Mexico Week In Review: 07.16-07.22

[cisdc]

Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 23:41:16 -0400
To: cis-dc-info at lists.mutualaid.org
From: Milt Shapiro <mshapiro at zzapp.org>
Subject: Mexico Week In Review: 07.16-07.22
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Mexico Week In Review:  07.16-07.22
=================================================================
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"
=================================================================

OAXACA UPDATE: POLICE, PROTESTERS CLASH

Police fired tear gas to prevent hundreds of leftist protesters from
reaching the venue of an international folk festival in Oaxaca, in
the worst outbreak of violence in the troubled Mexican city since
November.. Protesters hurled rocks and burned vehicles as they sought
to march to a stadium where the renowned Guelaguetza festival is
scheduled to start July 23. Police responded with tear gas and rocks.
Some protesters said they only wanted access to the stadium to hold
an "alternative," non-commercialized version of the festival, while
others vowed to block the event entirely.

The picturesque colonial city was paralyzed by political upheaval for
five months in 2006, when demonstrators essentially seized control of
the downtown and prevented the Guelaguetza festival from being held.
The state government has vowed to defend the stadium and put on this
year's Guelaguetza, an annual weeklong celebration of Indian music,
artisan crafts and cuisine that dates back to the 1700s and draws
tens of thousands of tourists from around the world. "About 200
people wearing masks and carrying sticks, stones and bottle rockets
began to provoke the police," the Oaxaca state government said in a
statement. "The police repelled the attack using tear gas."

The Mexican League for the Defense of Human Rights, which has sided
with Oaxaca protesters in the past, accused police of "brutally
beating" the demonstrators and roughing up several reporters. The
league said about seven people were detained, and eyewitnesses said
several were hit by flying rocks and tear gas canisters. State public
safety secretary Sergio Segreste said 30 people were arrested and 15
policemen injured, but offered no information on injuries to
protesters.

Source: Associated Press: 07/16
====

BORDER NEWS: BORDER FENCE CONSTRUCTION RESUMES

Bulldozers are rolling again on the U.S.-Mexico border, moving
hundreds of tons of dirt to make way for a 16-foot steel fence in an
area that once was the most popular crossing for illegal immigrants.
But before the construction resumed recently, the 14-mile project in
San Diego was stalled for years by legal challenges from
environmentalists, budget problems and difficulties buying land.
Those delays are now raising doubts about a government plan to extend
fencing to 370 miles of the Mexican border. The Bush administration,
under pressure to tighten border security, wants all 370 miles done
by the end of next year.

"If past experience is any guide, it will cost a lot more than anyone
expected and take a lot longer than anyone is talking about right
now," said David Shirk, director of the University of San Diego's
Trans-Border Institute, which studies border issues. The Homeland
Security Department has yet to say where it will build fences in
California, Arizona and New Mexico. And the only proposal made public
so far - for Texas - drew immediate criticism and is being reworked.
Opponents worried it would limit access to the Rio Grande, damage the
environment and infuriate Mexicans who cross the border to shop and
visit. The 1,952-mile border stretches over sensitive terrain,
including two national wildlife refuges in Arizona. And negotiations
for land owned by scores of ranchers and Indian tribes may be
challenging.

Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas predicted the construction
of so much fencing will be a "huge problem," noting opposition among
many residents and even some Border Patrol field leaders who would
prefer the money be spent on manpower and equipment. The San Diego
fence, tilted 45 degrees at the top to deter climbers, starts at the
coastline and stretches 14 miles inland. Construction began in 1996,
and there are still five miles to go.

Until the mid-1990s, illegal immigrants had crossed in droves. They
would slip across the border and huddle on U.S. soil as the handful
of Border Patrol agents assigned to the area watched from a distance.
When night fell, they ran for it. "It was a never-ending battle, and
we were losing very badly," said Don McDermott, a Border Patrol
supervisor who worked the area in the 1980s. The nine miles of
fencing completed so far have had a dramatic impact, along with more
manpower and stadium lighting. Arrests are way down in San Diego, but
traffic shifted to Arizona deserts. Those people who do make it
across are increasingly desperate. More immigrants are attempting to
swim across the border or crawl through crude tunnels, said Raleigh
Leonard, supervisor of the Border Patrol's Imperial Beach station.

The final five miles of fencing in San Diego will cover some of the
most rugged terrain and most sensitive habitats on the border. For
example, to fill an area called "Smuggler's Gulch," crews are
expected to move nearly 3 million tons of dirt? enough to fill about
100,000 giant dump trucks. Border Patrol officials say they need a
fence in the gulch because its urban surroundings give agents limited
time to catch people before they melt into the local population. But
environmentalists worry that shifting dirt will spill north into a
federally protected estuary, disrupting a key stopover for more than
370 species of migratory and native birds.

A 2005 law giving the federal government authority to waive all rules
prohibiting fence construction prompted a judge to dismiss a legal
challenge to the San Diego fence. The law should help smooth the way
elsewhere along the border, too. Homeland Security spokesman Brad
Benson said the agency wants to be a good environmental steward and
will favor a "virtual fence" of sensors, radar and cameras in remote,
environmentally sensitive areas and on tribal lands.

The government believes it can finish the 370 miles of fence on time
and hopes to avoid the kind of pitfalls that delayed work in San
Diego, Benson said. He said Congress has appropriated enough money ?
$1 billion for fencing and other infrastructure - to complete the
project and that, unlike San Diego, the terrain will not be such a
hindrance. "Most of what we'll build is out in flat desert, and it's
not that hard to do," he said. Within the next few weeks, Benson
said, the agency will put final touches on plans to complete the
14-mile San Diego fence and then solicit construction bids. Homeland
Security also began a series of public meetings this week along the
border to discuss the agency's plans to extend the fence to 370
miles. Shirk, of the University of San Diego's Trans-Border
Institute, remains skeptical: "It's a really, really big project that
won't go so quickly."

Source: Associated Press: 07/14
====

BIOFUEL DEMAND LEADS MEXICO TO SET RULES ON GMO CORN

Mexico, widely considered the birthplace of corn, is close to
finalizing rules governing experimental planting of genetically
modified corn strains, a senior biosecurity official said. In Mexico,
where tortillas made from corn are eaten with almost every meal, the
government is determined to boost output in the next few years to
offset rising prices driven by US demand for corn-based ethanol fuel.

Mexico's biggest grain farmers have long lobbied to lift a 1998 ban
on GMO corn plantings, arguing it would help lift lagging crop
yields. But environmental activists say GMO would put Mexico's
numerous local corn strains at risk. Reynaldo Alvarez, who heads
Mexico's biosecurity commission, said the president's office now had
a copy of the proposed regulations. "They are revising the final
draft," Alvarez told Reuters. "I would hope it will be ready in the
next two months."

Mexico last year passed a biosecurity law designed to permit
plantings in certain regions under controlled conditions to be set in
the regulatory document. The rules would likely prohibit farmers in
regions that contain the oldest strains of corn from planting GMO
material, Alvarez said. Even with the rules established, he said, it
could still take time for test requests from biotech firms to be
approved. He said such requests would be resolved with within 90
days. US companies like Monsanto Co. and DuPont Co. want to enter the
Mexican seed market with GMO strains. A large group representing
small corn farmers recently signed a good-will deal with Monsanto.

Scientists have found evidence the grain was grown in Mexico as far
back as 5,300 BC, placing it as the likely cradle of corn
cultivation. The country has a huge variety of locally specific corn
strains that farmers have bred over generations. Despite that
history, Mexico imports millions of tons of corn each year and was
hard hit when grains prices rocketed in January as demand for ethanol
fuel soared in the United States.

Source: Reuters: 07/18
====

CRITICS SKEPTICAL OF GOV'T REFORESTATION STATISTICS

Two hundred and fifty million trees are to be planted in Mexico from
now until November, in a program that will make the country the
"world leader in reforestation," the government has announced. But
independent observers warn that valuable native forests are still
being destroyed. Environmentalists and experts regard the
authorities' goal as irrelevant in light of the progressive
deforestation at which, they say, Mexico is also a world champion.
The government of rightwing President Felipe Calderon is
enthusiastically publicizing the reforestation campaign that is to
begin on National Tree Day, which coincides with the start of the
rainy season that lasts until November.

Critics point out that less than half the trees planted will survive.
They also argue that the reforestation strategy, though worthwhile,
will not solve the problems of Mexican forests, which cover some 56
million hectares and capture two-thirds of the fresh water consumed
in the country. The official response is that planting 250 million
trees of native species on 500,000 hectares will help to counteract
deforestation, officially estimated at 250,000 hectares a year.
According to their logic, reforestation will counterbalance and
ultimately redress the problem if it is carried on in future years.

Hector Magallón, in charge of forestry issues at the environmental
organization Greenpeace Mexico, told IPS that even in the best-case
scenario, only 125,000 of the trees planted will survive, and as they
are small they will not fulfill the functions of adult trees, such as
water capture and filtration, carbon absorption and protecting
biodiversity. According to Greenpeace's estimates, the forest areas
of Mexico, most of them old-growth forests and therefore of great
environmental value, are being destroyed at a rate of at least
600,000 hectares a year -- more than double the government's figure.
Engineer and forestry expert Sergio Madrid, a spokesman for
G-Bosques, a group of 14 civil society organizations and forest
producers, agreed. "The official figures on deforestation are
questionable and cannot be relied on, and so is their much-advertised
reforestation program, which is certainly good for the government's
image," Madrid told IPS. "Planting trees is only a small part of the
solution. The serious issue in Mexico now is the changing use of land
in forested areas, which is happening because of a large number of
incentives, without anything definitive being done to stop it,"
Madrid said.

Several studies have shown that 80 percent of the forests lost in
Mexico are destroyed because of land-use changes. Landowners switch
to growing what they regard as more profitable crops, or to raising
livestock. The remaining deforestation is due to illegal logging, on
which the Calderon administration says it is clamping down hard. With
its ProTree reforestation program, its war on illegal logging and
support for owners of forested land, Mexico is in the vanguard of
environmental defense and protection, says the Calderon government,
in power since December 2006. A communiqué from the Environment
Ministry said that "Mexico has joined the reforestation campaign
launched by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) for this
year, called 'Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign.'" "Mexico
has pledged itself to what is historically perhaps the most ambitious
goal ever adopted by a government. One of every four trees planted
this year in the world will be in Mexico," the communiqué says.

Greenpeace's Magallón said there was no doubt that the government is
focusing its interest on reforestation. He remarked that over half of
the approximately 370-million-dollar budget of the state National
Forestry Commission for this year is earmarked for reforestation
activities. "This is a dangerous approach, because although new trees
will be planted, the oldest and most valuable trees in terms of
biodiversity and water retention will continue to be lost," he said.
Madrid said he believes the government is emphasizing reforestation
because it is a useful "public opinion" exercise, but like Magallón
he blames the authorities for not showing more concern over the main
cause of deforestation, which is change of land use.

With the backing of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
the world authority on global deforestation, the government declares
that deforestation in Mexico is being rolled back. Official figures
indicate that on average 401,000 hectares a year were deforested in
Mexico between 1990 and 2000, falling to 314,000 hectares a year from
2000 to 2005, and deforestation is now down to 250,000 hectares a
year. "There is no solid evidence for the truth of these statistics,
as many researchers have pointed out," said Magallón. According to
Greenpeace, Mexico is one of the five countries in the world where
most deforestation is occurring. Brazil heads the list, followed by
India. Madrid said there is a dazzling array of "dubious" statistics,
and that "it is curious that with all the satellite technology
available, there has been no convincing definitive study on
deforestation in Mexico." Official statistics have continued to
generate skepticism amongst activists and experts. In 2001, the
Mexican government mentioned a deforestation rate of 1.1 million
hectares a year, although later it revised this statement. Now the
official figure is 250,000 hectares a year.

Source: IPS: 07/11
====

U.S. CAPTURES SUSPECTED MEXICAN DRUG CARTEL LEADER

The United States has captured a suspected leader of Mexico's
powerful Gulf drug cartel and one of the country's most wanted men,
Carlos "El Puma" Landin, while he was shopping in Texas, the Drug
Enforcement Administration said. Landin, a former Mexican police
officer who is wanted on drug-smuggling charges in Mexico and the
United States, crossed into McAllen, Texas where DEA officers
unexpectedly found him shopping for groceries. "Landin was
responsible for collecting taxes on drugs smuggled through (the
Mexican border city of) Reynosa. He was number two in the Reynosa
plaza," said DEA spokesman Will Glaspy.

The Gulf cartel, which relies on its armed wing, the Zetas, dominates
smuggling routes into Texas via the Mexican border cities of
Matamoros, Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo. The DEA has asked the judge
holding Landin, who is in his 50s, not to release him on bail, Glaspy
said. U.S. authorities will seek to put him in prison for up to 20
years, he added. Landin was believed to be close to Osiel Cardenas,
the alleged leader of Mexico's Gulf Cartel who was extradited from
Mexico in January to face trial in Texas.

Source: Reuters: 07/18

====
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: 07.16-07.22
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