"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