Atenco Struggle Documentary

Mourners carry body of young student Alexis Benhumea killed by the Mexican police. Photo: D.R. Erwin Slim

Synopsis (from the Canal 6 de Julio website):

This video analyzes the events in San Salvador Atenco, Mexico during the first days of May, 2006 and denounces the violation of the civilian population’s human rights by state and federal police forces. The documentary deconstructs the mass media’s operating methods, which were responsible for creating a climate of fear and an information blockade on the events in San Salvador Atenco, in the midst of an especially delicate situation: the 2006 presidential elections in Mexico.

NOTE: While an English-language version has not yet been released (but will be posted here as well as soon as it becomes available), the images in this 47-minute documentary speak for themselves. Much of the violence in Atenco was captured by television cameras, but few outside of Mexico have seen this footage. The filmmakers present not only the in-the-street shots of police savagely beating “anything that moved,” but also clips of the commercial news anchors flagrantly calling out for more repression of the popular movement from the state. Combined with Canal 6 de Julio and Promedios’ own work investigating the scene in Atenco and interviewing many of the townspeople, this is a powerful document of a turning point in Mexican history.

WARNING: Some segments of this film are exceedingly violent.

Download video here.

The Venezuelan Economy Takes Off

In Venezuela, Oil Sows Emancipation
by Luciano Wexell Severo
Originally published in Rebelion on 12 March 2006

The data just released by the Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV) confirm that the Venezuelan economy grew at a cumulative 10.2 percent between the fourth quarter of 2004 and the fourth quarter of 2005. This is the ninth consecutive increase since the last quarter of 2003. Overall, in 2005, the gross domestic product (GDP) grew at 9.3 percent.

Just like in the previous eight quarters, the strong increase was fundamentally driven by activities not related to oil: civil construction (28.3 percent), domestic trade (19.9 percent), transportation (10.6 percent), and manufacturing (8.5 percent). The oil sector had an increase of only 2.7 percent. According to a report by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE), the unemployment rate in December 2005 was 8.9 percent, two percentage points below the rate in the same period of 2004. In absolute terms, this means 266,000 additional jobs. Last year, the inflation rate reached 14.4 percent, but that was below the 19.2 percent rate in 2004. The nominal interest rate went down to 14.8 percent.