International

Hacen 137 años desde que se fundó el primer gobierno de las clases trabajadoras – la Comuna de París del 1871. Al tomar el poder los trabajadores franceses dijeron, “Los proletarios de París, en medio de los fracasos y traiciones de las clases dominantes, se han dado cuenta de que ha llegado la hora de salvar la situación tomando control de los asuntos públicos”.

Colombian troops attacked inside Ecuador on March 1, destroying a camp occupied by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Ecuadorian soldiers later found 23 bodies, including those of five Mexican young people visiting the site. The dead included FARC leader and negotiator Raul Reyes.

The killing of Raul Reyes, a leading spokesperson for the Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia (FARC), and 19 other FARC insurgents by Colombian armed forces in Ecuador March 1 came as hopes for peace in Colombia were rising. The FARC had recently released six hostages.

After showing its strength with a march of 25,000 teachers and their supporters Feb. 17, the Puerto Rico Federation of Teachers (FMPR) has been able to make progress toward a new labor agreement, averting for the moment a nationwide work stoppage that had been threatened for Feb. 19.

Top labor leaders ended a trip to Colombia Feb. 13 by telling that country’s president, Alvaro Uribe, American unions will not support the U.S.–Colombia Free Trade Agreement until the killing of union members by right-wing death squads there is put to a stop.

The online activism group MoveOn.org has launched an “Iraq/Recession” campaign, aiming to “make sure that politicians and pundits understand what voters already know: As long as we keep pouring that money down the drain in Iraq, we won’t have the money we need to solve our economic woes.”

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, at the annual International Security Conference in Munich stepped up pressure on Germany to send more troops to Afghanistan and commit them to active fighting not only in the currently more peaceful north but in the battle-ridden south as well. US troops are in short supply

A la hora de cierre de este número de Nuestro Mundo la situación en Puerto Rico se encuentra tensa con la expectativa que los profesores del sistema de instrucción público se pueden ir a la huelga en cualquier momento y la administración colonial del gobernador Aníbal Acevedo se prepara para el paro con fuerza militar y policiaca.

CHICAGO — Josué, 14, Juan, 11 and Paloma, 9, live with their grandmother in a small rural town in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. They have not seen their mother, Flor Crisostomo, 28, since she crossed the Arizona desert in June 2000, to find work in the U.S. so she could support them.

A 60-year sentence handed down Jan. 28 to Ricardo Palmera, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), by a U.S. judge demonstrates abuse of the terrorist designation.