Jul
8
2009
A reporter flees the biggest cartel of all—the Mexican Army.
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!
Jul
8
2009
Below is a quote (and then a link to the original document) from the Lawyers Collective (or Colectivo de Abogados), a Colombian non-governmental organization. It raises the obvious question about the Merida Initiative (aka Plan Mexico): namely, why are some Mexicans ‘nationalists’ objecting to end-use monitoring of lethal aid funding for militarization (including surveillance) to Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean under Plan Mexico instead of opposing it outright?
Quote: “Colombian history demonstrates the State’s security agencies have considered as enemies those from society who are committed to the defence and promotion of human rights. Additionally, since February 2004, the DAS has substantially increased its persecution of human rights organisations. In this respect, it created special strategic-intelligence groups with the purpose of structurally persecuting human rights organisations as they were considered to be “a threat or risk to national security.”
Within this context, the DAS decided to undertake intelligence activities against CAJAR through a very laborious, extensive and sophisticated operation called OPERATION TRANSMILENIO, the funds for which came out of a heading designated for RESEVERED EXPENSES. This OPERATION TRANSMILENIO has consisted in gathering information on the Lawyers’ Collective and its members, and specifically information on activities relating to human rights defence work, international cooperation, and the organisation’s financial records. During this time, the DAS has carried out diverse intelligence activities against members of CAJAR, including the identification of their nuclear families and the gathering of biographical economic, financial and work-related information. Political and psychological profiles were also developed and fingerprint records were kept. The DAS kept track of the members’ routines and travel routes and surveillance was carried out throughout the country (along with ongoing surveillance at set points by way of apartment rentals). Photographs and video have also been taken of the lawyers and their families at home and in their places of work. Telephone conversations and email communication have also been intercepted on a massive scale. Lastly, records have been kept on their migratory movements and their national and international contacts have been cross-referenced. The DAS has obtained this information from the government protection program for human rights defenders, public and private institutions, and what were called “human and technical sources.” The Colombian State Employs the Administrative Department of Security Against Human Rights Organizations”
The rest of this frightening document by the Lawyers Collective here.
Jul
2
2009
From this excellent piece by Todd Miller published by NACLA:
“Washington is funding both sides of the drug war. U.S. military aid to this corrupt system has flowed rapidly under the Obama administration.”
Here’s the synopsis:
The July 5 mid-term election in Mexico will continue narcotraffickers’ creeping reach into all sectors of the country’s political life. The army and police are already drenched in narco-scandals, while reports show that political campaigns and government offices have also been infiltrated or co-opted by traffickers. But Mexico is not a failed state, such extensive corruption and illicit wealth creation actually depends on the state.
The rest here.
Jul
1
2009
The Obama administration’s condemnation of the coup in Honduras has been lukewarm compared to the rest of the world.
[Read this great piece on recent coup in Honduras to get insight into whose side President Obama is on in the 'war on drugs'. Ed.]
Also, here are calls coming from inside the country for international support:
“The recently formed Popular Resistance Front called for delegations to travel to Honduras to stand by the popular organizations of Honduras in support of the return of the democratically elected president and inform the situation.
The Front has called for mass demonstrations in the country. It also called on foreign media, members of grassroots organizations and human rights groups to increase pressure on the coup and support the call for reinstatement of the president.”
Monitor this site for updates.
Jun
15
2009
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
(Op-Ed Columnist, published in the New York Times)
June 13, 2009
This year marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s start of the war on drugs, and it now appears that drugs have won.
“We’ve spent a trillion dollars prosecuting the war on drugs,” Norm Stamper, a former police chief of Seattle, told me. “What do we have to show for it? Drugs are more readily available, at lower prices and higher levels of potency. It’s a dismal failure.”
(Read on here)
Jun
13
2009
Tonight, Rad Rich and I got free tickets to the Pelosi event and even the reception. We walked past the jeering crowd of tea-party people and my friends from the peace movement to attend the green-room reception for Nancy Pelosi and I got to talk to her for two minutes.
I introduced myself as Nick from Friends of Brad Will and told her who Brad was and she said she was sorry about his death. I told her that we were concerned about human rights abuses taking place in places where we have free trade agreements like Peru and the deaths there last week. She replied that she was waiting for Obama’s cue on that. I replied that indeed Obama had mentioned union leaders in Colombia in the debates, but that people were dying now and this tends to happen wherever we have these free trade agreements — corporations get better access to resources and indigenous get displaced. She thanked me for telling her. Then Rad talked to her about student loans.
Jun
10
2009
This morning, three human rights activists representing Friends of Brad Will, Houston Indymedia, and Houston Food Not Bombs met with The Consul General at the Peruvian Consulate in Houston.Ellie Sequeira, Rachel Clarke, and Nick Cooper expressed concerns and delivered a letter (below) about the role of the Peruvian government, oil corporations and free trade in the deaths of dozens of indigenous Peruvians. Continue Reading »
Jun
3
2009
June 1 2009
Kristina Aiello
for NACLA
These efforts to suppress political dissent are part of a growing trend of increased governmental aggression towards activists and social movements occurring across Latin America. Accompanying this repression are huge increases in military spending authorized by the Bush administration to combat drug trafficking and “terrorism” in Latin America via programs like Plan Colombia and now the Merida Initiative.
The Obama administration has a chance to walk U.S. anti-drug policy back from this long favored militarization stance. But recent actions taken by the new administration are disappointing for those seeking a dramatic change in U.S. policy in the region.
Read the rest of this clarion call, here.
May
13
2009
The Obama administration plans a new round of ‘public safety’ programs in Latin America.
by Jeremy Bigwood
Published in In These Times, May 13, 2009.
From the article: “Obama may not understand the dangerous waters his administration is drifting into by expanding “public safety” policing programs. If the history of the OPS and similar projects are any indication of what will come, U.S. policing initiatives in Latin America and elsewhere could result in violence and political repression.”
Read all of it, here.
May
11
2009
May 3, 2009
Part I: Free trade and Mexico’s drug war
Collapse of traditional economy created the space for the cartels to grow.
In April, US President Barack Obama visited Mexico where he announced that the US needed to take some responsibility for Mexico’s ongoing Drug War. He also declared his support for a continuation and strengthening of free trade policies between the two countries. According to Miguel Tinker-Salas, it is the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the massive economic transition it precipitated, that has created such fertile ground for the drug economy. The result is that the Mexican government finds itself facing a decreasing level of control over entire regions of the country as the cartels provide the services that the central government no longer does.
May 10, 2009
Part II: US-funded militarization didn’t stop Colombian drug trade and won’t in Mexico either.
Pointing to the abject failure of a similar nine-year-old policy in Colombia – a country where the drug trade has actually expanded over the last decade of the heavily-funded drug war and US military aid has been turned against the social movement – this segment reveals a similar phenomenon that is already being observed in Mexico.
May
11
2009
New Laws Strike a Symbolic Blow to Prohibition, But Net Result is Increased Law Enforcement Powers
Written by Kristin Bricker for Narconews. Published May 9, 2009
Is the Mexican government planning to incarcerate 100s of thousands of casual drug users? Or does it only want to use the threat of draconian sentences to frighten many individuals so as to control and deploy them?
Read the whole piece here.
May
11
2009
Translated by Kristin Bricker from a piece in Milenio by Victor Hugo Michel
Two key passages of the article:
First, Dyncorp. . . :
‘The increase in the concentration of new personnel includes support from private companies that have been contracted by the State Department to bring their own specialists, known as private service contractors.
As of now, the Dyncorp company has contracted three employees to administrate its participation in the Merida Initiative, one of whom will be in Mexico City and will help the Narcotics Affairs Office in the Embassy to “maintain good contact with Mexican security agencies.”‘
Second, who are the ‘human rights organizations’ which might be bought with the Merida blood money (you’ll likely have to follow a paper trail to find out):
“The contracts PSC-09-010-INL and PSC-09-019-INL were offered to two specialists in training Mexican police and military personnel, particularly police, inspectors, judges, and prosecutors.”
May
11
2009
This piece, by Laura Carlsen, Director of the Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP) [americas.irc-online.org] remains a benchmark for analysis on how the media with their ‘defense’ industry-tied pundits are promoting an expansion of the lucrative destabilizing wars (including the ‘war on drugs’ in Latin America). It was written on March 9, 2009.
When read together with Bill Conroy’s pieces exposing how the United States Government’s Direct Military Sales of lethal hardware and training are a key component of the supply-chain for the narco-cartels, this article offers a critical understanding of Plan Mexico.
Drug War Doublespeak
“Through late February and early March, a blitzkrieg of declarations from U.S. government and military officials and pundits hit the media, claiming that Mexico was alternately at risk of being a failed state, on the verge of civil war, losing control of its territory, and posing a threat to U.S. national security.”
<more>
Available in translation: Doble discurso en guerra contra la droga
May
11
2009
Human Rights Organizations Break from Amnesty International’s 2008 Pro-Merida Initiative Letter
Check out this excellent piece by Kristin Bricker, written especially for The Narco News Bulletin on May 7, 2009.
May
11
2009
Federal Police Pressure Imprisoned APPO Defendant Juan Manuel Martinez to Confess; Will Family Lawyer Faces Legal Harassment
Read the entire story April 21, 2009 by Kristin Bricker via the Narcosphere here.
May
11
2009
An excellent provocative piece by Bill Conroy for Narconews. Written a on April 5th it will continue to have relevance as an empirical expose of the lack of credibility on the ‘drug war’ of the network ‘news’ and their ‘defense’ industry pundits.
His well-documented thesis is that the cartels are obtaining their heavy fire power not from gun shows and straw buyers but from private sector arms exports authorized/licensed by the USG to the MOD. He writes: “Given Mexico’s strict gun laws with respect to private individuals, it is likely most of the DCS (Direct Commercial Sales) program defense hardware approved for export to that nation was directed toward the military or law enforcement agencies. But it is precisely that fact which should be raising some alarm in Washington.”
The corporate media narrative describes the scale of drug violence being due in large part because US gunshow sales and smugglers carrying guns easy-to-buy in the U.S. to Mexico. This is false. Read this to learn why.
May
11
2009
Incisive and (historically, economically) contextualized analysis of Obama’s trip to Mexico and the positions he took vis-a-vis human rights, neoliberalism and the ‘war on drugs’.
Check out Mr. President: Calderón Is Not Mexico by Laura Carlsen, Director of the Americas Program at the Center For International Policy
Posted April 17, 2009
May
11
2009
Great piece by Todd Miller for NACLA, written April 17 2009
“On August 5, 2008 a group of 20 Mexican soldiers burst into the community of Santiago Lachivia, Oaxaca and fired into a crowd of residents preparing land for a community garden. Cecilio Vásquez Miguel and Venancio Olivera Ávila were killed. In the aftermath, when neither arms nor drugs turned up in the search, the anti-narcotics military unit moved on, leaving a stunned and traumatized community.
This is the war on drugs in Mexico; a “war” that abuses the civilian population, dramatically increases violence, and arguably has very little effect on the flow of illegal drugs to the largest market in the world, the United States.” <More>
Apr
8
2009
U.S. Military Funded Mapping Project in Oaxaca
Geographers used to gather intelligence?
April 2009 By Cyril Mychalejko and Ramor Ryan
From article:
“I feel that this particular controversy would not have the traction that it does if it were not for the direct role of the U.S. military, especially in light of the turmoil in Oaxaca,” said Evergreen State College’s Grossman. “Oaxaca is not just any old state in Mexico and southern Mexico is not just any old region in the Americas, it’s an area that has had significant repression in very recent years against indigenous peoples by federal forces funded by the U.S.”
. . .
Adding to the specter of U.S. and state violence and repression in the region, the U.S Joint Forces Command released a report in November 2008 that stated Mexico risked becoming a failed state and, if that were to be the case, it would demand U.S. intervention. Meanwhile, the U.S. House passed a spending bill on February 25 which allocates $410 million for the Merida Initiative, a militarization project modeled after Plan Colombia, to “carry out counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, and border security measures.”
Apr
7
2009
A Failed War on Drugs: Find a Path to Legalization
Published: April 1, 2009 in the New York Times
To the Editor:
Mexican Drug Cartel Violence Spills Over, Alarming U.S. (March 23, 2009)
Re “Drug Cartel Violence Spills Over From Mexico, Alarming U.S.” (“War Without Borders” series, front page, March 23):
The drug violence spilling over into the United States is fueled by the profits illegal drugs produce. Mexican drug cartels send us the drugs some Americans want to buy. We send them cash and weapons.
When drug suppliers compete for American market share or try to collect bad debts, violence is the inevitable result. All too often, Americans uninvolved in the drug trade are victims. The war on drugs
has failed.
The solution is obvious. We must find a path to legalization, as we did when we ended Prohibition. Legalization does not mean that we approve of drug use or that drugs now illegal are safe to use. But the
violence caused because drugs are illegal and the expense of law enforcement and incarceration outweigh the cost of managing drug use as a public health problem.
We do that now for smoking and alcohol. Why should these other drugs be treated differently, especially when the current strategy is so obviously failing?
Glen T. Cheney
Macungie, Pa., March 23, 2009
Apr
7
2009
Oaxaca City, January 14th, 2009: Members of Section 22 and APPO came to demand Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno’s release from prison. In the clip, his sister Lybia reads the families statement at the offices of the 5th District Judge. Background info: On October 16th 2008, Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno was imprisoned for the 2006 murder of American Journalist Brad Will, unjustly, as eye-witness and forensic evidence has proved his innocence. He was scapegoated by the Mexican government in order to appease U.S. demands that the case be prosecuted, as a prerequisite for funding to Mexico under the Merida Initiative. He remains
incarcerated at Santa Maria Ixcotel prison, in the City of Oaxaca, to this day.
Mar
12
2009
Laura Carlsen | March 9, 2009
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP)
americas.irc-online.org
Through late February and early March, a blitzkrieg of declarations from U.S. government and military officials and pundits hit the media, claiming that Mexico was alternately at risk of being a failed state, on the verge of civil war, losing control of its territory, and posing a threat to U.S. national security.
In the same breath, we’re told that President Calderon with the aid of the U.S. government is winning the war on drugs, significantly weakening organized crime, and restoring order and legality.
None of these claims is true. Instead they are critical elements in waging the hypocritical drug war in Mexico. Read more of this excellent article by Laura Carlsen outlining the disinformation and fear tactics used to strong arm Plan Mexico through a pliant Congress and Senate here
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Note: The Merida Initiative Round II (aka Plan Mexico) was passed by the Congress in February, by the Senate March 10th late in the evening, and signed into law by President Obama(!!!!) March 12th, 2009 (today).
We are now looking forward to stopping the delivery of as much of the military/police ‘aid’ package as we can in order to have those resources properly invested in local and regional economic development programs which recognize the Mexican, Latin American and Caribbean peoples’ right to their own form of developing their economies.
We will continue to inform our elected officials that the funding of a ‘failed policy’ (see GAO November 2008 report on lessons learned from Plan Colombia) is wasteful and – given the record of massacres and systematic abuse by the Mexican, Latin American and Caribbean military and police forces – is incredibly dangerous for the citizens of those regions.
No metrics to allow lawmakers to measure success on the stated goals of this Bush Initiative were included in the spending package guaranteeing that ‘drug war’ profiteers (consultants, security and arms corporations, and U.S. extractive industries benefiting from a more powerful (but still quite unpopular) Mexican right wing President will continue to peddle disinformation with no scientific, public policy counterweight.
We have and will continue to propose that the mainstream D.C.-based human rights organizations join the many organizations which have spoken out against Plan Mexico and take a position against the ‘war on drugs’.
Mar
4
2009
Join us March 11, 2009 for the Friends of Brad Will Caravan to D.C. Or setup a meeting with your local representatives.
Below is a list of our demands and an information packet you can take to your congress person. (check periodically for updates)
You can join our efforts: http://friendsofbradwill.org/contact-us/
OUR MISSION:
To inform our representatives of the Human Rights Violations and impunity U.S. tax money supports in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean; and to verbalize our opposition to it as well as encourage theirs.
OUR GOALS:
1. Free Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno! (unjustly imprisoned for Brad Will’s murder)
2. Prosecute the paramilitaries responsible for killing Brad Will and investigate the 27 other political murders in Oaxaca.
3. Stop the Merida Initiative! (aka Plan Mexico) End The Drug War!
Continue Reading »
Feb
26
2009
Posted by Kristin Bricker on The Narco Sphere – February 26, 2009 at 4:06 am
Yesterday the House Passed 2009 Plan Mexico Funding Despite Mexico’s Failure to Comply with the 2008 Funding’s Human Rights Conditions
The US House of Representatives passed the “omnibus” spending bill yesterday, which reportedly increases federal domestic spending by 8%. Democrats celebrated the bill as having “reversed the Bush cuts on domestic priorities.” The bill will now head to the Senate.
(more…)
Feb
26
2009
Now, why can’t ‘human rights’ (Amnesty International) and Latin American Policy (Washington Office on Latin America) organizations say this clearly!? And come out against the Merida Initiative?
FEBRUARY 23, 2009, 4:03 P.M. ET
We should focus instead on reducing harm to users and on tackling organized crime
By FERNANDO HENRIQUE CARDOSO, CéSAR GAVIRIA and ERNESTO ZEDILLO
The war on drugs has failed. And it’s high time to replace an ineffective strategy with more humane and efficient drug policies. This is the central message of the report by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy we presented to the public recently in Rio de Janeiro.
Prohibitionist policies based on eradication, interdiction and criminalization of consumption simply haven’t worked. Violence and the organized crime associated with the narcotics trade remain critical problems in our countries. Latin America remains the world’s largest exporter of cocaine and cannabis, and is fast becoming a major supplier of opium and heroin. Today, we are further than ever from the goal of eradicating drugs.
Continue Reading »
Feb
19
2009
http://www.newspapertree.com/features/3441-mexico-in-the-international-human-rights-spotlight
by Frontera NorteSur
“Torture continues, extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances occur, freedom of expression is limited, and practically none of the cultural and economic rights is guaranteed or protected,” charged a report from civil society organizations delivered to the UN Human Rights Council.
Posted on February 10, 2009
Mexico’s government is under the glare of stage lights in different national and international venues for allegedly allowing the systematic violation of human rights. The administration of President Felipe Calderon faces a test today (Feb. 10, 2009), when the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council will submit Mexico to a three-hour exam and possibly assign voluntary make-up work.
Feb
19
2009
February 17, 2009
Former Latin American presidents Cardoso, Gaviria and Zedillo told the United States what it didn’t want to hear: that their fight against drugs has failed and that it’s time to seek another approach.
Note: This is another encouraging piece except that Semana allows the Colombian government to get away with the strange claim that “the fight against drugs hasn’t been a failure in Colombia because if they hadn’t had implemented it, institutions would have failed”.
Strange in a country in which 4 million people have been driven from their land by government-backed paramilitaries, many too brutal to be ignored anymore by the u.s.g. which, although funding Colombia year-in-and-year-out, has had to add them to the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. Talk about failed institutions. . .
Feb
12
2009
Report by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy
declaracao_ingles_site
Great analysis of highlights of the Commission Report by Laura Carlsen of the Americas Program at the Center for International Policy can be found at the Huffington Post.
Please popularize that analysis by linking to it etc. . .
Yes, we can!
Feb
10
2009
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere
Eliot L. Engel (D-NY), Chairman
U.S. Policy Toward Latin America in 2009 and Beyond
You can download the witnesses’ testimonies at the site above.
The U.S. Congress is beginning to recognize the failure of the ‘war on
drugs’. That’s because of your work and the many fighting the domestic
and international policies which benefit drug cartels and corrupt
governments while increasing violence and human rights abuses and
promoting the high profit of narco-industry and its security and
banking partners.
Contact your Congressional Representative to schedule a face-to-face
meeting as part of the International Day of Action announced by
Friends of Brad Will last week.
Jan
21
2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/opinion/l20blow.html
Drug Prosecutions
To the Editor:
Op-Ed Columnist: Cocaine and White Teens (January 10, 2009)
In “Cocaine and White Teens” (column, Jan. 10), Charles M. Blow writes that white teenagers use more cocaine than black teenagers, and cites a ratio of 10 to 1 of white versus black teenagers entering drug treatment for crack and cocaine use.
A significant but missing statistic is white versus black teenagers entering the criminal justice system.
F.B.I. statistics for many years have shown more whites than blacks arrested for drugs, while more blacks than whites are incarcerated. We should not lose sight that our war on drugs has been a war on people of a certain color. Howard Josepher
New York, Jan. 16, 2009
The writer is president of Exponents, which helps people affected by drug addiction.
Here’s the original article.
