[Peace] AWARE NOTES 8/18/02

[Rob Scott]

AWARE NOTES 8/18/02

There were 25 people in attendance at this meeting (!)

Veronica ("Ronnie") Kann  presented on Mexico post-9/11:
     Presidents Vincente Fox and GWB were negotiating to loosen barriers
to Mexican immigrants when 9/11 happened. Of course immigrants have not
been popular w/ GWB since 9/11 so actually the US-Mexican border has
gotten tighter. Illegal immigration in down an estimated 26% since
9/11. Also, more money is being spent on keeping them out than before
9/11, although they obviously fuel our economy with cheap labor.
     Mexican press (relatively independent compared to ours) said "it's
the US's turn!" after 9/11/01. The Mexican press didn't support the death
of 5,000 civilians, but rather kept in mind how many innocent Mexicans
have died due to U.S. policy.
     Mexico has become the home of the middle-person in the drug trade
from Columbia to USA. USA gives tons of money to Mexico and Columbia to
fight a "War on Drugs" but the US doesn't pay much attention to how the
money is spent. Mexico has followed the trend of other US allies: they
have labelled political opponents "terrorists" and used US support to
carry out massacres and assasinations against them.
     Southern Mexico is less developed and big (US based) multinationals
have flocked to the Northern border area since GATT and NAFTA were
passed. Counterinsurgency efforts by Mexico City have sent more
subversives to the Southern states of Mexico. The population of Chiapas is
60% indigenous (Mexico is 12% indigenous as a whole). On Jan. 1 1994 the
Zapatistas in Chiapas rose up to reject NAFTA (amongst other
things)... since then Mexico has started to use "War on
Drugs" money/weapons/training to supress the Zapatistas.
     Vincente Fox broke into the 1-party system by making big promises
about changing Mexico, but little has changed. 40% of the military is
still in Chiapas, assasinations of leftists continue, Fox himself is
trying to extend NAFTA-like conditions through Central America.
     You can contact v-kann at uiuc.edu for more info/webpages/&c.

Mark Enslin performed a quick puppet show about past Presidential slogans.

Carl Estabrook did News of the Week.

What happened this week:
Rob Scott: I saw a billboard on Rte. 294 outside Chicago saying "End the
Israeli Occupation of Palestine" with USA and Palestine flags and the
webpage www.adc.org/ and that cheered me up.
[a woman]: A professor named Whitlock (who said Muslims are evil last
year) was going to be teaching World Religion at Parkland, but he has been
replaced by a woman professor who should be better.
Peter Miller: That's because we did direct action against Whitlock.
Jennifer: most of the people in the room sent postcards to the White House
and Congress urging no war against Iraq. You can still do this, here are
some postcards, send them to: George W Bush, The White House, 1600
Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington DC 20500

Upcoming events:
-Kim Kranich will have a demo near her house next Friday 5:30-7:00 on the
South side of Hessel Park during the pre-Bear's game time period. There
will be an email about this.
-We plan on distributing AWARE materials at Quad Day 8/27 (a week from
Tuesday!), either through the Campus Green's table with Carl Estabrook, or
via the Student Peace Action group.
-There will be a Carl for Congress table at the Sweetcorn Festival -- it
should have AWARE materials on it.
-moveon.org is organizing to have congresspeople meet with their anti-war
constituents on 8/28; we'll send someone.
-Tim Johnson will have an open township meeting at the Civic Center on
8/28; there's no set agenda, we should go!

Working Groups update:
-The Media Group will be producing 1000+ invitations to the AWARE
meetings, in addition to pamphlets on Israel-Palestine, Civil Liberities
rollbacks, Iraq and more -- look for them at Quad Day 8/27 (a week from
Tuesday!)
-The Teach-In will feature Ahmed Bensouda, Jeff Guntzel from Voices in the
Wilderness, and an actor who recently returned from Palestine who will
perform an original piece. There will be food and childcare provided.
-The Direct Action group continues to organize the 9/11/02 event. There
will be a one-time "art&revolution" session this Saturday (8/24) 4-8pm at
the School for Designing a Society to make signs and booths for the
action. The plan is still to march from the Quad to the FBI building in
Champaign at 1pm on 9/11/02.

Dave Green will be facilitating the next meeting instead of Marina
Manetti.