As Subcommander Marcos and other Zapatista leaders tour Mexico, their home turf in the southern state of Chiapas remains torn by ongoing low-level violent conflcts.

Last month, the Good Government Junta El Camino del Futuro, one of the regional Zapatista coordinating bodies, issued a statement warning of an escalating conflict with the rival campesino groups ORCAO and ARIC-Oficial (both linked to the PRI political machine), accusing the groups' followers of invading the lands of the Zapatista community Rosario, autonomous municipality Francisco Gomez. On Jan. 17, the invaders broke the windows of the community's church, burned the home of a Zapatista supporter, and took him hostage overnight. He was released only after being forced to sign a statement pledging to cede his lands. In a horseback raid on the 18th, the invaders attempted to steal Rosario's maize crop. (Camino del Futuro communique, Jan. 18)

This communique from the TDR-EP, one of the guerilla organizations active in the mountains of Oaxaca and Guerrero, indicates the profusion of armed campesino groups in the region—even if we can question TDR-EP's claim to command many of them. From Proceso magazine's news agency APRO, Jan. 26:

The clandestine group Democratic Revolutionary Tendency-Army of the People (TDR-EP)--a schism from the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR)--under the leadership of Comandante Arturo, issued "a truce" Jan. 1, 2006 to "ensure conditions for the favorable development of a civil and peaceful initiative of 'The Other Campaign' of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN)."

The Zapatista "Other Campaign" is making its way up the Mexican isthmus. Leaving behind the Maya realms of Chiapas and the Yucatan, in recent weeks it has passed through the states of Tabasco, Veracruz and, most recently, Oaxaca. At each stop, Subcommander Marcos—dubbed "Delegate Zero" for the tour—met with local activists and campesino leaders, addressing local issues. He and his fellow rebel leaders also visited political prisoners in all three states.

The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) served papers the week of Jan. 30 on seven US activists relating to a march and fast the group Witness Against Torture carried out in Cuba in December. The OFAC is apparently investigating to see if there was a violation of a US ban on most forms of travel to Cuba when a group of 24 US Christians marched over 60 miles to the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to protest the indefinite detention of some 500 Muslim prisoners there. The group camped and fasted for four days outside the base.

On the morning of Feb. 10, agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Puerto Rico started a series of raids on the homes of independence activists in the cities of Mayaguez, San German, Rio Piedras and Trujillo Alto. The FBI said it was carrying out an operation against the rebel Popular Boricua Army (EPB)-Macheteros, according to national police chief Pedro Toledo, who reported that the FBI didn't inform the Puerto Rican police until one hour after the raids had started. Five homes and one business were searched on the basis of 23 warrants; sociologist Liliana Laboy and longtime activist Norberto Cintron Fiallo were among the people targeted.

A very interesting piece from the Feb. 6 Christian Science Monitor, online at RethinkVenezuela. Smells like the usual "regime change" recipe, doesn't it?

Democracy's 'special forces' face heat
CARACAS, VENEZUELA -- A diplomatic row between the United States and Venezuela escalated this past week when President Hugo Chávez expelled a US naval attaché for espionage, prompting Washington to order the Venezuelan ambassador's chief of staff to leave the US.

What, us worry? From the AP, Feb. 10:

WASHINGTON -- The government concluded its "Cyber Storm" wargame Friday, its biggest-ever exercise to test how it would respond to devastating attacks over the Internet from anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers.

Bloggers?

A jazz musician and a bookstore owner? OK, could be. But this smells to us like another sleazy FBI fishing expedition in which the only "al-Qaeda" connection was the undercover federal agent. These guys may have wanted to collaborate with al-Qaeda. But is wanting to a crime? Well, Britain just convicted an Islamic cleric for thought crimes. From the Lower Hudson Valley's Journal News, Feb. 9: