Mexico Week In Review: 05.24-05.30

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 05.24-05.30
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Published since 1994, 'Mexico Week In Review' is a service of the
Committee of Indigenous Solidarity (CIS).  CIS is a Washington, D.C.
based activist group committed to the ongoing struggles of Indigenous
peoples in the Americas.  CIS is actively supporting the struggles
of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico while simultaneously combating
related structures of oppression within our own communities.

To request free searches of our news archive or to contact us
directly, write: cisdc at zzapp.org

"Para Todos, Todo; Para Nosotros Nada"
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BANKS BOMBED IN ACT AGAINST GOVERNMENT WIRE SERVICES

Explosions heavily damaged the front of three banks at midnight on
Saturday (05/22) in an industrial area of Jiutepec, about 35 miles
(55 kms) outside Mexico City, authorities said. The three explosions
in front of the deserted bank branches also shattered the windows of
adjacent stores, but caused no injuries, Jiutepec officials said.
Police recovered undetonated explosives outside another bank,
Jiutepec Police chief Ruben Andrade said. The explosions took place
outside branches of Banamex, BBVA-Bancomer and Santander Serfin.
Explosives left outside a HSBC bank did not go off.

Authorities found a note near the explosion sites signed by a group
calling itself the Comando Jaramillista Morelense 23 de Mayo in
tribute to the peasant leader Ruben Jaramillo, who was murdered along
with his family by state forces May 23, 1962. Jaramillo was a Mexican
peasant leader in Morelos state, birthplace of Emiliano Zapata.
Released by authorities, the note lashes out at President Vicente Fox
and "neoliberal counter-reforms," while calling for the departure of
the governor. Morelos Gov. Sergio Estrada, of Fox's National Action
Party, has come under pressure from opposition legislators to resign
amid a federal investigation into ties between state officials and a
major drug trafficking organization.

"Foxism has demonstrated that under imperialistic hegemony, moral and
political degradation have no limits," the statement read, without
mention of the explosions. "May no honest force be surprised before
this cry of protest that is the only option left to us."  "It
surprises us ... that they think that nobody, absolutely nobody in
these lands, the lands of Zapata and Jaramillo, will raise their
voice to say enough to so much corruption, shamelessness and
repression," the group said in the communiqué. Estrada appeared at a
news conference Sunday afternoon to condemn the "criminal acts" and
called on "Morales society, political parties, the legislature and
judiciary to construct a common front against violence." The governor
released no further information and refused questions.

Investigators from the federal attorney general's office collected
evidence on Sunday from the explosion sites in this town on the
outskirts of the state capital, Cuernavaca. The investigators
deactivated the HSBC bank bomb, which state officials described as a
15-centimeter long "sausage" filled with dynamite. Andrade said the
bombs were placed outside the banks in such a way that the
perpetrators were apparently attempting to avoid being filmed by
video cameras installed around the ATMs inside the banks.

The four banks involved in the incident all have been targets of
foreign acquisitions since Fox took office in 2000.  The purchase of
Banamex by financial services giant Citigroup in 2001 continues to
anger many Mexicans who complain that the previous owners profited
from a bank bailout following the 1995 peso crisis.  At the time of
the Banamex sale, several members of a small leftist group were
arrested in connection with bombs placed at Mexico City Banamex
branches. No one was injured in those explosions. More recently,
Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria announced a buyout of
BBVABancomer, Mexico's largest financial services company.

Sources: El Universal: 05/24; Reuters: 05/23
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CIUDAD JUAREZ FEMICIDE I: ANOTHER BODY FOUND

The corpse of a young woman was found in Ciudad Juarez, not far from
the area where scores of other bodies of murdered women have been
found over the past decade. The state attorney general's said the
victim was about 25 and the body had been covered with a white cloth
when investigators arrived at the site in a ravine cutting through a
poor neighborhood. Officials refused to describe the condition of the
body, which was taken to the local morgue. She had not yet been
identified.

"It's terrible, the girl's shoes were next to the body; she was
strangled and half naked, which are characteristic signs," said
Esther Chávez, a leading figure in the local women's movement that
has grown up in response to the murders, which began in 1993. Ms
Chávez was the first person to draw attention to the serial killings
that now attract veteran campaigners such as Jane Fonda, and feature
in Amnesty International's current year of action against violence
against women.

A Juarez police spokesman, Mauro Conde, said the latest corpse was
recovered early Monday (05/24) in a ravine cutting through a working
class district, but that the victim had been murdered elsewhere. His
assertion that there was no sign of rape was greeted with skepticism
by Ms Chávez, who insisted that the local authorities had frequently
sought to keep the list of serial victims from growing.

Mexican authorities say more than 250 women have been slain since
1993 in Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Activists and
NGOs put the number at over 350. Nearly 100 of the killings were
similar, with the victims sexually assaulted, strangled and dumped in
the desert. Almost none of the cases that appear to be related have
been solved.

Last month, a federal judge ordered the arrest of six men accused of
killing Rebeca Contreras, a 23-year-old mother of three, who had been
strangled and raped. Her body had been found last month in an area
west of the city where three young women who had been raped and
killed were found in February 2003.

Sources: Associated Press: 05/24; The Guardian: 05/25
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CIUDAD JUAREZ FEMICIDE II: RIGHTS OFFICIAL BLASTS PROGRESS ON MURDERS

The Mexican government has botched its investigation into the murders
of hundreds of women in a northern Mexico city, and the killings
continue, the nation's rights ombudsman said. More than 300 women and
girls have been strangled, battered and stabbed to death since 1993
in Ciudad Juarez, an industrial town on the border with El Paso,
Texas, but few have been prosecuted for the murders.

Seven women aged between 23 and 35 have been killed so far this year,
and the latest victim was found just two days ago, Mexico's rights
ombudsman Jose Luis Soberanes said. Speaking before a special
congressional committee overseeing the cases, Soberanes assailed the
work of local authorities and a federal commissioner named last
October to oversee the probe.  "The inefficiency, irresponsibility
and negligence of local authorities is a scandal," he said, adding
that his requests for reports and information from Chihuahua state
and municipal officials had been ignored. Noting the murder toll for
2004 despite the appointment of lawyer and rights defender Guadalupe
Morfin as special commissioner, Soberanes asked, "Where is the
prevention?"

President Vicente Fox created Morfin's post last October, under
pressure from international outrage over the mostly unsolved
killings. Legislators at the hearing defended Morfin's record, saying
she had been given too few resources.  "Women continue to die in
Juarez. ... Everything that is being done continues to be
insufficient. We all have to take our role more seriously," said
Soberanes.

The Chihuahua state government counts more than 330 women murdered by
serial killers, drug gangs, boyfriends or husbands. Amnesty
International says the tally is more than 400. Amnesty in its global
2003 rights report said "there is still a long road ahead before
women in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua are assured justice and
security."

Source: Reuters: 05/26
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IMMIGRATION NEWS: THREE MORE MIGRANTS DIE WHILE CROSSING

A 32-year-old woman from the Mexican state of Veracruz died on May 14
after being left behind by smugglers in the desert near Columbus in
New Mexico's Luna County. Her name was not released pending
notification of next of kin. The US Border Patrol said her death was
the first recorded this year in the Border Patrol's El Paso sector,
which includes New Mexico. Two alleged smugglers were arrested in
connection with the death. One of them apparently returned to the
area where the woman was left and told a rancher about her; the
rancher then called the Border Patrol, which found the woman in
"severe medical distress." She died en route to the hospital in
Deming. Border Patrol Agent Ramiro Cordero said two heat-related
deaths occurred in the El Paso sector during the fiscal year which
ended Sept. 30, 2003. Simon Chandler, a member of the Coalicion Pro
Migrante in El Paso, Texas, said there could be an increase in
migrants coming through the El Paso sector because of tougher
enforcement along the border in Arizona.

Migrants crossing illegally into Arizona are dying at nearly three
times the rate of last year. The bodies of 61 migrants were found in
the Border Patrol's Tucson sector between Oct. 1 and May 1, according
to reports from the Mexican government. For the same period last
year, there were 21 known deaths. The Border Patrol, which does not
keep track of bodies found by other agencies, counted 29 dead since
last Oct. 1 in the Tucson sector. (By May 20 the number had hit 36.)
During the same time, apprehensions in the sector jumped 60% to
277,000, said Rob Griffin, Border Patrol spokesperson for the Tucson
sector. The agency is responding with two drone planes, four more
helicopters and 290 more agents as part of the $10 million Arizona
Border Control Initiative, which is to be fully implemented by June 1
and will last throughout the summer.

The bodies of two unidentified suspected migrants believed to have
died crossing the border were found May 22 and 24 near Arivaca in
Pima County, Arizona. Using information compiled from the medical
examiners' offices in Arizona's Pima and Cochise counties and the
Mexican consulates in Tucson, Nogales and Douglas, the Arizona Daily
Star has tallied 84 known deaths on the Arizona-Mexico border since
the start of the federal fiscal year last Oct. 1. The Border Patrol
recorded 51 deaths over the same period; this includes skeletal
remains but does not include bodies found by other agencies.

Source: Immigration News Briefs: 05/23; 05/29
====

PROTESTERS DISRUPT INTERNATIONAL SUMMIT

There have been violent clashes in Mexico, where more than 90
demonstrators have been arrested during fights with police after a
summit of European Union and Latin American leaders. French President
Jacques Chirac was forced to cancel a planned news conference because
of the disturbances in Guadalajara. Despite the huge security
operation put in place to protect the conference delegates, terrified
passers by were caught up in the aggression.

Dozens of civilians along with a number of police were injured. Banks
and shops across the city have been looted. Debris is now strewn
across the streets. Many arrests have been made. Authorities claim
that a violent student movement was behind the anarchy. At the end of
a high-profile summit attended by 58 world leaders, this is a real
embarrassment for Mexico, stated the BBC.

The summit reached only limited agreement on trade reform, with the
EU giving a guarded welcome to a proposal by the G20 - a group of
developing states led by India, South Africa and Brazil - for
agricultural tariff cuts. On foreign policy, however, the 58 leaders
united to urge the US to seek greater UN involvement in Iraq and
"express abhorrence at recent evidence of the mistreatment of
prisoners in Iraqi prisons".

Source: BBC World Service: 05/28
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CUBA AND MEXICO MAKE DIPLOMATIC AMENDS

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque described his meeting with
his Mexican counterpart Luis Ernesto Derbez as both respectful and
frank, and announced their decision to restore normal diplomatic
relations.  In a statement made at the press center of the 3rd Latin
America, Caribbean and European Union (EU-LAC) Summit in Guadalajara,
Perez Roque said he and Derbez agreed on the importance of restoring
Cuba-Mexico relations to their historical level.  Perez Roque added
that both countries ambassadors will return shortly to their
embassies in Havana and Mexico City and that the Mexican foreign
minister is willing to travel to Cuba in the near future. The Cuban
foreign minister expressed his hope that both countries are on the
path to resolving their bilateral dispute.

Source: Prensa Latina, SA.: 05/27
====

CHILDREN OF 'DIRTY WAR' UNLOCK PAINFUL PAST

Aleida Gallangos was 2 years old when she was rescued from the midst
of a gun battle and raised under a new identity, her past locked away
for nearly three decades until it was unsealed by a poem. Her parents
and uncle, suspected leftist rebels, were snatched by Mexican federal
agents after the shootout with police in June 1975 and never seen
again. Her 4-year-old brother, Lucio Antonio, was hit by a bullet,
taken by police to an orphanage and eventually adopted by strangers.
The little girl was whisked away by a family friend. He took her to
his sister in law, saying only that she had been named for a poem by
Latin American revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara and that her parents
were dead. The friend was shot to death a year later, and the only
link to Gallangos' biological family was buried with him.

Now 31, soft-spoken and determined, she is among survivors piecing
together their personal histories -- and in some cases their broken
families -- as Mexico investigates its "dirty war" against dissidents
of the 1970s and '80s.  Here and elsewhere in Latin America, old
crimes are visited upon families anew as "dirty war" children
discover the truth about their violent pasts or go in search of lost
relatives.  "The consequences of the dirty war had such magnitude
that today we still see lives affected, subjected to damage," said
special prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo, named to investigate past
repression in Mexico. "Repercussions from the dirty war reach second,
even third generations."

Gallangos believes she has found her missing brother, the closest
bond she has to parents whose faces she cannot remember and who are
likely dead. "Not a day passes when I don't imagine it and think this
could be the day we see each other," she said. But the couple who
raised the boy known as Tony, now 33 and living in the United States,
are afraid to tell him about his long-lost family. They have kept
Gallangos from reaching him.  "Now the life they're destroying is
ours," said Tony's adoptive father, who did want to be identified in
an effort to protect his family.  Gallangos suspects her brother is
haunted by echoes of his origins, as she was most of her life.  "Tony
must carry it inside him, he must remember something," she said. "I
want to know my brother. And it's time he also knew the truth."

Aleida Gallangos was born to a leftist militant and his schoolteacher
wife, idealists inspired by Che Guevara.  As the Cold War raged,
dictatorships in Chile and Argentina crushed political resistance. On
a smaller scale, Mexico's long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary
Party, or PRI, was waging its own campaign against leftists.
Gallangos' parents are among 532 cases of forced disappearances from
that era documented by Mexico's rights ombudsman, though activists
estimate the number at double that. A handful of children like her
brother are listed as missing.  In 1975 the family blew apart in a
Mexico City shootout between rebels and police. Records show
Gallangos' parents were held by secret police that summer. Then the
thread dissolves.  Aleida Gallangos was rescued and raised as Luz
Elba Gorostiola. But her adoptive mother had a key to the past -- she
knew the source of the name Aleida. She kept it secret, hoping one
day it would reveal the child's true family. In fact, Gallangos'
paternal grandmother spent years frantically searching for her kin --
the two sons, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren who disappeared
in 1975.

Then in 2000 President Vicente Fox ousted the PRI from power in
elections, pledging to unearth and punish past state crimes, and
survivors saw new hope of finding lost loved ones.   A year later a
national magazine published a feature on the missing Gallangos family
members. The people who raised Gallangos saw it, and the two families
met.  Her adoptive mother asked about the name, and she heard the
right answer. Aleida Gallangos took back her identity.  Today
Gallangos works in a factory on the U.S. border and studies
industrial engineering, consumed by the quest to reunite her family.
She worries that her 82-year-old grandmother may not live to see her
grandson again.  "My grandmother has suffered the great pain of
losing two sons, her grandchildren and her daughter-in-law," she
said. "We don't want to take Tony's love away; we only want to see
him." With prosecutors' help, Gallangos searched hospital and
orphanage records for clues to her brother's fate.  In February she
found the file of a boy who came to an orphanage in June 1975, who
called himself Tony and whose photo looked just like her father's.
Officials believe he is Lucio Antonio, based on analysis of
photographs and other data. A DNA test would confirm it, making him
the first dirty war victim to be found.  The revelation shocked the
family that adopted him. They fear the truth will hurt and estrange
him after so many years.  "I think I've put him on a good path," said
his 64-year-old adoptive father. "Let him go on with his life."
Gallangos is driven to know her brother and through him, come closer
to her own blood.  She says he has the right to know the truth and
"have the privilege of knowing who our parents were and what they
struggled for. Although I have no memory of them, that is the
greatest thing they taught me.  "Now I feel stronger about looking
for them," she said. "Knowing my brother exists makes me so much
stronger."

Source: Reuters: 05/27

end: Mexico Week In Review: 05.24-05.30
--