Mexico Week In Review: 10.09-10.15

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 10.09-10.15
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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 view newsletter archives, visit:
http://lists.mutualaid.org/pipermail/mexico-week/

"Para Todos, Todo; Para Nosotros Nada"
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OAXACA UPDATE I: TENTATIVE DEAL REACHED AS PROTESTORS REACH MEXICO CITY

Leaders of protests trying to bring down a Mexican state governor
they say is corrupt tentatively agreed to scale back a months-old
occupation of the tourist city of Oaxaca. After thousands of
protesters marched for days to get to Mexico City, the government and
leaders of a teachers union said they made a deal that could see the
protesters cede control of most of downtown Oaxaca to local police
under federal supervision.

Activists and striking teachers have shut down the colonial center of
Oaxaca for four months, hoping to force the resignation of Gov.
Ulises Ruiz, who they accuse of corruption, heavy-handed tactics and
ignoring widespread poverty. Union leader Enrique Rueda told
reporters he agreed to quickly consult the strikers about removing
most street barricades in the city and returning to classes but said
they would continue to push the Senate to make Ruiz step down. "Since
Ulises Ruiz Ortiz is still there, the conflict has not ended," Rueda
said. As part of the tentative agreement, the government agreed to
release protesters who were jailed in recent months and steadily
raise teachers' pay in coming years, Rueda said. "We're prepared to
implement the steps immediately," said Interior Minster Carlos
Abascal.

Thousands of protesters had walked the 280 miles from pretty colonial
Oaxaca City. They arrived at the tattered outskirts of Mexico City on
Monday (10/09), shouting and waving banners to support their leaders
who had been in deadlocked talks with President Vicente Fox's
government. Protesters set up camp outside the Senate, where some
tore down barriers as riot police with shields and gas masks looked
on. Senators will decide whether or not Ruiz has lost control of
Oaxaca state and needs to step down.

In Oaxaca City's central square, protesting teachers were surprised
at the terms of the deal. "This is bad because what we want most is
for Ulises to be removed, not so much the salary raise," said teacher
Benito Santiago. Fox had vowed to resolve the conflict before handing
power to his ruling party successor Felipe Calderon on December 1.
Protesters had lifted some barricades over the weekend as a sign of
good will.

Ambushes and paramilitary-style drive-by shootings, which protesters
say were ordered by Ruiz, have killed at least five activists since
the conflict began. A prominent teacher who had opposed the strike
was murdered last week, his throat cut. Both sides denied
responsibility for the attack. The protests have left Oaxaca scarred
with graffiti and strewn with burned out cars, scaring away tourists
who provide the city's main income.

Source: Reuters: 10/10
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OAXACA UPDATE II:  GUNMEN KILL PROTESTER

Gunmen shot two people at a roadblock killing one in the latest
unrest in the Mexican tourist city of Oaxaca, where protesters are
demanding the ouster of the state governor. The assailants fired at
protesters along a street barricade in the predawn darkness, hitting
one person in the head and another in the arm, activists' spokesman
Omar Olivera said. The victim with the head wound died later in the
hospital, according to another spokesman, Florentino Lopez.

Seven people, mostly protesters, have now been killed in the conflict
that began four months ago, when striking teachers and leftist
activists occupied much of the colonial city, storming Congress and
blocking hundreds of streets in an effort to oust state Gov. Ulises
Ruiz. Activists have accused the state government of encouraging
violence against them.

The shooting began after strikers refused to let two apparently drunk
men in a vehicle pass across an occupied street, according to the
state government. The teachers' leaders shrugged off a warning by the
government that a preliminary deal reached this week, including
higher pay and the release of jailed protesters, would be scrapped
unless they return to classes on Monday. Instead, the said they would
begin a hunger strike then.

Source: Reuters: 10/14
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BORDER NEWS: U.S. HOUSE VOTES FOR BORDER FENCE IN SECURITY BILL

Hundreds of miles of new fences along the U.S.-Mexico border would be
funded under a bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives as
part of an election-year clampdown on illegal immigration. About $1.2
billion would be spent during the fiscal year starting October 1 for
southwest border fencing and other barriers. The money is part of a
$34.8 billion bill for domestic security programs that are being
beefed up following the September 11 attacks.

Under the bill, passed on a 412-6 vote, the beleaguered Federal
Emergency Management Agency, which was roundly criticized for its
slow, uncoordinated response to Hurricane Katrina last year, also
would be overhauled. The Senate was expected to pass the bill
quickly, clearing it for President George W. Bush to sign into law.
The money "will accelerate the (Homeland Security) department's goal
of obtaining operational control of these borders in less than five
years," said Rep. Harold Rogers, a Kentucky Republican who pushed the
bill through the House.

An estimated 12 million illegal immigrants live in the United States,
many of whom entered through the porous southwestern border with
Mexico. Republicans, hoping to hang on to their control of Congress
in fall elections, have been pushing border security in reaction to
voter anger. But the huge spending bill gives the government up to an
additional 17 months -- until June 1, 2009 -- to fully implement a
border check plan that has angered Americans living in northern
states and Canadians. The program requires everyone entering the
United States to show a passport or other high-tech ID at land border
crossings, airports and seaports. Now, Canadians and Americans going
back and forth over the 5,500 mile shared border can show other
documents that security experts say are easily forged.

Absent the comprehensive immigration reform that Bush sought,
Congress instead approved narrowly focused border security, including
new money to hire 1,500 more border patrol agents and 6,700 more
detention beds. The bill includes money to help pay for approximately
700 miles of fence along the southwest border, which the House has
authorized and the Senate is considering. Some Democrats mocked the
fence, saying illegal aliens would easily find a way around it.
Environmentalists worried that it would effectively stop the
immigration of jaguars, rare birds, turtles and snakes and upset a
fragile desert ecosystem.

The government of Mexico on Thursday issued a statement expressing
"its profound concern" with the fence. The statement, translated from
Spanish, said such measures "are contrary to the spirit of
cooperation that should prevail to guarantee security in the common
border." The broad spending bill also criminalizes the construction
of tunnels that could be secret passageways from Mexico or Canada for
drug smugglers, illegal aliens or terrorists.

Source: Reuters: 10/12
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FIRST MEXICO SOCIAL BORDER FORUM

Social Organizations from Mexico and the United States will celebrate
from Oct 12-15 the first Social Border Forum, in an effort to analyze
the peoples on both sides of the limits. The meeting will take place
in Juarez city, at the edge of the dividing line of both nations,
where seminars and workshops are scheduled as well as several
demonstrations in protest of Washington s policy. Louis Head
explained to Prensa Latina groups from both countries will work on
topics like violence, environmental justice and human, labor and
gender rights. The Forum will gather activists from more than 150
human rights groups from both countries

Source: Prensa Latina: 10/09
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PRD RESISTANCE UNITED, AND NOT GIVING UP

Leaders of Mexico's PRD (Revolucion Democratica Party) asserted
Thursday that the civilian resistance continues united behind
opposition leader AMLO (Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador) as legitimate
president of Mexico. Denying the "insidious" rumors that a faction
has withdrawn support, PRD spokesman Gerardo Fernandez Noroña said on
the contrary, they are firm that AMLO will be declared president on
November 20 and that they will try to block the named elect, Felipe
Calderon, from swearing-in before Congress on December 1. He repeated
that all of the PRD groups are in consensus with the agreements of
September's National Democratic Convention and that Obrador is the
most important leader of the left. The PRD spokesman also rejected
Calderon s recent initiatives and long-term program for development
because, "for PRD he will always be a usurper and we will continue
actions to combat him with determination."

Source: Prensa Latina: 10/12
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TIES BETWEEN ELITES AND CHILD SEX RINGS "BEYOND IMAGINATION"

  The complicity in Mexico between child sex rings and the political
and business elites "goes beyond what we can even imagine," says
activist Lydia Cacho, who faces death threats and was even thrown
briefly into prison for revealing those ties in a book. "What we have
just seen is only the tip of the iceberg," Cacho told IPS, after the
local media aired Tuesday recordings of telephone conversations
between two prominent politicians and a hotel owner now in prison,
and a wealthy local businessman. The number of Mexican politicians
and businessmen involved in child pornography and sex rings "would
shock us if we knew the real extent of the phenomenon," said Cacho.

In one of the illegally taped conversations, which apparently date
back to 2004, the governor of the state of Veracruz, Fidel Herrera of
the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and Emilio Gamboa, head
of the party's bloc in the lower house of Congress, can be heard
talking on friendly terms with textile mogul Kamel Nacif. Nacif, a
Mexican of Lebanese origin, who in the obscenity-laced conversation
can be heard asking Gamboa to block a gambling bill to be debated by
Congress, is suing Cacho for libel.

In her 2004 book "Los demonios del Edin" (The Demons of Eden), Cacho
-- who is a journalist and writer as well as the director of a
women's shelter in Canczn -- links Nacif with Jean Succar, a
Lebanese-born hotel owner who is in prison facing charges of
arranging pedophile parties in that Mexican resort town. In another
of the anonymously recorded conservations leaked to the press and
broadcast, Nacif can be heard talking with Succar. Succar, under
arrest in Mexico since July, after he was extradited from the United
States, can be heard asking Nacif for a seven million dollar loan to
purchase a hotel in Canczn, to which Nacif responds in the
affirmative. Later, the two exchange information on "the girl from
Miami," who they refer to as "putita" (little whore), and who they
say they have paid 2,000 dollars. Succar asks Nacif when it would be
best to bring the girl to Canczn, and the latter responds that "next
week, you son of a b***h, but you bring her to fornicate."

In Cacho's book, Succar is identified as the head of a ring of adults
who subjected underage girls to sexual abuse in Canczn, in which
Nacif allegedly took part. Succar was arrested in February 2004 in
the United States on child abuse charges and was extradited to Mexico
in July, where he also faces charges for money laundering and
organized crime. "Los demonios del Edin" contains the personal
accounts of minors who talk about the sexual abuse they suffered at
the hands of a ring in which prominent figures were allegedly
involved. The youngsters describe how the hotel owner sexually abused
them himself, set up a prostitution ring to allow others to abuse
them, and photographed them in order to sell the pornographic images
on the Internet.

A 2004 study by researcher Elena Azaola, which estimated that some
17,000 children under the age of 18 are victims of the sex trade in
Mexico, is also based on interviews with minors who managed to
escape, as well as visits to establishments where underage girls and
boys are forced to work as prostitutes. The two PRI politicians,
Herrera and Gamboa, denied having any illegal ties with Nacif, and
said they did not even know Succar. >From their point of view, the
airing of the tapped phone conversations was a low political blow
aimed at their party. The PRI, which ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000,
came in third in the Jul. 2 presidential and legislative elections.
Gamboa is one of the lawmakers who have approached Felipe Calderon of
the conservative governing National Action Party (PAN) over the last
few days, since he was confirmed as president-elect by the electoral
court.

Javier Gonzalez, a leader of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party
(PRD) legislators, said the leaked conversations between Nacif and
the PRI politicians showed that the political system "is rotten." The
PRD argues that its candidate, Andres Lopez Obrador, lost the
elections to Calderon because of fraud. Cacho agrees that corruption
is rife. "Many businessmen like Nacif have amassed huge fortunes in
exchange for dark favors to politicians."

So far, no direct link between politicians or prominent businessmen
and child porn or sex rings has been proven. But there are
suspicions, which are fuelled by Nacif and his web of contacts.
Cacho, who has been under police protection since last year, when she
began to receive death threats, was referred to in earlier leaked
conversations, between Nacif and Mario Marmn, governor of the state
of Puebla, near the capital. In the tapped conversations, Marmn, a
member of the PRI, can be heard telling Nacif that "I just gave a
bump on the head to that old witch." The two men also discussed how
they had the activist arrested and thrown into a cell with "nutcases
and dykes (lesbians)," so that she would be raped -- something that
did not occur, because in the prison, "the prisoners themselves and
the guards protected me," the writer said in an earlier conversation
with IPS. The tapes, which were sent to the press anonymously and
broadcast in February, were apparently recorded in December 2005,
after Cacho was thrown into jail for 30 hours, after a grueling
20-hour drive from her home in Canczn to Puebla. The activist was
arrested in connection with the libel suit brought against her by
Nacif. But when the news of her arrest broke, the rights watchdog
Amnesty International, the World Organization Against Torture, the
Inter-American Press Association and other international groups
raised an outcry, and Cacho was released on bail. After the scandal
triggered by the leaked phone conversations in February, in which the
governor of Puebla and Nacif -- who owns factories in that state --
are heard discussing actions to teach Cacho a lesson, the Supreme
Court initiated an investigation to determine whether or not Marmn
had engaged in criminal activity. (FIN/2006)

Source: IPS: 09/14

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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: 10.09-10.15
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