"Feria de falsas soluciones"

Entrevista a la feminista brasileña Miriam Nobre sobre el Cambio Climático y la Cumbre de Conpenhague

Daniela Estrada

IPS




La conferencia sobre cambio climático parece una "gran feria de soluciones", donde la gente evita hablar del problema de fondo, que es el cambio del modelo de desarrollo, dijo a IPS Miriam Nobre, coordinadora del secretariado de la Marcha Mundial de las Mujeres.

Nobre, ingeniera agrónoma y feminista brasileña, arribó el martes a Copenhague para participar en el Klimaforum, la cumbre de la sociedad civil paralela a la 15 Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático, inaugurada el lunes y que se extenderá hasta el 18 de este mes.

La Marcha Mundial de las Mujeres, liderada por Nobre, es un movimiento feminista internacional que nació en 2000 y está organizado en 71 países.

Empezaron con una campaña contra la pobreza y la violencia de las que son víctimas la población femenina y para 2010 están preparando su tercera acción internacional con cuatro objetivos: autonomía económica de las mujeres, lucha contra la violencia, paz y desmilitarización y promoción del bien común y los servicios públicos.

Antes de detenerse a conversar con IPS, Nobre participó en una reunión de coordinación con representantes de otros movimientos y organizaciones no gubernamentales en unos de los espacios del colorido Klimaforum, donde sen han programado centenares de charlas, muestras, exhibiciones de filmes documentales y espectáculos musicales y teatrales.

IPS: ¿Qué propuestas o demandas traen a Copenhague?

MIRIAM NOBRE: A Copenhague venimos articulados con (las no gubernamentales) Vía Campesina y Amigos de la Tierra Internacional y estamos denunciando las falsas soluciones a los cambios climáticos, que tienen que ver con la producción de los monocultivos, los agrocombustibles y la privatización de la naturaleza, como los créditos de carbono.

También estamos en diálogo con otras organizaciones que trabajan el tema de la deuda climática, como es el caso de Jubileo Sur.

Asimismo, nuestra presencia acá tiene que ver con un sentido de urgencia.

Hay una sensación de que algo debes hacer ahora, pero que no se puede aceptar, por este tema de la urgencia, un chantaje donde se nos imponga un mal acuerdo, donde no se reconozca la desigualdad de clase, de país y de género en el tema de los cambios climáticos.

IPS: ¿En qué actividades participarán?

MN: Tenemos un taller que se llama "Feministas en lucha contra las falsas soluciones del cambio climático y contra la privatización de la naturaleza", donde escucharemos cómo está el proceso de negociaciones, porque las mujeres son sujetos políticos importantes en este tema.

También recordaremos los vínculos y las fricciones que hay entre el movimiento ecologista y el feminista y cómo están viviendo las mujeres los efectos del cambio climático y las resistencias, las alternativas que ellas están construyendo.

Además tendremos otra actividad con la Coalición Mundial de los Bosques sobre la soberanía alimentaria y energética como soluciones reales a los cambios climáticos.

IPS: ¿Por qué son importantes las mujeres como sujetos políticos en las negociaciones sobre cambio climático?

MN: Hay toda la experiencia de las mujeres campesinas, pescadoras, que siguen afirmando sus maneras tradicionales de producir el alimento y que entonces son una alternativa real a la sociedad dependiente del petróleo y de los combustibles fósiles.

Y hay también toda la relación que nosotras hacemos con lo que es la fragmentación y la mercantilización de los cuerpos de las mujeres y la fragmentación y la mercantilización de los territorios mismos.

IPS: ¿Cuál es su percepción del avance de las negociaciones mundiales en Copenhague?

MN: La primera impresión que tuve es que la gente viene mucho con el sentido de vender sus soluciones, el agrocombustible, el mercado de carbono.

Da una sensación de una gran feria de soluciones, que pasa por alrededor del problema, que es la necesidad urgente de un cambio profundo del sistema, del modelo, de cómo organizamos la producción y el consumo.

Es como si la gente siguiera evitando discutir lo que, de hecho, es necesario hacer.

Young Tribal Activists Nix Coal, Embrace Green

Ngoc Nguyen

New America Media

Wahleah Johns grew up near the coal mines of the Black Mesa region of Arizona and experienced first-hand the toll that mining takes on people, the land and the groundwater. Her community, Forest Lake, was one of several communities atop Black Mesa, where Peabody Energy ran the largest strip mining operation in the country on Indian land until recently.

Today, Johns, 34, co-directs the Black Mesa Water Coalition, a grassroots organization of Native American and non-Native activists in Flagstaff, which combines the goals of traditional environmentalism with the commitment to Native culture and reverence for the land.

Johns and the Coalition are not unique among American Indians. But their activism against fossil fuels and polluting power plants and for sustainable, environmentally friendly growth reveals a generational schism within the largest Native American tribes that has profound economic and political implications for the future. That schism was brought into sharp relief in September when the Hopi government banned local and national environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council, from their lands.

The Navajo Nation supported the ban and pointed the finger at local and national environmental groups, calling them “the greatest threat to tribal sovereignty.” What triggered the ban was the environmentalists’ opposition to tribal government’s support for coal mining and power plants.

While tribal leaders blame outsiders, Native American activists on and off the reservations pose the real challenge to economic policies and leadership, and the very ideas of Native cultural ties to the environment. Young Navajo and Hopi tribal leaders – mostly women – are working to create a green economy, infused with indigenous knowledge and values. Their vision collides with that of their tribal governments, who have long depended on coal royalties to prop up the tribal economies.

Increasingly, grassroots environmental groups and their allies are viewed as a threat to those revenues. They were instrumental in pushing for the closure of the Mohave coal-fired power plant in Laughlin, Nevada, in 2005. The tribe netted upwards of $8.5 million a year from the sale of coal to fuel the plant.

Lillian Hill, a Hopi environmental activist, was among those who opposed the Mohave plant. She says she could be exiled from the reservation for carrying out her work to protect age-old aquifers.

“I’m not fearful of being banished from my homeland, because I have a connection to my homeland…and that goes beyond government,” says Hill, 28, an organizer with Native Movement. “I’m fearful for the future, because our tribal government and world governments are not looking beyond profit margin.”

The coal for the Mohave Generating Station came from Hopi lands, as did the water used to ferry the mineral via a pipeline across state lines. Young tribal leaders like Hill grew up witnessing springs, a source of water for drinking and farming, dry up, and become contaminated with heavy metals from mining operations.

Hill says what she’s most worried about is that “there might not be enough water for future generations.”

The Hopi government says their economy would “collapse” without coal revenues. But young Native American activists say those profits come at the cost of their own physical and cultural survival.

“As Indian people, we’re economically dependent on our own cultural destruction,” says Navajo activist Jihan Gearon.

Gearon, 27, who hails from Fort Defiance, a town near the Navajo Nation capital of Window Rock, says she grew up “poor.” Her house had no running water, so Gearon used to help haul water home to be used for cooking, cleaning and bathing.

She remembers that the men in her family worked hard, mainly doing construction work. One uncle worked “blasting stuff” in the coal mines of the Peabody Western Coal Company. Her grandfather labored in an old saw mill.

“That’s the first industry people exploited, our timber,” Gearon says. She came to realize the extent of the exploitation of natural resources on tribal lands when she went to college at Stanford University. There, she realized that tribal dependence on the extraction and sale of coal, water and other natural resources was out of sync with traditional native teachings.

“Our traditional culture is about protecting the environment, and being minimalist and living in a balanced way with the environment,” Gearon says. “We realize that [the earth] takes care of us so we need to take care of it.

“On the other hand, for many of us, our only base for economic income is through the destruction of the environment -- digging it up, cutting trees, burning it, exploiting and destroying it. And, in the process, we create pollution that makes our people sick.”

In college, Gearon met other tribal youth, who were interested in bringing their knowledge back to the reservation. She now works as an organizer on energy issues with the national nonprofit organization Indigenous Environmental Network.

Wahleah John’s group pushed for the closure of the Mohave power plant. They want the Navajo Nation to end its dependence on fossil fuels and transition to a more sustainable economy. They formed a coalition to push for green jobs legislation. The coalition scored a victory when the Navajo Nation became the first tribe in the nation to pass green jobs legislation. Passed in July, the Navajo Green Economy Act establishes a commission and fund to spur green jobs.

“We wanted to give back to local people and community that often get ignored,” says Johns, who adds that her people have been engaged in sustainable practices for a long time. “We want to support weavers co-ops, organic farms, organic ranching. A majority of people on the reservation still grow their own food and raise sheep, cattle and horses.”

Johns was recently appointed to sit on the five-person Green Economy commission (confirmation pending). To date, the Navajo Nation has invested no money in the green jobs fund, Johns says.

“We constantly have to prove ourselves, and show them this can work,” she says. “We have to brainstorm with leaders on how to tap into funding.”

Hill of Native Movement also wants to see green jobs benefit local people. She says tribal governments negotiated agreements to sell coal and water rights well below what they were worth, and corporations were not held accountable for environmental degradation. And, in the end, she says, coal royalties “benefited just a few people in the Hopi nation and community.”

Gearon of the Indigenous Environmental Network says large-scale renewable energy projects like wind turbine farms may not benefit local people. Gearon favors community or small-scale energy projects, locally owned and operated, in which the energy produced is used to power Navajo homes. Ironically, while the Four Corners region is currently home to two mega coal-fired power plants – Navajo Generation Station in Page, Ariz., and the San Juan Generating Station in Farmington, N.M., nearly half of Navajos do not have electricity.

Sustainable practices and green jobs creation are critical strategies for tribal members to provide for themselves, says PennElys GoodShield, director of the Sustainable Nations Development Project in Trinidad, Calif. “My take is providing food, water, shelter, and growth for our national growth before we go commercial,” says GoodShield. “Lots of people on our reservation have no electricity. There’s lots of work we have to do to sustain ourselves to act as a sovereign nation.”

Her organization trains tribal youth across the country and fosters leadership on sustainability issues. In northern California where the Project is based, GoodShield says, members of local tribes including the Yurok, Hupa, and Karuk have tapped energy from the many creeks on the reservation by building “micro hydroelectric” devices from parts purchased at local hardware stores and car alternators. GoodShield says she’s working to raise funds to support these small-scale energy projects that can generate enough power for several households.

Hill says people can draw upon traditional knowledge to find modern solutions to climate change. The use of natural building materials such as bale and straw in homes can promote energy efficiency. Another example is dry farming, an ancient Hopi agricultural technique that optimizes rainwater storage in the land to grow crops.

“We basically look at the landscape as a whole and identify the watershed,” she explains. “Rainwater flows off the mesa into valley where farmland is located.” Hopi farmers cultivated varieties of corn, beans, squash and melons that could survive during drought conditions.

Gearon and Johns attended the 11-day climate change summit in Copenhagen that ends today. Traditional knowledge and indigenous wisdom are messages they carried with them to the conference, where world governments will wrangle over how to cap greenhouse gas emissions blamed for warming the earth to dangerous levels.

As world governments, including the United States, look to energy policies that could ramp up nuclear and clean coal technology and a market-based system for capping carbon dioxide emissions and trading the credits (cap and trade), the women say these policies will continue to harm health and the environment.

Gearon will tell the Navajo parable she learned from her elders.

“Black Mesa is a woman, and we’re taught that coal is her liver. Everything on her is a part of her body and coal is her liver…What coal does in the ground-- it filters out the water,” Gearon says. “In order to make money, we’re taking out her ability to clean herself and clean our water that we drink in the region.”

Los artesanos de Chichén Itzá en resistencia

Juan Cristóbal León Campos

Rebelión




La guerra de conquista iniciada hace más de cinco siglos sobre los pueblos originarios de América aún hoy continúa. La característica principal de los gobiernos es su desprecio a las culturas indígenas y al patrimonio cultural e histórico de nuestro país. Para los poderosos los indígenas solo sirven si están muertos, los que están vivos y trabajan son condenados a las peores condiciones de marginación y explotación.

En Yucatán, esta situación es clara, los campesinos mayas son despojados de sus tierras mediante engaños y fraudes, y reprimidos con violencia si deciden denunciar tales acciones del gobierno. Ese es el caso de los ejidatarios de Oxcum que en el 2006 y 2007 resistieron con dignidad tales atropellos. Un caso ejemplar del desprecio hacia la cultura indígena, es el que se desarrolla en la zona arqueológica de Chichén Itzá, donde permanecen en conflicto los artesanos mayas y los intereses privados de los gobernantes y burgueses empresarios.

Herederos de una histórica tradición los artesanos mayas trabajan todos los días en condiciones extremas al interior de Chichén Itzá. Su presencia se remonta al menos a la década de los 20. En la actualidad son aproximadamente 800 artesanos-comerciantes, de los cuales dependen por lo menos 6000 personas. Viven en los alrededores de Chichén Itzá en más de 20 pequeñas comunidades (entre ellas Pisté, Xcalacoop, San Felipe, Tohopkú, Yaxché), donde la situación económica es extrema por las condiciones de abandono en que se encuentran.

Desde años atrás los diferentes gobiernos junto al INAH, han pretendido expulsarlos de su propia tierra, en 1996 la policía los desalojó utilizando gases lacrimógenos, dañando en ese entonces a nuestros niños y algunas mujeres embarazadas. Permanecen en constante amenaza de un nuevo acto violento del gobierno, reciben a diario muestras de desprecio, y hostigamiento por parte de Hans Thies Barbachano quien se hace llamar “legitimo dueño de Chichén Itzá”. Han denunciado por todos los medios su situación, recibiendo por parte del gobierno nula respuesta, pues es evidente la inclinación que las autoridades tienen por Barbachano.

Como si el desprecio a su trabajo y su cultura fuera poco, desde 1997, se ha comenzado a convertir a Chichén Itzá en un centro comercial. Se efectúan grandes eventos “culturales” sin importar el daño que estos ocasionan a los vestigios de la zona arqueológica. Luciano Pavaroti, Placido Domingo, Sara Brightman son los principales artista

Fearing New Law, Arizona Immigrants Forego Health Services

Valeria Fernández

New American Media

PHOENIX, Ariz.--It was early on November 27, her daughter’s birthday, when Ana got the call from a social worker.

“Are you in the country legally?” the person asked.

“No, I’m undocumented,” Ana replied. She had applied for health insurance for her children, both U.S. citizens.

The worker paused for a moment and then informed Ana that under a new Arizona state law she would have to report her to immigration authorities, although she did not want to.

Since the law was passed last month an estimated 700 individuals who applied for public benefits have been reported to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to ICE. It is unknown how many were applying for public benefits that their U.S.-born children are entitled to.

“I dug my own grave, but I wasn’t asking something for me, it was for my kids,” said the woman, 31, who asked that her real name not be used.

After they celebrated her daughter’s birthday, Ana and her family picked up and moved out of fear that immigration officials would come looking for them. Now, they all share a room at a neighbor’s house.

As stories like Ana’s spread in Arizona’s immigrant communities, the climate of fear is growing. The law’s impact is having a chilling effect on the provision of health services for a population of children and women that is already underserved. About one third of Arizona children have immigrant parents, according to a recent Pew Hispanic Center survey.

Children of undocumented immigrants are less likely to have health insurance than those born to legal immigrants or U.S. citizens. In 2007, nearly half of the children born to unauthorized immigrants were uninsured and 25 percent of those who were born in the United States were uninsured.

The new law’s impacts are emerging just as healthcare officials are urging undocumented people to get immunized against the H1N1. Meanwhile, implementation of the new law by state agencies is characterized by confusion.

“The situation is explosive. If the H1N1 virus reaches people and they are not going to the doctor or receiving services, what will happen?” said Alfredo Gutiérrez, editor of La Frontera Times and a former Democratic senator.

Ana had provided the state Department of Economic Security (DES) with all her information in an application for AHCCCS (Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System), the state subsidized insurance program. Under, the new law, HB 2008, DES employees are required to report anyone who is illegally in the country and tries to apply for public benefits.

The immigration status of a parent applying on behalf of a child is not supposed to keep the child from receiving the benefit, according to DES.

Ana believes the DES worker inquired about her status because she gave information about her husband’s employment and his real social security number. The number issued by the Social Security Administration was given to him when he was younger, so that his father, who is a legal permanent resident, could claim him as a dependent. But it doesn’t authorize him to work.

DES does not ask about people’s immigration status when they complete an application, but nothing in the rules indicate that their employees cannot inquire about it. Workers must file a report if someone admits to being in the country illegally.

Employees who don’t do that could face fines, lose their job and face up to four months in jail.

Undocumented immigrants like Ana wonder if immigration authorities will come looking for her. That depends on Homeland Security’s priorities, as set by Sec. Janet Napolitano. As Arizona governor, she opposed measures similar to HB 2008. ICE spokesperson Vinnie Piccard said his agency has improved the reporting system for state agencies in light of the new law.

“ICE will evaluate referrals to determine the individual's immigration status and criminal history,” he said. “Top priority is given to aliens who pose the greatest threat to public safety, such as those with prior convictions for major drug offenses, murder, rape, robbery and kidnapping, burglary and other serious property crimes.”

But that doesn’t clarify matters for employees of Arizona agencies facing a new law and federal requirements to serve anyone regardless of immigration status. They are caught between a rock and a hard place.

“Everybody is afraid of the perception that they’re not complying with the state law,” said Tara McCollum, director of government and media relations for the Arizona Association of Health Centers. “Our centers are struggling with how to comply and still serve our patients.”

McCollum said the 16 centers and their 140 sites serve a large number of undocumented immigrants and have seen a patient drop off, fewer people going to get immunized and cancellations because of the fear.

“This is very sad because a lot of women are not receiving pre-natal care for their babies,” said McCollum. “There are people who desperately need healthcare and are not getting it.”

The centers are independent not-for-profit agencies that receive federal grants and some state funding. But they claim they should be exempt from the reporting requirements because they are meant to be a safety net mandated to provide services to anyone regardless of immigration status.

AAHC awaits a legal opinion by State Attorney General Terry Goddard on the impact of the law and whether the center will be required to report their clients.

The centers serve about 20 per cent of the uninsured population in Arizona. Often they’re the only option in rural areas.

“This is why this so problematic for us,” said McCollum. “These people don’t have any other choices,”

Among them there are women like Guadalupe, 29, who is two months pregnant but hasn’t visited a doctor. Her husband is legally in the United States but can’t afford to pay insurance for her second pregnancy in 10 years.

“It was an accident, we didn’t plan it,” said Guadalupe, who asked that her real name not be used because she is undocumented.

That’s part of the reason she doesn’t want to apply for emergency health care services she is entitled to under federal law.

“I never asked anything of the government, and my husband pays taxes,” she said. “With the new laws they have in place, you’re automatically a criminal.”

Guadalupe said she believes abortion is wrong but fears that will be her only choice. A regular delivery could cost her $5,000 at a local hospital.

Rosie Villegas-Smith, director of the anti-abortion group Voces Por La Vida, has been in touch with women like Ana. She’s worried that many of them are not applying for an emergency services card, provided by AHCCCS, which would help them get pre-natal care.

“Republicans say that they’re pro-life, but they don’t realize that this affects those who are most vulnerable, like pregnant women,” said Villegas-Smith.

The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) has received questions from politicians regarding pre-natal care under this new law.

“We feel we were already in compliance with this bill,” said Duane Huffman, chief legislative liaison for ADHS, who acknowledged the confusion regarding the new law.

HB 2008 doesn’t directly affect emergency services, immunizations, and Woman and Infant Care (WIC), a nutritional service. While there are concerns, programs like WIC have not reported a decrease in applicants, said Huffman.

But immigrant advocates think the law’s negative impacts are real and intentional.

“This law was designed to generate panic and for people to self-deport,” said Antonio Velazquez, director of the Maya-Chapin organization, which represents over 3,000 indigenous Guatemalans in metropolitan Phoenix. “But the truth is that they don’t have the funding or the personnel to enforce it.”

Proponents of HB 2008 argue that it was necessary to stop undocumented immigrants from fraudulently receiving welfare and healthcare insurance.

In a recent column published in the East Valley Tribune, Republican State Senator Russell Pearce claimed that undocumented immigrants receiving public benefits are one reason the ACHCCS budget has increased.

But AHCCCS statistics reveal few cases of fraud in the application process. In fiscal year 2009, the AHCCCS fraud unit investigated 215 cases, but there’s no break down of how many were related to undocumented immigrants. In 2009, the state insurance program grew by 214,000 new members. Before the new law, AHCCCS already had a system in place to check eligibility requirements, which include U.S. citizenship or permanent legal residence for at least five years.

“We are turning everybody into immigration agents,” said attorney Isabel Garcia, director of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos, a human rights organization in Tucson, “when the reality is that immigration is a complex area of the law.”

"Nos enfrentamos a la continuidad del delito de lesa humanidad de desaparición forzada y asesinatos de luchadores sociales como política de Estado"

Comunicado del Ejército Popular Revolucionario






AL PUEBLO DE MEXICO A LOS PUEBLOS DEL MUNDO A LOS ORGANISMOS NO GUBERNAMENTALES DEFENSORES DE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS A LAS ORGANIZACIONES SOCIALES, POLÍTICAS Y REVOLUCIONARIAS ¡HERMANAS, HERMANOS, CAMARADAS!

Por experiencia, los mexicanos sabemos que la Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos no ha cumplido con las funciones que dice tener, la supuesta autonomía de que se ha ufanado y la falta de facultades vinculatorias de sus recomendaciones han sido sus grandes debilidades y en lugar de que se dedicara a defender los Derechos Humanos de la sociedad, se dedicó a defender la impunidad de gobernantes y funcionarios que los violaron. Ni duda cabe que ha habido violaciones de todo tipo a los derechos humanos que ellos mismos probaron y comprobaron al igual que los obstáculos que pusieron las autoridades locales de Oaxaca y federales en el caso de nuestros compañeros Edmundo Reyes Amaya y Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sánchez, a pesar de los testimonios de personas que los vieron muy golpeados, graves, por las torturas que les infirieron quienes los detuvieron y entregados al ejército para internarlos en el Campo militar número uno donde, insistimos, se encuentran.

¿Qué podemos esperar de la CNDH en esta etapa con su nuevo presidente?

Pues, a pesar de todas las pruebas que se aportaron, a pesar, del destacado papel de la Comisión de mediación que realizó esfuerzos sobrehumanos para que presentaran a los compañeros, el capricho y la venganza del Sr. Felipe Calderón Hinojosa y de la cúpula del ejército fue, hasta la fecha, continuar torturando y además, negando que ellos tienen a nuestros compañeros, cuando todo mundo o las ONG’s saben que los tienen.

La falta de voluntad política para resolver todas las violaciones contra los Derechos humanos que han cometido miembros del ejército ha originado que hoy, el representante de Amnistía Internacional en México, Alberto Herrera, proponga que se realicen manifestaciones ante las embajadas de México del mundo para denunciar las violaciones que el ejército comete día a día, que no son presuntas, porque hay pruebas claras de los desmanes que hace la milicia con cualquier ciudadano.

Milicia que ha declarado, con todo cinismo, que la estrategia que han desarrollado contra el crimen organizado es un ensayo para descubrir los “focos rojos” de descontento social y “ubicar” es decir reprimir a los luchadores sociales y cuando los militares que han torturado, reprimido o asesinado son descubiertos, los cesan sin ser juzgados para luego formar con ellos grupos paramilitares consentidos, sostenidos y dirigidos por las cúpulas del ejército, gubernamentales o empresariales para asesinar selectivamente a estos luchadores sociales. Demos algunos ejemplos: el asesinato de Lenin Ortiz Betancourt, hijo de los profesores Mónica Betancourt y Rigoberto Ortiz dirigentes del Movimiento Democrático Magisterial Poblano; el estudiante de la BUAP y de la UNAM Fermín Mariano Matías originario de Puebla, asesinado, cuyo cadáver fue abandonado en territorio del estado de Tlaxcala, el asesinato de Mariano Abarca Roblero, luchador social de la Red Mexicana de afectados por la minería (REMA) del movimiento en contra de la entrega de la industria minera en Chiapas, el asesinato de los luchadores sociales de la OCEZ Jordán López Aguilar y Ballardo Hernández de la Cruz cuando se produjo la injusta detención de José Manuel Hernández Martínez, hoy ya en libertad; el asesinato de Miguel Pérez Cazales dirigente del Consejo de Pueblos de Morelos, el asesinato de la hija y el yerno de una de las madres que pertenecen a la ONG Nuestras hijas de regreso a casa… esto sucede a todo lo largo y ancho del país, aunque algunos reporteros que se creen analistas políticos defiendan a capa y espada al Estado y al ejército diciendo que esos son hechos aislados, cuando que son hechos premeditados dentro de la estrategia de Guerra de Baja Intensidad (GBI) y que como declarara el representante de Amnistía Internacional, un sólo hecho de estos no debiera existir en un país que se presume democrático.

Son miles las demandas que llegan a Amnistía Internacional y, cómo se puede probar quiénes fueron si el mismo ejército encubre los hechos y actúa en plena impunidad. Pero, no solamente son asesinados los luchadores sociales que desarrollan su lucha dentro del marco de la Constitución, además asesinan a los luchadores sociales que en un momento dado toman las vías de la insurgencia armada, como sucedió con el lamentable hecho de la muerte del Comandante Insurgente Ramiro del ERPI. Con este vil y cobarde hecho escalan una vez más los asesinatos selectivos.

Queremos aclarar con todo énfasis que no existe lucha intestina o interna alguna dentro de los diversos grupos revolucionarios existentes en nuestro país y que si algún luchador social que salga de la cárcel fuese asesinado no nos utilicen como pretexto, porque nuestro partido tomó como principio la decisión de resolver todo caso de manera política, quienes saben la historia de los acontecimientos pasados en nuestro partido, saben que a pesar de los delitos cometidos por algunos ex compañeros, tales como el robo, la violación, la delación y la deserción les hemos dado un trato eminentemente político y desde los años 70 hemos rehuido siempre toda lucha fratricida.

Por lo que reafirmamos que no se dará ninguna confrontación fratricida, porque cada quien con sus defectos y virtudes está haciendo algo por cambiar este sistema de opresión. Ahora bien, consideramos que es necesario continuar insistiendo en la exigencia de la presentación con vida y en libertad de nuestros compañeros Edmundo Reyes Amaya y Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sánchez, y por lo mismo, solicitamos a la Comisión de mediación que retome la función que con tanto acierto y esfuerzo sobrehumano venía desempeñando, para lo que les proponemos que sea con la ayuda de otros esfuerzos de quienes como los que la conforman tienen la autoridad moral para sumarse a ésta.

Insistimos, debido a los dichos del Sr. Calderón, y el Sr. Fernando Gómez Mont de que tienen la voluntad de dialogar con el pueblo y de atender todas sus demandas.

Insistimos, porque nos enfrentamos a la continuidad del delito de lesa humanidad de desaparición forzada y asesinatos de luchadores sociales como política de Estado.

Insistimos para que no siga habiendo impunidad y sean juzgados los elementos que han participado en desapariciones forzadas y asesinatos del presente, tales como el General de división Guillermo Galván Galván, el general Javier Oropeza, el gobernador de Oaxaca Ulises Ruiz y su procurador general de justicia; Mario Marín de Puebla; que se investigue al rector de la Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla que es el que tenía una “buena” relación con el brillante estudiante de física de la BUAP, Fermín Mariano Matías, así como a los asesinos del pasado como Arturo Acosta Chaparro por mencionar a uno de los más torvos.

Estamos concientes de las múltiples ocupaciones de las personalidades de la Codeme. Sin embargo, volvemos a solicitar e insistir que reconsideren nuevamente el funcionamiento de la misma. Por lo que esperaremos su respuesta con paciencia y la seguridad de su compromiso con la lucha por la justicia.

Es el momento de que todo aquél que se considere un luchador social se pronuncie para que reanude su función la Codeme, si ésta aceptase daríamos a conocer el nombre de las personas que participarían en el desarrollo de esta encomienda.

Nos hemos enterado que la cúpula del ejército podría cambiar a nuestros compañeros y demás detenidos desaparecidos del Campo militar número uno al bunker de la Secretaría de Seguridad Pública Federal (SSPF) que tiene ubicado debajo de lo que fueron los juzgados que están a un lado de lo que fue el Penal de Lecumberri de Negro historial, en donde se encuentra actualmente el Archivo General de la Nación.

Alertamos a los obreros y obreras del SME porque si bien Felipe Calderón Hinojosa y el ejército han privilegiado la represión selectiva creyendo que al eliminar a los líderes descabeza las luchas populares podría activar la represión masiva a su máxima expresión, recordemos Guadalajara, Jalisco, cuando era gobernador Francisco Ramírez Acuña.

Hermanas, hermanos, camaradas: un año más está por terminar, motivo por el cual enviamos un fraterno saludo y un abrazo camaraderil y revolucionario de la dirección de nuestro partido y ejército a todos y cada uno de los que nos han ayudado a sobrevivir ante la represión de este estado policiaco militar y a todos los luchadores sociales que de una u otra forma se rebelan y resisten la criminalización de la protesta social y la impunidad gubernamental, deseamos con toda sinceridad que pasen estos días festivos con calma, serenidad y reflexión, sin bajar la guardia, para encontrar los mejores métodos de lucha ante este Estado opresor, para detener la noche de los cuchillos largos.

¡VIVOS SE LOS LLEVARON, VIVOS LOS QUEREMOS! ¡A EXIGIR LA LIBERTAD DE TODOS LOS PRESOS POLITICOS Y DE CONCIENCIA DEL PAIS! ¡POR LA PRESENTACION DE TODOS LOS DETENIDOS DESAPARECIDOS! ¡VIVAN LOS SINDICATOS INDEPENDIENTES! ¡POR LA LIBERTAD SINDICAL!

¡POR LA REVOLUCION SOCIALISTA! ¡VENCER O MORIR! ¡POR NUESTROS CAMARADAS PROLETARIOS! ¡RESUELTOS A VENCER! ¡CON LA GUERRA POPULAR! ¡EL EPR TRIUNFARA!

COMITÉ CENTRAL DEL PARTIDO DEMOCRATICO POPULAR REVOLUCIONARIO PDPR COMANDANCIA GENERAL DEL EJERCITOPOPULAR REVOLUCIONARIO EPR

Año 45 Oaxaca de Juárez a 13 de diciembre de 2009.

Relocating Guantánamo

Silence of the Lamb-like Lawyers

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

CounterPunch

Obama’s dwindling band of true believers has taken heart that their man has finally delivered on one of his many promises--the closing of the Guantanamo prison. But the prison is not being closed. It is being moved to Illinois, if the Republicans permit.

In truth, Obama has handed his supporters another defeat. Closing Guantanamo meant ceasing to hold people in violation of our legal principles of habeas corpus and due process and ceasing to torture them in violation of US and international laws.

All Obama would be doing would be moving 100 people, against whom the US government is unable to bring a case, from the prison in Guantanamo to a prison in Thomson, Illinois.

Are the residents of Thomson despondent that the US government has chosen their town as the site on which to continue its blatant violation of US legal principles? No, the residents are happy. It means jobs.

The hapless prisoners had a better chance of obtaining release from Guantanamo. Now the prisoners are up against two US senators, a US representative, a mayor, and a state governor who have a vested interest in the prisoners’ permanent detention in order to protect the new prison jobs in the hamlet devastated by unemployment.

Neither the public nor the media have ever shown any interest in how the detainees came to be incarcerated. Most of the detainees were unprotected people who were captured by Afghan war lords and sold to the Americans as “terrorists” in order to collect a proffered bounty. It was enough for the public and the media that the Defense Secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, declared the Guantanamo detainees to be the “780 most dangerous people on earth.”

The vast majority have been released after years of abuse. The 100 who are slated to be removed to Illinois have apparently been so badly abused that the US government is afraid to release them because of the testimony the prisoners could give to human rights organizations and foreign media about their mistreatment.

Our British allies are showing more moral conscience than Americans are able to muster. Former PM Tony Blair, who provided cover for President Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq, is being damned for his crimes by UK officialdom testifying before the Chilcot Inquiry.

The London Times on December 14 summed up the case against Blair in a headline: “Intoxicated by Power, Blair Tricked Us Into War.” Two days later the British First Post declared: “War Crime Case Against Tony Blair Now Rock-solid.” In an unguarded moment Blair let it slip that he favored a conspiracy for war regardless of the validity of the excuse [weapons of mass destruction] used to justify the invasion.

The movement to bring Blair to trial as a war criminal is gathering steam. Writing in the First Post Neil Clark reported: “There is widespread contempt for a man [Blair] who has made millions [his reward from the Bush regime] while Iraqis die in their hundreds of thousands due to the havoc unleashed by the illegal invasion, and who, with breathtaking arrogance, seems to regard himself as above the rules of international law.” Clark notes that the West’s practice of shipping Serbian and African leaders off to the War Crimes Tribunal, while exempting itself, is wearing thin.

In the US, of course, there is no such attempt to hold to account Bush, Cheney, Condi Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the large number of war criminals that comprised the Bush Regime. Indeed, Obama, whom Republicans love to hate, has gone out of his way to protect the Bush cohort from being held accountable.

Here in Great Moral America we only hold accountable celebrities and politicians for their sexual indiscretions. Tiger Woods is paying a bigger price for his girlfriends than Bush or Cheney will ever pay for the deaths and ruined lives of millions of people. The consulting company, Accenture Plc, which based its marketing program on Tiger Woods, has removed Woods from its Web site. Gillette announced that the company is dropping Woods from its print and broadcast ads. AT&T says it is re-evaluating the company’s relationship with Woods.

Apparently, Americans regard sexual infidelity as far more serious than invading countries on the basis of false charges and deception, invasions that have caused the deaths and displacement of millions of innocent people. Remember, the House impeached President Clinton not for his war crimes in Serbia, but for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Americans are more upset by Tiger Woods’ sexual affairs than they are by the Bush and Obama administrations’ destruction of US civil liberty. Americans don’t seem to mind that “their” government for the last 8 years has resorted to the detention practices of 1,000 years ago--simply grab a person and throw him into a dungeon forever without bringing charges and obtaining a conviction.

According to polls, Americans support torture, a violation of both US and international law, and Americans don’t mind that their government violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and spies on them without obtaining warrants from a court. Apparently, the brave citizens of the “sole remaining superpower” are so afraid of terrorists that they are content to give up liberty for safety, an impossible feat.

With stunning insouciance, Americans have given up the rule of law that protected their liberty. The silence of law schools and bar associations indicates that the age of liberty has passed. In short, the American people support tyranny. And that’s where they are headed.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. His new book, How the Economy was Lost, will be published next month by AK Press / CounterPunch. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

El EPR, Ahora

Jorge Lofredo

Investigador

Centro de Documentación de los Movimientos Armados




Pueden destacarse algunos elementos del más reciente comunicado emitido por el Ejército Popular Revolucionario -firmado en Oaxaca- que permiten descubrir parte de su posicionamiento político frente a la coyuntura. Son fundamentalmente útiles para conocer sus tiempos internos y sus siguientes pasos; pero además, para desentrañar si es un preludio de lo que vendrá.

El primer punto es la solicitud de la continuidad de la Comisión de Mediación aún cuando a la prolongación de sus labores se le agreguen otros miembros (por primera vez se pronuncia en ese sentido). La organización realiza esta propuesta ante la disolución de la instancia mediadora, que consideró agotada su función.

Sin agregar nuevos datos, el grupo insiste en afirmar que sus desaparecidos están en el Campo Militar 1 y lo vincula con asesinatos selectivos de luchadores sociales para descabezar el descontento y criminalizar la protesta social. Para el EPR son la prueba del desarrollo de la Guerra de Baja Intensidad.

Luego denuncian el asesinato del “Comandante Insurgente Ramiro”, dirigente del ERPI. Este dato es de vital importancia para interpretar la circunstancia actual entre ambas organizaciones. Sin forzar interpretaciones ni adherir a teorías conspirativas, cabe agregar aquí el llamativo silencio que viene sosteniendo Tendencia Democrática Revolucionaria.

También ha sido curioso el texto del Comando 28 de Junio, luego del asesinato de “Ramiro”, que no refiere a la cuestión. De hecho, ni lo menciona; sin embargo, omitir no implica callar. Refiere a otra forma de silencio. Dio su señal: no dice nada porque es eso lo que tiene para decir.

Finalmente, la mención sobre la “lucha fratricida” que se subraya en el texto donde esboza un doble deslinde: por un lado, para que no sean señalados hoy como pretexto de ejecuciones intestinas y, por el otro, que las ejecuciones de décadas pasadas fueron llevadas a cabo por “ex compañeros” y exime de responsabilidad a la organización.

Son datos que sirven para la reconstrucción histórica, pero también para comprender su presente.

The TVA Ash Spill One Year Later: Lessons Learned

Pulse of the Planet

By GREGORY BUTTON

CounterPunch

Nearly a year ago on Monday, December 22, 2009, at the Kingston fossil fuel plant in Eastern Tennessee, a fly ash impoundment collapsed and within minutes released 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic fly ash into the Emory River and over 300 acres of land. The spill damaged numerous homes, destroyed a portion of a rail line and covered a portion of a highway. Fortunately there were no fatalities, but the lives of hundreds of nearby residents were severely altered, some forever, by one of the worst in environmental disaster in our nation's history. The TVA estimates that it will cost rate- payers more than one billion dollars for the clean-up effort.

Equally troubling is the TVA's inept response to the disaster. A response so reckless it will undoubtedly be recorded in the annals of disaster history as what not to do in the wake of calamity. In the aftermath of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill (1989) there appeared a number of case studies criticizing Exxon's response to the spill, describing their response as a classic management case study of how not to response to a catastrophe. In light of the TVA's flawed response to the ash spill, in years to come their failure will certainly be viewed as yet another textbook case of how not to respond to crisis.

The Agency's response has been more than simply flawed. The TVA's tactical response to the disaster has been to manufacture doubt and uncertainty to keep the public confused and avoid environmental compliance and accountability. Their ability to pursue this strategy calls into question the regulatory powers of state and federal agencies.

As a result of this kind of an approach, their credibility has been severely questioned by many and some would argue that in weeks and months that followed the agency has squandered whatever credibility they had left.

The question remains if the TVA can recover their credibility and actually be perceived as having eventually taken the necessary steps to repair the damage to both the affected families and the environment. Even though the TVA appears to have, somewhat reluctantly, taken some modest steps in recent months the jury is still out on whether they will be able to restore their image and whether or not they have truly reformed or are merely undertaking yet another public relations campaign to repair their image and avoid transparency.

From the beginning they appeared to down play the event. In the first early hours in the media and on their websites they referred to the disaster as an "ash slide". Their early statements also underestimated the damage considerably by reporting that an estimated 1.8 million cubic yards of coal ash was spilled but they were later forced to issue a correction when radar analysis revealed the amount to be 5.4 cubic million yards.

Tom Kilgore, TVA CEO referred to the disaster as an "inconvenience" and TVA Senior Vice President for Environmental Policy, Anda Ray, astonishingly refused to call the spill an environmental disaster since in her mind coal waste is "inert". Instead, she described the event as "a challenging event to restore the community back to normalcy"

The efforts to downplay the disaster continued as Tom Kilgore prematurely declared the situation as "safe". In his statement he said, "chemicals in the ash spill are of concern, but the situation is probably safe." A statement made long before there was as any scientific evidence to support such a claim. Then Gilbert Francis Jr. an agency spokesperson made a statement to the press saying that ash spill materials "do contain some heavy metals within it, but it is not toxic or anything." These statements are ironic in light of a later internal report that would criticize the TVA for having "relegated [ash] to the status of garbage at a landfill rather than treating it as a potential hazard to the public and the environment."

Journalists, environmentalists, public health specialists and independent scientists wondered how the TVA could make such assertions when extensive scientific studies had not yet to been conducted. Whether or not there was imminent harm to public health or the environment seemed in some people's minds to be an open question that required more extensive investigation rather than hasty pronouncements.

In the wake of most disasters there often is an "informational vacuum" and research demonstrates that too often responsible parties hastily attempt to fill this vacuum with incomplete or misinformation before all the information and research is readily available to fully inform the public.

These initial missteps cascaded into a series of missteps or calculated manuvers. To some observers it soon began to appear that the TVA either didn't comprehend the severity of the event or was trying desperately to deny its severity and downplay it. In the coming weeks and months the TVA's handling of the event seemed in the eyes of some, if not many, to swing wildly out of control. The question in some minds was "how could an agency as large, as powerful, as the TVA falter again and again and appear to take such a reckless approach.

In addition to the false start described above, many of the TVA's responses called in to question "who was in charge?" As well as why the agency seemed to have so much difficulty in recovering. Among many of the missteps too numerous to mention were:

* To the shock of many, the TVA did not implement a National Incident Management System in accordance with Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5. The failure of which severely hampered emergency response communications with county, state and federal agency. In light of our nation's national disaster response to 9/11 and all the implemented in response to this national tragedy it was shocking and disturbing to many that an agency the size of the TVA, was not prepared to interactive with a system so vital to our nation's security. The idea that an agency with had so many major dams, fossil fuel plants, and nuclear facilities was unprepared to communicate and interact with NIMS was startling to seasoned disaster responders.

* Uncertainties, doubts, and concern increased in many peoples' mind when independent researchers began reporting test results that conflicted with the TVA's test results. Doubt and concern increased when the TVA severely restricted access to the afflicted area and prevented independent testing. Whether or not the move was surreptitious, it appeared to be so in the eyes of many. As the disparity in the risk evaluations grew and residents learned more about the potential health risks, concerns about health increased, as did concerns about long-term harm to the environment. One resident affected by the spill stated, "The TVA tends to dance around the issue and not tell you direct answers. Another resident, who attended the TVA's public meetings argued, "The TVA will sand bag you with tons of irrelevant data but will not answer your questions."

* The TVA's credibility was further eroded when an internal memo prepared by the agency's public relations staff, labeled, "risk assessment talking points" was leaked to inadvertently emailed to the Associated Press. The memo stated that the coal ash spill was best described as a "sudden accidental release" rather than "catastrophic." The memo further advised that to remove from any future statements the word, "risk to public health and risk to the environment" as the reason for monitoring water quality. A discussion of fly ash was revised to note that it consists of "inert" materials and is not harmful to the environment." Suspicions about the TVA's statements grew in the minds of some journalists as well as the families affected by the spill. As an internal TVA report would later state, "repeated efforts by the media to learn anything about the TVA's culpability were met with artful dodges" thereby confirming earlier suspicions about the TVA's motives.

* Doubts and suspicions were galvanized in some minds when in the summer of 2009 the TVA's inspector general released a report that claimed that the TVA had ignored several decades of warnings that could have prevented the tragedy from occurring.

* The report went on to assert that the TVA made a conscious effort to suppress certain facts. In commenting on the TVA's failure to investigate and report management practices that contributed to the spill the IG's report states: " the fact that the TVA would not review management practices may have contributed to the failure, but would instead tightly circumscribe the scope of the review to intentionally avoid revealing any evidence that would suggest culpability on the part of the TVA: "In fact, it would appear that TVA management made a conscious decision to present to the public only facts that supported an absence of liability for TVA for the Kingston spill".

* The report continues by exploring the issue further and stating that the agency's dilemma appears to have been accountability versus litigation. The IG's report suggests that one the one hand the TVA could have conducted a "diligent" review of TVA management practices and a technical examination of the failed impoundment structure and release their findings to the public or decide on a second choice which the report characterizes as to "circle the wagons" by only publishing favorable press releases and "attempt to minimize its legal liability." Both choices, the report argues are value judgments. While the inspector general's office does not have definitive information about how the decision was made the report suggests it would appear the TVA made the latter choice. If true, this is indeed unfortunate since, aside from the public's right to know, research demonstrates that the lack of transparency in the wake of disasters creates undo uncertainty and anxiety in the minds of those most affected by the tragedy. Decisions like this underscore the fact that it is not always science the drives decision-making process in the wake of disasters but rather politics and the culture of organizations.

* Finally, just this month the Environmental Integrity Project has just released new data, which in their words "paints an even grimmer picture of the coal ash disaster. Based on reports filed with the Environmental Protection Agency by the TVA, the ash spill "dumped an estimated 140,000 pounds of arsenic into the Emory River-more than twice the reported amount discharged in U.S. waterways from all power plants in 2007."

* The Toxics Release Inventory filed by TVA with the EPA also reports that other toxic pollutants, such as vanadium, chromium, lead, manganese, and nickel were deposited in the river at levels higher than twice the amount of reported amounts discharged in 2007 by all U.S. power plants into U.S. waterways. Not only is the shear amount of these toxic pollutants disturbing and troublesome, but also the fact that while the TVA reported these discharges, at some point in time, to the EPA, they failed to be transparent and report the same facts to the general public. Why did it take a report issued by an independent organization to make these amounts and their potential consequences known to the general public? Why has the TVA itself failed to do so? As we await the agency's response to these findings one cannot help but wonder if the TVA in its denial is not about to generate another media spin designed to create uncertainty.

Richard Moore, the TVA's Inspector General, recently testified before the United States House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. In his statements he recounts some of his earlier findings on the failure of the TVA in responding to the ash spill disaster and outlines current attempts by the TVA to remedy their failures. Moore believes the TVA is "marching in the right direction based on actions implemented and/or initiated to-date." Although, he does caution: "it is too early to determine whether these will be sufficient to overcome a legacy of culture resistant to change."

What worries me is that many decades of disaster research clearly demonstrate that in the wake of disasters, many lessons are learned, but seldom if ever are they implemented, even when corporations or government announce their attention to do so.

One thing is clear. The remedy to the TVA's mishandling of the disaster requires more than a restructuring of management. If significant changes within the TVA corporate culture are to succeed, there must be recognition that even though science and technology are integral to responding to environmental disasters (which in this case seems to be the camouflage under which the TVA is hiding), research has demonstrated that the instinct to rely solely on an 'engineering fix' does not work. The TVA must recognize that the sociocultural issues within the agency and the affected communities cannot be ignored if they are to respond effectively to disasters and prevent them from happening in the future.

More importantly, given the TVA's careless response to the ash spill disaster and its poor environmental record across the board (See the Environmental Integrity Project's scathing report) it has become increasingly obvious that aside from a major sea change within it's organizational structure the TVA must held more accountable to the EPA and Congressional oversight and be denied its unique status as a "federal" agency which shields it from being held more accountable. In short, it is time to redress the asymmetrical power relationship between an environmental polluter like the TVA and the federal agencies that are mandated to protect the environment and the public's health.

Gregory V. Button, PhD is a faculty member at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville who has been researching disasters for over three decades. He is currently writing a book about the TVA Ash Spill titled, "When Ashes Flowed Like Water". He can be contacted at gregoryvbutton@mac.com.

Fuerte impulso a la agricultura familiar entre compromisos de Evo Morales en Bolivia

Comer lo nuestro


Ecoportal

Entre los compromisos asumidos por el presidente boliviano Evo Morales para su futuro período de gobierno se encuentra terminar con la fuerte dependencia de productos importados para la conformación de la canasta alimentaria de sus compatriotas.

Así lo comentó en entrevista con Radio Mundo Real, Miguel Lora, desde La Paz. Miguel es columnista del sitio Bolpress y además integra el equipo de comunicación del Viceministerio de Tierras de Bolivia.

El próximo domingo 6 de diciembre se realizarán las elecciones en Bolivia donde el Movimiento al Socialismo buscará relegitimar la presidencia de Evo Morales en el período 2010-2015. En los últimos días se han sucedido actos de cierre de campaña en varias regiones de Bolivia. Los sondeos le otorgan a Evo una ventaja de cerca del 30 puntos respecto a las opciones de derecha.

Actualmente el trigo con que se elabora el pan boliviano es enteramente extranjero, procedente incluso por vía de “donación” de los Estados Unidos, dice Miguel, quien afirma que la incógnita es por qué margen será reelecto Morales.

“En esta segunda administración nosotros vamos a cultivar nuestros alimentos que son infinitamente más sanos y nutritivos que los alimentos industriales importados”, señala Lora recordando el compromiso de Evo.

Derecha sin discurso

Miguel analiza asimismo la importancia de la elección boliviana en el contexto latinoamericano donde en estos dias se sucedieron elecciones en Honduras bajo dictadura y en Uruguay con la consolidación de la izquierda en el gobierno tras el triunfo del Frente Amplio.

Desde su lectura personal Lora afirma que la derecha en Bolivia ha quedado sin discurso político o social lo que la deja “sin ninguna chance de forjar siquiera una segunda vuelta electoral”.

Attacks Against the Triquis Escalate

Violence from PRI UBISORT Becomes Chronic

By Nancy Davies

Narco News

Commentary from Oaxaca

Last November 28 in the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala three acts of aggression occurred. Two of them were mentioned in Narconews: While the so-called Union for the Social Well-being of the Triqui Region (UBISORT in its Spanish initials), an organization firmly linked to the PRI, was blocking the only entrance to the township, other armed groups ascended the surrounding hills and began to shoot indiscriminately at the population. The immediate outcome of the aggressions was one dead nine year old, two other kids wounded, suspension of classes in the schools, and the closing of the Monday market which the town had been able to re-open only after years of effort. The town lives with anxiety: children won’t leave their houses, men leave hidden in trucks, and women who want to abandon the region don’t do so because it’s too risky; they say their fellow townspeople will regard them as cowards, or worse, as traitors.

The circle around the San Juan Copala autonomous municipality was both political and military. The third aggression is a campaign of disinformation. Some press accounts, without visiting the region, asserted that the autonomous municipality had been dismantled. One of the reports claimed that members of the Movement for Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT, in its Spanish initials), descended from the hills shooting more than 500 rounds from AK-47s, weapons for exclusive use by the army. That the autonomous municipality, founded in 2006 in response to the teachers-APPO popular social movement, was ending. That the townspeople unanimously came together to celebrate the end of autonomy and furthermore, elected a constitutional authority. That the new authority named was none other than Anastasio Juárez Hernández, a migrant who lives in the state of Querétaro, brother of Rufino, the operator from UBISORT working with the state government.

Two days later, when the municipal authority had cleared up the facts — the authorities remained in their offices, there had been no election of anybody and that what really happened was an external aggression — some daily papers still insisted that the autonomous municipality had been dismantled. MULT denied the version issued by San Juan Copala which insisted that MULT had participated in a military aggression, but anyway the papers did not print it. Nothing was reported regarding the dead child, nor the wounded, nor the state of alarm among the people. Only Las Noticias, the only statewide left-sympathetic Oaxaca newspaper, followed the facts as they became available.

On December 9 UBISORT members kidnapped from San Juan Copala the wife and four minor children of Jordán González Ramírez, a sympathizer of the autonomous municipality who maybe killed a man last Tuesday. The UBISORT group claims Jordán González shot Pablo Bautista Ramirez in response to Bautista’s attacks against the home of González. Whether or not that is true, armed PRIistas installed blockades around the town to avoid any exit or entrance. The town president José Ramirez Flores explained that a group of UBISORT militants, identified by name by Jordán Gonzalez´ mother, entered his home at five A.M.. They kidnapped his wife and children. Later they demanded that the family pay 50,000 pesos within twenty-four hours, or they would murder one of the children.

On December 10 UBISORT placed the corpse of Pablo Bautista Ramirez on the desk of town president José Ramirez Flores. Dozens of heavily armed UBISORT militants had taken over the municipal palace, holding at bay the Independent Movement for Triqui Unification and Struggle, (in its Spanish initials MULT-I, to be distinguished from MULT), to which most of San Juan Copala’s population belong. UBISORT’s initial goal was to depose José Ramirez Flores and impose as new president Anastasio Juarez Hernandez.

Wait a minute, didn’t I just say that was a lie? The lie was reported and then it became true? Did some reporter spill the beans ahead of the appointed time?

Well, the door to the municipal palace was forced open by UBISORT militants, and their group brought along the corpse. At that time, the president issued a bulletin stating that the murder of Pablo Bautista had been an act of self-defense because Pablo Bautista had several times shot at the home of Jordán González. José Ramirez added that Bautista died on the road, traveling toward a hospital. President Ramirez recounted the events leading up to the palace take-over, and concluded by saying that the town authorities were willing to investigate whatever charges the family of Pablo Bautista brought; that in no moment had they concealed facts of that sort; during three years of autonomy they had demonstrated their ability to resolve cases through dialogue between accusers and accused, and then turn the results over to the proper authorities. The town president concluded by saying they would hold responsible the state government and its political operator UBISORT for any death among the kidnapped family and any future deaths among the Triqui population.

Thus inhabitants of the town are very clear about who’s hitting on it, and say so. What seems inexplicable is the viciousness of shooting against unarmed townspeople, murdering a child, and then kidnapping an entire family, while at the same time the media carry on a statewide campaign to discredit San Juan Copala.

Clearly state PRI controlled political groups are behind the aggression, that’s obvious. Why? There’s more involved than confrontation between organizations operating in the same region. More than two years ago, I was told by a Triqui authority that they refused entry and recognition to any groups, seeking a more or less peaceful town. A week ago I was told by a Triqui man (who lives safely in Oaxaca) that Triquis have the custom of taking vengeance like Hatfields and McCoys,holding grudges for generations. I don’t believe that. I think it’s promoted, and now more than ever.

One answer to the aggression could lie with the upcoming gubernatorial election in July 2010. Not only the Triquis have been attacked. Leonardo Clemente Cruz, an indígenous Chinanteco who was kidnapped on November 24, was found dead. But it’s not very logical to think the government commits acts of destabilization unless they can blame others. Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador has just published a four part series describing his tour through Oaxaca (http://www.amlo.org.mx/) —and it’s all peace and praise. Another explanation was put forward by the township of San Juan Copala itself. President José Ramirez Flores believes the kidnapping of the five persons constitutes another act of provocation, like shooting the children. Generating violence, he claims, would justify militarization of the autonomous municipality and its communities.

Asking for the intervention of the Army – have we heard that before? Non-Mexicans may not know that the Triquis suffered this measure long before 2006, during the seventies and eighties. Like Oaxaca residents in 2006, they know what army occupation entails.

From a broader perspective, one could point out that the aggression is not just against Triqui autonomy, but against all who struggle for autonomy, in Oaxaca regions as well as in Chiapas. As Francisco López Bárcenas wrote in La Jornada on December 11[1],
“Something is happening.” Lopez Barcenas says that we don’t yet know what that “something” is, but surely in days to come we will be its witnesses. “Meanwhile, the life of the people is changing like in times of war, the Triquis say, and surely other people (say so) too.”

What I say, is that Mexico is well on its way to being militarized.

[1] much of this material is thanks to “La guerra contra los triquis” La Jornada, December 11, 2009, Francisco López Bárcenas

¿Cómo es posible la esclavitud en el siglo XXI?

La Jiribilla




La Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos establece en su artículo 4: “nadie estará sometido a esclavitud ni a servidumbre; la esclavitud y la trata de esclavos están prohibidas en todas sus formas”.

Sin embargo, y aunque ha sido abolida de manera oficial por los estados y gobiernos, en el mundo actual permanecen en régimen de esclavitud más de 27 millones de personas, una gran parte de ellas niños y mujeres, pertenecientes a los grupos sociales más vulnerables.

Existen esclavos en todos los continentes, pero África y Asia son los más afectados. Formas de servidumbres como la esclavitud por deuda, el tráfico humano, la esclavitud doméstica, la explotación sexual, la prostitución forzosa, el trabajo infantil, la venta de niños, los matrimonios forzosos o ventas de mujeres y la permanencia de ciertas modalidades de mendicidad figuran entre las maneras bajo las que se configura hoy día este imperdonable crimen de lesa humanidad.

Desde la década del setenta la prohibición de la esclavitud es considerada una obligación en Derecho Internacional y existen múltiples declaraciones de organismos internacionales que condenan su existencia. No obstante, ello no ha podido frenar un proceso que parte de la desigualdad e injusticia del sistema vigente en el mundo, de los conceptos con que se articula el poder y de la tolerancia con que se acoge el fenómeno.

Si en los tiempos antiguos la manera de establecer la propiedad de un ser humano por otro se realizaba a través de la compraventa en mercados públicos, ahora el ejercicio de la propiedad se realiza a través del control sobre las víctimas utilizando la amenaza, la violencia u otro tipo de coacciones tanto físicas como morales. Los propietarios disponen de manera absoluta de una persona sin que medie un documento de propiedad.

El Foro Interactivo Esclavitud en el siglo XXI: ¿Cómo es posible? —convocado por el Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano de La Habana, el sitio digital La Ventana, de Casa de las Américas y la revista La Jiribilla—, es una alternativa de comunicación en busca de confrontar respuestas que ayuden a visibilizar el problema de la esclavitud humana en su dimensión global. A través de la relación virtual entre intelectuales, cineastas, creadores, especialistas, periodistas, representantes de organizaciones no gubernamentales e internautas de todo el mundo, pudieran encontrarse nuevas estrategias que contribuyan tanto a visibilizar el fenómeno como para pensar el margen de sus soluciones.

Crow Creek Leader Begins Protest

By Austin Kaus

The Daily Republic

The chairman of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe says he will take whatever peaceful action he can to reverse a land auction that involved disputed tribal land. Brandon Sazue this week vowed to set up teepees on the land, where he will live, fast and pray until the disagreement — involving some 7,100 acres on the Crow Creek Reservation — is settled.

FORT THOMPSON — The chairman of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe says he will take whatever peaceful action he can to reverse a land auction that involved disputed tribal land.

Brandon Sazue this week vowed to set up teepees on the land, where he will live, fast and pray until the disagreement — involving some 7,100 acres on the Crow Creek Reservation — is settled.

“I am the chairman of my tribe. I’m not going to just sit back and not do anything,” Sazue told The Daily Republic. “I’ve got to do something.”

Sazue’s response comes after the IRS last week auctioned the land to pay off more than $3 million in back taxes, penalties and interests. The tribe has sued to block the sale, saying the sale was illegal under federal laws protecting American Indian land.

Although U.S. District Judge Roberto Lange allowed the sale to proceed, a March trial was set to hear arguments.

Sazue said his protest hasn’t exactly gone to plan. At present, he’s residing in a trailer on the land and won’t move to a teepee or fast until the tent arrives.

He has, however, braved frigid temperatures since Monday, surviving on the food and support provided to him by a steady stream of visitors.

According to a news release from the tribe, a representative from the tribal council was told in 2002 that the tribe did not owe any back taxes. The sale sets a dangerous precedent, Sazue said Thursday, and he’s hoping members from other various tribes will eventually join him at the protest site.

“It’s hurt us tremendously,” Sazue said. “If they can do it to us, what would stop them from doing it to them?”

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin expressed concern Thursday about the methods and the reasoning behind the IRS’ decision-making process on the issue.

“They have not used this kind of authority much in the past and we’re concerned about the precedent that it sets,” Herseth Sandlin said. “We are raising questions about their authority to do so.”

She said she will look into the matter.

Until the dispute is resolved, Sazue said he will continue his protest on land near Mac’s Corner, about 12 miles north of Fort Thompson.

“I don’t care what the IRS says. It’s not for sale and it never will be,” Sazue said. “I could stay here forever.”

El triunfo de un pueblo organizado. Tinogasta le dijo no a sus verdugos

Ecoportal

El pueblo de Tinogasta enfrento masivamente la provocación de 5 patoteros de la Mina de Rió Colorado, exigiendo que se quedaran en el campamento hasta que el fiscal, el intendente, y su sequito de concejales, se presentaran en el lugar para dar respuesta a los reclamos por la no instalación de la mina. Frente a las amenazas de detenciones, manifestaron que debían tener un predio suficientemente grande para encarcelar a todo el pueblo. Carlos Buslaiman representante de la empresa Jackson Minerals Ltd. se comprometió frente a las cámaras, a no regresar al predio de las minas, y que no arribarían maquinarias a Tinogasta.

Una vez más el pueblo de Tinogasta con la férrea convicción de la defensa de la vida y sus recursos, dio una clara señal de que la ambición de gobernantes, empresas transnacionales y la ignorancia de un minúsculo grupo de traidores... con el pueblo de Tinogasta.. ¡¡No podrán!! .. en esta bella y bendita tierra ¡¡No pasarán!!

Cerca de las 18 hs. del 24 de noviembre de 2.009 la camioneta patente GAZ 727 en cuya puerta se lee Proyecto Río Colorado en la que viajaban Carlos Buslaiman y cuatro jóvenes pagados por la empresa minera, ingresó al paraje La Higuerita manifestando una evidente provocación a las personas que estaban montando guardia en el campamento. De acuerdo a lo acordado y por "suerte" contando con señal de telefonía celular, inmediatamente se dio aviso a los auto convocados, quienes de inmediato arribaron al campamento convocando al pueblo a unirse para recordar a los intrusos que no cuentan con la licencia social del pueblo y que una vez más estaban violando propiedad privada.

Habiéndose congregado una inmensa multitud, en asamblea, se tomó la determinación de que a su regreso, la camioneta con sus ocupantes debían permanecer junto al campamento hasta que la Fiscal Silvia Alvarez y/o el Intendente Municipal Simón Quintar y los Concejales Guillermo Sesto, Edgardo Reartes, Horacio Sierralta y Gustavo Díaz se hicieran presente y escuchen el reclamo que se viene llevando en relación a la No explotación minera contaminante a cielo abierto, por el pueblo de Tinogasta desde octubre de 2.00, fecha en que además se presentó un recurso de amparo, aún hoy no resuelto.

Como siempre sucede con autoridades judiciales y la fuerzas policiales, solicitas al requerimiento de intereses ajenos al pueblo, un móvil policial con numerosos efectivos llegaron al campamento pidiendo que se liberara la camioneta. Ante la negativa de la asamblea, el efectivo policial expresó que regresaría en una hora y que ya se debía cumplir con la orden, de lo contrario se vería en la obligación de proceder a los arrestos, a lo que la multitud manifestó que procedieran y que debían contar con un predio inmenso ya que debía arrestar y contener al pueblo presente.

Dado lo avanzado de la hora, cerca de la una de la madrugada, y ante la negativa de la Fiscal, del Intendente y de los Concejales de escuchar el reclamo del pueblo, la asamblea decidió seguir en la misma modalidad, pero lo que sucedió ante el arribo nuevamente de la policía, cerca de las dos, fue sorprendente: Carlos Buslaiman representante de la empresa Jackson Minerals Ltd. solicitó que se le abriera paso con el compromiso publico y ante las cámaras de cable Sono Visión, de no regresar al predio de las minas nunca más y que tiene entendido que no hay maquinarias que estén planeando arribar a Tinogasta.

Por razones humanitarias y tácticas, dada la gran cantidad de horas que los ocupantes de la camioneta estaban soportantando sin agua, ni alimento, la asamblea decidió que se acompañaría a la camioneta con custodia policial, en caravana hasta la oficina que la empresa ocupa en la casa de Rosa Orquera de Mirolo.

No se vió desde hace muchos años una auténtica muestra del amor que la gente siente por su lugar, nuestro lugar. La caravana que acompañó a los vencidos pro mineros fue impresionante, magnifica, emocionante... más de ciento cincuenta automóviles, siempre acompañados a distancia prudente por móviles policiales, a las cuatro de la mañana recorrían ruidosamente las calles de la ciudad y con la decepción e impotencia de sentirse huérfanos, sin la seguridad, protección y representatividad que las autoridades democráticamente elegidas deben proporcionar, Tinogasta rompio en un bullicioso y estridente reclamo, con las únicas armas de los cánticos, palmas y un megáfono, se les hizo sentir a las autoridades, el justo enojo y la rebeldía. A las cuatro con treinta minutos, la caravana finalizó, como viene siendo una costumbre últimamente, en la explanada del Templo San Juan Bautista, con un fervoroso Padrenuestro.

Tinogasta era un pueblo que parecía dormido, sin embargo ante la amenaza a la vida de las presentes generaciones y de las futuras, surgió la voz de las generaciones pasadas, las que lucharon denodadamente por defender el suelo, la cultura, las raíces.. y despertó en los tinogasteños la fuerza de la raza diaguita cuya sangre corre aún hoy, por las venas del bravo pueblo de Tinogasta. Tinogasta ¡¡ de pie!! ¡¡¡ Viva el valiente y bravío pueblo de Tinogasta!!

International Court Holds Mexico Accountable for Femicides

Frontera NorteSur

In a ruling that could reverberate across the Americas, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has taken the Mexican government to task for the murders of three young women in Ciudad Juarez. In a historic decision published this month, the justices found the government incurred in violations of the American Convention on Human Rights and the 1994 Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Belem Do Para Convention) by failing to prevent the slayings and properly investigate the crimes.

“States are obligated to establish general policies of public order that protect the population from criminal violence,” wrote court Justice Diego Garcia-Sayan. “This obligation has progressive and decisive priority given the context of rising criminality in the majority of countries of the region.”

The case heard by the Costa Rica-based court involved three young women who were found slain along with five other female victims in a Ciudad Juarez cotton field located across the street from the headquarters of the Maquiladora Association in November 2001.

After finding no justice in the Mexican legal system, the mothers of Esmeralda Herrera Monreal, Claudia Ivette Gonzalez and Laura Berenice Ramos pursued human rights complaints in first the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and later in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Both institutions are affiliates of the Organization of American States (OAS).

Herrera and Ramos were minors at the time of their deaths, and the court ruled that the teens’ slayings constituted violations of the human rights of children.

In a Ciudad Juarez press conference last week, Josefina Gonzalez, mother of Claudia Ivette Gonzalez, said she that did not expect the murderers of her daughter to face justice. Nearly a decade after the cotton field case came to public light, no one is behind bars for the murders of Claudia Gonzalez and six of the other cotton field victims. Still, Gonzalez voiced satisfaction with the court’s action.

“It’s been 8 years since we have suffered and nothing has been achieved until now,” Gonzalez said, adding that the verdict was a victory for all the cotton field mothers and their supporters.

The court’s 167-page sentence lays out remedies the Mexican government must follow to assure justice for victims’ families and curb future acts of violence against women in Ciudad Juarez and Mexico. As an adherent to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Mexico is obligated to comply
with the ruling and cannot appeal.

In addition to conducting a serious murder investigation and investigating law enforcement officials responsible for obstructing the cotton field case, which included the fabrication of scapegoats under torture, within one year the Mexican government must hold a public ceremony in Ciudad Juarez to apologize for the crimes; build a monument to the three murdered women in the border city; publish the sentence in the official government record and in newspapers; expand gender sensitivity and human rights training for police; step-up and coordinate efforts to find missing women; permanently publicize the cases of disappeared women on the Internet; and investigate reported death threats and harassment against members of the families of Esmeralda Herrera and Laura Ramos.

Three members of Ramos’ family, including her outspoken mother Benita Monarrez, were granted political asylum in the US in 2009. According to testimony presented in the femicide trial, pressure on Ramos’ relatives intensified after the OAS court accepted the case in 2007. Finally, the Mexican government was ordered to compensate victims’ families and their legal representatives to the tune of more than $800,000 for damages and expenses.

By the time of the cotton field murders, the court found, a well-established pattern of gender violence in Ciudad Juarez should have prompted authorities to adopt serious measures to prevent violence against women. Among the mountains of evidence, the court cited the 1998 recommendations issued by the Mexican government’s National Human Rights Commission which called for investigating and sanctioning numerous irregularities and deficiencies in women’s murder probes during the 1990s.

The Convoluted Cotton Field Case

If anything, however, the highly questionable circumstances in which investigations into the disappearances and murders of women were conducted reached new heights in the cotton field case.

In a phone interview with Frontera NorteSur, an Argentine forensic specialist who has worked on identifying the remains of the cotton field and other femicide victims recounted numerous irregularities in the official handling of the November 2001 murder investigation, including misidentified victims, mysteriously switched autopsy reports, mismatched clothing served up as evidence, and even missing body parts.

Mercedes Doretti, lead anthropologist for the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), supported the findings of the first autopsy report on the eight cotton field victims that the cause of death was not
determinable, because of the advanced state of decomposition of most of the bodies.

But in 2002, Doretti said, officials from Chihuahua City substituted the first autopsy report for a new one that listed asphyxiation as the cause of the women’s deaths, an explanation which conveniently jibed with the State of Chihuahua’s case against the two bus drivers accused at the time of strangling victims to death. That conclusion, Doretti told Frontera Norte, was “absolutely not valid” and without basis. “There was no scientific evidence whatsoever,” Doretti said.

The forensics expert also said that there was no substance to a subsequent claim that victims were stabbed to death, an accusation made by the Chihuahua state attorney generals’ office against a later suspect, Edgar Alvarez Cruz, who was convicted of killing cotton field victim Mayra Reyes Solis but, oddly, none of the other victims found in the same field at the same time and under the same conditions.

After arriving in Ciudad Juarez in 2005 to identify unknown homicide victims, Doretti and team learned that three of the eight cotton field victims were not even the women Chihuahua state authorities purported them to be.

In a bizarre twist, one of the mistakenly identified cotton field victims later turned up as a skeleton recovered in a separate location in 2002. A young maquiladora industry worker like Gonzalez, the 2002 victim had a thorax and vertebral column missing and, even more weirdly, a femur bone with the type of specialized cut that is normally made to draw DNA samples, according to Doretti. Among other irregularities, she said, were missing homicide and autopsy reports.

Complicating her work in all cases, Doretti said, has been Mexico’s lack of a centralized system of DNA storage, medical and dental record tracking and other personal information of women reported missing. Many of the unidentified victims in Ciudad Juarez could be from elsewhere in the country, she affirmed.

Doretti disputed the notion that lost or hidden evidence, combined with tattered paper trails in the cotton field and possibly related cases, would make the road to justice virtually impossible to navigate. The Chihuahua state attorney general’s office is fully aware of the irregularities and the chain-of-command responsible for committing them, Doretti asserted. “It’s a matter of deciding (to investigate),” Doretti said. “If they want to do it, they can.”

Since 2005, the EAAF has identified the remains of 33 presumed homicide victims in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City, Doretti added. Currently, the team is working on establishing the identities of 50 additional victims. According to the EAAF’S chief investigator in Mexico, the team has examined the remains of unknown victims from 1993 to 2008. The EAAF’s work has been supported by private foundations, the US and other foreign governments and the Chihuahua state government.

Doretti, whose internationally-acclaimed organization grew out of the Argentine Dirty War scandals, submitted testimony in the cotton field trial. The Mexican state challenged the testimony, arguing it would expose “confidential information” and jeopardize ongoing murder investigations. Court justices, however, disagreed and accepted Doretti’s testimony. Mexico’s legal representatives also unsuccessfully attempted to suppress other expert witnesses, including Oscar Maynez, a former Chihuahua state forensic official who resigned after refusing to plant evidence on the two bus drivers initially accused of the cotton field slayings.


Other Responses to the Court’s Decision

In response to the court’s decision, Mexico’s federal Interior Ministry announced it would establish a sub-commission to supervise the country’s compliance with the sentence. Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz welcomed the court’s action, but insisted that the failings of previous murder investigations were a thing of the past and current authorities were on the right path in combating femicide.

The OAS’ court, however, found that many impediments to justice still exist. Although justices praised some aspects of Operation Alba, an inter-agency campaign which was established several years ago to locate missing women, they noted a website for disappeared women, www.mujeresdesaparecidascdjuarez.gob.mx, has not been updated since December 2006.

In fact, one of the missing women listed on the web page, Merlin Elizabeth Rodriguez Saenz, was previously identified by the EAAF as among the cotton field victims. Rodriguez reportedly disappeared in August 2000, long before many of the other cotton field victims vanished and about fifteen months before her remains were recovered.

Recent stories in the border and Mexican press have reported that at least 36 women and girls have gone missing in Ciudad Juarez in 2009. And murders of women- for all reasons- have reached unprecedented levels in Ciudad Juarez and the state of Chihuahua this year, claiming more than 185 victims- at least 144 of them in Ciudad Juarez-so far in 2009.

To monitor the Mexican government’s compliance with the court decision, lawyers for the victims’ mothers and members of non-governmental organizations announced in Mexico City late last week that they would form a commission of their own, with international participation, to ensure the sentence is carried out correctly.

In part, progress on the cotton field and other pending femicide cases will depend on Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez, who is likely to leave office next year when the state governorship changes hands. According to Mercedes Doretti, Gonzalez still has a last chance to break "the circle of impunity” that envelops the cotton field case and so many others in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua.


Additional sources: Norte, December 12 and 13, 2009. Articles by Claudia Sanchez, Francisco Lujan and editorial staff. El Universal, December 12, 2009. Articles by Silvia Otero and Alberto Morales. El Paso Times, December 12, 2009. Article by Diana Washington Valdez and Aileen B. Flores. El Diario de Juarez, December 12, 2009. Article by Luz del Carmen Sosa. La Jornada, December 12, 2009. Article by Emir Olivares Alonso. Lapolaka.com, December 12, 2009.


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

Una mujer que supo luchar por transformar la realidad

Juliana G. Quintanilla y José Martínez Cruz

Rebelión


De paso lento pero segura de hacia donde se encaminaba, desde la ladera del cerro, donde se ubica la colonia 24 de febrero en Yautepec, la recuerdo con sus ojos pequeños viendo hacia el valle, descansando a intervalos para recuperar la respiración entrecortada que no le permitía llenar de oxígeno sus pulmones.

Realmente agobiada por el cansancio de las actividades políticas, sociales, religiosas y el trabajo domestico, la recuerdo a sus 60 años, apenas se sentía bien contrariaba las indicaciones medicas, se levantaba a seguir participando en las comunidades, de su pueblo Yautepec.

Fue una de las fundadoras de la Coordinadora de Mujeres de Morelos y de la Red de Mujeres Contra la Violencia, como parte del proceso de organización de las mujeres, quienes desde sus colonias se integraron con sus demandas y se sumaron a las de otras, desde el año 1981 conformada por grupos feministas, sindicalistas y del movimiento urbano popular, con una perspectiva ideológica muy amplia.

A Cristina le toca llevar este proceso a las diversas colonias de Yautepec, iniciando en su colonia “la 24 de febrero” logrando penetrar ampliamente en varios sectores, abriendo brecha, logrando que la Coordinadora de Mujeres creara su carácter popular en sus demandas, así como su composición social que incluyó a feministas, sindicalistas, maestras. Las discusiones fueron parte de su vida cotidiana, igual podía debatir con las feministas sus ideas, que en la militancia política o en las comunidades eclesiales de base.

Con mujeres como Cristina se logró que la fuerza de las mujeres tuviera una gran respuesta en los mítines y actos públicos que se organizaron en los años 80s. Se promovió la lucha por la igualdad y la liberación, se profundizó el análisis sobre los problemas, los intereses e inquietudes de las mujeres, muchas como Cristina descubrieron que podían realizar múltiples actividades que no se redujeran exclusivamente a las tareas de la casa.

Estos resultados fueron tan importantes, que a la distancia observamos la creciente participación lograda el Día Internacional de las Mujeres, toda vez que en 1979 nos contábamos 60 mujeres y para 1987 llegamos a un acto de mil quinientas.

Y desde este espacio Cristina también tomó conciencia de la importancia de participar políticamente como candidata a un puesto de elección popular como candidata del PRT.

Muchas mujeres que junto con ella formaron parte de las Comunidades Eclesiales de Base y de la Unión de Colonos Independientes de Morelos, lograron que sus grupos adoptaran sus puntos programáticos de lucha por la liberación, la igualdad y los derechos de las mujeres.

Su participación inició en las Comunidades Ecleciales de Base cuando estaba al frente de la Diócesis de Cuernavaca el VII Obispo Don Sergio Méndez Arceo y una serie de sacerdotes comprometidos con la Teología de la Liberación fomentaron el estudio y reflexión de la palabra actuada, pasando rápidamente a formar parte de un grupo de simpatizantes del PRT y activistas del Frente Pro Derechos Humanos del Estado de Morelos. Cristina estaba convencida que entre cristianismo y revolución no hay contradicción y que su fe no era obstáculo para un compromiso militante en un partido revolucionario de las y los trabajadores, por lo que no sólo asumió la responsabilidad de organizar a las mujeres y hombres de su colonia, sino que su labor se extendió por todo el municipio de Yautepec y llegó a ser integrante del Comité Político Estatal del PRT en Morelos y también fue suplente en el Comité Central del PRT.

Cuando se formó la Comisión Independiente de Derechos Humanos de Morelos inmediatamente se integró a las actividades, destacando su participación en la organización del plebiscito contra la tortura y por la libertad de los presos políticos.

Recordamos que Cristina decía: “solas no hacemos nada, unidas hasta nos tienen miedo”.

(Cristina Pareja Dolores nació el año de 1941 en una pequeña ranchería, Ahuacatitlan, del Estado de Guerrero y emigró a Morelos a temprana edad en compañía de su esposo y compañero Miguel Bello, con quienes procrearon 4 hijos y 4 hijas. Murió el 2 de diciembre de 2009 en Yautepec.)

Joe Arpaio has escalated his tactics, not only defying the federal government on immigration but launching repeated investigations of those who critic

Arizona sheriff ups the ante against his foes


By Nicholas Riccardi

The Los Angeles Times

The day after the federal government told Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio that he could no longer use his deputies to round up suspected illegal immigrants on the street, the combative Arizona sheriff did just that.

He launched one of his notorious "sweeps," in which his officers descend on heavily Latino neighborhoods, arrest hundreds of people for violations as minor as a busted headlight and ask them whether they are in the country legally.

"I wanted to show everybody it didn't make a difference," Arpaio said of the Obama administration's order.

Arpaio calls himself "America's toughest sheriff" and remains widely popular across the state. For two decades, he has basked in publicity over his colorful tactics, such as dressing jail inmates in pink underwear and housing them in outdoor tents during the brutal Phoenix summers.

But he has escalated his tactics in recent months, not only defying the federal government but launching repeated investigations of those who criticize him. He recently filed a racketeering lawsuit against the entire Maricopa County power structure. On Thursday night, the Arizona Court of Appeals issued an emergency order forbidding the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office from searching the home or chambers of a Superior Court judge who was named in the racketeering case.

Last year, when Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon called for a federal investigation of Arpaio's immigration enforcement, the Sheriff's Office demanded to see Gordon's e-mails, phone logs and appointment calendars.

When the police chief in one suburb complained about the sweeps, Arpaio's deputies raided that town's City Hall.

A local television station, KPHO, in a 10-minute-long segment last month, documented two dozen instances of the sheriff launching investigations of critics, none of which led to convictions.

The most notorious case involves county Supervisor Don Stapley, a Republican who has sometimes disagreed with Arpaio's immigration tactics. Last December, deputies arrested Stapley on charges of failing to disclose business interests properly on his statement of economic interest.

Stapley's alarmed supervisor colleagues had their offices swept for listening devices. Arpaio contended the search was illegal and sent investigators to the homes of dozens of county staffers to grill them about the sweep.

A judge in September dismissed several of the allegations against Stapley, and prosecutors dropped the case. Three days later, Arpaio's deputies arrested Stapley again after he parked his car in a downtown parking structure near his office.

No charges were filed until County Atty. Andrew Thomas -- Arpaio's ally in his fights with the supervisor -- charged Stapley this week with misusing money he raised to run for president of the National Assn. of Counties.

"It's just extraordinary, the kind of thing that takes place in Third World dictatorships," said Paul Charlton, a former U.S. attorney who is representing Stapley. He predicted the latest charges would also be dismissed. "So many people are of one mind on a single issue -- illegal immigration -- that they are willing to ignore these misdeeds."

Arpaio brushes off suggestions that he's used his office to go after critics. Many of the complaints, as in the Stapley case, come from targets of anti-corruption probes that started with tips rather than the sheriff's personal intercession.

"We don't abuse our power," Arpaio said in an interview. "We do what we have to do."

Arpaio, a Republican, is highly popular in Arizona. He won reelection last year with 55% of the vote in the state's most populous county. Though he has said he's not interested in running for governor, a recent poll showed him crushing the presumptive Democratic nominee, state Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard, 51% to 39%.

The sheriff was not always at war with much of the region's political establishment. A former official with the Drug Enforcement Administration who was first elected sheriff in 1992, Arpaio had support from the majority-Republican county Board of Supervisors and from local Latino leaders.

"He had a very good relationship with the Hispanic community," said Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, the lone Democrat and lone Latina on the board.

But by 2005, central Arizona was seething over illegal immigration. Crime was rising in Phoenix, a key smuggling hub that was becoming the kidnapping capital of the country.

Arpaio received a federal waiver, known as a 287(g), that allowed his deputies to enforce federal immigration laws. He said he had identified more than 30,000 illegal immigrants through his sweeps and interrogations in the county jail.

In October, the federal Department of Homeland Security revoked the 287(g) for Arpaio's street operations, though he could continue to question jail inmates about their immigration status.

Arpaio, however, said state law permitted him to continue his street operations and is awaiting a legal opinion from Thomas, the county attorney.

Latino community leaders say Arpaio has become more aggressive since he was stripped of some authority in the 287(g) program.

"It's actually gotten worse rather than better," said Salvador Reza, an activist who added that some immigrants don't dare turn the lights on in their homes at night for fear that Arpaio's deputies would knock at their doors.

A Homeland Security spokesman declined to comment, referring a reporter to statements Secretary Janet Napolitano gave to a liberal advocacy group in Washington.

Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, said Arpaio "was unwilling to accept that there were standards that needed to be met. He wanted to go off on his own. And so that's where we had a parting of ways." She acknowledged, however, that state law would allow him to continue making his arrests.

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a civil rights investigation into Arpaio's tactics. The sheriff has refused to cooperate and has called for an investigation of the investigators.

As Arpaio has fenced with the Obama administration, he has become embroiled in a sometimes-surreal battle with the five county supervisors who oversee his budget. Amid the recession, they have cut the sheriff's budget by 12.2%.

Arpaio and Thomas filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against the county supervisors, administrators and several judges who have ruled against the two in prior cases.

Arpaio and Thomas contended there was a conspiracy to assign the Stapley prosecution to an anti-Thomas judge, part of an effort to cover up what they call a wasteful county effort to build a new courthouse.

County officials noted that Arpaio and Thomas have sued them six times in efforts to regain power over their budgets -- and they lost every time.

Tensions escalated this week when the county attorney filed criminal charges against the presiding judge of the county's criminal courts, alleging bribery and obstruction of justice for ruling against Arpaio and prosecutors in some of those previous legal battles.

Wilcox, whom Thomas charged this week with violating state laws by voting on government contracts for a charitable organization that gave one of her businesses a loan, said she had been stunned by the sheriff's conduct.

"They have made life hell on everybody," she said of Arpaio and Thomas."Every time you speak out, they investigate you."

"Racketeering? That's just crazy," she added. "We're becoming the laughingstock of America."

nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com

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