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.
Jan
15
2009
How Clean Is Mexico’s Operation Clean-Up?
Frontera NorteSur, News Report, Ricardo Ravelo, Posted: Jan 13, 2009
When Mexican President Felipe Calderon and U.S. President-elect Barack Obama met Jan. 12, one of the topics high on the agenda was Mexico´s drug war — and President Calderon’s Operation Clean-Up, the Mexican government’s declared campaign to cleanse federal law enforcement of corruption by organized crime.
The latest name to be associated with the probe is that of the late Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, who served as head of the federal attorney general´s elite anti-organized crime squad, SIEDO, during the Fox administration. By most accounts, Santiago Vasconcelos was also the Bush administration´s man in Mexico. From the vantage point of the Potomac, he was viewed as an uncorruptable ally in a common war against drugs and vice.
But according to an account published in the Mexican press, Santiago Vasconcelos presided over a $35 million payment to SIEDO from the Beltran Leyva drug cartel in 2006 and 2007. The accusation was made in a legal declaration to the Office of the Federal Attorney General (PGR) by a protected witness called “Emiliano.” Continue Reading »
Tags: brad will, change, drug, drugs, Merida Initiative, obama, Plan Mexico, report, senator kerry, war on drugs | 
Comments (0)
Comments (0) Jan
13
2009
January 12, 2009
Obama urged to speak up for murdered journalist in meeting with Mexican President Calderon
and to reject as an “impractical continuation of a failed policy” Bush’s Merida Initiative
(Washington, D.C.) Friends of Brad Will urged their members to contact President Elect Obama’s Transition Team today to urge the President Elect to bring up the case of murdered U.S. journalist Brad Will in his meeting with Mexican President Calderon in D.C. Monday afternoon.
The organization, which was established two and a half years ago when the journalist was killed by Mexican paramilitaries while covering a teachers’ strike, has called on Congress and the Bush State Department to aid in obtaining justice for their murdered friend. They described the Obama-Calderon meeting as “an important opportunity to move forward not only on Brad’s case but also on many Mexican political prisoners’ cases.”
They asked callers to Obama’s transition team to urge Obama to ask explicitly about Brad’s case and those of other innocent people arrested, raped or killed (in Atenco, Juarez, Chiapas, Oaxaca and elsewhere). Continue Reading »
Dec
24
2008
by Ted Galen Carpenter for the CATO Institute
The Drug Enforcement Administration is in an optimistic mood. A new DEA report insists that the antidrug campaigns Washington has undertaken with Colombia and Mexico in recent years have dramatically slowed the flow of cocaine into the United States. The DEA’s principal piece of evidence is that average street prices for the drug have soared over the past twenty-one months from $96.61 per gram to $182.73, which suggests “that we are placing significant stress on the drug delivery system.” There’s just one problem with the DEA’s proclamation of success. We’ve heard it all before. Many, many times before.
The rest here:
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=20386
Dec
20
2008
Everyone can help!
After the hearing last Monday was awaiting the decision, these days are important to take actions and exert pressure before the trial judge. Juan Manuel wants to return to his family.
Please add your name to this letter and send it to the judge in the case. The english version is first and spanish follows. Continue Reading »
Dec
19
2008
NOTE: Important links and actions below in the body of the (short, 2 page) report. Ed.
Hey folks:
Thanks for all your great work!
Last week, your actions and those of a number of organizations aligned with our network against the Merida Initiative (aka Plan Mexico) made International Human Rights Day an unqualified success.
If you would like to skip the REPORT BACK and go straight to the NEXT STEPS we’re taking, please go to the end of this note.
REPORT BACK
We acted together to again issue a warning about the militarization of Latin America and the Caribbean under Plan Mexico. We explained what even Mexican commentator Jorge Chabat recognizes, even though less than a year ago he was heralding Plan Mexico as a sign of the end of the “historical lack of trust in Mexican police forces coming from the U.S.” Chabat typically adopts a cautious tone so his assessment of the results of Calderon’s militarized ’solution’ to the “war on drugs” is noteworthy. He writes: “if there’s one thing worse than a corrupt and poorly equipped police corps its a corrupt and well equipped police corps.”
Indeed, the drug cartels’ penetration of Mexican law enforcement and government at virtually all levels is legendary.
Although we didn’t reach the 100 Congress member target we had set for ourselves we did – between our delegations which lobbied in D.C. and those in our networks who met with Congressional staffers in their home state offices – reach 69 legislators total!!! Continue Reading »
Dec
13
2008
Major New Report Details the Global Impact of Arms Sales and Military Assistance
http://www.newamerica.net/pressroom/2008/u_s_weapons_war
As the world marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights this week, a new report from The New America Foundation finds that U.S. arms transfers are undermining human rights, weakening democracy and fueling conflict around the world. Continue Reading »
Dec
10
2008
Description: A look at how, and why Friends of Brad Will took a stand for Human Rights and against Senator Dodd and the Washington Office on Latin America on September 17, 2008.
Tags: amy goodman, brad will, chris dodd, Congress, democracy now, human rights, laura carlsen, Merida Initiative, notorious b.i.g, office of american states, Plan Colombia, Plan Mexico, President Obama, rage agains the machine, Senate, senator dodd, three men and a baby, video, war on drugs, washington office on latin america, wola, yes we can |
Comments (0)
Comments (0) Dec
9
2008
DECEMBER 10th, 2008 is International Human Rights Day
Take a Stand Against Human Rights Violations in México!
Stop the Merida Initiative aka Plan Mexico!
Join us in actions at each of the 100 Congressional District offices (or
in DC). Continue Reading »
Dec
6
2008
The Zetas, Castillo said, have now realigned with corrupt elements in the Mexican army, a marriage that is spreading the infection in the military, particularly among the 32,000 troops Calderon sent into nine Mexican states specifically to stamp out the cartels. “And so the military is sort of running the whole show down there,” said Castillo. “You’ve got thousands of military put all over the country, a lot of them corrupt, a lot of them also working as paramilitaries. They’re operating under the guise of stamping out drugs when they’re actually moving [the drugs] and stamping out rivals for the drug trade.”
Calderon’s strategy of fanning out the army to try to regain some semblance of control from the cartels in those states has worked about as well as the U.S. Special-Forces training. Rather than restoring government control, in many areas the military has wreaked havoc with the citizenry, prompting calls for Calderon to remove them.
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=7338
A Border Under Siege
American military training and Texas guns are helping boost drug-war violence.
By PETER GORMAN
Continue Reading »
Nov
25
2008
SEMANA News is Houston’s largest weekly Spanish-language newspaper focusing on issues relevant to the Hispanic community since 1992 with a circulation of 140,000.
Nov
25
2008
Flier given out at Amnesty International event last night.
Take action (call them at number at bottom) and pass this on far and wide!
Looks like it was a successful intervention by another human rights effort that shares our extreme shock and dismay at their fronting for the Merida Initiative (aka Plan Mexico).
And pretty interesting: the government is pushing ahead with Plan Mexico and organizations like Amnesty do have a responsibility to stop this dangerous militarization plan. So very well timed.
The use of human rights discourse and the co-optation of human rights advocates by US military and police institutions in Latin America is a tried-and-true public relations strategy pioneered at the infamous School of the Americas. It is not a sign that the US wishes to reform the military or police forces they are involved with.
Why is Amnesty International supporting the “war on drugs”‘?
Continue Reading »
Nov
24
2008
Friends of Brad WIll attended the NYU Conference: Many Yeses, One No: Confronting Corporate Globalization
As the anniversary of the Seattle protests against the WTO approaches,
the world economic system- a system whose logic and shape has been
defined by neoliberal economic theory- is in ruins, and the United
States has elected a new president that many people hope and expect
will bring about “real Change.” Continue Reading »
Nov
23
2008
(Malkin repeats the Mexican government suggestion that the human rights abuses, violence, and corruption are all worth it because of their ’success’ in increasing drug seizures and arresting some top traffickers. But the ostensible goal is to lower drug exports to the U.S. and reduce the power of the cartels. Neither of these goals are addressed in the article.
When will the United States Government admit its ‘war on drugs’ approach (Bush’s Merida Initiative aka Plan Mexico) is strengthening by arming and training a brutal and unaccountable, corrupt right-wing government which abuses its own peoples’ labor, indigenous, and basic human rights? And not achieving its ostensible goals of reducing narcotics trafficking into the United States.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/world/americas/22mexico.html?ref=americas
Mexico Arrests Ex-Chief of Antidrug Agency
By ELISABETH MALKIN
Published: November 21, 2008
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s former senior antidrug official has been arrested and accused of accepting bribes from a drug cartel, the authorities said Friday. Continue Reading »
