From cisdc at zzapp.org Sun Dec 6 22:18:02 2009 From: cisdc at zzapp.org (cisdc) Date: Sun, 6 Dec 2009 22:18:02 -0500 Subject: Mexico Week In Review: 11.30-12.06 Message-ID: Mexico Week In Review: 11.30-12.06 ================================================================= 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" ================================================================= SME "OCCUPIES" MEXICO CITY Tens of thousands of union members, students and campesinos occupied Mexico City on Friday in a symbolic replay of the historic arrival of revolutionaries Emiliano Zapata and Francsico Villa on the same date in 1914. The Electrical Workers Union (SME) led the mass mobilization to protest the closure last month of the state-owned Central Light and Power (LFC) which left more than 44,000 union members unemployed. The occupation closed many major highways, overwhelming the 5,000 federal police assembled to inhibit the demonstration. Contingents arrived from all four points of the compass to converge at the Monument of the Revolution. SME President Martin Esparza called for renewed negotiations with federal authorities, proposing Jose Narro, rector of the National Autonomous University (UNAM), as mediator. Source: Mexico Solidarity Network Weekly News Summary: 11/30-12/06 ==== U.S. LAGGING IN SENDING ANTI-DRUG AID TO MEXICO, GAO SAYS The United States has spent a fraction of the money pledged -- just $24 million of $1.3 billion appropriated -- to help Mexico in its bloody three-year-old battle against the drug cartels that have turned parts of country into a war zone and left 15,000 dead, according to a U.S. government report. The Merida Initiative, signed by President George W. Bush and Mexican leader Felipe Calder?n in 2007, promises Black Hawk helicopters, night-vision goggles and drug-sniffing dogs, as well as a more robust crime-fighting partnership between the United States and Mexico. So far the United States has delivered 2 percent of the equipment and support promised, according to the report by the Government Accountability Office. The perception of a slow flow of aid has rankled some in the Calder?n government and fueled criticism here that the United States, which spends billions consuming illegal drugs, is fiddling while 50,000 Mexican soldiers and police officers are fighting in the streets to confront powerful criminal organizations that threaten Mexico's national security. The Merida Initiative did not lay out a specific timeline for delivering the U.S. assistance, but the report made clear that the pace of spending was lagging. "Few programs have been delivered and limited funding has been expended to date," GAO investigators said. They said State Department officials "could not tell us when they planned to deliver the majority of Merida goods and services." But the new U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, countered that the GAO report creates a "misimpression." He said that the United States has actually spent $222 million but that "due to the idiosyncrasies of federal reporting and contracting," many up-and-running programs have not yet shown up on the books as money "spent." For example, Pascual said, a new federal police academy that has graduated more than 3,000 cadets taught by U.S. instructors is not reflected in the GAO accounting because contractors have not submitted invoices yet. Similarly, the ambassador said, next week the U.S. government will deliver to Mexico five new Bell helicopters worth $66 million. Some members of Congress, however, have been frustrated by what they see as a sluggish pace. "As President Calder?n confronts his country's brutal drug cartels head on, we must cut through our own government's red tape to get Merida Initiative assistance flowing to Mexico more quickly," Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, said upon releasing the GAO report. This week, Calder?n warned that the cartels are increasingly using drug money to buy off local politicians and attempting to manipulate elections. Jeffrey Davidow, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico who is now president of the Institute of the Americas in San Diego, said, "I don't think the slowness in the outlay is any kind of indication of a policy failure." Instead, he said, "it is better to take the time and get it right." The GAO report notes that the Merida Initiative also includes $175 million in appropriated funds for nations in Central America and the Caribbean. It found that $2 million has been spent there. Source: Washington Post: 12/04 ==== MEXICO CITY POLICE FREE DOZENS OF "SLAVE WORKERS" Mexican police freed 107 people who were imprisoned and forced to work in a clandestine factory in the capital, the prosecutor's office said. Police raided the factory, which made clothing clasps, after several months of investigation following the complaint of a worker who had escaped from the facility. Twenty-three people were arrested. Mexican media reported the freed workers were suffering from malnutrition and showed signs of physical abuse. Most were indigenous people from the south of the country and drug and alcohol addicts rounded up from Mexico City's streets, a spokeswoman for the city prosecutor's office said. Some were lured into the factory with the promise of jobs. Investigators were also probing allegations that police officers helped round up some of those held in the factory during routine street patrols, Mexican media reported. Mexicans trying to migrate to the United States are being increasingly targeted by Mexico's ruthless organized crime groups that have expanded into kidnapping and extortion in recent years. Source: Reuters: 12/03 ==== SEVEN WOMEN MURDERED, ONE BEHEADED Seven women were murdered in Mexico, including one who was beheaded in the southern beach resort of Cancun, authorities reported. Four of the women were killed in Ciudad Juarez, where two were shot to death, another beaten with a baseball bat and a fourth, a school teacher, also was beaten to death. The northern border city is at the center of a raging drug war that has claimed 2,300 lives so far this year. In Baja California state, two women were found shot to death in Mexicali, also on the US border, the Attorney General's office said. In the Caribbean tourist mecca of Cancun, a 19-year-old woman was found beheaded in a sports stadium. The victim, a suspected prostitute, had a relationship with a police officer who was murdered last week, the office said. Elsewhere, eight men were found murdered in northern Chihuahua state, five of them in Ciudad Juarez, the state attorney general's office said. More than 14,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since 2006, when President Felipe Calderon took office and deployed 50,000 troops to fight violence. Source: AFP: 11/30 ==== REMITTANCES FALL 36% The Bank of Mexico said that remittances to Mexico fell 36% to $1.69 billion in October from $2.64 billion in the same month last year. The October numbers were also lower than the $1.74 billion that Mexican workers sent home in September, the central bank said. Remittances for the first 10 months of the year fell 16% from the year-earlier period, to $18.13 billion. Remittances in dollar terms have slumped this year due to a recession in the U.S., which caused rising unemployment among migrant workers who send money home to their families. After peaking in 2007 at $26.07 billion, remittances fell 3.6% last year to $25.14 billion. Source: The Wall Street Journal: 12/01 ==== GOVERNMENT CLAIMS MARCOS' MOTHER DIES AT 70 The mother of the man Mexico's government has identified as Zapatista spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos has died at Mexico City's airport. Airport spokesman Jose Luis Hernandez says 70-year-old Socorro Vicente Gonzalez died Monday of an apparent heart attack while waiting for a flight to her home state of Tamaulipas. Mexico's federal government has identified Marcos as former university instructor Rafael Sebastian Guillen Vicente. But Marcos, who appears in public with a ski mask covering his face, has never confirm it is him. Source: Associated Press: 12/02 ==== MEXICANS PROTEST ACTIVIST'S DEATH Inspired by grief and driven by anger, about 250 Mexicans descended on the Canadian embassy in Mexico City to protest the recent murder of a Mexican activist who opposed a Canadian mine in the south. The protesters, mostly local farmers and activists who traveled overnight from the province of Chiapas, approached the embassy around 11:30 a.m. to call on the Canadian government to investigate the recent murder of Mariano Abarca Roblero, an anti-mining activist who was shot and killed on his doorstep last week. Abarca was standing outside his house in the town of Chicomuselo near Mexico's border with Guatemala when an unknown gunman approached him and shot him in the head and chest, before fleeing on a motorcycle driven by a second man. He had asked for police protection days before the attack, alleging that he had been threatened by a Mexican employee of a nearby Canadian-owned mine. Waving Mexican flags and placards denouncing Canadian mining companies in their country the protesters, who have urged the government in Chiapas to investigate Abarca's death, called on the Canadian government to enact legislation to hold the mining sector accountable in the developing world. Abarca's murder and the subsequent protest come at a time when MPs in Ottawa continue to hear evidence in a Commons foreign affairs committee examining a Liberal private member's bill designed to regulate the actions of Canadian mining companies abroad. An employee of Calgary's Blackfire Exploration Ltd. said the company was cooperating with authorities and that Blackfire was not involved in any criminal activity. The employee, who declined to give his name, advised that all other inquiries be directed to the company's public relations firm in Mexico City. Emails there went unanswered. A Blackfire spokesman acknowledged that company officials were being questioned in connection with Abarca's death, but said the firm is not involved in the incident. The spokesman said the company had asked the embassy to intervene after hearing allegations that their Chiapas mine employees were being attacked and beaten in response to the killing. Claudia Campero, a local environmental advocate, was present at the protest in Mexico City. She said protesters gathered outside the embassy for hours, hoisting placards calling for an end to violence against activists like Abarca. Others carried signs with words they attributed to Abarca, which read: "If anything happens to me, I blame the Canadian Mining Company Blackfire." MiningWatch Canada and other watchdog groups in Canada and Mexico have also attributed the quote to Abarca. "We are asking on the government of Canada to really look at the kind of activities that these mining companies do here in Mexico and make them accountable," said Campero. Laura Dalby, spokeswoman for the ministry of international trade, said embassy staff met with the protesters but that the embassy is not involved in the investigation into Abarca's death. Abarca, who alleged the Blackfire mine was contaminating the local water supply, led a campaign to block access to the site last June. He was arrested in August after the company accused him of affecting its economic interests, but the charges were dropped. Source: Toronto Star: 12/04 ==== 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: 11.30-12.06 -- From cisdc at zzapp.org Sun Dec 13 22:19:15 2009 From: cisdc at zzapp.org (cisdc) Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 22:19:15 -0500 Subject: Mexico Week In Review: 12.07-12.13 Message-ID: Mexico Week In Review: 12.07-12.13 ================================================================= 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" ================================================================= MEXICO SHUTS DOWN CANADIAN MINE AFTER ACTIVISTS' MURDER A Canadian mine in Mexico has been shut down over environmental concerns, while new details are emerging about how three men arrested in the death of a vocal anti-mining activist are connected to the Calgary firm. The temporary closure of the Blackfire Exploration mine, revealed by a government official is another twist in a case some say symbolizes the anger of local people who feel Canadian companies are destroying their pristine ancestral land for profit. "The reason this company has been closed down is due to building roads without authorization, causing pollution and toxic emissions, affecting the direction and flow of water sources, and changing the use of land without permission," said Carolina Ochoa of the Chiapas state Ministry of Environment. Ochoa denied the mine's closure had anything to do with last month's slaying of anti-mining activist Mariano Abarca Roblero. "They have to get certain approvals and permits," she said. "There are standards that have to be met." Three men have been arrested in Abarca's death. All are linked to Calgary-based Blackfire, said a document from the state's attorney general obtained by The Canadian Press. Blackfire has condemned the activist's killing and a spokesman said the company was in no way involved. The government document says witnesses have identified Jorge Carlos Sepulveda Calvo as the shooter and says this was confirmed by forensic tests. It also says Sepulveda worked as a driver for Blackfire on weekends. The company had previously said Sepulveda hadn't worked for the company since June 6, 2008. One of the other men arrested - Caralampio Lopez Vazquez - was allegedly identified as the driver of the motorcycle that helped the shooter escape. The attorney general said Lopez worked as a driver and translator for one of Blackfire's executives. Blackfire has admitted somebody by that name works for them, but has explained that since they haven't been notified of charges by police, they can't confirm it is the same person. The role allegedly played by the third man arrested, Ricardo Antonio Coutino Velasco, was not revealed in the document. Coutino lent his services to the company to transport material in his truck. The report says forensic testing revealed that four shots fired from a 9 mm calibre gun in Chicomuselo, a town in Chiapas, on Nov. 28 hit Abarca, striking him in the chest and neck. No one at Blackfire would comment on the mine's closure or clarify the men's connection to the company. Source: Toronto Star: 12/09 ==== SME SUFFERS DEFEAT IN COURT A novice federal judge, apparently unwilling to put the rest of her career at risk, issued a controversial and poorly reasoned judgment against the Electrical Workers Union (SME) on Friday. Judge Guillermina Coutino Mara ruled that President Calderon's decision to close Central Light and Power (LFC), costing over 44,000 union members their jobs, was constitutional. The SME still has legal recourse during an appeal process, and the case will almost surely end up in the Supreme Court. Coutino apparently buckled under pressure from the Calderon administration and issued a decision light on legal reasoning that placed decisions by the President above Congressional mandates, thereby violating the separation of powers enshrined in the Mexican Constitution. Despite the judgment, the SME rank and file promised to continue their struggle against the midnight police action that closed the LFC in October. Demonstrations and two hunger strikes will keep pressure on federal authorities while the SME plans for a nation-wide general strike in early 2010. Source: Mexico Solidarity Network Weekly News Summary: 12/07-13 ==== AMNESTY: DRUG WAR ABUSES BY ARMY RISE SHARPLY Complaints of torture, murder and illegal detention by the Mexican army have jumped as soldiers have been dragged into a long, gruesome battle with powerful drug cartels, Amnesty International said. Mexico's national human rights commission received some 2,000 accusations of abuse by the military in 2008 and the first six months of 2009, a sharp jump from 367 complaints in 2007 and 182 in 2006, the rights group said in a report. In one case documented by Amnesty, 31-year-old Saul Becerra was picked up in an army raid at a car wash in Ciudad Juarez, near the U.S.-Mexico border. His body was found a year later and his death certificate showed he died the day after his detention of a severe brain hemorrhage from blunt-force trauma. "The cases that we have been able to investigate are truly shocking. But what is more shocking is that we know that this is only the tip of the iceberg," Kerrie Howard, deputy director of Amnesty's Americas program, said in a statement. President Felipe Calderon has deployed 49,000 soldiers across Mexico to combat the feuding drug cartels who control cocaine trafficking from South America, produce methamphetamines and grow marijuana for U.S. consumers. The army has failed to curb violence with more than 16,000 people killed in the drug war since Calderon took office in late 2006 and the president risks losing public support for his military-backed crackdown. Mexico's interior ministry said in a statement it would look seriously at Amnesty's report and that the army was committed to protecting human rights. Generals in Mexico City deny systematic rights abuses by soldiers and say any troops caught working for the cartels or failing to respect human rights are tried in military courts. The army has taken on more policing roles because many of Mexico's police forces are working for the drug gangs, and soldiers often clash with local law enforcement. In March, 25 police officers were detained by the military, held incommunicado for 41 days and tortured to illicit false confessions, the Amnesty report said. One police officer told human rights investigators how he was beaten for hours until he fainted and was given electric shocks on his feet and genitals. Other people detained by the army said they were suffocated temporarily with plastic bags or told they would be executed. The United States has promised Mexico S$1.95 billion in aid to boost Calderon's anti-drug campaign but so far only about 2 percent, or S$36 million, has been spent in Mexico, said a recent report from the U.S. government accountability office. Fifteen percent of the drug aid can be withheld if there are legitimate complaints of human rights abuses committed by the Mexican army. But U.S. President Barack Obama said on a visit to Mexico earlier this year that the drug traffickers were the biggest violators of human rights. Source: Reuters: 12/09 ==== JUAREZ: FEAR DOMINATES LIFE IN DEADLIEST CITY "Not one person murdered yesterday," Ciudad Juarez's leading newspaper proclaimed in a banner headline. It was big news in this border city, ground zero in the drug war -- the first time in 10 months that a day had passed without a killing. But by the end of that day, Oct. 30, nine more people were riddled with bullets. Violent death is a part of life in Ciudad Juarez, a seedy, dust-cloaked metropolis on the banks of the Rio Grande. Bloodied bodies hang from overpasses, and children walking to school stumble across hit men filling targets with lead. While there's no definitive comparison of murder rates in cities around the world, there's no question Ciudad Juarez is now among the deadliest. It has had about 2,250 killings this year, a rate of 173 per 100,000 residents. That compares with 37 in Baltimore, the deadliest U.S. city with a population of more than 500,000. The violence began in earnest in early 2008, when Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquin ''El Chapo'' Guzman and Juarez Cartel boss Vicente Carrillo Fuentes launched a deeply personal fight over drug routes their organizations had long shared. Both have lost family members in the fight, and have adopted increasingly brutal tactics as it drags on. Thousands of troops and federal police rolled into the city by May 2008 to stop the violence, and this year President Felipe Calderon sent in even more, with more than 7,000 soldiers in place by March. The killings tapered off, but soon rebounded: As the drug seizures hurt traffickers' incomes, they turned to kidnapping, bank robberies and carjackings. ''The city is dying,'' said Daniel Murguia, president of the local chapter of the National Chamber of Commerce, who uses thick steel bars and surveillance cameras to protect his chain of laundromats. ''For Rent'' signs cover the doors of the cavernous nightclubs that once drew thousands of revelers across the border from El Paso, Texas. Most Juarez youths -- spooked by the shootouts at malls, bars and discos -- socialize only in the safety of friends' homes. The only businesses that are thriving are funeral homes, opulent two-story buildings with mirrored-glass facades and gilded caskets that have handled twice as many victims of violence as they did in 2008 -- and seven times more than in 2007. Mothers tell daughters to run stoplights at night rather than risk being carjacked. Even in daylight, drivers dare not glance over at the next car, especially if it's an SUV with tinted windows and no plates. Newspaper hawkers hold front-page photos of tortured bodies to their windshields as a reminder to mind their own business. This year's dead include university professors, an honor student and waiters caught in the crossfire when their customers were shot. Even emergency rooms, where doctors try desperately to save the victims, are not immune. Dr. Alberto Rios was in surgery last month when gunmen barged in with assault rifles drawn, looking for two men wounded in an earlier shootout. Doctors and nurses ran screaming for cover. Patients scrambled from their beds, taking their IVs with them. Some fainted. The gunmen left after they couldn't find the men, who were armed and hiding in a bathroom. ''We all have a relative, a friend who has been killed,'' said Rios, whose 17-year-old nephew died in a shootout in July. ''This won't end until one gang is in power.'' For decades, Ciudad Juarez has been a magnet for poor Mexicans seeking work at massive factories that make flat-screen TVs, steering wheels and other goods bound for the U.S. That mix of opportunity and poverty fueled the killings of hundreds of women whose bodies were dumped in the desert, earning Juarez notoriety in the 1990s. But the level of drug-related violence remained at a simmer until two years ago, when Mayor Jose Reyes told federal authorities about a conversation overheard in a bar: The Sinaloa and Juarez cartels were going to war. That war broke out on Jan. 5, 2008, when five men were shot up with high-powered assault rifles in a span of hours. Within days, several police officers and nearly two dozen others were dead as well. As the cartels moved beyond drugs, crime rates doubled in some cases, overwhelming the city's small, poorly equipped and corrupt police force, Reyes told The Associated Press. Mexico's justice system was not ready either. Judges threw out cases for lack of evidence or because confessions were extracted by torture. Innocent people were jailed while murderers served time for lesser crimes such as arms and drug possession because prosecutors could not present convincing cases. A retired general has since taken over the police force, purging it of corrupt cops and then doubling its size with military-trained officers who hit the streets about a month ago. But residents are fed up. More than 1,000 people marched to city hall recently to demand local and federal officials take drastic actions to get results. The Chamber of Commerce, which says 6,000 businesses have closed this year alone, has asked the United Nations to send in peacekeepers. Calderon rejected the idea, saying Mexico can handle its own problems. Even so, the president acknowledges his anti-drug strategy has seen spotty results. ''There are areas of the country where we are clearly imposing the Mexican government's law, like Tijuana or Michoacan, for example,'' Calderon told the Televisa network. ''There are other areas where that is not happening, like Ciudad Juarez." On a recent afternoon, at one of the city's busiest intersections, four police officers from the state capital of Chihuahua City stopped for gas before heading to testify against Sinaloa Cartel members. Hit men pulled up and fired nearly 100 rounds. Bullets ricocheted off the front of a convenience store across the street as some bystanders cried. An attendant at the gas station was killed, along with two of the officers. A pair of students in school uniforms walked over to get a better view of the bodies lying next to the gas pumps. ''I've seen bodies near my house, on the way to school, outside my work,'' said Jose Luis Chavez, 17. ''It's no longer weird to see dead people.'' Source: Associated Press: 12/06 ==== MONEY TRICKLES NORTH AS MEXICANS HELP RELATIVES During the best of the times, Miguel Salcedo's son, an illegal immigrant in San Diego, would be sending home hundreds of dollars a month to support his struggling family in Mexico. But at times like these, with the American economy out of whack and his son out of work, Mr. Salcedo finds himself doing what he never imagined he would have to do: wiring pesos north. Unemployment has hit migrant communities in the United States so hard that a startling new phenomenon has been detected: instead of receiving remittances from relatives in the richest country on earth, some down-and-out Mexican families are scraping together what they can to support their unemployed loved ones in the United States. "We send something whenever we have a little extra, at least enough so he can eat," said Mr. Salcedo, who is from a small village here in the rural state of Oaxaca and works odd jobs to support his wife, his two younger sons and, now, his jobless eldest boy in California. He is not alone. Leonardo Herrera, a rancher from outside Tuxtla Guti?rrez in the southern state of Chiapas, said he recently sold a cow to help raise $1,000 to send to his struggling nephew in northern California. Also in Chiapas, a poor state that sends many migrants to the United States, Mar?a del Carmen Montufar has pooled money with her husband and other family members to wire financial assistance to her daughter Candelaria in North Carolina. In the last year, the family has sent money - small amounts ranging from $40 to $80 - eight times to help Candelaria and her husband, who are both without steady work and recently had a child. "When she's working she sends money to us," the mother said. "But now, because there's no work, we send money to her." Statistics measuring the extent of what experts are calling reverse remittances are hard to come by. But interviews in Mexico with government officials, money-transfer operators, immigration experts and relatives of out-of-work migrants show that a transaction that was rarely noticed before appears to be on the rise. "It's something that's surprising, a symptom of the economic crisis," said Mart?n Zuvire Lucas, who heads a network of community banks that operate in poor communities in Oaxaca and other underserved Mexican states. "We haven't been able to measure it but we hear of more cases where money is going north." At one small bank in Chiapas that used to see money flowing in from the United States, more money is going out than coming in. "I'd say every month 50,000 pesos are sent from here to there," said Edith Ram?rez Gonzalez, a sales executive at Banco Azteca in San Crist?bal de las Casas. "And from there, we'd receive about 30,000 pesos." Fifty thousand pesos is $3,840. With nearly half its population living in poverty, Mexico is not well placed to prop up struggling citizens abroad. Mexico could lose as many as 735,000 jobs this year and its economy may decline 7.5 percent, government economists predict, making the country one of the worst affected by the global recession. Still, poverty is a relative concept. It is easier to get by on little in Mexico, especially in rural areas, allowing the poor to help the even more precarious. In Miahuatl?n, Sirenia Avendano and her husband may be more down and out than their two sons, both in their 20s, who wait tables at a Mexican restaurant in central Florida and have seen their hours reduced and their tips drop precipitously. But they live in their own home, on land they use to grow corn and other crops. "We're poor, but nobody can throw us out of this house," Ms. Avendano said, wiping away tears at her kitchen table as she spoke of her sons' economic travails. "They worry about that. What happens if they can't pay the rent?" To help make ends meet, she sells chiles rellenos, a popular delicacy, around the neighborhood. "We have an obligation to help them," said her husband, Javier. "They're our sons. It doesn't matter if they are here or there." In other cases, the migrants are returning home, as the many passengers who hop off the bus that runs regularly from northern California to a gas station in Miahuatl?n make clear. "There's nothing up there," said a young man with an overflowing suitcase who returned one recent night. Still, although a study by the Pew Hispanic Center from July showed a sharp decrease in the number of Mexicans heading north, there has been no sign of a mass exodus of migrants back to Mexico. Immigrants' families say it took great effort to scrape together the thousands of dollars needed to send relatives to the United States, a sum that includes the fees charged by the people who help them sneak in. "It's expensive to cross, and it was a great sacrifice for us," said Mr. Salcedo, 43, who has sent about five wire transfers to his son Alfonso, 18, who this year lost his job as a cafeteria dishwasher. As expected during an economic slowdown, the money sent home by immigrants has fallen. The Bank of Mexico reported recently that remittances during the first nine months of this year dropped to $16.4 billion, a 13.4 percent decline compared with the same period in 2008. The flow of money out of Mexico is believed to be a tiny fraction of the remittances still arriving. "The evidence in this regard so far is anecdotal," said Juan Luis Ordaz, senior economist at the Spanish bank BBVA Bancomer, who has begun investigating the reverse money flow. Families of migrants speak proudly of their successful relatives in the United States and use the remittances they receive to do anything from buying livestock to replacing dirt floors with concrete. The importance of such money, which is among Mexico's top sources of foreign currency, cannot be overstated. An estimated 5.9 percent of Mexican households, about 1.8 million families, receive economic support from abroad, studies show. For them, the money represents roughly 19 percent of total income for urban households and 27 percent for rural ones, according to government data analyzed by BBVA Bancomer. For the Salcedos, the economic woes are intense on both sides of the border. The ones still here had moved to the outskirts of Mexico City seeking opportunity, but now they are on the verge of returning to Oaxaca because the owner of the land they are squatting on ordered them out. For Alfonso, the situation has been just as difficult. He crossed into the United States in December with about $500 that his father gave him, supplemented with money he earned doing odd jobs in Tijuana. He found a job in San Diego paying enough for him to send home $170 the first month and $120 the next. The third month, he told his family he could afford to send only $40. Then, like so many others, he lost the job and stopped sending anything. Now his father has begun sending money the other way, usually about $60, less transfer fees. "We've decided to tighten our belt until we're all working again," Mr. Salcedo said. Source: New York Times: 11/16 ==== 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: 12.07-12.13 -- From cisdc at zzapp.org Sun Dec 20 23:43:00 2009 From: cisdc at zzapp.org (cisdc) Date: Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:43:00 -0500 Subject: Mexico Week In Review: 12.14-12.20 Message-ID: Mexico Week In Review: 12.14-12.20 ================================================================= 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" ================================================================= 5,000 MIGRANTS DIED ON WAY TO US SINCE '94 Mexico's National Human Rights Commission says more than 5,000 Mexican migrants have died in deserts, rivers and mountains trying to reach the U.S. since 1994. The commission says governments must do more to protect migrants from robbers, smugglers and others who seek to exploit them. It said in a statement that on average, three migrants perished every two days in 2007 and 2008 in the U.S.-Mexico border region. According to the National Statistics and Geography Institute, more than 280,000 Mexicans emigrated in the first six months of 2009 - a 25 percent drop over the same period last year. The U.S. economic downturn and crackdowns on immigrants have contributed to the drop. Source: Associated Press: 12/18 ==== MAN SUSPECTED OF LEADING A DRUG CARTEL IS KILLED IN A SHOOTOUT One of the most wanted figures in the drug war was killed in a shootout with the Mexican Navy, an official said. Arturo Beltr?n Leyva and three members of his drug cartel died in the gunfight in an apartment complex in Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City. A fifth suspect committed suicide during the shootout, the official said. One sailor was wounded. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because navy rules prohibited him from giving his name. He said that more than 200 sailors raided the apartment complex as part of a crackdown on the Beltr?n Leyva Cartel in central Mexico. The raid set off a gunfight that lasted nearly two hours. Source: Associated Press: 12/17 ==== UNITED STATES DELIVERS 5 HELICOPTERS The United States delivered five helicopters to Mexico on Tuesday to help the country fight drug traffickers. The aircraft are part of more than $604 million worth of vehicles and equipment that the United States plans to give Mexico in the coming months. Source: Associated Press: 12/15 ==== AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CITES MEXICO ON LOMAS DE POLEO LAND CONFLICT The Mexican authorities must protect residents of disputed land who have been intimidated and attacked by the security guards of local landowners who are contesting the ownership of the land, Amnesty International said. The call comes after a woman living in the Lomas de Poleo area in Chihuahua state was shot and injured at her home by two men in balaclavas. Lomas de Poleo residents have been harassed and attacked since 2003. According to local inhabitants, 40 homes were set on fire that year and a resident was beaten to death by security guards. The land of Lomas de Poleo has become valuable in recent years as it stands between Ciudad Ju?rez and an area destined for urban and industrial development by a group of local businessmen. The area is surrounded by a barbed wire fence and the entrance is patrolled by security guards. An agrarian tribunal has held a number of hearings between the residents of Lomas de Poleo and a local landowning family, but the case has been progressing very slowly. Adelaida Plasencia Sierra, who was shot on Dec. 4, had given evidence at the tribunal. The attack is thought to be part of an attempt to intimidate those taking part in the hearings. Every day for two weeks before her attack Plasencia had noticed that a white car without number plates was parked outside her house. The two armed men who came to her door said they were selling a mobile phone. When Plasencia refused to buy the phone, they asked to talk to her husband, Vicente. Plasencia did not recognize the men and was surprised that they knew her husband's name. The men grabbed her and tried to force her into a car. She escaped and ran towards her house, but the men shot her. One bullet fractured three of her ribs. The men then shot a further nine bullets into the air and drove off. Plasencia is recovering in hospital. Amnesty International has urged the Mexican authorities to order independent and impartial investigations into the attacks committed against residents, and to bring those responsible to justice. The organization also said that the authorities should prevent any illegal attempt to drive residents of Lomas de Poleo off their land, and to expedite efforts to ensure the dispute is resolved fairly and satisfactorily in the appropriate agrarian tribunal. Source: http://ww4report.com 12/13 ==== SPECIAL REPORT: GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABLE FOR CIUDAD JUAREZ FEMICIDES In a ruling that could reverberate across the Americas, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has taken the Mexican government to task for the murders of three young women in Ciudad Juarez. In a historic decision published this month, the justices found the government incurred in violations of the American Convention on Human Rights and the 1994 Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Belem Do Para Convention) by failing to prevent the slayings and properly investigate the crimes. "States are obligated to establish general policies of public order that protect the population from criminal violence," wrote court Justice Diego Garcia-Sayan. "This obligation has progressive and decisive priority given the context of rising criminality in the majority of countries of the region." The case heard by the Costa Rica-based court involved three young women who were found slain along with five other female victims in a Ciudad Juarez cotton field located across the street from the headquarters of the Maquiladora Association in November 2001. After finding no justice in the Mexican legal system, the mothers of Esmeralda Herrera Monreal, Claudia Ivette Gonzalez and Laura Berenice Ramos pursued human rights complaints in first the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and later in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Both institutions are affiliates of the Organization of American States (OAS). Herrera and Ramos were minors at the time of their deaths, and the court ruled that the teens? slayings constituted violations of the human rights of children. In a Ciudad Juarez press conference last week, Josefina Gonzalez, mother of Claudia Ivette Gonzalez, said she that did not expect the murderers of her daughter to face justice. Nearly a decade after the cotton field case came to public light, no one is behind bars for the murders of Claudia Gonzalez and six of the other cotton field victims. Still, Gonzalez voiced satisfaction with the court's action. "It's been 8 years since we have suffered and nothing has been achieved until now," Gonzalez said, adding that the verdict was a victory for all the cotton field mothers and their supporters. The court's 167-page sentence lays out remedies the Mexican government must follow to assure justice for victims? families and curb future acts of violence against women in Ciudad Juarez and Mexico. As an adherent to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Mexico is obligated to comply with the ruling and cannot appeal. In addition to conducting a serious murder investigation and investigating law enforcement officials responsible for obstructing the cotton field case, which included the fabrication of scapegoats under torture, within one year the Mexican government must hold a public ceremony in Ciudad Juarez to apologize for the crimes; build a monument to the three murdered women in the border city; publish the sentence in the official government record and in newspapers; expand gender sensitivity and human rights training for police; step-up and coordinate efforts to find missing women; permanently publicize the cases of disappeared women on the Internet; and investigate reported death threats and harassment against members of the families of Esmeralda Herrera and Laura Ramos. Three members of Ramos? family, including her outspoken mother Benita Monarrez, were granted political asylum in the US in 2009. According to testimony presented in the femicide trial, pressure on Ramos? relatives intensified after the OAS court accepted the case in 2007. Finally, the Mexican government was ordered to compensate victims? families and their legal representatives to the tune of more than $800,000 for damages and expenses. By the time of the cotton field murders, the court found, a well-established pattern of gender violence in Ciudad Juarez should have prompted authorities to adopt serious measures to prevent violence against women. Among the mountains of evidence, the court cited the 1998 recommendations issued by the Mexican government's National Human Rights Commission which called for investigating and sanctioning numerous irregularities and deficiencies in women's murder probes during the 1990s. The Convoluted Cotton Field Case If anything, however, the highly questionable circumstances in which investigations into the disappearances and murders of women were conducted reached new heights in the cotton field case. In a phone interview with Frontera NorteSur, an Argentine forensic specialist who has worked on identifying the remains of the cotton field and other femicide victims recounted numerous irregularities in the official handling of the November 2001 murder investigation, including misidentified victims, mysteriously switched autopsy reports, mismatched clothing served up as evidence, and even missing body parts. Mercedes Doretti, lead anthropologist for the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), supported the findings of the first autopsy report on the eight cotton field victims that the cause of death was not determinable, because of the advanced state of decomposition of most of the bodies. But in 2002, Doretti said, officials from Chihuahua City substituted the first autopsy report for a new one that listed asphyxiation as the cause of the women's deaths, an explanation which conveniently jibed with the State of Chihuahua's case against the two bus drivers accused at the time of strangling victims to death. That conclusion, Doretti told Frontera Norte, was "absolutely not valid" and without basis. "There was no scientific evidence whatsoever," Doretti said. The forensics expert also said that there was no substance to a subsequent claim that victims were stabbed to death, an accusation made by the Chihuahua state attorney generals? office against a later suspect, Edgar Alvarez Cruz, who was convicted of killing cotton field victim Mayra Reyes Solis but, oddly, none of the other victims found in the same field at the same time and under the same conditions. After arriving in Ciudad Juarez in 2005 to identify unknown homicide victims, Doretti and team learned that three of the eight cotton field victims were not even the women Chihuahua state authorities purported them to be. In a bizarre twist, one of the mistakenly identified cotton field victims later turned up as a skeleton recovered in a separate location in 2002. A young maquiladora industry worker like Gonzalez, the 2002 victim had a thorax and vertebral column missing and, even more weirdly, a femur bone with the type of specialized cut that is normally made to draw DNA samples, according to Doretti. Among other irregularities, she said, were missing homicide and autopsy reports. Complicating her work in all cases, Doretti said, has been Mexico's lack of a centralized system of DNA storage, medical and dental record tracking and other personal information of women reported missing. Many of the unidentified victims in Ciudad Juarez could be from elsewhere in the country, she affirmed. Doretti disputed the notion that lost or hidden evidence, combined with tattered paper trails in the cotton field and possibly related cases, would make the road to justice virtually impossible to navigate. The Chihuahua state attorney general's office is fully aware of the irregularities and the chain-of-command responsible for committing them, Doretti asserted. "It's a matter of deciding (to investigate)," Doretti said. "If they want to do it, they can." Since 2005, the EAAF has identified the remains of 33 presumed homicide victims in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City, Doretti added. Currently, the team is working on establishing the identities of 50 additional victims. According to the EAAF'S chief investigator in Mexico, the team has examined the remains of unknown victims from 1993 to 2008. The EAAF's work has been supported by private foundations, the US and other foreign governments and the Chihuahua state government. Doretti, whose internationally-acclaimed organization grew out of the Argentine Dirty War scandals, submitted testimony in the cotton field trial. The Mexican state challenged the testimony, arguing it would expose "confidential information" and jeopardize ongoing murder investigations. Court justices, however, disagreed and accepted Doretti's testimony. Mexico's legal representatives also unsuccessfully attempted to suppress other expert witnesses, including Oscar Maynez, a former Chihuahua state forensic official who resigned after refusing to plant evidence on the two bus drivers initially accused of the cotton field slayings. Other Responses to the Court's Decision In response to the court's decision, Mexico's federal Interior Ministry announced it would establish a sub-commission to supervise the country's compliance with the sentence. Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz welcomed the court's action, but insisted that the failings of previous murder investigations were a thing of the past and current authorities were on the right path in combating femicide. The OAS? court, however, found that many impediments to justice still exist. Although justices praised some aspects of Operation Alba, an inter-agency campaign which was established several years ago to locate missing women, they noted a website for disappeared women, www.mujeresdesaparecidascdjuarez.gob.mx, has not been updated since December 2006. In fact, one of the missing women listed on the web page, Merlin Elizabeth Rodriguez Saenz, was previously identified by the EAAF as among the cotton field victims. Rodriguez reportedly disappeared in August 2000, long before many of the other cotton field victims vanished and about fifteen months before her remains were recovered. Recent stories in the border and Mexican press have reported that at least 36 women and girls have gone missing in Ciudad Juarez in 2009. And murders of women- for all reasons- have reached unprecedented levels in Ciudad Juarez and the state of Chihuahua this year, claiming more than 185 victims- at least 144 of them in Ciudad Juarez-so far in 2009. To monitor the Mexican government's compliance with the court decision, lawyers for the victims? mothers and members of non-governmental organizations announced in Mexico City late last week that they would form a commission of their own, with international participation, to ensure the sentence is carried out correctly. In part, progress on the cotton field and other pending femicide cases will depend on Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez, who is likely to leave office next year when the state governorship changes hands. According to Mercedes Doretti, Gonzalez still has a last chance to break "the circle of impunity" that envelops the cotton field case and so many others in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua. Soruces: Frontera NorteSur (FNS): 12/14; Norte: 12/12-13; El Universal: 12/12; El Paso Times: 12/12; El Diario de Juarez: 12/12; La Jornada: 12/12 ==== 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: 12.14-12.20 -- From cisdc at zzapp.org Mon Dec 28 00:30:27 2009 From: cisdc at zzapp.org (cisdc) Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:30:27 -0500 Subject: Mexico Week In Review: 12.21-12.27 Message-ID: Mexico Week In Review: 12.21-12.27 ================================================================= 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" ================================================================= MEXICO CITY BLAZES TRAIL WITH LEGALIZATION OF SAME-SEX MARRIAGE Gay rights activists across the world consider same-sex marriage one of their toughest goals. Only seven countries permit it: Belgium, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa and Sweden. A handful of US states also allow it. But on Monday night, and despite opposition from conservatives and the Roman Catholic Church, Mexico City was in the vanguard of a Latin America-wide tilt towards greater tolerance for homosexuality. The Mexican capital became the first in Latin America to allow same-sex marriage with a groundbreaking law, which could set a precedent for gay rights across the region. The city's assembly passed the legislation, which will also give gay couples the right to adopt children, in a dramatic vote that triggered celebrations and chants of "yes we can" from activists gathered in the chamber. Argentina, Colombia and Uruguay have made recent moves towards liberalization and debate is stirring in other countries, emboldening gays to emerge from the closet and challenge traditional macho stereotypes. The trend contrasts with recent votes against same-sex marriage in the United States, notably California, Maine and New York, which have dismayed activists. Mexico's leftist Democratic Revolution party (PRD) pushed the bill through the capital's assembly 39-20, changing the city's civil code definition of marriage from the union of a man and a woman to the "free uniting of two people". The change will permit same-sex couples to adopt children, apply for joint bank loans, inherit wealth and share insurance policies. It is a significant expansion of rights granted under a 2006 law allowing same-sex civil unions. The mayor, Marcelo Ebrard, a crusading leftist from the PRD, was expected to sign the measure into law, paving the way for the region's first married gay couple. Activists inside the chamber cheered and waved rainbow banners, scenes repeated outside as news spread. "We are so happy," Temistocles Villanueva, a 23-year-old film student, told Associated Press, as he embraced and kissed his boyfriend. Victor Romo, a member of the mayor's party, called it a historic day. "For centuries unjust laws banned marriage between blacks and whites or Indians and Europeans. Today all barriers have disappeared." Conservatives condemned the change as an affront to those who lived outside the capital's liberal bubble. Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera said the law was immoral and that "innocent children" could be adopted by gay couples. President Felipe Calderon's National Action party said it would try to block the law. "They have given Mexicans the most bitter Christmas," Armando Martinez, the president of the College of Catholic Attorneys, told reporters. "They are permitting adoption [by gay couples] and in one stroke of the pen have erased the term 'mother' and 'father'. " Latin American governments have historically persecuted gay men and lesbians. Fidel Castro's Cuba as well as rightwing dictatorships were openly homophobic and punished gays as deviants from a macho ideal. Discrimination remains widespread, and the minority is still vulnerable. Walter Orlando Trochez, 27, a prominent gay and anti-coup activist in Honduras, was shot dead last week. Transgender sex workers across the region often complain of violent attacks by police and vigilantes. But in the last two decades attitudes have softened. The proportion who said they would not like to have homosexuals as neighbors plunged from 59% in 1995 to 29% this year, according to a Latinobar?metro poll taken in 18 countries across the region. "Tolerance towards homosexuals has been the value dimension that has changed the most in the 15 years that we have been measuring," said Marta Lagos, the Chile-based pollster's founding director. "The vast majority - 70% - of the Latin American population tolerates homosexuals. Fifteen years ago it was the complete opposite." Lagos attributed the change to societies becoming more developed and people becoming more expressive. That did not mean progressive values were prevailing across the board: 36% said women should stay at home rather than work, the same proportion as in 1997. Opposition to abortion also remained high. "It doesn't mean Latin American societies are becoming more similar to European societies," said the pollster. Tolerance is most visible in capitals, with the likes of Buenos Aires, Bogot? and Mexico City boasting gay-friendly districts where same-sex couples have no fear of showing affection in public. Argentina's capital has opened Axel, Latin America's first luxury hotel aimed at gays. In a neat twist, it has declared itself "heterosexual friendly". Buenos Aires legalized same-sex civil unions in 2002 but conflicting judicial rulings recently stymied same-sex marriages. Several other Argentine cities, as well as Mexican and Brazilian states, also permit same-sex unions. Uruguay has become the first Latin American country to recognize such unions and permit adoption by gay couples. Colombia has granted social security rights to gay couples; its neighbor Venezuela is considering same-sex civil unions. "Before, if you said you were gay, you were dead," said Alberto Rodriguez, a beautician from Venezuela. "But now we're more accepted. We hold events, parades and fashion shows." Source: The Guardian (UK): 12/22 ==== DRUG KINGPIN ARTURO BELTRAN LEYVA KILLED IN SHOOT-OUT Special forces from the Mexican army and navy killed one of the country's top drug kingpin, Arturo Beltr?n Leyva, in a firefight in Cuernavaca late Dec. 16. Beltr?n Leyva, who was also wanted in the US, was the highest-level drug lord killed since President Felipe Calderon launched his offensive against the cartels in December 2006. Some 400 troops surrounded his apartment in a luxury complex, sparking a two-hour gun battle, in which Beltr?n Leyva's henchmen-known as the "Fuerzas Armadas de Arturo"-responded with automatic weapons and grenades. Six of the the henchmen were killed, one as he jumped from a window, as well as one member of the navy's Special Forces. Beltran Leyva was a top kingpin of the Sinaloa Cartel, until he split after a betrayal by Mexico's most wanted trafficker Joaquin Guzm?n AKA "Shorty" led to the arrest of his brother Alfredo Beltr?n Leyva in January 2008. In recent months, he had carried out a wave of increasingly gruesome reprisals against rivals, leaving decapitated heads and mutilated corpses with notes left from "el Jefe de Jefes," the boss of bosses. Mexican naval intelligence had been attempting to track him down for weeks. Six days before the shoot-out, naval forces raided a party Beltr?n Leyva had planned to attend, but he managed to escape. With information from that raid, they tracked him to the Altitude luxury condominium development near the center of Cuernavaca. Calderon called Beltr?n Leyva's death "a convincing blow against one of the most dangerous criminal organizations in Mexico and on the continent." The US State Department issued a similarly worded statement, calling the slaying a "significant blow." DEA deputy administrator Michele M. Leonhart implied a role for her agency in the hit, citing an "exchange of information between the police authorities in the United States and our brave partners in Mexico." (Quote translated back into English from Spanish translation.) But the Morelos State Human Rights Commission blasted military authorities for not taking sufficient measures to protect the civil population of Cuernavaca, and asserted that one by-stander had been killed. Mortally wounded in the cross-fire, he died ten hours later in hospital-so his death was not included in the initial toll reported in the media. Police forces are on high alert across several states in central Mexico in anticipation of retaliatory attacks. The slaying came the day after the US delivered five Bell 412 helicopters to Mexico for transport and reconnaissance in the fight against cartels. The aircraft are part of more than $604 million worth of vehicles and equipment that the US is slated to turn over to Mexico in the coming months under the $1.4 billion Merida Initiative. Source: http://ww4report.com: 12/17 ==== OUTRAGE AT MEXICO REPRISAL DEATHS Mexico's leaders have expressed outrage at the apparent reprisal killing of the family of an elite Mexican solider who died in a high-profile drugs raid. Four members of marine Melquisedet Angulo Cordova's family were killed at their home in the south-eastern state of Tabasco within hours of his funeral. He died during an operation targeting one of Mexico's biggest drugs lords. Mexican President Felipe Calderon called the murders "a cowardly and contemptible act of violence". "These outrageous actions show the lack of scruples of organized crime in mowing down innocent lives," he said of the attack during which the marine's mother, brother, sister and aunt were killed. Senate spokesman Sebastian Calderon described the situation as disastrous but vowed that the government would continue its fight against the drugs barons. "We mustn't let our guard down, the government must continue and complete its duty," he said. Gunmen targeted the family just a few hours after they had buried his body. A local police official described how the gunmen had broken down the door of the family home, in Quintin Arauz, with a sledgehammer. "They [...] sprayed them with bullets in the living room and bedrooms," deputy police commander Saturnino Dominguez said. As well as the four victims, another relative was seriously injured during the attack. Reporter Franc Contreras, in Mexico City, said the multiple murders were being considered a revenge killing in Mexico, raising fears that the government is not able to protect those who battle the cartels on behalf of the state. Cordova was the only solider killed during the raid on the property of Arturo Beltran Leyva, who was the third most-wanted man in Mexico. Beltran Leyva and four alleged members of his cartel died during a shoot-out involving some 200 officers at a flat in Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City. Based on the Pacific coast, his cartel was one of Mexico's most powerful and violent drug gangs. Known as the "boss of bosses", Arturo Beltran Leyva was one of five brothers who split from the Sinaloa cartel and aligned themselves with Los Zetas, a group of former soldiers hired by the Gulf Cartel as hit men. The split is believed to have fuelled much of the bloodshed across Mexico, where more than 14,000 people have died in drugs-related violence since 2006. Source: BBC News: 12/23 ==== QUINTANA ROO: NEWSPAPER OWNER GUNNED DOWN Jos? Alberto Vel?zquez L?pez, owner of the Mexican newspaper Expresiones de Tulum in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, died after being shot in his car by a gunman aboard a motorcycle, according to local news reports. Mexican authorities must swiftly investigate this crime and bring those responsible to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Shortly after Vel?zquez left a Christmas party for the newspaper staff, two men on a motorcycle came alongside his car and one of them fired a pistol, hitting Vel?zquez twice, the paper's deputy editor, Luis Gamboa, told CPJ. Gravely wounded, Vel?zquez was transferred to a hospital in Canc?n where he died late at night, the local press said. Gamboa said the paper had received several anonymous phone calls threatening death in the last several months and that its printing press was firebombed in November. According to Gamboa, Vel?zquez, who was also a lawyer, had written several articles accusing Tulum Mayor Marciano Dzul Caamal of corruption, bad administration, and disdain for the public. After receiving the death threats, including an alleged phone call in which the mayor threatened him, Vel?zquez stopped reporting on local politics, Gamboa said. Both Gamboa and Eugenio Morelos Valdovinos, the general manager of the newspaper, said they believed the journalist's murder is linked to his criticism of local authorities. Morelos told CPJ that it is well-known in Tulum that the mayor and Vel?zquez were enemies. Morelos said the problems between the two began in April, the month the newspaper started printing and the mayor took office. Mayor Dzul could not immediately be reached for comment. "We are deeply disturbed by the murder of Jos? Alberto Vel?zquez L?pez," said Carlos Laur?a, CPJ's senior program coordinator for the Americas. "Given the journalist's critical reporting on local government, federal authorities must cooperate with state prosecutors, conduct a thorough investigation, and bring those responsible to justice." Morelos said he filed a police complaint on the firebomb attack but that the investigation remained stalled. State prosecutors in Quintana Roo have opened an inquiry, according to local news reports. CPJ continues to investigate whether Vel?zaquez's death was linked to his work as a journalist. Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries for the press, CPJ research shows. Since 1992, 41 journalists, including Vel?zquez, have been killed in Mexico. At least 17 were slain in direct reprisal for their work. Eight journalists have disappeared since 2005. Most covered organized crime or government corruption. Source: Committee to Protect Journalists Press Release: 12/24 ==== CHIAPAS: ISLAM IS THE NEW RELIGION IN STATE Molino de los Arcos is one of the poorest neighbourhoods of San Crist?bal de las Casas, the second largest city in Chiapas and popular with tourists for its colonial beauty. The barrio is ethnically almost entirely indigenous, with Tzotzil Mayan as the dominant language. On Fridays, though, you can hear the slow, monotonous Arab chants of Muslim prayer. In a wooden shack, painted with Arab religious phrases, some twenty Tzotzil Muslim families have established a small place of worship. "This is where we cleanse our spirits and pray to Allah. Not everyone came today, some people have to work," Imam Salvador Lopez Lopez smiles. "But we are doing well. Our community is still small, we are maybe two hundred, but little by little we're growing." Lopez converted to Islam in 1995 and adopted the Arab name of Muhammad Amin. He was one of the first Tzotzils to embrace the religion. He describes his conversion as a tough, two-year period of soul searching. "There is a lot of ignorance in Chiapas about Islam. Nobody really knew what it was and at first I myself wasn't sure it was the thing for me. My family didn't agree with it either at first. It was hard." There have always been Muslims in Mexico, but they were usually immigrants from Muslim countries in Africa and the Middle East. It wasn't until 1995, when Spanish Muslims led by Aureliano P?rez left for Mexico to spread the word of Allah, that Mexicans themselves started converting to Islam. The arrival of the Spanish can be seen in direct relation to the uprising of the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas, in 1994. They saw the impoverished state as fertile ground for the principles of Islam. Indigenous Mayans and Tzotzils have led marginalised lives ever since the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. They live in extreme poverty, suffer exploitation by corrupt governments and racism by white and mestizo Mexicans (people with mixed European and Native American racial origin). Alcoholism among indigenous Mexicans is rampant. The Mayans and Tzotzils belong to the Murabitun movement within Sunni Islam, which upholds a strict ban on the use of alcohol and profits made on money lending. It has proven to be attractive to indigenous Chiapanecos as a viable alternative to capitalism. Yet Muhammad Amin stresses that Islam is not just for indigenous Chiapanecos: "Allah makes no distinction between race. We welcome everyone." The social component in Chiapaneco Islam did present itself in its early days though, when the Muslims under Nafia offered to support the Zapatista movement. Many Zapatistas, who fight for indigenous rights and land reform, are Tzotzils. A number of them did convert, even though Subcomadante Marcos was hesitant at first. The Mexican government was alarmed and started monitoring the presence of Islam. Former president Vicente Fox even accused them of having links with Al-Qaeda, although solid proof was never presented. Muhammad Amin chuckles when he refers to these accusations. "We have no links whatsoever with any foreign group of Muslims, and we have no problem with any other religion here. Islam means peace, we respect everyone around us." That doesn't mean that Christians responded positively to their new competitors. Andr?s Ferrer, who now goes by the Arab name of Muyahid, converted to Islam in 1998. He's had to overcome a lot of prejudice: "Many people reacted badly, because they have no idea what Islam is. Some of them even called us terrorists. My own family called me crazy!" Despite the opposition Islam is doing well in Chiapas. The Muslims have opened a madrasah or Qur'an school, an Islamic mission, a carpenter's shop and a pizza restaurant. They teach Arabic to new converts and even organize the hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca, which many indigenous Muslims have already undertaken. Islam is growing slowly but surely, says Imam Lopez: "In this particular mosque there are seventeen Islamic families now. Gradually more people are opening themselves up to the word of Allah. Yes, I think we are here to stay." Source: Radio Netherlands Worldwide: 12/17 ==== 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: 12.21-12.27 --