). Thus far, however, the city remains one of the more peaceful in Iraq, in part due to the ethnic-reconciliation and solidarity-building efforts of the Iraq Freedom Congress. (See WW4 REPORT #119). The Kirkuk attacks ostensibly targeted official buildings and police patrols, but the reckless and indistriminate "collatoral damage" seems clearly aimed at a general atmosphere of terror. From the UK Guardian:

Zapatista Subcommander Marcos joined actress Ofelia Medina and other celebrities at a public meeting of activists and artists in the Mexico City district of Coyoacan June 12 to demand that the World Cup not obscure the struggle to demand justice for those detained in the Mexico State police assault at the village of San Salvador Atenco May 4 and 5. A joint statement noted that a government attack on the Chiapas village of Techabaquebal during the last World Cup, killing seven Zapatistas, failed to attract media attention. "The football Mundial is used as a cover for crime," read a statement. (La Jornada, June 12)

First from CBS, June 13, via Chiapas95:

LOS ANGELES Dozens of people have been arrested for allegedly violating a court order and obstructing sheriff's deputies from evicting farmers and supporters from a 14-acre urban garden near downtown Los Angeles.

Another brick in the wall. From AP, June 9:

WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court sided with the Bush administration Friday on an electronic surveillance issue, making it easier to tap into Internet phone calls and broadband transmissions.

The court ruled 2-1 in favor of the Federal Communications Commission, which says equipment using the new technologies must be able to accommodate police wiretaps under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, known as CALEA.

More uneasy deja vu from Lebanon. The sons of the Syria-backed President Emile Lahoud and the bitterly anti-Syria Druze leader Walid Jumblatt get into a shoot-out in Beirut—just as their fathers opposed each other in the civil war. From Lebanon's Daily Star, June 5:

BEIRUT: Following in their father's footsteps, Ralph Lahoud and Najib Jumblatt clashed on Saturday in a shooting incident that damaged Jumblatt's car. Newspapers reported on Sunday that shots were fired by President Emile Lahoud's younger son's bodyguards at the car of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt's stepson in the bustling street of Ain Mreisseh.