The Other Journalism along with the Other Campaign have landed in the state of Baja California Sur. This weekend the Other Journalism team covered the subcomandante's meetings with locals who are being forced off their once pristine lands by large hotel chains and other real estate interests. These same interests wish to turn southern Baja California into another tourism investment pit, Cancún-style. Already the effects of this invasion by private money are evident in the environment. The Other Campaign along with the local population discussed ways in which to resist this disaster. Al Giordano reports:

"It is an environmental and human disaster of epic proportions, irreversible, irrevocable. No slow 'reform' or 'legislation' could stop this death sentence killing Baja - the fourth longest peninsula on earth - even if it were to be tried, but that is a moot point anyway since the members of the Mexican political class have rented themselves out to make the first attacks and behind them come the big money boys of international capitalism to mop it up: All of it. In every corner of the peninsula's southernmost tip the destruction is visible but the pain of those who suffer most from it is silenced.

"But on Friday and Saturday that silence turned into word. Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos - who arrived in Baja California Sur by ferry boat early Friday morning after authorities backed down from their threats to deny him a ticket - heard the testimony of those who witnessed and must live in the ruins of what happened to this Eden on Earth. By midday Saturday, with urgency in his voice, he suggested a path out of this hell in paradise..."

http://www.narconews.com

Back at the last stop on this tour, the Pacific state of Sinaloa, the Other Campaign met with members of the Union of Mothers with Disappeared Children of Sinaloa in the city of Culiacán to celebrate the lives of those lost during Mexico's dirty war during the 60s and 70s. Simon Fitzgerald was there, and today gives a full account of the meeting:

"The 'disappeared' are most often associated with the military dictatorships of Argentina and Chile. The Mexican governments of the sixties and seventies accepted exiles fleeing the murderous political repression in South America of that time, and otherwise made a great effort to appear internationally to be a tolerant regime. Within Mexico, however, the police and military were also kidnapping, torturing, and killing leftist dissidents in what came to be known as the 'dirty war.'

"Four mothers and one sister of missing youths in addition to Camacho shared details of the kidnapping and torture of their loved ones. Their graphic recollections were deeply disturbing, but allowed the members of the caravan to share - as much as possible - the pain and indignation of these women."

Read both reports in The Narco News Bulletin:

http://www.narconews.com

http://www.narconews.com/Issue43/article2173.html

From somewhere in a country called América,

Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com

Urewera Raids: 'Operation 8' Trials Begin Today

Annemarie Thorby of the October 15 Solidarity Group: Over four years ago in New Zealand, on October 15th 2007, more than 300 police carried out dawn raids on scores of houses.

That was the day more than 60 homes up and down the country were raided, 17 people arrested and the Tuhoe community of Ruatoki, a small rural town in the Te Urewera region of the Bay of Plenty was locked down... More>>