Mexico Week In Review: 04.21-04.27

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 04.21-04.27
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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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ZACATECAS: BOSSES END STRIKE, CLOSE MINE

After an eight-month strike, the Grupo Mexico mining company has 
started to shut down its San Martin copper, silver and zinc mine in 
Sombrerete municipality in the central Mexican state of Zacatecas, 
according to Jesus Jimenez, a delegate in Zacatecas and Jalisco for 
the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic 
(SNTMMRM). Jimenez said the company has already terminated 100 of the 
mine's 450 workers on a claim that the mining operation was 
unsustainable. The workers went on strike on July 30, 2007, as part 
of a strike over safety conditions that included the huge copper mine 
in Cananea, Sonora, and a mine in Taxco, Guerrero. Grupo Mexico has 
reportedly lost $120 million in revenues at San Martin since the 
strike began.

Police and soldiers attempted to end the Cananea strike forcibly on 
Jan. 12; the union responded with an eight-hour national strike on 
Jan. 16.

The SNTMMRM has been organizing protests in Mexico City around safety 
issues at Grupo Mexico mines and a demand that the company retrieve 
the bodies of miners killed in a methane explosion in the Pasta de 
Conchos mine in the northern state of Coahuila on Feb. 19, 2006; only 
two of the 65 bodies have been recovered. Miners in groups of 10 have 
stood holding signs from 9am to 6pm each weekday in intersections, 
plazas and major tourist sites like the Angel de la Independencia 
statue and the esplanade of the Bellas Artes building. The protests 
are in rotating shifts, with unionists coming to the capital for one 
week and then returning home. One of the signs shows a photograph of 
Grupo Mexico president German Larrea Mota Velasco with the caption: 
"Through the fault of this murderer my dad isn't resting in peace and 
has left us orphans. Where is justice?" The company is suing the 
union over the sign for the "crime of discrimination"; the SNTMMRM 
says the company has also organized goons to attack the protesters.

Source: Weekly News Update- Nicaragua Solidarity Network Of Greater 
New York: 04/20
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MEXICANS REMAIN SEMI-ILLITERATE

Over 33 million Mexicans have not yet completed elementary education, 
according to a report by National Institute for Adults Education. 
Institute director Maria Dolores del Rio said that the states of 
Oaxaca, Guerrero and Chiapas have the highest rates of educational 
backwardness and illiteracy, because of the population's poor 
economic conditions.

In Chiapas, there 585,000 illiterate people and half a million 
persons have not yet finished elementary and secondary education. In 
Guerrero, 393,000 people do not know how to read and write, 256,000 
have not completed elementary school and 442,000 are out of the 
secondary level, she said.

The institute is presently carrying a national campaign aimed to 
address the illiteracy and educational backwardness. Del Rio said 
they are planning to teach people how to read and write in 35 
indigenous languages. In Mexico, there are 2,500 centers where adults 
can finish their elementary education level, the source claimed.

Source: Prensa Latina: 04/20
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ECONOMY FAILING?

Mexico's economy may be following the US example by sinking quickly 
into recession.  Automobile production in March fell at an annual 
rate of 9.8%, while automotive exports shrank by 6.8% and national 
vehicle sales declined by 17%.  Mexico's economy created only 126,000 
jobs in the first trimester, compared with 256,000 during the same 
period last year.  The International Monetary Fund reduced growth 
predictions for the Mexican economy to 2% in 2008, a full percentage 
point less than last year's estimate.

Source: Mexico Solidarity Network Weekly News Summary: 04/07-20
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JUAREZ: ARMY OPS ALLOW CRIME SURGE

Mexican troops are failing to provide basic security in the violent 
border city of Ciudad Juarez, residents say, testing support for 
President Felipe Calderon's army-led assault on drug gangs. Some 
2,500 soldiers and federal police swept into Ciudad Juarez over the 
U.S. border from El Paso, Texas last month with heavy weaponry and 
helicopters to quell a surge in drug murders as gangs fight over 
smuggling routes into the United States. Soldiers have taken over 
many security tasks from the often corrupt city police, making dozens 
of arrests and seizing arms and narcotics but the fight against 
common crime has apparently suffered.

While crime statistics are hard to come by, many residents say bank 
robberies, burglaries, vehicle theft, kidnappings and assaults have 
risen sharply over the past month, as criminal gangs take advantage 
of a security vacuum. Dozens of local police have quit, either under 
pressure from military accusations of corruption or angered by army 
plans to seize their weapons and purge their ranks. Ciudad Juarez's 
city police force says it now has only 200 officers patrolling a city 
of 1.6 million people at any one time, less than half the normal 
levels before the troops arrived. Some police say they are too 
intimidated by the army to go on the beat, and residents say patrol 
cars that used to pass their homes nightly have stopped coming. "The 
situation has never been this bad. The police have just stopped 
patrolling the city. There's no point in calling them if you get 
robbed," said local salesman Luis Marquez who just had his car 
stolen. A record 1,100 cars were stolen in March and police say men 
are holding up banks and convenience stores on an almost daily basis, 
some with toy pistols. While Ciudad Juarez is notorious for the 
unsolved murders of hundreds of women over the past decade, residents 
say that despite corruption, the police did stop petty crime. "We 
haven't been asked to take part in local security operations. There's 
no coordination between the army, the federal police and ourselves," 
said city police spokesman Jaime Torres.

Protecting ordinary citizens is crucial for Calderon as he seeks to 
maintain public backing for his army-led assault on the drug cartels. 
He has sent out some 25,000 troops and federal police to fight the 
drug gangs since taking office in December 2006 but faces criticism 
from rights groups for his military strategy. Support for the army is 
still strong nationwide, and most residents of Ciudad Juarez, where a 
record 230 people have been killed in drugs violence this year, say 
they do want the army to stop the murders. "But the presence of the 
military has not fostered confidence or peace for people here, and 
people only have so much patience," said Hector Padilla, a security 
expert at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez.

Despite government television and newspaper advertisements promoting 
the army and federal police in Ciudad Juarez, there have been some 
protests against the troops. Demonstrators say the army's purge of 
drug gangs is chaotic, excessively violent and that federal forces 
have failed to weed out corrupt local police, while also failing to 
address the underlying causes of corruption such as low pay. Cipriana 
Jurado, a local rights activist who was arrested by federal police at 
a recent protest, said the army is torturing city police suspected of 
drug-related crimes with beatings and electric shocks. "I don't know 
if they're guilty, but torture is not the way to solve this 
situation," she said. Mexico's human rights commission has accused 
soldiers of robbing city police officers in Ciudad Juarez and 
stripping off their clothes before interrogation. The army denies any 
wrongdoing and says the protests against them are financed by the 
city's main drug gang, the Juarez cartel.

Source: Reuters: 04/21

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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: 04.21-04.27
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