A message from WW4 REPORT editor Bill Weinberg:

As you read this, I am flying to Japan at the invitation of the National Assembly for Peace & Democracy (Zenko) to attend a second conference in solidarity with Iraq's civil resistance, and especially the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC). Our readers will know that the IFC is a coalition of trade unions, women's organizations and neighborhood assemblies which have come together around two demands: an end to the occupation, and a secular state. Despite the best of my efforts to excite stateside interest in this civil resistance struggle, WW4 REPORT is one of the few sources of information in English on the IFC.

Some 1,700 indigenous people participated in a July 23-27 caravan to Bogota from Santander de Quilichao in the southwestern Colombian department of Cauca to demand peace, to call for popular unity and to oppose a "free trade" agreement (TLC, from its initials in Spanish) that the government of President Alvaro Uribe has signed with the US. Organized by the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), the caravan included 25 buses with representatives of the Nasas, Coconucos, Totoroes, Siapidaras, Eperaras, Pastos, Embera Katios and Yanaconas. Security was provided by 300 guards armed only with traditional "rods of authority." There were also four doctors, six nurses, a number of traditional doctors and three ambulances to handle any health problems along the way.

Irene Khan, general secretary of the UK-based human rights organization Amnesty International (AI), is scheduled to visit Mexico July 30-Aug. 5 for what AI calls a "high-level working visit" to address its concerns about human rights violations in Mexico. The group's concerns include reports of sexual assaults on women prisoners by police agents during the repression of demonstrations in San Salvador Atenco, Mexico state in May 2006; the government's failure to solve the murders of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, over the last 15 years; and the repression of anti-globalization protesters in Guadalajara, Jalisco, in May 2004.

In the early morning of July 28 people thought to be members of the rebel Revolutionary Popular Army (EPR) assaulted a site in Chiapa de Corzo, in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas, where a federal prison is being built. No injuries were reported in the incident, during which an unknown number of attackers captured the three guards at the site and locked them in a guard booth. The attackers then shot up the site and painted slogans on the walls. Municipal police arrived when they heard the shooting; they found about 40 used cartridges on the scene.

Early on July 15, a man waved down agents from the Border Patrol's Tucson sector patrolling near Arizona highway 289 and told them his brother was sick and convulsing. Agents found the man nearby, unresponsive; they called paramedics, but the man was pronounced dead before he could be airlifted to a medical center. He was identified as Omar Lopez Mendiola of Iztapalapa, Mexico. Early on July 16, Border Patrol agents working on the Tohono O'odham Reservation found a dead woman lying on the side of the road. Identification on the body indicated she was an 18-year-old from the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. The body was to be transported to the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office. (Arizona Daily Star, July 17)

From July 16 to 20, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 274 immigrants in the area of Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas. Those arrested included 233 men, 28 women and 13 children, said ICE spokesperson Carl Rusnok. Of the 274, 99 had criminal convictions. Most of the arrests happened at homes. ICE did not say how many of those arrested were being sought, but did confirm that "some" of those taken into custody were simply discovered in the raided homes and were unable to prove they were here legally. "Many of these individuals are in the wrong place at the wrong time, many live together," said Nuria T. Prendes, field office director for ICE's Office of Detention and Removal Operations. Police in Dallas, Irving, Fort Worth, Arlington, Farmers Branch, Carrollton and Blue Mound, along with the Dallas County constable, helped agents in the operation, according to an ICE statement.

Our July issue featured the stories "No Green Zone for Ethnic Minorities in Iraq" by Bill Weinberg, arguing that the ethnic and sectarian warfare is approaching a "genocidal threshold"; "Israel & Palestine: One State or Two?," excerpts from the debate between Israeli peace activists Ilan Pappé and Uri Avnery; and "Free Speech in Venezuela: Whither the RCTV Shut-Down?," an analysis of the controversy by the Caracas anarchist group El Libertario. Our July Exit Poll was: "Is it genocide in Iraq yet? Who is responsible? What can help?" Extra Credit: "Israel and Palestine: One state or two?" Extra Extra Credit: "The RCTV shut-down in Venezuela: righteous blow against the empire or draconian crackdown on free speech?" We received the following response:

Media revealed this week that at a high-level meeting in Riyadh in January, Saudi officials confronted then-US Iraq envoy Zalmay Khalilzad with incriminating documents on Iraq's prime minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki. One purported to be an early alert from al-Maliki to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, warning him to lie low during a US troop surge. Another document purported to offer proof that Maliki was an Iranian agent. Khalilzad immediately protested to King Abdullah, contending that the documents were forged. Earlier this month, in an oblique reference to Saudi Arabia, Khalilzad charged in a New York Times op-ed: "Several of Iraq's neighbors—not only Syria and Iran but also some friends of the United States —are pursuing destabilizing policies." (NYT, July 27; The Scotsman, July 29) It seems the Saudis are following through on their longtime threats to arm the Sunni insurgents in Iraq. Nonetheless, on July 28, the Times reported that the US is preparing a major arms deal with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states worth $20 billion over the next decade, including missile guidance systems, fighter jets and warships. (NYT, BBC, July 28)