*Phone Calls to Governor Urged So That He Orders State Police to Rescue the Wounded*

by Kristin Bricker

A solidarity caravan headed to the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, was attacked as it passed through La Sabana, a town controlled by UBISORT, a paramilitary organization that is allied with the ruling Institutional Revolution Party. One young woman managed to make it to a hospital where she is being treated. She reports that there are 15 wounded people. Alberta Cariño, the director of the community radio organization CACTUS, is reported as disappeared. No one saw what happened to her, but she is among neither the wounded nor the uninjured.

The Puebla-based human rights organization Nodo de Derechos Humanos reports that the Oaxacan State Police who are in the area refuse to rescue the wounded “because they don’t have orders to do so from the State.”

San Juan Copala declared itself autonomous following the 2006 uprising in Oaxaca, and the autonomous government declared itself adherent to the Zapatistas’ Other Campaign. The autonomous municipality has been the target of paramilitary violence ever since. Countless San Juan Copala residents have fallen victim to paramilitary violence. The most prominent case was the
execution of two young Triqui radio journalists.

This past November, paramilitaries opened fire on San Juan Copala’s town hall during a caravan that was traveling to San Juan Copala from San Salvador Atenco. UBISORT had put up a highway blockade to stop the caravan, which was comprised of People’s Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT) members. While the FPDT was trapped outside the town, paramilitaries attacked the town hall. They shot four children, killing one of them.

The official action alert from the Nodo de Derechos Humanos is reposted below. They request that people call Gov. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz to demand that he orders the State Police to rescue the wounded. Here’s a quick line in Spanish: “Que manden la policia estatal a rescatar los heridos en San Juan Copala.” It means, “They need to send the state police to rescue the wounded in San Juan Copala.”

****

*URGENT:* The solidarity caravan that was en route to the Autonomous Municipality San Juan Copala in the Triqui region, which was made up of international observers, members of CACTUS, VOCAL, Section 22 of the teachers union, the the APPO, was attacked with firearms in the La Sabana community, which is controled by the organization Unidad de Bienestar Social de la Region Triqui (UBISORT). This organization is impeding the rescue of the wounded. Reports indicate that there are at least 15 wounded, it is unknown if there are any deaths. It is reported that Alberta Cariño, director of CACTUS, is disappeared. We fear that this action constitutes a provocation that could be used to justify the militarization of the Triqui region.

*Requested Action*

Call the Government of Oaxaca and demand that the necessary conditions be established so that the State Police and rescue teams can rescue them and provide them with medical attention.

Governor of Oaxaca

*Ulises Ruiz Ortiz*

Tel. +52 951 5015000 ext. 13005

Fax. +52 951 5015000 ext. 13018

–
Kristin Bricker

Freelance journalist / periodista freelance
http://mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com

November 17, 2009

Article excerpts:

Ulises Ruiz Ortiz

“After two days of deliberations, on Oct. 14 the Mexican Supreme Court made public its decision that Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (governor of the state of Oaxaca) is culpable for the human rights violations that occurred in Oaxaca as a result of teacher protests and political and social unrest in May 2006-January 2007 and July of 2008.”

On the Merida Intitiative

“This past summer, the U.S. State Department ignored ample evidence provided by Mexican and U.S. human rights organizations that the Mexican government has committed numerous human rights violations in Oaxaca and in the drug war, and authorized the release of remaining funds to the same security forces accused of perpetrating the violations. In addition, the impact that the drug war is having on social movements has also been largely ignored as more and more members of social movements are targeted with false claims of organized criminal activity that has the insidious result of criminalizing social protest throughout Mexico. The decision of the Mexican Supreme Court is yet another confirmation of the U.S. government’s deliberate refusal to recognize the reality of the human rights situation in Mexico.”

Click here for article

Ocober 23, 2009

“The tragedy and injustice of Brad Will’s death and Juan Manuel Martínez’s unfounded prosecution are part of the failure to investigate and hold to account those responsible for widespread human rights violations committed in Oaxaca in 2006 and 2007.”

“It is time for the killing of Brad Will to be impartially investigated and prosecuted on the basis of reliable evidence and according to international fair trial standards.”

Click here for full article

From: Reporters Without Borders

Is Mexico under attack by its military?

“And yet, the cartels cannot serve as an excuse for the country’s security forces to commit abuses with impunity. A modern and moral state demands the rule of law.”

The end is especially strong, although FoBW would press for a stronger approach of withholding not just the 15% but all the money of Plan Mexico:

“Mexico’s legislature has become more powerful in recent years, and Calderon has begun to reform a judicial system that has been weak and often corrupt. We’d like to see that continue, matched by a more holistic approach to the drug war that includes real training, professionalization and pay for the country’s police forces. Ideally, we’d like to see Mexican institutions act on their own to address the abuse cases and hold the Mexican military accountable, without U.S. pressure. No country should have an army that is above the law, a condition that’s poisonous to democracy. But until Mexico acts, the United States should make the case for justice by trimming a symbolic 15% from its aid package.”

By NACHA CATTAN
Associated Press
2009-07-24 07:22 AM

“The Mexican military defended its human rights record Thursday, saying most abuse complaints against soldiers prove unfounded and are filed in an effort to discredit the government’s battle against drug cartels.

The autonomous National Human Rights Commission has found the military culpable in only 35 out of 2,200 abuse claims filed since President Felipe Calderon deployed troops to fight drug gangs in December 2006, the Defense Department’s human rights director, Jaime Lopez, said.

“The fact that a large number are determined to be unfounded shows that there are not very many human rights violations,” Lopez said at a news conference. “We should not have any (violations), but we do. But the number is very low.”

The U.S. government has conditioned 15 percent of a $1.4 billion anti-drug aid package on State Department confirmation that Mexico meets human rights and police corruption goals.

Despite increasing abuse complaints, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton indicated last week the United States is committed to the Merida Initiative, which is aimed at helping Mexico train and equip anti-narcotics forces.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has urged the U.S. to withhold the aid, saying the National Human Rights Commission has received a surge of abuse complaints against the military _ including torture and rape _ since 2006.

The group has also criticized Mexico’s reliance on military tribunals to investigate soldiers charged with abuse, saying such cases should be handled in civilian courts.

Lopez blamed the rise in complaints on increasing contact between soldiers and civilians and on efforts to discredit the government’s battle against drug traffickers.

He defended the use of military tribunals to prosecute troops for rights violations, saying 12 soldiers have so far been convicted of torture, murder and other abuses, and 53 have been arrested.”

http://www.newser.com/article/d99kf1g00/mexican-military-defends-record-on-human-rights.html

While Friends of Brad Will are encouraged by such reforms of the Merida Initiative that aim to enhance it, we continue to demand the immediate end of the Merida Initiative as a whole and the implementation of a policy based on the improvement of the Mexican police and justice systems, anti-corruption programs, and drug rehabilitation and prevention on both sides of the border. Friends of Brad Will, many other organizations and the US government are well aware of the fact that stipulations such as these requiring the Mexican government to track and prosecute human rights violations are merely superficial and do not lead to actual change. When the final version of the Merida Initiative was enacted in June 2008 it contained a series of conditions based on Mexico’s human rights issues that stipulated that 15 percent of Merida funds would not be granted to Mexico until the Mexican government showed significant improvement in the accountability and transparency of federal police forces, and investigations of human rights charges.

“The stipulations that the US places on Mexico have proved to be worthless because there has been no follow through. A year after the Merida Initiative, the Mexican government has done nothing in the name of human rights, yet continues to receive funds from the US that will merely add to its ability to violate them,” said Angelina Garneva, Human Rights Associate Intern of Friends of Brad Will. “While the conditions set up by this Act are just more empty rhetoric for human rights, the money that it provides and the violence it supports are real and legitimate.”

juan-manuel-protest-flier
 
WHAT: Protest against Mexican judicial corruption and the practice of impunity
WHERE: Mexican Consulate in New York City, 27 East 39th Street.
WHO: Friends of Brad Will

WHEN: Monday July 13 at 4 pm
 
Contact:
Mark Read: 917-776-8847
Harry Bubbins: 646- 648-4362
Spanish Speaking Contact:
Salvador Pantoja: 646-257-6178
 
July 13th, NYC–On Wednesday, July 8th, Judge Rosa Perez reversed course from her January ruling. She now accepts hearsay testimony previously determined to be “deficient” as factual evidence in the case against local activist Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno for the 2006 murder of U.S. journalist Brad Will.  It was also ruled that Moreno will remain indefinitely imprisoned pending a verdict in his case. 
 
The case is being closely monitored by international human rights organization such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and was even singled out by the U.S. Congress when they passed the funding bill for the Merida Initiative in July 2008, calling in that bill for “progress in conducting a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation to identify the perpetrators of this crime and bring them to justice.”
 
Despite an independent report from Physicians for Human Rights debunking the government’s case against Moreno, and a condemnation of the case by Mexico’s own National Commission for Human Rights, the government has refused to investigate the most likely suspects—Mexican government officials who were videotaped and photographed openly firing on protesters, including Will. Instead, the judge has accepted the testimony of two “witnesses” that, according to their own words, were not present at the murder of Brad Will.   These two “witnesses” are the heart of the case against Moreno.
 
“The Mexican government has to come up with a conviction in Brad’s case because the U.S. Congress told them they had to,” says Mark Read, a friend of Will’s.  “If they want those U.S. taxpayer dollars, they have to put somebody away, but the real killers walk around with impunity while the government proceeds with this bogus case against one of the people that Brad was there trying to report on, an activist who rose up against corrupt government rule. This recent reversal makes it pretty clear that the Mexican government intends to railroad Moreno despite all the best evidence. It’s corruption, pure and simple.”

A vivid report on a journalist’s flight from the Mexican military to the United States. This is the same Mexican military which the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress are funding even more than Bush did!