* CHIAPAS: GOVERNMENT LINK TO VIEJO VELASCO MASSACRE; VIOLENCE CONTINUES
* BUSH IMMIGRATION FAILURE HURTS CALDERON
* OAXACA UPDATE I: HUGE MARCH COMMEMORATED START OF UPRISING
* OAXACA UPDATE II: PROTEST LEADER ['s brother (detodos-paratodos)] ERICK SOSA RELEASED
* MURDER OF ACTIVIST SHOWS GRIM FACE OF ILLEGAL LOGGING
* MORE MEXICAN CHILDREN AND WOMEN TRAFFIC
* PRI POLITICIAN SLAIN IN MONTERREY
* GOVERNMENT SLAMS "ABSURD" US GUN LAWS AS DRUG WAR RAGES
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"
CHIAPAS: GOVERNMENT LINK TO VIEJO VELASCO MASSACRE; VIOLENCE CONTINUES
The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) in
Chiapas reports that it has received a document prepared by the
Mexican government for the Inter-American Human Rights Commission
(CIDH) concerning the November 13 2006 slaying of four peasants at
the jungle community of Viejo Velasco Suárez. The document
acknowledges that some 300 Chiapas state police were mobilized to
Viejo Velasco on the day of the massacre. While the document fails to
make clear whether the troops were dispatched before or after the
attack, Frayba says this corroborates the claims of witnesses that
the killers - a band of 40 masked men in civilian clothes - were
backed up by hundreds of uniformed men with high-caliber rifles, some
also wearing masks, who followed close behind.
Frayba continues to document attacks on the civil population in
Chiapas by security forces. In one recent incident, a young Tzeltal
Maya student, Roberto Encino López, 18, was arbitrarily detained by
troops of the Mexican army's 11th Infantry Company of the 38th
Military Zone at Altamirano, Chiapas on May 16, 2007. Taken to the
local barracks, he was beaten, verbally threatened and accused of
links to the Zapatista rebels. Altamirano is on the edge of the
Chiapas rainforest, which is the Zapatistas' principal stronghold.
Land conflicts continue to generate violence throughout Chiapas. On
June 3, more than 100 masked men with machetes destroyed seven huts
on land contested by the neighboring municipalities of Chenalho and
Chalchihuitán, in the Chiapas Highlands. The masked men were said to
have come from Chenalho, while the huts were used by peasants from
Chalchihuitán for their work in the fields. Chenalho, a Tzotzil Maya
municipality, was the scene of the massacre of 45 residents at the
hamlet of Acteal in December 1997. Now, Agustín Vázquez Ruiz, former
leader of the group targeted in the massacre, Las Abejas, has been
chosen as candidate for the Chenalho municipal council on the ticket
of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Chenalho has
long been dominated by the entrenched machine of the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI).
In other news from Chiapas, Hurricane Barbara has destroyed thousands
of hectares of banana, coffee, papaya and other crops, mostly in the
coastal area of the state, which is still recovering from the
devastation caused by Hurricane Stan in 2005.
Source: http://www.ww4report.com: 06/10
====
BUSH IMMIGRATION FAILURE HURTS CALDERON
Washington's failure to change its immigration laws is a blow to
pro-US. Mexican President Felipe Calderon as he faces his toughest
challenges since taking office in December. After a strong start to
his presidency, Calderon is struggling to defeat violent gangs that
smuggle drugs across the U.S. border and his government is embroiled
in tough talks with Congress to hammer out a tax reform.
Winning a relaxation of U.S. immigration laws has been the main
foreign policy goal of Mexico for years and would earn credit for
Calderon, a conservative with a Harvard degree who only won last
July's election by under a percentage point. "Resolution, or at least
some progress in addressing the immigration issue, would have been a
big boost to the government of Mexico," said Peter Hakim, head of the
Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington.
Republicans and Democrats blocked a U.S. Senate vote on a bipartisan
bill backed by President George W. Bush that included tougher border
security measures and a plan to legalize most of the country's 12
million illegal immigrants. While some in the U.S. Congress say they
will try to revive the bill with Bush's help, others believe the
effort is dead and cannot be restarted.
Calderon, praised in Mexico for berating Bush over immigration at
talks in March, said: "It should be deplored how the discussions in
the U.S. Senate have not been able to follow a swift course and
quickly win approval of this issue."
While not as close to Washington as his predecessor Vicente Fox,
Calderon is an advocate of free trade who is seen as a natural ally
of Bush against Latin American leftist leaders like Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez. But Mexico, where almost everyone has a friend
or relative living in the United States, is upset at Bush's inability
to make good on promises to better the lives of the 11 million
Mexicans north of the border. "It's a shame because Mexico has been
permanently supporting the United States on security and drug
trafficking," said Sen. Jose Luis Lobato, an opposition member of the
Mexican Senate's foreign relations committee.
Calderon has sent thousands of troops to fight drug cartels in rural
Mexico in a war that should cut the flow of cocaine and marijuana
across the border. But Mexico's narco gunmen have hit back at police
and soldiers and Calderon complains Washington has done little to
curb demand for illegal drugs in the United States or the flow of
U.S. arms to the cartels.
Apart from the drug war, Calderon's other main push is for economic
reforms. A former energy minister, he wants to allow more private
companies into Mexico's closed oil sector and U.S. firms would
benefit. But any hint of foreigners taking control of Mexico's oil
raises nationalist hackles, even though the government has no plans
to privatize state energy monopoly Pemex. Looser immigration laws in
the United States might help Calderon gain an energy reform sought by
Washington. "Those people who want to adjust oil policy in ways that
might be helpful to the United States are operating from a far weaker
position when the United States is being uncooperative on an issue
like immigration," said Hakim.
Source: Reuters: 06/10
====
OAXACA UPDATE I: HUGE MARCH COMMEMORATED START OF UPRISING
In a "mega-march" extending more than 10 kilometers, thousands of
teachers from the Section 22 union and their supporters in the
Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) marched through southern
Mexico's Oaxaca City June 14 to mark the first anniversary of the
clash between police and striking teachers that sparked months of
political unrest. The marchers chanted "June 14-not forgotten, not
forgiven!" and carried posters with the faces of imprisoned APPO
leaders Flavio Sosa y César Mateos, two of the nine Oaxaca activists
who remain behind bars. The march finally assembled in the city's
central square, where the initial clash took place one year ago, and
which subsequently became the nerve center of their movement. There a
public meeting was held, presided over by Section 22 leader Ezequiel
Rosales Carreño.
Smaller groups of protesters blockaded streets with rubble and
commandeered buses-a tactic used during the 2006 protest, in which
the plaza was seized and held for months. Most of the barricades
erected at Thursday's commemoration protest were removed after a few
hours, however. The protesters continued to demand the ouster of
Oaxaca's Gov. Ulises Ruiz, which became the central demand of the
movement following the June 2006 violence.
Sources: El Universal: 06/14; Associated Press: 06/14
====
OAXACA UPDATE II: PROTEST LEADER ['s brother (detodos-paratodos)] ERICK SOSA RELEASED
[Note by detodos-paratodos: Erick Sosa was never related to the APPO organizing or activities, he was arrested and convicted without any proof as a punishment to Flavio Sosa]
Erick Sosa Villavicencio, a leader of the protest movement in Oaxaca,
was freed at dawn on June 9 from the Federal Center of Social
Readaption in the Mexican border city of Matamoros. The brother of
Flavio Sosa Villavicencio, director of the Popular Assembly of the
People of Oaxaca (APPO), Erick was arrested last Nov. 28 and charged
with "illegal deprivation of liberty." He was freed for lack of
evidence. However, charges of violent robbery were not formally
dropped, and he could still be detained again if authorities choose
to reactivate the case against him. Insisting all the charges against
him were "fabricated," Sosa said, "My only crime is being the brother
of Flavio Sosa." His two brothers Flavio and Horacio remain at the
Federal Center of Social Readaption in Altiplano, México state.
Source: http://ww4report.com: 06/11
====
MURDER OF ACTIVIST SHOWS GRIM FACE OF ILLEGAL LOGGING
The brazen murder of an environmental activist by illegal loggers who
are still free almost a month later has highlighted Mexico's failure
to tackle powerful gangs decimating its forests. Aldo Zamora was
gathering information for environmental group Greenpeace when four
men identified by witnesses and police as brothers in a logging gang
ambushed his car on a forest road in the State of Mexico and sprayed
him with bullets.
The state attorney general's office says 15 detectives are on the
case and identified the four brothers as the suspects. But no arrests
have been made. Critics say the police moved too slowly and the
suspects went into hiding. Greenpeace and Zamora's father Ildefonso
Zamora have staged protests, put up "Wanted" posters and pressured
the state's governor to bring the killers to justice. Anti-logging
locals in Zamora's small village of San Juan Atzingo have threatened
to cut off the water supply to a neighboring state in protest.
"It has been 24 days since the murder and they still haven't arrested
anyone. The people of San Juan Atzingo are desperate. They are
worried about their safety, they're scared," said Greenpeace activist
Hector Magallon. Zamora, 21, was with three uncles and a brother when
he was attacked on May 15. His brother Misael, 16, was injured.
Illegal logging destroys some 26,000 hectares (64,000 acres) of
Mexican forest each year, the government says, putting Mexico near
the top of a UN list of nations losing primary forest fastest.
Environmental activists say the figure is far higher.
Mexico's justice system is famously ineffective, thanks to a mix of
corruption and incompetence. President Felipe Calderon pledged "zero
tolerance" against illegal loggers earlier this year, but
environmentalists say the gangs enjoy ever-greater protection. "This
gang knows it has people looking after it. They have protectors,"
Ildefonso Zamora said. An anti-logging activist himself, he has
received death threats since 2005, when he reported the men now
suspected of killing his son. Chopping down trees is a lucrative
source of cash for impoverished indigenous communities in rural
central Mexico. In San Juan Atzingo, some 3,000 of a total 10,800
hectares of forest have been cleared or thinned by illegal logging.
Source: Reuters: 06/09
====
MORE MEXICAN CHILDREN AND WOMEN TRAFFIC
Mexico has become a country of origin, destination and traffic of
victims, mainly children and poor women, in at least 21 of the 32
Mexican states, the Social Development and Assistance Study and
Research Center revealed. According to Mario Luis Fuentes, director
of the center, 100,000 people are sold for sexual and work
exploitation, mainly poor children and women manipulated by organized
nets for drug and weapons traffic.
He stated traffic in people is directly associated to migration and
represents the third source of income for criminal organizations,
only surpassed by drug and weapons traffic.
Fuentes also denounced the persistent corruption of the Mexican
authorities, especially those working in migration and the judicial
system, and stated that 16,000 children are submitted to sexual
exploitation in Mexico. The main focuses are in cities such as
Acapulco, Cancun, and in the states of Coahuila and Baja California.
Source: Prensa Latina: 06/08
====
PRI POLITICIAN SLAIN IN MONTERREY
A Mexican politician was shot dead as he drove down a main city road
in the district of Monterrey, police said. Gunmen opened fire on
Mario Cesar Rios, a deputy from the Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI), as he passed near the Municipal Palace. The 44-year-old died
after being taken to hospital, officials said.
The shooting is the latest in a surge of violence from suspected
drugs gangs, which has led President Felipe Calderon to send troops
to several states. Mr Rios was believed to have received death
threats, an official for the northern state of Nuevo Leon
prosecutor's office told the AFP news agency. "In the last days Rios
told us that he was going to ask for time off because he had received
death threats, and he was planning on leaving Mexico with his
family," he said.
Soldiers and police surrounded the Municipal Palace, the headquarters
of local government, while military aircraft flew overhead, shortly
after the shooting. Monterrey, in the country's north, is Mexico's
third largest city. More than 20,000 troops have been deployed
throughout the country to battle the drugs cartels that have been
fighting each other for control of territory and drug routes. About
1,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence so far this
year.
Source: BBC: 06/13
====
GOVERNMENT SLAMS "ABSURD" US GUN LAWS AS DRUG WAR RAGES
Mexico's government, which complains violent drug cartels are
battling each other with firearms bought in the United States,
slammed slack U.S. gun laws as absurd. Mexico complains most of the
often high-powered weapons used by warring Mexican traffickers come
from gun shops in the United States and Mexican Attorney General
Eduardo Medina Mora said there was not enough control over their
sale. "I think the American (gun) laws are absurd because they ...
make it very easy for citizens to acquire guns," he told a meeting of
academics and businessmen.
Mexico is locked in a bloody battle with rival cartels fighting over
territory and President Felipe Calderon has deployed thousands of
troops across the country against traffickers who are often better
armed than police. More than 1,000 people have been killed in drug
violence in Mexico this year as a three-way war between cartels and
the Mexican military spirals to unprecedented levels. Although
firearms can be bought on the black market in Mexico, it is difficult
to purchase them legally. Mexico said last month it was setting up an
intelligence network with U.S. law enforcement agencies to stop
members of Mexican drug mafias from buying guns in the United States
and bringing them south of the border.
Source: Reuters: 06/15
====
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: 06.11-06.17
--
0 comments:
Publicar un comentario