* ZAPATISTAS BEGIN INTERNATIONAL MEETING
* CHIAPAS: SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO PROBE 1997 MASSACRE
* OAXACA UPDATE: DEMOS IN 37 COUNTRIES
* BORDER NEWS: ILLEGAL MIGRANT ARRESTS DOWN
* NEW LAW TAKES AIM AT CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
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"
ZAPATISTAS BEGIN INTERNATIONAL MEETING
Everything is ready for the Zapatista Meeting with World People
beginning December 30, confirmed a press release sent by the meeting
organizers. According to the document, delegates from 30 countries
confirmed their presence in the event so far, to be held in Oventic,
one of the autonomous territories of the Zapatistas in Chiapas. By
using the www.zeztainternazional.org web site, internet uses will
have the possibility of interchanging ideas and experiences, reading
reports, stories, viewing pictures and accessing the current
documents.
Additionally, the press release indicates that for the first time in
the history of the movement representatives of the rebel government
of the Zapatista communities will gather to dialogue on challenges
and problems facing their struggle.
Source: Prensa Latina: 12/27
====
CHIAPAS: SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO PROBE 1997 MASSACRE
The government said it has created a special prosecutor's office to
investigate a 1997 massacre of 45 Indian villagers. It also announced
an office to look into the killings of three journalists in the
1990s, which will call former Governor Patrocinio Gonzales Blanco to
testify based on claims by some of the victims' relatives that he was
involved in the killings, Attorney General Mariano Herran said.
On December 22, 1997, paramilitaries with alleged ties to the
government attacked a prayer meeting of Roman Catholic activists who
sympathized with the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) in the
hamlet of Acteal. The assailants killed 45 people, including children
as young as two months old. Twenty-four of the attackers were each
sentenced to a little more than 36 years in prison, and 51 others
still face trial.
But activists say most of those arrested and tried are Indian
farmers, and that former state officials allegedly responsible for
the killings have gone largely unpunished. Activists say that the
massacre was part of a government campaign against the Zapatistas who
staged a brief armed uprising in Chiapas in 1994 to demand greater
Indian rights. Federal prosecutors, who will be aided by the new
state prosecutor's office, are handling the case.
The federal government also has a special prosecutor's office to
investigate crimes against journalists, which have risen
significantly in the last two years. Since 2004, at least 13
journalists have been killed in Mexico, presumably as revenge for
unfavorable reports on criminals, drug traffickers and corrupt
government officials.
Source: Associated Press: 12/28
====
OAXACA UPDATE: DEMOS IN 37 COUNTRIES
On Dec. 22 thousands of supporters of the Popular Assembly of the
Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) marched in Oaxaca city, capital of the
southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, to mark seven months of militant
protests against the state government. The march followed after a
crackdown, which started on Oct. 29 and included the arrests of
hundreds of APPO leaders and members. "This is a movement of the
grassroots, not of leaders," APPO negotiating committee member Juan
Sosa Maldonado told the marchers. Government authorities trying to
break the movement by arresting leaders "have made a big mistake,"
Sosa said, "and the people will condemn them."
The Oaxaca protests started on May 22 with a strike by 70,000
teachers and staff in Section 22, the state branch of the National
Education Workers Union (SNTE). After Oaxaca governor Ulises Ruiz
Ortiz attempted to rout a sit-in by teachers with a massive police
operation, the strike grew into a much broader movement that
paralyzed much of the state capital. On Oct. 29 some 4,500 agents
from the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) seized control of the city's
downtown area and began the crackdown against the movement.
The rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), based in the
neighboring state of Chiapas, declared Dec. 22 the International Day
of Mobilizations for Oaxaca; the date also marks the anniversary of
the massacre of 45 indigenous campesinos in Acteal, Chiapas, in 1997.
EZLN solidarity activists and others held demonstrations in 37
countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Peru and the US, to
demand respects for Oaxacans' human rights and the removal of Gov.
Ruiz.
Some 200 people marched in the center of Barcelona in a heavy rain;
Spanish activists also demonstrated in Salamanca, Seville and
Valencia. Among the hundreds of marchers in Paris were a number of
Mexican immigrants; undocumented immigrants had been occupying a
university in the Paris region for several days. There were also
protests in Grenoble, Lille, Marseille, Nantes and Toulouse. About
100 people held a sit-in outside the United Nations offices in Rome
to protest the violation of activists' human rights in Mexico. In
Germany activists protested in Bremen, Cologne and Wuppertal. Other
protests were held in Athens, Greece; Brussels, Belgium; and Vienna,
Austria.
Twenty people have died since June 2 as a direct or indirect result
of the crisis in Oaxaca, according to a preliminary report the
official National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) released on Dec. 18.
Eleven deaths, including that of New York-based independent
journalist Brad Will, resulted directly from confrontations. A total
of 370 people had been injured and 349 had been arrested, the CNDH
said, and it had received 1,211 complaints of human rights violations
by government agencies. "The parties [to the conflict] and the
Federal Preventive Police, which intervened to restore public order,
used violence repeatedly and excessively. As a consequence, the
institutional, social and cultural life of the state has been hurt,"
the report charged. On Dec. 20 all but four of 95 alleged APPO
supporters held in the western state of Nayarit since late November
were flown back to Oaxaca: 52 were taken to the Tlacolula prison and
39 to the Miahuatlan prison. After arriving in Oaxaca, 11 of the
prisoners were released, although they still face charges. The
federal government had previously insisted that all the prisoners
were "highly dangerous"
Source: Weekly News Update- Nicaragua Solidarity Network Of Greater
New York: 12/24
====
BORDER NEWS: ILLEGAL MIGRANT ARRESTS DOWN
Arrests of illegal migrants along the U.S.-Mexican border have
dropped by more than a third since U.S. National Guard troops started
helping with border security, suggesting that fewer people may be
trying to cross. U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested 149,238 fewer
people from the start of July through November, down 34 percent from
the same period last year, according to monthly figures provided by
U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Mario Martinez. Arrests also had dropped
by 9 percent for the same period from 2004 to 2005. If the downward
trend continues, it would be the first sustained decrease in illegal
immigrant arrests since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks. National Guard troops started arriving along the border June
15, and 6,000 were in place by August.
Victor Clark, a Mexican migration expert in Tijuana, says many
migrants fear they will confront U.S. soldiers on the border. "The
presence of the National Guard has had a big impact on migrants," he
told The Associated Press. Border Patrol officials usually attribute
a drop in arrests to fewer people crossing. "We have seen some
tangible results," Martinez said. "But we'll have to see over the
next few months if it holds up. We are optimistic."
The National Guard troops are not allowed to detain migrants and have
been limited to monitoring surveillance cameras and body heat
detectors, but they have freed Border Patrol agents and "have helped
us tremendously to detect illegal migration traffic," Martinez said.
The United States plans to expand the Border Patrol from just over
11,000 agents to about 18,000 by 2008. The U.S. also plans to build
700 miles of additional border fence.
Other measures may also be deterring crossers. In July, U.S. and
Mexican officials started working together to prosecute human
smugglers on both sides of the border. U.S. immigration officials
also have been raiding U.S. companies for illegal workers. Earlier
this month, 1,300 people were detained in a sweep of meatpacking
plants in six states. Added to that, smugglers have increased their
fees, charging as much as $3,000 to hide migrants in their cars and
drive them across the border. Before the National Guard troops
arrived, the price was about $2,000, migrant activists say. Still,
border experts say the downturn may be temporary while smugglers
search for new routes and migrants come up with the money to pay the
higher fees.
Edgar Velasquez acknowledges it's become tougher to cross. He spent
three days walking in freezing temperatures through the remote
mountain country west of Tucson, Ariz., and still was caught. Agents
found a body in those mountains Dec. 19. But that did not deter
Velasquez, who said he planned to slip across the Arizona border
during the holiday week when he hoped the U.S. patrols will be
short-handed as agents take vacations. "I imagine they also want to
be with their families," said Velasquez, resting in the border city
of Nogales before embarking on his illegal odyssey to reach a
construction job in Florida. Gustavo Soto, a spokesman with the U.S.
Border Patrol Tucson sector, said smugglers often tell migrants there
are less border agents out in the desert on holidays or when the
weather is bad, "even though we have surveillance on the border 24/7"
and 365 days a year.
Some migrants are simply giving up after a single try, something that
was almost unheard of only a few years ago. Esther Ardia walked for
nearly three days as temperatures dropped to 14 degrees in the
Arizona desert, trying to get back to her job at a North Carolina
pine tree farm. Ardia, 21, couldn't keep up with the group of about
30 illegal migrants and was abandoned by her smuggler after her legs
cramped up. She was picked up by the Border Patrol and returned to
Mexico. "I knew it would be hard, but I thought I could make it,"
said Ardia. "It's very hard. I'm not going to try (to cross) again."
Source: Associated Press: 12/27
====
NEW LAW TAKES AIM AT CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
The Mexico City Legislature approved an all-embracing campaign
against childhood sexual exploitation linked to tourism, a problem
that is on the rise nationally and affects at least 5,000 minors in
the Federal District. According to the document, there are many
factors contributing to the increase of pedophilia, such as access
facilities, weakness of legal controls, intergenerational
prostitution, and the huge profits obtained from this activity.
Deputy Alejandro Ramirez declared there are municipalities in Mexico
City that are considered paradises for childhood sexual tourists.
According to data from System for the Integral Development of the
Family, 50 percent of the 8,500 children on the streets in the
capital suffer from sexual abuse. Of these 8,500, 600 are under six
years of age and 70 percent have some type of addiction.
Source: Prensa Latina: 12/27
====
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: 12.25-12.31
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