MEXICO: 20 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE ZAPATISTAS
On Jan. 1, 1994, the armed uprising of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) set forth an autonomous indigenous movement that remains in the spotlight
to date.

The uprising of the faces covered with masks took place in the early hours of New Year’s Day in 1994 — the same day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Mexico and Canada came into effect in the central square of San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, southern Mexico—leaving a toll of 145 dead, thousands injured and 25,000 refugees.

Far away from government proposals but closer to the autonomous education model and anti-globalization movements that
defined the uprising from the outset, the Zapatismo was followed by 20 years of global projection of Subcomandante Marcos, along with the creation of five Zapatista autonomous municipalities (called caracoles, or “snails”) and multiple confrontations with the Mexican government, which defined what the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes called “the first revolution of the 21st century.”

BRAZIL: PRISON VIOLENCE GROWS
Pedrinhas, the largest prison complex of Maranhão (northeastern Brazil), witnessed three beheadings on Tuesday. The bodies remain to be identified. The beheadings happened during a riot to demand better conditions. The inmates recorded the murders on a video of two-and-a-half minutes, which was published by the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.

Pedrinhas recorded at least 62 deaths of prisoners in clashes between rival gangs last year. According to sociologist Camila Nunes Dias, “to the extent that a State is concerned in putting people in jail but not guaranteeing minimum living conditions for prisoners, it opens the way for the formation of criminal groups.” Violence in the Brazilian prison system is common, both from prisoners and police. Overcrowding, unhealthy conditions, raping, beatings and retaliations reflect a system that fosters violence, and sets the stage for an upcoming rampant Brazilian prison crisis — rather than contributing to the resocialization and reintegration of the prisoners.

MEXICO : TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT “PEACEFULLY”
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the current president of the National Council of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), made a public call to “topple the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) and the PAN (National Action Party) with a peaceful revolution, without violence, by cleaning up corruption, to eliminate privileges and injustice
in Mexico.”

The call was made during the opening of an extraordinary council of the movement in Banderas Bay, last Friday, after Obrador recovered from a heart attack he suffered on Dec. 3. According to the former presidential candidate, “the peñista government will want to increase taxes and put the country more into debt in order to plug the hole, the hole they will leave in the public finances—” referring to the energy reform carried out by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto late last year. Without making any public statements, Peña Nieto approved a financial reform this Thursday that will consider incentives to provide credit to small and medium-sized Mexican companies.

CHILE: SALVADOR ALLENDE’S CASE IS CLOSED
The country’s Supreme Court confirmed that the former president of Chile died of suicide on Sept. 11, 1973 at the Palacio de la Moneda, and not due to a confrontation or murder.

“He sat on a couch, placed the rifle between his legs and then triggered it,” said Judge Mario Carroza. “As a result of this action, his body ended up in such a position that his head veered right leaning over the chest.”

The study clarified that there was no third party involvement in the death of Chile’s first Marxist president, who came to power in 1970 by winning the general elections. With these results, the Court finally closed the investigation into Allende’s death.