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.

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.

The US Northern Command’s Work With Mexican Armed Forces Has ‘Increased Dramatically’ and May Be Expanded

By Erin Rosa
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

October 22, 2010

Rob

López Obrador’s Alternative Plans for Mexico
Written by Daniel McCool
Thursday, 29 July 2010 00:00

Mexico’s poor performance both politically and economically over the past few years cannot only be blamed on external factors, according to López Obrador. He is critical of the neo-liberal model being followed by the National Action Party of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and has an alternative plan which he presented to the nation on July 25th in the main plaza of Mexico City.

Whereas the political left in Mexico has apparently self destructed over the 2006 election results and differences over whether to recognize the “victory” of Felipe Calderon or not, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or “AMLO,” his nickname derived from his initial, is proclaiming a new alternative political program for the country, and apparently intends to participate in the 2012 presidential elections.

To read the entire article published at UpsideDownWorld, go here.

Luis Paredes Moctezuma, the former mayor of Puebla who claims to have spent three decades in the secret group El Yunque, declared to the Dallas Morning News in June 2007, that “El Yunque is more dangerous than the narcos.” Hundreds of Yunque members are now in the bureaucracy, and they control four state governments, he warned.

An investigative piece by journalist and feminist activist Irene Ortiz published in the January/February 2008 issue of NACLA Report on the Americas, ‘Putting Down Roots: The Latin American Right Today‘ details the history of the secretive organization dedicated to ‘eternal combat (with) the forces of Judaism, Masonry and Communism’. Açlvaro Delgado, who published a book on El Yunque in 2003, used the group’s written internal communications and the testimonies of members and deserters, to expose its determination to “create the City of God in accordance with the Gospels”.

Friends of Brad Will have joined the United Steel Workers, Witness for Peace, WESPAC and others, in opposing the Merida Initiative, dubbed “Plan Mexico” after Plan Colombia, the $7 billion military ‘drug war’ package which failed to reduce exports of coca from the strife-ridden South American nation. The Initiative would cost $1.1 billion over two years, with the overwhelming majority of money to be spent on providing U.S. military equipment and training, including helicopters and surveillance equipment, to Mexican President Calderon. Many observers, such as Global Exchange, have recognized the initiative is destined to fail, given the “drug cartel’s penetration into seemingly every facet of the Mexican police, military, and judicial system”. The last major counter-narcotics training program of Mexican military units by U.S. Special Forces resulted in the entire Mexican force – known as the Zetas – defecting to work for the narcos, taking with them state-of-the-art tactics and methods.

Friends of Brad Will is informing many Jewish, gay, and women’s rights organizations about the nature of this organization, whose members the Calderon Administration has appointed to some of its highest positions. The organization believes that the United States government should not be supporting any government which threatens to set the clock back on women’s and gay rights or on religious tolerance. This Bush ’security’ initiative threatens to empower an ultra-right-wing government out of step with American values. The creed of El Yunque would be considered deeply offensive to most Americans (as it is to most Mexicans).

Please download the frightening report on the appointment of extremists into the corrupt Executive branch of Mexico’s government here.

El Yunque is so secretive an organization. Nevertheless there is a general consensus about who, in the Calderon Government, is a current member of El Yunque:

The Calderon Government has at its highest cabinet level posts members of the extremist anti-semitic, homophobic, and anti-women’s rights Catholic organization known as El Yunque. Among “first-level” cabinet members, Calderón’s private secretary César Nava Vázquez is a member of the Yunque, as is the head of the National Water Commission, José Luis Luege, and the head of the National Institute of Migration, Cecilia Romero. The Secretary of Public Education, Josefina Vázquez Mota, is also said to be a yunquista but she denies it. The outgoing president of he PAN, Manuel Espino, is a member of the Yunque, as are three state governors (all PANistas), Juan Manuel Oliva, in Guanajuato; Emilio González Márquez, in Jalisco, and Marco Antonio Adame, in Morelos.

Background of El Yunque’s incursions into Mexican government since the end of the one-party state:

After his 2000 election, Fox quietly appointed many Yunque members to his cabinet. Many of these appointments were made in the Labor Department at the behest of Labor Secretary Carlos Abascal (a pro-Yunque activist who has never acknowledged his membership in the organization). Abascal was Interior Secretary throughout the Oaxaca blow up and was in close touch with corrupt and brutal Governor Ulises Ortiz Ruis, including during the action on the ground the day Brad was killed. Fox Administration Yunque members include Abascal’s private secretary, Raúl Vázquez Osorio, Undersecretary of Labor Francisco Xavier Salazar Saénz, Planning Coordinator Jesús Rivera Barroso, and the department’s budget director, Fernando Urbiola Ledezma. In addition to the Labor Department, the Department of Social Development became home for many Yunque members at the undersecretary level.

The above information was compiled from the NACLA article provided above and correspondence with journalist John Ross and senior NACLA advisor Fred Rosen. Thanks to NACLA, which has generously allowed us to offer this article to visitors to this site.

Luis Paredes Moctezuma, the former mayor of Puebla who claims to have spent three decades in the secret group El Yunque, declared to the Dallas Morning News in June 2007, that “El Yunque is more dangerous than the narcos.” Hundreds of Yunque members are now in the bureaucracy, and they control four state governments, he warned.

An investigative piece by journalist and feminist activist Irene Ortiz in the January/February 2008 issue of NACLA Report on the Americas, ‘Putting Down Roots: The Latin American Right Today’. detailed the history of the secretive organization dedicated to ‘eternal combat (with) the forces of Judaism, Masonry and Communism’. Açlvaro Delgado, who published a book on El Yunque in 2003, used the group’s written internal communications and the testimonies of members and deserters, to expose its determination to “create the City of God in accordance with the Gospels”.

Friends of Brad Will have joined the United Steel Workers, Witness for Peace, WESPAC and others, in opposing the Merida Initiative, dubbed “Plan Mexico” after Plan Colombia, the $7 billion military ‘drug war’ package which failed to reduce exports of coca from the strife-ridden South American nation. The Initiative would cost $1.1 billion over two years, with the overwhelming majority of money to be spent on providing U.S. military equipment and training, including helicopters and surveillance equipment, to Mexican President Calderon. Many observers, such as Global Exchange, have recognized the initiative is destined to fail, given the “drug cartel’s penetration into seemingly every facet of the Mexican police, military, and judicial system”. The last major counter-narcotics training program of Mexican military units by U.S. Special Forces resulted in the entire Mexican force – known as the Zetas – defecting to work for the narcos, taking with them state-of-the-art tactics and methods.

Friends of Brad Will is informing many Jewish, gay, and women’s rights organizations about the nature of this organization, whose members the Calderon Administration has appointed to some of its highest positions. The organization believes that the United States government should not be supporting any government which threatens to set the clock back on women’s and gay rights or on religious tolerance. This Bush ’security’ initiative threatens to empower an ultra-right-wing government out of step with American values. The creed of El Yunque would be considered deeply offensive to most Americans (as it is to most Mexicans).

Please download the frightening report on the appointment of extremists into the corrupt Executive branch of Mexico’s government below.

El Yunque is so secretive an organization. Nevertheless there is a general consensus about who, in the Calderon Government, is a current member of El Yunque:

The Calderon Government has at its highest cabinet level posts members of the extremist anti-semitic, homophobic, and anti-women’s rights Catholic organization known as El Yunque. Among “first-level” cabinet members, Calderón’s private secretary César Nava Vázquez is a member of the Yunque, as is the head of the National Water Commission, José Luis Luege, and the head of the National Institute of Migration, Cecilia Romero. The Secretary of Public Education, Josefina Vázquez Mota, is also said to be a yunquista but she denies it. The outgoing president of he PAN, Manuel Espino, is a member of the Yunque, as are three state governors (all PANistas), Juan Manuel Oliva, in Guanajuato; Emilio González Márquez, in Jalisco, and Marco Antonio Adame, in Morelos.

Background of El Yunque’s incursions into Mexican government since the end of the one-party state:

After his 2000 election, Fox quietly appointed many Yunque members to his cabinet. Many of these appointments were made in the Labor Department at the behest of Labor Secretary Carlos Abascal (a pro-Yunque activist who has never acknowledged his membership in the organization). Abascal was Interior Secretary throughout the Oaxaca blow up and was in close touch with corrupt and brutal Governor Ulises Ortiz Ruis, including during the action on the ground the day Brad was killed. Fox Administration Yunque members include Abascal’s private secretary, Raúl Vázquez Osorio, Undersecretary of Labor Francisco Xavier Salazar Saénz, Planning Coordinator Jesús Rivera Barroso, and the department’s budget director, Fernando Urbiola Ledezma. In addition to the Labor Department, the Department of Social Development became home for many Yunque members at the undersecretary level.

The above information was compiled from the NACLA article provided above and correspondence with journalist John Ross and senior NACLA advisor Fred Rosen. Thanks to NACLA, which has generously allowed us to offer this article to visitors to this site.

Eliot L. Engel (D-NY), Chairman

Your calls and emails are having an impact!! Keep them coming! Outrageous that they continue to provide public relations opportunities for boosters of plan mexico but no opportunities to learn from opponents!

No to Plan Mexico! Accountability for the murder of US journalist Brad Will and other innocents killed by the same security forces and covered up by the same government institutions which would be rewarded by this Bush/Calderon “human insecurity” pact.

We need to be in DC for this!!!

January 31, 2008

TO: MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

You are respectfully requested to attend the following OPEN hearing of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, to be held in Room 2212 of the Rayburn House Office Building:

DATE: Thursday, February 7, 2008

TIME: 10:00 a.m.

SUBJECT: U.S. Obligations under the Merida Initiative

WITNESSES: The Honorable Thomas A. Shannon

Assistant Secretary
Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs
U.S. Department of State
more…

NOTE: Witnesses may be added.

By Direction of the Chairman