Mexico Week In Review: 12.17-12.23

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 12.17-12.23
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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.

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"Para Todos, Todo; Para Nosotros Nada"
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CHIAPAS: MARCOS WITHDRAWS; STATES WAR IS LOOMING

Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) spokesperson Subcomandante 
Marcos warned of possible coming war in Mexico's impoverished 
southern state of Chiapas, and announced his departure from public 
life. "War, like fear, also has a smell, and now its fetid odor is 
starting to permeate our land," Marcos told a meeting of social 
groups in San Cristobal de las Casas. "This is the last time, at 
least for a good while, that we will come out for activities of this 
type," Marcos said at a seminar honoring French-born historian and 
anthropologist Andres Aubry.

Marcos said the "supposedly leftist" local and state administrations 
in Chiapas were to blame for rising tensions, and that the Democratic 
Revolution Party-dominated Chiapas government was intent on 
destroying the autonomous communities the Zapatistas have helped set 
up. He said that incidents have been building up in the territory, 
but complained that for the media, the Zapatistas only become news 
"when we kill or are dying." Marcos said his Zapatista Army of 
National Liberation for two years has been trying to set itself up as 
a political movement in all Mexico, but that it was ready once again 
to stand alone and defend itself from attack. He said "for the first 
time" since the Zapatistas' uprising in 1994, the once widespread 
national and international social support the Zapatistas have 
customarily received this time has been "insignificant or null."

Sources: Associated Press: 12/16; Platts Commodity News English: 12/18
====

A DECADE AFTER ACTEAL, WAR IS AGAIN ON MEXICO'S HORIZON

Naomi Klein in San Cristobal

Nativity scenes are plentiful in San Cristobal de las Casas, a 
colonial city in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. But the one that 
greets visitors at the entrance to the TierrAdentro cultural center 
has a local twist: figurines on donkeys wear miniature ski masks and 
carry wooden guns. It is high season for "Zapatourism", the industry 
of international travelers that has sprung up around the indigenous 
uprising here, and TierrAdentro is ground zero. Zapatista-made 
weavings, posters and jewellery are selling briskly. In the courtyard 
restaurant, where the mood at 10pm is festive, verging on fuzzy, 
college students drink Sol beer. A young man holds up a photograph of 
the rebel leader, Subcomandante Marcos, as always in a mask with a 
pipe, and kisses it. As he does so, his friends snap yet another 
picture of this most documented of movements.

I am taken through the revelers to a room at the back of the cultural 
center, closed to the public. The somber mood here seems a world 
away. Ernesto Ledesma Arronte, a 40-year-old ponytailed researcher, 
is hunched over military maps and human rights incident reports. "Did 
you understand what Marcos said?" he asks me. "It was very strong. He 
hasn't said anything like that in many years." Ledesma Arronte is 
referring to a speech that Marcos made the night before, at a 
conference outside San Cristobal. The speech was titled Feeling Red: 
the Calendar and the Geography of War. Because it was Marcos, it was 
poetic and slightly elliptical. But to Ledesma Arronte's ears, it was 
a code-red alert. "Those of us who have made war know how to 
recognize the paths by which it is prepared and brought near," Marcos 
said. "The signs of war on the horizon are clear. War, like fear, 
also has a smell. And now we are starting to breathe its fetid odor 
in our lands."

Marcos's assessment supports what Ledesma Arronte and his fellow 
researchers at the Center of Political Analysis and Social and 
Economic Investigations have been tracking with their maps and 
charts. On the 56 permanent military bases that the Mexican state 
runs on indigenous land in Chiapas, there has been a marked increase 
in activity. Weapons and equipment are being dramatically upgraded 
and new battalions are moving in, including special forces - all 
signs of escalation.

As the Zapatistas became a global symbol for a new model of 
resistance, it was possible to forget that the war in Chiapas never 
actually ended. For his part, Marcos - despite his clandestine 
identity - has been playing a defiantly open role in Mexican 
politics, most notably during the fiercely contested 2006 
presidential elections. Rather than endorsing the left-left 
candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, he spearheaded a parallel 
"Other Campaign", holding rallies that called attention to issues 
ignored by the major candidates. In this period, Marcos's role as 
military leader of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) 
seemed to fade into the background. He was Delegate Zero - the 
anti-candidate. The previous evening, Marcos had announced that the 
conference would be his last such appearance for some time. "Look, 
the EZLN is an army," he reminded his audience, and he is its 
"military chief". That army faces a grave new threat - one that cuts 
to the heart of the Zapatistas' struggle.

During the 1994 uprising, the EZLN claimed large stretches of land 
and collectivized them, its most tangible victory. In the San Andres 
accords of 1996, the right to territory was recognized, but the 
Mexican government has refused to fully ratify the accords. After 
failing to enshrine these rights, the Zapatistas decided to turn them 
into facts on the ground. They formed their own government structures 
- good-government councils - and stepped up the building of 
autonomous schools and clinics. As the Zapatistas expand their role 
as the de facto government in large areas of Chiapas, the federal and 
state government's determination to undermine them is intensifying.

"Now," says Ledesma Arronte, "they have their method." The method is 
to use the deep desire for land among all peasants in Chiapas against 
the Zapatistas. Ledesma Arronte's organization has documented the 
ways in which, in just one region, the government has spent 
approximately $16m expropriating land, before passing it on - to 
members of the many families linked to the notoriously corrupt 
Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI). Often, the land is already 
occupied by Zapatista families. Most ominously, many of the new 
"owners" are linked to thuggish paramilitary groups, which are trying 
to force the Zapatistas from the newly titled land. Since September 
there has been a marked escalation in violence, including shots fired 
into the air, brutal beatings, and Zapatista families reporting being 
threatened with death, rape and dismemberment. Soon the soldiers in 
their barracks may well have the excuse they need to descend: 
restoring "peace" among feuding indigenous groups. For months, the 
Zapatistas have been resisting violence and trying to expose these 
provocations. But by choosing not to line up behind Lopez Obrador in 
the 2006 election, the movement made powerful enemies. And now, says 
Marcos, their calls for help are being met with a deafening silence.

Exactly 10 years ago, on December 22 1997, as part of the 
anti-Zapatista campaign, a paramilitary gang opened fire in a small 
church in the village of Acteal, killing 45 indigenous people, 16 of 
them children and adolescents. Some of the bodies were hacked with 
machetes. The state police heard the gunfire and did nothing. For 
weeks now, Mexico's newspapers have been filled with articles marking 
the anniversary of the massacre. In Chiapas, however, many people 
point out that conditions today feel eerily familiar: the 
paramilitaries, the rising tension, the mysterious activities of 
soldiers, the renewed isolation from the rest of the country. And 
they have a plea to those who supported them in the past: don't just 
look back. Look forward, and prevent another Acteal massacre before 
it happens.

Source: The Guardian: 12/21
====

MEXICO REMEMBERS 1997 ACTEAL MASSACRE

It's been nearly a decade since pro-government villagers armed with 
guns and machetes slaughtered 45 men, women and children in the 
neighboring hamlet of Acteal -- a massacre that remains emblematic of 
Mexico's human rights failures. At the time -- Dec. 22, 1997 -- 
Chiapas was the battleground where Zapatista rebels were trying to 
build support for their armed insurrection against the Institutional 
Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which had ruled Mexico for seven 
decades. The army and the ruling party's local governor were 
determined to hold them back.

Authorities said the killings were motivated by a land dispute 
between residents of the two Tzotzil Indian communities. Victims' 
families say the killings were motivated by politics, with state 
officials providing weapons and paramilitary training for the more 
conservative village in a bid to crush the Zapatistas. As Saturday's 
dark anniversary approaches, rights groups have renewed their plea 
for a Supreme Court investigation into what they believe is a 
cover-up that has protected the true authors of the crime. A special 
prosecutor also is on the case, taking the rare step of summoning the 
former governor, Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro, to testify behind closed 
doors on Sunday.

Almost everyone agrees that justice has been slow in coming. It 
wasn't until this October that courts sentenced 34 men, mostly 
farmers from Los Chorros, to 26 years each for the killings. Several 
other men had been convicted in the case in 2002. But many say they 
fear the real masterminds, the people who ordered and abetted the 
attack, won't be punished. "We haven't seen any real justice," said 
Vazquez Gomez. "Ten years have passed, but justice still hasn't 
arrived."

In the intervening decade, a modest brick church has been built near 
the spot where many of the victims were cut down as they prayed in a 
wooden hut. A few more solid houses also have gone up. The lack of 
more violence since the attack is notable, given how little faith the 
villagers have in Mexico's justice system. While survivors still 
gather each year to mourn their dead and demand prosecutions, many 
say nothing could bring them to seek revenge. "I thought of ways I 
could seek a solution by my own hand, me against them, but then I 
thought 'that is not right,'" said Maria Vazquez Gomez, a Tzotzil 
Indian who lost almost her entire family in the attack -- her mother, 
father, a brother and her sister-in-law.

One key factor is that the villagers are members of a Christian base 
community organized by lay workers of the Roman Catholic Church. 
While they sympathized with Zapatistas at the time, they rejected the 
path of armed uprising, and they still do. "I have a friend who has 
guns, and he said to me once, 'If you want to go get some revenge for 
what they did to your family, then let's go,'" said Manuel Vazquez 
Luna, who was just 10 years old when the gunmen slaughtered his 
father, mother and 5 sisters; he survived by running and hiding. "And 
I thought about it, and I went back to him and said, 'No, I can't do 
that.'" And so they have carried on in the decade since, with 
villagers from the killers' town living just a few miles from the 
families of the victims, passing each other on the rural roads 
several times a week.

Source: Associated Press: 12/19
====

SPECIAL REPORT: NAFTA, THE FINAL ACT

Every hour, Mexico imports $1.5 million dollars worth of agricultural 
and food products, almost all from the United States. In that same 
hour, 30 people-men, women, and children-leave their homes in the 
Mexican countryside to take up the most dangerous journey of their 
lives-as migrants to the United States. No matter what one's stance 
on these two fundamental phenomena of our age-economic integration 
and immigration-one thing is absolutely clear: they are related.

As the final phase of implementation of the North American Free Trade 
Agreement (NAFTA) approaches, the debate remains disappointingly 
stuck in ideologically defined terms. Proponents of the free trade 
model point, not surprisingly, to increased trade as proof of its 
success. Opponents cite negative impacts from the point of view of 
their respective sectors, issues, and interests. In January 2008 
NAFTA enters its last stage of implementation in which all remaining 
tariffs on corn, beans, and other sensitive agricultural products 
will be eliminated. With severely negative impacts predicted for 
Mexican farmers and an accumulation of social problems in all three 
countries, this phase obliges policymakers to finally take NAFTA to 
task for how it has affected the daily lives of North American 
citizens.

Applying the NAFTA model elsewhere in the world, U.S. negotiators 
have hammered through "free trade agreements" (FTAs) bent on prying 
open new markets for U.S. products and guaranteeing favorable 
conditions for investors. These are laudable objectives, but for too 
long they have ignored the fact that this narrow focus has high 
social costs in our country and in the partner countries. There comes 
a time when we have to determine whether those social costs are worth 
the benefits and consider a change in course. To do this, we need 
comprehensive studies that look at the macroeconomic data and 
statistics, but also at livelihoods, communities, and families.

Two Towns
The reality reflected in carefully selected numbers too often hides 
the devastation in human lives. Two towns-El Paso, Texas and 
Nochixtlan, Oaxaca-illustrate some of the real costs of NAFTA.

Shortly after NAFTA went into effect, companies located in El Paso 
began an exodus over the border. The textile industry was the hardest 
hit. The community organization Mujer Obrera reports that between 
1994 and 2007 some 50,000 apparel workers lost their jobs. Two-thirds 
of them were women, mostly of Mexican descent. As companies closed 
shop, women workers lost their jobs and the county of El Paso, now 
tied for the third poorest county in the nation, never found a way to 
compensate. As a result, poverty has increased by over 30% since 1999 
and today nearly one of every three El Paso residents lives in 
poverty, 57% of them women. Federal money under NAFTA for retraining 
programs has been insufficient and misdirected, as former workers are 
either poorly trained or trained for jobs that do not exist in the 
community. Year after year, El Paso drops down in average income. 
What has happened is no longer due primarily to job loss. Most of the 
poor are working poor, according to the 2005 census. They have lost 
income because employers are paying less and more people are employed 
in the informal sector. Under this post-NAFTA scenario, women and 
children bear the brunt-a full 45% of women-headed households live 
below the poverty level.

Nochixtlan, Oaxaca also suffered under NAFTA, but in a very different 
way. In the small Mixteco Indian community of southern Mexico, corn 
farming supported nearly all the inhabitants in one way or another. 
After centuries of misuse, the land suffered from one of the worst 
erosion rates in the world and chemical farming had depleted the 
soil. Then, lower yields were combined with the impact of increased 
imports under NAFTA that drove the domestic price of corn down 59% 
between 1991 and 2006. Nochixtlan farmers began to abandon their 
farms, and today the Mixteca region of Oaxaca has one the country's 
highest rates of out-migration. Here, too, no government programs 
came to the rescue or even attempted to soften the blow.

But El Paso and Nochixtlan have something else in common besides 
tragedy-the tremendous will of the community to pick itself up and 
move on. In El Paso, the seamstresses have created a community 
development plan that includes food gardens, a restaurant, an import 
business, and a daycare service. All are small scale but they are 
serious attempts to create sustainable jobs that fulfill human needs. 
In Nochixtlan, a farmers' organization has built trenches to stop 
erosion, started a reforestation program that has planted three 
million native variety trees to date, and instituted sustainable 
farming techniques. As they attempt to save their village, they are 
also contributing to the global battle against global warming and 
environmental decline. The efforts of both are slowly reviving their 
communities. But they need help.

U.S. trade policy sent these communities into deep crises. A new 
trade policy can help pull them out, and avoid a similar fate for 
other communities. The terms of NAFTA must be modified to permit 
government regulation of basic food production and supply, and 
provide policy instruments so poor Mexican farmers are not forced to 
compete with subsidized large companies for their own markets. The 
petition to withdraw corn and beans from the free trade agreement and 
support small farmers and food sovereignty is not a blow against free 
trade precepts but a common-sense demand for public policy that 
places lives and livelihoods first. There must be mechanisms of 
flexibility when the terms of trade threaten livelihoods, food 
security, or health. This flexibility has been lacking in NAFTA and 
other FTAs. Negotiations have been inflexible, with developing 
countries finally giving in to terms they know will harm part of 
their population. The pound of flesh exacted from poor countries in 
exchange for access to the U.S. market in the end hurts both partner 
countries and the United States, since the terms of the agreements 
exacerbate inequality and close off opportunities, leading to 
increased immigration.

U.S. negotiators call this success but the long-term price in 
international relations will be high and the immediate price is the 
rejection of U.S. trade policy we see in many Latin American 
countries, accompanied by resentment of the United States for the 
terms of imposition. There is a false dichotomy presented to us that 
divides protectionism-seen as an evil of the past-and free trade as 
the only path to the future. Free trade has even been presented as 
synonymous with freedom in the political realm and the Western 
Hemisphere portrayed as divided between the democratic open-market 
supporters and nations searching to mitigate the polarizing effects 
of trade and investment liberalization. Until we reject ideological 
posturing and analyze the real impact of FTAs we will never arrive at 
more just and viable trade policies for all our countries and a more 
prosperous and stable hemisphere.

To develop a sustainable and fair trade policy this debate must 
become less dogmatic and more pragmatic. It's time to take a close 
look at what really is happening under these agreements and be open 
to corrections or creative changes in course. Communities have 
already begun to do that and a new trade policy can find many 
pointers in these local experiences.

1) Trade policy should be accompanied by aid for sustainable development:
U.S. aid to Mexico should be used to encourage efforts like 
Nochixtlan and compensate for damage done by NAFTA by funding new 
economic initiatives. NAFTA's extension, the Security and Prosperity 
Partnership (SPP) has gone off in the complete opposite direction. 
Instead of directing aid and programs to regions negatively affected 
by the agreement, it has facilitated terms for transnational 
corporations-the only sector of society directly represented in its 
negotiations. Most recently, the SPP process has led to Plan Mexico 
and a tenfold leap in proposed U.S. aid to Mexico-but for 
enforcement, intelligence, and military equipment. This creates a 
grave danger of militarizing a politically polarized Mexico and 
increasing the possibility of conflict. Creating healthy employment 
in the United States and Mexico would have a far greater impact on 
reducing the illegal drug trade than surveillance planes.

2) We need comprehensive studies:
For too long we have ignored or sought to patch over the serious 
problems generated in the United States and Mexico by NAFTA. We have 
abundant information on trade flows from the USTR, but little on the 
real consequence on real human lives. It's past time to call for 
studies that assess the economic data but also report on changing 
social indices even when direct cause and effect with NAFTA is 
difficult to ascertain. The results then should be heeded. One of the 
very few studies of NAFTA in Mexico by the General Accounting Office 
concluded years ago that there was a pressing need for rural 
compensation funds. Nothing was done. Since then many of the 
predicted negative impacts have occurred, and there has been no 
policy response whatsoever.

3) A moratorium should be called on all new FTAs, including the three 
remaining before the U.S. Congress: South Korea, Panama, and Colombia.
The moratorium should last until new studies of the immediate and 
long-term impact of FTAs have been thoroughly evaluated so as to 
determine whether this model works. The three FTAs before congress 
should be rejected not just for the particular circumstances of each 
case but because the FTA model is seriously flawed as an instrument 
of a constructive trade and foreign policy.

What we already know about NAFTA-style Free Trade Agreements is that 
along with increasing trade, they generate inequality. Adopting a 
trade policy that widens the gap between rich and poor here and 
abroad does nobody a service in the long term. Unless we change 
course, the social costs of our current trade policy will grow over 
the years and what we already see-unemployment and underemployment in 
our communities and abroad, environmental degradation, natural 
resource depletion, and growing gaps between those who benefit and 
those who are harmed-could develop into more serious problems of 
instability and widespread poverty. A new policy would assure 
predictability and stable markets for U.S. producers, guarantees-not 
privileges-for U.S. investors, and basic rights for workers 
everywhere. It will imply a more active role of governments in 
balancing a competitive open-market system with protection of weaker 
sectors and the common good.

It will also mean denying some of the demands large corporations make 
in the name of competitiveness. But that's healthy. If there is one 
thing we've learned from the growth of inequality under NAFTA, it's 
that trickle down doesn't work unless you squeeze from the top. 
Companies must recognize responsibility for the communities whose 
labor and resources go to make the products they sell and the profits 
they reap. Powerful interests will complain, but greater fairness for 
all-between employers and employees, the United States, and its 
partner nations-will build a more peaceful and stable world for the 
future. And that will benefit all of us.

Laura Carlsen (lcarlsen at ciponline.org) is Director of the Americas 
Policy Program (www.americaspolicy.org) of the Center for 
International Policy. This text is based on a congressional briefing 
on NAFTA presented Dec. 6, 2007.

Source: Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP): 12/18

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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: 12.17-12.23
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