A group of students from Oaxaca’s autonomous State University allied with the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) occupied Radio Universidad—the University radio station—on April 30. The students said it was a limited take-over to last until 8 PM, May 2. As of 4:45 Oaxaca time on that day, Internet connections for Radio Universidad were down. It was not apparent why. Nor was it known if the station was broadcasting or being jammed.

The Section 22 teachers union in Oaxaca called its one-day work stoppage and direct action campaign a "success" to press demands for a resolution to the crisis in the conflicted southern Mexican state. At least 48 state government offices were blockaded, including four municipal palaces (Oaxaca City, Tlaxiaco, Nochixtlán, Juxtlahuaca and Huajuapam). A group of local workers from the national social security institute, ISSSTE, blocked highways at various points around Oaxaca. (APRO, May 2) Section 7 teachers went on strike in solidarity and blocked roads in Chiapas state. (APRO, May 4) Meanwhile, the Federal Institute of Access to Information (IFAI), in response to a petition by the civil coalition APPO, ordered the Federal Preventative Police to release all records concerning the repression in Oaxaca last October, including the names of those who were in command. (La Jornada, May 3)

One year after the confrontations between inhabitants and Mexico state police at the village of San Salvador Atenco, 174 of the 204 originally detained still face charges, mostly of "attack on the means of communication" (road blocks), and 25 on charges of "kidnapping" (detaining police agents accused of rights violations). None have been sentenced. 28 remain behind bars at the top-security prisons of Altiplano, Santiaguito and Molino de Flores. Another three are fugitives, including América del Valle, daughter the director of the People's Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT), Ignacio del Valle. (El Universal, May 3) Amnesty International marked the anniversary by releasing a statement protesting the lack of progress in probes of rights abuses by the state and federal police, saying that impunity remained "rampant." (El Universal, May 3)

by Mandeep Dhillon, Upside Down World

On April 23 in Arizona, Cochise County Attorney Ed Rheinheimer filed a felony complaint against US Border Patrol agent Nicholas Corbett, charging him with four counts of homicide: first- and second-degree murder, manslaughter and negligent homicide. On Jan. 12, Corbett shot to death Francisco Javier Dominguez Rivera from the southern Mexican state of Puebla, about 150 yards north of the border between Bisbee and Douglas. The shooting occurred while Corbett was trying to apprehend Dominguez and three others who had entered the country without permission.

A group of Mexican writers, intellectuals and artists have issued an open letter to Gov. Patricio Patrón Laviada of Yucatan state demanding the release of 22 people still being held in Mérida after being arrested at the March 13 protests against the visit of George Bush to the colonial city. Signed by Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Carlos Monsiváis and others, the letter charges that the 22, as well as 26 others already released, were subject to "torture, ill-treatment, incommunicado detention and denial of the right to adequate legal defense." (La Jornada, April 26)

The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba), based in the Highlands of Mexico's conflicted southern Chiapas state, has issued a new report charging that 13 years after an armed uprising in the state, the roots of the conflict still prevail. The report, "Armed Conflict and its Actors in 2006," finds a resurgence of paramilitary activity, especially attacks on Zapatista communities and attempts to evict them from their lands. The Zapatistas have observed a truce since shortly after their New Years Day 1994 rebellion. Noting that the Zapatistas have concentrated over the past year on an unarmed civil initiative, the "Other Campaign," the report protests that "Military...actions have intensified against...social protest and...organizations that have opted for the construction of a civil and pacific national movement." The report finds that a de facto "state of exception" has persisted in Chiapas despite federal administrations in Mexico City coming and going.

The Mexican senate has passed a package of reforms to Article 139 of the Federal Penal Code modeled on anti-terrorist legislation in the United States—above the objections of the left-opposition PRD, PT and Convergence, whose legislators assailed the changes as "criminalizing social protest." Under the changes, any act of violence aimed at influencing government policy is classified as terrorism, with a penatly of six to 40 years in prison. (La Jornada, April 27)