From cisdc at zzapp.org Sun Apr 9 17:52:31 2006 From: cisdc at zzapp.org (cisdc) Date: Sun Apr 9 17:57:06 2006 Subject: Mexico Week In Review: 04.03-04.09 Message-ID: Mexico Week In Review: 04.03-04.09 ================================================================= 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@zzapp.org "Para Todos, Todo; Para Nosotros Nada" ================================================================= Note: There will not be a publication next week. -- .ed IMMIGRATION NEWS: MEXICO STILL WANTS "THE WHOLE ENCHILADA" A bipartisan immigration reform agreement reached by the U.S. Senate Thursday (04/06), which would offer a path to citizenship for as many as seven million undocumented immigrants while creating a guest worker program, met with mixed reactions in Mexico. Although the agreement, which must now be reconciled with an earlier bill approved by the lower house of Congress, is not the comprehensive reform that the Mexican government had hoped for, it comes fairly close. In December, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would build new fences along the border with Mexico, toughen immigration controls, and make it a federal crime to offer services or assistance to illegal immigrants. Democratic and Republican leaders reported that under the compromise agreement reached by the Senate Thursday, only those who have lived in the United States for at least five years would be allowed to stay, and would be able to apply for citizenship if they met certain requirements, such as speaking English, paying a fine and back taxes, and passing a criminal background record check. Those who have been in the United States between two and five years would have to return to their home country briefly, but would then be allowed to re-enter as temporary workers and could apply for citizenship. Immigrants in the country for less than two years would be deported. Mexicans account for a large proportion of the between 10 and 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, which is home to a total of around 28 million people of Mexican birth or descent. "The Senate agreement might not mean a thing, because it still has to go to the lower house, where it could sink," Katarina Rodr?guez, with the Human Rights Coalition/Indigenous Alliance Without Borders, told IPS by telephone from Arizona. But Karina Arias, coordinator for liaison and promotion in the Mexican non-governmental organization Sin Fronteras (Without Borders), said the agreement does indeed represent an advance, and may very well end up being approved by Congress. Nevertheless, she added that it would not provide a full solution to the migration problem. "What we are hoping for is that the Mexican government will continue to insist on an integral agreement that does not only include the legalization of undocumented immigrants, but also addresses the issues of labor rights, border problems, and the development of regions in Mexico that 'expel' migrants," she commented to IPS. The agreement hammered out in the U.S. Senate was described as a partial advance by former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Casta?eda. By contrast, he has labeled the comprehensive immigration reform sought by the government of Vicente Fox since 2001 as the "whole enchilada", a U.S. slang term that refers to a typical Mexican dish. But despite its limitations, the new proposal represents the most far-reaching reform of U.S. immigration law in recent years, said Casta?eda, who headed up the Mexican Foreign Ministry from late 2000 to January 2003. The last major overhaul, which extended an amnesty to undocumented immigrants in the United States, was signed in 1986 by then president Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), after five years of debate in Congress. The Fox administration, meanwhile, sees the agreement as an important step forward. A Mexican Foreign Ministry statement said the initiative is moving in the direction of creating new mechanisms that would provide for orderly, safe migration flows in which human rights are respected. The communiqu? added that the government would closely follow the progress of the bill through the U.S. Congress. However, the new proposal still has a long way to go. Some sort of compromise will have to be reached with the much more punitive bill passed by the House of Representatives, and any final bill will have to be signed into law by President George W. Bush. Some observers believe that since a consensus has now been reached between the Democratic and Republican parties in the Senate, there is a good chance of final approval for the Senate initiative. "But there's also a chance that everything could remain the way it is now, with no migration agreement, and that would be disappointing," said Rodr?guez. The current immigration reform debate is taking place in the midst of massive rallies, unlike any ever seen, organized by immigrants rights groups in several U.S. cities. The protesters have taken to the streets with signs and banners demanding the recognition of the basic rights of all immigrants, whether in the country legally or illegally. Many of the demonstrators are of Mexican origin. In 2005, an estimated 400,000 migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean made it into the United States without visas, despite the strict border control measures in place, but roughly one million were intercepted and deported in the attempt. Source: IPS: 04/06 ==== FARMERS VOW TO FIGHT DAM PROJECT Hundreds of machete-wielding farmers opposed to a hydroelectric dam project briefly seized a pumping plant, cutting off much of the water supply to Acapulco just days before tourists flock to the Pacific resort for their Easter vacations. The protesters ended a two-day blockade of water from the Papagayo River that had threatened to plunge the city of 1 million into a crisis. They vowed, however, to continue fighting government plans for the $1 billion dam on the waterway. "We wanted the people of Acapulco to see what it's like to go without water for two days, three days or more," said protest leader Marco Suastegui, referring to the water shortages that protesters fear will dry up their farms and fisheries if the dam is built. Authorities say the dam is needed to supply already water-starved Acapulco for the next 50 years. Protesters maintain the project will benefit only tourist resorts. Officials fear such radical opposition movements are gathering strength throughout Mexico, and could block infrastructure projects for decades to come. Water shortages resulting from the protest were reported among the 80,000 residents of slums that hug the mountainsides in Acapulco, 20 miles from the proposed dam. Richer neighborhoods were saved because they had a two-day supply of water stored in local distribution tanks, and tourists were unaffected because the protesters didn't seize pumps serving the hotel zone. The resort is one of Mexico's top vacation spots and the region's top source of income. It is expected to nearly double in population over the next 15 years. Though the protesters handed the pumping station back over to authorities in exchange for compensation payments for some land and the release of one of their colleagues, neither side shows signs of yielding. Bloodshed has already occurred with two deaths that residents believe are linked to the dam dispute. "We are ready to give our lives to defend our land," said Facundo Hernandez, a farmer from the hamlet of Salsipuedes who participated in the water-plant takeover. "This area will become like desert if they build the dam," he predicted. Acapulco Mayor Felix Salgado complained of the protesters, "a few people cannot hold Acapulco hostage." Inhabitants of the area to be flooded by the dam - 3,000 people in total - would be paid $1,900 an acre for their land, given new homes and be permitted to live on the edge of the newly created lake, which officials say would be ideal for fishing and tourism. Many have accepted the deal. Government officials acknowledge the river level will be low for about 1 1/2 years as the dam fills, but they promise to guarantee a minimum flow in the interim and higher-than-average water levels in following years. But opponents say it's not a question of price, but of defending their way of life: fishing in the Papagayo and growing bananas, mangoes and other fruits on land their grandfathers farmed. "People are ready. They're not going to back down. I think there are going to be deaths," said Francisco Hernandez Valeriano, 65, whose town, Aguascalientes, lies about 10 miles downstream from the dam. "We are going to defend our land just like they did in Atenco," said Juan Garcia Valente, 44, referring to the 2002 airport protest. Both men fear the dam will cut off or reduce the flow of the river, threatening their riverside farms and fishing grounds. They also worry about the danger of living downstream if such a huge dam were to break. Bricklayer Fortino Carmona, 26, supports the dam. He hopes it will bring jobs in tourism or construction but acknowledges the fight has turned ideological, and possibly bloody. "There is a potential for violence," Carmona said, describing opponents as people who "remain stuck in the past." Residents from 19 towns voted in favor of the project. The bulk of the opposition comes from downstream villagers who aren't eligible for compensation payments, and officials now concede they may have to consider payments of some kind to them. Source: Associated Press: 04/06 ==== REPORT RELEASED ON MISSING JOURNALIST Frustrated at a lack of results from police investigators, scores of Mexican and other Spanish-language newspapers published the first in a series of reports on their own probe into the stalled cases of slain and missing journalists. The article focused on the April 2005 disappearance of Alfredo Jim?nez Mota, 26, who covered drug trafficking for El Imparcial, the daily newspaper in Hermosillo, Sonora, which borders Arizona. The report named and described families in Sonora state tied to drug trafficking and pointed to evidence that Jim?nez?s likely abductor was Ra?l Enr?quez Parra, an alleged smuggler whose body was found in November 2005 after being tortured and thrown out of a plane. One of Jim?nez?s last articles was about a possible link between Parra?s drug gang and a former police chief in the Sonoran border town of Sonoyta. The report suggested that police - some of whom served as Jim?nez?s sources - could have been linked to his disappearance. "The most relevant fact of this story is that a year has passed since the reporter was kidnapped and the Attorney General?s Office has nothing on his whereabouts," the report stated. In August, members of the Inter-American Press Association agreed to form a team of eight investigative reporters to look into the cases, naming the effort the Phoenix Project. The journalists also hope by publishing the reports simultaneously they can protect themselves from being the target of an attack by organized crime. Various news media watchdog groups have said that Mexico is one of the most dangerous places in the Western Hemisphere to be a journalist, largely because of violent drug cartels. Since 2004, nine journalists have been killed in the line of duty. Reporters have said the lack of protection by Mexican officials is causing them to censor themselves. The chairman of the press association's Impunity Committee, Enrique Santos Calder?n, from the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, said the joint publication is "the first step to combat organized crime and that other enemy of the press - self censorship - in a united manner." After Jim?nez disappeared, El Imparcial dropped bylines on drug trafficking stories and required reporters to keep editors informed of their whereabouts, said Fernando Healy, the general director of El Imparcial. Jim?nez?s colleagues say he had called the newspaper around 9 p.m. April 2, 2005, and had sounded nervous about meeting a contact. It was the last time anyone heard from him. The press association released a statement saying more than 100 Mexican newspapers and numerous Spanish-language U.S. newspapers had published the report, but Jorge Morales, assistant editorial director of El Imparcial said they were still checking newspapers. In February, President Vicente Fox named a special prosecutor to investigate cases attacks against journalists. Reporters Without Borders, a New York-based media watchdog group, released a statement urging him to solve Jimenez's case. "We call for the new special prosecutor's office in charge of cases involving attacks on the press to be given all the resources it needs to solve this case, which like so many others, bears the seal of impunity," the group said in a statement released Monday. Source: El Universal: 04/04 ==== GOVERNMENT TRIES TO INCREASE NUMBER OF INDIAN LAWMAKERS Mexico has redrawn its congressional districts to try to increase the number of Indian lawmakers in a nation where the indigenous minority has long been on the margins of politics, the government said. Xochitl Galvez, Indian affairs adviser to President Vicente Fox, said there will be 28 new districts with an Indian majority when the July 2 presidential and congressional elections are held. About 13 million of Mexico's 103 million people are Indians speaking the languages of groups such as the Aztecs and Mayans who lived here before the 16th century Spanish conquest. However, there are currently only three Indian federal congressional representatives in the 500-seat lower house and no Indian senators. Galvez, who is an Otomi Indian, said the redrawing of districts, which was worked out with the independent Federal Electoral Institute, will guarantee better representation. "The party that chooses Indian candidates will have the best chance of winning, because the voters will identify with the candidates more," Galvez said. None of this year's presidential hopefuls are Indians. But front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador began his political career campaigning for Indian rights in his native state of Tabasco. Impoverished Indian communities have often been the target of bribes or coercion by power-hungry politicians, Galvez said. To stop any electoral shenanigans in July, the government is handing out leaflets in 32 Indian languages encouraging people to report any foul play. "We are working intensely ... to prevent electoral crimes in indigenous communities, above all the classic (crime) of coercing the Indian vote," Galvez said. Despite the scarcity of Indians among Mexico's political leadership, the country's most honored president was the Zapotec Indian Benito Juarez, who ruled in the 1860s and 1870s. When Evo Morales was elected as the first Indian president of Bolivia in December, nearly 30 Mexican Indian organizations sent him a letter of congratulation saying his victory "lifts the spirits of our people." Source: Associated Press: 04/03 ==== STAN UPDATE: THOUSANDS DECRY LACK OF REBUILDING About 3,000 people whose homes were damaged or destroyed by flooding unleashed by Hurricane Stan last fall took to the streets of Tapachula, Chiapas on the Mexico-Guatemala border to protest a lack of progress in efforts to rebuild 45 hard-hit communities. Stan hit southern Mexico on Oct. 4, contributing to flooding and mudslides that killed 71 people in Chiapas state and left more than 650 dead - and 820 missing - in Guatemala. Another 71 died in El Salvador. Horacio Sanchez led a group of marchers representing 16 Tapachula neighborhoods where winds and flash floods unleashed a torrent of destruction. He said residents were worried because the heavy rains of the region's wet season were likely to begin in a bit more than a month, making the still-crippled area again susceptible to flood waters. The majority of those who marched were women and many carried massive signs and placards decrying government inefficiency in rebuilding efforts. "I know women who lost everything and are still struggling to move forward," said Sonia Gutierrez, a single-mother who said women have been especially devastated by Stan, which roared through an area abandoned by most men, who head north in search of higher paying jobs in the United States. Gutierrez said federal and state funding for rebuilding projects was available, but that Chiapas officials were holding much of it hostage as bargaining chips to win votes in gubernatorial, municipal and state legislative elections this summer. A call to the office of Chiapas Gov. Pablo Salazar seeking comment was not returned. After meeting with authorities in the border communities of Hidalgo and Suchiate, however, he announced that ample government funds remain for projects around the Suchiate River, which separates Guatemala and Mexico. Last month, hundreds of angry Mexican farmers from Suchiate blocked a border bridge to demand land they claim wound up on the Guatemalan side of the border after the river reportedly changed course during Hurricane Stan. The farmers also demanded the Suchiate River be dredged to prevent future floods. Jose Alfredo Aguilar, head of a cooperative of civil engineers, complained that replacement bridges and schools built in the six months since the flooding are of poor quality and could fall down again if a hurricane strikes the area. Source: Associated Press: 04/06 ==== VENEZUELA OFFERS MEXICAN INDIANS EYE CARE: OPPONENTS CLAIM ELECTORAL IMPROPRIETY Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is helping Luis Xool, a Mayan Indian who speaks only a few words of Spanish, recover something he lost 24 months ago: his sight. Xool is among 90 Indians from the Yucatan who will go to Venezuela for free eye care - an all-expense paid trip courtesy of Chavez that has raised accusations the Venezuelan leader is trying to influence Mexico's July 2 presidential race. Xool (pronounced "SHAWL"), who has cataracts, had never even heard of Venezuela or Chavez before his daughter-in-law told him of "Mission Miracle," a project that is paying for poor Latin Americans to have eye operations in Venezuela. The program began in 2004 as part of an agreement with Cuba, which volunteered eye surgeons. It was expanded to 11 countries, including Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, El Salvador and Guatemala. It has benefited a total of 135,340 people, according to the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico City. Presidential candidates Felipe Calderon of the ruling National Action Party and Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party contend the program is designed to boost the campaign of leftist front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is often compared to Chavez. Venezuela offered the operations to residents of the Yucatan peninsula town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto at the request of the town's mayor, Eliseo Bahena, a member of Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party. Mexico's secretary of health, Julio Frenk, says the Venezuelan help isn't needed, because Mexico has its own program. "Mexico has enough capacity to cover the demand for cataract surgery," Frenk said last week. "In fact, a good number of ophthalmologists from Latin America are trained here." However, town officials said the poor have not received adequate information on how to get care in Mexico. Some fear Lopez Obrador will be the latest of a wave of leftist leaders to be elected in Latin America. There are concerns the former Mexico City mayor, known for his government handout programs, could reverse years of conservative fiscal policy that has brought relative economic stability to Mexico. There have been rumors Venezuela is helping to finance Lopez Obrador's campaign, allegations Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute is looking into. Both Lopez Obrador and the Venezuelan government have denied that, noting Chavez and the Mexican leftist have never even met. Thousands of Venezuelans have received free surgery through the program, and thousands of Cuban doctors are working in Venezuela. But critics point to shortages of supplies and medical equipment in Venezuela's public hospitals, and say it should do more to fix its own health care system. The program director, Gilberto Chan, said 618 people applied for free eye care. Of those, 142 needed cataract or other surgery, 246 needed glasses and the rest didn't have major problems. The Venezuelan government will send a plane to Cancun to pick up the Mexican patients and take them to Caracas for surgery. Nestor Gonzalez, business attache for the Venezuelan Embassy, said he had no immediate estimate of the program's cost, but the most complicated cases could cost as much as $10,000. Pastora Chable Kan, 50, a Mayan housewife, said a private clinic in Mexico said her operation would cost about $1,300. Multiplied by the 90 patients from Mexico, that would put the program at over $100,000, plus transport and housing costs. Source: Associated Press: 04/04 ==== The above articles were originally published and copyrighted by the listed sources. These articles are offered for educational purposes which CIS maintains is 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. end: Mexico Week In Review: 04.03-04.09 -- From cisdc at zzapp.org Sun Apr 23 21:13:04 2006 From: cisdc at zzapp.org (cisdc) Date: Sun Apr 23 20:20:54 2006 Subject: Mexico Week In Review: 04.17-04.23 Message-ID: Mexico Week In Review: 04.17-04.23 ================================================================= 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@zzapp.org "Para Todos, Todo; Para Nosotros Nada" ================================================================= OTRA UPDATE I: IN MORELOS AND GUERRERO Last week, the Other Campaign came to Morelos, home of Emiliano Zapata and birthplace of the southern front of the 1910 revolution. Subcomandante Marcos was scheduled to speak at the anniversary of Zapata's death at his gravesite in Cuautla, but a more urgent 21st struggle drew the attention of the Other Campaign. A few miles away in Cuernavaca, a small band of environmentalists were chained to trees in one of the city's few remaining natural areas, scheduled for destruction by the PAN governor. Yards away dozens of police awaited the expiration of a court restraining order, scheduled to end at 11am. The environmentalists, led by Flora Guerrero of the Frente Civico, nervously anticipated their arrest. But at 10:30am, the police suddenly disappeared, in anticipation of the arrival, an hour later, of Marcos and several hundred supporters, including the machete-wielding campesinos of Atenco, who declared the natural area "liberated territory." Flora thanked the Other Campaign, declaring, "They saved our lives." Marcos stayed until 10pm, and promised to stand with the environmental movement until final victory. In a communiqu? released the same day, Marcos linked the largely middle class, urban environmental movement with rural, campesino movements that involve land dispossession and destruction of natural resources, connecting the struggles to a national, unified movement against capitalism. Later in the week, the Other Campaign visited other sites in Morelos, and by the weekend Marcos was in Guerrero, where he called for a unified national campaign in support of political prisoners. "We say that something has changed and that we are not going to allow the state to continue attacking us separately. Until now, every organization, group or collective has had to look after its own dead comrades, its own disappeared, its own prisoners. The government and the rich attacked us separately, and kept us separated, inciting conflicts among us. The EZLN, via the Other Campaign, is saying that we have to struggle together, everyone for everyone, for our prisoners, for our dead, for our disappeared." Source: Mexico Solidarity Network Weekly News Summary: 04/10-16 ==== OTRA UPDATE II: DAM PROJECT MAY CAUSE COMBAT Construction of La Parota, the Mexican mega-hydroelectric project pushed by the Fox administration, could trigger armed conflict in southeast Mexico, insurgent Subcomandante Marcos has warned. The spokesman of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) pointed out that the plan would destroy 42,000 acres and 36,000 communities, and in addition, expel 25,000 people and directly affect another 50,000. The question of La Parota reservoir was recently analyzed by the Latin American Water Court, an environmental justice organ, which recommended suspending construction as no benefits were demonstrated either for the population or the environment. Sub Delegate Zero (Marcos) advised President Vicente Fox and Gov. Zeferino Torreblanca that La Parota lands are also Zapatista lands and "if the army attacks them they will have to also contend with the mountains of southeast Mexico." Marcos, who is traveling the country as part of the "other campaign" -a progressive national movement seeking to construct an alternative to the three-decade neoliberal model- gave the warning at his meeting with the Acapulco Cooperative Board and Communities Opposed to La Parota Dam (CECOP). Source: Prensa Latina: 04/17 ==== POLICE STORM STEEL PLANT, SHOT AND KILL TWO STRIKERS Hundreds of Mexican police stormed a major steel plant to force out striking workers in a violent clash that spilled onto the streets and left at least two workers dead. Steel workers and police with riot gear and shields fought a pitched battle at the Sicartsa complex, which has been closed for three weeks by workers defending a union boss whom the government accuses of graft. Dozens were injured when some 600 police moved in firing tear gas canisters early in the morning at the plant in the western state of Michoacan. A state official initially put the death toll at three, including one person who was crushed to death, but the government's web site later changed the death toll to two. Both workers and police were hurt, some of them by people in the crowd throwing stones and homemade petrol bombs. "A very violent conflict situation arose," said Enrique Bautista, a senior official in the state government, in a radio interview. The Villacero steel company briefly regained control of its Sicartsa complex as strikers were pushed out but it later said workers were again blocking access to the plant and it was unlikely to reopen. Dozens of Marines backed up police but did not take part in the clashes. The shootings came at a bad time for President Vicente Fox, who has tried to play up political and economic stability under his rule as presidential elections approach in July. Fox met members of his security cabinet to discuss the violence as well as drug killings in the resort of Acapulco. Leftist presidential front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the killings "cannot be accepted." "No one should use public force to repress the people of Mexico," he said at a campaign stop in his home state of Tabasco. "There was a violent evacuation where more than 600 officers from different police forces in Michoacan entered the complex to end the strike," said union spokeswoman Consuelo Aguilar. "We don't know where it will end." It was the worst clash since thousands of mining and metals workers across the country went on strike last month in defense of union boss Napoleon Gomez, whom the government no longer recognizes because of corruption accusations. The Labor Ministry this week declared the strike illegal. The police arrived quietly on Thursday morning, some arriving by boat behind the plant, according to a local reporter. People living nearby -- some in pajamas -- came out to support the steel workers, blocking roads and burning vehicles. Two buses and a police car were set alight, the reporter said. "The national union strongly condemns the use of violence to resolve labor conflicts. The strike at the Lazaro Cardenas (Sicartsa) plant is legitimate," the union said in a statement. It said two workers had died. Striking miners have also shut down copper producer Grupo Mexico's La Caridad mine, badly hurting the company's output and helping to send international prices for the metal to record highs. Grupo Mexico told Reuters on Thursday it was unaware of immediate plans to force workers to stop blocking access to that mine, which produces 140,000 tons of copper concentrate a year. Source: Reuters: 04/20 ==== MEXICAN CHILDREN SERIOUSLY EXPLOITED Defensoras Populares Civil Association coordinator, Teresa Ulloa, asserted that 250,000 children are sexually exploited in Mexico and nearly 50,000 children in the Federal District are forced to prostitution and sexual tourism. Ulloa, also Latin American and Caribbean director for the Regional Coalition against the Traffic of Women and Children, said the children are deceived or forced into pornography and prostitution, often with tourists. In her statements to Prensa Latina, Ulloa said the figures were similar to the traffic of women in Latin America, where 250,000 females and 150,000 children annually engage in prostitution. She noted that Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Venezuela, Uruguay and Colombia account for the largest number of cases in the Southern Cone, and denounced the lack of effective means and political will to protect children. In many cases the police are complicit with the network of those holding economic and political dominion, she contended. Mexican NGOs said of 100,000 children disappeared during the last five years, only 20 percent was found. Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador and Nicaragua face the worst situation in Central America. Source: Prensa Latina: 04/20 ==== COMMISSION APPOINTED TO INVESTIGATE ARREST OF JOURNALIST Mexico's Supreme Court authorized two respected magistrates to investigate whether government officials violated a journalist's civil rights when she was arrested last year and transported 20 hours across state lines to Puebla to face libel charges. It's only the fourth time in Mexican history that the court has authorized such an investigative commission, and it's the first time the court will look into alleged official malice against someone who lived to talk about it. "I'm alive to tell the story," said Lydia Cacho, who wrote a expose last year about child pornography and prostitution in the popular beach resort of Cancun. Her subsequent arrest on charges of criminal libel is testing the integrity of Mexico's judicial system on several fronts. Analysts saw the court's move as an effort to reverse the widely held impression that Mexican courts are often corrupt and prone to political pressure. "I think it's an effort to try to gain some credibility by the judiciary in arena in which they've lost so much face," said Miguel Tinker Salas, a historian at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif. "The credibility of the Mexican judiciary is almost nil." The justices voted 6 to 4 to form the special commission, which is authorized by the Mexican Constitution. The four judges, who opposed its formation, including the chief judge, argued that the suspected crimes didn't rise to the level of those that resulted in previous special commissions. Mexico's first investigative commission looked into a military uprising in Veracruz in 1879. The most recent commissions investigated police killings of students and workers in the state of Guanajuato in 1946 and the state of Guerrero in 1995. But the court's majority overrode those objections, saying Cacho's case merited a closer look because of the massive public outcry. Cacho's book alleges that political and business interests conspired to protect a prominent Cancun businessman, Jean Succar Kuri, from charges of child-sex abuse and pornography. Succar Kuri awaits extradition to Mexico from the United States to face multiple child-sex charges. Meanwhile, Cacho is defending herself in a libel case brought by Puebla clothing magnate Jose Camel Nacif Borge, whom she names in her book, but doesn't implicate in the scandal. Puebla state police arrested Cacho in December 2005 in Cancun and transported her 20 hours by car back to Puebla, where she was charged with libel. The state charges were later dropped. In February, the Mexican daily La Jornada reported on taped conversations between Puebla Gov. Mario Marin and Nacif in which they appear to arrange the arrest. The court's charge didn't mention Marin, but it gave the commission free rein to investigate anyone who may have violated Cacho's rights. There's no time limit for the investigation. The chief justice said the commission would begin work Wednesday. The scandal has become a political issue in the run up to the July 2 presidential election. Both houses of Mexico's Congress voted overwhelmingly to ask the high court to investigate. The case is thought to be one reason for the poor showing in public opinion polls for Roberto Madrazo, the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which has long dominated Mexican politics. Marin, also a PRI member, is a close political ally of Madrazo, who's running third in the three-man race. Mexico's other two major parties, the National Action Party and the Party of the Democratic Revolution, praised the commission's creation. There was no official response from the PRI. The federal Human Rights commission is also investigating the case, and Cacho has sued the Puebla state government. Source: Knight Ridder: 04/18 ==== IMMIGRATION NEWS: GOVERNMENT SLAMS GEORGIA MIGRANT LAW The Mexican government has condemned a tough new immigration law passed in the US state of Georgia. Presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said the legislation discriminated against Mexicans and that diplomats would monitor how it was applied. The law, which will take effect next year, prevents illegal immigrants from receiving many social services. It will also require police and employers to report undocumented workers to the Immigration Service. The signing of the legislation comes amid deadlock in the US Congress about how to deal with illegal immigration, as well as nationwide protests by worried Latino groups. "The referred legislation incurs discriminatory acts against the Mexican population and those of Mexican origin," Mr Aguilar said. "It is a partial measure that fails to resolve the complex phenomenon of immigration between Mexico and the United States in an integral manner." Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, who signed the bill, said it was intended to ensure that everyone who lives in Georgia abides by the laws there. "It is our responsibility to ensure that our famous Georgia hospitality is not abused, that our taxpayers are not taken advantage of and that our citizens are protected," Mr Perdue. "I want to make this clear: we are not, Georgia's government is not, and this bill is not anti-immigrant," Gov Perdue said. The law, which will take effect in July 2007, will also impose prison terms for human trafficking and limit the services commercial companies can provide to illegal immigrants. BBC correspondents say the move has come at a difficult time in the US as there have been countrywide protests over a federal immigration law currently being debated in the Senate. "It is a punitive bill," said the president of the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Sara Gonzalez. "This is a very complicated issue, and I don't see any good coming out of this." There are an estimated 11 million undocumented workers in the US. Source: BBC: 04/18 ==== TWO POLICE OFFICIALS' SEVERED HEADS FOUND DUMPED IN ACAPULCO The decapitated heads of two police officials were found early Thursday dumped in front of a government building Acapulco, authorities said. The heads of police commander Mario Nu?ez Magana and officer Jes?s Alberto Ibarra were found at the same site where four drug traffickers died during a shootout with law enforcement. The heads of the two -- who were involved in the Jan. 27 shootout -- were accompanied by sign that warned, "So that you learn to respect." They were discovered about 3 a.m. in front of the city's Finance Department -- just over a mile from the city's main tourist zone -- next to black plastic bags apparently used to carry them in, local Attorney General official Rogelio Quevedo Mendoza said. The two bodies were later found in a different part of the city, one wrapped in a blue sheet and the other in a green rug, Quevedo said. Colleagues said both had been kidnapped by armed men from their homes Wednesday as they were preparing to go to work. But police said they have no information on how or when the two men disappeared. The discovery came just hours after Zeferino Torreblanca, the governor of Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located, announced that he was investing $12 million to acquire heavy-duty weapons, new bulletproof vests and modernized radios for the police force. ''The criminals should watch out because the good weapons are on their way,'' he said Thursday. Acapulco, 180 miles southwest of Mexico City, has been shaken this year by more than a dozen high profile shooting deaths as well as several grenade attacks on police stations. Federal investigators link the violence to a turf war between drug gangs in northern Mexico for lucrative smuggling routes into the United States. Source: Associated Press: 04/21 ==== The above articles were originally published and copyrighted by the listed sources. These articles are offered for educational purposes which CIS maintains is 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. end: Mexico Week In Review: 04.17-04.23 -- From cisdc at zzapp.org Sun Apr 30 18:34:52 2006 From: cisdc at zzapp.org (cisdc) Date: Sun Apr 30 18:37:33 2006 Subject: Mexico Week In Review: 04.24-04.30 Message-ID: Mexico Week In Review: 04.24-04.30 ================================================================= 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@zzapp.org "Para Todos, Todo; Para Nosotros Nada" ================================================================= OTRA UPDATE I: MAY DAY ZAPATISTA MARCH FROM US EMBASSY A coalition of unions and anti-capitalist groups, including Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos, will march in Mexico on Monday (05/01) to mark international labor day and to support a U.S. immigrant boycott. "We will create a clearly anti-capitalist May Day and we ... are going to take the property from the owners of) the means of production," Marcos told union activists. "I repeat: we will topple the municipal mayors, the state governments and the government of the republic, put them all in jail, kick the bankers, the big mall owners and capitalists out of the country and defeat the capitalist system!" "We are looking for you to rise up with us," he told a multitude of thousands. "We are looking for elders? for women? for independent salespeople? for taxi drivers? for store employees? for young people? for children? for people who think that the solution is not found above." In other marches, an array of Mexican unions will walk through the streets of the capital protesting what they call government meddling in union business and in support of Hispanics in the United States, who are expected to flood America's streets on Monday demanding amnesty for illegal immigrants. In Mexico, immigrants' rights groups have called for a national daylong boycott of U.S. products and businesses. The planned boycott has been criticized by U.S. business groups in Mexico. On Friday, thousands of Mexican workers stopped work for several hours and blocked traffic in Mexico City in support of miners striking to protest perceived government involvement in the ousting of union leader Napoleon Gomez in February. In recent weeks, miners and metal workers have joined stoppages, including a month long strike at La Caridad, the huge copper mine owned by Grupo Mexico. Sources: Reuters: 04/29; Narco News Bulletin: 04/26 ==== OTRA UPDATE II: MARCOS IN GUERRERO: "NOW WE HAVE FOUND THE PEOPLE WE WERE LOOKING FOR" Of all the states that Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos has visited and will visit, perhaps none has such a bloody history of violence and oppression as Guerrero. This state was ground zero for Mexico's "dirty war" against the left in the late 1960s and 70s, where hundreds of civilians died or were disappeared as the government put down a guerrilla insurgency led by legendary rebel teachers Genaro V?squez Rogas and Lucio Caba?as Barrientos. Their uprising is still memorialized in towns Marcos visited, in statues on town squares and in the words of the people, for whom the war never really ended. In one town, El Charco, 12 people were massacred in June of 1998. Erika Zamora, one of the survivors of the El Charco massacre, said that since the slaughter committed by the Mexican army there has been an increase in selective killings, secret forced sterilization of indigenous women and various other violations on the part of the soldiers in the area. Efr?n Cort?s, another one of the survivors, described the scene of the massacre: 'The majority of the eleven people were killed, some of them dumped there under that basketball hoop' (he pointed toward the basketball court near where the group was meeting). 'That is what they train the army to do; to kill. They made fun of our compa?eros as they were standing there with their hands up, "because you're all guerrillas," "we're going to kill you for being Indians," the bastards shouted,' he said, and then pointed toward other sites where farmers were murdered in cold blood." The U.S.-imposed war on drugs is not far from people's minds in this state. For years the Mexican government has battled opium producers in the mountains of Guerrero, one of the poorest parts of Mexico, making helicopters and roadblocks a part of peoples' everyday lives as they struggle for basic survival. In one mountain town, Marcos spoke with members of a well-known human rights group called Tlachinollan: "Speaking of the unemployment and misery prevalent in the area, they said: 'Today, 45.7 percent of our indigenous brothers have no monthly economic income. This obliges us to emigrate or die, that is why between the months of November and April we have to move to Baja California, Sinaloa, Sonora and other states to sell ourselves as cheap laborers in inhumane working conditions. They also denounced the militarization of the state, 'promoting a low-intensity war that seeks to intimidate, demobilize, persecute and criminalize all the men and women who fight for justice, equality and democracy. The war on drugs has transformed into a war on the poor. It has devastated indigenous lands, fragmented communities and imposed the law of the strongest.'" Source: Narco News Bulletin: 04/26 ==== STEEL WORKERS CLASH WITH POLICE Five hundred striking Steel workers who have occupied the SICARTSA steel mill in Michoacan, Mexico repelled 800 armed policemen dressed in riot gear who tried to overtake the plant. Last week, two workers, Jos? Luis Castillo Z??iga and H?ctor Alvarez G?mez, were killed when police entered the plant through a back door at daybreak and began firing tear gas and live ammunition at surprised workers. Forty one workers were injured, mostly by gunshots. According to the Truthout, alternative Web-based news service, the SICARTSA workers, who have been on strike since April 2nd, did not give up easily. As news of the police attack got around, union workers from nearby MITTAL Steel -- arrived and fought back police with sticks. Police were forced to leave through the same door from which they entered. Later, a video tape surfaced that showed Police Ministry Director Jaime Liera Alvare giving orders to fire at protesters' "feet." Liera Alvare resigned the next day. Michoacan State Police retired from the mill, leaving 400 Federal Preventative Police (PFP) on the Mill's perimeter. Workers are demanding the re-installation of union leader Napolean Gomez Urrutia, who was removed by government fiat in February and accused of embezzlement. He was replaced by a former union official who now supports the company. Former Labor Secretary Carlos Abascal, who is Mexico's current Interior Secretary, was tapped by President Fox to spearhead negotiations between mill owners and the union. The union has demanded the resignation of current Labor Secretary Francisco Xavier Salazar and the impeachment of Vicente Fox. Source: Radio Havana Cuba: 04/27 ==== ELECTION UPDATE: CONSERVATIVE TAKES LEAD IN NEW ELECTION POLL Conservative presidential candidate Felipe Calderon has taken the lead for the first time ahead of the July election, a new opinion poll by the Reforma newspaper showed. The survey gave Calderon of the ruling National Action Party 38 percent support with rival leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador trailing on 35 percent, the newspaper said. Lopez Obrador has consistently led polls for the last three years but his support has slumped in recent weeks after a damaging squabble with President Vicente Fox and after rivals launched aggressive campaign ads against his policies. The last Reforma poll in March gave Lopez Obrador 41 percent support among probable voters, a lead of 10 percentage points over Calderon. A former mayor of Mexico City, Lopez Obrador refused to take part in a televised debate between presidential candidates and pollsters say that has also hurt his popularity. Two other respected polls earlier this month also showed Calderon surging but they still gave Lopez Obrador a narrow lead. Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party which ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century is trailing in third place, and the new Reforma poll showed him way off the pace with just 23 percent support. Source: Reuters: 04/24 ==== BORDER NEWS I: WOMEN RISK RAPE, DEATH IN U.S. JOURNEY Swaddled in dirt in the inky night, the newborn trembled as a stranger struggled to snip her umbilical cord with nail clippers. A smuggler and other migrants had bolted when the baby's 18-year-old mother screamed with labor pains. But Lilia Ortiz couldn't just leave them in the harsh Arizona desert. Ortiz, 23, had walked two days straight to get this far. But she knew what it was like to struggle as a mother on her own. The two women are part of a new wave of migrants. A decade ago, illegal migration was dominated by men. Now more women are making the journey, risking rape and even death to support their families. The increase in women migrants comes as beefed-up border security has funneled migrants through one of the world's most forbidding deserts, and as smugglers adopt increasingly violent tactics. Some cross with their children. Others leave them behind with relatives. Pregnant women, like Maria Perez, the 18-year-old who gave birth this week, walk for days through the desert in the hope that their children will have a better life as U.S. citizens. Rape has become so prevalent that many women take birth control pills or shots before setting out to ensure they won't get pregnant. Some consider rape "the price you pay for crossing the border," said Teresa Rodriguez, regional director of the U.N. Development Fund for Women. If caught by the U.S. Border Patrol, women are often deported to Mexico's violent border towns in the middle of the night, despite a 1996 agreement between the two countries that promised women and children would only be returned in daylight hours, according to directors of migrant shelters along the 2,000-mile border. Worldwide, nearly half of the estimated 180 million migrants are women, according to a report released in February by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. A study released last week by U.S. and Mexican migration experts, partly funded by the Mexican government, found that nearly half of all Mexican migrants living in the United States are women. The female migrants are getting younger. Of migrants under 18 deported to Mexico, females accounted for only 2 percent in 1994, when the U.S. started cracking down at the border. Since 2002, they have made up nearly a third each year, said Blanca Villasenor, who recently published a book on Mexico's female migrants. "It's very significant because it shows the country is losing its potential -- its youth, its reproductive force," said Villasenor, who runs a youth shelter in Mexicali on the California border. Central American women face even more danger because they must first cross Mexico, where gangs and even immigration officials have attacked women, said Jesus Aguilar, a migrant rights activist in El Salvador. "The normal rule, according to women who migrate, is that before leaving their countries they have to take the pill for at least one to three months to ensure that they will not get pregnant after a rape," said Aguilar, of the group Carecen Internacional. Many Central Americans crossing Mexico hop cargo trains, where Aguilar said "there's almost a 99 percent chance that a woman will get raped." "The risk of rape is very high, not only by smugglers or by men in their same group, but also by criminals on public buses or on the cargo trains," he said. Waiting with a smuggler for darkness in the popular jumping-off point of Sasabe, across the Arizona border, Gisela Anzures fiddled with a purple scrunchie on her wrist and said she had heard the horror stories. "It's very dangerous. The gangs show up and pat you down in a horrible way," said Anzures, a 28-year-old divorced accountant who left her 5-year-old son with her parents in Cuernavaca. "It's no great pleasure to do this, but I'm fed up with the long hours and low pay in Mexico." Twenty-five miles to the north, a U.S. Border Patrol helicopter had spotted Ortiz, her aunt, Perez and her infant. After being abandoned in the desert by their smuggler, they were glad to be rescued. Ortiz and her aunt were returned by the Border Patrol to Nogales, where they vowed to try again. Perez and her newborn daughter were recovering at a hospital in Tucson, Ariz., according to Ron Bellavia of the Border Patrol. Mother and baby were in good condition. Border Patrol agents in southern Arizona -- the busiest crossing area -- come across a birth in the desert about once a year. Last fall, a baby was born in a Border Patrol helicopter as it flew the mother to a hospital. Collapsed on a bunk bed at a Nogales shelter, Ortiz rubbed her legs, which were covered with cactus thorns. She said she left her abusive husband after Hurricane Stan swept away her family's home in Chiapas last fall, and decided to head north. Friends in Florida had promised to help her get work. "I have a 6-month-old girl, and I'm a single mother," she said. "I feel sad and desperate. I have no money and haven't been able to get work at home, and now I can't get to the other side." Ortiz said she would try the crossing again in hopes of a better life for her daughter -- who is now staying another aunt. With a glimmer of envy, she said Perez had been trying to do the same thing. It worked. Perez's baby daughter is now a U.S. citizen. Source: Associated Press: 04/27 ==== BORDER NEWS II: SCHWARZENEGGER SLAMS BORDER WALL PLAN Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said that building a wall along the Mexican border to deter illegal immigration would amount to "going back to the Stone Ages," and instead urged the use of high-tech gear and more patrols to secure the country's southern boundary. "We are landing men on the moon and in outer space using all these great things. I think that other technology really can secure the borders," the Republican governor said in an interview. "If I say now, 'Yes, let's build the wall,' what would prevent you from building a tunnel? I mean, we've detected tunnels left and right that people can drive trucks through," he added. The comments were Schwarzenegger's most detailed to date on the wall proposal, which was included in legislation enacted in the U.S. House of Representatives. Schwarzenegger has said previously that fences might be appropriate in some areas, but raised doubts about the effectiveness of an 1,100-kilometre-long wall snaking along the border. The governor said, "I think that it will be ludicrous to limit yourself to just building a wall. We're going back to the Stone Ages here." But he also suggested practical and symbolic reasons to oppose the proposal. He alluded to the Berlin Wall, suggesting that such a structure on the U.S. border would send the wrong message to Mexico, "our friends . . . our trading partners." Schwarzenegger, a native of Austria, also repeated his opposition to amnesty for illegal immigrants, but provided few specifics of what requirements an illegal immigrant should have to meet to achieve legal status. He also said it's unrealistic to consider uprooting or driving out the country's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants. "It would cost $500 billion. Who's going to pay for that?" he asked. Schwarzenegger immigrated to the United States in 1968 and became a naturalized citizen in 1984, but has retained his Austrian citizenship. Source: Associated Press: 04/23 ==== BORDER NEWS III: 10 GUATEMALAN MIGRANTS DIE IN BUS CRASH TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico - A speeding truck loaded with migrants headed to the United States collided with another truck in Chiapas, killing at least 10 Guatemalans, authorities said. Eighty Guatemalans were packed inside the truck at the time of the collision on a bridge in Raudales Malpaso, about 60 miles northeast of Tuxtla Gutierrez, said Martin Rabanales, a spokesman for the state government. The truck carrying the migrants was traveling 87 mph in a 50 mph zone and the truck driver was inexperienced, Rabanales said. He said 10 Guatemalans were killed and at least 16 were critically injured. Source: Associated Press: 04/26 ==== MEXICO SET TO LEGALIZE PERSONAL AMOUNTS OF POT, COCAINE, HEROIN Mexico's Congress approved a bill decriminalizing possession of small quantities of marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine and even heroin for personal use, prompting U.S. criticism that the measure could harm anti-drug efforts. The only step remaining was the signature of President Vicente Fox, whose office indicated he would sign the bill, which Mexican officials hope will allow police to focus on large-scale trafficking operations rather than minor drug busts. "This law gives police and prosecutors better legal tools to combat drug crimes that do so much damage to our youth and children," said Fox's spokesman, Ruben Aguilar. If Fox signs the measure and it becomes law, it could strain the two countries' cooperation in anti-drug efforts -- and increase the vast numbers of vacationing students who visit Mexico. Oscar Aguilar, a Mexico City political analyst, said Fox appeared almost certain to sign the law -- his office proposed it, and his party supports it -- and that he had apparently been betting that it would not draw much notice. "That's probably why they (the senators) passed it the way they did, in the closing hours of the final session," Aguilar said. "He's going to sign it. ... He's not going to abandon his party two months before the (presidential) election." U.S. officials scrambled to come up with a response to the bill. One U.S. diplomat who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly said "we're still studying the legislation, but any effort to decriminalize illegal drugs would not be helpful." The bill, passed 53-26 with one abstention by Mexico's Senate in the early morning hours, already has been approved in the lower house of Congress. It also stiffens penalties for trafficking and possession of drugs -- even small quantities -- by government employees or near schools, and maintains criminal penalties for drug sales. The bill says criminal charges will no longer be brought for possession of up to 25 milligrams of heroin, 5 grams of marijuana (about one-fifth of an ounce, or about four joints), or 0.5 grams of cocaine -- the equivalent of about 4 "lines," or half the standard street-sale quantity (though half-size packages are becoming more common). "No charges will be brought against ... addicts or consumers who are found in possession of any narcotic for personal use," according to the Senate bill, which also lays out allowable quantities for an array of other drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and amphetamines. Some of the amounts are eye-popping: Mexicans would be allowed to possess more than two pounds of peyote, the button-size hallucinogenic cactus used in some native Indian religious ceremonies. Mexican law now leaves open the possibility of dropping charges against people caught with drugs if they are considered addicts and if "the amount is the quantity necessary for personal use." But the exemption is not automatic. The new bill drops the "addict" requirement -- automatically allowing any "consumers" to have drugs -- and sets out specific allowable quantities. Mexican officials declined to explain how the law would work -- including whether drug use in public would be tolerated, or discouraged by other means. The law was defended by Mexican legislators -- and greeted with glee by U.S. legalization advocates. "We can't close our eyes to this reality," said Sen. Jorge Zermeno, of Fox's conservative National Action Party. "We cannot continue to fill our jails with people who have addictions." Ethan Nadelmann, director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, said the bill removed "a huge opportunity for low-level police corruption." In Mexico, police often release people detained for minor drug possession, in exchange for bribes. Selling all these drugs would remain illegal under the proposed law, unlike the Netherlands, where the sale of marijuana for medical use is legal and it can be bought with a prescription in pharmacies. While Dutch authorities look the other way regarding the open sale of cannabis in designated coffee shops -- something Mexican police seem unlikely to do -- the Dutch have zero tolerance for heroin and cocaine. In both countries, commercial growing of marijuana is outlawed. In Colombia, a 1994 court ruling decriminalized personal possession of small amounts of cocaine, heroin and other drugs. The effects in Mexico could be significant, given that the country is rapidly becoming a drug-consuming nation as well as a shipment point for traffickers, and given the number of U.S. students who flock to border cities or resorts like Cancun and Acapulco on vacation. "This is going to increase addictions in Mexico," said Ulisis Bon, a drug treatment expert in Tijuana, where heroin use is rampant. "A lot of Americans already come here to buy medications they can't get up there ... Just imagine, with heroin." Source: Associated Press: 04/28 ==== The above articles were originally published and copyrighted by the listed sources. These articles are offered for educational purposes which CIS maintains is 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. end: Mexico Week In Review: 04.24-04.30 --