Mexico Week In Review: 02.18-02.24

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 02.18-02.24
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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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BORDER UPDATE: 'VIRTUAL FENCE' READY

A high-technology system to control the US-Mexico border with cameras 
and radar instead of a physical fence has gained government approval, 
US officials say. The $20m 'virtual fence' already covers 28 miles 
(48km) of the border between Arizona state and Mexico. The system has 
already helped catch smugglers, and would be deployed elsewhere, said 
US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

But he said plans to complete 770 miles (1,130km) of physical fence 
remain. "I have personally witnessed the value of this system," said 
Mr. Chertoff. "I have spoken directly to the border patrol agents... 
who have seen it produce actual results in terms of identifying and 
allowing the apprehension of people who are illegally smuggling 
across the border."

Built by Boeing, the virtual fence is part of a strategy to stop 
illegal immigrants as well as drug-smugglers attempt to pass into the 
US on foot or in vehicles. Its technology - including 100-ft 
(30-metre) unmanned surveillance towers equipped with sophisticated 
sensor devices - is capable of distinguishing people from cattle at a 
distance of about 10 miles (16km). The system's cameras and radars 
are powerful enough to determine whether people are carrying 
backpacks that may contain weapons or drugs.

The US government plans to extend the technology to other areas of 
the Arizona border, as well as sections of Texas, possibly within 
months. In a televised debate in Texas on Thursday, both Democratic 
party presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, said 
high-technology surveillance could lessen the need for a physical 
barrier. A highly charged political issue, immigration has been at 
the forefront of this year's presidential campaign. Plans for the 
physical barrier covering about a third of the US-Mexico border have 
drawn fierce criticism.

Source: BBC News: 02/23
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DRUG HITMEN KILL ANOTHER MUSICIAN

Drug hitmen have killed a popular Mexican singer along with his 
manager and assistant near the U.S. border, authorities said, the 
latest murder among musicians who sing "narcocorrido" ballads 
glorifying drug traffickers. The body of Jesus Rey David Alfaro, 
known as "The Little Rooster," was one of six that turned up 
tortured, murdered and pinned with threatening messages for Mexico's 
army last week in the border town of Tijuana near San Diego. "We 
believe Alfaro had links to the Arellano Felix cartel," said an 
official with the Baja California state attorney general's office who 
declined to be named. The official was referring to Tijuana's main 
drug smuggling cartel, which is fighting a gory turf war with 
traffickers from Mexico's Pacific state of Sinaloa, led by the 
country's most-wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

At least half a dozen Mexican folk singers, who play narcocorridos 
and upbeat, brassy "grupera" music, have been killed since Mexico's 
drug war flared in 2006. Alfaro, a regular act at Tijuana's biggest 
bars and music halls, was found covered in a blanket in wasteland on 
the edge of the city with rope marks around his neck, suggesting he 
was tortured before he was shot in the head, the attorney general's 
office said. Drug hitmen pinned a message on his body saying "You'll 
be next," a taunt aimed at the thousands of soldiers sent by 
President Felipe Calderon to Tijuana to crush the drug gangs and 
clean up police forces working with the cartels. Tijuana, long a 
transit point for narcotics heading to the United States, has seen a 
spike in murders this past year, with drug gangs even killing 
children. More than 2,500 people were killed in drug violence in 
Mexico last year and at least 320 people have died so far this year.

Source: Reuters: 02/20
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OAXACA TEACHERS PROTEST

Some 70,000 teachers in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca 
suspended classes on Feb. 14 to participate in rallies in Oaxaca city 
and other cities; the rallies were organized by Section 22 of the 
National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) and supported by members 
of the leftist Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). The 
strikers called on the national union to expedite internal elections 
and demanded that the government drop charges against teachers and 
others for their participation in five months of militant strikes and 
protests in 2006. Section 22 members also protested efforts by 
another SNTE local, Section 59, to take over some Oaxaca schools. 
Oaxaca governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz discounted the possibility that the 
2006 social conflict would be renewed. The state government and 
Section 22 were now handling disputes through a "permanent dialogue," 
he said.

Source: Weekly News Update- Nicaragua Solidarity Network Of Greater 
New York: 02/17
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HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP PROBES ARMY KILLING NEAR BORDER

Mexico's human rights commission, the National Human Rights 
Commission (CNDH),  is investigating a shooting in which troops on an 
anti-drug mission near the U.S. border killed a man and wounded an 
American, the organization said. The commission said soldiers opened 
fire on the two men's car when they tried to skirt an army checkpoint 
last week in the border city of Reynosa, where troops patrol the 
streets as part of a crackdown on drug trafficking gangs.

One of the victims, Sergio Meza, died on the scene. His 
brother-in-law, Jose Antonio Barbosa, who said he was a U.S. citizen 
but lived in Reynosa, was shot in the shoulder and hospitalized. 
Mexicans living near the U.S. border often have close ties to the 
United States, and many have dual citizenship. Barbosa said he and 
Meza had been drinking beer, smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine 
before they went out for a ride in their car before dawn last 
Saturday, the rights commission said in a statement.

Reynosa, just south of McAllen, Texas, is considered a major 
smuggling route for drug traffickers and is dominated by the 
country's powerful Gulf cartel. More than 2,500 people were killed in 
drug violence in Mexico last year and at least 320 people have died 
so far this year.

Source: Reuters: 02/20
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NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION CRITICIZED

US-based Human Rights Watch issued a scathing critique of Mexico's 
National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), accusing the government 
agency of malfeasance and ineptitude in the protection of human 
rights.  Human Rights Watch recognized the CNDH for its often 
comprehensive reports on human rights violations, but condemned the 
Commission for negotiating with responsible government agencies while 
leaving the victims of abuses on the sidelines, and for a general 
lack of follow-up that left government agencies with little reason to 
rectify abuses or change ingrained habits.  In general, Human Rights 
Watch found the CNDH to "have a limited impact," despite an annual 
budget of US$79 million dollars, the largest budget of any human 
rights organization worldwide, and over 100 staff members.

Source: Mexico Solidarity Network Weekly News Summary: 02/11-17
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FEMICIDE UPDATE: COTTON FIELD MURDER PROSECUTION FALTERS AS VIOLENCE ESCALATES

In a sharp blow to the Chihuahua Office of the State Attorney General 
(PGJE), state Judge Catalina Ochoa Contreras declared innocent on 
February 6 a suspect charged with killing one of the eight women 
found murdered in a Ciudad Juarez cotton field in 2001. The defense 
of Edgar Alvarez Cruz had long contended that the charges against the 
young man were based on lies, pressured statements and questionable 
or non-existent evidence. Alvarez's defense also presented proof that 
their client was in the United States at the time of many of the 
disappearances and slayings of the victims found in the cotton field. 
Another inconsistency was the single murder charge against Alvarez, 
who was formally accused of killing 17-year-old Mayra Juliana Reyes 
Solis, but not tried for the murders of the other victims who were 
discovered on the same site and at the same time as Reyes. The PGJE 
appealed Judge Ochoa's verdict, but made no immediate public comment 
on the ruling. "The exoneration of the innocent man adds to the list 
of scapegoats detained by the state prosecutor as serial killers and 
then freed for lack of proof to incriminate them," editorialized 
Ciudad Juarez's Lapolaka news site. Upon hearing news of the 
sentence, Alvarez thanked the court for absolving him of the Reyes 
slaying but added, "it should've been done within the first 72 
hours." Alvarez still faces charges in the 1998 killing of teenager 
Silvia Garbiela Laguna Cruz, a murder he also vehemently denies 
committing.

If Alvarez's legal victory is upheld, it would mark the third time 
Chihuahua state and federal cases against suspected cotton field 
killers have wound up in tatters. Previous investigations unraveled 
amid revelations of tortured suspects, extracted confessions, wild 
stories, mismatched bodies and other irregularities. Although 
questions swirled around Alvarez's August 2006 detention from the 
very beginning, Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez 
and representatives her office repeatedly told the press that 
additional evidence against Alvarez and two other accused men would 
be forthcoming. In the end, however, none materialized.

What distinguished the Alvarez affair against the prior cotton field 
cases was the key role played by the United States. Alvarez was 
living as an undocumented worker in Denver, Colorado, when he was 
arrested based on a confession made by Jose Francisco Granados de la 
Paz to the Texas Rangers. Held on an unrelated charge, Granados tied 
Alvarez to the cotton field killings. Later revelations seriously 
questioned Granados' credibility as a witness, painting instead a 
picture of a disturbed, drug-abusing individual who was prone to 
delusions. Despite the flimsiness of the Alvarez case, as well as the 
previous use of torture in the cotton field investigations, the US 
government quickly deported Alvarez to Mexico to face trial. He has 
sat in jail ever since. At the time of Alvarez's arrest, US 
Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza hailed a major breakthrough in 
solving the Ciudad Juarez femicides.

While the US-Mexico investigation of the cotton field killings verges 
on collapse, three of the victims' mothers are taking their quest for 
justice to an international legal body. Last December, the Costa 
Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights notified lawyers for 
the women that it has accepted their case for review. The cases were 
originally pursued in the Washington-based Inter-American Commission 
on Human Rights (IACHR) by the mothers of victims Esmeralda Herrera 
Monreal,  Laura Berenice Ramos Monarrez and Claudia Ivete Gonzalez. 
Transfer of the case to the Inter-American Court means that the 
Mexican government did not follow the IACHR's  recommendations it 
earlier issued to ensure justice for victims' relatives. In a 
separate report late last month, Mexico's official National Human 
Rights Commission criticized all three levels of the Mexican 
government for not following its own justice recommendations related 
to the Ciudad Juarez women's murders. Karla Michel Salas Ramirez, an 
attorney for the three mothers and a member of Mexico's National 
Association of Democratic Lawyers, said the Costa Rica case could set 
a legal precedent for other femicide cases. The Mothers' lawyers will 
argue that Mexico is in violation of the Belen Do Para Convention, an 
international agreement which obliges states to protect women from 
gender violence. The plaintiffs also seek sanctions against Chihuahua 
state government officials who were responsible for handling the 
cotton field investigation.  Unlike the advisory nature of the 
IACHR'S recommendations, rulings from the Costa Rica court are 
obligatory for member states.

On another international note, the Ciudad Juarez femicides drew a 
sharp comment from United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 
Louise Arbour, who was on an official visit to Mexico earlier this 
month. "In Mexico, the issue of impunity is the greatest challenge 
that has to be confronted and overcome," Arbour said. "The case of 
the femicides, in which the justice system doesn't protect women, is 
worrisome."

In Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, media outlets, business groups, human 
rights organizations and just plain ordinary citizens are all alarmed 
at the escalating homicide rates for both men and women since the 
beginning of the year. Nine women and girls have been killed for 
different reasons since January 1. Also last month, a woman's 
skeleton was recovered from an area frequently used as a dumping 
ground for both male and female murder victims. Additionally, a 
15-year-old high school student, Adriana Enriquez Sarmiento, was 
reported missing from downtown Ciudad Juarez on January 18. The young 
girl had attended the private Ignacio Allende Preparatory, the same 
institution three previous femicide victims, including Laura Berenice 
Ramos, had also attended, In a blog entry this week, El Paso author 
and longtime femicide researcher Diana Washington Valdez reported 
that a female Allende Prep student was accosted outside the school 
January 31 by a man who exposed himself to the girl. According to the 
journalist, an intervention by prominent Ciudad Juarez labor rights 
activist Cipriana Jurado, who just happened to be in the vicinity of 
the school at the time of the attack, prompted the man to run away 
before police could detain him.

Sources: Frontera NorteSur (FNS): 02/07; Lapolaka.com: 02/06; El 
Diario de Juarez: 02/07; Norte: 01/30, 02/07; La Jornada: 01/30, 
02/06; Cimacnoticias.com: 12/26/07, 01/24; Proceso/Apro: 01/29/07; 
Dianawashingtonvaldez.blogspot.com

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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: 02.18-02.24
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