Mexico Week In Review: 07.09-07.15

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 07.09-07.15
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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.

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"Para Todos, Todo; Para Nosotros Nada"
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EPR BLOWS UP PIPELINES; UP TO 1,200 FIRMS HALTED BY BLASTS

Dozens of factories remained shut down and soldiers patrolled
pipelines on Wednesday (07/11), a day after leftist rebels announced
that they were behind the explosions that crippled the flow of
natural gas to several large Mexican cities. The country's airwaves
were filled with news about the attacks. Leaders in Congress
criticized President Felipe Calderon for not informing the public of
the bombings until after the rebel group, the Popular Revolutionary
Army (EPR), took responsibility on Tuesday for the unexplained
explosions that day and on July 5. Mr. Calderon again denounced the
violence. "What we should do is set aside differences and attend to
social needs through dialogue," he said in a speech on Wednesday
morning at a signing ceremony for the first stage of a commuter
railroad project. "There are others that dedicate themselves to
destroying what we have all built."

The rebel group said in its communiqué that it had blown up two
36-inch natural gas pipelines supplying Querétaro, Salamanca and
Guanajuato as part of a campaign "against the interests of the
oligarchy and of this illegitimate government." The group also
demanded the release of two of its members, who it maintains
disappeared on May 25 in Oaxaca, the scene of many violent
antigovernment protests last year. State and federal officials insist
that the men are not in custody. Why the Popular Revolutionary Army,
a Marxist rebel group with roots in Guerrero State in the south,
chose to attack now and whether it signaled the start of a long
campaign remained a mystery, security analysts said.

More than a dozen smaller rebel groups united to form the Popular
Revolutionary Army in 1996. They announced themselves to the world at
Aguas Blancas in Guerrero State, a spot where the police killed 17
people the year before in a crackdown on a movement for the rights of
poor farmers. Espousing a Leninist view, the group called in its
founding remarks for the "restitution of sovereignty by the people"
and the punishment of those behind the "repression, corruption,
misery and hunger" afflicting the poor. Since then, however, the
rebel group has carried out few acts of sabotage or terrorism,
according to the Center for the Documentation of Armed Groups, which
tracks rebels throughout Latin America. But the rebel group is widely
believed to be behind the kidnappings of at least three well-known
businessmen to raise money for its cause, among them Alfredo Harp
Helú, the former owner of Banamex bank. All were eventually released.
The rebels maintain in their communiqués that they have had more than
30 gun battles with the army in the last decade. In 1999, Mexican
authorities arrested Jacobo Silva Nogales and charged him with being
a founder of the rebel faction. He remains in prison, along with
three others accused of being leaders of the group. A splinter group,
known as the Popular Army of the Insurgent Revolution claimed
responsibility for a series of minor bombings in Mexico City during
the election campaign last year. The pipe bombs exploded at the
headquarters of the former governing party, in the basement of the
electoral tribunal and outside a bank.

But it was not until July 5 that the main rebel group built bombs
powerful enough to blow apart a steel pipeline for natural gas,
prosecutors said. Three bombs exploded that day, two of them along
the main 36-inch pipe between Mexico City and Salamanca in Guanajuato
State, said officials of Pemex, the state oil monopoly. Though Pemex
officials informed the federal government of the bombings, the
Calderon administration kept the information secret. Then a fourth
bomb went off Tuesday at 1:10 a.m., severing another 36-inch steel
pipeline near Querétaro. Because of the use of powerful bombs,
investigators are still not entirely convinced that the rebel group
is behind the blasts, even though that remains a main line of
investigation, said an official in the attorney general's office,
speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is
not over. What is known, he said, is that a relatively sophisticated
explosive was used. He would not say which one.

Carlos Ramírez, the spokesman for Pemex, said it would take at least
two days to repair the pipeline and resume supplying gas to
Querétaro, Guadalajara, Aguascalientes and León. Up to 1,200
companies in Mexico stopped production because of problems with the
supply of natural gas following a rash of pipeline explosions caused
by rebels, an industrial group said "There are more than a thousand,
nearly 1,200 companies, that have been greatly hurt because of the
lack of (gas) supply," industrial group Canacintra's head, Victor
Manuel Lopez, told Reuters. Automakers like Honda Motor Co., Nissan
Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. are among the companies hurt by
the blasts, he said. Industrial hubs in central states like
Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Jalisco and Queretaro are the most
affected by the gas shortage, Lopez said.

Sources: New York Times: 07/12; Reuters: 07/12
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JUAREZ FEMICIDE: KILLING OF YOUNG WOMAN IS 16TH OF YEAR

A young woman was killed in the Mexican border city of Juarez this
weekend, raising to 16 the number of such victims this year in the
city, police said Sunday (07/08). No one has been arrested in the
case, which is under investigation by the special prosecutor's office
to fight violence against women. A city spokesman told Efe that the
young woman, who had been shot, was left at the Poliplaza Medica
clinic in Ciudad Juarez, which is across the border from El Paso,
Texas, early Saturday by an unidentified individual who fled. The
suspect ran from the clinic on foot and has not been found, the city
official said.

On June 27, authorities found the nude body of a young woman who had
been raped and murdered.

Last year, the Mexican government created the special prosecutor's
office to fight violence against women. The special prosecutor's
office replaced a similar investigative body established in 2004 for
the sole purpose of probing homicides in Ciudad Juarez, where more
than 400 women have been killed in the past 14 years.

Mexican women's rights groups contend government efforts to solve the
cases have been a failure, while the federal government has defended
its work, saying dozens of killings of women have been solved and the
perpetrators of those crimes brought to justice. International
organizations have also taken up the cause of the female murder
victims in Juarez, which has been the subject of several
documentaries. Investigators have not determined who is behind the
killings, although there has been speculation that serial killers,
organized crime groups, people traffickers, drug smugglers and child
pornographers, among others, may be involved.

Source: EFE News Services: 07/08
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DIRTY WAR UPDATE I: EX-PRESIDENT IN THE CLEAR OVER MASSACRE

Charges against Mexico's former president Luis Echeverria in
connection with a 1968 student massacre have been dismissed by a
federal court. He has long maintained his innocence in the affair.
The court also ordered authorities to lift the ex-leader's house
arrest, in effect since November. But, at the same time, it ruled the
student massacre was genocide. "The crime exists," Chief Judge Jesus
Guadalupe Luna told reporters. "What we are saying is that until now
there is no evidence to prove Luis Echeverria's responsibility in the
genocide."

At the time of the killings, Echeverria was Mexico's Interior
Minister. It was just days before the Olympic Games in Mexico City
and the government wanted to quell what it saw as embarrassing
demonstrations by students in the capital, demanding democratic
reforms. Security forces stormed a rally, killing 30-40 people
according to officials. Human rights groups say as many as 300 may
have died.

Source: Euronews: 07/14
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DIRTY WAR UPDATE II: BODIES FROM 1968 MAYBE FOUND

The bodies of several student protesters gunned down by police in a
massacre four decades ago may be buried under a Mexico City hospital,
according to an architect who helped renovate the building. Rosa
Maria Alvarado Martinez said that police had threatened her not to
come forward in 1981 after human remains and a bullet were found at
General Hospital 27, which she was helping renovate. "They told me
that if I didn't keep quiet I would never again see my son, who was 3
years old at the time," Alvarado told a news conference. Alvarado
said she has filed a legal complaint asking federal prosecutors to
investigate the remains, which she said were reburied in the
foundation.

The hospital is adjacent to the capital's Tlatelolco Plaza, where in
1968 police opened fired on a huge student demonstration. Decades-old
official reports say 25 people were killed, but human rights
activists say there were as many as 350 victims.

Source:  Associated Press: 07/11
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BORDER NEWS: MORE MIGRANTS DIE AS US TIGHTENS SECURITY

Tougher security along the U.S.-Mexico border is forcing migrants to
take more dangerous, remote routes to cross into the United States
and pushing up the number of deaths in the desert. This year could
see a record of well over 500 such deaths. At least 275 Mexican
bodies have been found in the first six months, according to a
Mexican Congressional report backed by U.S. and Mexican border groups
and academics. They say at least 4,500 Mexicans have died trying to
cross since the United States drastically increased border controls
in late 1994 to stem illegal immigration.

Following the failure of President George W. Bush's immigration
reform proposals in Congress last month, U.S. policy is centered on
tighter border security rather than giving immigrants more options to
find jobs legally. But some border experts say enforcement does not
stop those trying to get into the United States and only makes it
more dangerous, greatly raising the fees charged by people smugglers.
As security increases, so will the number of deaths, they say. "Has
enhanced border security increased the number of migrant deaths?
Unquestionably," said Wayne Cornelius, an immigration expert at the
University of California San Diego. "There is no other way to explain
the sharp increase in fatalities." The Border Patrol recovered some
116 bodies in the Arizona desert between last October 1 and the end
of June, and it only records deaths on the U.S. side of the frontier.
It blames ruthless smugglers for taking migrants through dangerous
terrain and sometimes abandoning them there. "The number of migrant
deaths is increasing because smugglers are taking them to
less-patrolled, more dangerous areas," Border Patrol spokesman Ramon
Rivera said. He said agents rescued 1,450 people in the desert in the
same period. Unknown numbers of migrants from Central America and
other countries also die each year.

The U.S. government has raised its Border Patrol deployment to around
13,500 agents today from fewer than 4,000 in 1993 and plans to add a
further 9,600 agents by 2012. It deployed 6,000 National Guard troops
to the border last year for a two-year period until more agents are
hired. Washington aims to have "operational control" of the border by
2013 by building a 700-mile (1,120-km) wall along parts of the
frontier and creating a "virtual fence" in desert areas with drones,
sensors, cameras, satellite technology and vehicle barriers.

Before the stepped-up enforcement operations, experts say most deaths
were due to traffic accidents as migrants dashed across freeways in
border areas. Today, most die from hypothermia in the desert or by
drowning in the Rio Grande and irrigation canals. Many Mexicans
seeking work in the United States try the overnight trek through the
hostile Arizona desert and away from urban areas such as Tijuana on
the California border. Between 2000 and 2005, 802 bodies were found
in the desert, compared to 125 between 1990 and 1999, according to
the University of Arizona.

Surveillance is expected to increase in the Arizona desert but some
experts say that will simply encourage more people to try to cross
remote swamp areas of the Rio Grande in Texas. "As they increase
enforcement in Arizona, we will see a shift toward the eastern and
western fringes of the border. In Texas, we are already seeing more
drownings," said Claudia Smith of the California Rural Legal
Assistance Foundation, which campaigns for immigrants' rights.
Migrant shelters in Mexican border towns say they see no sign of less
illegal immigration despite a fall in Border Patrol arrests. Some
shelters, such as in Reynosa in northeastern Mexico, are expanding to
offer more beds. U.S. wage levels that are much higher than in Mexico
remains the main incentive for attempting the difficult border
crossing. "I've got an uncle in Florida and the chance of something
is so much better than here," said Adan Zendejas, a 24-year-old who
cannot swim, as he readied to cross the Rio Grande from Reynosa on a
car tire.

Source: Reuters: 07/12
====

CRITICS SAY SECRET SOCIETY HAS INFILTRATED MEXICAN GOVERNMENT

It sounds like a Hollywood thriller. A secret organization born in
the Cold War and determined to overthrow an authoritarian government
outlives the regime and instead begins to undermine a democratically
elected administration in hopes of installing a modern theocracy.
Luis Paredes Moctezuma, the former mayor of Puebla in central Mexico,
said that very scenario exists in the administration of President
Felipe Calderon and the National Action Party, or PAN. He asserted
that the party has been slowly infiltrated by the radical group over
decades.

Mr. Paredes, a PAN member, said he spent three decades in the secret
group El Yunque, or The Anvil, and participated in an ongoing
conspiracy "to restore the rule of God" through an ultraconservative
Roman Catholic government. "El Yunque is more dangerous than the
narcos," Mr. Paredes said, referring to the government's struggle to
recover large swaths of Mexico from drug cartels. Hundreds of Yunque
members are now in the bureaucracy, and they control four state
governments, he said. Mr. Paredes said El Yunque established cells in
the U.S. 15 years ago, as university-educated professionals migrated
and put down roots. "They're in Dallas, in Boston, in Washington,
D.C., in Los Angeles, in Miami," he said.

Not all political analysts or PAN members believe that El Yunque
exists or that it has significant power within the ruling party or
the government. Officials named as Yunque adherents by former members
deny any connection.

Those who believe in the group's power, however, warn that Mr.
Calderon could be distracted from the drug fight and badly needed
economic reforms if El Yunque touches off a divisive struggle within
the PAN as the party prepares to elect a new leader next year. "Of
course it's a real group, and it has power," said political
commentator Ricardo Aleman. "At this moment, it has managed to
maintain control of the party. I think that if Felipe Calderon has
not cut deals already [with El Yunque], that he will do so."

The U.S. has praised Mr. Calderon's war against drug cartels. And the
president's high approval ratings have allowed him to stave off
opposition criticism for plunging the military into the drug fight. A
PAN scandal could threaten that, analysts and self-proclaimed former
Yunque members said. "If the moderate wing of the PAN breaks from the
radical wing of the PAN, then an internal war will break out, and Mr.
Calderon will be the first to suffer," Mr. Aleman said.

But like all conspiracy theories, this one has doubters. "I have
never found anyone who admits to being a member of El Yunque," said
Sergio Sarmiento, a longtime political commentator who works in
radio, TV and newspapers. "All I see are attacks from the left. It's
an easy way to dismiss someone."

The fight within the PAN is as much about personalities as it is
about ideology. Mr. Calderon, a centrist, and party president Manuel
Espino, seen as further to the right, have been feuding since before
the presidential election a year ago. The PAN, Mr. Sarmiento added,
has always been a rightist party with religious overtones and does
not need a secret group to impose those values. What many
commentators and politicians agree on, however, is that the specter
of El Yunque, real or imagined, has never before been publicly
discussed as it is now. A video of an alleged Yunque initiation
ceremony was posted on YouTube in late May, sparking PAN politicians
such as former Sen. Javier Corral to call for the group to go public.
The authenticity of the 11-minute video is in doubt. Luis H. Alvarez,
a member of the PAN old guard who has been party president twice,
acknowledged the existence of El Yunque to the Mexico City newspaper
Reforma. "I fear that it does have some adherents, but certainly a
minority," the newspaper quoted him as saying last month. Mr. Alvarez
did not return calls seeking comment.

At the PAN's national assembly in early June, Mr. Paredes handed out
5,000 T-shirts with the inscription "Yunque no, PAN yes," injecting
the group into the party's debate. To coincide with that assembly,
the a.m. newspaper in León, Guanajuato, published an eight-story
report on El Yunque, naming its alleged leaders and quoting
politicians who said the group had taken over the PAN in Guanajuato.
Among those named as alleged Yunque leaders in the state were Gov.
Juan Manuel Oliva; his chief of staff, Gerardo Mosqueda; and state
Education Secretary Alberto Diosdado. Contacted by telephone,
representatives of the three men played down the report and said
their bosses had no comment. Enrique Gómez, publisher of a.m., said
El Yunque's control of the state government is an open secret in
Guanajuato. "The PAN has been invaded by a parasite called El
Yunque," Mr. Gómez said. "The danger here is that they are fascists."

The group greatly admires the late Spanish dictator Francisco Franco
and is anti-Semitic and hard-line Catholic, the publisher said.
Guanajuato legislators under El Yunque's control tried to pass a law
banning abortion even in cases of rape, Mr. Gómez said. Public outcry
killed the proposal. Likewise, he said, public schools in the state
have more limited sex education than even mainstream Catholic schools.

The most extensive work on El Yunque has been done by an
investigative reporter from the magazine Proceso, Alvaro Delgado, who
won the 2003 National Journalism Prize for his book El Yunque: The
Ultra-right in Power. A follow-up book, The Army of God, was
published in 2004. In both, former members describe how El Yunque
formed anti-communist and pro-Catholic front groups that integrated
themselves into the party over decades. Mr. Delgado said leaders of
the PAN have long struggled with the group's participation in the
party: On the one hand, it helped the PAN build a base; on the other,
El Yunque is anti-democratic. Mr. Calderon is seen as a foe of the
group, although people close to him have been accused of being Yunque
leaders, including chief of staff César Nava, a possible candidate
for party president. Mr. Nava has denied knowledge of the group's
existence. In interviews with suspected Yunque members, Mr. Delgado
said, the subjects walked the fine line between not committing the
sin of lying and maintaining the secrecy of the group. Mr. Espino,
the current PAN president, playfully told Mr. Delgado "maybe I am" a
member of the group during an interview for the 2004 book.

"They obviously appear as reasonable people, but they continue to
hide their real project," said Mr. Delgado. "They continue to be
secret because their project is in violation of the Mexican
Constitution and its laws, which establish a secular state."Mr.
Paredes, the former Puebla mayor, said El Yunque was formed in the
early 1950s as a reaction to anti-Catholic sentiment under the
Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled from 1929 to 2000.
Middle-class religious students like him joined El Yunque and
rightist front groups in the 1960s to counter a world they saw
turning to the left with the Cuban revolution and the threats posed
by the Soviet Union and communist China, Mr. Paredes said. As the PAN
began to win local and state elections in the 1980s and 1990s, he
said, two Yunques emerged: one that was pragmatic, because politics
demands compromise; another that was dogmatic and dominant. Mr.
Paredes began distancing himself from El Yunque in 1988, he said, as
he traveled the world and began seeing the fruits of democracy,
particularly by the socialists in Spain. El Yunque opposed his
candidacy for mayor of Puebla in 2002, he said, and when he refused
to take orders from the group, it sabotaged him by charging him with
corruption. Mr. Paredes said the allegations are false. "El Yunque
must disappear; there is no other option," Mr. Paredes said. While
the group opposed Mr. Calderon's candidacy and is therefore in a poor
position to influence him, Mr. Paredes said, the president may need
all the support he can get. "Calderon has serious problems in the
fight against the narcos and on tax reform, and he could be tempted
to lie down with the enemy," Mr. Paredes said. "But he may wake up
with his head cut off."

Source: Dallas Morning News: 07/09

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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: 07.09-07.15
--