Mexico Week In Review: 05.22-05.28

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 05.22-05.28
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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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ATENCO UPDATE: SEVERAL PEOPLE WOUNDED BY BULLETS, NGO DOCTOR REPORTS

On the day of the police assault on San Salvador Atenco various 
people were wounded by bullets, and not just Francisco Javier Cortes 
Santiago " the teenager who was killed " assures doctor Fernando Rubi 
Apreza, president of the Multidisciplinary Organization for the 
Health of Indigenous and Marginalized Populations (OMSPIM in its 
Spanish initials).

Together with another member of the OMSPIM, Guillermo Selvas - who 
was arrested along with his daughter Marina, a student of the 
National School of Anthropology and History " the doctor arrived in 
Atenco with the intention of offering medical services to those 
inhabitants who were hurt on the 3rd of May. "We saw people hurt by 
firearms. I attended to one of those wounded by a bullet. He was 
treated and driven to a particular clinic. It was one of those 
wounded by a 38-caliber gun. I provided the first aid," he stated.

When he found out that his friend Dr. Guillermo Selvas was detained, 
Rubi Apreza decided to come up to Almoloya de Juarez, in the state of 
Mexico, to try and see him. On various occasions the doctor tried to 
enter the Santiaguito prison; in one of the attempts he was 
successful. Until today, he is the only person besides the 
authorities that has succeeded in passing beyond the waiting rooms of 
the Santiaguito prison. The doctor explains that last week he 
succeeded in entering and evaluating the three detainees in "most 
serious" condition as a result of the beatings administered by the 
police elements during the operation in San Salvador Atenco. He says 
that Satuday, May 13th, thanks to a medical official sympathetic to 
Octavio Castilla " also detained " he succeeded in getting access to 
the jail. "This young man has renal insufficiency due to prostate 
trauma and requires a probe to decongest the bladder. I was allowed 
to enter as a doctor, to attend only to him, but I also met with some 
of the prison medical personnel."

Nonetheless, he relates how the next day he agreed with the 
commission that he would enter and drop off provisions of water and 
sweets for the prisoners on hunger strike and that, thanks to the 
medical personnel that he met the day before, he was allowed to enter 
into the infirmary. "There they allowed me to attend to the 
detainees. First I saw to the most gravely injured." Those would be 
Heriberto Nopaltitla, a 58-year-old campesino; Arnulfo Pacheco, 55, 
who cannot walk, and Paulino Zavala, a 60-year-old carpenter. The 
doctor says that Nopaltitla presents multiple fractures in one arm, 
wrist and finger bones. "His body is all marked with bruises and dead 
skin; I detected rib fractures; I counted 19 wounds to the cranium. 
These lesions put his life in risk because the bruises provoke the 
blood to coagulate, it doesn't dissolve, and it travels like that 
through the blood flow. It could produce vascular cerebral accidents, 
like blood clots, and this could lead to a permanent vegetative 
state." He believes that the most grave of the three is Pacheco, who, 
because of his physical incapacity, put up less resistance and was 
severely beaten. Pacheco, the doctor explains, has wounds all over 
the body and this situation has produced a "trauma" that has resulted 
in loss of bowel control. "Moreover, even after eight days he still 
has blood in his urine, inflamed legs due to the retention of liquids 
produced by the beating. He received a hit in the throat which 
wounded the pharynx, so it is difficult for him to eat; he has 
multiple rib fractures. He is the most delicate of the three. So that 
his life is not at risk, he should be hospitalized and attended by a 
specialist. In the least optimistic of cases, he could present a 
situation of vascular brain or cardiopulmonary failure." As for 
Zavala, who has diabetes, "he looks like a map of ulcers," adds the 
doctor. Moreover, he has lesions to the cranium, face and nose, two 
fractured ribs and trouble breathing.

Fernando Rubi Apreza explains that beyond evaluating these three men, 
the prison medical personnel helped him gain access to the cells, and 
in that way he was able to treat the detainees. "I give priority to 
the women and I am able to attend to Barbara Italia Mendez, who "was 
violated with hands and objects. They half undressed her and they put 
her in a supine position, beyond hurting her, fingering her, she was 
abused in her genitals; she was the only one I was able to evaluate." 
Rubi Apreza says that, for some reason, there was a rumor circulating 
around inside the prison that a doctor was treating the prisoners, 
which caused the infirmary personnel to ask him to leave the 
facility. Even so, the doctor comments that he sent a letter to the 
director of prevention and social rehabilitation in the state of 
Mexico, Alejandro Carmona, in which he solicited permission to access 
the penal facility to continue with the clinical analysis of the 
detainees.

Source: La Jornada: 05/24
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U.S. SENATE PASSES IMMIGRATION BILL

The Senate passed landmark but contentious immigration legislation 
that would tighten security on United States borders while allowing 
guest workers to enter the country and giving millions of illegal 
immigrants a path toward gaining U.S. citizenship. In a rare show of 
bipartisan, election-year cooperation, the bill was approved 62-36. 
The vote sets the stage for a summer clash with House conservatives, 
who passed a starkly different immigration measure in December. The 
House bill seeks to punish illegal immigrants and any employers who 
hire them, and it does not include a guest-worker program. "This is 
not the final scene of this blockbuster that we have on the Senate 
floor," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) warned before the 
vote began late this afternoon. "There is another act to go."

Lawmakers from both parties predict the next act will be watched 
closely by voters as midterm elections approach that possibly could 
shift control of Congress from Republican to Democrat. Polls show 
most Americans disapprove of the job members of Congress are doing. 
If House and Senate members can't get together on a compromise, the 
political "consequences ... should properly be very high," said Sen. 
John McCain (R.-Ariz.), who voted for the bill today.

The security piece of the Senate legislation would provide 6,000 
National Guard troops to support Border Patrol agents, aerial 
surveillance and a 370-mile fence along the Mexican border. The bill 
has a complex, three-tiered system for dealing with the nation's 11 
million to 12 million illegal immigrants. Those who have lived in the 
United States five years or longer would be allowed to stay and apply 
for citizenship, provided they pay back taxes, learn English and have 
no serious criminal records. Those here two to five years - about 2.8 
million people - would eventually have to return to a point of entry 
in Mexico or Canada and apply for a green card, which could allow 
their immediate return. The roughly 2 million immigrants who have 
been in the United States illegally for less than two years would be 
ordered to return to their countries.

Some proponents of the Senate bill privately acknowledge that the 
three-tiered plan is an ungainly compromise that resulted from long 
negotiations designed to build and hold a centrist coalition in the 
Senate. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said this week it is not 
realistic "to assume that, first, the Department of Homeland Security 
is going to be able to go out and deport 2 million people, and then 
secondly, to ensure that the other 2.8 million leave to go back for 
the 'touchback' program." Many House members assert that the Senate 
version offers amnesty to immigrants who, they say, should be treated 
as felons, rather than rewarded, for illegally entering the United 
States. But some House members say compromise with the Senate is 
possible, if only because it would not be feasible to prosecute - and 
deport - millions of illegal immigrants.

The immigration debate has divided many Republicans - from the 
president on down. President Bush has drawn criticism from 
conservative Republicans because he favors a guest-worker program, 
similar to the one included in the Senate bill. A preview of the 
unfolding Senate-House battle was evident on the Senate floor during 
debate over a final-hour amendment, introduced by Sen. Jeff Sessions 
(R-Ala.), that would deny an earned income tax credit to illegal 
immigrants who - as a result of the Senate bill - would be working 
legally in the United States. Sessions called the bill a 
multi-billion-dollar "budget buster" that would grow even costlier if 
these tax credits - available to workers who have children - were 
granted. "It's not necessary that we provide this ... outlay from our 
Treasury directly to people who've come here illegally and reward 
them in that fashion," Sessions said. Some Republicans rose to attack 
the amendment. "These people are here to work," McCain said. "And 
they're doing jobs that most of us don't have the will to do.... 
They're not risking their lives to come into this country with a goal 
of freeloading off of us." Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) said even 
violent felons who have paid their debt to society are not denied 
earned income tax credits. "Coming across the border illegally [is] a 
non-violent offense," Graham said. "... How do you look [illegal 
immigrants] in the eye ... and tell them that you're being punished 
through the tax code in a way a rapist, murderer or a drug dealer is 
not?" The amendment failed by a 60-37 vote. But another amendment, 
which would deny tax credits to newly legal immigrants for taxes paid 
while they had illegal status, was approved by a 50-47 vote.

Source: Washington Post: 05/25
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BORDER NEWS: MINUTEMEN INSTALLING ARIZ. BORDER FENCE

Scores of volunteers gathered at a remote ranch to help a civilian 
border-patrol group start building a short security fence in hopes of 
reducing illegal immigration from Mexico. The Minuteman Civil Defense 
Corps plans to install a combination of barbed wire, razor wire, and 
in some spots, steel rail barriers along the 10-mile stretch of 
private land in southeastern Arizona. They hope it prompts the 
federal government to do the same along the entire Arizona border.

President Bush has pledged to deploy as many as 6,000 National Guard 
troops to strengthen enforcement at the border. The guardsmen would 
fill in on some behind-the-lines Border Patrol jobs while that 
agency's force is expanded. But the Minutemen have said it's not 
enough. The group's founder, Chris Simcox, said they want a secure 
fence and they're starting at the site where his first patrols began 
in November 2002.

Rancher Jack Ladd and his son, John, were hopeful the effort would 
limit the illegal immigrants and drug runners who have cut the small 
fence along the property or just driven over it to cross into the 
U.S. "We've been fighting this thing for 10 years with the fence, and 
nobody will do anything," Jack Ladd said. Most of the day was 
dedicated to speeches from politicians and Minutemen leaders and 
celebrating large donations the Minutemen group has been receiving. 
Minuteman spokeswoman Connie Hair said it would take up to three 
weeks to build the estimated $100,000 fence. So far, the group has 
raised $380,000 for more border fences, she said.

Timothy Schwartz of Glendale, Ariz., who was among at least 200 
volunteers gathered, said he wants to see a fence along the border 
from California to Texas. "We're not going to stop," Schwartz said. 
"We're going to stay here with a group and keep building." Quetzal 
Doty of Sun Lakes, Ariz., a retired U.S. diplomatic consular officer, 
brought his wife, Sandy, to the event. He said he's convinced the 
Minutemen and most Americans aren't anti-immigrant. "They're just 
anti-illegal," said Doty. "The Minutemen walk the extra mile to avoid 
being anti-immigrant and that's what we like about the organization 
and what got us interested."

Source: Associated Press: 05/27
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ELECTION UPDATE:  LOPEZ OBRADOR OVERTAKES CALDERON IN MEXICAN PRESIDENTIAL POLL

Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the 
Party of the Democratic Revolution, took the lead over former Energy 
Minister Felipe Calderon in a voter poll ahead of the July 2 
elections. Lopez Obrador, former mayor of Mexico City, had the 
support of 34 percent of the voters, up from 33 percent at the 
beginning of the month, according to the poll released today by 
Mexico City daily Milenio Diario. Support for Calderon, of the 
National Action Party, fell to 33 percent from 36 percent, the poll 
found. Roberto Madrazo, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, had 
the support of 30 percent of likely voters, up from 28 percent. The 
poll of 1,000 registered voters, which was conducted May 21-24, has a 
margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points, Milenio said

Source: Bloomberg: 05/29
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DIRTY WAR UPDATE: 2 ACCUSED POLICE OFFICIALS ARE FREED

Two former top Mexican police officials accused of kidnapping a 
leftist rebel during Mexico's 'dirty war' have been released from 
prison. Carlos Solana Macias, ex-director of the Judicial Police for 
the northern state of Nuevo Leon, and ex-Judicial Police agent 
Juventino Romero Cisneros, also known as "The Shark," left the Topo 
Chico prison in the city of Monterrey before dawn, Mexican newspapers 
and radio stations reported.

Solana was released after being detained five months and Romero was 
freed after a year and a half, the reports said. Both were accused of 
the 1975 kidnapping of leftist rebel Jesus Piedra Ibarra, whose 
disappearance became a symbol of the alleged crimes of government 
officials during the country's 'dirty war' in the 1960s and 1970s. It 
was not clear if either had been convicted. The lawyer representing 
both Solana and Cisneros, Jorge A. Ruiz Velazco, told reporters his 
clients were released because of a legal reform. He did not elaborate.

Mexico's Supreme Court cleared the way for arrests related to the 
dirty war in a 2003 ruling that said the statute of limitations does 
not apply to cases in which the victims were never seen again. 
President Vicente Fox created a special prosecutor's office to 
investigate past crimes, but the office has had little luck 
prosecuting top officials, including former President Luis Echeverria.

Cisneros was detained by federal agents on Nov. 8, 2004, after 
acknowledging during questioning by the special prosecutor's office 
that he had detained Piedra Ibarra, the news reports said. Solana, 
then Cisnero's boss, was captured on Dec. 29, 2005.

Source: Associated Press: 05/21

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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: 05.22-05.28
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