Narcos compran armas a tiendas y fabricantes de Texas y Arizona

Autoridades de ambos países buscan concretar un plan para combatir el contrabando


Gustavo Castillo García

La Jornada




. Autoridades de México y Estados Unidos negocian la puesta en marcha de un programa binacional de combate al tráfico de armas y lavado de dinero, donde ambos gobiernos investiguen las transferencias de recursos que los cárteles de la droga realizan a fabricantes y distribuidores de armamento en Texas y Arizona, pues se ha detectado que 95 por ciento de los pertrechos que utiliza el crimen organizado no es adquirido sólo en tiendas, sino en las compañías productoras que ahí se asientan, revelaron dos funcionarios mexicanos que participan en las mesas de negociación.

Los entrevistados dijeron que durante este miércoles representantes de los dos países expusieron la problemática en materia de tráfico de armas, operaciones con recursos de procedencia ilícita, cárteles de la droga y tráfico de personas.

Desde antes del mediodía, los equipos de trabajo se reunieron para avanzar en el acuerdo binacional, en espera del arribo de la secretaria de Seguridad Interior de Estados Unidos, Janet Napolitano; el fiscal general, Eric Holder; los secretarios de Gobernación, Fernando Gómez Mont, y de Seguridad Pública federal, Genaro García Luna, así como el titular de la Procuraduría General de la República (PGR), Eduardo Medina Mora.

Férreo dispositivo de seguridad

Mientras, autoridades locales y federales montaron un cerco de seguridad alrededor del hotel sede del encuentro, que incluyó un retén militar y patrullajes con motocicletas en la periferia.

En ese contexto, las negociaciones en materia de lavado de dinero se dieron en dos vertientes: el dinero que ingresa a Estados Unidos por la venta de armas y lo que obtienen los grupos criminales que operan en México por distribución de enervantes, extorsiones y tráfico de personas. Para ello, se propuso que ambos gobiernos investiguen lo que se denominó cuentas foráneas en ambos territorios, para establecer los flujos de dinero que se consolidan como depósitos en armerías y empresas fabricantes de arsenales.

El tema del tráfico de armas constituye uno de los puntos que los funcionarios estadunidenses y mexicanos buscan perfeccionar para alcanzar un acuerdo y sea uno de los rubros principales en la agenda del encuentro que sostendrán los presidentes Felipe Calderón y Barack Obama, el próximo 16 de abril, en el que se tratarán los compromisos binacionales en materia de combate al crimen organizado.

El punto, indicaron los entrevistados, es que los gobiernos de México y Estados Unidos buscarán restar fuerza a los cárteles mexicanos, ya que los organismos de inteligencia de ambas naciones coincidieron este miércoles en que las operaciones de los capos de la droga se han extendido a Centroamérica, Sudamérica, Europa y el propio territorio estadunidense.

De acuerdo con la información obtenida, durante los encuentros de este miércoles se mencionó que Estados Unidos se ha convertido en el principal abastecedor de armas y cartuchos para los cárteles mexicanos, ya que se ha detectado que 90 por ciento de los pertrechos asegurados provienen de esa nación y otro cinco por ciento es de fabricación china. Así, los reportes de las instituciones mexicanas han estimado que diariamente ingresan al país unas 50 armas de todo tipo y calibre, y que las compañías y tiendas que las abastecen se localizan principalmente en Arizona y Texas.

Aunque las autoridades mexicanas mantuvieron la postura de que en nuestro país no se ha detectado la existencia de un zar del tráfico de armas, se pidió a los estadunidenses que investiguen en su territorio, pues se cree que en esa nación existe un grupo que es intermediario entre los grupos criminales y las empresas fabricantes.

Lo anterior, explicaron, se debe a que no sólo se han asegurado en territorio nacional armas convencionales –que se pueden comprar en las armerías–, sino explosivo plástico conocido como C-4. En ese sentido se ha establecido por parte del gobierno mexicano que los cárteles con mayor poder de fuego por las compras realizadas son el del Pacífico y el del Golfo-Zetas, que además revende arsenales a grupos en Centro y Sudamérica.

Entre las principales armas que se adquieren por parte de los grupos delictivos mexicanos están: rifles AK-47 y AR-15; pistolas de todos los calibres; granadas de mano, de fragmentación, calibre 40 defensivas, de destello, de humo, de sonido y de gas, así como fusiles Barret calibre 50, lanzadores de granadas calibre 37 milímetros, ametralladoras y lanzacohetes Law. Estos últimos tienen capacidad para perforar incluso un tanque de guerra.

La parte mexicana explicó que Napolitano y Holder conocerán los informes de los grupos de trabajo para perfilar el acuerdo binacional, cuyo proyecto será detallado durante la visita que realizará a México el presidente Barack Obama.

En suma, indicaron los entrevistados, todas las reuniones han estado encaminadas a fijar una cooperación bilateral para evitar el tráfico de armas, donde ambos países se comprometan a mejorar los puntos de revisión aduanales, no sólo terrestres, sino también marítimos y aéreos.

Hasta el momento, los funcionarios estadunidenses no se han querido comprometer a regular ni las fábricas de armas ni las tiendas que las venden.

Obama's Crossover Dribble on Marijuana Policy

Fakes Left, Goes Right


By FRED GARDNER

CounterPunch

Executive summary: Obama fakes left, goes right. Passes to Holder at the head of the key. Holder holds the ball, looking for a cutter. Looks in to Brown posting up, then swings it over to Russoniello on the wing. The Warriors veteran finds Obama behind a screen from Holder. Obama launches from beyond the arc... Off back iron. Rebound, Sibelius.

It has been business as usual for the Drug Enforcement Administration since Barack Obama took office. Attorney General Eric Holder has decreed a "policy change," and some PC (as in Pro-Cannabis) lobbyists and lawyers have hailed that "policy change" as a major victory. But try explaining it to workers at any of the six dispensaries that have been raided by the Obama-era DEA.

"I would have let them in if they would have showed me something," said John W., 35, who came to the front door of Emmalyn's on Howard St. in San Francisco on the afternoon of March 25. "They were dressed kind of like me," according to John, who was garbed in a football jersey. "Once they actually got in I could see that they had bulletproof vests that said DEA on the back. But I couldn't see that from the door. The only thing I could see was a person with a gun. I asked for a search warrant or a badge but they didn't show me either one, they just battered down the gate.

"They rushed in and pushed us down -me, two or three patients, a lady who doesn't work here anymore, and Rose [a beautiful woman of 30 who was behind the counter when your correspondent visited Emmalyn’s a week after the raid]. There were between 15 and 20, all DEA. The man lying next to me didn't put up any kind of struggle but he kept saying, 'I'm a patient.' And 'Why are you doing this?'"

"They never asked me no questions. They just went through the whole place and took the medicine we had and the little bit of money." Some heavy machinery was deployed to rip out a safe that had been bolted to the floor. The agents hauled it off, past a passionate group of protesters on the sidwalk chanting, "This medicine is marijuana. Listen to Obama." Did they know that Obama has said no such thing?

"To me it was robbery," John said of the raid. "That's how it feels. I was scared at first but then I just started listening to their conversations. They were in such a good mood, like they'd just won a championship or something. Then when they didn't find very much they started saying, 'There should be more. There should be more.' We tried to tell them that upstairs was just a tenant who had nothing to do with us but they went up there and broke in and actually took their stereo equipment out of their apartment.

"A lot of their conversation was really sarcastic. Like poking shots at us and the whole movement. 'You guys are pretending that dope is medicine...' It was really disturbing but I just stayed quiet. They saw a headline on the West Coast Leaf (a tabloid that covers the medical marijuana movement/industry) about Obama ending the raids and that gave them a big laugh: 'We didn't get that memo.'

"One agent asked me if I had a card. I said yes. He said 'Well, what's wrong with you?' I said "Better than me tell you, I could show you. And I showed him. I have a disease called Blount's Disease. One of the bones in the bottom portion of my leg didn't grow. See, if I stand up straight, you can see how much shorter one of my legs is. (About two-three inches.) He said, 'Well that medicine is not going to help your leg grow.' That's highly disrespectful. But you know, I was like, 'Why am I even debating with this person?'

"I figured that it wasn't the time or the place to tell them the truth. A lot of people come through here. People in wheelchairs, young people in wheelchairs, the handicapped. Different problems. Sometimes people won't have cards, they'll have their letter of recommendation. Even though I try not to read 'em, the information is on there. It makes me feel bad for them: AIDS patients, hepatitis patients, cancer patients. Sometimes people come in here and they just start to cry because they're appreciative that we're here because out of all the medications that they take, this is one that they really get relief from."

The raid was typical in that no arrests were made. Emmalyn's reopened the next day with product lent by a nearby dispensary. Beautiful Rose says, "We wanted to make sure that our patients would be taken care of. That we would be here for them and for everybody."

Cannabis dispensaries tend to serve poor people. Rich people have land in the country, and middle-class people have friends with land in the country.

The raid occurred one week after Eric Holder's statement that DEA would target only dispensaries that violated state as well as federal law. "What state law did they violate?" wonders attorney Brendan Hallinan (Terence's son), who is representing Emmalyn's. "They were permitted by the city. They were in the process of changing their layout to provide wheelchair access. They take pride in their low prices. They were one of the smallest clubs in San Francisco in terms of how many patients they served."

Documents laying out the DEA's case against Emmalyn's are under seal because the investigation is supposedly ongoing. If it turns out that the operators were laundering money or importing BC bud, then dispensaries that don't engage in such practices can continue to believe that the Obama Administration will leave them alone. But if Emmalyn's is charged with nothing more than unpaid taxes -which should provoke a warning from the state board of equalization, not a rip-and-run from DEA- then the terror level will rise back to blood orange, as in the time of Bush.

Don't be surprised if Obama's approval rating begins slipping in California and beyond. Millions of people felt offended when he made light of the marijuana question during his on-line press conference.

Desperately Seeking Clarification

With acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart (a Bush appointee) by his side, Attorney General Holder told reporters March 18 that the Department of Justice would henceforth target "people, organizations, that are growing, cultivating substantial amounts of marijuana and doing so in a way that's inconsistent with federal law and state law." In the week that followed, proceedings in three federal cases were put on hold pending clarification of the supposed "policy change."

In Los Angeles, U.S. District Court Judge George Wu delayed the sentencing of Charles Lynch and asked the U.S. Attorney to provide a written summary of the new DOJ policy. Lynch, who operated a dispensary in Morro Bay, had been convicted on cultivation-for-sale charges. He contended that he was operating legally under California law and with the support of city officials.

In San Jose, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel asked the US Attorney to produce a written version of the new policy, which could affect a case now called Santa Cruz v. Holder. The case stems from the September, 2002 raid on WAMM (The Wo/Man's Alliance for Medical Marijuana). The city and County of Santa Cruz subsequently sued the Attorney General for blocking the implementation of California's medical marijuana law.

In San Francisco, attorney Bill Panzer asked U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer for 30 days to seek an explanation from AG Holder of the reported “policy change.” Panzer represents Ken Hayes in a case dating back to 2002. At the time Hayes was indicted (along with Ed Rosenthal and Rick Watts), he was in Canada, having moved there with his wife and one-year-old son. He remained out of the country until late 2008. Panzer wrote a letter in February and another in March to US Attorney Joseph Russoniello asking how the DOJ “policy change” would affect settlement of the case against Hayes. After getting no reply, Panzer told Judge Breyer that the US Attorney had a conflict of interest because he was pursuing a policy contrary to that of his client, the United States of America. Breyer said he didn’t want to get in the middle of a discussion between the AG and the US Attorney, and gave Panzer his 30-day delay. “Holder already has my letter,” Panzer told PotShots April 9.

Russoniello: Nothing’s Going to Change

Another attempt to get clarification of current federal policy was made by defense specialist Joe Elford when he and Northern District US Attorney Joe Russoniello debated at Hastings School of Law April 8. Elford recounts:

"He said their policy didn't change in 1996. He said that they had treated marijuana offenses the same before and after California passed its medical marijuana law. They have a limited budget and so they have to prioritize. His claim was that they've always gone after the bigger dealers who make a lot of money. Which is not completely true...

"He revealed that after Attorney General’s announcement, the four US attorneys in the state met and they decided that nothing was going to change. That the policy would be what it has always been. He said that there would be little likelihood of a legitimate medical marijuana provider -a grower or a dispensary-being prosecuted by the federal authorities so long as people complied with the [state] attorney general's guidelines. He didn't go so far as to say they wouldn't be prosecuted, but he came close to saying that. Which is how Americans for Safe Access feela that Obama's new policy should play out.

"He had his copy of the [state] attorney general's guidelines with highlighted passages. He actually said that of the 300 dispensaries in California are profiteering dispensaries which are making a bunch of money and violate the attorney general’s guidelines... All dispensaries are fair game because they violate state law as well as federal law. That's scary.

“I asked, ‘Who are you to judge what's a violation of state law?’ There's a real problem here —a process problem. A federal agent who is not supposed to be interpreting state law makes a determination that a dispensary is not complying with state law. So then they bust the person and drag them into federal court where state law is not an issue. So this person will never get a jury to pass on whether they violated state law. They will end up getting very severe mandatory minimum sentences.

“It would be good if the U.S. Attorney talked to the [state] attorney general about whether there's a violation of state law before taking down a grower or dispensary. The problem is, they're going to rely on what some rogue cop who doesn't believe in it [California’s medical marijuana law] in the first place says is a violation of state law."

Another problem is, what Elford calls "rogue cops" are most cops.

“The audience,” Elford went on, “was less polite than I would have expected from a room full of law students. In response to a student's comment about marijuana being less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes, Russoniello actually interrupted her and said, ‘No, alcohol is more harmful than both of those substances.’ That had a significant number of the students actually jeer him.”

At one point Russoniello put down the medical marijuana industry for not having a self-policing trade association. Elford pointed out that the threat of federal prosecution was an obstacle to forming such an organization. “The dispensaries are trying to self-regulate and impose standards, but you don't know how many people at these meetings are DEA agents posing as operators, so you might be setting yourself up for federal prosecution by trying to organize a trade association.”

The overriding irony is that arch-capitalists like Joe Russoniello –your basic Mean White Man— have to define making a profit as a criminal act in order to take down medical marijuana growers and dispensaries.

Fred Gardner edits O’Shaughnessy’s, the Journal of Cannabis in Clinical Practice. He can be reached at fred@plebesite.com

Grenoble, Atenco y el secuestro equiparado

Carta a Eduardo Galeano

Adolfo Gilly

La Jornada


Eduardo Galeano, el lunes pasado, acompañado de Carmen Lira, directora general de La Jornada, Elena Gallegos, Blanche Petrich y Rosa Elvira VargasFoto José Núñez

Querido Eduardo:

Ahora que junto con Helena estás otra vez de paso en estas tierras nuestras, quiero contarles unas historias.

Esta mañana, allá en Grenoble, Francia, los trabajadores de Caterpillar, empresa estadunidense que fabrica máquinas para construcción, retuvieron en las oficinas a cinco ejecutivos: el director general, Nicolas Poulnik, el de recursos humanos y tres cuadros más. La empresa ha decidido despedir a 733 trabajadores (sobre un total de 2 mil 500). El sindicato pide reanudar la negociación interrumpida por la empresa. No puedo negociar mientras no tenga libertad de movimientos, declaró a la prensa el director. Tendrá libertad si acepta reabrir la negociación. Lo retenemos para discutir, sólo pedimos desbloquear las tratativas, dice el delegado sindical de la Confederación General del Trabajo.

Así se están poniendo las cosas en Europa y en Francia, y no sólo en Grenoble.

Una retención similar de algunas horas, recurso poco habitual pero extremo cuando la desidia, la burla y la prepotencia de quienes tratan con el pueblo rebasan todo límite, según la reciente legislación penal mexicana y los jueces que la aplican es un secuestro, equiparable al secuestro de persona con fines de extorsión monetaria. La ley penal lo llama secuestro equiparado.

Nuestro colega (tuyo y mío) Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa dice que esa figura penal es una infamia. En Proceso, 8 marzo 2009, la describió así: Se le diseñó para castigar con fiereza a activistas solicitantes, gente con derechos a salvo, en suma ciudadanos en movimiento que, colmada su paciencia al exigir servicios o medidas que la ley les provee y al calor propio de las discusiones con funcionarios, los retienen por horas en sus propias oficinas o en locales donde se ventilaban asuntos de competencia de los retenidos. A quienes con verdad o sin ella resultan acusados de acciones de ese tipo, agrega Miguel Ángel, se les asestan castigos semejantes o aún mayores que los del secuestro mercenario.

*

Dos historias entonces te cuento.

Una

La señora Jacinta Francisco Marcial, indígena del estado de Querétaro, ñahñú, apresada el 26 de marzo de 2006 durante un asalto brutal y pretextuoso de la policía contra los puestos de las vendedoras del mercado de Santiago Mexquititlán, ha sido condenada a 21 años de cárcel después de un proceso de tres años en el cual no contó siquiera con traductor a su idioma, el otomí. La señora Jacinta tiene 42 años de edad. Cometió, dice el juez, un secuestro equiparado, cuando ni siquiera participó en los hechos sino que sólo fue su víctima. Pero alguien tiene que pagárnoslas, dicen la policía y la justicia.

Dos

El 3 de mayo de 2006, rompiendo un acuerdo previo, el gobierno municipal de Texcoco impidió con su policía que los floristas del mercado local vendieran sus flores en lugares especiales en esa fecha, Día de la Santa Cruz, cuando los trabajadores de la construcción celebran y hacen bendecir sus trabajos. El Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra (FPDT), que años antes (2001) había frenado con su movilización la expropiación a precio vil de sus tierras en San Salvador Atenco para construir un nuevo aeropuerto (y frustrado así un gigantesco negocio de funcionarios y desarrolladores), se movilizó ese día en apoyo de los floristas. Unos funcionarios del municipio, en el forcejeo, fueron retenidos breves horas.

El gobernador del estado de México (Enrique Peña Nieto) y el gobierno federal (Vicente Fox) lanzaron entonces, el 4 de mayo de 2006, un operativo policial conjunto sobre el pueblo de San Salvador Atenco. Detuvieron a 207 personas con golpizas, fracturas, violencia de todo tipo, vejaciones y humillaciones. Entraron en las casas, rompieron los enseres y los recuerdos, mataron a dos muchachos, cometieron violación sexual en los camiones policiales que llevaban mujeres y hombres apresados, todo esto documentado con creces por organismos de defensa de los derechos humanos, internacionales y nacionales. Nadie fue castigado por estos delitos.


Hoy, Eduardo, tres años después, 12 de aquellas personas siguen presas, acusadas de secuestro equiparado. Algunos son miembros del FPDT, otros simples pobladores de la zona que no habían participado en ningún movimiento social o político. Pero hay que hacer un escarmiento.

Nueve han sido condenados a 31 años de prisión. Están en la cárcel de Molino de Flores, en el estado de México. Los otros tres: Ignacio del Valle, Héctor Galindo y Felipe Álvarez, están en un penal de alta seguridad (para narcotraficantes y especies símiles) en el Altiplano, bajo condiciones de prisión mucho más rigurosas. Ignacio del Valle tiene una condena de 112 años; los otros dos, nomás 67 años cada uno.

Ninguno de los 12 cometió delito alguno. Son presos políticos, es decir, están encarcelados por motivos puramente políticos. En una recta aplicación de justicia deberían salir ahora mismo. Y deberían ser procesados los funcionarios mandantes y los policías ejecutantes de las golpizas, las violaciones, las muertes y los destrozos de viviendas del 4 de mayo de 2006 en el poblado de San Salvador Atenco.

Ya sé, Eduardo, no te estoy contando nada nuevo. Pero sucede que hace más de 40 años, allá por 1966, yo era preso político en la cárcel de Lecumberri (en condiciones más liberales que los de Atenco, debo decirlo, aunque el presidente fuera Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, en cuya alma anidaba ya –lo prueban los archivos– el Tlatelolco de 1968). Entonces un día me llevaron al Polígono, la torre central desde donde se vigilaban todas las crujías del viejo panóptico (modelo Jeremy Bentham, ¿recuerdas?). Y en el Polígono me esperabas tú, que andabas por México y las autoridades de Lecumberri te habían dado permiso para visitarme. Allí estuvimos un buen rato conversando, supongo que de modo no muy diferente de como ahora en libertad sería, incluso en el hecho de que tú te ibas y yo me quedaba. Me quedaba, sí, pero con el recuerdo imborrable, ya otra vez te lo he dicho, de que extranjero y todo habías venido a verme a la cárcel, jóvenes ambos entonces y compañeros de oficio y otros afanes en aquellas dos invenciones montevideanas: el semanario Marcha, de don Carlos Quijano, y el diario Época, tuyo.

How to Starve (or Feed) a River

The Virtues of Brush


By JANET KAUFFMAN

CounterPunch

This time of year it’s great to work outside, clean up the place and mow. But if you’re lucky enough to have a stream on your property, think again before clearing that tangle of brush and trees. You’re looking at something good.

Brush and debris are dirty words to many people, who think it’s a mess, a problem. They prefer the “estate” look, with tall trees, groomed green grass, water with nothing in it but water. They chop or spray or clear everything else.

But if you know what brush is — how rich and diverse it is, how valuable — it’s beautiful. To the stream it is life-saving.

Recent research shows that if a stream looks “cleaned up” to the human eye, it’s a disaster for the stream and everything in it. A stream needs a natural mix of shrubs, a layering of foliage and root systems, and leaf litter and woody debris in the water to stay healthy and thrive.

The worst thing for a stream is chopped brush, a cleared bank, a mowed floodplain. That’s a bare-naked stream. Unnatural.

It’s well known how trees and shrubs hold stream banks in place with their roots, how vegetation holds back sediment. But trees and shrubs do more than that. The tangle, the overhanging branches and leaves, literally feed the river.

Study in recent decades by the Stroud Water Research Center in Avondale, Pa., in conjunction with U.S. Forest Service scientists, has revolutionized our understanding of streams, especially forested headwaters. Their research led to the River Continuum Concept, which shows how microbes and aquatic invertebrates brew fallen leaves and other organic matter into an energy-rich “watershed tea" that nourishes everything downstream, including parts of rivers too wide to have leaves overhead.

In America east of the Plains, before trees were cleared, upland streams always flowed through forests. Floodplains were forests. That was their natural state.

We need to protect our small upper streams that remain natural and preserve their natural function.

Mowing lawns to the water’s edge, chopping brush from the banks, pulling out woody debris from the water — all these can starve a stream.

“Brush” isn’t one thing at all, but hundreds of species of native plants — wild cranberry, prickly ash, nannyberry, red-twig dogwood, hornbeam, greenbrier, witch hazel. These shrubs, as well as large trees like sycamore and cottonwood, thrive in the moist soils of stream banks and floodplains.

Grass alone isn’t good enough. Its roots are shallow and don’t hold soil in a flood.

So instead of mowing or clearing the edge of a stream, let the brush tangle. Let it lean and dip. Let leaves fall into the water. Maybe clip a walking path so you can wind your way through the pawpaws or wingstem for a natural view of the water.

When you know how rivers and natural streams work, you see them differently. Instead of a tangle of brush to chop or remove, you’ll see roots holding soil, a cooling canopy. Instead of seeing woody debris in the water as a mess or a problem, you’ll see organic material that feeds fish and everything downstream as well.

You’ll see new views, new beauty — purple nannyberry seeds, the golf ball-size blooms of carrion flower and the weird sci-fi flowers, like computerized explosions, of buttonbush. You’ll protect your own stream banks, your neighbor’s water and the river downstream. “Brush” is good for a stream, and it’s great for the Great Lakes, for the Gulf of Mexico, for the life of all our rivers.

Janet Kauffman has restored wetlands on her farm in Hudson, Mich., and works with the Bean/Tiffin Watershed Coalition. Her most recent book is Trespassing: Dirt Stories & Field Notes, a half-story, half-essay examination of industrial livestock operations. She wrote this comment for the Land Institute's Prairie Writers Circle, Salina, Kan.

Cierre del Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña de Tlachinollan

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Rebelión

Sin el eco que cuando menos debiera una nothttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gificia de esta índole, el Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña de Tlachinollan anunció su cierre la semana pasada.


“Ante la situación de alta vulnerabilidad, los defensores y defensoras dejamos Ayutla para buscar un lugar seguro”. Así lo expresó Abel Barrera, director del centro que hasta la fecha desarrollaba su labor en el estado de Guerrero, México.

La guerra contra las drogas se ha erigido en guerra contra los pueblos indígenas. Están aún sin resolver, ponía como ejemplo, los casos de violación de Valentina Rosendo y de Inés Fernández, mujeres indígenas me`phaa, por parte de soldados en 2002. O los treinta casos de esterilización forzada de mujeres indígenas en comunidades.

Las amenazas, hostigamientos, detenciones arbitrarias y asesinatos de defensores y defensoras se suceden. Los ataques que vienen sufriendo son premeditados.

Está reciente aún el caso de Raúl Lucas y Manuel Ponce, integrantes de la Organización para el Futuro del Pueblo Mixteco (OFPM), detenidos en un acto público por presuntos agentes de policía. Aparecieron días después asesinados tras haber sido torturados. “Nadie dijo nada, ni investigó nada”, expresó Barrera. “No hay justicia. No se investiga. Se nos criminaliza” y denunció la gravedad de la situación que se está viviendo.

Explicó Barrera que la presidenta de la Organización de los Pueblos Indígenas Me´phaa (OPIM), Obtilia Eugenio, recibió amenazas en su celular el pasado 17 de marzo. Iba a seguir la misma suerte que Raúl y Manuel.

Una mala noticia la del cierre de un centro que vela por el respeto de los derechos humanos que día sí y día también se violan en uno de los estados más militarizados de la república mexicana. Lo que pone de manifiesto, una vez más, la situación de injusticia, impunidad y desprecio a la vida de los pueblos, sus integrantes y luchadores y luchadoras sociales que hoy, ahora, se vive en Guerrero y en el país entero.

'These People Fear Prosecution': Why Bush's CIA Team Should Worry About Its Dark Embrace of Torture

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet

AlterNet

On the night of April 6, a long-secret document was published -- in its entirety for the first time -- that provided a clear, stark look at the CIA torture program carried out by the Bush administration.

Dated Feb. 14, 2007, the 41-page report describes in harrowing detail the "ill treatment" of 14 "high-value" detainees in U.S. custody, as recounted by the prisoners in interviews with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Besides listing the various kinds of harsh interrogation tactics undertaken by the CIA -- among them "suffocation by water," "prolonged stress standing," "beatings by use of a collar," "confinement in a box," "prolonged nudity," "threats," "forced shaving" and other methods -- the report reveals the disturbing role of medical professionals in the torture of suspects, which included using doctors' equipment to monitor their health, even as torture was carried out.

Just as Americans have known about Bush-era torture for years, lawyers and human rights activists have long known about the ICRC report and its contents. Both are due in large part to the work of journalists and their sources, who have brought to light the many post-9/11 abuses committed in the name of counterterrorism.

In February 2005, Jane Mayer of the New Yorker magazine published a story called "Outsourcing Torture: The Secret History of America's 'Extraordinary Rendition' Program," which reported in intricate detail the sordid mechanisms of the Bush administration's kidnap-and-torture program -- a practice so violent and dramatic that it inspired a major Hollywood film a few years later.

As Mayer wrote at the time, however, "Rendition is just one element of the administration's new paradigm."

The CIA itself is holding dozens of 'high value' terrorist suspects outside of the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S., in addition to the estimated 550 detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The administration confirmed the identities of at least 10 of these suspects to the 9/11 Commission -- including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a top al-Qaida operative … -- but refused to allow commission members to interview the men, and would not say where they were being held. Reports have suggested that CIA prisons are being operated in Thailand, Qatar and Afghanistan, among other countries. At the request of the CIA, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld personally ordered that a prisoner in Iraq be hidden from Red Cross officials for several months, and Army Gen. Paul Kern told Congress that the CIA may have hidden up to a hundred detainees."

Among the revelations of the ICRC report is that the CIA did indeed hide prisoners from the Red Cross.

Mayer has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 1995. In the years after 9/11, her investigative articles have been critical to piecing together the story of how the United States became a country that tortures in the name of the so-called "war on terror."

Mayer was recently awarded the Ron Ridenhour Prize for her book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals (Doubleday). Co-sponsored by The Nation Institute and the Fertel Foundation, the Ridenhour prize honors journalists and whistle-blowers whose work has helped to "protect the public interest, promote social justice or illuminate a more just vision of society." Mayer will be honored alongside other winners of the Ridenhour prize on April 16 at the National Press Club in Washington.

AlterNet's Rights & Liberties Editor Liliana Segura spoke to Mayer over the phone from New York, the morning after the release of the ICRC report.

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Liliana Segura: Last night, the full ICRC report was posted online, detailing the torture at the CIA black sites. Of course, you've been writing for a long time about this; how did you first come to know about the report, and what's the significance of it coming out now, especially with everything it reveals about medical professionals being involved in torture?

Jane Mayer:

Well, there are certain confidential source issues that cover how I first came to know about it, but I can say that when I did finally talk to people who were familiar with what was in it -- which was more than a year ago at this point -- what I was hearing was so startling that it just completely stopped me dead in my tracks.

Basically, what I was hearing was that there was a report that was by this independent authority -- the ICRC, which is not a political entity in any way. It's a very cautious group and has tremendous credibility -- saying that there was an actual program of torture that was implemented by the U.S. government, and that the government had been warned that what it was doing was breaking the law.

And what seemed to really catch the eye of the people I was interviewing who were familiar with what was in the report was just the horribleness and the power of the United States government focusing everything that had been learned over the past couple decades on how to break a person down psychologically as well as physically. All that focused on just a couple dozen people who were just basically being tormented in a way that was just kind of unimaginable.

So, people who I interviewed who knew about what was in the report were really upset about it -- really, really upset -- and it certainly caught my eye as a reporter. So I then started to try very hard to see if I could get the report. And I never succeeded. I got close enough to be able to piece together what was in it. And that's what's in The Dark Side. And I'm gratified to see that my sources -- who I consider to have been very brave to tell me what they were able to -- were completely accurate.

So you'll see there are whole scenes from the report that are in The Dark Side and many, many details, including the news that [the treatment of detainees] was considered torture by the ICRC -- not "tantamount to torture," but actual torture.

But, you know, reading the report itself, finally -- there's just no comparison to seeing the actual document.

LS: Is there anything in the report in particular that has struck you that you didn't know before?

JM:

One of the things that caught my eye last night was that it's clear that the CIA -- and I think you'd have to guess the Department of Defense -- lied to the Red Cross. They told the Red Cross when it visited Guantanamo [in 2002] that it had seen all of the detainees. But what the report says is that some of the detainees -- some of the high-value detainees -- realized when they were finally sent to Guantanamo in 2006 that they'd been there before. They were there. And yet the Red Cross was not allowed to see them. The Red Cross was told they'd seen everybody.

So the CIA and DOD lied to the Red Cross. There were some hidden prisoners in Guantanamo. That's an overt act; lying to the Red Cross, hiding prisoners from them. So, that's interesting to me.

There are also some specific details [about the torture] I didn't know. I didn't realize they used hospital beds to waterboard people, with motorized reclining backs, which is hideous.

I knew there were doctors there -- I mean, people will tell you that there were doctors there, and it's in the book -- but there's still something so specifically terrible about reading that they would attach some kind of modern monitor that could monitor oxygen to the finger of a prisoner while they were busy depriving him of oxygen.

They told him -- Khalid Sheik Mohammed (and this was in the New Yorker stories I did and it was in the book) -- that they would take him to the brink of death and back but they wouldn't kill him. So, they used sort of the most modern medicine to make sure they did exactly that. Its kind of a horrible combination of modernism and the Dark Ages all in one.

LS: Do we have any idea who these doctors are?

JM:

Well, I'm glad people are asking that question, because, really, since the beginning, one of the things that has obsessed me is: Who were the doctors? What kind of doctors would do this? Some of them are described as literally working in ski masks to cover their faces so that people wouldn't know their identity.

LS: Like executioners.

JM:

Yeah. So people have to find out, there just absolutely has to be some more accountability about this. Who were the doctors -- and what does the profession say about this? I mean, there's been a tremendous debate about this within the psychiatric profession and within the psychology profession, but there really has not been a similar debate within the medical profession.

I've already heard from one friend who's a doctor this morning, saying "God -- something's got to happen with this." Things will happen, I think.

LS: I wanted to ask you about accountability. It seems like every other day we're hearing about how Obama's Department of Justice is standing up in court and defending some Bush administration practice, or else the administration is making a statement that suggests that there's not going to be any move for accountability. Yet House Judiciary Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., just released a 540-page report reiterating the allegations against the Bush administration and calling for a special prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Eric Holder. What would it take for that to happen?

JM:

What would it take for that to happen? It would take Obama. It would take Obama weighing in on this. And, you know, it seems that his general style is to try to find consensus rather than to isolate people and confront them. I think that an early tip-off to his thinking was when he described possible accountability as "witch hunts" and said we're not going to have witch hunts.

And yet I think that they're going to find it impossible to be where they are. Right now, they're trying to assert some kind of neutral position about the Bush years. They've come out critical, they've said "we're fixing this, it was wrong," and they have started to fix it -- I give them credit for doing a lot of the right things.

But what they're trying to do is not have to open up the past, as they keep saying, and I don't think that's going to work because they're going to have a choice here. They're at a fork in the road, where either they're going to open things up, or they're going to have to cover things up. There's not a real neutral position to be there. And that's what I think they're beginning to realize.

LS: A lot of people have been surprised by the positions Obama has taken -- for instance, saying that prisoners at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan don't have the right to habeas corpus (although a court recently contradicted that). Are there any Bush-era tactics that are now an inextricable part of Obama's counterterrorism policies?

JM:

The progress so far is: there's no longer torture -- there's no program of torture that's being practiced by the United States anymore. And there are no more secret prison sites. And they are trying to do something to bring all of the prisoners whose rights were violated in the Bush years back inside the rule of law. They're trying to sort out the people in Guantanamo and charge some. … I think it's also progress that they charged [Ali Saleh Kahlah] al Marri, who was being held forever as an enemy combatant without any rights. So, I see this as progress.

LS: Does this mean that the CIA black sites have been dismantled? Also, what about renditions? Isn't Obama keeping open the possibility of keeping Clinton-era style rendition in place?

JM:

Obama's executive orders issued in his first week, direct the government to abide by the Geneva Conventions standards as they are internationally understood, and to allow the ICRC to have access to all detainees. This means the U.S. can no longer treat anyone in its custody cruelly, let alone torture them, and it means that the Red Cross can meet with all prisoners, which ends the Bush practice of hidden, black-site prisons and disappearances.

The Obama administration is claiming that it will undertake renditions without torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. They say they will only snatch suspects against whom there are legitimate charges and only deliver them to stand trial in legitimate justice systems where there is no threat of torture. Essentially, they claim it's a return to the pre-9/11 Clinton program, which was ostensibly "rendition to justice." But some sources who were involved in the Clinton years have told me it was a very rough business. The CIA has fought very hard to keep the program going in a modified form. We'll see if they can do it in the transparent, legal and humane way the executive orders require. I have my doubts.

I think that there's a ton still to do here. And some of the early positions they've taken -- defending state secrets and denying, as you say, habeas corpus rights to prisoners held in Bagram -- you know, they're worrisome. I think there's more going on here, though, which people haven't really focused on, which is: there's a real tug-of-war going on about the confirmation process. A number of top appointees who Obama wants to put in to handle some of these issues have not been confirmed. The Republicans in the Senate are really holding up people that Obama needs to make changes for the better.

You've got Harold Koh, who's been nominated to be the top lawyer for the State Department. He's a great defender of human rights. His nomination confirmation is in trouble because the Republicans are talking about trying to block him.

And the same thing is true of Dawn Johnsen, who has been nominated for the head of the Office of Legal Council. And there are a number of other top positions that are open that are really important. The Obama administration doesn't have enough staff to handle what it needs to do.

Meanwhile, it's being hit by wave after wave of litigation, because the human rights community's approach in the Bush years was "we're gonna litigate." So there is case after case breaking and requiring action from the Obama administration, which doesn't have its people in place yet. And I think that's part of the problem. So, I'm cutting them more slack then some critics, because I don't think we're seeing everything they want to do yet.

LS: So is what you're saying that they are buying themselves time, adopting these Bush positions or defending them for the moment?

JM:

Well they're definitely buying themselves time on Guantanamo, but they haven't bought themselves very much time. They gave themselves 180 days; they've got three task forces, which took a long time to get up and running. I hear from people who are involved in this that it's a really complicated process.

And on the state-secrets cases -- you know, I don't know whose really making these decisions. But again, on accountability, I think it comes back to Obama himself. And he is spread so thin and so distracted by so many other emergencies right now, I'm not sure that he's really giving it the attention that some of us think it needs.

So that's what I think is going on. I'm not sure that I would impute terrible motives to them at this point. I think it's more disorganization and delay.

LS: I wanted to ask you about "preventive detention" (of terrorism suspects, including the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo Bay), since you wrote about it a few months back. Do you have any recent information on Obama's plans to use it, or is that something that they're still sorting out?

JM:

I think it's going to be a big fight in the administration. We're kind of waiting to see.

I mean, some of Obama's Justice Department appointees think that there might need to be some kind of national security court that would allow for some sort of preventive detention. There have been experiments with this elsewhere in the world, and most of them have become real human-rights problems.

And there are other people who think this is anathema and tell me that there's just no way that Obama is going to back this sort of thing. I mean, he's being faced with a lot of very tough choices here and, meanwhile, I think that the intelligence community is bombarding him with threats, saying "if you become more transparent, you're going to endanger the country" -- they're sounding too much like Dick Cheney, [saying] that if they let out information, it's going to really hurt the country, it's going to really hurt our relations with other liaison intelligence agencies. … So, he's stuck in the middle of a big fight.

LS: I'm glad you brought up Dick Cheney. I wanted to ask you about him since he plays such an important role in your book, and also because there's this bizarre way in which he seems to be more in the public eye now than he ever was as vice president. What do you think that's about?

Also, you've noted that interesting quote by Cheney referring to Guantanamo prisoners, "People will want to know where they've been and what we've been doing with them." Do you think he fears prosecution at all? Do you think that's part of why he's out there talking and defending … ?

JN:

Listen, all of these people fear prosecution. And it seems unthinkable to prosecute them to most people. But face it: The ICRC report; from some standpoints, it can be seen as a crime scene. And its a crime scene that was authorized by the top of our government. They all have some legal liability here. Cheney coming out -- you know, I can't really -- it's hard to get inside Cheney's mind, but I can say politically what it has the effect of doing is putting a marker down, so that if there's another attack, the Republicans can say, "You see, the Democrats weakened America. We warned them, and we told you so." So, I think in some ways it's a political gambit. And it's also a play for his legacy. He's trying to say "I'm not a war criminal."

Can I say one thing about the Ridenhour Prize? One thing I wanted to say was that Ron Ridenhour -- who was the whistle-blower about My Lai [in the Vietnam War] -- one of his contentions was always that there was authorized slaughter there. It was not just Lt. William Calley who was going on a berserk spree on his own. And so I think that it's kind of fitting that the ICRC report comes out which shows, again, the point that I was trying to make in The Dark Side, which is: This was not just an isolated episode of bad behavior, it was not just the people at the bottom of the barrel, as Donald Rumsfeld called them.

This was an authorized program of abuse from the top of the U.S. government. So there are a lot of parallels there. In both cases, what makes the headlines is the abuse, but the larger point that people have to grapple with is going up the chain of command, how it was authorized.

LS: The importance of whiste-blowers and journalists in the Bush era was, for many people, undisputed. What do you consider to be the role of journalists now?

JM:

Abuse is bipartisan. Abuse of power is bipartisan. So I don't think the role of the press ever disappears. As you're pointing out, there's a lot still to do and a lot still to write about. So we're all struggling to keep at it.