Mexico Week In Review: 05.15-05.21

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 05.15-05.21
=================================================================
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"
=================================================================

ATENCO UPDATE I: RAPE AND TORTURE TESTIMONY

On May 3, 4 and 5, a wave of police repression targeted a group of 
flower sellers in a local market in Texcoco Mexico, a community group 
that supports them and residents and bystanders. The flower sellers 
refused to move from the market. The police then brutally attacked in 
overwhelming numbers. As a result, one 14-years-old child was killed, 
one young university student is in critical condition, dozens of 
people are injured, hundreds are arrested and an unspecified number 
of people have disappeared.

All the detainees have denounced torture and abuses. Arrested women 
between 20 and 50 years old were brutally raped and tortured. Two 
weeks later, detainees have not had medical attention. Foreign 
students and observers were abused and illegally deported. Private 
property were stolen and intentionally destroyed by the police. The 
local and federal government have maintained a media campaign of 
misinformation in order to vilify the opponents, justify the 
repression and deny the torture, sexual abuses and rapes.

Families, friends, human rights activists and supporters of the 
jailed victims have held a series of demonstrations in several parts 
of the country and have denounced anonymous threats and intimidation 
from the government.

Italia Mendez, age 27
I was arrested in a private house in San Salvador Atenco, raided by 
the Federal Preventive Police. They stripped me of all my belongings 
and money. They forced me against the wall with my hands at the nape 
of my neck, struck my head with the nightstick. They held me up and 
in front of a camera they questioned me about my political 
affiliation, my address, my name and the names of my immediate family 
members. Subsequently I was taken from the house and seated on the 
sidewalk. There were many more people around me. I had to cover my 
head and face with my sweater, as they struck me repeatedly on the 
head with clubs and kicks in the buttocks and back. They caused a 
six-centimeter head injury.

"Minutes later they made me walk between two rows of police officers 
escorting the bus in which they would transfer us. They went on 
beating me all the way to the bus and inside there were many 
handcuffed people with their heads covered, stacked on top of each 
other. They placed me on top of the pile and later they dragged me 
toward the rear seat, there a policeman put his hand inside my blouse 
and he tore my brassier. Immediately, he put his hand inside my pants 
and he tore my panties s. I found myself on my stomach with my face 
covered, they pulled my pants down to the ankles and my blouse over 
my head. They hit my buttocks hard, shouting at me that they were 
going to rape me and kill me.

"Then a policeman shouted at me to call him "cowboy" and he struck my 
bottom even more violently, but now with his nightstick and he didn't 
stop until he heard me say what he asked. He then penetrated my 
vagina with his fingers and squeezed my breasts hard, then violently 
pinched my nipples. He invited another policeman to do the same and 
all the while they continued striking me. Later they invited a third 
person who they called boss, this last one penetrated me with an 
object and they threatened to rape me (intercourse). They put me 
above the penis of one of them and he rubbed himself against my 
buttocks while the other two police officers encouraged him to 
penetrate me with his penis, but he did not do it. They repeatedly 
struck me on my breasts and they struck m y stomach while they kissed 
me on the mouth. How I resisted! The punches were so hard that I 
would open my mouth so the policeman could put his tongue in my mouth.

"I was naked for the entire journey on top of two more people while a 
policeman traveled seated on my back and head. Until we arrived at 
the prison and they permitted me to dress and I was lowered down off 
the bus."

Norma Aide Jimenez Osorio, 23
"I was arrested on May 4, 2006, outside of San Salvador Atenco by the 
Federal Preventive Police. They beat me with a shield to throw me 
down, and once on the floor two police officers beat me with 
nightsticks and fists. Then they put me on my feet and made me run 
even though I had told them that the beating they gave me caused my 
right leg to fall asleep. They kept on beating me and a third cop 
joined them, punching me on the back. The others beat me with clubs. 
All three said they were going to rape me and kill me. They asked me 
questions and they beat me. The threatened to disappear me and they 
touched my genitals.

"They put me on a bus and laid me down on the floor telling me not to 
move, not to speak. My head was covered by my own sweater from the 
moment they arrested me and there they continued moving me around, 
they kept threatening to rape and to kill me. They forced me off the 
bus with punches and kicks and put me on the back of a truck where 
they beat my thighs without stopping with their nightsticks. My head 
was still covered, facing down. When I couldn't take it anymore I 
tried to cover my legs with my hands and they beat my hands until I 
took them away. Then he put his hand under my underwear and 
forcefully spread my thighs, sticking his fingers in my anus.

"After more death threats and kicks they took me from that truck back 
onto the bus, and made me sit in the last row and put my tongue in 
their mouths. At least four officers squeezed my breasts and pinched 
my nipples. At least three cops stuck their fingers, many times, in 
my vagina, while they insulted and beat me. Suddenly many other 
companeros and companeras began to be put on the bus and I could hear 
them raping and beating them all. They tortured us all the way until 
we arrived at the prison, where I had a lot of pain in my hands, on 
my hip, on my right arm, in my womb and on my legs, but they refused 
to give me medical attention."

Gabriela Tellez Vanegas, an 18-year-old housewife with two children. 
was waiting for a bus to take her home.
"The police saw me there and one said to me, "what are you looking 
at?" And another said, "put her on the bus because she's a loser." 
They began to hit me and asked my address, age, name; three of them 
took me aside because they wanted to keep kicking me and beating me 
with clubs. One of them grabbed my face. He put his fingers in my 
mouth and in my vagina and forced me to conduct anal sex. I spit his 
sperm out onto my white sweater. Another cop came and did the same. 
He grabbed my breasts and said: "This is very good and she's milking, 
right? Whore of a bitch! They took my photo with my eyes closed.

"Again they made me give oral sex, coming in my mouth and I spit it 
out on my sweater. A third one came and did the same to me, and I 
spit it on my sweater. He said that if I wanted him to help me I 
would have to be his prostitute for a year and he would come see me 
whenever he wanted to. They took off my sweater, refused to give it 
back to me. A fourth cop came, he put his hands on my vagina and 
breasts and wanted me to give him oral sex. Another one came and 
said, "Not now, man, because we've already arrived." They began to 
clean my pants and hands and gave me a cigarette to smoke. But I 
don't smoke or drink. And they took me down, with my eyes closed, to 
the Santiaguito prison in Almoloya."

To protest this outrage, see http://www.americas.org/item_27347.]

Source: Amercicas.org: 05/18
====

ATENCO UPDATE II: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESSURES GOV'T

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International expressed concern about 
reports of police brutality during a violent protest earlier this 
month outside Mexico City, including allegations that officers raped 
seven female detainees and sexually abused 16 more. In a news 
release, Amnesty added pressure to the Mexican government to probe 
some the strongest accusations of police misconduct to have been made 
during President Vicente Fox's six-year term. "The investigation 
should be thorough and transparent, and there needs to be 
accountability for anybody found responsible for abuse, including 
those of high rank," the statement said.

Amnesty also expressed its "concern for the safety of 28 people who 
remain detained," and implored authorities to probe the alleged 
beatings of dozens of protesters and several journalists during the 
demonstration. Fox's office has promised justice in the case, and the 
Mexico State police department, which headed the operation against 
the protesters, has said it is probing its officers. But women's 
activists say an internal investigation is not good enough and 
international groups need to be involved. On Tuesday (05/16), a group 
of Mexican women's groups filed complaints with the United Nations 
Commission on Human Rights. "How can we expect justice from the same 
people who carried out the atrocities," said Pilar Muriedas of the 
Mexican Women's Forum, which represents 20 groups. Among the women 
who claimed they were sexually abused but not raped were three 
foreigners -- two Spaniards and a Chilean -- all of whom were 
deported for allegedly violating the terms of their visas.

Source: Associated Press: 05/18
====

BORDER NEWS: MEXICO CONDEMNS BORDER FENCE PLAN

Mexico and four Central American nations condemned the US plan to 
build hundreds of miles of triple-layered fencing on its southern 
border, saying it would not stop illegal immigration. In a joint news 
conference in Mexico City late Thursday, the foreign ministers of 
Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Mexico said that 
building barriers was not the way to solve problems between 
neighboring nations. "The position of Mexico and the other countries 
is that walls will not make a difference in terms of the solution to 
the migration problem," said Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto 
Derbez. On Wednesday (05/17), the US Senate approved a proposal to 
build 370 miles of triple-layer fencing along parts of the 2,000-mile 
border separating the US and Mexico. The Senate also agreed to give 
many illegal immigrants a shot at US citizenship.

Guatemalan Foreign Minister Jorge Briz said major immigration reform 
in the United States was the only way to stop the wave of people 
heading northward. "All of us are looking for a comprehensive 
migratory regulation so that millions of Latin Americans can continue 
working in and supporting the United States economy," Briz said. 
Earlier Thursday, Mexico's Foreign Relations Department sent a note 
to the US State Department outlining the nation's concerns about the 
proposed barrier. Honduran Foreign Minister Milton Jimenez said he 
expected several South American and Caribbean countries to join 
Mexico and the Central Americans in issuing a joint declaration on 
the matter soon.

In December, the US House approved a bill to build a fence about 
twice as long as the one approved by the Senate. The House plan 
sparked a wave of criticism from Latin American leaders, with Mexican 
President Vicente Fox comparing such a barrier to the Berlin Wall. 
Fox reiterated his criticisms on Thursday. "Building walls, 
constructing barriers on the border does not offer an efficient 
solution in a relationship of friends, neighbors and partners," Fox 
said in the border city of Tijuana. "We will go on defending the 
rights of our countrymen without rest or respite. With passion we 
will demand the full respect of their human rights."

On the border with Arizona, bedraggled migrants who had been turned 
back by the border patrol said that more fences would not keep them 
from crossing but only make smugglers charge more money for the trip. 
"I had to leave my three children, walk for three days in the desert, 
and now I'm here with more debts than ever," said Edith Martinez, a 
40-year-old from Oaxaca who walked back over the border bridge to the 
Mexican town of Nogales. "Now I have to work in the United States to 
pay my debts from the trip."

Source: Associated Press: 05/19
====

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: MEXICO FAILURES CONTINUE

President Vicente Fox has brought openness to government during his 
tenure but has failed to resolve lingering human rights problems, an 
international rights group said. Human Rights Watch applauded Fox's 
promotion of a freedom-of-information act but said in a report that 
the president failed carry through on an investigation of so-called 
"dirty war" crimes and proposals for wide-reaching justice reforms. 
"Part of the fault lies on President Fox himself," Human Rights Watch 
Director Ken Roth said at a news conference. "He did not show the 
presidential leadership that was needed." The group also complained 
in its report that discussions of human rights have been "totally 
absent" from the campaigns of the top three presidential contenders.

Mexico's two major human rights problems, the report said, are abuses 
by law enforcement authorities and the so-called "dirty war" against 
leftist activists, hundreds of whom were killed, jailed or vanished 
without a trace in the 1960s and 70s. Presidential spokesman Ruben 
Aguilar later said the government "welcomes the report and reaffirms 
its conviction and commitment to continue working to respond fully to 
its observations and suggestions." But he said "we don't share" the 
report's observations about the "dirty war" crimes investigation. "We 
believe that we have done the work that we had proposed to do," he 
said. Special Prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo, appointed in 2002 to lead 
the investigation, recently completed a final report that has not yet 
been released. The government announced that his office would be 
permanently closed after the report's presentation.

According to a leaked draft of the report, the most brutal human 
rights violations allegedly occurred during the 1970-76 
administration of President Luis Echeverria. Carrillo's investigation 
led to a few arrests but his office has largely failed in its effort 
to bring government officials responsible for past crimes to justice. 
Human Rights Watch recommended that instead of closing the office, 
the government should appoint a "truth commission" to work with it in 
a continuing investigation. The Human Rights Watch report also said 
that Mexico's democracy remains "tied by the laws and institutions it 
inherited from the old regime."

Source: Associated Press: 05/18
====

EDITORIAL:
BUSH'S IMMIGRATION SPEECH IS BAD POLICY, BAD POLITICS

Let's get a couple of things straight about the immigration speech 
President George W. Bush unreeled Monday night from the Oval Office. 
His address had nothing to do with actual border policy and 
everything to do with domestic electoral politics.

The real mission of the 6,000 National Guard troops he has called out 
is to quell the rebellion on the president's right flank, the flaring 
mutiny of his own conservative base. Indeed, if the president were 
being honest, the mobilized troops would be taken off the federal 
payroll and moved onto the books of the 2006 national Republican 
campaign. They certainly aren't going to be stopping illegal 
immigration. Most of the Guard will be unarmed. They will be barred 
from patrolling the border itself, as well as from confronting, 
apprehending or even guarding the undocumented. The troops will be 
given solely behind-the-scenes, low profile, mostly invisible tasks 
of pushing paper, driving vans and manning computers. Bush could have 
saved the taxpayers a load and sent a few battalions of Boy Scouts to 
do this job.

I've spent oodles of hours and days on the border over the last five 
years, having multiple contacts and visits with the Border Patrol, 
and I've yet to bump into a single one of the 350 National Guard 
members already deployed on the border. Of course, "sending troops to 
the border" sounds great - if you are among those who actually 
believe there is a technological or military fix possible for our 
busted - out immigration policy. That's what Bush is hoping, at 
least: that conservatives who are fed up with him, especially on what 
they see as his failure to stop the human tide of poor people washing 
across the desert, will be revitalized by the manufactured fantasy of 
crew-cut, uniformed young Americans standing shoulder-to-shoulder 
from Yuma to El Paso.

Chances are Bush's border move will be no more successful than his 
management of the war in Iraq or his response to Katrina. The 
close-the-border faction of his own party is highly unlikely to 
accept Monday night's sop. They know, just as the governors of New 
Mexico and California know, just as local law enforcement on the 
border knows, that Bush's gesture is but a photo-op political stunt. 
They want the border closed, period. And their political 
representatives in the House-the Sensenbrenners and the Tancredos-are 
showing no signs of softening their resistance to both a guest worker 
plan and a legalization path for the illegals already here. And even 
those who bought the get-tough portion of the president's speech also 
heard him endorse "comprehensive immigration reform" and a "temporary 
worker program," i.e. precisely the sort of measures scorned and 
denounced as an "amnesty." So much for placating the right. Likewise, 
as I wrote before the speech ("Bush Bull: Troops on the Border"), 
Bush's dispatch of troops-no matter how empty and symbolic-contains 
enough reality to rankle the more liberal forces in the 
pro-immigration coalition.

In short, the president has now managed to alienate himself further 
from his own base as well as from some of his more reluctant and 
expedient allies on immigration. Heckuvajob, Dubya. Bush's plan may, 
however, provide short-term benefit to some very nervous and 
endangered Republican House incumbents, offering them short-term 
political cover. But the longer-term risk seems enormous. A growing 
number of Republican strategists know that the Latino vote will loom 
ever more crucial in deciding which party will command governing 
majorities. And they are worried that the long-term damage of the 
president pandering to the anti-immigration forces could be 
devastating.

What a media spectacle was whipped up, by the way, over this totally 
forgettable speech. CNN treated the speech with all the gravitas of 
the launching of a manned mission to Mars, complete with a countdown 
clock and rolling all-day coverage. With boundless shamelessness, the 
all-news network ensconced the sputtering Lou Dobbs as one of its 
color commentators for this artificially constructed event, something 
akin to having asked George Wallace to objectively narrate the Great 
March on Washington. I don't fault Dobbs, a modern-day Ted Baxter who 
has found a lucrative niche as CNN's resident Minuteman. But, please, 
let us heap industrial amounts of shame on the babbling Wolf Blitzer, 
who repeatedly deferred to Dobbs as if the latter was the font of all 
authority on this issue. A phalanx of reporters will now head to the 
border, seeking to file feature stories on newly arrived Guard 
members. And one can expect the Department of Homeland Security and 
the Department of Defense to accommodate the media spoon-feeding. The 
safe bet, though, is that this speech, in spite of the cable hype, 
will soon evaporate into the mists of memory.

The truth be told, the totality of Bush's speech was rather 
reasonable. Stripping away the political theatrics and the empty 
phrasing, and putting aside the undue emphasis on deployment of the 
Guard, the president did endorse the sort of bipartisan reforms 
proposed by a coalition stretching from John McCain and the Chamber 
of Commerce to Ted Kennedy and the Service Employees International 
Union. And he called directly on both houses of Congress to finally 
agree upon and pass a bill that reflects that consensus. Problem is 
that Bush should have been speaking out forcefully in favor of these 
moves ever since he raised comprehensive reform as a priority in his 
2004 State of the Union speech. Unfortunately, he hid under his desk 
on this issue for the last two years. Only after the right wing of 
his base rebelled and only after the pro-immigrant movement blossomed 
in the streets-that is, only after the White House was completely 
overtaken by events-did the president act. And as usual, it was too 
little, too late.

--------
Marc Cooper has reported on international and domestic American 
politics for dozens of publications, and is Senior Fellow for Border 
Justice at USC Annenberg's Institute for Justice and Journalism. He 
is the author of several books, including a memoir about his time as 
translator for Chile's President Salvador Allende and surviving the 
1973 military coup.

Source: TruthOut.org: 05/15

====
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: 05.15-05.21
--