* OAXACA UPDATE I: NEGOTIATIONS FALTER, APPO MARCHING TO MEXICO CITY
* OAXACA UPDATE II: TEACHERS: NO NEGOTIATION
* BORDER NEWS: U.S. CONGRESS OKS 700-MILE BORDER FENCE
* LA JORNADA REVEALS SECRET MEETING OF US-CANADA-MEXICO CORPS & MILITARY
* A MILLION MEXICAN CHILDREN MALNOURISHED
* FARMERS HURTING; DEMAND REPEAL OF NAFTA
* WORLD BANK: MEXICAN ECONOMY AT A STANDSTILL
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.
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"Para Todos, Todo; Para Nosotros Nada"
OAXACA UPDATE I: NEGOTIATIONS FALTER, APPO MARCHING TO MEXICO CITY
Negotiations between leaders of the teachers union and Interior
Secretary Carlos Abascal to resolve the four month uprising in Oaxaca
ended this week in failure. The central demand of the popular
movement in Oaxaca is removal of controversial PRI Governor Ulises
Ruiz, but Abascal never seriously addressed the issue during their
six negotiating sessions. Union leader Enrique Rueda Pancheco, head
of Section 22 of the teachers' union, reportedly offered important
concessions, including replacing Ruiz with another PRI governor, but
Abascal rejected all entreaties. Apparently federal authorities are
trying to split the movement, offering teachers wage increases while
rejecting the more fundamental political demands of the larger
popular movement. Small business owners and gas station proprietors
affiliated with Coparmex and Canacintra declared a three-day strike
to protest the lack of results.
In response to failed negotiations, thousands of members of APPO left
from Oaxaca City on a two-week march to Mexico City. Marchers expect
to arrive at the Senate building on October 3. Initially the march
left without Rueda, who finally joined hours later. Many rank and
file union members accused Rueda of working behind the scenes, with
the active support of Elba Esther Gordillo, national leader of the
teachers union and a close confidant of President Fox and
President-elect Felipe Calderon, to send teachers back to school next
week without the resignation of Ruiz. Rueda spent eight hours on
Friday with local union leaders trying to convince them to end the
four-month strike on October 2. Gordillo is anxious to resolve the
situation, thereby increasing her political power as she lobbies for
cabinet posts in the Calderon administration. Tensions also exist
between Rueda and leaders of APPO over control of the commercial
radio stations in Oaxaca. Rueda wants to take control of the
stations from APPO after one station was critical of Rueda in
broadcasts, but APPO members are resisting.
Governor Ruiz re-appeared for the first time in two months at a
meeting with cabinet members and hotel owners at a swanky local
hotel. He declined to resign the governorship, called on federal
authorities to use force to quell the growing uprising, and
threatened to permanently replace striking teachers. An aid to the
governor threatened to hire other professionals and retired teachers,
or in case of emergency, military professors and members of the army,
though given the broad-based support for the popular movement in
Oaxaca, it is unclear where he would find 70,000 replacement
teachers. The governor's incendiary positions followed him when he
tried to make a public appearance in a park. The Governor's security
contingent battled with members of APPO, and later fired shots when
protestors followed the governor to a local hotel. Two of the
bullets narrowly missed a federal Congressman from the Convergencia
party.
Source: Mexico Solidarity Network Weekly News Summary: 09/18-24
====
OAXACA UPDATE II: TEACHERS: NO NEGOTIATION
Leaders of section 22 of the Oaxaca Education Workers Union rejected
the government's call for a dialogue to achieve a peaceful solution
to the conflict in that Mexican state. There is nothing to negotiate
until Gov. Ulises Ruiz is removed, which is not intransigency but the
decision of education workers in this locality, said union Press and
Advertising Secretary Daniel Rosas.
The government wants a dialogue without Ruiz removal, an irrevocable
demand for the union that has lead strong protests for 130 days.
Rosas ruled out that President Vicente Fox hoped for the negative to
order intervention by the Preventive Federal Police in Oaxaca, as he
considered they are targets of threats with or without negotiations.
The official remarked that Minister of Interior Carlos Abascal uses a
double standard, calling for dialogue and preparing police
intervention to dismantle sit-ins and barricades.
Source: Prensa Latina: 09/29
====
BORDER NEWS: U.S. CONGRESS OKS 700-MILE BORDER FENCE
Republicans will go into the elections with a message that they've
made great strides fighting illegal immigration, including
authorizing a fence along one-third of the US-Mexico border and
making a $1.2 billion down payment on it. Among its final tasks
before leaving to campaign, the Senate passed and sent to President
Bush a bill authorizing 700 new miles of fencing on the southern
border. No one knows how much it will cost, but a separate bill also
on the way to the White House makes a $1.2 billion down payment on
it. A 14-mile segment of fence under construction in San Diego is
costing $126.5 million. The fence bill was passed by the House two
weeks ago. The Senate vote on it Friday night was 80-19.
In addition to money for staring work on the fence, a homeland
security bill Congress was completing Friday includes $380 million to
hire 1,500 more Border Patrol agents and money to build detention
facilities to hold 6,700 more illegal immigrants until they can be
deported. "We have made giant steps in terms of our ability to
control illegal immigration," House Majority Leader John Boehner,
R-Ohio, told reporters. The fence bill became House Republicans'
immigration focus in September after they abandoned President Bush's
call to bring millions of illegal immigrants into the American
mainstream.
In addition to the money in the Homeland Security spending bill,
Boehner cited Bush's deployment of the National Guard on the border
and more frequent arrests of illegal immigrants at work sites. "The
perception that has been painted mistakenly is that the United States
government, our Congress is not delivering to the American people on
a huge problem that's out there," said Senate Majority Leader Bill
Frist, R-Tenn. "We're active."
Democrats and immigration advocates say Republicans can hardly claim
victory. House Republicans failed to win measures for deporting
immigrant gang members and empowering local police to enforce
immigration laws. Their biggest obstacle turned out to be another
Republican, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter of
Pennsylvania. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the
border security achievements trumpeted by Republicans don't measure
up to the more comprehensive reforms her party backed. What the GOP
calls achievements fall "very far short of what Democrats have
proposed over and over and over again," she said.
After a debate that stretched over three months, the Senate in May
passed a sweeping immigration bill that combined tougher border
enforcement measures with new guest worker programs and a plan to
give millions of illegal immigrants already in the US a shot at
citizenship. Despite Bush's ringing endorsement of the measure, the
House would have no part of it, sticking to the bill it passed five
months earlier that would treat illegal immigrants and people who
offer them aid as felons. Rather than negotiate a compromise with the
Senate, Republican leaders plucked out many provisions of the House
bill for new votes in both the House and Senate over the past two
weeks.
"It's been two years of high visibility, high volume debate in terms
of which way to go in the immigration system," said Frank Sharry,
executive director of the National Immigration Forum. In the end the
debate ended in a tie, he said. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.,
called the fence "a bumper sticker solution for a complex problem."
"It's a feel-good plan that will have little effect in the real
world," he said. "We all know what this is about. It may be good
politics, but it's bad immigration policy. That's not what Americans
want." Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.,
made an 11th-hour appeal to colleagues to include in the fence bill a
measure to help the agriculture industry, which relies heavily on
undocumented workers. Those workers have become harder to find
because of increased border enforcement and availability of jobs for
the workers in construction and other industries, they said.
Consumers ultimately will pay the price for that at the grocery
store, they added. "Pickers are few and the growers blame Congress,"
Craig said, reading a news headline. "The growers ought to blame
Congress. They ought to blame a government that has been
dysfunctional in an area of immigration that has been problem for
decades."
Source: Associated Press: 09/29
====
LA JORNADA REVEALS SECRET MEETING OF US-CANADA-MEXICO CORPS & MILITARY
Two weeks ago advisors of Mexican President-elect Felipe Calderon
participated in a secret meeting in Canada, where representatives of
huge corporations and the US military stratum sought to strengthen
North American integration, La Jornada daily disclosed. According to
the paper, the encounter, held September 12-14, proposed creating a
stable zone to supply oil to Washington.
Among attendees were US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Mexican
Public Security Minister Eduardo Medina Mora, and Canadian Chief of
Defense Staff Gen. Rick Hillier. The newspaper notes that besides
focusing on North America´s security and development, the trilateral
gathering discussed the regional energy strategy. Michel
Chossudovsky, professor at Ottawa University, reported that top
executives of Lockheed Martin, Chevron, Petroleos Mexicanos, and
Suncor Energy, among others, took part in the forum. An information
blackout cloaked the encounter and its North American integration
program was classified as a state secret, including such topics as an
energy strategy, social and demographical dimensions, and
opportunities for security cooperation. Analysts are criticizing the
secret nature of the forum, despite the participation of public
personages of Mexico, the US and Canada.
Source: Prensa Latina: 09/25
====
A MILLION MEXICAN CHILDREN MALNOURISHED
More than one million Mexican children under five (12.7 percent)
suffer from chronic malnutrition, a survey carried out by the
National Institute of Public Health revealed. In the rural areas of
the country the figure increases to 20 percent of children, and in
the South the rate is 25.6 percent. Twenty-three out of every 100
children in that preschool age group suffer from anemia, and the
study points out that iron deficiency affects intellectual capacity
and future social performance negatively. The study also reveals that
26 percent of under fives suffer from obesity by the time they are
11, representing an increase of 40 percent since 1999, when it was
18.6 percent.
Source: Prensa Latina: 09/27
====
FARMERS HURTING; DEMAND REPEAL OF NAFTA
Mexican farmers demanded the cancellation of the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA) chapter on agriculture, in order for the
agricultural producers to survive. The demand was announced at the
closing ceremony of the First Binational Congress of Farmers and
Small Farmers of Mexico and the United States.
Attendants to the meeting discussed the problem that has plunged
Mexican farmers into a serious crisis, due to the interests of the
agro-industry and export transnational corporations. The principle of
unity among small farmers from both sides of the border and the need
to achieve fair trade among producers, respecting the neighboring
markets´ feasibility, prevailed during the discussions. In this
point, there was opposition to the free trade agreements that
facilitate and legalize the invasion of products under production
costs, favoring the large agro-industrial corporations at the same
time.
They recalled that a total opening of Mexican and US markets to
agricultural products will be completed by January 2008, worsening
the farmers crisis for both sides. In consequence, there will be a
displacement of thousands of farmers and indigenous people from their
places of origin, and US family farming producers will almost
disappear, generating an increase of migration among Mexicans.
Source: Prensa Latina: 10/01
====
WORLD BANK: MEXICAN ECONOMY AT A STANDSTILL
Mexico is one of the countries with higher economic inequality
comparable to that of Botswana in Africa, revealed an analysis of the
Chamber of Deputies based on the most recent report issued by the
World Bank (WB). According to that information, during the six-year
administration of Vicente Fox ending on November 30, income from
oil's high prices, family remittances and the short US economic
recession were wasted. The text highlights also the disappearance of
the internal market as 50 million Mexicans have incomes under a
dollar a day, unemployment reached its highest level and current
expenses increased. The nation remains at a standstill, the lack of
employment sources continues and the polarization of income and
opportunities is greater everyday.
The report issued by the World Bank revealed that the Mexican economy
extended its capacity to generate profits. However, it had a setback
in wealth distribution and also suffered a fall in the inhabitants´
real purchasing power. Despite President Fox´s promise of an annual
economic increase of seven percent over the last years, the Gross
Domestic Product only rose by two percent. Structural reforms were
based on the privatization of natural and energy resources, the taxes
on foods and medicines and on continuous affronts to the unions,
while profits went to the hands of just a few. Some experts consider
the present Economic balance in Mexico is negative as the third part
of public expenses is allocated to support bureaucracy while just a
negligible part is addressed to public works.
Source: Prensa Latina: 09/24
====
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: 09.25-10.01
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