Wednesday, November 12, 2014

San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico



We're in the land of the Zapatistas - San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.  This is a beautiful, old colonial town that we visited in 2012-13 to attend 4 days of anti-systemic, anti-capitalist seminars.  
We have the privilege of doing so again for the Zapatista World Festival of Resistance, the ones we attend will be Fiesta of Rebellion and Anticapitalist Resistance in Oventic where we'll be studying Spanish from Nov 17 - 28 and the final ceremonies in San Cristobal.

More importantly, protesters in Mexico are calling for the resignation of President Pena Nieto over the police kidnapping and supposed drug cartel killing and burning of 43 students from a teachers college in the Mexican state of Guerrero in September.  Newspapers are filled with news of the protesters shutting down roads into the Acapulco airport (closing the airport) and other major highways, and setting government buildings on fire.  There are at least 16 police officers that have been injured.  Many of the protesters do not really believe that the students are dead, and all over town are posters of the men with the slogan, “Vivos se los llevaron, vivos los queremos", or “Alive they were taken, alive we want them”.  Jose Luis Abarca, mayor of the city of Iguala, and his wife Maria de los Angeles Pineda Villa were detained last week by Federal police. They are accused of ordering the September 26 attacks on the students.
 


More pictures