A sneak preview of our upcoming film review by cultural critic Shlomo Svesnik...

MEL GIBSON'S HEART OF DARKNESS
Apocalypto Reveals More About Mel than the Maya

Here we go again.

Mel Gibson's 2004 surprise mega-hit The Passion of the Christ was all the more unlikely a success because the dialogue was entirely in Latin and Aramaic, a pretension intended to portray an air of exacting historical authenticity. Astute critics, however, pointed out that the film deviated sharply from both history and scripture. And the linguistic affectation was not even accurate: the Roman troops and administrators in Judea more often spoke Greek than Latin, and the dialect of Aramaic was wrong.

Mexican State Plays Ethnic Divide-and-Rule in the Chiapas Rainforest

by Bill Weinberg, WW4 REPORT

Dissected Nations Oppose Wall and Militarization

by Brenda Norrell, IRC Americas Program

Indigenous peoples at the Border Summit of the Americas on Tohono O'odham tribal land opposed the construction of a border wall, which will dissect indigenous communities on ancestral lands split by the U.S.-Mexico border. They also issued a strong statement against the ongoing militarization of their homelands.

During the Border Summit, held Sept. 29-Oct. 1, organized by Tohono O'odham Mike Flores and facilitated by the International Indian Treaty Council and the American Indian Movement, indigenous peoples unanimously opposed the Secure Fence Act, passed by the Senate. The wall will divide the ancestral lands of many Indian nations, including the Kumeyaay in California, Cocopah and Tohono O'odham in Arizona, and the Kickapoo in Texas. The wall is expected to be completed by May 2008.

From AP, Nov. 25:

MEXICO CITY: A violent Mexican drug gang took out a rare, half-page ad in newspapers in which they claimed to be anti-crime vigilantes who wanted to stop kidnapping, robbery and the sale of methamphetamine in the western Mexican state of Michoacan.

Zapatista Subcommander Marcos, continuing his "Other Campaign" tour of northern Mexico, arrived once again on the US border Nov. 22 when he stopped in Nuevo Laredo, Tamualipas, a border town which has been torn by narco-fueled violence in recent months. Marcos drew attention to the ongiong social crisis on the border which has been overshadowed by media reports of spectacular violence, meeting with shanty-dwellers who work in the maquiladoras but are squatting lands near the town garbage dump, with no legal title to their homes or access to running water or other services. (La Jornada, Nov. 23 via Chiapas95)

Thousands of supporters of Andres Manual Lopez Obrador again filled Mexico City's central plaza, the zocalo, Nov. 20 to witness his swearing in as Mexico's parallel "legitimate president," with a cabinet of 12 mostly drawn from his former administration as the capital's mayor. (AP, Nov. 20) "It is an honor to be the legitimate president of Mexico and above all the leader of free men and women like you," López Obrador told the crowd after leftist senator and human-rights activist Rosario Ibarra de Piedra placed a red-white-and-green "presidential sash" over his shoulder. (LAT, Nov. 21)

From El Universal, Nov. 19:

At least three of 10 lawyers being held hostage by inmates were killed Saturday after police raided the prison in the state of Michoacán to rescue them, media reported.

Two dead and one injured are reported in an ambush Nov. 14 at the community of La Conchuda in the municipality of San Agustín Loxicha, in the southern mountains of Oaxaca, known as a bastion of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR). The victims, Faustino Sebastián Valencia and Jesús Valencia, father and son, and Lorenzo Jiménez, were ambushed by masked men with automatic rifles while walking on a mountain road. Faustino and Jesús Valencia were killed instantly, while the third remains hospitalized. All three were prominant local supporters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Juan Sosa Maldonado, Loxicha regional leader of the Organization of Indigenous Zapotec Pueblos (OPIZ), a member organization of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO), called the growing violence in the Sierra del Sur a "grave issue." (ADN Sureste, Nov. 17)