Mexico Week In Review: 06.25-07.01

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review:  06.25-07.01
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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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ZAPATISTAS ARRIVE HOME; PREPARE FOR INTERNATIONAL MEETING

Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) spokesperson Subcomandante 
Marcos has arrived back in the Chiapas rainforest after concluding 
his tour of Mexico's northern states in the second phase of the 
"Other Campaign." Arriving first in the Chiapas highland city of San 
Cristobal de Las Casas, Marcos' caravan then proceeded to the jungle 
settlement of La Garrucha. Fifteen other Zapatista commanders who had 
also been on tour arrived back in Chiapas days ahead of Marcos. They 
will now start preparing for an "Intergalactic Encuentro," a meeting 
of their international supporters, to be hosted on their territory in 
a little over a month. A highlight of Marcos' tour came in 
Guadalajara, where he unveiled his new erotic novel Noches de Fuego y 
Desvelo (Nights of Fire and Sleeplessnes), illustrated with drawings 
by the author. Proceeds are to go towards programs for Chiapas' 
autonomous indigenous communities.

Meanwhile, misery and social conflict remain deeply entrenched in 
Chiapas. Juan González Esponda, leader of the state's official 
Reconciliation Commission for Pueblos and Communities in Conflict, 
reports that some 500 families remain displaced in Chiapas as a 
result of political violence that was at its worst between 1994 and 
2000. At the peak of the crisis, 20,000 people were displaced. He did 
not say how many individuals were represented by these 500 families.

Marvin Lorena Arriaga Córdova, leader of the State Institute for 
Adults (IEA) reports that Chiapas has the highest rate of adult 
illiteracy of any state in Mexico, with some 560,000 adults who 
cannot read or write.

Many communities remain bitterly divided. The Fray Bartolome de Las 
Casas Human Rights Center reported June 23 that adherents of the PRI 
political machine in Tzuluwitz, San Juan Cancuc municipality, had cut 
electrical service to 13 families who adhere to the Zapatista 
movement. The wiring had been installed at the Zapatista families' 
own expense, and was cut with the connivance of municipal authorites, 
according to the report.

Source: http://www.ww4report.com/node/4134: 06/27
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CHIAPAS: ARMS USED IN ACTEAL MASSACRE DISCOVERED

The Special Investigator (Fiscalía Especial) for the Acteal massacre 
in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas has announced the discovery in 
a cave of two AK-47 rifles, which are believed to be those used in 
the Dec. 22, 1997 slaying of 45 Tzotzil Maya peasants. The rifles 
were found May 22 by police near the community of Los Chorros, 
Chenalho municipality, where the attack was said to have been 
planned. The cave was searched based on information provided by one 
of the men serving time for the massacre at El Amate prison. His name 
was not revealed, but authorities said he would be transferred to 
another prison in Cintalapa for his protection.

The Fiscalía Especial, led by Mariano López Perez, was created by 
Gov. Juan Sabines Guerrero at the beginning of the year. The peasant 
organization that had been targeted in the massacre, Las Abejas, also 
asserted that the weapons had been sealed in the cave after they were 
used to slay 21 women-four of them pregnant--15 children and nine men 
at the hamlet of Acteal. "This demonstrates the veracity of our 
accusations and declarations, that there are arms hidden in the 
communities of Chenalho with the presence of paramilitaries," Las 
Abejas said in a statement after the discovery. The statement also 
said that the "intellectual authors" of the attack remained at large, 
and called for charges to be brought against ex-president Ernesto 
Zedillo Ponce de León; his ex-secretary of Gobernación, Emilio 
Chuayfett; and the ex-governor of Chiapas, Julio César Ruiz Ferro.

In another communiqué June 22, Las Abejas protested the growing 
presence of army troops in the Highlands of Chiapas. Noting the 
recent charges of atrocities by federal troops in Michoacan, the 
statement charged that "the soldiers are taking control of public 
space, intimidating the population and committing abuses."

Source: http://www.ww4report.com/node/4134: 06/27
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IMMIGRATION UPDATE: CALDERON SAYS VOTE 'A GRAVE ERROR'

President Felipe Calderon blasted the U.S. Senate's rejection of the 
immigration bill, calling the senators' action "a grave error" that 
avoided a "sensible, rational and legal solution." "It's a mistake," 
Calderon said. "First, because it's a problem that's not being 
confronted. And with this evasive action the U.S. Senate is making it 
worse. Secondly, by closing the door on legal immigration, the only 
thing the Senate does is open the door to illegal immigration."

Calderon, appearing at a joint news conference with the visiting 
President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, told reporters he continues to 
oppose a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border which was approved by 
Congress last year. Some 370 miles of fencing will be constructed by 
2008, about 153 miles inside Texas. Another 400 miles would be built 
later. More than a tenth of Mexico's 103 million people now live in 
the United States, many of them illegally. As the United States has 
beefed up border security, people from Mexico and Central America 
have opted for new - and often perilous - ways of making it across. 
On Tuesday, U.S. agents manning a California border checkpoint 
discovered three Mexican emigrants hiding out inside a truck engine. 
One of them, a woman, was admitted to a hospital after suffering 
severe burns from the running motor, according to newspaper reports.

Calderon, however, has placed less emphasis than his predecessor on 
lobbying for changes in U.S. immigration law, partly, analysts say, 
out of concern of getting burned. Former President Vicente Fox's 
relationship with President Bush soured over Mexico's refusal to 
support the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the failure to work out an 
immigration agreement with Washington. "Fortunately, Calderon has 
been more realistic," said Rafael Fernandez de Castro, a Mexico 
City-based foreign affairs analyst. "He's put fewer eggs in the 
immigration reform basket and it's not so costly for him and his 
diplomacy." However, Fernandez said the senators' failure to move 
ahead with the reform would have a "very negative impact" on 
U.S.-Mexican relations. "Immigration is becoming a huge stone that's 
complicating the relationship in other areas," he said.

The topic of immigration was also part of talks between Calderon and 
Ortega, who agreed to work together to guarantee "the full respect 
for migrants' human rights," according to a joint statement. Ortega, 
a one-time Marxist president of Nicaragua following that country's 
1970s leftist revolution against a U.S.-backed dictator, was in 
Mexico City to strengthen ties with Mexico and to visit the shrine to 
the Virgin of Guadalupe. The Nicaraguan president had vowed to make 
the pilgrimage if he won election this year, which he did, returning 
to power 17 years after being voted out of office.

Nicaraguans account for relatively few of the Central Americans 
migrating illegally to the United States. Most come from El Salvador, 
Honduras and Guatemala. But hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans have 
migrated to Costa Rica for work. Calderon has been working to repair 
ties with the rest of Latin America that had become frayed under Fox, 
who finished a six-year term in December. Like Fox, Calderon is a 
political and economic conservative. He argues that the opportunities 
offered by the 13-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement can 
only be fully realized with a freer flow of labor between the United 
States, Mexico and Canada. "The American economy could not prosper or 
advance without the labor of both Mexican and Central American 
migrants," Calderon said.

Source: Houston Chronicle: 06/28
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GOVERNMENT PURGES FEDERAL POLICE CHIEFS

Mexico replaced the federal police chiefs from each of the country's 
31 states and the Federal District pending polygraph and drug tests 
to determine whether they are on the right side of the law in the 
nation's foundering drug war. The surprise purge of top leaders of 
the federal police and an elite federal investigations agency comes 
as Mexican President Felipe Calderon seeks traction in a 6-month-old 
campaign against drug traffickers that has neither stemmed killings 
nor slowed shipments. Corruption among local, state and federal law 
enforcement has for years given cover to drug smuggling gangs, now at 
war over access routes to the United States, and over Mexico's 
growing domestic markets. "Every federal cop is obliged to carry out 
his post with legality, honesty and efficiency," Public Safety 
Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said at a news conference announcing the 
housecleaning. "In the fight against crime, we have strategies. One 
axis of our strategy is to professionalize and purge our police 
corps." The police chiefs were replaced by federal officers who have 
passed a rigorous screening, Garcia Luna said.

Shortly after taking office in December, Calderon sent the army to 
work alongside federal police in nine states. But there are growing 
suspicions that millionaire kingpins continue to buy protection as 
easily as ever, despite Calderon's efforts. Half a dozen federal 
police officers were arrested this month when their army counterparts 
discovered they'd allowed a cocaine shipment to pass through the 
Mexicali airport. About a third of Mexico's 20,000-member federal 
police force, which investigates all drug crimes and homicides, is 
assigned to work alongside the 12,000 soldiers employed in Calderon's 
anti-trafficking campaign. That pairing has raised speculation about 
information being leaked to smugglers and growers. Street prices in 
the United States remain stable, suggesting that suppliers continue 
to smuggle narcotics over the U.S.-Mexico border relatively 
undisturbed, drug experts say.

With more than 2,000 people killed last year, curbing drug violence 
emerged as Calderon's first priority when he took office. The army, 
with its reputation of being more trustworthy than Mexico's police 
agencies, emerged as Calderon's tool of choice. But critics worry 
that Mexico's army will be the next institution to be tainted by drug 
profits. American drug users are estimated to spend as much as $65 
billion a year, mostly on cocaine, marijuana, heroin and 
methamphetamine, commodities largely controlled by Mexican 
trafficking organizations and their Colombian affiliates. "Drug 
trafficking results in a lot of money, and money buys power," said a 
senior U.S. counter-drug official. "When you have someone who has a 
base of operations significant enough to earn millions of dollars a 
year, it's not uncommon for them to wield the kind of power to 
develop circles of protection. Mexico is no exception to that. That's 
no secret here. The government of Mexico is well aware."

Calderon has asked the U.S. to shoulder a larger share of the drug 
enforcement burden. U.S. officials acknowledge that the war in Iraq 
has shifted attention and military resources away from drug 
interdiction in the air and sea shipping zones of Mexico and Central 
America. Although Calderon has won credit for facing down drug 
cartels, uncertainty lingers in Washington over how much help to give 
Mexico's law enforcement agencies, particularly in the gathering and 
sharing of intelligence.

Garcia Luna would not say whether any of the replaced federal 
officers were being investigated for alleged corruption, or what 
prompted the government's decision. "Any evidence we have will be 
processed by the attorney general's office, and, of course, any 
reference we find will be analyzed and sent to prosecutors," he said. 
Mexican lawmakers demanded that Calderon's government present any 
evidence it has of federal police corruption. The removed state heads 
of the federal police, known as the Federal Preventive Police, or 
PFP, as well as the Federal Investigative Agency, or AFI, will 
undergo additional training and be subjected to close scrutiny, 
Garcia Luna said. They will be given polygraph and drug tests, he 
added, and their financial assets will be examined to see whether 
they are in line with a public servant's salary.

Garcia Luna said the new state police chiefs were among 284 federal 
police officers who began work as replacements. Calderon in March 
called for new standards in police ethics and discipline, triggering 
the recall. "It's obvious that there are mafias that don't want 
things to change," Garcia Luna said. "In the fight against 
corruption, we won't give in to pressures." The PFP was created in 
1998, unifying various federal agencies that had specialized 
jurisdiction over airports, customs, roads and civil unrest. The 
5,000-member AFI was created by then-President Vicente Fox in 2001 to 
replace a corrupt federal police force.  More than 100 AFI agents 
work under the supervision of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration 
agents based in Mexico, according to the Justice Department's Office 
of Inspector General.

Source: Los Angeles Times: 06/26
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BORDER NEWS: INDIANS COMPLAIN GRAVES DUG UP FOR BORDER FENCE

Members of a traditional Indian nation spanning the Arizona-Mexico 
border are complaining that work to put up a new barrier to secure 
the border has desecrated an ancient burial ground. The U.S. Border 
Patrol is building a 75-mile (120-km) vehicle barrier across the 
Tohono O'odham nation lands next to Mexico's Sonora state, in a bid 
to stop drug and human traffickers driving across from Mexico in 
trucks and cars. The barrier is made of closely set steel posts sunk 
in concrete, and is being built in close consultation with tribal 
authorities. It replaces a rusted, barbed wire fence that stretched 
across the vast, cactus-strewn tract of desert where the tribe has 
lived for generations.

The tribal government said that "human burials" dating from the 12th 
century were found at two sites during preparatory work on the 
footings for the fence, and say the discovery was handled correctly 
according to protocols developed with the U.S. government. But 
members of five traditional families who say they are directly 
descended from the dead, complained that their removal is a 
desecration of a site they hold sacred. "It is a place where our 
ancestors have slept for many, many years, and someone just dug them 
out of their graves and put them in little bags in storage," said 
Ofelia Rivas, a traditionalist who lives in the tiny, cactus-ringed 
village of Ali Jegk, Arizona, just yards (meters) from the Mexican 
border.

The Tohono O'odham nation, whose name means "Desert People," reaches 
up to Casa Grande in the north, a few miles (kilometers) south of the 
state capital, Phoenix, and stretches across the international line 
into Mexico, where some members live in nine scattered communities. 
The tribal government said in a news release that the areas in which 
the human remains were found were among 11 archeological sites 
identified by the tribe that lie in the path of the barrier. The 
tribe gave no date for the discovery, although Rivas said it was in 
May. Rivas told Reuters she expected further discoveries of hallowed 
remains in coming months: "This is just the beginning. There will be 
many more sites."

The Tohono O'odham are one of only a few American Indian tribes that 
have never been relocated from their ancestral lands. Members share 
traditional beliefs centered on the natural world and many speak the 
tribal language. Tribal authorities support the vehicle barrier, 
which they say is needed to stop smugglers from Mexico, who 
frequently duel with the Border Patrol in high-speed chases on back 
roads and dump tons of trash including clothing and water bottles.

The tribal government said the excavation at the burial sites had 
been carried out in full compliance with arrangements set out in a 
memorandum of understanding with federal authorities. "A detailed 
investigation into the handling of the remains has been completed and 
it has been determined that the U.S. Border Patrol, tribal monitors, 
and the archeological team all followed set procedures." It said that 
Tohono O'odham monitors are present at all sites where digging for 
the fence is underway, and added that tribal religious leaders are 
called in to conduct ceremonies whenever remains are located.

The remains have been placed in safe storage on the Tohono O'odham 
nation, and will be reburied at a ceremony later this year, the 
statement said. It gave no date for the reburial. But some tribal 
elders, whose families have lived for generations in the parched area 
where the remains were discovered southwest of Tucson, are calling 
for their immediate release for reburial. "They didn't ask us when 
they took them away, and they are our people," elder Julia Acunia 
said, speaking through an interpreter, as she wept softly. "Now they 
want to come home."

Source: Reuters: 06/24

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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:  06.25-07.01
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