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Solidarity Without Borders News
Dozens of migrants attacked and kidnapped in Oaxaca
by Scott Campbell On December 16, a freight train left Arraiga, Chiapas, with 300 migrants from Central America riding on top of it. While passing through Oaxaca the train was stopped twice. First, around 100 people were detained at an immigration checkpoint. Twenty minutes later, those remaining on the train were attacked by a gang of armed men, presumably Zetas or Maras, two groups known for preying on migrants and robbing or kidnapping them. Kidnapped migrants are usually held for ransom or forced to become gunmen or drug mules. The Zetas are likely responsible for the massacre of 72 Central American migrants in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas on August 24 of this year. During the attack, at least 40 migrants were kidnapped and have not been heard from since. Of the 300 people to depart from Chiapas, only 20 made it to Ixtepec, Oaxaca, a common layover stop where a Catholic-run migrant shelter is located. A short video with testimonies from some of those who survived the events is posted on YouTube. I translated it and added the subtitles, so any errors in those departments are mine. Along with insinuations that immigration was aware of the attack awaiting the migrants, the Mexican government has been extremely crass in its handling of the situation, at first outright denying what occurred and later acting only after concerted pressure from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. An entire week passed before Mexico agreed to investigate the “supposed kidnappings.” Previously, Mexico’s Interior Ministry had informed El Salvador’s Deputy Foreign Minister that El Salvador’s “stance was unfounded, that [it] had no basis to claim that there was a kidnapping.” While the Mexican government was sitting on its hands regarding the December 16 kidnapping – despite the fact that family members of those kidnapped reported receiving calls demanding ransoms of 10,000 dollars, as well as indications that the victims were being held near the site of the kidnapping – four more Central American migrants were kidnapped on December 21, and a fifth, from El Salvador, was killed during the attack. According to Honduras’ Deputy Foreign Minister, Alden Rivera, 20,000 Central Americans have been kidnapped in Mexico on their way to the United States in the past twelve months. Of those, half were from Honduras. A staggering 30 out of every 100 Honduran migrants in Mexico are kidnapped. As well, Father Alejandro Solalinde Guerra, the Catholic priest who runs the migrant shelter in Ixtepec, Oaxaca, has come under increasing threats and harassment as a result of his work assisting migrants and denouncing the disgraceful and dangerous treatment which undocumented Central American migrants face in Mexico. These kidnappings, and the failure of the Mexican government to act – or even worse, the complicity of some government functionaries in these acts – are emblematic of the impunity that reigns in Mexico. However, though not a focus of this summary, it is important to note that when examining the causes of Central American migration, as well as the rise and power of organizations such as the Zetas and the Maras, one’s gaze must firmly rest on the political and economic policies of the United States. While it is certainly desirable and should be demanded that the Mexican government protect migrants crossing through its territory, upon making that journey these migrants then must again risk their lives to cross into the U.S., only to face massive discrimination and human and labor rights violations upon arrival. The root causes are the neoliberal policies emanating out of Washington and foisted upon Central America and Mexico alike.
December 30, 2010
Read more [El Enemigo Comun]
Chiapas Government Apologizes, Will Set Journalist Gianni Proiettis Free
Prosecutor Claims It Was a Case of Mistaken Identity
By Al Giordano
Publisher, Narco News
December 16, 2010
Read more [Narco News]
Chiapas Police Arrest Italian Professor & Journalist Gianni Proiettis
Il Manifiesto Correspondent’s Family Told Arrest Is for His Coverage of Cancun Climate Talks
By Al Giordano
Publisher, Narco News
December 16, 2010
Read more [Narco News]
Announcing 40 Scholarships in Authentic Journalism in Mexico, May 2011
Ten Days of Intensive Training in Central Mexico: Video Production, Investigative & Online Reporting, and Movement Strategies for Journalists
By Al Giordano
President, School of Authentic Journalism
December 12, 2010
Read more [Narco News]
Mexican President's Proposed Military Jurisdiction Reform Perpetuates Impunity, Say Human Rights Organizations
by Kristin Bricker, Security Sector Resource Reform Centre
Jurisdiction!!! "What the hell do you
know about human rights..."
On October 18, Mexican President Felipe Calderón sent Congress a proposed reform to the country’s “military jurisdiction,” in which the military investigates and tries all alleged crimes committed by active-duty soldiers. Mexican and international human rights organizations, the United Nations, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) have long criticized Mexico’s continued use of military jurisdiction to investigate soldiers’ alleged human rights violations, arguing that the practice promotes impunity. Under Calderón’s proposed reform, cases of torture, rape, and forced disappearance would be investigated and tried by civilian authorities, not military authorities.
Mexican human rights organizations criticized Calderón’s proposed reform as “absurd,” “incomplete,” “harmful,” and “a cosmetic gesture.” Opposition legislators have argued that the reform is designed to “simulate” compliance with a recent IACtHR ruling that ordered Mexico to investigate and try cases of soldiers’ alleged human rights violations in the civilian judicial system. Thirteen Mexican human rights organizations argued in an open letter that in reality, “Mexico would be no closer to complying with its international human rights obligations with this bill, including its duty to implement the binding orders of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights [IACtHR].”
The IACtHR case in question is Radilla Pacheco vs. Mexico. In its November 2009 decision in the case, the Court ruled that “regarding situations that violate the human rights of civilians, the military jurisdiction cannot operate under any circumstance.” The IACtHR gave Mexico until December 2010 to reform the Military Code of Justice accordingly.
Human rights organizations and Mexican opposition parties have identified various loopholes in the proposed reform that would allow the military to continue to police itself in human rights abuse cases. The fact that the reform will only send three crimes—torture, forced disappearance, and rape—to civilian courts has many organizations concerned that the overwhelming majority of human rights abuses committed by soldiers will stay in military courts. Human Rights Watch notes that out of all of the cases in which the Mexican government’s National Human Rights Commission [CNDH] ruled that the military committed “serious abuses” during the Calderón administration, only 5 percent of those cases involve torture, rape, or forced disappearance. “The remaining 59 cases, which include extra-judicial executions, sexual aggression, and cruel and degrading treatment, would continue to be investigated by the Military Public Prosecutor.”
Luis Arriaga, director of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center, shares Human Rights Watch’s concern: “The most common crimes have been: physical aggression or torture, arbitrary detention, attack with a firearm, raid without a warrant, homicide, threats, harassment, robbery… When we consider the crimes committed by military personnel, we can see that the majority of them are not contemplated in the presidential initiative.”
Human rights organizations are concerned that even in cases of rape, torture, or forced disappearance, the charges could still be downgraded to keep the cases in military courts. Under Calderón’s proposed reform, the Military Public Prosecutor will still have the right to classify charges, allowing it to determine if the cases stay in military courts or go to the civilian system. The Military Public Prosecutor already has a proven track record of downgrading charges. For example, in October 2008, soldiers detained four men in Chihuahua. A CNDH investigation into the incident found that the soldiers “put them face-down on the ground, covered their eyes, tied them up with rope, inserted a broom handle in their anuses, and then tied them to a tree so that they would confess to participating in criminal acts.” Rather than charging the soldiers with rape or torture, the military is investigating them for “abuse of authority and sexual abuse.” Both crimes would fall under military rather than civilian jurisdiction despite Calderón’s proposed reform. In November 2009, soldiers detained two brothers from Chihuahua without a warrant. The men’s whereabouts are unknown. The CNDH ruled that soldiers disappeared the men, but the military invested the case as “abuse of authority,” not forced disappearance. Under Calderón’s reform, this case would also stay in military courts.
Calderón’s proposed reform also reportedly puts a statute of limitations on forced disappearances, a move that has Senator Rosario Ibarra livid. She argues that the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearances prohibits putting time limits on the investigation of forced disappearances. But Calderón’s proposal struck a personal cord for Sen. Ibarra: “My son, Jesús Piedra Ibarra, has been disappeared for 35 years. It is not right that they want to give the soldiers [who kidnapped him] impunity.”
Human rights organizations are now focused on pressuring Congress to use Calderón’s proposed reform as an opportunity to democratically legislate the Military Code of Justice for the first time ever. The Military Code of Justice, which establishes military jurisdiction, has remained virtually unchanged since 1933, when then-President Abelardo Luján Rodríguez—a military general who was appointed president without an election—decreed the Military Code of Justice without Congressional debate or approval.
Despite having Calderón’s proposal for nearly a month, the Senate has not had a single meeting on the reform, nor can it estimate when it will get around to debating the issue. Opposition Senator René Arce blames the delay on the military’s omnipotence: “The political parties fear the Armed Forces like they fear the Virgin of Guadalupe.”
Read more [My Word is My Weapon]
HOUSTON: Dream Act Action Pics, Video, Audio
RELEASE JANNEL ROBLES 832.816.1620 MARIA JIMENEZ 713.213.1678 GUILLERMO LOPEZ 832.335.5149 KAY BAILEY HUTCHINSON ORDERS DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY TO DENY DREAMERS AND DREAM ACT SUPPORTERS ACCESS INTO FEDERAL BUILDING DURING BUSINESS HOURS DECEMBER 1, 2010 HOUSTON, TX – A delegation of Houston DREAM Act supporters and Texas hunger strikers – on their 22nd day without solid foods – were denied access to the Mickey Leeland Federal Building on orders to the Department of Homeland Security officers from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s office. “We are trying to communicate with the Senator and ask her to do the reasonable thing for our youth. We are disappointed with her for denying us access to a Federal building, for not meeting with us, and for not standing with DREAM Act students,” says Jannell Robles, Houston DREAM Act supporter. DHS officers said that Senator Hutchinson’s office had been closed and were not allowed into the building. Approximately 50 supporters including community leaders, religious leaders, professors, students and elected officials held a rally outside as hunger strikers attempted to enter the building. “Representative Sheila Jackson Lee’s staff was rational enough to recognize our constitutional right to have access to the building and invited us and supporters into their office,” said Guillermo Lopez, Dream Act Supporter and HCC student. Upon visiting with Rep. Lee’s office, supporters visited Hutchison’s office only to be received with a closed door and a note taped to the door of her Nov 30th public statement on the DREAM Act. “The DREAM Act is my last hope as well as for other undocumented students across the country. We need it this year,” said Lucina Martinez, undergraduate at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The DREAM Act is bipartisan legislation that would enable young immigrants who were brought to the United States as children without documents to normalize their immigration status by finishing high school and enrolling in college or enlisting in the military. The measure has the support of 70 percent of American voters, leaders of every major religious denomination in America as well as leaders from the education, business, and military sectors. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pledged to bring the DREAM Act up for a vote this year. Guillermo Lopez, UH Student denied access to Mickey Leeland Federal Building, 832-335-5149 Lucina Martinez, Texas hunger striker denied access to Mickey Leeland Federal Building, 469-386-1118 Pamela Resendiz, Texas university student denied access to Mickey Leeland Federal Building, 210-693-8533 Sylvia Mintz, Houston Lawyer denied access to Mickey Leeland Federal Building, 832-314-7394 Support: CRECEN, Alianza Mexicana, International Action Center, Mi Familia Vota, Houston Interfaith Worker Justice, and FIEL Houston
Read more [La Nueva Raza]
SAN JUAN: Federal suit filed against Family Dollar stores for alleged wage theft
Federal suit filed against Family Dollar stores for alleged wage theft Naxiely Lopez SAN JUAN — Nearly 30 people gathered in front of the Family Dollar store in this city Thursday to protest against alleged wage theft and other violations by the company. The protestors waved their red United Farm Worker flags and held up posters demanding the company pay five employees who have allegedly been denied wages for almost two years. The workers cleaned several stores throughout the Rio Grande Valley for over a month almost two years ago and have yet to be paid, said Martha Sanchez, an organizer for La Union del Pueblo Entero. “We have several complaints that came through our office saying that people didn’t get paid,” she said. “The company also hires them to do contract labor and ends up paying them less than the minimum wage. And they never get paid overtime.” As a result, the non-profit migrant advocacy organization and the South Texas Civil Rights Project filed a lawsuit in a Brownsville federal court against the stores and the janitorial company who contracted them. Family Dollar Stores of Texas, LLC could not be reached for comment Thursday. “It’s all about the dignity,” STCRP Attorney Elliott Tucker. “These people just poured their heart out working for this company doing the cleaning, working nights, really long hours and really long shifts. And then to just not get paid at the end of the month or month and a half is devastating.” Demetrio Vazquez, 41, is one of those workers. “I worked almost three weeks and they never paid us,” Vazquez said in Spanish about Israel and Maria Vallejo, owners of Vallejo Janitorial. “(Israel Vallejo) would pick us up in Weslaco — that was our meeting point — at 5 in the afternoon and we would work until 11 in the morning cleaning several stores.” Marcelino Valdez, 46, is another plaintiff who was also protesting. “It’s not fair for them to use us and then not pay us,” Valdez said. “We have necessities and bills to pay.” Valdez, who lives in Donna, said he sends money to his four sons in Tampico, Tamaulipas for schooling. “We just want them to pay us and to stop the discrimination,” he added. There are too many abuses in the Rio Grande Valley, said supporter Reyna Torales. “When we work in the fields, in the potato or asparagus, they pay us week by week and they don’t just string us along,” the protestor said in Spanish. “Our American dream has become a tragedy with these people who don’t want to pay.” But problems with the company are not only being heard locally, Tucker said. People are protesting against the company in El Paso for similar claims. Sanchez said both organizations are working to form a new group called Fuerza Del Valle, which in English means Valley’s Strength. “We’re trying to establish this group for fair wages and everything that has to do with workers’ rights,” she said. “Any time injustices happen, especially to our members, LUPE is going to stand with them.” Tucker encouraged anyone who is experiencing similar injustices to contact LUPE headquarters in San Juan. “We want to help people,” he said. “That’s what we’re here for.”
The Monitor
Read more [La Nueva Raza]
The People of Watsonville 1 — Picking the Colonizers’ Vegetable
By David Bacon The California coast, from Davenport south through Santa Cruz, Watsonville and Castroville, is brussels sprouts country. Most of this vegetable in north America comes from these fields, although a growing harvest now takes place in Baja California, in northern Mexico. In both California and Baja California, the vast majority of the people who harvest brussels sprouts, like those who pick other crops, are Mexican. In Baja they’re migrants from the states of southern Mexico. In California, they’re immigrant workers who’ve crossed the border to labor in these fields. On a cold November day, this crew of Mexican migrant workers picks brussels sprouts on a ranch outside of Watsonville. Many people love this vegetable, and serve it for dinner on the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Native people in the U.S. point out that Thanksgiving celebrates the beginning of the European colonization of north America, which drove them from the lands where they lived historically. The brussels sprouts came with the colonizers. While the Romans probably grew and ate them, the first plants came to this continent with the French to the colonies of Quebec and the Atlantic seaboard. Today the people picking in this field may be immigrants to the U.S., but in a longer historical view, they are the descendents of indigenous people whose presence in north America predated Columbus and the arrival of the brussels sprouts by thousands of years. Now they cross the border between Mexico and the U.S. as migrant workers, many speaking indigenous languages as old, or even older, than those of the colonizers – Mixteco, Triqui or Nahuatl. In the soft conversations among the workers of this picking crew, and other crews harvesting the sprouts, you can hear those languages mixed with that of the Spaniards. Brussels sprouts may be a colonizers’ vegetable, but it has many healthy properties. It contains sulforaphane and indole-3-carbinol, both of which are believed to play a role in blocking the growth of cancer. In yet another irony, in non-organic fields, picking crews often get exposed to the agricultural chemicals that are one important cause of the explosion of cancer in the U.S. Farm workers get much higher doses than the supermarket patrons who buy the produce they pick. But it’s a job. Putting the food on the table is really one of the most important jobs people do, and one that gets the least acknowledgement and respect. So the next time you decide on brussels sprouts for dinner, first, don’t boil them. It removes those healthy anti-cancer chemicals. And don’t overcook them either – that’s what produces the sulfur taste many people don’t like. But then, when they’re out there on the table, remember who got them there. ————– David Bacon, Photographs and Stories
Watsonville, CA 11/19/10
http://dbacon.igc.org
Read more [El Enemigo Comun]
Emeterio Marino Disagrees with the Liberation of Police Aggressors
By: Octavio Vélez Ascencio, Nov. 16th 2010 Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) activist Emerito Marino Cruz said that he will protest the liberation of the five municipal and state police officers accused of the beatings he suffered on July 16, 2007 in the vicinity of the “Guelaguetza” auditorium. “It is not just, it makes me furious; I can’t speak or walk properly because I was left in such a bad way.” The police officers: First Commandant of the Municipal Police of Oaxaca de Juárez, Alfredo Luis Santos; sub-official Alejandro Franklin Ortiz (bodyguard of the assassinated coordinator of Public Safety, Roads and Transit of the City Council of Oaxaca, Aristeo López Martínez); Agent Nemesio Vásquez Matus; State Preventative Police Agent Javier Díaz Miguel; Eugenio Silva Santiago, Agent of the Commercial, Industrial, Banking and Auxiliary Police; and Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, member of the escort of this corporation’s director who was likewise assassinated, were all freed two nights ago from Tanivet state prison thus ending their sentence of three years, two months and 9 days as dictated by the Second Judge of the Criminal Court. The APPO activist said that this conviction reflects the decision of Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz because it is absurd given the neurological and linguistic damage provoked by his beating. “He’s leaving (his mandate) and does not want to leave traces of what he did”, he assessed. Furthermore, he underlined that the Second Judge of the Criminal Court had promised to not liberate the officers until they had covered reparations payments for the harm he suffered. “They beat me, they tortured me, they almost killed me, without having committed any crime; they left me in a horrible state”, he pointed out. He highlighted that his family along with teachers from the Sección 22 of the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE – National Union of Education Workers) and followers of the APPO will meet this coming Tuesday outside the Second Criminal Court to protest the freeing of the police officers and to demand reparations accordingly for the harm he has suffered. Not even 300 thousand pesos are enough because I have been left in a condition unfit to work; that’s nothing. I have to take pills every day, and one little box costs 1500 pesos”, he pointed out. The five police officers were tried for aggravated assault and abuse of authority – criminal record 123/2007, but every last one was acquitted. Video: REPRESION EN OAXACA (July 2007)
Translated: Erica Lagalisse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO6_av7yK3E
Read more [El Enemigo Comun]
Federal Police Shoot Student in Ciudad Juarez During Forum Against Militarization and Violence
by Kristin Bricker, Huffington Post
Darío Alvarez Orrantia is an adherent
to the Zapatistas' Other Campaign.
Mexican Federal Police shot and injured sociology student José Darío Alvarez Orrantia during the 11th Walk Against Death in Ciudad Juarez on Friday, October 29. Witnesses say that federal police fired at least five shots at Walk participants.
Alvarez Orrantia survived surgery and is in grave condition, reports La Polaka. The bullet entered his body in the upper part of his buttocks and exited through his abdomen, exposing his intestines. Witnesses say police shot the victim from behind as he ran. Alvarez Orrantia's intestines have been perforated in multiple places. If he survives his injuries, he will likely have permanent complications, doctors told La Polaka.
The 11th Walk Against Death was part of the International Forum Against Militarization and Violence, which was held this past weekend in Ciudad Juarez. Alvarez Orrantia was shot just before a scheduled roundtable discussion entitled "Youthicide."
A statement from forum participants claims that federal officers shot Alvarez Orrantia at close range on the campus of the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez, where the Forum was being held. Mexican law strictly prohibits police from entering autonomous university campuses.
Participants in the Walk say that the police targeted a group of graffiti artists who were painting walls during the demonstration, and that the officers chased the demonstrators onto the university campus, where they shot Alvarez Orrantia. Photos of the Walk show that the demonstration was peaceful in nature. Participants carried several large banners that clearly identified the gathering as a protest against the military's presence in Juarez. Alvarez Orrantia appears in several photos stenciling graffiti during the Walk.
The federal government contradicts witnesses' claims. It argues that the officers were pursuing homicide suspects when they inadvertently stumbled upon the Walk Against Death. "A couple of [demonstrators] had their faces covered," said the federal Ministry of Public Security in a statement, "leading the federal agents to get out of their vehicles and shoot warning shots into the air." The Ministry statement does not clarify how warning shots fired into the air could have injured Alvarez Orrantia. Internal Affairs is investigating two officers for their involvement in the shooting.
Juarez has been a laboratory where government officials have experimented new tactics and strategies in Mexico's increasingly violent drug war. The military occupied Juarez and relieved local police of their duties from March 2008 to April 2010, when Federal Police took over policing duties from the soldiers. Juarez's mayor and the governor of Chihuahua, where Juarez is located, have sought advice and training from Colombian mayors and police. Furthermore, a new phase of the US drug war aid package the Merida Initiative will reportedly focus on "institution building" and "rule of law" in Ciudad Juarez.
Despite the drastic measures, violence has only increased in Ciudad Juarez. The city now has the distinction of being the deadliest city in the world.
Read more [My Word is My Weapon]
Corruption And Deforestation Caused Oaxaca’s Mudslide Disaster
by Kristin Bricker, Upside Down World
[This article has been updated from the original that appeared in Upside Down World in order to reflect new death tolls.]
On Tuesday morning, the world awoke to the news that a mudslide had buried 80% of Tlahuitoltepec, Oaxaca, a municipality of 10,000 people. Tearful Tlahuitoltepec officials told the press that 300-500 people were feared buried under the mud, while Oaxaca's Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz placed the number of possible deaths at "up to 1,000." The federal government deployed the military and federal police to the zone, and even the United States offered its assistance in digging out Tlahuitoltepec residents.
Now, as more rescue crews are gaining access to the municipality, the government has toned down its assessment of the damage. Five bodies have been pulled from the mud, and another six people are missing. However, rescue crews have still not reached six communities in Tlahuitoltepec. Electricity and phone service are down in the majority of the municipality, and many roads are covered with debris or have washed away.
Regardless of its final death toll, the disaster was foreseeable and highlights the deadly consequences of the state's notorious, rampant corruption in public works.
Deforestation
The 2010 hurricane season has caused record rainfall in southern Mexico, leading to flooding, mudslides, and deaths in several states, including Oaxaca.
The mudslide washed away 4-6 houses.
A report published by the federal government's Mineral Resources Council in 2001 warned that as a result of deforestation, Tlahuitoltepec regularly suffers major landslides during hurricane season. The report, entitled "Natural Dangers," warns that Tlahuitoltepec's mudslides tend to affect both roads and houses. The government has done nothing to address the mudslide problem in Tlahuitoltepec, where many residents live on the slopes of steep hills.
The mudslide that shocked the world on September 28 didn't happen overnight. The mud began to slide on September 13, causing the walls of nearby houses to crack as the earth began to move. At that time, Mexico's Civil Protection (similar to the US government's Federal Emergency Management Agency) told the municipal president to evacuate the town. However, neither the state nor the federal government appear to have helped with the evacuation, nor did they offer Tlahuitoltepec residents a refuge. It was only after local officials apparently exaggerated the magnitude of the September 28 mudslide that state police began to escort residents out of Tlahuitoltepec.
As rescue crews continue to arrive and evaluate the situation in the entire indigenous Mixe region (where Tlahuitoltepec is located), they will decide if they will evacuate up to 30,000 people. "In that zone it rains a lot. The land is unstable and there could be more mudslides," Oaxacan Governor Ulises Ruiz told El Universal. "It's better to act, because something could happen."
Oaxacan Roads Paved With Corruption
Unfortunately, Gov. Ruiz decided to act only when Tlahuitoltepec officials grossly exaggerated the September 28 mudslide. Local officials have been warning the state government that the mudslides could provoke a humanitarian disaster since August, when they complained that 50% of the highways in their region were damaged. "If they aren't repaired, we'll run the risk that various towns will be completely cut off in the coming days," state Congressman Floriberto Vásquez Vásquez told the state government and press. The state government ignored his pleas.
On September 8, Vásquez's warnings became reality. On that day, a Oaxaca state official reported that 80% of the state's 22,000 km of highways were damaged due to both mudslides and shoddy construction, cutting off over thirty communities from the outside world. The Mixe was one of the most affected regions.
Roads and Runways of Oaxaca (CAO), the state agency in charge of building and maintaining Oaxaca's roads, responded to concerns over the highways' dire conditions by saying that it couldn't repair them because it had no money left in its budget. Adiario, a Oaxacan newspaper that openly supports the state's ruling party, wrote in an op-ed (PDF):
"CAO officials' statements that 'there aren't any resources' to fix the 80% of the highways that are currently damaged in Oaxaca are surprising. One asks why the CAO...has a multi-million peso annual budget that is mismanaged. That, sirs, is called incompetence. If there are dozens of communities that are completely cut off by mudslides and collapsed highways, it is a priority to come up with the money to solve the problem....Audits are necessary, because, despite the allocation of resources, the money doesn't reach the victims the majority of the time."
Claims of corruption in Oaxaca's highway projects and other public works are as old as the highways themselves. The suspicions stem from the projects'high costs and shoddy results. Some highways fall apart within months.
Public officials often award no-bid construction contracts to their friends and fellow party members. Citizens suspect that funds from many of these contracts are used to fund political campaigns. Such is the case in Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, where Jesús Hiram Mortera funded his campaign for municipal president with his earnings from public works projects. Two successive municipal presidents awarded him the majority of the public works contracts in the town. The government is now auditing the two former municipal presidents over alleged embezzlement of funds through Mortera's construction projects. Of particular concern is Mortera's "rehabilitation" of a four-lane highway in Salina Cruz. The highway has collapsed three times since Mortera "rehabilitated" it.
So far no one has proven that Oaxacan politicians and contractors embezzle money from highway projects by using cheap materials and pocketing the difference. In 2008, state auditors concluded that Carlos Alberto Ramos Aragón used a boulevard construction project to embezzle money when he served as municipal president of Pinotepa Nacional, Oaxaca, but they never discovered exactly how: Ramos Aragón simply didn't hand over receipts to the auditors. Ramos Aragón was never punished for this presumed embezzlement. He currently serves as director of Oaxaca's State Civil Protection Institute, one of the agencies in charge of Tlahuitoltepec rescue efforts.
About 3km of dirt road connect Tlahuitoltepec to the
nearest paved road.
While details on how politicians embezzle money from completed highway projects are vague or unproven, a recent scandal in the federal program "Firm Ground" demonstrates how many Oaxacans suspect contractors and politicians are stealing money from highway projects. The federal government provided funding to states such as Oaxaca through the "Firm Ground" project to install concrete floors in homes that had dirt floors. The federal government calculated the amount of cement it sent to the states based on the quantity and dimensions of the homes that would receive new floors through the program. In Guerrero, another state that received cement through "Firm Ground," a federal audit found that state and local politicians watered down the donated cement with cheaper sand so less cement was needed to install the floors. Beneficiaries were left with low-quality floors, while local politicians turned around and sold the excess cement. Guerrero politicians and contractors embezzled $149 million pesos through the scheme, according to the federal audit.
Some Oaxacan communities are demanding a similar audit of the “Firm Ground” program in their state. Residents claim that local politicians are using the same scheme to deliver less cement to beneficiaries, and that the politicians use the excess cement to buy votes. Angry residents also claim that politicians pay the workers in charge of installing the floors half of what the federal government budgeted for their salaries, and that the politicians pocket the other half.
While audits have yet to uncover embezzlement schemes connected to the materials used to construct Oaxaca's notoriously terrible highways, "phantom" highway projects are common. In phantom projects, the government pays for a roadway to be constructed or paved. The local officials claim that the project was completed and collect the cash, but in reality the project was never even initiated. Just this past August, the federal government fired nine Oaxacan officials for embezzling $930,000 pesos through phantom roadway projects. In April, authorities from sixty towns marched in San Juan Mixtepec to protest the municipal president's alleged embezzlement of $10 million pesos in federal funds through phantom road, bridge, and potable water projects.
This bridge, located about two hours from Tlahuitoltepec,
collapsed, delaying rescue efforts for hours.
The consequences of corruption and embezzlement in public works is costly and deadly, as the disaster in Tlahuitoltepec demonstrates. Exaggerated reports of the mudslide’s magnitude circulated for over ten hours before the first rescue crews could reach the devastated town, which is located only two-and-a-half hours from Oaxaca City. The first rescue crews arrived on foot because the roads were impassable. Heavy equipment such as bulldozers arrived much later. While the world watched in horror as collapsed highways and bridges delayed rescuers and equipment, no one in Oaxaca was surprised—bad road conditions have become a fact of life.
While massive loss of life appears to have been avoided in Tlahuitoltepec, the mudslide should serve as a warning to the state and federal government that more oversight and accountability are needed to avoid a future catastrophe.
Read more [My Word is My Weapon]
Autonomous Authorities Order Total Evacuation of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca
by Kristin Bricker, Upside Down World
Tuesday, 21 September 2010 19:19
San Juan Copala's town hall, riddled with AK-47 bullets.
Authorities of the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, have ordered the total evacuation of the town, which has been under siege since February of this year. The authorities issued the order when alleged paramilitaries raided San Juan Copala and said that they would massacre all supporters of the autonomous municipality.
Alleged paramilitaries cut off water, electricity, and access to the town in February. They also stationed gunmen in the hills surrounding the town and shot at anyone they saw on the streets. For months, San Juan Copala survived off of the little food that women could carry into town on their backs, using trails through the woods to sneak past the gunmen who patrol the perimeter.
However, on September 13, the situation became unbearable when gunmen took over San Juan Copala's town hall. The gunmen, whom the autonomous municipality claim are from rival Triqui organizations Movement for Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT) and the Union for the Social Well-being of the Triqui Region (UBISORT), have kept San Juan Copala under a constant barrage of bullets since they took over the town hall.
The autonomous municipality has reported at least five females injured—including a little girl—and one man killed, all by gunfire, since MULT and UBISORT took over the town hall. Gunmen shot a second man, David Garcia, and at this time it is unknown if he is alive or dead. According to Jorge Albino, a spokesman for the autonomous municipality, police handed his body over to the alleged paramilitaries who are occupying the town hall. The autonomous municipality believes that Garcia was alive when police turned him over to the gunmen who shot him.
In addition, two disabled people disappeared as they fled San Juan Copala. One-hundred-year-old Jose Gonzalo Cruz disappeared as he fled with other people through the brush under heavy gunfire. Cruz is blind, and it is believed that he was separated from the group and became lost.
A mentally handicapped woman named Susana López Martínez is also reported disappeared. She attempted to flee San Juan Copala with a group of other women on September 18 under heavy gunfire. When the women re-grouped out of the line of fire, 21-year-old López Martínez was gone. No one saw her disappear, and it is unknown if she was injured in the shooting. If López Martínez has fallen into UBISORT’s hands, she is in extreme danger. This past May, UBISORT leader Rufino Juarez allegedlykidnapped López Martínezand her mother. The two women escaped and denounced the kidnapping to human rights organizations and the international media.
The autonomous municipality reports that the gunmen who raided San Juan Copala went house-to-house and beat people they found inside. The gunmen are also burning the abandoned homes of residents who have fled the violence.
The autonomous municipality reported that fifty families remained in San Juan Copala at the beginning of the raid on September 13. All but two families have managed to escape. Those two families are in two houses that are completely surrounded by gunmen.
Triqui women and children have maintained protest encampment in Oaxaca City’s town square since August to demand an end to the violence and justice for the victims. Those women declared a hunger strike on September 10 to pressure the government to send police into San Juan Copala to evacuate the two families who remain trapped inside. The striking women, who were driven out of San Juan Copala by the violence, want the government to bring the trapped families to Oaxaca City.
The Oaxaca state government said that it is preparing an operation to “restore order” in San Juan Copala. Oaxaca’s Undersecretary of the Interior Joaquín Rodríguez Palacios announced that Oaxaca state police planned to restore electricity and reopen schools in San Juan Copala. The plan seems completely absurd when it is taken into account that at most 25 residents remain in San Juan Copala—and all of them want to leave. Palacios did not mention any plans to evacuate the remaining residents.
It remains to be seen if the government will follow through with the operation. UBISORT leader Rufino Juarez told Noticias de Oaxaca that there would be a “bloodbath” if the government doesn’t “reach an agreement” with his organization regarding the proposed police operation.
Dialogue Failed Again
Lona Reyes, the bishop of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, and Father Wilfrido Mayrén of the Diocese Commission for Peace and Justice in Oaxaca, called upon MULT and the Independent Movement for Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT-I), a MULT splinter group that co-founded the autonomous municipality, to a dialogue mediated by the church. The goal of the proposed dialogue was to reach a peaceful solution to the conflict through negotiations. Past negotiations mediated by the government broke down because the autonomous municipality has refused sit at a negotiating table with MULT and UBISORT while those groups were allegedly murdering its supporters.
MULT-I refused to participate in the church-mediated dialogue because it claims that MULT is one of the groups carrying out the armed attack on San Juan Copala. MULT-I conditioned its participation in the dialogue on a cease-fire in the autonomous municipality and the presentation of the residents who disappeared during the attack.
The Mexican newspaper Milenio interpreted the failed dialogue and the evacuation of the autonomous municipality as a sign that the autonomous project is dead. However, a source close to the autonomous authorities said, “Once we get everyone out [of San Juan Copala] we will continue the project from the outside. Right now we are worried about getting those people out alive.”
The complete evacuation of San Juan Copala does not in and of itself mean that the autonomous project is dead: San Juan Copala is the name of a town and a municipality (a group of towns, like a county). Only the town of San Juan Copala, which is the municipal cabezera (county seat), has been under siege, and only the town is being evacuated.
Representatives from twenty Triqui communities reportedly participated in the founding of the autonomous municipality. In addition to the town of San Juan Copala, ten Triqui communities are officially aligned with the autonomous municipality. Autonomous authorities claim that an additional six communities support the autonomous municipality, but that they fear retaliation if they publicly declare their affiliation. In addition to the sixteen communities that give their full support to the autonomous municipality, the autonomous authorities claim to have supporters in another handful of communities that are controlled by rival organizations.
Of the ten communities that officially belong to the autonomous municipality, San Juan Copala was the only community under siege. The other communities have suffered attacks and assassinations, but they were not affected by the paramilitary blockade nor the recent invasion.
© 2010 Upside Down World
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