Mexico Week In Review: 03.04-03.11

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 03.04-03.11
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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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GOV'T HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION EXHUMES ELDERLY WOMAN'S BODY

Specialists from the National Human Rights Commission exhumed the
body of a 73-year-old woman allegedly raped by four Mexican soldiers
last month, amid claims that state investigators committed errors in
handling the case. New tests were conducted by two forensic
pathologists and a criminologist from the commission, said Nohemi
Quirasco, human rights chief for the Gulf coast state of Veracruz.

Prosecutors say Ernestina Ascensio Rosario, an Indian, was bound,
beaten and sodomized on Feb. 25 in the mountain town of Soledad
Atzompa, about 120 miles east of Mexico City, in a case that has
outraged Indian groups in the state. The Defense Department said its
investigators have found no evidence that the soldiers committed the
crime, but said they are cooperating with state prosecutors. The
soldiers remain jailed. The National Human Rights Commission
requested permission to exhume the body after local investigators
concluded that a blow to the head and a fractured hip, not internal
injuries as a result of the alleged sexual abuse, were the cause of
death, Quirasco said. She said they failed to take samples from the
bloodstains on the victim's clothing.

Veracruz state Gov. Fidel Herrera confirmed the body was exhumed on
Friday and pledged "a thorough investigation." Soledad Atzompa Mayor
Javier Perez has demanded that soldiers be withdrawn from the
predominantly Indian region. The army has since dismantled three
nearby military encampments.

Source: Associated Press: 03/10
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CHIAPAS: CHARGES IN JUNGLE MASSACRE; LAND CONFLICTS ESCALATE

Diego Arcos Meneses, an indigenous Chol Maya campesino, has been
arrested by Chiapas state police and charged with murder in
connection with November's massacre at the rainforest settlement of
Viejo Velasco. The Chol campesino organization Xinich protests his
innocence. The Xinich statement says Arcos Meneses, 42, is a health
promoter and Jesuit "catechist" (lay worker) at the settlement of
Nuevo Tila, Ocosingo municipality. "Regrettably in our country such
human gestures can be dangerous: solidarity is criminalized while
repression walks with impunity," says Xinich, the group believed by
rights observers to have actually been targeted in the attack.

Meanwhile, land conflicts in the Chiapas rainforest are rapidly
escalating, and the Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and
Campesino Rights (OPDDIC) is emerging as an aggressive new force.
This is the group which both Xinich and the Zapatista National
Liberation Army (EZLN) say was really behind the Viejo Velasco
massacre. Especially at issue are lands claimed by OPDDIC as "Ejido
Mukulum Bachajon," now home to the Zapatista "autonomous
municipalities" 17 de Noviembre, Vicente Guerrero and Olga Isabel.
The lands were taken by the EZLN in the 1994 rebellion, but the
Zapatistas say their supporters had earlier been forced from those
same lands by adherents of the then-ruling Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI). OPDDIC, which is in the PRI camp, is now
supporting the claims of these ejiditarios (collective farmers), who
have apparently won title to the lands by the agrarian reform
bureaucracy, despite the expulsions and the fact that the lands have
been occupied by others for 13 years. The Zapatista community of El
Nance in 17 de Noviembre autonomous municipality told reporter
Hermann Bellnghausen of the daily La Jornada that they anticipate an
imminent attack from OPDDIC following a decision by the authorities
upholding the rival claim to the lands.

The Agrarian Reform Secretariat (SRA), reviewing the case on behalf
of OPDDIC, has ruled for the ejiditarios, finding the Zapatista
families who have been on the land since 1994 are "invaders." The
local Center for Political Analysis and Socio-Economic Investigation
(CAPISE) accuses the SRA of partiality in the case, and complicity
with land expropriations. According to the SRA ruling, "the ejido
Mukulum was created in September 2002, by request of the National
Council of Indigenous Peoples (CNPI). It comprises a surface of 1,764
hectares, duly regularized and certified in December 2005 by the
Certification Program of Eijdo Rights and Urban Lots (PROCEDE). The
PA [Agrarian Prosecutor], in its character as defender of the rights
of the agrarian subjects, has and will proceed with all legality to
find a viable solution to this conflict." The ruling did not mention
that the plaintiff in the case is the OPDDIC.  OPDDIC's attorney,
Beltran Ruiz Chacón, reportedly argued to the SRA that the ruling
Zapatista body in the region, the Good Government Junta Corazón de
Arcoiris de la Esperanza, based at the settlement of Morelia, "does
not exist." But the ruling is now in question, as the SRA has opened
an investigation into Ruiz Chacón following revelations in the press
that he is an employee and union leader at the SRA's Agrarian
Tribunal in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the Chiapas state capital. This is
considered a conflict of interest under SRA regulations. Furthermore,
CAPISE claims evidence that many of the names officially listed as
members of Ejido Mukulum Bachajon are invented or are not actually
those of local campesinos.

Good Government Junta El Camino del Futuro at La Garrucha settlement
reports similar conflicts over lands recuperated in 1994 at
autonomous municipalities Ricardo Flores Magon, Francisco Villa and
others. These lands are claimed by Ejido Egipto, under the control of
the PRI-aligned campesino group URCI. It is not said what URCI stands
for, but the Junta statement charges it is an arm of the notorious
paramilitary group Paz y Justicia, which was responsible for the
displacement of thousands of pro-Zapatista peasants in the 1990s. The
statement claims Zapatista families have already been threatened at
gunpoint and been fired on by armed URCI invaders.

Meanwhile, civil authorities called for military assistance when some
400 hectares were destroyed by forest fires at La Sepultura
ecological reserve on Chiapas' Pacific coast. The fires are believed
to have been started by local campesinos clearing land to plant
crops. State authorities say some 40 fires have destroyed nearly
1,000 hectares of forest in Chiapas this dry season (November-March).
President Felipe Calderon recently announced that army troops will be
mobilized to police Mexico's protected areas.

Source: www.ww4report.com: 03/06
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BORDER NEWS: U.S. AGENTS UNDER GREATER ATTACK

Frustrated by tighter security on the U.S.-Mexico border, illegal
immigrants and drug traffickers are taking it out on U.S. agents,
increasingly attacking them with guns, rocks and petrol bombs.
Assaults against Border Patrol officers rose 10 percent to 843
incidents in the year to September 2006 from the same period a year
before, officials say. It is also a near three-fold increase from two
years previously. Mexican drug cartels, locked in a turf feud and
under pressure from an army crackdown, are lashing out at law
enforcement officers in Texas. "The attacks against us are becoming
more brazen. Drug cartels have instructed their people to go down
fighting, to do whatever is necessary to get the narcotics through,"
said Rick Flores, Webb County sheriff in Laredo, Texas. He said drug
smugglers are increasingly taking pot shots at agents with assault
rifles from inside Mexico at night, although no one has been killed.

They are also using riskier routes to bring drugs across the border,
leading to clashes with U.S. law enforcement. Laredo lies across the
Rio Grande from Nuevo Laredo, one of the Mexican cities worst hit by
a fight between rival drug gangs that killed around 2,000 people last
year. The area is a key entry point for cocaine. In the Yuma sector,
which covers a 125-mile (200-km) desert strip in southwest Arizona,
attacks on agents rose 60 percent between last October 1 and December
31, official data shows. Large groups of illegal immigrants regularly
pelt Border Patrol agents with softball-size rocks, fireworks and
Molotov cocktails, leaving agents with burns, bruises and head
wounds. "Immigrants are frustrated and are lashing out. It has
reached the point that we are seeing attacks on an almost daily
basis," said Border Patrol spokesman Lloyd Easterling. In one assault
in 2005, a group of rock-throwing illegal immigrants damaged the
rotor of a Border Patrol helicopter and forced it to make an
emergency landing.

Source: Reuters: 03/08
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BUSH: MEXICO NEEDS INVESTMENT IN ENERGY SECTOR

President Bush urged Mexico to seek more investment to boost
state-run oil monopoly Pemex's efforts to find oil in deep waters of
the Gulf of Mexico. Bush told the Reforma newspaper the country
should permit extra investment that could accelerate crude oil
production to meet growing global demand. "As we well know, as Mexico
expands its oil production into deeper waters in the Gulf of Mexico,
it will require even more capital," he said in comments translated
into Spanish. "As long as the (Mexican) government feels confident in
seeking for funding sources outside its budget spending, for me that
is something that President Calderon should consider," said Bush, in
an apparent call for Mexico to allow more foreign or private
investment in energy.

Mexico's constitution gives Pemex the sole right to explore for and
produce oil and gas in Mexico. Bush will visit Mexico as part of a
six-day Latin American tour aimed at improving his reputation and
bolstering his influence in a region where anti-U.S. sentiment is
rising.

Mexico's search for more oil is of crucial interest to the United
States, which relies on its southern neighbor as one of its top three
crude suppliers and as a politically stable source. The energy
ministry said it was unaware of any talks planned between Bush and
Mexican Energy Minister Georgina Kessel.

Conservative President Felipe Calderon openly backs private
investment in natural gas, oil refining and petrochemicals, but would
hit strong opposition from leftist lawmakers if he tried to let
foreign companies into the cherished oil sector. Pressure is mounting
to allow private partnerships in oil, however, to help Pemex develop
deep water projects to make up for falling yields at its giant
shallow water oil field Cantarell. Pemex can hire private or foreign
firms to do work for it on a flat fee basis, but cannot form
partnerships. The big debate among lawyers and lawmakers is whether
some kind of technology alliance contract could be drawn up that
offers a partial share in profits without breaching the constitution.
Few analysts see constitutional change likely in Mexico any time soon.

Pemex said this week it hopes to have deep water production wells in
place by 2014, but analysts say Mexico's ban on private sector
participation will leave Pemex at a disadvantage in the costly and
technologically challenging sector. Deep sea oil projects drill wells
thousands of meters into the seabed in ocean depths of a kilometer or
more.

Pemex itself has said Mexico's position as the world's No. 9 oil
producer is under threat after years of heavy taxes and spending on
oil production rather than seeking new reserves. Calderon, an energy
secretary under the previous government, took office in December.
Pemex said last week an informal collaboration agreement with
Brazil's Petrobras, where the companies swap information about their
projects, has been extended to include the deep water sector where
Petrobras has experience.

Source: Reuters: 03/07
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PRI SWEARS IN FIRST-EVER WOMAN LEADER

Beatriz Paredes Rangel became the first woman to lead Mexico's
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in its 78-year history,
pledging to recruit more members. The PRI, which ruled Mexico from
1929 until 2000, has been experiencing a severe identity crisis since
it lost the nation's presidency to the National Action Party's (PAN)
Vicente Fox in 2000.

Paredes, a former Mexican ambassador to Cuba, promised to redefine
the party's role and give it a clear ideological identity to recover
members lost over the last six years. Paredes called for unity inside
the party at her swearing-in where her running partner, Jesus Murillo
Karam, was sworn in as secretary general. She will take charge of the
party for the 2007-2011 period.

The PRI still holds the bulk of the governorships of the nation's 32
states. The PRI is currently the third largest political party in the
lower house of the nation's congress. The ruling right-wing PAN is
the largest party, which is followed by the left-wing Democratic
Revolutionary Party. In the Senate, the PRI has the second largest
number of seats after PAN, which backs the nation's president, Felipe
Calderon.

Source: Xinhua: 04/04
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LANDMARK LIBEL BILL AWAITS CALDERON'S SIGNATURE

The Committee to Protect Journalists urged Mexican President Felipe
Calderon to sign new federal legislation decriminalizing defamation,
libel, and slander. Voting 100-0 with one abstention, the Mexican
Senate passed a bill that effectively directs all such cases to civil
court. The measure, already approved by the lower chamber of
Congress, seeks to make Mexican law conform to emerging regional and
international standards, lawmakers said. "The Senate's approval of
these important reforms marks a significant step forward for
journalists in Mexico, who have been harassed and jailed under
outdated laws for too long," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon.
"We call on President Calderon to take the next step by promptly
signing this landmark bill."

The bill repeals articles 350 through 363 of the federal penal code.
If signed by the president, journalists would no longer face prison
sentences at the federal level for defamation, libel, and slander.
The reforms would make defamation, libel, and slander civil offenses
under new articles 1916 and 1916bis of the federal civil code. Such
offenses will be subject to monetary damages and corrections of the
erroneous material "in the same media where it was published and with
the same space and the same circulation or audience to which the
original information was directed."

Calderon has not publicly commented on the legislation, but he has
spoken in general terms about improving press freedom conditions in
Mexico. His party, the National Action Party or PAN, supported the
bill. The law would become official following Calderon's signature
and its publication in the Official Journal of the Federation. If the
president vetoes the bill, he could return it to Congress with
comments.

If signed into law, the reforms would not offer complete protection
from criminal defamation complaints because many states continue to
carry criminal libel laws on their books. Mexico's legal system
operates on separate state and federal levels; federal laws do not
supercede state laws. In most Mexican states, defamation, libel, and
slander are still punishable by prison sentences of up to four years.
"We urge state governments to follow the lead of the Mexican Senate,
decriminalize press laws, and ensure that journalists throughout the
country can work without the fear of legal prosecution," added Simon.
Lawmakers in the states of San Luis Potosí and Durango are now
considering repeal.

Though imprisonment for press offenses has fallen into disuse in the
Americas, prosecution on criminal defamation charges remains common.
But a landmark 2004 ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human
Rights has led a number of politicians in the region to consider
reforms that would wipe libel entirely from the criminal law books.
In the 2004 case, the Inter-American Court overturned the criminal
defamation conviction of Costa Rican journalist Mauricio Herrera
Ulloa, a reporter with the daily La Nación. The Costa Rica-based
court ruled that the conviction violated the reporter's right to free
expression, and it ordered the Costa Rican government to pay damages.
The court's president, Judge Sergio García Ramírez, wrote a separate,
concurring opinion questioning the very basis for criminal defamation
and suggesting that such laws be repealed.

CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that
works to safeguard press freedom around the world.

Source: Committee to Protect Journalists Press Release: 03/07

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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: 03.04-03.11
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