Them and Us Part 4: The Pains from Below by Subcomandante Marcos

THEM AND US

IV.- The Pains From Below

January 2013.

How many times have the cops stopped us on the street for the crime of "having a suspicious face" or a mohawk, and then after a beating and extortion they let us go?

"Repression and Criminalizatoin," Anarchist Black Cross-Mexico.  January 2013

-And [what do you say] to the young people who see you as a hero and an example of a person who has been unjustly punished by a repressive system?

-That I'm not a hero.  That every one of the young people who hit the streets every day to organize and change this unjust society and this economic and political system are heroes.  They organize, they defend themselves… That they shouldn't be afraid, that fear is going to change sides--

Alfonso Fernández, detained in prison after N14 in the Spanish State, interviewed by Shangay Lily in Kaos en la Red.  January 2013. [1]

"An enemy is needed to give the people hope. (…) That said, the feeling of identity is based in the hatred of those who aren't the same.  It is necessary to cultivate hate as a civil passion.  The enemy is the people's friend.  They need someone to hate so that they feel justified in their own misery.  Always.  Hatred is the true primordial passion."

Umberto Eco.  The Prague Cemetery.

Where and when did the violence start?

Let's see.

In front of a mirror, on any calendar, and in any geography…

Imagine that you are different from everyone else.

Imagine that you are something very other.

Imagine that you have a certain skin or hair color.

Imagine that they look down on you and make fun of you, that they persecute you, that they jail you, that they kill you because of it, for being different.

Imagine that since the day you were born, the system has repeatedly told you that you are something weird, abnormal, sick, that you should be sorry for who you are and, after blaming it on bad luck or divine justice, you should do everything you can to change this "factory defect."

Juan Francisco "Kuy" Kuykendall

/ And of course, look, we have a product that easily works w-o-n-d-e-r-s with congenital defects.  This way of thinking relieves rebelliousness and that annoying complaining about everything.  This cream changes skin color.  This hair dye gives you a fashionable shade.  This course about "how to win friends and be popular on the internet" gives you everything you need to be a modern person.  This treatment will give you your youth back.  This DVD will show you how to act at the table, on the street, at work, in bed, during illegal muggings (robbers), during legal muggings (banks, government officials, elections, legally established businesses), at social gatherings… what?  Oh, they don't invite you to social gatherings? … ok, it also tells you how to make it so they do invite you.  In short, here you will know the secret of how to succeed in life.  Leave Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber in the dust on Twitter with your number of followers!  It includes a mask of your choosing.  We have them all!  Even a CSG [Carlos Salinas de Gortari] mask… ok, ok, ok, that was a bad example, but we do have one for any need.  So they won't look at you with disgust anymore!  So they no longer call you a degenerate, indian, prole, black, region 4, zombie, zapatistaphile! /

Imagine that, in spite of all your efforts and good deeds, you can't seem to hide your skin or hair color.

Now imagine that a campaign is launched to eliminate all of those who are like you.

Uriel Sandoval

It's not that there's an event to kick it off, or a law that establishes it, but you realize that the whole system starts to work against you, and against people like you.  The whole society turns into a machine whose goal is to annihilate you.

First there's looks of disapproval, disgust, distain.  Then there's the insults, attacks.  Then there's detainees, deportees, prisoners.  Then there's cadavers here and there, legal and illegal.  Finally there's an actual campaign, the machine at full capacity, to disappear you and all of those who are like you.  The identity of those who make up society is maintained through hatred towards you.  Your crime? Being different.

-*-

You still don't see it?

Ok, imagine that you are… (use masculine, feminine, or other pronouns, depending on the case).

Celedonio Prudencio Monroy

An indigenous person in a country dominated by foreigners.  A flock of military helicopters is headed toward your lands.  The press will say that the wind farm occupation impedes the reduction of pollution or that the jungle is being destroyed.  "The eviction was necessary to reduce global warming," says the Interior Minister.

A black man in a nation dominated by whites.  A WASP judge is going to sentence him.  The jury found him guilty.  Amongst the evidence presented by the prosecutor is an analysis of his skin color.

A Jew in Nazi Germany.  The Gestapo officer stares at him.  The next day the official report will say that the human race has been purified.

A Palestinian in present-day Palestine.  The Israeli army's missile is aimed at the school, hospital, neighborhood, house.  Tomorrow the media will say that they took out military targets.

An immigrant on the other side of any border.  The border patrol approaches.  The next day there won't be anything about it in the news.

A priest, nun, layperson who sided with the poor, in the middle of the Vatican's opulence.  The Cardinal's sermon is against those who meddle in worldly affairs.

 Adrián Javier González Villarreal

A street vendor in an exclusive mall in an exclusive residential zone.  A truck full of riot police parks. "We defend free trade," the government delegate will declare.

A woman by herself, day or night, on public transportation full of men.  A small tick in the "gender violence" statistics.  The cop will say: "it's that sometimes they provoke them."

A gay by himself, day or night, on public transportation full of machos.  A small tick in the "homophobic violence" statistics. 

A sex worker on a strange street and someone else's corner… a squad car pulls up.  "The government is cracking down on white slavery," the press will say.

A punk, a Rastafarian, a rudeboy, a cholo, a metal head, on the street at night… another squad card approaches.  "We're putting a stop to antisocial behavior and vandalism," says the elected official.

Cruz Morales Calderón

A graffiti artist "tagging" the World Trade Center… another squad car pulls up.  "We'll do everything necessary in order to have a beautiful and attractive city for tourism," says some official.

A communist at a rightwing fascist party meeting.  "We're against the totalitarianism that has done so much damage around the world," says the party president.

An anarchist in a communist party meeting. "We are against the petit bourgeois deviations that have done so much damage to the global revolution," says the party's chairman.

A segment from the "31 minutos" news broadcast on the CNN news ticker.  Tulio Triviño and Juan Carlos Bodoque look at each other, disturbed, but they don't say anything. [2]

An alternative band trying to sell its CD at a concert starring Lady Gaga, Madonna, Justin Bieber, whoever comes after them.  The cops approach.  The fans scream like crazy.

Juvencio Lascurain

An artist performing traditional indigenous dances outside of the great cultural center where the (yes-gala-invitation-only-we're-sorry-ma'am-you're-getting-in-the-way) Bolshoi ballet company is performing.  Security proceeds to reestablish calm.

An old man in a meeting chaired by Japanese finance minister Taro Aso (he studied at Stanford and just a little while ago asked that the elderly "hurry up and die already" because it's really expensive to keep them alive).  Social spending is cut even further.

An Anonymous criticizing a Microsoft-Apple shareholders meeting about copyrights.  "A dangerous hacker behind bars," the media will say.

A young Mapuche who, in Chile, demands his ancestors' territory as he watches the olive-green offensive roll in with tanks and carabineers.  The bullet that fatally wounds him in the back will not be punished.

Matías Valentín Catrileo Quezada

A youngster and/or student or unemployed worker at a military-police-civil guard-carabineer checkpoint.  The last thing he heard?  "Shoot!"

An indigenous Nahua in the offices of a transnational mining company.  Men in uniforms kidnap him.  "We're investigating," say respective governments.

A dissident in front of a grey metal fence that's been erected, while on the other side the Mexican political class bites their tongues about yet another imposition.  He's hit with a rubber bullet that causes him to lose an eye or break his skull. "It's called uniting for the good of the country.  It's time to put the bickering behind us," say the talking heads on the news.

 Francisco Sántiz López

A peasant in front of an army of lawyers and police hearing that the land that he works, where his parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on were born and grew up, now belongs to a real estate company, and that you're depriving the poor businessmen of something that legally belongs to them.  Jail.

Someone who opposes the electoral fraud sees how 40 thieves and their boot-lickers are exonerated.  The mockery: "We've got to turn over a new leaf and look forward."

A man or woman approaches to see what all the ruckus is about and is suddenly surrounded by law enforcement.  While they shove, beat, and kick her or him as they take her to the squad car, you manage to see that a well-known television channel's cameras are pointed somewhere else.

An indigenous Zapatista in the bad government's (PRI-PAN-PRD-PT-MC) jail for years.[3]  He reads in the newspaper: "Why did the EZLN reappear now that the PRI has returned to power?  Very suspicious."

-*-

Are you still with us?

Now…

Do you feel with certainty that you're out of place?

Do you feel the fear from being ignored, insulted, beaten, mocked, humiliated, raped, imprisoned, murdered just because of who you are?

Do you feel the impotence of not being able to do anything to avoid it, to defend yourself, to be heard?

Do you curse the moment that you went to that place, the day you were born, the hour you began to read this text?

-*-

Several of the aforementioned examples have names, calendars, and geographies:

Juan Francisco Kuykendall Leal.  The compa "Kuy," adherent to the Other Campaign, professor, thespian, director.  Skull smashed open on December 1, 2012, by a shot from "law enforcement."  He planned to do a play about Enrique Peña Nieto.

José Uriel Sandoval Díaz.  Young student at the Autonomous University of Mexico City and member of the Student Struggle Committee.  He lost an eye in the repression on December 1, 2012, as a result of a "law enforcement" attack.  He was planning  to resist the imposition of Enrique Peña Nieto.

Celedonio Prudencio Monroy.  Indigneous Nahua.  Kidnapped on October 23, 2012 by "law enforcement."  He was planning to resist the plundering of Nahua lands by mining companies and loggers.

Adrián Javier González Villareal.  Young student at the National Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon's Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Department in Mexico, murdered in January 2013 by "law enforcement."  He was planning to graduate and become a successful professional.

Cruz Morales Calderón and Juvencio Lascurain.  Peasants taken prisoner in Veracruz, 2010-2011, by "law enforcement."  They were planning on resisting the plundering of their lands by real estate companies.

Matías Valentín Catrileo Quezada.  Young indigenous Mapuche, murdered on January 3, 2008, in Chile, Latin America, by "law enforcement."  He was planning on resisting the plundering of Mapuche land by the government, estate owners, and transnational companies.

Francisco Sántiz López, indigenous Zapatista, unjustly imprisoned by "law enforcement."  He was planning on resisting the government counterinsurgency campaign of [former Chiapas governor] Juan Sabines Guerrero and [former president] Felipe Calderón Hinojosa.

-*-

Now… don't despair, we're almost done...

Now imagine that you aren't afraid, or you are but you get it under control.

Imagine that you go and, in front of the mirror, not only do you not hide anything or cover up your difference with makeup, and instead you emphasize it.

Imagine that you turn your difference into a shield and weapon, you defend yourself, you find others like you, you organize, you resist, you struggle, and without even realizing it, you go from "I'm different" to "we're different."

Imagine that you don't hide behind "maturity" and "good judgement," behind "now is not the time," "the conditions aren't right," "we have to wait," "it's useless," "there's no way to fix it."

Imagine that you don't sell out, that you don't give up, that you don't give in.

Can you imagine it?

Ok, well even though neither we nor you know it yet, we're part of a "we" that's bigger and has yet to be built.

(to be continued…)

From any corner of any world.

SupMarcos.
Planet Earth.
January 2013.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen and watch the video that accompanies this text:


"Born Free" by M.I.A. (Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam).  Video director: Romain Gavras (son of Costa Gavras).  Photography: André Chemetoff.  Produced by: Mourad Belkeddar.  Executive Producer: Gaetan Rousseau / Paradoxal.  This video was censored by YouTube due to its content.



"Burnin' an Lootin" by Bob Marley.  Video is the beginning of "La Haine" ("The Hatred"), written and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995.  Subtitles in Spanish.


Translated from the original Spanish by Kristin Bricker.

Translator's Notes:

1. N14: the November 14, 2012, general strike called by Spanish unions.
2. 31 Minutos is a Chilean mock news program anchored by puppets.  Triviño and Boduque are puppets on the show.
3. PRI = Institutional Revolution Party; PAN = rightwing National Action Party; PRD = center-left Democratic Revolution Party; PT = Workers' Party, a front for the PRI; MC = Movimiento Ciudadano, a PRD splinter party.  Marcos mentions all of the major political parties, even the so-called leftist parties, because the Zapatistas oppose all of them.  The PRD ruled Chiapas for years, and during that time the government and PRD party members attacked the Zapatistas (frequently physically) just as the other parties had done.

Read the rest of "Them and Us:"

• Part 1: The (Lack of) Reason from Above
• Part 2: The Machine in Almost Two Pages
• Part 3: The Overseers

In Bloody Durango, Civilian and Police Families Unite to Protest Drug War

By Kristin Bricker, Americas Program


The world was shocked when Mexican authorities uncovered seven clandestine mass graves containing at least 226 drug war victims in Durango this past April and May. However, the only truly surprising detail about the mass graves was that they weren’t discovered sooner.

The murder rate in Durango skyrocketed after President Felipe Calderón declared war on organized crime in late 2006. The number of executions soared 1,401 percent from 67 in 2005 to 939 in 2010. With 910 murders so far in 2011, Durango is set to surpass 2010′s murders by the end of June.

As the executions continue unabated in Durango, it is obvious that Calderón’s unsubstantiated assertion that 90% of Mexico’s murder victims are members of organized crime is simply untrue. The government couldn’t even identify 54 of the 226 bodies in Durango’s clandestine mass graves—that is, 24% of the victims—so it reburied them in a municipal mass grave.

Even when victims are identified, the government rarely investigates their deaths. In 2010, the government didn’t even bother to open investigations into 95% of the 15,273 murders that occurred in the country that year. When missing miner Fernando Rodriguez Maturina turned up dead and wrapped in a blanket a few months ago in Durango, police told his widow that she shouldn’t push for an investigation. “The police officer who gave me his remains told me that because he was wrapped in a blanket, it was a message that we shouldn’t investigate the death,” María Flores de Santos recalls. “He told me that it was best if I didn’t stir up trouble.”

In Durango, the raging violence doesn’t discriminate between narcos and civilians, or between honest police and corrupt police. Durango is a war zone, and everyone is caught in the crossfire. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the peace movement refuses to discriminate between victims.

When the Citizens Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity arrived in Durango on Monday night to protest the drug war, thousands of locals from across the social spectrum turned out to greet it. The widows of murdered police officers marched in downtown Durango alongside the families of people disappeared by corrupt police. Families of civilians murdered by organized crime marched together with families who openly admitted that their murdered loved ones had gotten “into trouble.” Regardless of which side of the war their loved ones were on before tragedy struck, their grief and outrage brought them together to demand an end to a drug policy that has only brought death and destruction to Durango.

It seems as though everyone has lost at least one family member to drug war violence in this state, and after years of neglect and disdain, they are desperate for anyone to listen to their plight. Even the janitor who works at the school where the Caravan rested on Monday night took advantage of the abundance of sympathetic ears to tearfully announce that they just found her cousin in one of the mass graves. This afternoon her family has to try to claim the 22-year-old’s body. Her neighbors who have already been through the process prepared her for the long, frustrating, and sometimes futile struggle to get an unsolved murder victim released from government custody. It’s almost always a battle for victims’ families, even if the government has no intention of actually investigating the murder.

Many protesters in Durango carried signs that decried corruption in the State Police. Ivana Hernandez says that State Police were responsible for the forced disappearance of her cousin Adán Salazar two months ago during a routine traffic stop. Witnesses saw the police put him in their patrol car, but his detention was never registered. Hernandez’s family filed complaints with the government, but the State Police claim they never had him in custody. The investigation has gone nowhere.

Several march participants—including one woman whose cousin survived a police kidnapping—claim that Durango State Police detain victims and then deliver them to organized crime.

Police Families Join the Peace Movement

Despite the peace movement’s strong criticism of the police’s role in the drug war and the widespread belief that most police officers are corrupt, many police widows feel drawn to the movement for the same reason all other drug war victims are: they are unable to find sympathy and justice anywhere else. “It hurts me so much how they criminalize the victims, thinking that they deserve what happened to them,” says Gloria Aguilar, the wife and mother of three disappeared Monterrey Transit Police officers. “I’ve heard so many times, ‘But they must’ve done something to have been disappeared.”

Widows and mothers of seven murdered Federal Police officers protested the government’s abandonment of their loved ones both in life and death. The seven were kidnapped on their way to Ciudad Hidalgo, where there were supposed to shut down a corrupt municipal police department. “They didn’t even give them a vehicle or a per diem,” recounts officer Pedro Alberto Vázquez Hernández’s sister-in-law. “So they had to pass the hat for gas money, and they convinced a friend to drive them. That friend disappeared with them. They were kidnapped November 12, 2009, from a gas station in Morelia, Michoacan.”

Even though several suspects bragged to Mexican investigators that they participated in the kidnapping and murder of the eight men, the government refuses to declare the police officers dead so that their widows can collect death benefits and remarry. The government also hasn’t recovered the men’s bodies. Every time a new mass grave is discovered, the widows and mothers must travel to that state and review photographs of the cadavers in the local morgue.

Flor Susana Gómez, the widow of a Durango State Police officer, argues that the government’s treatment of police widows is callous and illogical. “We receive a monthly pension of six thousand pesos ($521 dollars) with which we have to feed, dress, house, and educate 3-5 children. Durango state law prohibits us from re-marrying and working,” says Gómez.

“This is yet another tragedy of this absurd war on organized crime, knowing that soldiers and municipal, state, and federal police are nothing more than cannon fodder for politicians.”

Former municipal police officer Oscar Hernandez resigned from his department in Mexico State and joined the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity. “I quit because my son asked me if I was corrupt, and it made me think,” he says.

“My last nine months on the force, they sent me to work in the federal Confidence Control program [the program that screens police departments and purges corrupt cops], and it’s even worse there. The higher up the hierarchy you go, the more corrupt it is!”

Hernandez has a message for police officers: “They’re turning the police into nothing more than killing machines. Quit and join the movement!”

Overcoming Fear

Durango’s residents know that they risk their lives by speaking out against the violence. But so many of them have lost so much already that they don’t see any other option. “If I turn up dead one of these days, thank you,” declared Vivien Echavari, whose three sons were gunned down in Durango. “Because then I will be with my sons.”

Mar Grecia Oliva Guerrero from the University of Durango urged her fellow Duranguenses to overcome their fear and speak out against the war. “How long will it take you to wake up and do something so that this stops? Tomorrow it could be your child or your parent! Will you do something today, while you still have your family, or will you wait until tomorrow, when you’re in a clandestine mass grave?”

Kristin Bricker is freelance reporter and contributor to the CIP Americas Program.  F. Santiago Navarro contributed to this report.

For on-going coverage of the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity, check in frequently here and on our AmericasMexico Blog http://americasmexico.blogspot.com, and www.cipamericas.org/es for Spanish-language reports and audios.

Reflections on Mexico's National Anti-War March

by Kristin Bricker





I'm in Morelos covering the "We've Had It Up to Here, Stop the War, For A Just And Peaceful Mexico" march.

I will publish an article about the march when it's over at Upside Down World. But I'm so awestruck by the people I've met in the march that I have to share my initial observations with you.

The march is growing by the hour. It left Cuernavaca with just over 500 people, and by the time it arrived in Coajomulco, Morelos, over a thousand people were marching. When I woke up this morning in Coajomulco, I saw that more marchers had arrived during the night, including a bus from Oaxaca that carried members of CACTUS, the community organization that Bety Cariño founded and led before she was assassinated near San Juan Copala just over a year ago.

Joaquin was murdered in an armed

robbery in Mexico City.

Bety's just one of Mexico's nearly 40,000 dead who are here in spirit and rage today.

I don't think I will interview Javier Sicilia, the poet and journalist whose son's murder sparked this national movement against murder and impunity. He's been interviewed enough, and I am enraged that the media following the march turns off their cameras when other drug war victims speak, and they only turn them on when Sicilia speaks. It's not his fault; it's the corporate media's fault. They've made it their job to ignore the drug war's innocent victims and the families it has torn apart. When one of their own lost his son (Sicilia writes for Proceso and La Jornada), they couldn't ignore it anymore. Actually, a lot of journalists in the corporate media know Sicilia and they knew his son. They feel genuinely terrible for the man, and they've been reporting constantly from the march, step by step. Most of them even camped with us in Coajomulco.

Even if I don't interview Sicilia, I do have to thank him. He's successfully removed--or at least reduced--the stigma that families feel when a loved one is murdered.* As I reported in an earlier article about the Reyes Salazar family, the drug war's victims are nameless. The government wants it that way, because it's easy to paint the drug war's dead as narcos if no one even knows their names, much less their stories. Now, however, that's changing. They're marching alongside and behind Sicilia, and the press is actually interviewing them, some of them for the first time. And they're interviewing them as human beings, not as narco-families.

The march that Sicilia made possible has also allowed survivors to connect with each other for the first time. I saw the following conversation occur multiple times yesterday:

"Who is the young man in the photo you're carrying?"
"He was my son. He was murdered. And who is the young man on your t-shirt?"
"He is my son. He's disappeared."

This march, more than anything, is a march against impunity. In some cases, police kidnapped and disappeared the victims. In another case, organized crime snatches little girls from a community and traffics them. In other cases, victims were killed in armed robberies. The perpetrators vary: organized crime, unorganized crime, or the government. But everyone has one complaint in common: the government has done nothing to stop the violence, and when citizens are victims of violence, the government does nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice.

In a few days, you'll be able to read all about the amazing interviews I've done with some of the strongest people I've ever met. In the meantime, I want to share just one person's story with you: the Galactic Cowboy.

The Galactic Cowboy's dad marches.

The Galactic Cowboy's family is from Mexico State, but up until a year ago he lived and worked in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. He is a street performer, a human silver statue of a cowboy. He stands perfectly still until you insert a coin in his box, and then he makes robotic movements. "Ever since he was little, he wanted to be a cowboy," says his father.

The Galactic Cowboy works in the informal market. Police had detained him several times in Monterrey for working without a permit. One time he managed to get a permit to work on the street, but it was only for one month. "What good is a one-month permit?" asks his dad. Street theater is is a life-long career for the Galactic Cowboy.

One day, Monterrey municipal police detained the Galactic Cowboy and two companions in Monterrey. Witnesses saw police arrest them. They wrote down the patrol car numbers.

The police deny that they detained the Galactic Cowboy and his companions. The witnesses who saw them detain him refuse to testify for fear of reprisal. The government refuses to investigate the disappearance.

The Galactic Cowboy has been missing for a year.


------

* This sentence originally read: "He's single-handedly removed (or at least greatly diminished) the stigma that families feel when a loved one is murdered." Thanks to a reader comment, I changed the sentence, which I admittedly wrote in a hurry, in the heat of the moment, as I followed the march. I want to explain why I wrote this: he's been more successful than anyone else in removing the stigma victims' families feel. Other families have "thrown down" as the smart reader pointed out. And he's right. Actually, families like the LeBarons and the Reyes Salazar took MUCH greater risks than Sicilia, because they were up against much worse odds: their state and towns are more dangerous, they don't have media support, they don't have thousands of people marching with them. In short, what they are doing was a much bigger risk. Interviewing them...I'm amazed at their strength. I love Mexico.

Mexico Military Abuses Are Systematic

by Jesús Cantú, Proceso

A memorial on Monterrey Tech's campus to two students
killed by soldiers who were engaged in a shoot-out with criminals.
Soldiers later planted guns on the students' bodies to make
it appear as though they were members of organized crime.

Mexico City, August 25- An analysis of recommendations 36 and 45, issued this year by the [Mexican government's] National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) in reference to the death of the two Almanza Salazar children and of the two Monterrey Tech students, makes it clear that in both cases the soldiers who participated committed the same offenses: altering the scene of the crime, apparently to cover up their responsibility in the incidents; planting evidence to try to implicate the victims as members of criminal organizations or, at least, to modify the course of the investigations; and to hinder the national human rights ombudsman's investigations.

The existence of similar conduct in the two distinct cases, which were carried out by soldiers from two different military zones, arouses the suspicion that this is a general policy and not the anomalous personal behavior of those involved.

In particular, recommendation 45, regarding the murder of the two students, is damning [proof of] the military's evidence-planting: utilizing the Defense Ministry's very own documents, [the recommendation] demonstrates that the soldiers planted weapons they had previously seized from criminals on the students.

In this respect, the recommendation points out: "in the e-mail of images annexed in the report from the responsible authority, AR13, commander of the VII Military Zone in Nuevo Leon, said that once the confrontation against members of organized crime had ended, a grey Yukon was inspected, and inside the following was found: (...) an automatic rifle, .308 caliber, Century Arms brand, Cetme Sporter model, serial numbers erased; as well as a carbine, .223-5-56 mm, Bushmaster brand, model XM15-E2S, serial number L262834."

And further on [the recommendation] indicates: "...the public prosecutor's cadaver inspection report compiled by the Forensic Medical Service of the Nuevo Leon State Attorney General's Office states that Javier Francisco Arredondo Verdugo had in his right arm a rifle-style firearm, color black with green and a black strap, with a metallic magazine that did not have any bullets.  The serial number and brand was not observed.  Jorge Antonio Mercado Alonso, on the other hand, had in his left arm ... a black metallic firearm, 223 caliber, model XM15-E2S, Bushmaster brand, serial number L262834."

The recommendation concludes: "...from the report produce by the commander of the VII Military Zone it is deduced that the two weapons found inside the truck when it was searched by soldiers are the same weapons that appeared in the arms of both students at the moment the public prosecutor's office inspected the cadaver, even when a video demonstrated that they [the students] were not traveling in the truck.  [Rather], they were leaving campus and they were unarmed, which leads to the conclusion that these [weapons] were planted with the goal of altering the crime scene."

Martín and Bryan Almanza Salazar's funeral.

In the case of the Almanza Salazar family, the evidence comes from contradictory testimony.  The two most relevant pieces of evidence are the location of the Tahoe truck in which the two dead boys, Martín and Bryan Almanza Salazar, were traveling--it was found between two trucks occupied by members of organized crime--and the bullet holes that were shot in the front part [of the vehicle] to make it appear as though the [family's] truck was caught in the crossfire.

Regarding the truck's location, the CNDH document states: "...in the e-mail of images number 13018, sent on May 5, 2010, by AR3, which appears as an annex to the National Defense Ministry's report provided... to the National [Human Rights] Commission, the following is written:

"...5. At the end of the attack, the scene was searched and three vehicles were found in the order listed below, with the following items inside them:

"a) A dead, unidentified male assailant with military-style clothing in a blue truck; b) a male with injuries in his legs in a black Tahoe truck, who is identified as V6, indicating that he was coming from Nuevo Laredo and heading towards Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and that his family was accompanying him; also inside the vehicle, in the back, was the lifeless body of young Martin Almanza Salazar, who died at the scene, and c) a dead unidentified male assailant with military-style dress in a red vehicle."

The Almanza Salazar family's truck.  The family says
soldiers shot the boys in their parents' arms as they fled
the soldiers' unprovoked attack.

Regarding this detail, the recommendation states: "...the National [Human Rights] Commission observes that work was done to alter the course of the investigations, which is demonstrated by the May 9, 2010 testimony of T2 and T3 (as the witnesses are referred to in order to protect their identities), who state that when they received the call over radio from V1 (identified as Martín Almanza Rodríguez, the boys' father, who was driving the vehicle) that the truck in which they were traveling had been shot by soldiers, they went to the scene of the crime, arriving at approximately 21:30 hours on April 3, 2010, and observed in said place that there was only the black Tahoe truck with its hazard lights blinking, which they clearly identified as V1's vehicle, and, upon questioning the soldiers regarding the passengers, the soldiers told them that the injured had already been transported to Miguel Alemán for medical treatment.  [T2 and T3] went to the hospital in Miguel Alemán... As they were returning to Nuevo Laredo and crossed the bridge [near the crime scene] at about 23:30 hours on April 3, 2010, the say that V1's truck was [parked] between a blue pick up truck and a red vehicle."

(In other military documents that refer to the trucks it is observed that they took exactly the same measures as in the previous case: they used the goods that they seized from the criminals to alter the crime scene and modify the course of the investigation.)

Also, to make it appear as though the family had been caught in the crossfire, once the injured and the bodies had been taken away, the soldiers fired at the truck's windshield and hood.  The CNDH recommendation states: "...in relation to the bullet holes that appear in the front of the truck, they do not coincide with the victim's testimony.  Moreover, the National [Human Rights] Commission's forensic report indicates that, in relation to the bullet holes described in the right front passenger seat, it can be established that the shooter was located outside and in front of the vehicle in question; likewise, that the seat was not occupied by any person due to the absence of biological fluids (blood stains or tissue), meaning that it is very probable that they [the bullet holes] were made once the truck was unoccupied."

In both cases, at the beginning of the recommendations, the CNDH makes a nearly identical observation.  In the students' case, it notes: "[The CNDH] considers it necessary to make evident that during the investigation for this recommendation, there were obstacles and a lack of collaboration on the part of the National Defense Ministry, which denied [access to] some of the information that was requested in order to discover the truth of what happened."

According to the CNDH's recommendations, the behaviors and cover-ups are very similar, despite the fact that the cases, soldiers, and military zones are different, which makes it more difficult to attribute the human rights violations to human error or individual abuses.

Translated by Kristin Bricker.

Mexican Police Raid Battered Women's Shelters in Monterrey, Cancun, and Ciudad Juarez

by Frontera NorteSur

In Mexico, not even shelters for victims of domestic violence are safe from trouble. Recently, refuges for battered women and children have been the object of police raids in Monterrey, Cancun and Ciudad Juarez.

In the tourist resort of Cancun, municipal police searching for a woman attempted to enter the Center for the Integral Attention of Women, a shelter directed by well-known women’s rights advocate and journalist Lydia Cacho, late last month. Center staff, however, successfully blocked the armed men from entering the building.

A shelter in Ciudad Juarez wasn’t so lucky. On June 9, a group of 14 men, several of whom were armed with high-powered weapons, showed up at the “Without Violence” safe house founded by the late activist Esther Chavez Cano.

Led by Roman Garcia, the men claimed to be enforcing a legal order by Juarez Valley Judge Guadalupe Manuel de Santiago Aguayo to find and turn over a minor child, Lesly Itzel Munoz Gonzalez, who was involved in a family dispute.

Shelter staff initially refused to allow the men inside, but relented after being verbally threatened and shown a gun. Once inside the building, the men reportedly hit furniture and looked underneath a bed, to the alarm of the women and children present.  Not finding Munoz on the premises, the men left.

The incident elicited a sharp protest from women’s rights groups in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City. Signed by the Women’s Human Rights Center and the Women’s Roundtable of Ciudad Juarez, a statement demanded that Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza and Chihuahua Supreme Court President Rodolfo Acosta Munoz guarantee the safety of shelter clients, staff and activists.

According to the two groups, the police intrusion left clients- who are already exposed to violence in their lives- in a state of fear. Under the center’s rules, men and guns are not allowed on the property. The activists also demanded the immediate relocation of the shelter to a new site, and the firing of justice system officials responsible for violating the victims’ sanctuary.

Writing about the raids, Cacho contended that the presence of armed men in places where women and children fleeing violence are supposed to be safe and secure was linked to an overall situation of lawlessness and impunity.

“In the three cases the state and municipal police knew there was no authority, and that they could utilize the force of the state for personal vengeance and warn the victims they are not safe anywhere,” Cacho wrote.


Sources: Cimacnoticias, June 14, 2010. Gladis Torres Ruiz. El Universal,
June 14, 2010. Article by Lydia Cacho.


Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University

Las Cruces, New Mexico


For a free electronic subscription email: fnsnews@nmsu.edu

Secretary Clinton: Will Merida Initiative Aircraft Be Used in Extrajudicial Executions?

Yesterday, Milenio broke the story that a man arrested by the Mexican Navy appears to have shown up executed after being tortured.  The editors at El Sendero del Peje put together a photo montage that shows the Navy arresting the man following a shootout and then loading him onto a Navy helicopter.  The last picture shows a person who appears to the the same man in the same clothing--only in that picture his dead and tortured body is wrapped in a blanket.

An excerpt from Milenio:

Detained Man Turns Up Dead

Hours after an alleged drug dealer was captured in Santa Catarina [Nuevo Leon] by Municipal Police and transferred with help from the Navy, the body of a subject with very similar clothing and features was found in an abandoned lot in San Nicolas de los Garza.

The lifeless body, which all signs indicate was the drug dealer who was detained moments after a confrontation between an organized crime group and police, was found in a plot of land in the Palmas Diamante neighborhood.

Even though his identity has still not been officially confirmed, the deceased's clothing matches that of the man who was detained on Sunday, and who was transferred by Navy personnel in a helicopter.  His body was found wrapped in a blanket next to a tree on Orion Street, with obvious signs of torture.

The man was detained by the Santa Catarina Secretary of Security's body guards when they discovered him selling drugs on streets in the Fomerrey 29 neighborhood.

Navy Denies Responsibility

The Mexican Navy issued a communique in which it says that it does not take responsibility for the incident because it only participated in transporting the man to the University hospital:

"It is worth pointing out that the support that this institution [the Navy] provided consisted solely in transferring the wounded and detained, who were in the custody of Santa Catarina municipal police chief Eduardo Murrieta at all times, up until the arrival at University hospital for medical attention for the wounded and following up with the necessary paperwork for the detained man.  The Mexican Navy did not participate in this case in any other way."

However, there could have been a mistake in the communique, because Eduardo Murrieta was wounded in the confrontation.  The Santa Catarina police official [mentioned in the communique as having custody of the detained man at all times] must have been someone else.

There's two points that Milenio touches on that should be highlighted:

1. The tortured dead man is a suspected drug dealer.  Not a kingpin, not a lieutenant, and not even one of their bodyguards.  He was caught selling drugs.
2. The Navy's press release denying responsibility for the extra-judicial execution contains obviously incorrect information regarding custody of the dead man.  Despite the Navy's propensity for run-on sentences, it is clear that Navy personnel did paperwork for the detained man.  It should have documented in its paperwork exactly who on the Santa Catarina police force took custody of the man.  

This story broke just as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Mexico for talks about the Merida Initiative.  She was so fired up about the recent killing of a US Consulate staffer in Ciudad Juarez that she conveniently didn't notice that the Navy is somehow involved in the extrajudicial execution of a drug dealer.

However, the Navy's use of a helicopter in the incident should have caught her attention.

The helicopter in question is a Russian-built MI-17.  The Mexican military purchased it with Mexican taxpayer money, not US taxpayer money.  Nonetheless, it should make Congress, the State Department, and Embassy officials think twice about the aircraft they are preparing the hand over to the Mexican government as part of the Merida Initiative.

The Merida Initiative aircraft, which includes Black Hawk, Jay Hawk, and BH-412 EP helicopters and CASA 235 airplanes.  It will also refurbish surveillance aircraft that is already part of the federal government's fleet.  Only some of the Merida Initiative aircraft has been delivered.

The Merida Initiative aircraft is the US government's most recent contribution to the Mexican government's fleet, but it isn't the first.  The Mexican government was able to free up its own budget resources to purchase its newest MI-17 helicopters thanks to US aviation support aid that filled in gaps in other parts of the military aircraft.  The United States' Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs' (INL) Aviation Support program upgraded and repaired Mexico's existing fleet, provided new US-made helicopters to the Mexican government, and trained pilots from fiscal year 2004-2007--precisely the timeframe in which Mexico purchased its newest MI-17 helicopters.

The State Department is prepared to give the Mexican Navy two new CASA 235s as part of the Merida Initiative.  If the Mexican Navy refuses to accept responsibility for human rights abuses committed with its aircraft, will the US State Department assume responsibility?

We Are All Camero, Radio is Our Voice

En Español: http://juntosconradiotyl.wordpress.com/

Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. June 2, 2009

To all national and international communications media.

To all national and international alternative and independent media.

To all national and international non-governmental human rights organizations.

To all adherents to the Other Campaign.

To national and international civil society.


Compañeros:

Freedom of expression, expressed in the Constitution, is a weapon for those who struggle against the power and the bad government. The bourgeoisie's laws are used in full rigor against organized working people, while the real criminals extort people to fund their costly electoral campaigns of defamation and visual, audio, and mental pollution. How much longer will this go on?

Individuals and collectives in Nuevo Leon issue the following communique in solidarity with the community Radio Tierra y Libertad, "The ultimate in working-class consciousness," and specifically con Dr. Hector Camero Haro. An arrest warrant could be issued against this compañero for the simple crime of participating in a dignified effort to provide information to working people and their families. The investigation against Camero for the crime of utilizing national assets, began as a result of the June 2008 operation were approximately 120 heavily armed agents from the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) violently barged into the building to dismantle the radio. It had been on air seven years and government institutions closed its doors over a permit.

The community radio Tierra y Libertad was a low-frequency radio on 90.9 FM that provided its listeners with cultural and educational content, and even children's programs, from Monday to Saturday. It was work carried out by volunteer support and without profit for the people who ran it, who are activists and members of the Tierra y Libertad Civil Association.

It should be pointed out that days after this raid, Governor Jose Natividad Gonzalez Paras unveiled a sculpture in the Fundidora Park called "Broadcasting," inspired by the Chamber of the Radio and Television Industry's logo. Said act demonstrates the cynicism with which all levels of government authorities operate. While the groups who monopolize and make money off of information and pollute our culture are congratulated, those who give microphones to the voice of the people and provide information with truth and commitment are punished.

From 2006 to date, over 100 community radios that operated without official permission have been closed in various states: Mexico State, Sonora, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Puebla, Chiapas, Coahuila, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Sinaloa, Zacatecas, Campeche, Guanajuato, Yucatán, Baja California Norte, Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Distrito Federal, Guerrero, San Luís Potosí, Tabasco, and Nuevo León.

The above demonstrates the Federal Government's intention to criminalize freedom of expression and delegitimize the right to information and popular organization, based in the laws that go against international treaties such as the Human Rights Pact of San Jose, Costa Rica, which Mexico signed in 1981 and which specifically establishes in Article 13: "The right to expression through indirect means, as well as the abuse of official or private regulations regarding paper for newspapers, radio-electric frequencies, or apparatuses or property used in the diffusion of information or by any other such methods designed to impede communication and the circulation of ideas or opinions is prohibited."

This repressive campaign against community radios has been growing immensely during the Calderon administration. We consider it to be of the utmost importance to denounce one by one the actions used to beat back the power of the people and to not permit that even one of these abuses be hidden behind smokescreens imposed by the commercial and pro-government media, calling them clandestine, pirate, and criminal radios. In the end these companies are in collusion with the government, closing the paths to the voice of the people, publishing incomplete information or disinformation regarding the situation.

Community radios represent the need and ability of the people to exercise their right to free speech. They contribute to community development and collaborate with their participants and listeners in the construction of solutions and alternatives to the problems that each locality experiences. Through them, the country's and world's problems are openly discussed, and there is dialogue between communities to spread and listen to the most vulnerable population. To consider this a crime is the most obvious sign that in this country democracy is not respected by the authorities at all levels of government. In other words, it is nonexistent.

On June 2 we launch the Brigade in Support of the Community Radio Tierra y Libertad in solidarity with its members and in resistance against the blow that the government strikes against the efforts of those who participate in this honest labor.

For this reason we demand that the judge not begin criminal proceedings against Hector Camero and Radio Tierra y Libertad, "The ultimate in working-class consciousness," as well as the return of all of the broadcasting equipment, and that the necessary permit be granted so that all community radios can operate regularly.

Stop the repression against community radios.

Stop the persecution of popular and independent communicators.

For the right to the people's free speech in the world.

Freedom for the political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.

We are all Camero, the radio is our voice.

We invite you to sign this communique if you agree with what we say above, and if you are truly in favor of free expression. Send signatures to: juntosconradiotyl@gmail.com

“Viviendo la Utopía” Popular Library

Frontera Cero Collective

“La internacional” Grassroots Youth Collective - Communist Youth of México

“Clara Zetkin” Grassroots Youth Collective - Communist Youth of México

Kasakomunitaria Political-Cultural Space

Antonio Hernandez – Biologist and defender of the Sierra Cerro de la Silla against the Arco Vial Sureste

nonself – musician and performance activist, adherent to the Other Campaign

Members of the Tierra y Libertad Civil Association

Persecution of Monterrey Community Radio "Tierra y Libertad"

Mexican Government Used the Drug War to Raid a Rebelious Poor Neighborhood's Radio; Radio Magnates Rejoice

This past March 12, Monterrey community leader Dr. Hector Camero arrived at the Mexican Federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) to provide witness testimony regarding a June 2008 raid on his organization's radio station, Radio Tierra y Libertad. When he arrived, government officials informed him that he was no longer considered a witness in the case; he was the main suspect, accused of "use of national assets without prior permission."

Within the next few days, the government is expected to issue a federal warrant for Camero's arrest because the Federal Prosecutor's Office has announced that it has enough evidence to charge him. Camero faces 2-12 years in prison and up to MX$500,000 (USD$37,920) in fines.

Camero's legal problems stem from the June 6, 2008, nighttime raid on Radio Tierra y Libertad, located in the lower-income neighborhood of Tierra y Libertad on the outskirts of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Approximately 120 heavily armed Federal Preventive Police participated in the raid. The police ran up three streets in the neighborhood, reportedly yelling, "No one go outside! This is an anti-drug operation!"

The police arrived unimpeded at the station and broke down the building's steel door, interrupting a live transmission. When Dr. Camero heard the police attempting to break down the door, he managed to issue a call for help over the radio before police cut the transmission and stole the radio's equipment.

In addition to seizing the equipment, the police attempted to arrest Dr. Camero. However, approximately 300 neighbors heard Camero's call for help broadcasted over the radio and ran to his aid. They managed to prevent the detention of Camero and two other people who were with him in the radio station during the raid, but they couldn't save the radio equipment.

The neighbors' failure to mobilize enough people in time to prevent the raid and loss of equipment can't be written off as indifference. Camero told Narco News that since the radio doesn't have a history of police raids, and since Monterrey is a known haven for drug traffickers, many people who would have otherwise come out to stop the police did not do so because of the heavily-armed cops' claims that they were carrying out a raid on drug traffickers. These bogus claims "confused and delayed the support of the community," says Camero.

The Tierra y Libertad neighborood ("Land and Liberty" in English) is certainly no stranger to political struggle, and most likely would have mobilized to stop the invasion had the police not lied to them. Tierra y Libertad residents have fought hard for land rights in Monterrey for over thirty years, ever since the neighborhood's founders expropriated the land it sits on in the 1970s. Thanks to decades of organizing and struggle, the neighborhood now was all of the basic municipal services such as running water and electricity, and residents are the legal owners of the land.

Radio Tierra y Libertad has served the Tierra y Libertad neighborhood without a government license since 2001 and serves approximately 10,000 families. In November 2002, Radio Tierra y Libertad filed a formal request for a permit from the federal Ministry of Communication and Transportation's Monterrey office. The government never responded to the request--neither positively nor negatively--meaning that since late 2002 Radio Tierra y Libertad has operated in a state of legal limbo.

Since Radio Tierra y Libertad filed its request for a permit, other radios have done the same. In 2003, the Secretary of Communication and Transportation under former President Vicente Fox reportedly invited pirate radio stations to file for permits. Three community radio stations filed the necessary paperwork: La Voladora in Mexico State, Radio Calenda in Oaxaca, and Radio Bemba in Sonora. The Ministry of Communication and Transportation rejected their requests, justifying the rejection with the circular argument that the radios were operating without a permit.

Radio Tierra y Libertad's request was never rejected, and for nearly eight years it has broadcasted educational programs, children's programs, "poor people's news" programs, programs about labor rights, and cultural programs featuring traditional music. Then the Federal Preventive Police raided the station out of the blue. But why now?

Dr. Camero can't say for sure why the police chose the night of June 6 to raid their station, particularly because his station's request for a permit went six years without any response at all from the government.

What is known is that US lawmakers were scheduled to arrive in Monterrey on June 7--less than 24 hours before the raid on Radio Tierra y Libertad--for a two-day Interparliamentary meeting with Mexican lawmakers that included the Merida Initiative at the top of its agenda. It was at that meeting that US and Mexican legislators ironed out their differences over the Merida Initiative's controversial human rights conditions.

El Universal reported that heavily-armed agents from the Federal Preventive Police (PFP)--the same force that raided the radio in overwhelming numbers--were called in to guard the hotel where the lawmakers would meet. While it is not confirmed, it is possible that the federal government chose June 6 to raid the station in order to take advantage of the increased number of PFP officers who were in town for the Interparliamentary meeting. The press anticipation of the meeting may have also provided the cover of distraction.

This wouldn't be the first time that the Mexican government has taken advantage of increased militarization related to the drug war in order to carry out raids on local organizers. Victor M. Quintana, writing for the Americas Program, notes that the federal government used Operation Chihuahua to crack down on local organizers in that state. Under the auspices of Operation Chihuahua, the federal government sent 2000 soldiers and 400 federal police to Chihuahua. While the federal troops were officially there to combat organized crime in that state, during the first week of the operation they arrested six local organizers: five men from an organization that fights against the North American Free Trade Agreement, and one a woman who assists the families of femicide victims. Three of the five men were organization leaders.

Federal police and the military have been deployed to Nuevo Leon (where Monterrey is located) and the neighboring state of Tamaulipas since 2007 as part of those states' own joint anti-drug trafficking operation.

The timing of the PGR's notification to Dr. Camero that it was investigating him as a suspect due to his involvement in Radio Tierra y Libertad is also interesting, to say the least. The notification came about a month after he gave an interview to Radio Bemba regarding Monterrey's infamous (and highly suspicious) "narco protests." That interview was picked up by other media outlets--including Narco News--and made international headlines.

War on Community Radios

The raid on Radio Tierra y Libertad comes at a time of increased repression against community radios in Mexico. In addition to multiple raids and closures (107 closures during the Calderon administration as of March), community radios have lost a number of collaborators to suspicious murders.

In April 2008, just two months before the raid on Radio Tierra y Libertad, unknown gunmen assassinated indigenous Triqui radio broadcasters Teresa Bautista Merino and Felicitas Martinez Sanchez in the state of Oaxaca. The two young women worked at Radio Copala, "The Voice that Breaks the Silence." They were murdered on their way to a radio workshop in Oaxaca City, and they were the only ones killed out of the six people traveling in their car. The Mexican government, in addition to resorting to the racist argument that the two women were killed as a result of cultural conflicts (often used to write off the murders off indigenous people) instead of as a result of their media work, also refused to investigate their case. The government didn't even interview the surviving riders during its "investigation." (More detailed information on the Radio Copala assassinations can be found in John Gibler's book Mexico Unconquered.)

On June 10, 2008--just days after the Radio Tierra y Libertad raid, 40 federal agents attempted to raid Guerrero's Radio Ñomndaa, but the community there stopped them. Then, a month later, professor Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez Ávila of the Autonomous University of Guerrero was beaten to death on his way back from visiting the Suljaa' y Cozoyoapan community. He was there filming a documentary and investigating the government aggression against Radio Ñomndaa.

While Dr. Camero and Radio Tierra y Libertad are fortunate to not have suffered deadly attacks, they still feel the increased government pressure on unlicensed community radios. While in the past the government has charged non-profit pirate radio operators under the Federal Radio and Television Law, it has decided to charge Camero under the Federal Law of National Assets. The Federal Radio and Television Law contains provisions that allow for administrative penalties against operators of unlicensed radios, such as a fine and the seizure of equipment. The Federal Law of National Assets, on the other hand, is a criminal law that mandates 2-12 years in prison and up to $500,000 pesos in fines for those that use government assets without proper permission.

The government's use of the Federal Law of National Assets against Rario Tierra y Libertad is an escalation of the Calderon administration's offensive against non-profit community radios. Camero told Narco News, "This law [the Federal Law of National Assets] is applied to stations that use the electromagnetic space for profit, which has never been the case at Radio Tierra y Libertad. However, the Ministry of the Interior is trying to apply this law in our case, undoubtedly to teach a lesson to the over 200 other radios that have, particularly in the southern and central parts of the country, been looking for their own space."

The "national asset" in question in the Federal Law of National Assets is the radio spectrum. The radio spectrum is a range of frequencies with defined channels for different transmission technologies--that is, that is, something that is not produced by the government or anyone else and something that cannot be touched, a lot like air. Many governments, like Mexico, have decided that they not only have the right to regulate the radio spectrum, but that they own it. As such, the government grants licenses to radios to occupy their own little part of the radio spectrum.

These licenses don't come easy; the government reportedly charges radios over $100,000 dollars to file for a permit. IPS reports that of all of the community radio permit requests filed over the past thirty years, the government has granted only one license. Due to government restriction, 13 companies control 90% of Mexico's airwaves.

Those 13 companies are doing everything in their power to see to it that Mexico's airwaves continue under their control. The National Chamber of the Radio and Television Industry (CIRT in its Spanish initials) successfully lobbies the Mexican government for laws to protect and expand their monopoly over the means of communication. They pull out all the stops to push independent radios off the air. CIRT has pressured the government to close community radio stations, and it has even gone so far as to accuse the World Association of Community Radios (AMARC) of "fomenting clandestine, pirate and insurgent radio."

On June 12--just days after the police attack on Radio Tierra y Libertad--the CIRT unveiled a statue of its organization's logo in a public park in Monterrey "as a thank-you for the hospitality the city has shown."

Originally published in Narco News: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/05/persecution-monterrey-community-radio-tierra-y-libertad

Former Mexican Intelligence Director: "We've Lost Half the Country" to Organized Crime

Ex-Intelligence Directors and Attorney General Medina Mora Contradict Clinton and Calderon on Drug War

In January, a Pentagon study declaring that Mexico is at risk of "rapid and sudden collapse" made waves in the international press. US and Mexican officials, namely Hillary Clinton and Felipe Calderon, came to the Mexican government's defense.

President Calderon was the first to lash out against the report. He told the AP that the Mexican government has not "lost any part--any single part--of the Mexican territory" to organized crime.

During US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent visit to Mexico, she told reporters "I don't believe there are any ungovernable territories in Mexico."

Well, Secretary Clinton and President Calderon, former Mexican intelligence directors, including current Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, beg to differ. In a book entitled Cisen: 20 Years of History, former directors of Mexico's intelligence agency, the Investigation and National Security Center (Cisen in its Spanish abbreviation), give frank interviews regarding Mexico's current security situation. The book, whose distribution was restricted to government officials and security experts, was leaked to the press.

La Jornada reports that in the book, Medina Mora, who in addition to being the former Secretary of Public Security* was also the director of Cisen during the Vicente Fox administration, says that drug trafficking and organized crime challenge the State's authority "of exclusive and legitimate use of force and the exclusive right to charge taxes" and the exclusive right to create laws and regulations. This statement likely refers in part to drug trafficking organizations' practice of imposing mafia-style taxes on both legitimate and clandestine businesses, as documented in the earlier Narco News article "Wall of Violence on Mexico's Southern Border."

Medina Mora goes on to say that "in some zones of the country, above all on the northern border" organized crime and drug trafficking "undoubtedly challenges these state authorities."

Gen. Jorge Carrillo Olea, Cisen's first intelligence director, goes one step further: he argues that the Mexican State "is beginning to lose territoriality" to drug trafficking. Directly contradicting Calderon and Clinton's claims that the government is in control of 100% of its territory, Carrillo Olea specifies that the states "where drug trafficking rules are Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sonora, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, etc.... You have to recognize that the government doesn't govern in these states. If you've stopped governing, if it doesn't govern there, then we've lost half the country.... [T]hey kill people, kidnap them, or rob them. So I say that we are in a scenario of ingovernability."

The Elephant in the Room

Clinton and Calderon's have so vehemently argued that the Mexican government is in complete control of its national territory not simply because they wish to defend the Calderon administration's international reputation. They're also defending a drug war that is increasingly unpopular in the US, but also increasingly worrisome for US officials. As Mexico drug war headlines are splashed across US newspapers with increasing frequency, US officials are finding themselves constantly defending failed drug war policies such as the Merida Initiative and Plan Colombia.

While admitting that "clearly, what we have been doing has not worked," Clinton called Calderon's drug war "courageous" during her recent trip to Mexico, reports the LA Times. Unfortunately, Clinton's admission that US drug policy isn't working is likely referring to the idea that the US hasn't done enough to support the Mexican government in its "war on organized crime." Rather than announcing a new and innovative strategy to quell drug trafficking-related violence, Clinton announced that the US would send $80 million worth of Blackhawk helicopters to the Mexican government.

The former Cisen directors' dire statements, combined with the Pentagon study, should be a wake-up call to lawmakers on both sides of the border that the last thing that Mexico needs is more of the same failed strategy. Attorney General Media Mora's argument that drug trafficking and organized crime challenge the State's authority "of exclusive and legitimate use of force" alludes to the State's roll in drug violence. Drug trafficking organizations police themselves and defend their territory with violence because they lack a viable alternative. The Institute for Policy Studies' Sanho Tree explained to Drug War News: "You can't really go to a judge and say 'Your Honor, I've been dealing drugs in this city for 15 years, and here comes this upstart gang from across town moving in on my turf.' So the way they settle that is with violence or threats of violence, and you can see that on the macro level in Mexico." If the State wants to regain its exclusive authority over the use of force and lawmaking, it must recognize that prohibition encourages lawlessness rather than prevent it.

With over 10,000 dead citizens in just over two years, half of its territory reportedly lost to organized crime, and drug trafficking organizations armed with increasingly sophisticated military weaponry like grenade launchers, armor-peircing bullets, and anti-aircraft machine guns, the burning question remains: is a drug war really in Mexico's best interests?

* Medina Mora isn't a likely critic of his own government. While Medina Mora was head of Public Security, the Ministry of Public Security's Federal Preventive Police carried out brutal repression against social organizations in Atenco and Oaxaca in 2006. Human rights advocate and Mexican senator Rosario Ibarra called his Attorney General appointment "Pinochetism" because he was the "brain" of repression during the Fox administration.