Ecuador
Last Sunday general elections were held in Ecuador. While the votes are currently counted and no final result is, as of now, available comrades in Ecuador have made several actions in the weeks leading up to the elections calling for boycotting the elections and denouncing the current conditions in the country.
Workers in the health sector followed a call by the Federation of Health Workers of Pichincha on February 3 for a march leading to the Presidential House, demanding the dismissal of the minister of health, Juan Carlos Zevallos, for his role in mismanaging the pandemic, the shortages in hospitals, the lack of supplies and equipment for doctors and health workers and, above all, for embezzlement and the misuse of public goods and services. While others failed to receive vaccines they ended up in the pockets of the ministers own family and business associates.
A report on the actions of the Committee of Poor Peasants in the community of Paragachi, Pimampiro, Imbabura was published on February the 5th, detailing the struggle for the reconquest land for the peasantry. The peasants have set up defensive positions so to confront the apparatus of the old landlord-bureaucratic state who is already setting in motion his machinery of legal means and repressive threats. Furthermore, the state tries to mobilize local community leaders to try to isolate the combative peasants and their just fight.
Mexico
Last week a video of the “Democratic and People’s Youth” meeting held on January 26 was published by Mexican comrades, which had seen participations from Organizations such as the People's Youth Brigades and the Popular Student Movement. The event served to discuss developments in the People’s Wars and further put forward proletarian internationalism by putting an emphasis on the International Week of Solidarity with the Political Prisoners of Palestine.
https://youtu.be/mHrEUguqXAc
Brazil
According to reports from last week, the peasants of Camp Manoel Ribeiro were yet again confronted with intimidating gestures by the goons of the local landlords of Nossa Senhora. In order to keep the pressure on the peasants high armed bandits alongside uniformed policemen have kept on their harassment and incursions.
On the evening of January 30, inhabitants noticed a drone flying over the camp in order to spy on the people living there. In response, fireworks and stones were hurled at the surveillance device. Two days after the drone's invasion, at the dawn on February 2, shots were fired at the encampment. Two cars, one of the Environmental Police and an unmarked vehicle, were subsequently seen stationed at the access road leading to the Camp.
Information circulating in the region indicates that police in the municipality of Chupinguaia were hired by the local landlord to act as gunmen and security service, as two police vehicles are said to be escorting the trucks that transport soy for his property.
Chile
The last couple of days have seen a massive upsurge in peoples protest after the police murder of street artist Francisco Martínez. In the town of Panguipulli in the Los Rios region in southern Chile the outraged population set fore to the Carabineros barracks, the municipal as well as other public buildings. By now, the protest has already spread to other cities in the country.
http://elpueblo.cl/media/phmovilizadx_20210206_022230_0.mp4
The protests were sparked when Francisco Martínez refused to give his identity when the police harassed him while he was doing his street art in the heart of the city and subsequently was shot five times point blank. Initially the police tried to spread the lie, that they would have acted in “legitimate self-defense” as the street artist had supposedly attacked them. This story was however rebuked by the onlookers who took video footage of the incident. The mayor of the city, Rodrigo Valdivia (member of the “Socialist Party”), soon after in a press interview made clear what was at the heart of the matter: The principle question would be to maintain order and to come back to normality.
His views further outraged many who on Friday went out to protest this unjustified killing. Hence, shortly before 23h on Friday night, the fire department had to report that the local police court, post office, the drinking water company ESSAL, the Civil Registry and other public offices were burning simultaneously in the city. The BCI bank was also attacked by protesters. While the fires were blazing the police was engaged in confrontations with protesters. All public buildings in the city were burned down during the protest. Past Saturday has seen a wave of solidarity actions from other street artists. The funeral of Francisco Martínez on Sunday was participated by thousands and so were the large protests that were called for in many parts of the country on Monday.
http://elpueblo.cl/media/organica_maipu_20210205_224702_0.mp4
