Mexico Week In Review: 02.04-02.10

Mexico Week In Review: 02.04-02.10
=================================================================
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"
=================================================================

CHIAPAS: DETENTIONS, TORTURE AND VIOLENCE

Local schoolteacher Felipe Hernández Yuena was detained Feb. 5 in the
municipal government building at Venustiano Carranza, a conflicted
town in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, accused of "sedition
and riot." Showing bruises on his face, arms and abdomen, Hernández
Yuena said that while in custody he was beaten and tortured by masked
men he believed were from military intelligence, who questioned him
about whether recent anti-NAFTA protests in the state capital,
Tuxtla, were organized by the clandestine Popular Revolutionary Army
(EPR).

The Zapatista rebels, whose territorial rights are officially
recognized by ceasefire terms, continue to report extra-legal moves
against their movement. On Jan. 13, Zapatista supporter Ernesto
Hernández Gómez was killed at Ejido Santa Rosalía, Comitán
municipality, in a conflict with local caciques (political bosses)
over access to woodlands. More Zapatista supporters have been
illegally detained and beaten by police in the conflict since then,
the local rebel authority reports.

Workers from the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) have cut power
to the Zapatista community of Ejido La Culebra. The local Zapatista
authority, Good Government Junta "El Camino del Futuro" at the
settlement of La Garrucha, accuses the CFE of acting at the behest of
the OPDDIC peasant organization, which is in a land conflict with the
rebels. Local media in Chiapas report that several Zapatista families
at Polhó, a principal rebel settlement in the Chiapas Highlands, have
left the movement in order to receive government aid under the
federal "Oportunidades" program. (see below)

Source: http://www.ww4report.com: 02/10
====

ZAPATISTAS LOSE SUPPORTERS
(Note: Periodically these stories arise. The extent of their
veracity is often difficult to obtain. -- ed.)

Nearly 200 families have abandoned the Zapatista rebel movement in
one of its strongholds, turning to the government for aid at a time
when the insurgents are complaining about the loss of outside
support. On Wednesday (02/06), each family received initial payments
of $43 in a ceremony with Salvador Escobedo, a top official with the
federal government's Social Development Department. The government is
promising similar payments every two months, as well as a school and
medical center. The ceremony in Polho, long a backbone of the
Zapatista movement, appeared to be the most prominent desertion from
the insurgency since 2004, when about 400 families in the unofficial
rebel capital of La Realidad broke away to accept government help,
dividing the village in two.

The rebels have forbidden any aid from state or federal officials
that they regard as illegitimate. Instead, they have created a series
of self-declared autonomous communities such as Polho with their own
schools, clinics and aid networks. Community leader Javier Luna said
the families decided to abandon the insurgents because they needed a
government school, access to better medical care and other
essentials. They apparently will continue to live in the village of
several thousand people, where rebels and non-rebels will go to
different schools and clinics -- a pattern in several other towns.

Source: Associated Press: 02/07
====

UN: DANGEROUS TO USE ARMY AGAINST DRUG GANGS

Mexico risks committing more rights abuses if it continues the
"dangerous" policy of using its military to fight brutal drug gangs,
the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said. "I understand there
are those who say that at times you have to turn to a more powerful
force such as the army, but it seems to me that in the long term it
is frankly dangerous," Louise Arbour told television network Televisa
during a visit to Mexico. "The army should not be doing the job of
the police," she added.

President Felipe Calderon has mobilized some 25,000 Mexican troops
since taking office in December 2006 to try to crush powerful drug
cartels that are warring over lucrative smuggling routes to the
United States. Calderon has won praise at home and in Washington for
using the military, as Mexico's corrupt police forces side with drug
gangs, especially in states bordering the United States. But Calderon
has faced criticism from rights groups such as Amnesty International.
Mexico's Human Rights Commission also says heavy-handed soldiers have
committed abuses. A Mexican court last year sentenced at least four
soldiers to up to 40 years in prison for rape in 2006. More than
2,500 people were killed in Mexico in drug violence in 2007 amid a
drive by an alliance of cartels headed by Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman --
Mexico's most wanted man -- to dominate the Mexican drug trade
against rivals. Mexico says the army will continue its fight against
the cartels until the country's police forces have been cleansed and
retrained to take over the military's job.

Source: Reuters: 02/05
====

200,000 PROTEST NAFTA

Led by a caravan of 21 tractors, tens of thousands of campesinos,
unionists and activists marched through downtown Mexico City on Jan.
31 from the Angel of Independence to the Zocalo plaza, where speakers
demanded a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA). "NAFTA's very good--for the goddamn gringos," was a popular
slogan. Artemio Ortiz, representing the National Education Workers
Coordinating Committee (CNTE), said the neoliberal economic model
exemplified by NAFTA had failed; he called for more mobilizations on
Mar. 18, when Mexicans celebrate the nationalization of the oil
industry; Apr. 10, the anniversary of revolutionary hero Emiliano
Zapata's assassination; and May 1, International Workers' Day. The
organizers claimed that 200,000 people participated in the march,
which was sponsored by the National Campesino Confederation (CNC),
six of the 12 organizations in the Permanent Agrarian Congress (CAP),
and a number of unions and other groups.

There were also protests in various states, including sit-ins in
local offices of the Agriculture Secretariat (Sagarpa) and blockades
of highways and international bridges. From Jan. 28 to 29 about 100
dairy farmers from Hidalgo and other states set up a stable at the
Monument to the Revolution in downtown Mexico City to protest the low
prices at which they have to sell milk to companies like Queen and
Lala. The farmers gave out 25,000 liters of milk to people in the
area before ending their protest in response to a promise for talks
with Sagarpa and the Economy, Finance and Social Development
secretariats.

The government of President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa has been citing
statistics to show that Mexican producers have benefited from NAFTA.
But protests by farmers have grown as NAFTA has phased out tariffs on
agricultural products from the US and Canada. Anti-NAFTA sentiment
broke out in an unexpectedly large demonstration in Mexico City on
Jan. 31, 2003. This year's demonstration was even larger, bringing
together rural organizations with very different political
orientations and including unions and leftist groups. The CNC, with
the largest contingent, is close to the centrist Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI); ironically, the CNC supported NAFTA when
it went into effect in 1994 under a PRI government.

Source: Weekly News Update- Nicaragua Solidarity Network Of Greater
New York: 02/03
====

MINE UNION SET TO DEAL?

As of Jan. 29 Mexican officials and representatives of the National
Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM)
said they had agreed on a "no aggression" pact and were ready to
negotiate starting on Jan. 30. The union and the government have had
a series of confrontations since February 2006, when the Labor and
Social Security Secretariat removed SNTMMRM general secretary
Napoleon Gomez Urrutia from his post for alleged corruption. Topics
for negotiation were to include the removal of police and soldiers
from the giant Cananea copper mine, site of a six-month strike; the
disposition of bodies never recovered from the Pasta de Conchos coal
mine after a February 2006 explosion that killed 65 workers; mine
safety issues; strikes likely to break out in the mining industry;
and wage and contract issues. Union representatives say they expect
Gomez Urrutia to return to Mexico from the US by March at the latest.

Source: Weekly News Update- Nicaragua Solidarity Network Of Greater
New York: 02/03
====

BORDER NEWS: MEXICO WANTS END TO U.S. TEAR GAS USE

Mexico is demanding that U.S. Border Patrol agents stop using tear
gas to protect themselves against increased attacks as they try to
keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States. Mexico's
Foreign Ministry also requested a U.S. probe into an incident last
month where 15-year-old Cristian Saldana was struck in the nose by a
tear gas canister after he threw stones at U.S. agents trying to stop
people from crossing illegally from the Mexican border city of
Tijuana near San Diego. Saying the use of tear gas was unacceptable
under any circumstances, the ministry sent a letter to the U.S.
Embassy requesting the investigation and said it was also setting up
talks with U.S. officials through its consular network.

Mexico's human rights commission says Border Patrol agents have fired
tear gas into Mexico at least six times since November. "Launching
tear gas does not contribute in any way to a climate of understanding
and collaboration," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The
Border Patrol in Washington was not immediately available for comment
but officials have told Reuters their border measures are aimed at
upholding U.S. law.

Border-wide assaults on agents reached a record 250 between October 1
and December 16 last year, according to the latest U.S. figures.
U.S.-Mexico relations are strained over border issues as the United
States increases its deportations of illegal immigrants and builds a
fence along hundreds of miles (km) of the frontier with Mexico to
keep out migrants without papers. Mexican President Felipe Calderon
says U.S. treatment of undocumented Mexican workers is "abusive" and
amounts to persecution.

Source: Reuters: 02/01

====
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: 02.04-02.10
--