Mexico Week In Review: 07.23-07.29

Mexico Week In Review: 07.23-07.29
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Published since 1994, 'Mexico Week In Review' is a service of the
Committee of Indigenous Solidarity (CIS). CIS is a Washington, D.C.
based activist group committed to the ongoing struggles of Indigenous
peoples in the Americas. CIS is actively supporting the struggles
of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico while simultaneously combating
related structures of oppression within our own communities.

To view newsletter archives, visit:
http://lists.mutualaid.org/pipermail/mexico-week/

"Para Todos, Todo; Para Nosotros Nada"
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OAXACA UPDATE: HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH DEMANDS PROBE

A major international human rights group urged Oaxaca state officials
to thoroughly investigate allegations police used excessive force to
quell a violent anti-government protest last week. Demonstrators
demanding the state governor resign clashed with police July 16
during a march toward the venue of an international folk festival in
Oaxaca city. It was the worst outbreak of violence in the troubled
Mexican city since November.

The Televisa network showed images of police and protesters hurling
rocks and officers kicking and clubbing some of those who were
detained. The local newspaper Noticias published a string of photos
it said showed a teacher being arrested while unharmed, then being
beaten by officers. The final shot showed him on a respirator in
critical condition at a hospital. About 40 people were arrested.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a news release that it
received credible reports that police made arbitrary arrests, pulling
people from passing cars and buses and beating those in custody,
including some so severely they needed to be hospitalized. "If
Governor Ulises Ruiz is committed to law and order in his state, he
should ensure that alleged brutality by the police is thoroughly
investigated and that those responsible are prosecuted," said Jose
Miguel Vivanco, Americas director of Human Rights Watch. Amnesty
International Secretary General Irene Khan plans to meet with Ruiz
and human rights groups in Oaxaca on July 31 to discuss "the need to
investigate abuses committed in the ongoing crisis."

Source: Associated Press: 07/24
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ZAPATISTAS MEET ON CONTESTED TURF AND OTHER RELATED NEWS

Representatives of peasant organizations from across the globe have
gathered in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas for the "Encuentro
with the Peoples of the World," hosted by the Zapatista National
Liberation Army (EZLN). Participating groups include Brazil's
Movement of the Landless, Thailand's Assembly of the Poor and the
international NGO Via Campesina. Meetings are being held in the
Zapatista "autonomous municipalities" of Oventic, Morelia and La
Garrucha, where Comandanta Delia articulated the conditions that led
the Zapatistas to take up arms in 1994: "Our grandparents lived in
slavery, without salaries. We asked for land, but we were always
denied by the evil government. Persecutions, imprisonments, houses
burned. There has never been good justice."

Meanwhile, conflicts over political control of lands and communities
in Chiapas continue to simmer. Days before the Encuentro opened, an
ambulance belonging to the Zapatista Autonomous Health System (SAAZ)
was attacked with stones by a group of apparently drunken men who
called the driver and crew "Zapatista bandits" when the vehicle broke
down while transporting a gravely ill patient from the clinic at
Oventic to the hospital at the regional city of San Cristobal de Las
Casas. Some of the health workers were pinned down under the car
during the attack. A statement from the SAAZ said the assailants were
presumably members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Following a long campaign by the EZLN's Sixth Commission, a civil
support network, the Zapatistas met with a tentative victory July 12
when the Agrarian Tribunal in the state capital Tuxtla Gutierrez
issued a ruling dismissing claims to Zapatista-held lands at El
Nantze by the PRI-linked Organization for the Defense of Indigenous
and Campesino Rights (OPDDIC). La Jornada's Hermann Bellinghausen
writes that the decision "tacitly recognizes the legitimacy of the
autonomous communities and their lands." Bellinghausen also reported
that since the arrest of OPDDIC leader Pedro Chulín Jimenez earlier
this year, many of the organization's adherents have defected to the
center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). This may loan
credence to Zapatista claims that the PRD is coming to mirror the PRI
as a corrupt political machine, but also seems to signify a weakening
of the most militant anti-Zapatista organization in Chiapas.

A San Cristobal-based NGO, the Center for Political, Social and
Economic Study and Analysis (CAPISE) issued a document in July
entitled "Face of War," accusing the Mexican federal army of
expanding its positions in the Chiapas rainforest over the past
year-in a pattern of collaboration with local anti-Zapatista forces.
The study charges that "military elements have held meetings and
visits with settlements and families opposed to the Zapatistas" in
the jungle, "guaranteeing the penetration" of the OPDDIC into the
lands of rebel-loyal communities. On July 6, the Fray Bartoleme de
Las Casas Human Rights Center announced that its investigators,
working with residents of the now-abandoned jungle settlement of
Viejo Velasco Suárez, had uncovered the remains of two of the four
indigenous campesinos who were presumed killed in the armed attack on
the community last November. The Fray Bartoleme Center and other
rights groups, as well as the Zapatistas, had named the OPDDIC as
behind the attack.

Following allegations in the Mexican press, the EZLN also issued a
statement earlier this month denying links to the EPR guerillas, who
re-emerged with dramatic attacks on pipelines in central Mexico.

Source: http://www.ww4report.com: 07/26
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BORDER NEWS: SENATORS COMPROMISE ON SECURITY

Senate Democrats and Republicans came together Thursday to devote an
additional $3 billion to gaining control over the U.S.-Mexico border,
putting Congress on a path to override President Bush's promised veto
of a $38 billion homeland security funding bill. The deal resurrects
a GOP plan to pass some of the most popular elements of Bush's failed
immigration bill, including money for additional Border Patrol agents
and fencing along the southern border.

Democrats liked the money but objected to such GOP proposals as
allowing law enforcement officers to question people about their
immigration status and cracking down on those who overstay their
visas. After some fireworks efforts to advance a compromise
containing only the border security money broke down. But Majority
Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, resolved
their differences overnight and announced agreement Thursday (07/26)
morning. Cornyn won a promise to have some of the money used to go
after immigrants who had entered the United States legally but had
overstayed their visas.
Reid had apparently thought earlier that Cornyn wanted harsher
language. "I was wrong and Senator Cornyn was right," acknowledged a
sheepish Reid. The revised plan was poised to be approved around
midday Thursday.

The measure is opposed by the White House, top Republicans said, and
it clearly puts the president in a box. Bush had already promised a
veto of the underlying homeland security bill for spending $2.3
billion more than he requested. Now, Bush's GOP stalwarts in Congress
such as Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., are poised to override the
president's veto. Cornyn predicted the bill would "pass by a
veto-proof margin" and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters
the bill might get 90 votes in the 100-member Senate.

The measure is likely to be the first spending bill to arrive on
Bush's desk, despite his demand that the Democratic-controlled
Congress focus on delivering the Pentagon's massive budget to his
desk before going on its August vacation. As adopted, the funding
would go toward seizing "operational control" over the U.S.-Mexico
border with additional Border Patrol agents, vehicle barriers, border
fencing and observation towers, plus Cornyn's crackdown on people who
overstay their visas. The underlying homeland security bill had
already drawn a veto threat for breaking Bush's budget. White House
spokesman Scott Stanzel said Wednesday that the new border security
measures under consideration would not be financed by fines on
illegal immigrants as were comparable provisions from the broader
bill that died last month. Stanzel declined further comment Thursday.

Bush and GOP allies such as Graham and Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona had
argued during last month's hotly contested immigration debate that a
comprehensive approach to immigration reform was the only way to
attract bipartisan support to such a polarizing issue. In the wake of
the failure to pass the comprehensive bill - decried as offering
"amnesty" by conservative talk radio and opposing lawmakers - Graham
and the others changed their minds and offered the border security
plan, combined with the tough GOP policy provisions. Graham and Kyl
said the public won't accept more controversial elements, especially
the plan to give millions of illegal immigrants a way to earn U.S.
citizenship, until the border with Mexico is made more secure.
"Border security is the gate that you must pass through to get to
overall comprehensive reform," said Graham, who is up for re-election
next year and facing political heat at home for backing Bush's
unpopular immigration plan.

Source: Associated Press: 07/26
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MEXICANS TARGETED BY US COMPANY FOR IRAQ

The US company Dyn Crop International is recruiting Mexicans in El
Paso, Texas, to patrol Iraqi borders, reported Prensa Latina.
Advertisements in newspapers were taken out in Ciudad Juarez,
Chihuahua, near the Mexican-US border, offering salaries of up to
$11,250 a month ($135,000 a year), life insurance, a $25,000 bonus
and other benefits, states the report. The company, which has the
support of the US Defense Department in its recruiting business, has
sent 6,000 "contractors" to Bosnia, Afghanistan, Haiti and Iraq.

Source: Granma Daily: 07/23
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U.S. ARRESTS CHINESE-MEXICAN SUSPECTED METH KING

The United States arrested a Mexican laboratory owner accused of
helping make huge quantities of crystal meth, four months after
police found $206 million cash in his Mexico City mansion. Mexico's
attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, said U.S. authorities had
confirmed the arrest of Chinese-born Zhenli Ye Gon. "We have received
the news informally but confirmed by official sources that the arrest
took place," Medina Mora said on Mexican television network Televisa.
Mexico has requested the extradition of Ye Gon, the attorney
general's office said in a statement. He was arrested in the
Washington suburb of Rockville, Maryland. It was not immediately
clear if the arrest was the result of Mexico's request, although U.S.
authorities had previously said no warrants had been issued for Ye
Gon. Mexico now has 60 days to make its case for extradition.

Mexican police in March raided a mansion owned by Ye Gon and found
wads of U.S. bank notes in bulging suitcases and overflowing closets.
Seven people were arrested after that raid in the swanky Lomas de
Chapultepec neighborhood. It also turned up six Mercedes-Benz
vehicles and pistols equipped with silencers, but Ye Gon escaped to
the United States. Ye Gon, a naturalized Mexican, is accused of
importing through Mexican ports huge quantities of chemicals used to
make the powerful stimulant crystal meth. Ye Gon says he is an
innocent victim of a government plot.

Mexican methamphetamine producers have muscled in on the U.S. market.
So-called superlabs that mass produce the drug have sprung up across
Mexico, where precursor chemicals like pseudoephedrine are more
easily available. The government recently clamped down sales of cough
remedies that contain pseudoephedrine. Police say a company run by Ye
Gon illegally imported chemicals and that he was setting up a lab to
make crystal meth, or methamphetamine, a powerful stimulant. Ye Gon
has caused a scandal in Mexico in recent weeks by saying a government
minister forced him to hide the cash under threat of death during
last year's election campaign. President Felipe Calderon has deployed
thousands of police and soldiers across Mexico to clamp down on drug
cartels since taking office in December. So far, March's raid of Ye
Gon's house has been the only high-profile bust.

Source: Reuters: 07/24

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The above articles were originally published and copyrighted by the
listed sources. These articles are offered for educational purposes
which CIS maintains is 'fair use' of copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.

end: Mexico Week In Review: 07.23-07.29
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