Mexico Week In Review: 04.23-04.29

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 04.23-04.29
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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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CHIAPAS: RIGHTS GROUP: CAUSES OF CONFLICT STILL PREVAIL

The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba), based
in the Highlands of Mexico's conflicted southern Chiapas state, has
issued a new report charging that 13 years after an armed uprising in
the state, the roots of the conflict still prevail. The report,
"Armed Conflict and its Actors in 2006," finds a resurgence of
paramilitary activity, especially attacks on Zapatista communities
and attempts to evict them from their lands. The Zapatistas have
observed a truce since shortly after their New Years Day 1994
rebellion. Noting that the Zapatistas have concentrated over the past
year on an unarmed civil initiative, the "Other Campaign," the report
protests that "Military...actions have intensified against...social
protest and...organizations that have opted for the construction of a
civil and pacific national movement." The report finds that a de
facto "state of exception" has persisted in Chiapas despite federal
administrations in Mexico City coming and going.

The report especially notes the paramilitary group OPDDIC, which it
charges in August carried out an illegal eviction of Zapatista
families from the Chol Maya community of Tumbalá, in the "official"
municipality of Palenque and the Zapatista "autonomous municipality"
of Roberto Barrios.

The report finds that OPDDIC is engaged in an "encircling logic," and
"in coordination with the military presence, is closing a circle
around the so-called conflict zone." It calls for a resumption of
dialogue, stating: "The demilitarization of territory and politics in
Chiapas is imperative."

Source: www.ww4report.com: 04/28
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OAXACA: NEW GUERRILLA GROUP FORMED TO FIGHT GOVERNOR

A new guerrilla group formed to take up arms against southern Mexican
state Oaxaca's governor Ulises Ruiz. In a message published on the
Internet, the Southern People's Revolutionary Brigade (BPRS) claimed
its establishment and said it backed the Oaxacan People's Popular
Assembly (APPO), a civilian organization formed after striking
teachers occupied Oaxaca City, the state's capital, from May to
October last year and demanded higher wages. It called for the
resignation of Ruiz, who made a bloody attempt to evict striking
teachers last June.

In late October 2006, the Mexican government ordered the police to
evict the protesters and has since controlled the city center.
However, clashes between the police and APPO protestors have left
more than 20 people dead and resulted in huge losses for tourism, a
major sources of income for the city.

The BPRS said that a "decadent political system" had forced it to
turn to revolution and take up arms in a clandestine manner. The
group said that its main target was Ruiz, a member of the nation's
third biggest party, the Institutional Revolution Party, accusing him
of "ignominy and unheard-of barbarity".

In another development, APPO has announced that it will protest again
on May 1, 2 and 15 to demand better living conditions and governance
in the state, one of the poorest regions in Mexico.

Source: Xinhua: 04/25
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POLICE FIND BODY OF EDITOR

Police found the body of a newspaper editor abducted last week
outside a police station in the border city of Agua Prieta. The body
of Saul Noe Martinez Ortega, an editor at the Interdiario de Agua
Prieta, was found in neighboring Chihuahua state, according to a
state official in Sonora, where Agua Prieta is located. The official
asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to discuss
the case with the media.

Martinez Ortega, 36, was abducted April 16 by men armed with assault
rifles who forced him into a car in the center of the city, across
from Douglas, Ariz. He had been dead at least six days and relatives
identified his body by a tattoo on his right shoulder, the official
said. The Miami-based Inter American Press Association has reported
an alarming number of journalists killed in Mexico on orders from
drug gangs, including seven since October. Two others have
disappeared and eight have reported receiving death threats.

Source: Associated Press: 04/23
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MEXICO CITY LEGALIZES EARLY-STAGE ABORTION

Mexico City's liberal legislative assembly passed a controversial law
legalizing abortion during a woman's first 12 weeks of pregnancy,
placing the Mexican capital among Cuba and Guyana as the only Latin
American and Caribbean locations with unrestricted access to the
procedure. The vote, after a day of fiery debate, was praised by
supporters of abortion rights and denounced by their opponents. The
vote will dramatically alter the landscape of abortion in Mexico,
where most of the 107 million population claims to be Roman Catholic.
Mexico City has 8 million people, but its surrounding region contains
21 million more, and opponents warned that Mexicans from throughout
the country could avail themselves of Mexico City's new legislation.

"It's a huge victory," said Dr. Raffaela Schiavon, the executive
director of the women's health advocacy group Ipas Mexico. "It could
start a chain of similar initiatives in other Mexican states and be
an example for other countries." The passage also signifies a victory
for the country's liberal Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD),
which last year lost a narrow, bitterly contested presidential
election to the conservative National Action Party (PAN). Political
analyst Armand Peschard-Sverdrup says the legislation's passage will
help the left-leaning PRD solidify its appeal. "They're catering to
their base," said Peschard-Sverdrup, the director of the
Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies'
Mexico Project. "It's a natural outcome of the election."

The debate over the bill has roiled Mexico for weeks, pitting
conservative leaders and the country's Roman Catholic Church, with
help from the Vatican, against abortion-rights advocates. During the
seven-hour debate, PAN assembly lawmakers had tried to delay the
bill. It passed 46-19, with one lawmaker abstaining. PAN leaders
argued that the 12-week cut-off for abortions was "arbitrary" and
ill-defined. "It's lamentable that the elected leaders of the capital
did not listen to the issues we raised on the assembly floor," PAN
city lawmaker Antonio Zepeda told CNN minutes after the vote.

Supporters of the bill say it will protect the lives of thousands of
women who already undergo risky illegal abortion procedures. "It's
going to make an enormous difference in the lives of Mexican women,"
said Lilian Sepulveda, the Latin American legal adviser for the New
York-based Center for Reproductive Rights. "So instead of back
alleys, women will be able to go to the doctor's office to get the
health services they need."

But the bill had brought fierce opposition from the church, which
publicly blasted the PRD. In recent weeks, church leaders collected
signatures and called for a nationwide referendum. They organized
protests and rallies and were buoyed last week by a letter from Pope
Benedict XVI, who called the proposed law a "grave threat" to unborn
children. Their fierce opposition came despite a ban on political
activity by religious groups. The PRD responded with its own letter
to the Vatican, protesting the pope's involvement. President Felipe
Calderon, of the PAN, has opposed the bill, and the party has said it
will ask the Mexican Supreme Court to review the law.

Abortion in Mexico was already legal in cases of incest, rape or if a
woman's life is in danger. The procedure would remain illegal if done
after 13 weeks. Mexico City officials estimate that at least 20,000
Mexican women undergo illegal abortions each year, with at least
1,500 dying from complications. Opponents fear women from across the
country will stream to Mexico City for the low-cost procedure.

Source: McClatchy Newspapers: 04/24
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ZAPATISTA CAMP DEFENDS FISHING RIGHTS ON COLORADO RIVER DELTA
By Dan Bacher

Since February 26 of this year, the Cucapa Tribe in El Mayor, Baja
California has organized an historic Zapatista peace camp to defend
their fishing rights against harassment and intimidation by the
Mexican government on the Colorado River Delta. The idea for the camp
originated during a visit by Subcomandante Marcos, also known as
"delegado zero" (delegate zero), who is the spokesman for the EZLN
(Zapatista Army of National Liberation), to El Mayor during the
Zapatista "Otra Campaña" (Other Campaign) in October 2006. "We have
decided to send an urgent message to the Mexicans and Chicanos north
of the Rio Grande to come in order to maximize the number of people
here, create a safe space, and protect the Cucapa and Kiliwa
community during the fishing season," said Marcos in announcing the
initiation of the camp after a meeting with the Cucapa and Kiliwa
community leaders.

In February, the Cucapa community issued its call to action. "You are
no longer being asked to stand in solidarity with the indigenous
people of Mexico. Now you are being asked to stand to play an
integral role in a bi-national effort that will no longer consist of
only resisting but also helping these communities exist and live as
they have for thousands of years," said the tribe. The 304 member
Cucapa Tribe said the camp aimed to "help reestablish the networks
and relations that existed before borders separated families and
communities, and to help expose these atrocities to a world that has
avoided looking at the price of its excess, comfort and luxury."

Although the peace camp got off to a slow start, the momentum built
in March as the Cucapa and supporters constructed a fishing camp,
secured buyers for the fish (corvina), purchased a refrigerated
trailer and netted fish in defiance of federal fishing regulations
that require permits in a "marine protected area." By the end of
April, the camp had achieved its goals. "The camp is almost over, but
it has been extremely successful," explained Cesar Soriano from the
Banda Martes in Los Angeles. "The main goal of the Cucapa - to fish
without government harassment - was achieved." "The camp also
achieved its second goal, to organize direct support from people from
both sides of the border," said Soriano. At different points during
the camp, activists from Mexico City, Australia, El Salvador, and
American Indian nations, as well as from San Diego and Los Angeles,
showed their solidarity with the Cucapa. Many Zapatista solidarity
groups from throughout California and the Southwest organized
fundraisers for the Cucapa struggle.

Subcomandante Marcos and 10 Comandantes from Chiapas were also
welcomed by the O'odham Tribe and friends in the state of Sonora
while en route to the Cucapa Camp in April. "The Cucapa are doing the
same thing they have been doing for 9,000 years," said Marcos, as
quoted by Brenda Norrell in Narco News on April 11. "The Cucapa and
other Indian people called for this camp in defense of nature so they
can fish without detentions or being put in jail." Caravans from Los
Angeles, San Diego, Oakland and other California cities have gone to
the camp to support the Cucapa when they fish during the high tides.
While some accompanied the fishermen and fisherwomen on their boats,
the others stayed on shore to watch out for federal soldiers coming
to cite or harass the Cucapa. The last high tide that the Cucapa will
fish during will be from May 10-May 16, 2007.

For over thousands of years, the Cucapa people lived on land
surrounding the Colorado River and its Delta where it empties into
the Sea of Cortez. The tribe, in what is now the southwestern United
States and north end of Baja California, lived off harvesting the
native fish and plants of the river and Delta. However, fish catches
by the Cucapa and other tribes plummeted in recent decades as
agribusiness in California and Arizona and thirsty Southern
California cities diverted the entire flow of the Colorado without
regard for the indigenous people below the U.S.-Mexico border. With
only a trickle of the river ever reaching the once fertile Delta,
catches of corvina, totuava (a giant seabass like fish that is now
protected) and other species of fish declined dramatically.

Rather than addressing the problems of massive water diversions and
fishing by corporate commercial fishing fleets that caused the
fishery and ecosystem to decline, the Mexican government, under
urging by corporate-funded U.S. conservation groups like Conservation
International and the World Wildlife Fund, declared the traditional
area of the Cucapa and Kiliwa people "an ecological reserve." They
transformed the waters that for thousands of years sustained
indigenous people into the "Biosphere Reserve of the Upper Gulf of
California" on June, 10, 1993, because it was "in the public
interest," according to the government's National Commission of
Protected Natural Areas website. "The website also noted that 77
percent of the people who live and around the reserve rely on fishing
for their livelihoods, so it is unclear which public interest the
fishing ban in the protected area serves," writes journalist Kristin
Bricker, in the October 22 Narco News Bulletin. According to Bricker,
"The problem isn't that the Cucapa and Killiwa don't want to preserve
endangered fish and dolphins. They point out that it is in their very
best interest to protect the species they rely upon for their
livelihood and they want very much to be custodians of the river and
its fish as they have for generations." Hilda Hurtado Valenzuela, the
secretary of the Cucapa fishing cooperative, stressed that the Cucapa
was not responsible for the over fishing, even though they bear the
brunt of its consequences.

Armed federal soldiers (federales) have patrolled the reserve and
accosted the fishermen since the marine protected area was
established. In October, the community had approximately thirty
outstanding warrants for "illegal" fishing in their attempt to
survive, practicing the same traditions as their ancestors.
Hopefully, the success of this camp will send a strong message to the
Mexican government and U.S. "conservation" groups that so called
"bio-reserves" and "marine protected areas" cannot be imposed upon
indigenous people and other family fishermen without resistance.

The problems that the Cucapa Tribe faces in Mexico parallel the
situation in California where well funded "conservation" groups, in
collusion with a Republican Governor, are attempting to kick
recreational anglers and family commercial fishermen off the water
through the institution of "marine protected areas," even though
massive de-facto reserves and some of the strictest fishing
regulations in the world are already in place. The "marine protected
areas" constitute a major case of "green washing" where the main
problems responsible for fishery declines in California - habitat
destruction, water quality decline and global warming - are avoided
because to address these problems would require dealing with major
corporate interests responsible for fishery declines. Just like the
Cucapa and other tribes have been completely excluded by
"conservation" groups and Mexican government from any input into the
institution of the bioreserves, the California Indian tribes have to
date been completely excluded from a privately funded "stakeholders"
process to push through the MLPA (Marine Life Protection Act)
initiative. And just like the ecosystem of the Colorado River Delta
has been destroyed by water diversions and pollution, the California
Delta, a nursery sustaining a wide variety of species along the
California Coast, is threatened by a food chain collapse caused by
massive increases in water diversions by the state and federal
governments.

Source: Upside Down World: 04/24

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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: 04.23-04.29
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