Mexico Week In Review: 10.29-11.04

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 10.29-11.04
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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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FLOODS LEAVE NEARLY ONE MILLION PEOPLE HOMELESS

Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans fled a flooded region of the Gulf
coast, jumping from rooftops into rescue helicopters, scrambling into
boats or swimming out through murky brown water. President Felipe
Calderon called the flooding in Tabasco state one of Mexico's worst
recent natural disasters, and pledged to rebuild. A week of heavy
rains caused rivers to overflow, drowning at least 80 percent of the
oil-rich state. Much of the state capital, Villahermosa, looked like
New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, with water reaching to
second-story rooftops and desperate people awaiting rescue.

At least one death was reported and nearly all services, including
drinking water and public transportation, were shut down. The flood
affected more than 900,000 people in the state of 2 million - their
homes flooded, damaged or cut off by high water. A 10-inch natural
gas pipeline sprang a leak after flooding apparently washed away soil
underneath it, but it was unclear if other facilities operated by the
state-run Petroleos Mexicanos were damaged or if oil production was
affected. Workers tried to protect Villahermosa's famous Olmec
statues by placing sandbag collars around their enormous stone heads,
and built sandbag walls to hold back the Grijalva River in the state
capital. But the water rose quickly, surprising residents used to
annual floods and forcing soldiers to evacuate the historic city
center. The dikes failed Thursday night, and water swamped the
capital's bus station and open-air market.

Rain gave way to sunshine Friday, but tens of thousands of people
were still stranded on rooftops or in the upper floors of their
homes. Rescue workers used tractors, helicopters, jet skis and boats
to ferry people to safety, while others swam through water infested
by poisonous snakes to reach higher ground. Calderon met with state
officials and flew over the affected areas. The extent of the
flooding was clear from the sky - Tabasco state seemed like an inland
sea with only rooftops and treetops protruding from the water. "This
is not just the worst natural catastrophe in the state's history but,
I would venture to say, one of the worst in the recent history of the
country," Calderon said during an emergency meeting with state
officials in Villahermosa. The president ordered the armed forces and
federal police to maintain order and prevent looting, and asked
residents to remain calm. He canceled a trip to Panama, Colombia and
Peru. "Once we have passed the critical stage ... we are going to
reconstruct Tabasco, whatever it takes," Calderon said.

Mexicans rallied around the disaster, with people across the country
contributing money and supplies. Television stations dedicated entire
newscasts to the flooding and morning shows switched from yoga and
home improvement to calls for aid. Friday was the Day of the Dead
holiday, but banks opened to accept donations for flood victims. Food
and clean drinking water were extremely scarce in Tabasco state, and
federal Deputy Health Secretary Mauricio Hernandez warned that there
could be outbreaks of cholera and other waterborne diseases. "With so
many people packed together there is a chance that infectious
diseases could spread," he said. Officials tested for 600 suspected
cases of cholera, but none was positive, he said. The waterborne
sickness, which can be fatal, has not been reported in Mexico for at
least six years. The government also sent 20,000 Hepatitis A
vaccinations and were giving booster shots to children to prevent
outbreaks, Hernandez said. Medical care was difficult, however,
because at least 50 of the state's hospitals and medical centers were
flooded.

Hotels, parking garages and other dry structures were converted into
temporary shelters for those forced from their homes. Guadalupe de la
Cruz, a receptionist at the Hotel Calinda Viva Villahermosa, said the
hotel's meeting rooms were being used as shelters for employees'
families. She said the 240-room hotel was completely booked, mostly
by people who had fled their homes. Many people were headed to nearby
cities unaffected by the floods. Highways that weren't covered with
water were packed with residents fleeing in cars and on foot. The
exodus appeared to be orderly with no reports of violence.
Villahermosa resident Mauricio Hernandez, 27, who is not related to
the federal official, paid a taxi to go to Cardenas, 30 miles away.
>From there, he planned to hop a bus to the port city of
Coatzacoalcos. "We are leaving because we cannot live like this," he
said. "We don't have any water, and the shelters are full. Where are
we going to go?" State officials sent 50 buses to a museum in the
capital where hundreds of people gathered. "We wanted to stay in the
city but it is no longer possible," said Jorge Rodriguez, 43. "We
have lost everything."

Source: Associated Press: 11/03
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FEMICIDE UPDATE: CASES UNRAVEL

Legal charges in the murder cases of several women and young girls in
Ciudad Juarez began falling apart in recent days. Even as Mexican
authorities stepped up a campaign to convince international public
opinion that the justice tide was turning in favor of female victims
of gender violence, multiple defendants walked free or were not
charged with crimes.

In a major setback to the Chihuahua Office of the State Attorney
General (PGJE), a state judge dismissed a murder charge against
Alejandro Delgado Valles, or "El Cala," who was accused in the 1998
killing of teenager Silvia Gabriela Laguna Cruz. In response,
Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez said that her
office would retain the option of reviving the case against Delgado.
The young man's lawyer, Abraham Hinojos Rubio, declared he would
demand state restitution for alleged "moral damages" that the PGJE
caused his client. Officially implicated in another case in which the
bodies of 8 murdered women were discovered in the same Ciudad Juarez
cotton field in 2001, Delgado was presented by the PGJE as a
"protected witness" against two men accused of the killings. Publicly
recanting earlier this year, Delgado charged that he had been
pressured into making false statements by state policemen. Ciudad
Juarez media, human rights activists and even former government
officials have all criticized the latest cotton field case as lacking
the same type of credibility that characterized two previous ones
against suspects who were eventually cleared. Relatives of Edgar
Alvarez Cruz, a suspect jailed in the cotton field case who insists
on his innocence, are calling on Chihuahua's high court to review the
charges.

In a separate development on October 3, new Chihuahua State Supreme
Court President Rodolfo Acosta Munoz ordered two men freed from
prison who were earlier convicted in the brutal 2005 sexual assault
and murder of 7-year-old Airis Estrella Enriquez Pando, whose remains
were found stuffed in a barrel at a pig farm on the edge of Ciudad
Juarez.  Ruling on an appeal, Judge Acosta found there was
insufficient evidence to connect Eustacio Aleman Zendejas and Juan
Manuel Alvarado Saenz to Airis' murder. Two other men, including
prime suspect Luis Garcia Villalbazo, are serving long prison
sentences for the crime. Airis' parents, Rubi Pando and Jose Cesar
Enriquez, were outraged by the court's action. "We were hoping that
(the suspects) would serve their sentences, because we were almost
sure that they were the guilty ones," Pando said. Maintaining his
innocence, Zendejas blamed his misfortune on the alleged lies of
convicted co-defendant Garcia, who has also been connected to the
sexual assaults of three other young girls. Surviving 3 prison riots
which left 17 dead inmates, Zendejas added that he could seek
restitution from the state for moral and psychological damages.

Two other recent cases also cast doubt on women's prospects for
justice in Ciudad Juarez. In late September, state Judge Neza Zuniga
decided that there wasn't enough evidence to charge Rafael Pineda
Delgado with murder. Pineda claimed that last month's shooting death
of his 20-year-old wife, Karla Ivonne Quiroz Bernal, was accidental.
"It happened when I was playing a joke on her," Pineda said. "I
pointed at her the pistol which I had removed the bullets from for
cleaning, but a projectile got stuck in the magazine and caused her
death."  Quiroz left behind two young children. Eyebrows were also
raised in the city-even within the ranks of the PGJE- when a
commander for the State Investigations Agency (AEI), the police
department long responsible for investigating women's homicides, was
ordered to undergo therapy instead of criminal prosecution for
allegedly trying to strangle his girlfriend before attempting
suicide. Jesus Eduardo Aleman Medina previously served in different
posts in Palomas, Villa Ahumada and the Juarez Valley, but now
reportedly is assigned to the AEI's special anti-kidnapping squad.

The legal developments in Ciudad Juarez came amid an October 4 visit
by German parliamentarians to the border city. Sponsored by the
Chihuahua state government, the objective of the tour was to show the
German lawmakers the supposed progress authorities are making in
prosecuting crimes against women.

Prior to leaving Mexico, German Deputy Jurgen Klimke, a member of the
conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, was
quoted as saying he felt deceived by victims' mothers who charge
authorities with fostering impunity. Klimke said that it was
important to get to the truth about the Ciudad Juarez femicides
because a measure had been introduced in the Bundestag to advise
German companies not to invest in Mexico. While Klimke was departing
Mexico, the PGJE announced that it had tentatively identified the
remains of a suspected female murder victim discovered last month in
the desert outside Ciudad Juarez. Press accounts reported that the
remains likely belong to Irma Isabel Vargas, a 16-year-old employee
of a Tres Hermanos shoe store who vanished in downtown Ciudad Juarez
in 2005. Like Vargas, several other femicide victims worked or
shopped in downtown shoe stores. No suspects have been publicly named
in the Vargas case. "This was a terrible blow to the family, because
we all hoped that she was going to be found alive," said Vargas’
aunt, Leticia Moreno Gallegos.

Meanwhile, other relatives of Ciudad Juarez femicide victims and
their supporters spent Sunday, October 7, painting the familiar pink
crosses on posts along the Camino Real highway that was recently
opened on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez. "This activity keeps alive
the memories of our daughters and is a message to our authorities
that we continue seeking justice," said Paula Flores, mother of 1998
murder victim Sagrario Gonzalez.

Sources: Frontera NorteSur (FNS): 10/08; Norte: 10/06,08;
Frontenet.com: 10/04,06; El Universal: 10/05; El Diario de Juarez:
09/25,30, 10/04-08; La Jornada: 09/30
====

NAFTA AT 14:  FREE TRADE, MIGRATION AND CORN CRISES

On the eve of the elimination of all tariffs on corn and beans
imported into Mexico, a new World Bank study spotlights continued,
major structural problems afflicting the country's agricultural
sector. According to the report, one-fourth of all residents of the
Mexican countryside abandoned their homes in a ten-year period
studied. Especially noteworthy was the out migration of 25 percent of
youths between 15 and 24 years of age. Increasingly, Mexican rural
areas are becoming lands of women and the elderly. The study gives a
strong hint of what helps explain the rural exodus: Mexican
agricultural workers lost 30 percent of their purchasing power
between 1988 and 1996 alone. According to the World Bank, rural
Mexicans make up 24.3 percent of the nation's population, or
approximately 24,800,000 people. Although they still constitute
nearly one-quarter of Mexico's population, rural Mexicans generate
only 3.9 percent of their nation's Gross Domestic Product. The farm
GDP of $24.3 billion is just slightly less than the amount of migrant
remittances received by Mexican households in 2006. The World Bank's
study indicated that migration had a double-edged sword-at least in
the short to medium term. While draining the countryside of future
farmers, migration provided remittances that allowed poor households
to survive. Given slow-downs in the US economy as well as the
stricter application of US immigration laws, it's uncertain how long
the remittance economy outlined by the World Bank can sustain itself.

The time period studied by the World Bank coincided with the entry of
Mexico into the World Trade Organization, the dismantling of
government agricultural support programs and the first years of the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The World Bank report
was released a little more than two months before all remaining
tariffs on staple corn and beans are eliminated under NAFTA's
provisions. Already, the study is fueling renewed debate about free
trade's impact on the Mexican countryside. Since 1994, the first year
of NAFTA, corn imports from the United States have acquired increased
importance in the Mexican food and animal feed sectors.

John Nash, an economist for the sustainable development department of
the World Bank, predicted a modest or positive impact in Mexico from
the pending tear-down of tariff barriers on basic grains. "There
could be a positive effect with the opening of the border, especially
for corn producers," Nash said. But Karen Hansen-Kuhn, an analyst for
the Washington-based non-governmental organization Action Aid,
offered a different assessment of the World Bank study's
implications. " NAFTA has been devastating for the small producers of
Mexico," Hansen-Kuhn said. "Several million of them have been
displaced from their lands since the agreement began functioning and
now that the prices of grains have gone up significantly, the
agricultural sector finds itself devastated to such a degree that it
is very difficult for farmers to return and produce on their lands."

As the 14th anniversary of NAFTA dawns, two prevailing currents of
thought influence Mexican farm organizations. One side holds that
Mexican producers must find their niche in the global economy and
take advantage of new opportunities, but with some government
support. For instance, Maria Esther Teran Velasquez, president of the
National Confederation of Rural Landowners (CNPR) insists that the
agricultural sector requires modernization to effectively compete on
the world market. Speaking at the CNPR's recent assembly, Velasquez
called for investing more public funds in the countryside,
implementing "clear operating rules" and fully eliminating
"discretion in the approval of projects." Vasquez urged the
government to extend a modest subsidy program for small producers
known as Procampo for at least ten years, and to seek alternative
means of support for producers with more than 75 acres who are
currently enrolled in the program.

Upholding principles of food sovereignty and agricultural
sustainability, another important sector of the rural population is
attempting to block the corn and bean tariff eliminations beginning
on January 1, 2008. So far, their efforts are not receiving a
positive hearing in many government circles. Promoted by the National
Council of Campesino Organizations, El Barzon and other groups, a law
designed to strictly regulate the importation of beans and corn
failed in the Chamber of Deputies last week. The initiative went down
to defeat due to opposition from the Institutional Revolutionary
Party (PRI) and its rural arm, the National Campesino Confederation,
which still retains influence in the countryside. Citing Article 31
of the Mexican Constitution that gives the congress power to protect
strategic sectors of the Mexican economy, the unsuccessful bill
nevertheless set the stage for a future revisiting of the power of
Mexican national law over international treaties, an issue Mexico's
Supreme Court has been willing to consider in water shortage
complaints by Tamaulipas farmers and in other cases.

Anti- NAFTA forces, however, are stepping up their mobilizations and
organizing protests set for January 1. Across the nation, the "No
Corn, No Country" campaign is building support among city dwellers
for anti- NAFTA rural organizations. The movement sponsored a
youth-oriented rock concert in Mexico City which drew thousands to
the capital city's Zocalo plaza last weekend. Dubbed "Lets' Save the
Countryside to Save Mexico," the event was endorsed by environmental
organizations, artists, intellectuals, and actors and actresses.
Concert organizer Lorena Paz, a representative of the Maya Institute,
told attendees that while Mexico was one of the nations where corn
originated, the country now faces a defining economic, political and
cultural crisis. "The food of the people is in danger of dying and
the campesinos are in danger of extinction," Paz contended. "If we
don't take our corn and beans out of NAFTA, we will be on our knees
before the United States. We will have lost our food sovereignty and
we will completely depend on other countries for eating."

In a follow-up event to the concert, small farmers plan a November
8-10 Zocalo fair, where city slickers will get a chance of sampling
Mexico's home-grown "agricultural richness." In the big picture,
Mexico confronts environmental and structural disadvantages in the
agricultural sector when it comes to competing with its NAFTA trading
partners, the United States and Canada. According to the World Bank,
Mexico has about 71 million arable acres of land. In contrast, the US
possesses about 462 million acres of cultivable land, while Canada
boasts more than 135 million acres of land suited for agriculture.

Sources: Frontera NorteSur (FNS): 10/30; La Jornada: 10/28;
Proceso/Apro: 10/24; Cimacnoticias.com: 10/24; Frontenet.com/La
Jornada: 10/20
====

BAJA GOVERNOR'S ELECTION RESULT UPHELD

An effort to annul the Baja California governor's election was thrown
out early yesterday by Mexico's top electoral court. The much-awaited
decision by the tribunal clears the way for the inauguration tomorrow
of José Guadalupe Osuna Millán, a 51-year-old economist and member of
the National Action Party, or PAN. The ruling is final and ends
demands by supporters of losing candidate Jorge Hank Rhon for a new
election. A controversial businessman and former Tijuana mayor, Hank
was backed by a coalition led by Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary
Party, or PRI. The judges voted 6-0 to uphold the Aug. 5 election.
Magistrates said repeatedly that Hank's supporters did not present
sufficient proof to warrant an annulment.

"In my perception, this is what most people wanted, not to go through
another election," said Víctor Alejandro Espinoza, a political
analyst at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, a think tank outside
Tijuana.
Osuna followed the deliberations from Tijuana, but several of his
political allies, including the mayors-elect of Tijuana and Ensenada,
gathered at the tribunal's hearing room in Mexico City. "This is an
important step that gives security and certainty to the people of
Baja California," said Francisco Blake Mora, director of Osuna's
transition team. Osuna defeated Hank by more than 56,000 votes, a
margin of 6.5 percent, becoming the fourth consecutive member of the
PAN to win a gubernatorial election in Baja California.

Hank's supporters accused the state government, led by Gov. Eugenio
Elorduy Walther, a member of the PAN, of massive intervention in the
election. The PRI said that under Elorduy, the state used social
programs to win the support of poor voters. The PRI also alleged that
a special state prosecutor for electoral crimes focused excessively
on allegations against PRI candidates. One of the electoral judges in
Mexico City, Leonel Castillo González, criticized the role played by
state authorities. "The people of Baja California deserved better
than they got in these elections," he said. For some, Hank's
candidacy had raised hopes that the PRI could return to power in Baja
California for the first time since 1989. The son of a powerful PRI
politician, Hank has connections at the party's highest echelons.
Hank defeated the PAN in 2004 to win the Tijuana mayor's race, then
stepped down before the end of his three-year term to run for
governor. The PAN tried to knock Hank out of the race early, citing
Baja California's "anti-grasshopper law," which prohibits elected
officials from leaving their jobs to run for another elected
position. But the federal tribunal in that case defended Hank's right
to run in a 6-0 decision.

Source: Copley News Service: 10/31

====
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:10.29-11.04
--