Los Angeles: 800 people come to support the Zapatistas, engage in direct action.

by

Shawn Ewald and Lyn Gerry
for the A-Infos News Service

At 3:30 PM this evening, approximately 800 people arrived at the Westwood Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles to show their support for the indigenous struggle in Chiapas, to express their outrage at the December 22nd massacre and the looming threat of attack that the Mexican Army is wilfully presenting, and to highlight the U.S. Government's role in the low-intensity war that is being waged against the indigenous Maya people.

The event began with speeches from Crystal Echohawk of the National Coalition for Democracy in Mexico, Zach De La Rocha from the rock/rap group Rage Against The Machine, Michael Novick of People Against Racist Terror/Crack the CIA Coalition, and Blaise Von Payne from the Office of the Americas.

After the speeches, at approximately 5PM, the protestors proceeded to begin what everyone thought would be a march, but which ended up being a seemingly spontaneous display of direct action. As the protestors began to march off the Federal Building campus to cross the street on Wilshire Blvd., the group of protestors split into two groups which encircled the intersection of Wilshire and Veteran, blocking all traffic at that intersection at the height of rush hour.

Almost immediately, a group of traditional Aztec dancers, who were scheduled to perform later on in the demonstration entered the now empty center of the intersection and began to perform, this was followed by a street theater performance, again in the middle of the intersection.

The performance consisted of An actor dressed as a clown representing President Clinton and another portraying Zedillo as a hit man who gets paid by clinton to gun down several other actors portraying indigenous Mayan people.

After the street theater, the Aztec dancing resumed, and the intersection of Wilshire and Veteran (one of the busiest intersections in downtown Los Angeles) remained occupied for over an hour, backing up traffic for at least two miles in all directions.

The police arrived early in the occupation but did not attempt to harass the protestors; they instead left almost as quickly as they came and finally had a DPW worker lock the traffic lights on red on all sides of the intersection for the duration of the occupation. The occupation commenced peacefully, protesters voluntarily directed traffic to help stranded motorists turn around, the police did nothing to alleviate or warn motorists of the traffic backup.

After the street occupation the protestors returned to the Federal Building campus for a short speech by Crystal Echohawk of the National Coalition for Democracy in Mexico. She reminded everyone that "our work is not over, this is just beginning," and she asked that everyone demand that their congressperson vote to end U.S. funding for the phony drug war in Mexico. She also asked that everyone work to make the U.S. Government accountable for the bloodshed that has been caused in Mexico, which it is directly responsible for.

The final word was given to Zach De La Rocha of Rage Against The Machine. He called for the creation of "organizations of liberation" in Los Angeles and other cities across the U.S. to combat the low-intesity war being conducted against indigenous people and people of color right here in the United States.

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