Mexico Week In Review: 10.15-10.21

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 10.15-10.21
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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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SONORA HOSTS INDIGENOUS MEETING

The town of Vicam in the northwestern Mexico state of Sonora was the 
site of the Meeting of Indigenous Peoples of America, which brought 
together some 1,500 representatives of indigenous groups from the US, 
Canada, Mexico, Central America and South America starting on Oct. 11 
and continuing through Oct. 12. Organizers said misinformation from 
the government and media had put obstacles in the way of the meeting; 
they had been afraid it might have to be moved.

Representatives from the US discussed the continuing imprisonment of 
activist Leonard Peltier and denounced the development of casinos on 
reservations. Mexican activists compared the casinos to projects by 
the National Commission for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples 
(CDI), calling Xochitl Galvez, who headed the CDI during the 
administration of former president Vicente Fox Quesada (2000-2006), 
the "engineer" of cooptation and division of indigenous people from 
the southern states of Chiapas to northern states like Sonora and 
Coahuila. Former political prisoner Julio Sandoval cited murderous 
attacks on his people, the Triqui of the southern state of Oaxaca. 
Many Triqui have fled to Mexico City, to San Quintin valley in Baja 
California Sur, to Sonora and to the US. Sandoval himself now lives 
in exile in Baja California.

On Sept. 27 hundreds of members of the Movement of Triqui Unification 
and Struggle (MULT) marched in Oaxaca city to demand that the State 
Attorney General's Office (PGJE) step up investigations into the 
disappearance of MULT members Virginia and Daniela Ortiz Ramirez on 
July 5. Their family says they were kidnapped by members of a rival 
group, MULT-Independent. The state government has done little to find 
them, according to Emelia Ortiz Garcia, the disappeared women's 
cousin. She charged that when she asked prosecutor Evencio Nicolas 
Martinez Ramirez for help, he told her: "You can go search for your 
family in the whole region, if you want. I'll even applaud you if you 
do that."

Source: Weekly News Update- Nicaragua Solidarity Network Of Greater 
New York: 10/13
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MEXICO, U.S. PLAN $8.5 BILLION ANTI-DRUG EFFORT

The United States and Mexico plan to unveil an $8.5 billion 
counternarcotics program to stem the flow of drugs headed north and 
curb violence among drug gangs, U.S. officials said. Stephen Johnson, 
the Defense Department's deputy assistant secretary for Western 
Hemisphere affairs, said Mexico asked the United States to put up 
$1.5 billion for the program. Mexico will spend $7 billion, he said. 
"With some 2,000 execution-style murders this year on the part of 
drug mafias, Mexico is under siege," Johnson told the Inter-American 
Dialogue, a Washington think tank.  Johnson said no U.S. troops would 
be sent to Mexico as part of the counternarcotics program. U.S. funds 
will be used for equipment to combat narcotics trafficking.

The plan comes as the United States finds it increasingly difficult 
to compete with other powers in providing assistance and wielding 
influence in Latin America and elsewhere. Johnson, in fact, said a 
maze of legal and regulatory requirements in the United States for 
security assistance to allies had made it difficult for Washington to 
compete with Russia and China. "With limited flexibility, we now find 
it difficult to compete with Russia and China in security 
assistance," he said in the speech.

"Whereas they focus on striking deals with few strings, dealing with 
Washington requires running a gauntlet of human rights 
certifications, protecting the environment, promising not to send 
U.S. military personnel to the International Criminal Court, not 
assisting current or former terrorists, and not using U.S.-provided 
equipment for any other than its stated purpose." "American 
commitments also depend on legislative approval on a yearly basis and 
can be reversed if the mood in the U.S. Congress shifts," he said.

Defense officials have complained for years about the hurdles that 
must be cleared before Washington can provide security assistance to 
allies. But the Pentagon rarely acknowledges the difficulty of facing 
off in that arena against Russia and China specifically, two of 
America's biggest power competitors. Within the region, Johnson said 
some governments in Latin America appeared to want to engage the 
United States. But he said Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Ecuador 
wanted to counter Washington's influence.

Source: Reuters: 10/16
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DRUG TRAFFICKERS INFILTRATE POLITICAL PARTIES

The Mexican government officially stated that drug trafficking 
networks penetrated political parties and company sectors of the 
country. The Interior Secretary Francisco Ramirez Acuna assured in an 
encounter with national businesspeople that drug trafficking and 
organized crime "have entered the political parties and some company 
groups". Nobody is out of reach from drug trafficking and crime, 
reason why no sector can remain passive before the flagellum of 
crime, the person in charge of Mexican domestic policy added. The 
declarations of Ramirez Acuna were given after a denunciation of 
business organizations charged with money laundering, product of drug 
trafficking, illegally carried out in Mexico by smuggling thousands 
of tons of products and equipment.

Source: Prensa Latina: 10/14
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BORDER NEWS: FEDS TO TEST VIRTUAL FENCE ALONG BORDER

The first section of a high-tech "virtual fence" along the 
U.S.-Mexico border will be tested this month after defense contractor 
Boeing Co. reported it solved most of the computer glitches that have 
delayed the program for months, a federal official said. Boeing 
personnel who briefed federal officials "sounded real optimistic" 
about the fixes, said Brad Benson, a U.S. Customs and Border 
Protection spokesman in Washington. "I have talked to Border Patrol 
personnel, and they weren't quite that optimistic."

Loaded with sensors, radar and sophisticated cameras, nine towers 
along a 28-mile section are designed to detect illegal immigrants and 
drug smugglers coming through the heavily trafficked area southwest 
of Tucson. The $20 million virtual fence pilot project remains on 
hold because software designed to integrate the results of sensor 
hits, radar readings and camera sightings wasn't working correctly. A 
glitch in the programming has kept it from providing a common 
operating picture for agents, who plan to use it to spot and capture 
illegal entrants and smugglers.

Because of that, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a 
congressional committee last month that he would withhold further 
payment to Boeing, the prime contractor, and declined to accept the 
system until he was satisfied. That testing is now set for the last 
week in October, Benson said. Boeing did not return calls to The 
Associated Press seeking comment. The virtual fence is being tested 
first in Arizona, the focal point for illegal crossings into the 
United States from Mexico. But plans call for installing 1,800 such 
towers along both the Mexican and Canadian borders.

Source: Associated Press: 10/17
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OAS TO PROBE US IMMIGRANT DETENTIONS

Investigators from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 
(IACHR) of the Organization of American States will examine 
conditions in detention facilities for immigrants held in the United 
States. The news was announced by IACHR President Florentin Melendez 
following testimony by both immigrant rights advocates and 
representatives of the US government in Washington. At a hearing held 
by the IACHR, immigrant advocates and their legal representatives 
accused the US government of violating the human rights of immigrant 
detainees.

Representatives of the Women's Commission for Refugees and Children 
and the Rights Working Group charged that substandard medical care, 
physical and psychological mistreatment and even sexual abuses were 
part of an overall set of bad conditions faced by immigrant 
detainees. According to the immigrant advocates, lack of access to 
lawyers is another common problem. Forced to don prison garb, 
immigrant detainees are being treated like common criminals, the 
advocates charged.  Representing the Women's Commission, attorney 
Christopher Nugent accused the US government of traumatizing detained 
immigrant children. Nugent said that 80,000 Mexican children are 
arrested and deported to Mexico every year.

Countering that immigrant detainees "receive the best human treatment 
possible," Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official Gary 
Mead insisted that Washington seeks to resolve individual cases of 
detainees as rapidly as possibly. Mead acknowledged that 66 people 
have died while in the hands of ICE during the last four years, but 
added that the number of deaths is still low since "more than one 
million people have passed through our custody on this period." Mead 
said that Washington spends $100 million annually on medical and 
dental treatment for detained immigrants.

Unconvinced by the testimony presented by either side, IACHR 
President Melendez and his fellow commission members decided that 
more information, including a first-hand look at US detention 
facilities, was necessary in order to assess the human rights 
complaints filed by immigrant advocates. Melendez said that the U.S. 
Department of State has agreed to allow the IACHR personnel access to 
immigrant detention centers in this country. The official human 
rights arm of the Organization of American States, the IACHR issues 
reports, orders protective measures and makes recommendations to 
member governments.

Source: Cimacnoticias.com: 10/16
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MEXICO CITY CLEARS 15,000 STREET VENDORS

Visitors to Mexico City's historic center were to find it unusually 
empty this weekend after authorities forced thousands of unlicensed 
vendors to clear their stalls from its crowded streets. Hundreds of 
police enforced the clear out on the mayor's orders after pressure 
from authorized traders and from the public who complained of stalls 
cluttering pavements and displaying pornographic films for sale in 
view of children. The streets usually jam-packed with teeming crowds 
were largely deserted on as a result, transforming the appearance of 
the old colonial district which Mayor Marcelo Ebrard wants to restore 
to its past beauty.

As for the vendors with their pirated DVDs, watches and clothing, 
some 12,000 to 15,000 of them were relocated to spots cleared for 
them elsewhere in the city center, the authorities said. Pedestrians 
in the old center for a change did not have to weave and push to find 
their way between the crowded stalls, but could stroll at a more 
leisurely pace and admire the Spanish colonial architecture. Road 
traffic was almost fluid, without the previous chorus of honking 
horns. "You can see the facades (of the buildings), it's a great 
discovery," said Paulina Vazquez, a 22-year-old student. "Since I was 
born, I had never been able to realize how beautiful some of the 
houses were. Here you're usually swamped in the crowd."

Vendors demonstrated in an angry protest against the clear out. They 
fear losing their livelihoods or at least suffer a drop in trade if 
forced to sell in the market places where they have been relocated. 
"We live from day to day. I have three children to feed," said Carlos 
Ramirez, 35, who has sold perfume at an unauthorized stall since he 
was six years old with his parents. "I am going to have to sell on 
the sly and if the police come, I'll run off."

Source: Agence France Presse: 10/13
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LAWSUIT AGAINST MEXICAN CARDINAL DISMISSED IN LA

A Los Angeles court dismissed a lawsuit against Mexico City Cardinal 
Norberto Rivera that accused him of conspiring with U.S. Roman 
Catholic officials to shuttle a priest wanted for sex abuse between 
Mexico and California. Los Angeles Superior Court judge Elihu M. 
Berle ruled that the U.S. courts had no jurisdiction in the case, 
which has rocked the Catholic Church in predominantly Catholic 
Mexico. "The court said that this case should be in Mexico, not in 
California. They dismissed it on a legal technicality not on the 
merits of the case at all," said Mike Finnegan, a lawyer for the 
plaintiff.

The lawsuit was filed last year by former altar boy Joaquin Aguilar 
Mendez of Mexico City, who said he was raped in Mexico at age 13 by a 
priest named Nicolas Aguilar Rivera. The suit also claims that 
Aguilar was shunted between Los Angeles and Mexico City by Catholic 
Church officials to avoid arrest. The whereabouts of the priest, who 
is not related to the cardinal nor the plaintiff, are unknown. He is 
wanted in Los Angeles on multiple charges of sexually abusing young 
boys. Both Cardinal Rivera and Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony were 
named in the original suit. Finnegan said the case was unprecedented 
among thousands of sexual abuse charges brought since 2002 in the 
United States against Catholic priests and bishops accused of 
covering up the activities of pedophiles.

Finnegan, who in August traveled to Mexico to question Cardinal 
Rivera, said he was disappointed with the ruling. He said he would 
explore an appeal as well as possibly having the case heard in 
Mexico. Groups representing victims of sexual abuse by priests have 
said they filed suit in Los Angeles because they could not get 
justice in Mexico. "There are a lot of people who were hurt in Mexico 
by Cardinal Rivera and his people. I am also disappointed that 
Cardinal Rivera is hiding behind legal technicalities rather than 
going on the merits of the case," Finnegan said.

Rivera and Mahony have contradicted each other's version of events. 
Mahony says the Mexican church did not warn him of Aguilar's record 
when the priest arrived in Los Angeles in 1987. Aguilar left Los 
Angeles on short notice in 1988 before he could be investigated for 
sex abuse and worked for several parishes in Mexico. Mahony, head of 
the largest Catholic archdiocese in the United States, settled his 
part of the lawsuit with Mendez in July when the Church agreed to pay 
a record $660 million settlement to more than 500 victims of priestly 
sex abuse. Mahony had previously termed the conspiracy charge 
"preposterous and without foundation."

Source: Reuters: 10/16
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NEWEST CARDINAL CHAMPIONS THE POOR, PREACHES HUMILITY

In naming Archbishop Francisco Robles of Monterrey as one of 23 new 
Roman Catholic cardinals, the Vatican chose a clergyman who advocates 
for the poor and beseeches the faithful to embrace humility. With 
Robles, the Vatican may aim to moderate the more conservative 
tendencies of the Mexican church, a leading analyst said. "He is tied 
more to progressive sectors," said anthropologist Elio Masferrer, an 
authority on the Mexican Catholic church.

Robles, 58, becomes one of six Mexican cardinals, only half of whom 
will be eligible to vote for the next pontiff should the 80-year-old 
Pope Benedict XVI either die or retire in the near future. Mexico's 
two other active cardinals - Norberto Rivera of Mexico City and Juan 
Sandoval of Guadalajara - are considered social conservatives. 
Masferrer said Rivera is a cardinal with a "preference for the rich" 
and Sandoval is allied with the more traditional and conservative 
Catholicism.

As senior prelate in Monterrey, Mexico's business capital, Robles 
presides over some of Mexico's wealthiest and more conservative Roman 
Catholic clans. Many of the city's elite lobbied the Vatican for a 
more conservative bishop before Robles was appointed there nearly 
five years ago, Masferrer said. A glance at his recent sermons 
suggests that Robles might give the rich a reason for indigestion. 
"Ill-gotten and ill-used riches close our heart," Robles said in a 
homily two Sundays ago. "We can pass our lives without even realizing 
the existence of the poor, the needy, the people who require our 
help."

Robles' ascension to cardinal comes at a crucial time for the 
Catholic church in Mexico. Millions of Mexicans have converted to 
Protestant faiths, and many of the remaining 85 million Catholics 
rarely attend Mass or receive sacraments. While the Mexican senior 
clergy remains dominated by conservatives, many of its parish priests 
and nuns, especially those in impoverished communities, favor the 
so-called theology of liberation, which preaches a "preferential 
option for the poor." Robles is not considered a liberation theology 
adherent, Masferrer said. With only about 14,000 priests, the Mexican 
church has just one cleric per 7,000 faithful. In contrast, Masferrer 
said, there is one Protestant pastor for every 300 believers.

In addition, Rivera is battling allegations that he protected a 
priest accused of sexually abusing young boys in Mexico and the 
United States. Rivera has denied the accusations. Because active 
cardinals elect the pope, their naming is as much a political as a 
religious act. With the 23 new cardinals named this week, the pope 
seems to have bolstered the clergy in Europe over those in the 
Western Hemisphere and the developing world. Ten of the 18 new 
cardinals hail from Europe, and Europeans now make up half of the 
body that will vote for any future pope.

Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was elected upon the 
death in 2005 of John Paul II. Speculation circulated before 
Benedict's elevation that a clergyman from Latin America - home to 
nearly half of the world's 1 billion Catholics - would be given the 
post. Two other Latin American bishops were named cardinal with 
Robles. Argentine Leandro Sandri, 63, is a longtime Vatican 
bureaucrat who served as a close aide to John Paul. Odilo Pedro 
Scherer, 58, is the archbishop of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Robles, the third of 16 children born to a working-class family in 
Jalisco state, was educated in seminaries and ordained in 1976. After 
three years of study in Rome, he worked his way up the church ranks 
in Mexico, serving as a parish priest, seminary director and bishop. 
He was appointed archbishop of the Monterrey diocese in January 2003, 
following the retirement of Cardinal Adolfo Suarez. "Humility is a 
virtue that God rewards," Robles said in another sermon. "How 
dangerous is haughtiness for whoever has power, whatever kind of 
power, political or economic. "We must be humble."

Source: Houston Chronicle: 10/19

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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: 10.15-10.21
--