Dec
22
2011
By PAUL BUTLER
Published: December 20, 2011
IF you are ever on a jury in a marijuana case, I recommend that you vote “not guilty” — even if you think the defendant actually smoked pot, or sold it to another consenting adult. As a juror, you have this power under the Bill of Rights; if you exercise it, you become part of a proud tradition of American jurors who helped make our laws fairer.
Continue Reading »
Tags: Amnesty-International, Calderon, chris dodd, clinton, decriminalization, Drug War, human rights, human rights watch, impunity, jayzee, leahy, Merida Initiative, mexico, militarization, North American Union, Plan Colombia, Plan Mexico, Security and Prosperity Partnership, senator dodd, war on drugs, washington office on latin america, wola, yes we can | 
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Comments (0) Dec
17
2011
by LAURA CARLSEN
Excerpt:
The private and public sector promoters of war reap hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds. They grow stronger as their lobbyists buy off politicians with campaign donations and the Defense Department assures itself a lion’s share of taxpayer dollars.
Peace is their enemy.
. . .
In a recent article on the winners and losers in the war on terrorism, Gareth Porter put it succinctly,
“Aggressive U.S. wars are not merely the result of mistaken policies, but of the national security institutions pursuing their own interests at the expense of the interests of the American people. The ‘war on terror’ is a means for those institutions to maintain the present allocation of national resources and power to the national security sector for the indefinite future.”
Entire analysis here.
Nov
25
2011
23 November 2011, by CISPES
Quote from the article: In the 2009 cable, the U.S. Embassy official warns that funding for the Mérida Initiative, one of the U.S. “War on Drugs” initiatives in Mexico and Central America, would be “contingent upon guidance from Washington regarding how best to work around Melgar.”
According to the Salvadoran digital periodical El Faro, the US finally forced Melgar out by leveraging a second international program, Partnership for Growth; El Salvador is one of four countries worldwide handpicked by the US for the new program. El Faro’s sources in the Ministry of Security claim that Melgar’s removal was a U.S. condition for sealing the Partnership for Growth, officially signed just four days prior to Melgar’s resignation. The program’s initial report named violence and crime as El Salvador’s primary constraints to economic growth, quickly turning what the U.S. had publicly touted as an economic development program into another security initiative.
Editor’s note: Amazing that the President of El Salvador accepted as a USG condition for delivery of one neoliberal (’development’) program (Partnership for Growth) that another USG neoliberal ’security’ program (Plan Mexico) be implemented by a former Salvadorean General, in violation of El Salvadorean law (and likely to the dismay of most Americans informed about Plan Mexico or Partnership for Growth).
Ex-general Replaces Leftist Leader in El Salvador’s Security Cabinet as Washington Reasserts Influence in Central America
Yesterday, President of El Salvador Mauricio Funes swore in retired general David Munguía Payés as the country´s new Minister of Public Security and Justice, following the sudden resignation of Manuel Melgar from the position on November 8. The move prompted outspoken opposition from Salvadoran social organizations who view it as a violation of the 1992 Peace Accords that ended the country’s Civil War and transferred public security from military to civilian administration.
Rest of piece here.
Nov
2
2011
There’s just so much money in the non-profit industrial complex. And it’s so unrepentantly imperialist. Take, for example, the recent “Grants to Support U.S. Ideology in Foreign Hospitals and Schools,” offered by USAID: Number of Grants: 26; Estimated Size of Grant: $2,000,000.
more of this excellent piece on the role of USAID and NGOs they support in whitewashing coups by buying off ‘civil’ society here.
Oct
25
2011
“Both Calderón and Obama, in slapping the open wounds of Mexico with weapons and cash, are disastrously ignoring primary causes, the root and branch of drug trade and corruption—the booming drug demand in the US, the decimation of Mexican employment, and a spike in violence due to an over-enforced border, family separation and neoliberal trade agreements. If you don’t talk about why millions of Mexicans are jobless, uneducated and wayfaring (an estimated seven million youths, or ninis, those that ni estudian, ni trabajan, neither study nor have jobs), then you are not going to “win” the drug and human-trafficking “war”, you are only going to prolong it and drag even more bodies into the already blood-flooded trenches.”
From excellent article written by John Washington on Friday, 21 October 2011
There is nothing more disconcerting than the patriotic enthusiasm of a downtrodden population. The government’s tolerance of crime dishonors patriotism, which calls for decorum before hysteria or praise. Government corruption turns popular joy into a sarcasm which reflects the impunity and recklessness of the government.
-José Vasconcelos, 1935, writing of events in September 1910.
So begins this incisive dismantling of Calderon’s and Obama’s attempt to celebrate and perpetuate the indefinite militarization of Mexico.
Oct
22
2011
Here’s an important quote:
“The year 2010 marked the 200th anniversary of independence for many Latin American nations. While the region may have achieved its political independence it still remains, 200 years later, deeply tied – and subordinated – to the larger world capitalist system that has shaped its economic and political development from the conquest in 1492 right up to the present period of globalisation.
The new global capitalism swept Latin America by storm in the 1980s and 1990s. Neo-liberal programmes were imposed by international financial institutions, western governments, and local elites. The region experienced a sweeping transformation of its political economy and social structure. . . . A new breed of transnationally-oriented elites and capitalists forged a neo-liberal bloc and led the region into the global age of hothouse accumulation, financial speculation, credit ratings, the internet, malls, fast-food chains, and gated communities. Neo-liberalism forged a social base among emerging middle classes and professional strata for which globalisation opened up new opportunities for upward mobility and participation in the global bazaar. But neo-liberalism also brought about unprecedented social inequalities, mass unemployment, and the immiseration and displacement of tens if not hundreds of millions from the popular classes, which triggered a wave of transnational migration and new rounds of mass mobilisation among those who stayed behind.”
The article: Leftist governments in Latin America are facing resistance not only from the right, but from their own bases, as well.
William I. Robinson
The triumph of left-leaning former army officer Ollanta Humala in Peru’s presidential elections this past June has observers wondering if Peru could be the latest “Pink Tide” country in Latin America. The so-called Pink Tide refers to the ambiguous turn to the left in recent years in several Latin American countries. The neo-liberal model that has changed the face of the continent’s political economy and devastated the poor and working classes over the past two decades has come under challenge by these nominally left governments, whose populist and redistributional policies, however, may now be reaching a crossroads.
For the rest of this important article, click here.
Sep
24
2011
By Kristen Gwynne | Sourced from AlterNet September 23rd, 2011
After a decade of unjust marijuana arrests, Raymond Kelly has finally issued a memo to New York City police, ordering them to end the illegal stop-and-frisk procedures that resulted in the arrests of so many young black and Latino youths.
The memo said:
“Questions have been raised about the processing of certain marihuana arrests. At issue is whether the circumstances under which uniformed members of the service recover small amounts of marihuana … from subjects in a public place support the charge of Criminal Possession of Marihuana in the Fifth Degree.”
The stop-and-frisks that helped generate the astounding 536,000 marijuana arrests between 1979 and 2010 violate the intent of the law in two ways. First, stop-and-frisks are legal only to find and confiscate guns. Second, possession of small amounts of marijuana is decriminalized in New York.
But when officers sweep poor neighborhoods to stop-and-frisk colored youths, they often demand kids empty their pockets, or pull the contents out themselves. If weed had been inside, police arrest them for marijuana “in public view,” which is not decriminalized, and the consequences of which bar arrestees from receiving federal loans and housing, as well as finding careers. This is all despite the fact that the weed wasn’t “in public view” until the cops put it there. Kelly clarified the standards for this type of arrest in the memo. Continue Reading »
Sep
20
2011
Quote from the excellent piece written by James Jordan, National Co-Coordinator for the Alliance for Global Justice (published September 6th in Upside Down World):
“US intervention in Colombia has caused more problems than it has helped and the FTA would only make things worse. Recent investigations by the Colombian Attorney General have uncovered extensive US involvement regarding domestic spying by former President Álvaro Uribe’s administration. Information was shared with and analyzed by embassy staff and domestic spying programs were funded by the CIA. Activities included gaining access to the bank accounts, following the families and bugging the offices of Colombian magistrates.”
Read the entire rebuttal of the Obama Administration and Congressional propaganda pushing this unpopular policy here.
Sep
9
2011
We demand effective policies to replace those of the Bush and Obama Administrations. Brad Will’s murder in broad daylight, his likely murderers identified by witnesses and in documentary evidence, should have resulted – if there were real law enforcement cooperation between the USG and the Mexican Government – in accountability by now. Until there is accountability for Brad Will’s murder and the murder of 28 other innocents in Oaxaca, we will recognize the fraud of such cooperation under the ‘drug war’.
Most of you probably already follow the excellent work of the TransBorder
Institute and its director David Shirk. If not, highly recommended, and
included here is the most recent note from David and a link to the
institute’s monthly report.
*ACTTing Out in Arizona –*
*Where the Drug War now has a “Unified Command”*
* *
· Arizona is “ground zero” in the reconfigured war on drugs.
· Numbers tell the story of the failed drug war and a misguided
combat against transnational crime.
· ACCT is a paper alliance created to demonstrate Obama’s border
security/transnational crime strategy.
· It’s all about marijuana and immigrants – the same old story of
border control, now called border security.
Arizona and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands are the “ground zero in the war on
drugs.”
That’s the assessment of the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission (ACJC), the
state office that receives federal criminal-justice grants — and which then
redistributes these Department of Justice (DOJ) grants to Arizona’s
multiagency drug task forces and other counternarcotics programs.
Making the essentially same threat assessment about the border’s frontline
status in protecting the U.S. against the transnational threat of illegal
drug flows, the Obama administration launched its Southwest Border
Initiative in March 2009, calling it the “way ahead” in combating drug
trafficking
As part of that 2009 initiative, which brought together the resources of the
Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Justice (DOJ), DHS launched the
Arizona-based Alliance to Combat Transnational Threats (ACTT) in September
2009, describing it as an “innovative” and “unprecedented” multiagency
assault on crossborder drug trafficking.
*Old Drug War Numbers and Body Counts*
* *
ACTT does point to the large number of immigrant apprehensions and drug
seizures as evidence of its progress against transnational threats.
The Border Patrol and allied sheriff’s departments provide post-ACTT
operation reports of the numbers of illegal aliens arrests, marijuana
seized, weapons confiscated, and assets seized and forfeited.
Typically, ACTT boasts of the number of “illegal aliens” apprehended and
thousands of pounds of marijuana seized.
The title, for example, of a May 27, 2011 CBP release reads:
*“ACTT Operation Yields More than $4.4 million in Marijuana” *
* *
Followed by the subhead:
*“Intelligence-Driven Operations Continue to Yield Results”*
* *
The total results of this 60-day operation in Pinal and Pima Counties were:
“732 illegal aliens arrested, one U.S. citizen, 8,925 pounds of marijuana,
and 17 firearms.”
Another “intelligence-driven operation” by ACTT aimed to “counter
transnational criminal organizations in the Arizona corridor” called
Operation Trident Surge targeted TCO traffic on Forest Service and BLM lands
over three months. The headline of the May 27 CBP media release about this
ACTT operation read: “1,759 people arrested; 23,650 pounds of marijuana
seized.” There were no other reported results, and nothing about how any of
the arrests or marijuana seizures related to government intelligence about
transnational criminal organizations.
Marijuana seizures also headlined another ACTT operation in Pinal County,
which boasted “more than 5,900 pounds of marijuana seized.” The operation
also reported 55 illegal aliens apprehended, five U.S. citizens arrested,
$115,000 in illicit currency seized, four firearms confiscated, and five
stolen vehicles recovered. Typically, no other illegal substances except
marijuana were seized and there was no attempt to show how the operation
targeted transnational crime.
Media releases and internal Border Patrol summaries of ACTT arrests and
seizures echo the agency’s decades-long tradition of measuring border
control progress by way of immigrant arrests and drug seizures –
disconnected from such other measures as the illegal immigrant population,
drug consumption levels, and drug prices.
What has changed, though, is that DHS and the Border Patrol use the same
categories of statistics as part of an unconvincing attempt to demonstrate
progress in combating transnational organized crime and deterring
transnational threats.
*U.S. Military Gets in on the ACTT* Continue Reading »
Jul
21
2011
Great interview on history of US-Mexico government relations. Well-argued examination of these governments’ wars against their own peoples, here.
Jul
13
2011
Good thing that Colombian security officers are training Mexican anti-narcotics squads. (Try to ignore Juan Forerro’s typical parroting of ‘drug war’ boosters’ narrative.)
Death and Drugs in Colombia, New York Review of Books, June 23, 2011 by Daniel Wilkinson
Quote: “Paramilitaries also confessed to judicial investigators that they had collaborated extensively with military officers, both before and during Uribe’s presidency, including two generals Uribe chose to lead branches of the armed forces. Perhaps most damning was evidence of collaboration with top DAS officials—including the President’s intelligence chief, who allegedly supplied the AUC with names of trade unionists who were then assassinated. Other troubling allegations involved Uribe’s younger brother—who has been accused of running a paramilitary group in Antioquia—and the use of his own cattle ranch as a meeting place for paramilitaries.
To date, only one former paramilitary has implicated Uribe himself directly in paramilitary activity—yet his testimony was full of inconsistencies. He was assassinated in 2009.
Uribe and his top officials have denied all those allegations.
-
The people who would know the full extent of whatever collaboration took place on Uribe’s watch are the ones he extradited to the US.
Since the extradition, however, they have essentially stopped cooperating with Colombian investigators. Several—including Mancuso—have explained that if they revealed all they know, they would be unable to protect their families from reprisals in Colombia.” (my underline)
and
“López’s book shows that the Ralito Pact’s reference to “refounding the nation”—from which the book takes its title—was not merely pompous rhetoric. Rather, it reflected a broader objective shared by the AUC commanders and local politicians and landholders: to legalize the enormous wealth and power they had amassed during years of paramilitary expansion.
The paramilitaries had driven more than one million poor farmers off their lands, preparing the way for what the authors refer to as a “counter-agrarian reform.” Large landholders and investors—including paramilitaries and other traffickers—acquired the land, and corrupt officials helped them obtain title. As one former paramilitary put it: “We went in killing, others followed buying, and the third group legalized.””
Read more about this brutal effort to legalize the stolen wealth of Colombians by US-backed paramilitaries in this account highlighting US government supported laundering scheme overseen by the ARD, a yet-to-be indicted (it is arguably illegal to give material support to terrorist organizations like the paramilitaries benefited by this scheme) USAID vendor, based in the state of human rights champion, Senator Leahy of Vermont.
The rest of the review is here.
Tags: brad will, Calderon, corruption, decriminalization, Drug War, impunity, leahy, Merida Initiative, militarization, narcotrafficking, North American Union, Plan Colombia, Plan Mexico, President Obama, Security and Prosperity Partnership, senator leahy, terrorism, usaid, war on drugs, washington office on latin america, wola |
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Comments (0) Jun
19
2011
A revealing examination of the games the Federal Government, D.C.-tied ‘human rights’ organizations, and the big banks play on the way to militarization of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Quotes from the story:
With headline stories across the nation exposing massive fraud and money laundering schemes infilitrating the American financial systems: how could it have been so difficult for the Feds to establish criminal intent for these lawbreakers?
Although in selected cases, a civil complaint filed by the SEC (Security Exchange Commission) is usually offered to corporations and banks that allow them to wiggle out of a criminal indictment in exchange for a fine. A civil fine is usually the norm but the bulk of wrongdoing goes unpunished.
Experts familiar with large corporations and banks that violate the law have said the fine these companies pay the government is merely the cost of doing business.
. . .
We are currently living under government more interested in preserving the integrity of financial operations that it has investigated for fraud and money laundering. Even more appalling is the fact our government found the institutions guility of intentionally breaking the law. And still no real punishment.
. . .
Adam Kaufman, chief of the investigative division of the Manhattan D.A. office defended the approach in the AP story, by saying, “prosecutors could have indicted low-level bank employees who handled the transactions on a daily basis. But that wouldn’t get the executives making the decisions and figuring out exactly who that is can be daunting.”
. . .
The DA summed up what many believe is true, that banks and corporations are “too-big-to fail and too-big-to jail.”
Tags: Amnesty-International, brad will, corruption, decriminalization, Drug War, human rights, human rights watch, impunity, Merida Initiative, militarization, money laundering, North American Union, Plan Colombia, Plan Mexico, Security and Prosperity Partnership, war on drugs, washington office on latin america, wola |
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Comments (0) Jun
17
2011
An oped for the New York Times by former US President Jimmy Carter
June 16, 2011
From the oped:
“In an extraordinary new initiative announced earlier this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some courageous and profoundly important recommendations in a report on how to bring more effective control over the illicit drug trade. The commission includes the former presidents or prime ministers of five countries, a former secretary general of the United Nations, human rights leaders, and business and government leaders, including Richard Branson, George P. Shultz and Paul A. Volcker.
The report describes the total failure of the present global antidrug effort, and in particular America’s “war on drugs,” which was declared 40 years ago today.
. . .
The commission’s facts and arguments are persuasive. It recommends that governments be encouraged to experiment “with models of legal regulation of drugs … that are designed to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens.” For effective examples, they can look to policies that have shown promising results in Europe, Australia and other places.”
Read the entire oped here.
Tags: Amnesty-International, barack obama, brad will, Calderon, Congress, decriminalization, Drug War, human rights, human rights watch, leahy, Merida Initiative, mexico, militarization, Plan Colombia, Plan Mexico, President Obama, Security and Prosperity Partnership, war on drugs, washington office on latin america, wola |
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Comments (0) Jun
17
2011
Many believe that Calderón’s drug policies have been imposed by the US, which provides aid under the Mérida Initiative
For the Guardian by Luis Hernandez Navarro
Tuesday 14 June 2011
Cipriana Jurado is a Mexican activist who for years struggled to assert the rights of maquila workers in Ciudad Juarez on the US border. She directed the Centre for Research and Worker Solidarity until, in mid-March 2010, she took refuge in the United States and applied for asylum because her life was in danger. On Saturday 11 June 2011, the United States granted her political asylum.
Her asylum application was accepted on the basis of evidence that the Mexican army persecuted her after she sought to defend a family from which three members, including two women, disappeared in Chihuahua in late 2009. The Mexican army has been used in Chihuahua as part of the federal anti-drug strategy, and it has been repeatedly linked to human rights violations.
Cipriana Jurado is the first human rights defender to receive political asylum for being persecuted by the Mexican army – the same army the United States is supporting to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in the war against drugs.
Her asylum sets a precedent. It also illustrates the complex relations between Mexico and the United States in the war on drugs.
To read the rest of this excellent article, click here.
Jun
17
2011
40 Years of Drug War Hasn’t Worked; “Time for a Change,” Says 9-Year Veteran
The public understands how disastrous it’s been — now it’s time for the politicians and law enforcement to change course.
June 15, 2011 |
The “War on Drugs” was launched by President Richard Nixon 40 years ago this week. In 1980, at the end of its first decade, I began a nine-year career as a “captain” in the war on drugs. I was the attorney in the U.S. House of Representatives principally responsible for overseeing DEA and writing anti-drug laws as counsel to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime.
Read the rest here.
Jun
13
2011
Article in Wall Street Journal by Evan Perez suggests many of cartels’ weapons come from US.
An intriguing passage states “Mexico has strict restrictions on gun ownership, with most legitimate sales processed through one store on a military base near Mexico City.” This and other elements of the story invite suspicion that a significant portion of the cartels’ weaponry may come from the Mexican military via the US government, including the State Department-authorized Blue Lantern program exposed here.
Tags: barack obama, blue lantern, brad will, Calderon, chris dodd, clinton, corruption, decriminalization, Drug War, fast and furious, human rights, impunity, jayzee, leahy, Merida Initiative, militarization, North American Union, Plan Colombia, Plan Mexico, Security and Prosperity Partnership, SPP, war on drugs, washington office on latin america |
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Comments (0) May
30
2011
Posted on: 05/09/2011 by Laura Carlsen
Thousands of Mexicans changed the face of national and international politics May 8 in the world’s first mass protest against the drug war.
Read the rest of this excellent piece here.
May
30
2011
May 29, 2011
By Members of the La Otra Support Committee of the Caravan
INTERNATIONAL DAY OF ACTION IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE AUTONOMOUS MUNICIPALITY OF SAN JUAN COPALA, OAXACA, MEXICO
TO THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD
TO THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND ORGANIZATIONS
TO THOSE IN SOLIDARITY WITH THIS JUST CAUSE
The Triqui people of the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala in Oaxaca, Mexico, make a call-out for international solidarity to all the nations and peoples of the world, so that in the coming days solidarity actions are carried out as far and wide as possible, to exert pressure on the Mexican government and to shed light onto the situation that the people of Copala have endured since 2007. This situation has culminated in the events of the last days and in the Caravan of the Color of Blood, that is happening now, and whose intention is for the people of Copala, who were dispossessed and displaced because they exerted their right to autonomy, to return to their homes
The Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala declared its autonomy January 1st, 2007, after members of the community had participated in the Oaxacan uprising of 2006, and from that day onward the Mexican government has maintained a politic of disrespect and destruction of that autonomy. The Mexican government has carried out this process through two political-paramilitary organizations which it has armed and financed; the UBISORT-PRI and the MULT-PUP.
Since 2007 in this war against the autonomy of the Triqui people of San Juan Copala there has been a death-count of more than 30 people – among them young children, women, men, elders, traditional leaders, and solidarity activists. Furthermore this war has made children orphans and women widows and survivors of sexual assault.
Apr
22
2011
Posted on: 21/04/2011 by Alfredo Acedo
The clock on the Torre Latinoamericana strikes 5:00 on April 6th as the ragtag group that fills the esplanade of the Bellas Artes museum yells ‘No more blood!’ and ‘Down with Felipe Calderon!’. This is not a common place to begin a protest, but this march was called by poets and artists, friends, followers, and men and women who read the poems and articles of Javier Sicilia. They all believe that poetry and art will triumph over death.
After the murder of his son and six of his friends on March 28 in Cuernavaca, the poet and social activist published “An Open Letter to Politicians and Criminals,” in which he condemns Calderon’s war as being poorly planned, poorly executed, poorly directed, and for putting the country in a state of emergency. In his letter he also called upon his fellow Mexicans to struggle for peace and justice.
For the rest of the article, please click here.
Tags: Amnesty-International, brad will, Calderon, clinton, corruption, decriminalization, demonstration, Drug War, human rights, human rights watch, impunity, jayzee, leahy, Merida Initiative, militarization, North American Union, Plan Colombia, Plan Mexico, senator leahy, SPP, war on drugs, washington office on latin america, wola, yes we can |
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Comments (2) Feb
14
2011
State Department Report Details Special Forces “Mobile Training Teams” South of the Border
Posted by Erin Rosa – to Narco News.
To fight the drug war in Mexico the US military conducted specialized trainings both inside and outside of the country with a focus on combating “narco-terrorism” and “counterinsurgency” conflicts, according to a recently declassified report from the State Department and Department of Defense. The document (PDF), which details foreign military training in the 2009 fiscal year, sheds more light on to the kind of instruction Mexican soldiers were receiving from the United States as violence and deaths continued to increase in the country. This includes the deployment of “mobile training teams” that were used to teach special forces combat techniques. Click here for the entire article and links to original State Dpt. and DoD report.
Feb
14
2011
Posted by Bill Conroy to NarcoNews – February 13, 2011
The Big Clubs in Mexico’s Drug War Aren’t Slipping Through the Gun-Show Loophole
Consulate wires leaked by Wikileaks indicate that U.S. military grade weapons are in the hands of Mexican Drug Cartels. The attempt, by the Obama Administration to finger gun sellers in the U.S., as the source of our “Border War,” is challenged in the report from NarcoNews.
“The lot numbers of some of the grenades recovered, including the grenade used in the attack on Televisa, indicate that previously ordnance with these same lot numbers may have been sold by the USG [U.S. Government] to the El Salvadoran military in the early 1990s via the Foreign Military Sales program.”
To read this excellent piece, click here.
Feb
8
2011
Leaked cable exposes diplomatic sleight of hand
by Bill Conroy – for NarcoNews
A 2009 State Department cable made public recently by the nonprofit WikiLeaks media organization appears to be an effort by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico to do some deceptive damage control on the drug-war front.
To read the rest of this intriguing article, click here.
Feb
8
2011
By Patricia Giovine
EL PASO, Texas – Mexican journalist Emilio Gutierrez, who fled his homeland in 2008 with his teenage son after receiving death threats from the army, says the lengthy delay in his asylum hearings in the United States is due to the politically sensitive nature of his case.
The hearings, which had been scheduled to resume Friday, were postponed until May 12, 2012, after the reporter’s attorney asked for a delay due to scheduling conflicts.
“We had hoped the new date for the hearings would be set for a couple weeks later, not a year and two months later,” Gutierrez told Efe, adding that political reasons are behind the lengthy delay.
The U.S. government is reluctant to grant him asylum “because they don’t want to publicly acknowledge that they’ve been financing – through the Merida plan – a (Mexican) army that has committed all kinds of abuses against Mexican civilians,” he said.
For the rest of this piece, click here.
Nov
5
2010
A recent in-depth piece on Al Jazeera English examines the human rights implications of the militarized “war on drugs” as well as the role U.S. financial institutions play in facilitating the drug trade. The statement Friends of Brad Will signed on to calling for an end of U.S. military aid to Mexico and a reorientation of the “war on drugs” was quoted and linked to in the article.
While feuding drug cartels are responsible for much of the violence in Mexico, abuses by security forces are not uncommon.
An April 2009 Human Rights Watch report identified 17 cases of abuse by the Mexican military, including “killings, torture, rapes and arbitrary detentions”. And, activists say the line between the state and the cartels is often blurred by corrupting infusions of drug money.
In August, the government fired more than 3,200 police officers – almost 10 per cent of the federal force - including the police chief in Cuidad Juárez, because of widespread corruption and links to cartels.
But despite this widespread evidence of human rights abuses and corruption, Mexico and the US are moving to increase militarisation.
Read the full article here.
Oct
30
2010
TO INDIGENOUS AND PEASANT ORGANIZATIONS
TO WOMEN’S AND HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS
TO ANTI-MINING AND INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY NETWORKS
TO THE MEDIA
On April 27, near San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, a humanitarian observation mission was attacked by the paramilitary group UBISORT, during which Alberta Cariño Trujillo and Jyri Jaakkola were assassinated.
The initial investigation was carried out by the Oaxacan State Attorney General’s Office, however, given the evident relationship which exists between the state government and the paramilitary group, it was demanded that the case be taken up by the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR), which joined the preliminary investigation. Six months have passed since the crime occurred and the PGR submitted the results of its investigation to a judge, but given the investigation’s deficiencies it was sent back and up to now there does not exist any interest on the part of the PGR to ensure that this double murder does not remain in impunity.
Oct
29
2010
Below is a sign-on letter to oppose additional U.S. funds to the Merida Initiative for the disastrous drug war. We have already received an incredible response from all over the Hemisphere. We believe this is a critical juncture, as homicides and human rights violations increase in Mexico and citizens in both countries reject militarization as a strategy to weaken organized crime. This week is the fourth anniversary of the murder of journalist Brad Will, a classic case of impunity in Mexico. We urge you to join us and the hundreds of organizations and individuals listed below in signing this statement. The movement against the drug war enforcement/interdiction approach is getting stronger in light of the history of failure and enormous cost in lives and resources that it entails. It is unconscionable that the US government continues to support it. This is the time to make our voices heard.
Organization sign-ons: mail to stopmeridainitiative@gmail.com
Individual sign-ons at this link:http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/703/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5074
Human Rights, Labor, and Religious Groups Call on Obama Administration and Congress to Uphold Human Rights, Halt Drug War Aid to Mexican Security Forces
Despite nearly 30,000 drug-related homicides, a huge increase in human rights violations by the armed forces and growing citizen opposition to the bloody “war on drugs”, the U.S. Congress is once again considering the allocation of U.S. public funds to Mexico to support the failed counter-narcotics policy. President Barack Obama’s proposed Fiscal Year 2011 budget contains $410 million for the Merida Initiative, a security aid package for Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic. Of that total, $310 million are allocated for Mexico. We question the Administration’s decision to extend indefinitely and unconditionally Bush’s three-year Merida Initiative in light of the violence and ineffectiveness of the strategy, and mounting calls for a new approach from citizens’ groups on both sides of the border.
Existing U.S. aid to Mexico under the Merida Initiative, amounting to more than $1.3 billion, does not include necessary safeguards to ensure that it does not contribute to systematic human rights violations. Only fifteen percent of the funding may be withheld pending a State Department report on Mexico’s progress toward meeting the human rights conditions of the bill. Furthermore, the Merida Initiative (also called “Plan Mexico”) includes no benchmarks for effective evaluation.
The Merida Initiative supports a reckless strategy that has led to massive bloodshed in Mexico and failed to achieve goals to reduce illicit drug flows, assure public safety or significantly weaken cartels. With 45,000 troops in the streets as the core feature of this militarization strategy, the Mexican armed forces have been implicated in murders, rapes and violations of human rights—the vast majority of which have never been prosecuted.
Oct
23
2010
This is an excellent article documenting the mentality of the US military and State Department intent on militarizing Mexico:
By Erin Rosa
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
October 22, 2010
Oct
23
2010
Letter
Published: October 19, 2010
To the Editor:
Re “In Mexico, Scenes From Life in a Drug War: Monterrey’s Habit” (Op-Ed, Oct. 17):
Ricardo Elizondo Elizondo’s essay about the drug war in Mexico says that Mexico must take notice of its own drug use problems and that “there can be no solution until we come to terms with the truth.”
I am sure that is true, but there is a larger truth at work that trumps all others in the drug war: We must end the folly of prohibition — that is, end the drug war — or there will be no solution.
All of the harm and horror associated with the drug issue that Mr. Elizondo wrote of are really a function of prohibition.
The case has been incontrovertibly made elsewhere. The drug war must go. We all know it; only those with a stake in it want it to continue.
D. H. Michon
St. Paul, Oct. 18, 2010
Oct
23
2010
The Murderers of Mexico
October 28, 2010
Alma Guillermoprieto
Excerpt from this fascinating piece in the New York Review of Books which reaffirms the failure of the ‘war on drugs’ which we’ve been citing as a pretext for militarization of Latin America and the Caribbean:
“It’s not that Guzmán has influence whereas other traffickers do not; it’s that every trafficker has a great many appointed officials and elected politicians on his payroll but Guzmán has more than the rest. The most distressing conclusion one can draw from de Mauleón’s articles is not that President Calderón’s war on drugs is being lost but that it may not even be fought.”
Oct
20
2010
Monday, October 25 from 6-10p
The Commons Brooklyn
(near a dozen different trains!)
MIXER & FILM FUNDRAISER for MEXICO’S OTHER CAMPAIGN
beginning with FOOD, SANGRIA, MUSIC and MORE
around 7p we’ll screen
The blockbuster drama/comedy/monster-movie with smart political commentary and Korea’s highest grossing film ever…THE HOST!
Come start the week off right with a little pre-Halloween soiree
Join us at The Commons Brooklyn
388 Atlantic Avenue
between Hoyt and Bond St
A,C,G to Hoyt-Schermerhorn
F to Bergen
2,3,4,5 to Nevins
D,N,R to Pacific-Atlantic
$5 door, food and drink by donation
On Facebook here.
PLEASE RSVP to zapagringo@gmail.com (you don’t need to RSVP to attend)
More Info on the Film and the Other Campaign: Continue Reading »
