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1/13/10
XI Encuentro Indígena y Cultural de las Américas
Por la Unidad de los Pueblos Indígenas
Pukara
En Colorado, Estados Unidos, del 3 al 8 de diciembre de 2009 tuvo lugar el XI Encuentro Indígena y Cultural de las Américas. Este undécimo encuentro es consecuencia de un esfuerzo iniciado el año de 1998 en la Universidad de Puerto Rico, en Río Piedras, cuando a iniciativa del actual coordinador internacional de este Encuentro, Ramón Nenadich Ph.D., se conformó un cuerpo de trabajo que se ha ido consolidando desde entonces.
En la actualidad, esta iniciativa cuenta con grupos, organizaciones y personas que han participado en todos o en varios de los encuentros. Este XI Encuentro agrupó a delegaciones de varias naciones indígenas de Norte América, en especial de los pueblos Dakota y de los pueblos indígenas de Alaska. Estuvieron presentes también delegados de organizaciones indígenas procedentes de los actuales estados de Panamá, Costa Rica, México, Guatemala, Brasil, Ecuador, Bolivia y Chile. El encuentro se realizó en La Universidad del Estado de Colorado y en sitios ceremoniales de las Montañas Rocallosas de Colorado, en inmediaciones del pueblo de Carbondale.
Este encuentro significó un hito importante en el crecimiento y fortalecimiento de esta iniciativa, concretizándose en cuatro principales decisiones: La constitución de una Fundación Internacional, la cuestión del perdón indígena a Cristobal Colón, la confirmación de una alianza con sectores de las sociedades no indígenas comprometidos con la salvaguarda de la naturaleza y la decisión sobre la sede del XII Encuentro Indígena de las Américas.
Carbondale será la sede de la Fundación Internacional para el Avance de los Pueblos Indígenas, a través de la cual será posible la realización de distintos proyectos educativos, culturales, espirituales, sociales, políticos y económicos que permitan avanzar en el mejoramiento de la calidad de vida de nuestros pueblos y en la protección de nuestras tierras y demás derechos humanos y naturales. Además, a través de la Fundación se promoverá la unidad de todos los pueblos indígenas, para que juntos y con los aliados que se pueda allegar, se superen las diversas situaciones de explotación, marginación, pobreza y discriminación en la que actualmente se debaten nuestros pueblos.
Un tema importante que salió en las discusiones fue el perdón indígena a Cristobal Colón. Según la opinión de varios participantes, la energía liberadora indígena está implicada en su efectividad por el trauma de la invasión. Este trauma, que de alguna manera genera evidentemente una memoria histórica necesaria para una práctica liberadora, origina también sentimientos de rencor y encono que sin la adecuada práctica emancipadora resultan perjudiciales a los objetivos descolonizadores indígenas, explicando quizás el inmovilismo ante los poderes opresores que marca la situación de muchos de nuestros pueblos. De ahí que varios delegados sugirieron perdonar a la persona de Cristobal Colón, con un perdón que no signifique anuencia al proceso colonizador sino la liberación positiva de las energías y potencialidades para que estas se encaminen decididamente hacia el logro histórico de los objetivos indígenas. Es mérito de este Encuentro haber planteado este tema, que por sus implicaciones políticas e históricas es todavía asunto de debate y definición.
Este XI Encuentro significó también la discusión de la naturaleza de las alianzas de los pueblos indígenas. En el mundo contemporáneo existen sectores que se aproximan a los objetivos de los pueblos originarios y que se manifiestan en ensayos cada vez más importantes por poner en marcha formas económicas alternativas; grupos de más en más importantes preocupados por la salvaguarda de la naturaleza y por dar un nuevo sentido a la relación de esta con el ser humano; comunidades humanas interesadas en definir el significado ideológico y espiritual de los cambios que vivimos… Estos sectores, entre otros, pueden ser aliados naturales de la causa indígena. Un logro de este Encuentro es haber discutido la obligatoriedad de que se efectuen aproximaciones a estos aliados que no estén mediatizadas por las organizaciones políticas o sociales de los estados colonizadores, sino por las propias organizaciones indígenas.
Finalmente, es importante recalcar la decisión de que en marzo de 2010 se realice el XII Encuentro Indígena de las Américas en Ecuador, en la Comunidad de Cayambe. La delegación indígena Cayambe presente en este Encuentro asumió, en nombre de su pueblo, la responsabilidad de organizar este nuevo Encuentro.
El próximo Encuentro Indígena y Cultural de las Américas
El XII Encuentro Indígena y Cultural de las Américas de se realizará en Sudamérica, en Ecuador. La sede será el territorio de la Confederación del pueblo Kichwa Kayambi, ubicado al norte de la región sierra ecuatoriana.
Este encuentro se realizará del 18 al 22 de marzo de 2010.
Habrá conferencias, mesas temáticas y exposiciones. Todo el programa estará relacionado con la descolonización, la soberanía y la autonomía de los pueblos indígenas de las Américas.
Se coordinará con programas de música y bailes autóctonos. Habrá una feria gastronómica nativa y una feria exposición de semillas y artesanías ancestrales. Habrá proyección de documentales sobre la lucha de los pueblos indígenas de las Américas.
Este XII Encuentro cuenta con el apoyo del Municipio de Cayambe. Cayambe es un cantón de la provincia de Pichincha. La localida de Cayambe se halla a 78 Km al norte de Quito. Tiene una temperatura que varía en el día entre 12 y 23 grados centígrados.
El 21 de marzo se celebrará con amawt’as y líderes espirituales la ceremonia del Muskuk Nina, o Fuego Nuevo, en el templo sagrado de los Kayambis, la pirámide de Puntiatzil.
Pukara
En Colorado, Estados Unidos, del 3 al 8 de diciembre de 2009 tuvo lugar el XI Encuentro Indígena y Cultural de las Américas. Este undécimo encuentro es consecuencia de un esfuerzo iniciado el año de 1998 en la Universidad de Puerto Rico, en Río Piedras, cuando a iniciativa del actual coordinador internacional de este Encuentro, Ramón Nenadich Ph.D., se conformó un cuerpo de trabajo que se ha ido consolidando desde entonces.
En la actualidad, esta iniciativa cuenta con grupos, organizaciones y personas que han participado en todos o en varios de los encuentros. Este XI Encuentro agrupó a delegaciones de varias naciones indígenas de Norte América, en especial de los pueblos Dakota y de los pueblos indígenas de Alaska. Estuvieron presentes también delegados de organizaciones indígenas procedentes de los actuales estados de Panamá, Costa Rica, México, Guatemala, Brasil, Ecuador, Bolivia y Chile. El encuentro se realizó en La Universidad del Estado de Colorado y en sitios ceremoniales de las Montañas Rocallosas de Colorado, en inmediaciones del pueblo de Carbondale.
Este encuentro significó un hito importante en el crecimiento y fortalecimiento de esta iniciativa, concretizándose en cuatro principales decisiones: La constitución de una Fundación Internacional, la cuestión del perdón indígena a Cristobal Colón, la confirmación de una alianza con sectores de las sociedades no indígenas comprometidos con la salvaguarda de la naturaleza y la decisión sobre la sede del XII Encuentro Indígena de las Américas.
Carbondale será la sede de la Fundación Internacional para el Avance de los Pueblos Indígenas, a través de la cual será posible la realización de distintos proyectos educativos, culturales, espirituales, sociales, políticos y económicos que permitan avanzar en el mejoramiento de la calidad de vida de nuestros pueblos y en la protección de nuestras tierras y demás derechos humanos y naturales. Además, a través de la Fundación se promoverá la unidad de todos los pueblos indígenas, para que juntos y con los aliados que se pueda allegar, se superen las diversas situaciones de explotación, marginación, pobreza y discriminación en la que actualmente se debaten nuestros pueblos.
Un tema importante que salió en las discusiones fue el perdón indígena a Cristobal Colón. Según la opinión de varios participantes, la energía liberadora indígena está implicada en su efectividad por el trauma de la invasión. Este trauma, que de alguna manera genera evidentemente una memoria histórica necesaria para una práctica liberadora, origina también sentimientos de rencor y encono que sin la adecuada práctica emancipadora resultan perjudiciales a los objetivos descolonizadores indígenas, explicando quizás el inmovilismo ante los poderes opresores que marca la situación de muchos de nuestros pueblos. De ahí que varios delegados sugirieron perdonar a la persona de Cristobal Colón, con un perdón que no signifique anuencia al proceso colonizador sino la liberación positiva de las energías y potencialidades para que estas se encaminen decididamente hacia el logro histórico de los objetivos indígenas. Es mérito de este Encuentro haber planteado este tema, que por sus implicaciones políticas e históricas es todavía asunto de debate y definición.
Este XI Encuentro significó también la discusión de la naturaleza de las alianzas de los pueblos indígenas. En el mundo contemporáneo existen sectores que se aproximan a los objetivos de los pueblos originarios y que se manifiestan en ensayos cada vez más importantes por poner en marcha formas económicas alternativas; grupos de más en más importantes preocupados por la salvaguarda de la naturaleza y por dar un nuevo sentido a la relación de esta con el ser humano; comunidades humanas interesadas en definir el significado ideológico y espiritual de los cambios que vivimos… Estos sectores, entre otros, pueden ser aliados naturales de la causa indígena. Un logro de este Encuentro es haber discutido la obligatoriedad de que se efectuen aproximaciones a estos aliados que no estén mediatizadas por las organizaciones políticas o sociales de los estados colonizadores, sino por las propias organizaciones indígenas.
Finalmente, es importante recalcar la decisión de que en marzo de 2010 se realice el XII Encuentro Indígena de las Américas en Ecuador, en la Comunidad de Cayambe. La delegación indígena Cayambe presente en este Encuentro asumió, en nombre de su pueblo, la responsabilidad de organizar este nuevo Encuentro.
El próximo Encuentro Indígena y Cultural de las Américas
El XII Encuentro Indígena y Cultural de las Américas de se realizará en Sudamérica, en Ecuador. La sede será el territorio de la Confederación del pueblo Kichwa Kayambi, ubicado al norte de la región sierra ecuatoriana.
Este encuentro se realizará del 18 al 22 de marzo de 2010.
Habrá conferencias, mesas temáticas y exposiciones. Todo el programa estará relacionado con la descolonización, la soberanía y la autonomía de los pueblos indígenas de las Américas.
Se coordinará con programas de música y bailes autóctonos. Habrá una feria gastronómica nativa y una feria exposición de semillas y artesanías ancestrales. Habrá proyección de documentales sobre la lucha de los pueblos indígenas de las Américas.
Este XII Encuentro cuenta con el apoyo del Municipio de Cayambe. Cayambe es un cantón de la provincia de Pichincha. La localida de Cayambe se halla a 78 Km al norte de Quito. Tiene una temperatura que varía en el día entre 12 y 23 grados centígrados.
El 21 de marzo se celebrará con amawt’as y líderes espirituales la ceremonia del Muskuk Nina, o Fuego Nuevo, en el templo sagrado de los Kayambis, la pirámide de Puntiatzil.
Only Fools Rush Into Yemen
Three Guns for Every Person
By PATRICK COCKBURN
CounterPunch
Protestors are walking confidently down a street a street in the southern Yemeni port of Aden when there is a rattle of gunfire as the security services shoot into the crowd and people run panic-stricken seeking cover. A man in a check shirt is left lying face down in the dust in the empty street, a stream of blood flowing from a bullet wound in his head.
In northern Yemen government tanks and artillery pound the mountains as they try to dislodge Shia rebels holding positions among the mountain crags. Plumes of white smoke rise from exploding shells. Tribesmen not in uniform fighting on the government side sit behind their heavy machine guns and spray the hillsides with fire. A few miles away on a dusty piece of flat ground thousands of refugees driven from their homes by the war cower in small over-crowded tents.
Nobody paid much attention in the West to violent incidents like these in Yemen last year, though both of those described above were recorded on film. The mounting crisis in the country only attracted notice when a Nigerian student is revealed to have been “trained” in Yemen by al-Qa’ida to detonate explosives in his underpants on plane heading for Detroit. But this botched attack has led to the US and Britain starting to become entangled in one of the more violent countries in the world. The problems of Yemen are social, economic and political, and stretch back to the civil war in Yemen in the 1960s, but Gordon Brown believes solutions can be found by holding a one day summit on Yemen to “tackle extremism.”
Al-Qa’ida in Yemen is small, its active members numbering only 200-300 lightly armed militants in a country of 22 million people who are estimated to own no less than 60 million weapons. Al-Qa’ida has room to operate because central government authority barely extends outside the cities and because it can ally itself with the many opponents of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in office since the 1970s.
The power of al-Qa’ida is not its military expertise or sinister training camps in the mountains of Yemen. Its strength is rather its ability to lure the US and Britain into commitments in dangerous countries like Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq, where the state is weak and its rule contested. It can do this because in the wake of 9/11 the US instinctively over-reacts to the most amateur and unsuccessful attack on the homeland.
Al-Qa’ida has always had some activists in Yemen. In 2000 they rammed The USS Cole in Aden port with a boat packed with explosives and ripped a hole in its hull, killing 17 American sailors. The Yemeni government made a secret truce with the group under whose term it would not be pursued if it carried out no more attacks. In 2006 al Qa’ida began to reorganize when 23 of its militants escaped from Sanaa jail. As al-Qa’ida members came under greater pressure in Saudi Arabia some fled to Yemen and set up a joint Saudi-Yemeni movement, al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
It is easy to see why AQAP finds Yemen an hospitable place to be. It is not a country where the state expects to have a monopoly of violence or authority. Long before 9/11 I used to be intrigued by the Yemeni authorities’ attitude to personal weapons as exemplified by security measures at Sanaa airport. These were very strict with all luggage X-rayed before it was even allowed into the airport building and X-rayed again at each stage of the suitcase’s journey to the plane. Passengers were given frequent body searches until they reached the departure lounge. This, as in most airports, had many shops selling local handicrafts and curios to travellers. The difference in Sanaa airport was that many of these items turned out to be swords and long curved knives. Discovering to their horror that many of passengers were carrying such weapons western airlines had to get their own flight crews to ask Yemenis, as they boarded the plane, if they were armed. Yemenis found it a strange question but dutifully handed over their daggers to be placed in plastic bags in the hold of the aircraft.
The US and Britain are about to increase their support for a government which is highly unpopular and engaged in a series of actual or potential civil wars. The heaviest fighting so far has been with the Zaydi Shia insurgents just south of the border with Saudi Arabia. They contest that they fighting discrimination and are responding to President Saleh’s dependence on Saudi Arabia and its extreme Sunni Wahhabism. President Saleh, for his part, has been portraying the Shia rebels as pawns of Iran, though his government has produced no evidence for this.
The dilemma for the US and Britain is that as they become more openly supportive of the Yemeni government they will be targeted as its sponsor by its many enemies. The south of the country, independent until 1990 and defeated in a civil war in 1994, is seething with rebellion. Government forces shoot at protestors. There have been many shootings, arrests and torture is endemic. “They can make a zebra say it is a gazelle,” is a chilling Yemeni saying of the government’s interrogation methods.
Southern newspapers have been shut down including al-Ayyam, which is the most widely read. Hisham Bashraheel, its 66-year-old editor, was arrested last Wednesday at his newspaper office in the Crater district of Aden after a protest against its closure last May when the paper was accused of supporting separatism. Some 30 protestors and 20 guards had fought a battle with the police in which one policeman and one guard were killed. They later gave themselves up.
I met Mr Bashraheel in the cluttered office of al-Ayyam some years ago when he was already engaged in daily skirmishes with the authorities. Sitting on a chair in his office was a man called Abdul Hakim Mahyub, with a long scar down the side of his face, to whom Mr Bashraheel introduced me. He said Mr Mahyub’s story of how he came by the scar explained a lot about current tensions between north and south in Yemen.
Mr Mahyub said he was a teacher in Aden and several weeks earlier he had an argument with a man laying pipes outside his school. As is common in Yemen the pipe-layer had a knife in his belt. In the course of the argument he drew it and stabbed Mr Mahyub in the face, cutting through his cheek and into his tongue. His speech was affected and he found it difficult to do his job teaching, but the reason he had come to al-Ayyam to complain was that he had just heard that the man who stabbed him, who came from Marib in northern Yemen, had been released by an official from the same province.
Mr Bashraheel said that favouritism towards northerners was becoming very common but for publishing Mr Mahyub’s story he risked being accused of “separatism” and stirring up hostility between north and south.
The US and Britain will face a similar difficulty in Yemen as they already do in Afghanistan. They will be supporting an unpopular and corrupt government. It is not that al-Qa’ida is very strong but that it will be swimming in sympathetic waters because the government is very weak.
The government itself can see the danger being labelled as an American pawn if it is too openly welcoming to foreign military aid. “Any intervention or direct military action by the United States could strengthen the al-Qa’ida network not weaken it,” said the deputy prime minister for defense and security affairs Rasheed al-Aleemi last week. The government would have liked to take all the aid it could get but without telling anybody about it.
All this sounds very like Afghanistan. And there is a further way in which the two countries resemble each other. Just as Pakistan believes it is crucially affected by what happens in Afghanistan so Saudi Arabia regards the future of Yemen as a vital interest. Saudi Arabia is by far the most important foreign power in Yemen, providing $2 billion in budget support, but its interest has always been in a weak government in Sanaa and one over which it can exercise some control.
The only way that the US and Britain could entirely squeeze out al-Qa’ida from Yemen is by strengthening its armed forces to the point at which the central government could take over parts of the country it has not ruled for decades. But this would provoke tribes and communities which exist in a state of semi-independence from the state. As in Afghanistan foreign intervention in Yemen soon begins to create a counter-reaction of which al-Qa’ida would be able to take advantage.
Patrick Cockburn is the Ihe author of "Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq."
By PATRICK COCKBURN
CounterPunch
Protestors are walking confidently down a street a street in the southern Yemeni port of Aden when there is a rattle of gunfire as the security services shoot into the crowd and people run panic-stricken seeking cover. A man in a check shirt is left lying face down in the dust in the empty street, a stream of blood flowing from a bullet wound in his head.
In northern Yemen government tanks and artillery pound the mountains as they try to dislodge Shia rebels holding positions among the mountain crags. Plumes of white smoke rise from exploding shells. Tribesmen not in uniform fighting on the government side sit behind their heavy machine guns and spray the hillsides with fire. A few miles away on a dusty piece of flat ground thousands of refugees driven from their homes by the war cower in small over-crowded tents.
Nobody paid much attention in the West to violent incidents like these in Yemen last year, though both of those described above were recorded on film. The mounting crisis in the country only attracted notice when a Nigerian student is revealed to have been “trained” in Yemen by al-Qa’ida to detonate explosives in his underpants on plane heading for Detroit. But this botched attack has led to the US and Britain starting to become entangled in one of the more violent countries in the world. The problems of Yemen are social, economic and political, and stretch back to the civil war in Yemen in the 1960s, but Gordon Brown believes solutions can be found by holding a one day summit on Yemen to “tackle extremism.”
Al-Qa’ida in Yemen is small, its active members numbering only 200-300 lightly armed militants in a country of 22 million people who are estimated to own no less than 60 million weapons. Al-Qa’ida has room to operate because central government authority barely extends outside the cities and because it can ally itself with the many opponents of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in office since the 1970s.
The power of al-Qa’ida is not its military expertise or sinister training camps in the mountains of Yemen. Its strength is rather its ability to lure the US and Britain into commitments in dangerous countries like Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq, where the state is weak and its rule contested. It can do this because in the wake of 9/11 the US instinctively over-reacts to the most amateur and unsuccessful attack on the homeland.
Al-Qa’ida has always had some activists in Yemen. In 2000 they rammed The USS Cole in Aden port with a boat packed with explosives and ripped a hole in its hull, killing 17 American sailors. The Yemeni government made a secret truce with the group under whose term it would not be pursued if it carried out no more attacks. In 2006 al Qa’ida began to reorganize when 23 of its militants escaped from Sanaa jail. As al-Qa’ida members came under greater pressure in Saudi Arabia some fled to Yemen and set up a joint Saudi-Yemeni movement, al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
It is easy to see why AQAP finds Yemen an hospitable place to be. It is not a country where the state expects to have a monopoly of violence or authority. Long before 9/11 I used to be intrigued by the Yemeni authorities’ attitude to personal weapons as exemplified by security measures at Sanaa airport. These were very strict with all luggage X-rayed before it was even allowed into the airport building and X-rayed again at each stage of the suitcase’s journey to the plane. Passengers were given frequent body searches until they reached the departure lounge. This, as in most airports, had many shops selling local handicrafts and curios to travellers. The difference in Sanaa airport was that many of these items turned out to be swords and long curved knives. Discovering to their horror that many of passengers were carrying such weapons western airlines had to get their own flight crews to ask Yemenis, as they boarded the plane, if they were armed. Yemenis found it a strange question but dutifully handed over their daggers to be placed in plastic bags in the hold of the aircraft.
The US and Britain are about to increase their support for a government which is highly unpopular and engaged in a series of actual or potential civil wars. The heaviest fighting so far has been with the Zaydi Shia insurgents just south of the border with Saudi Arabia. They contest that they fighting discrimination and are responding to President Saleh’s dependence on Saudi Arabia and its extreme Sunni Wahhabism. President Saleh, for his part, has been portraying the Shia rebels as pawns of Iran, though his government has produced no evidence for this.
The dilemma for the US and Britain is that as they become more openly supportive of the Yemeni government they will be targeted as its sponsor by its many enemies. The south of the country, independent until 1990 and defeated in a civil war in 1994, is seething with rebellion. Government forces shoot at protestors. There have been many shootings, arrests and torture is endemic. “They can make a zebra say it is a gazelle,” is a chilling Yemeni saying of the government’s interrogation methods.
Southern newspapers have been shut down including al-Ayyam, which is the most widely read. Hisham Bashraheel, its 66-year-old editor, was arrested last Wednesday at his newspaper office in the Crater district of Aden after a protest against its closure last May when the paper was accused of supporting separatism. Some 30 protestors and 20 guards had fought a battle with the police in which one policeman and one guard were killed. They later gave themselves up.
I met Mr Bashraheel in the cluttered office of al-Ayyam some years ago when he was already engaged in daily skirmishes with the authorities. Sitting on a chair in his office was a man called Abdul Hakim Mahyub, with a long scar down the side of his face, to whom Mr Bashraheel introduced me. He said Mr Mahyub’s story of how he came by the scar explained a lot about current tensions between north and south in Yemen.
Mr Mahyub said he was a teacher in Aden and several weeks earlier he had an argument with a man laying pipes outside his school. As is common in Yemen the pipe-layer had a knife in his belt. In the course of the argument he drew it and stabbed Mr Mahyub in the face, cutting through his cheek and into his tongue. His speech was affected and he found it difficult to do his job teaching, but the reason he had come to al-Ayyam to complain was that he had just heard that the man who stabbed him, who came from Marib in northern Yemen, had been released by an official from the same province.
Mr Bashraheel said that favouritism towards northerners was becoming very common but for publishing Mr Mahyub’s story he risked being accused of “separatism” and stirring up hostility between north and south.
The US and Britain will face a similar difficulty in Yemen as they already do in Afghanistan. They will be supporting an unpopular and corrupt government. It is not that al-Qa’ida is very strong but that it will be swimming in sympathetic waters because the government is very weak.
The government itself can see the danger being labelled as an American pawn if it is too openly welcoming to foreign military aid. “Any intervention or direct military action by the United States could strengthen the al-Qa’ida network not weaken it,” said the deputy prime minister for defense and security affairs Rasheed al-Aleemi last week. The government would have liked to take all the aid it could get but without telling anybody about it.
All this sounds very like Afghanistan. And there is a further way in which the two countries resemble each other. Just as Pakistan believes it is crucially affected by what happens in Afghanistan so Saudi Arabia regards the future of Yemen as a vital interest. Saudi Arabia is by far the most important foreign power in Yemen, providing $2 billion in budget support, but its interest has always been in a weak government in Sanaa and one over which it can exercise some control.
The only way that the US and Britain could entirely squeeze out al-Qa’ida from Yemen is by strengthening its armed forces to the point at which the central government could take over parts of the country it has not ruled for decades. But this would provoke tribes and communities which exist in a state of semi-independence from the state. As in Afghanistan foreign intervention in Yemen soon begins to create a counter-reaction of which al-Qa’ida would be able to take advantage.
Patrick Cockburn is the Ihe author of "Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq."
1/12/10
The Decade of Fraud, Fear, Hate and Permanent War
by Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez
It has been said that the march of history, particularly in the realm
of human rights, is always forward. Embedded within this concept is
the idea that despite tragedies and war, the human condition always
progresses. Unquestionably, whoever created the expression did so long
before our just completed decade.
The decade began with arguably the first fraudulent presidential
election in the history of the United States. Rather than a clear and
decisive victory for Bush-Cheney, it was a Reagan-Bush hand-picked
Supreme Court that intervened to give us two candidates who had
received less votes than their opponents in a hotly disputed election.
Upon being sworn into office, these two grabbed the reigns of power
and began to govern as though the U.S. electorate had granted them a
unanimous mandate. From there it went straight downhill.
Bush-Cheney pompously began to govern where Reagan-Bush had left off;
all power to the corporate sector and all power to the
military-industrial complex. Not that Clinton had been a moral beacon
or a champion of the poor, but Bush-Cheney ensured that every aspect
of government came to be placed at the service of the corporate
sector.
Then came 9-11. And what could have been a moment that could have
united all of humanity, the Bush-Cheney administration turned it into
an opportunity to divide the world up into good vs. evil and to
consolidate the power of the United States on a global scale. 9-11
virtually became a war marketing opportunity based on fear, religious
fanaticism and U.S. extreme nationalism and exceptionalism. It became
the birth of “The Homeland.”
9-11 became a clarion call for a fanatical crusade against
Arabs/Muslims and a call for a permanent worldwide war: God Bless
America. With it also came a moral demand for the speeding up of Big
Brother Society with nonsensical mantras such as: “The U.S.
Constitution is not a suicide pact” and “the Geneva Conventions are
now ‘quaint’ and obsolete.” God had bequeathed to the United States
its own special set of laws that Americans could obey or disobey at
the discretion of their God-inspired leader. That’s why the
Bush-Cheney administration worked feverishly to ensure that Americans
[soldiers and/or mercenaries] were not subject to the International
Criminal Court of Justice. The idea was also advanced that U.S.
soldiers were entitled to torture because what they were doing was not
actually torture and also because those being subjected to this
torture or non-torture were not protected by any laws whatsoever.
A rationale for dehumanization: Where had we heard that before? New
arguments were contrived that not all human beings were entitled to
the full protection of the law, especially if we were at war. Thus,
the notion of permanent worldwide war was conceived. And thus, the
Bush-Cheney administration abrogated unto themselves the rogue notion
that in carrying out this war, the U.S. now had permission to ignore,
interpret as it saw fit, or create new laws, permanently.
In war, no trials are necessary. The only rationale necessary is that
a legitimate target has been targeted. Whether it is actually hit is
irrelevant and dead civilians are but collateral damage. In this
scenario, drone technology became the weapon of choice with no
fingerprints and no accountability.
Enter hate. The climate was created that those that were to be
receiving our bombs were different than us. Brown people became the
enemy… with turbans. Brown people became the enemy in Afghanistan and
then at home. And it didn’t matter what kind of brown people. They
became both the enemy and the convenient scapegoat. Enter the era of
Lou Dobbs and Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Enter the era of closed borders and
closed minds. As long as the enemy is “not us” – the loss of rights
became acceptable. And to facilitate this era, it became necessary to
stoke fear, periodically. Enter color codes. Or was it simply a return
to America’s old-fashioned color codes? Enter a cheerleading media and
the end of its governmental watchdog function.
Then came the Iraq War.
No weapons of mass destruction were ever found, but the [true] reasons
for war – and the laws governing war – became irrelevant. The stage
had already been set; Iraq was simply the latest enemy and their
leader the embodiment of evil. And the mainstream media again stepped
forward or jumped: “How can we help?”
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives; many more
hundreds of thousands have been maimed while millions have been
displaced and through all this, Americans yawn. Less than 5,000
Americans dead and only 30,000 Americans wounded has not been quite
enough to bother the American conscience.
Even when the Democrats took back control of Congress in 2006,
impeachment for prosecuting a clearly illegal war became “off the
table” and ending the war was also declared out of the question.
When Barack Obama became President Barack Obama, everything was to
change. But “Supporting the troops” became the circular and continuing
argument for continuing the Iraq war. And the change we could believe
in and Yes We Can began to rhyme with Afghani-stan… the sequel. And
Paki-stan.
That was the lost decade. That is how America lost its mythical
conscience. And the decade ended with explosives in the underwear of a
Nigerian man; a jarring reminder that our permanent war is here to
stay. And now, Yemen also rhymes with Yes We Can? Now too, we also
know that Big Brother is also never going to go away. It really wasn’t
government; it was the people who gave this decade away.
© 2010 Column of the Americas
Rodriguez can be reached at XColumn@gmail.com
Column of the Americas
PO BOX 85476
Tucson, AZ 85754
It has been said that the march of history, particularly in the realm
of human rights, is always forward. Embedded within this concept is
the idea that despite tragedies and war, the human condition always
progresses. Unquestionably, whoever created the expression did so long
before our just completed decade.
The decade began with arguably the first fraudulent presidential
election in the history of the United States. Rather than a clear and
decisive victory for Bush-Cheney, it was a Reagan-Bush hand-picked
Supreme Court that intervened to give us two candidates who had
received less votes than their opponents in a hotly disputed election.
Upon being sworn into office, these two grabbed the reigns of power
and began to govern as though the U.S. electorate had granted them a
unanimous mandate. From there it went straight downhill.
Bush-Cheney pompously began to govern where Reagan-Bush had left off;
all power to the corporate sector and all power to the
military-industrial complex. Not that Clinton had been a moral beacon
or a champion of the poor, but Bush-Cheney ensured that every aspect
of government came to be placed at the service of the corporate
sector.
Then came 9-11. And what could have been a moment that could have
united all of humanity, the Bush-Cheney administration turned it into
an opportunity to divide the world up into good vs. evil and to
consolidate the power of the United States on a global scale. 9-11
virtually became a war marketing opportunity based on fear, religious
fanaticism and U.S. extreme nationalism and exceptionalism. It became
the birth of “The Homeland.”
9-11 became a clarion call for a fanatical crusade against
Arabs/Muslims and a call for a permanent worldwide war: God Bless
America. With it also came a moral demand for the speeding up of Big
Brother Society with nonsensical mantras such as: “The U.S.
Constitution is not a suicide pact” and “the Geneva Conventions are
now ‘quaint’ and obsolete.” God had bequeathed to the United States
its own special set of laws that Americans could obey or disobey at
the discretion of their God-inspired leader. That’s why the
Bush-Cheney administration worked feverishly to ensure that Americans
[soldiers and/or mercenaries] were not subject to the International
Criminal Court of Justice. The idea was also advanced that U.S.
soldiers were entitled to torture because what they were doing was not
actually torture and also because those being subjected to this
torture or non-torture were not protected by any laws whatsoever.
A rationale for dehumanization: Where had we heard that before? New
arguments were contrived that not all human beings were entitled to
the full protection of the law, especially if we were at war. Thus,
the notion of permanent worldwide war was conceived. And thus, the
Bush-Cheney administration abrogated unto themselves the rogue notion
that in carrying out this war, the U.S. now had permission to ignore,
interpret as it saw fit, or create new laws, permanently.
In war, no trials are necessary. The only rationale necessary is that
a legitimate target has been targeted. Whether it is actually hit is
irrelevant and dead civilians are but collateral damage. In this
scenario, drone technology became the weapon of choice with no
fingerprints and no accountability.
Enter hate. The climate was created that those that were to be
receiving our bombs were different than us. Brown people became the
enemy… with turbans. Brown people became the enemy in Afghanistan and
then at home. And it didn’t matter what kind of brown people. They
became both the enemy and the convenient scapegoat. Enter the era of
Lou Dobbs and Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Enter the era of closed borders and
closed minds. As long as the enemy is “not us” – the loss of rights
became acceptable. And to facilitate this era, it became necessary to
stoke fear, periodically. Enter color codes. Or was it simply a return
to America’s old-fashioned color codes? Enter a cheerleading media and
the end of its governmental watchdog function.
Then came the Iraq War.
No weapons of mass destruction were ever found, but the [true] reasons
for war – and the laws governing war – became irrelevant. The stage
had already been set; Iraq was simply the latest enemy and their
leader the embodiment of evil. And the mainstream media again stepped
forward or jumped: “How can we help?”
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives; many more
hundreds of thousands have been maimed while millions have been
displaced and through all this, Americans yawn. Less than 5,000
Americans dead and only 30,000 Americans wounded has not been quite
enough to bother the American conscience.
Even when the Democrats took back control of Congress in 2006,
impeachment for prosecuting a clearly illegal war became “off the
table” and ending the war was also declared out of the question.
When Barack Obama became President Barack Obama, everything was to
change. But “Supporting the troops” became the circular and continuing
argument for continuing the Iraq war. And the change we could believe
in and Yes We Can began to rhyme with Afghani-stan… the sequel. And
Paki-stan.
That was the lost decade. That is how America lost its mythical
conscience. And the decade ended with explosives in the underwear of a
Nigerian man; a jarring reminder that our permanent war is here to
stay. And now, Yemen also rhymes with Yes We Can? Now too, we also
know that Big Brother is also never going to go away. It really wasn’t
government; it was the people who gave this decade away.
© 2010 Column of the Americas
Rodriguez can be reached at XColumn@gmail.com
Column of the Americas
PO BOX 85476
Tucson, AZ 85754
Africom, el último intento estadounidense de volver a colonizar el continente
Tichaona Nhamoyebonde
allAfrica.com
Traducido del inglés para Rebelión por Beatriz Morales Bastos
Los revolucionarios africanos tienen que dormir ahora con un ojo abierto porque Estados Unidos de América no se detiene ante nada en su intento de establecer Africom, un ejército estadounidense altamente equipado que residirá permanentemente en África para supervisar los intereses imperialistas estadounidenses.
A finales del año pasado el gobierno estadounidense intensificó sus esfuerzos por establecer un ejército permanente en África llamado Comando de África (Africom, African Command) como la última herramienta de la sutil recolonización de África.
Antes de que terminara el año pasado el general William E. Garret, comandante del ejército estadounidense para África, se reunió con los agregados de defensa de todas las embajadas africanas en Washington para vender a sus gobiernos la idea de un ejército estadounidense basado en África.
Los últimos informes de la Casa Blanca de este mes de enero indican que el 75% del trabajo del ejército se ha hecho a través de una unidad militar con base en Stuttgart, Alemania, y que el resto se dedica a conseguir un país africano que albergue al ejército y haga que las cosas se muevan.
Liberia y Marruecos se han ofrecido para albergar al Africom, mientras que la Comunidad de Desarrollo del África Austral (SADC, en sus siglas en inglés*) se ha cerrado a toda posibilidad de que alguno de sus Estados miembros albergue al ejército estadounidense.
Otros países han permanecido en silencio.
Liberia tiene una larga relación con Estados Unidos debido a su historia de esclavitud, mientras que el descarriado Marruecos, que no pertenece a la Unión Africana y no celebra elecciones, puede que quiera al ejército estadounidense para que éste le ayude a suprimir cualquier levantamiento democrático.
La negativa de la SADC es una pequeña victoria para los pueblos de África en su lucha por la independencia total, pero el resto de los bloques regionales de África tienen que llegar todavía a una postura común, lo cual es preocupante.
El propio Estados Unidos quiere un país más estratégico que Marruecos y Liberia ya que el ejército será el epicentro de influyentes, articuladoras y protectoras políticas estadounidenses económicas y exteriores.
El otro peligro es que el Africom abra África como un campo de batalla entre Estados Unidos y grupos terroristas antiestadounidenses.
El Africom no es ni más ni menos que una cortina de humo detrás de la cual Estados Unidos quiere esconder sus medios de asegurar el petróleo y otros recursos naturales de África.
Los dirigentes africanos no deben olvidar que Estados Unidos y Europa han utilizado una y otra vez la fuerza militar como el único medio eficaz de cumplir su agenda y de asegurar que los gobiernos de cada país están dirigidos por personas sumisas a la disciplina estadounidense.
Por el hecho de residir en África, el Africom garantizará que los tentáculos de Estados Unidos lleguen fácilmente a cada país africano e influyan en cada acontecimiento a beneficio de Estados Unidos.
Al albergar al ejército [estadounidense] África habrá subcontratado su independencia militar a Estados Unidos y habrá aceptado el proceso que inicia su recolonización a través de un ejército que puede contener cualquier intento por parte de África de mostrar su propia destreza militar.
La pregunta fundamental es: ¿quién quitará el Africom una vez se establezca? ¿Con qué medios?
Debido a su origen el Africom será técnica y financieramente superior a cualquier ejército de un país africano y marcará el paso para el cambio de régimen en cualquier país a voluntad [de Estados Unidos], y también dará profundidad, dirección e ímpetu al esquema estadounidense de explotación de recursos naturales.
No cabe la menor duda de que en cuanto el ejército [estadounidense] sea operativo en África se revocarán todos los logros de la independencia.
Si los actuales dirigentes africanos sucumben a los deseos de Estados Unidos y aceptan la operación de su ejército en África, constarán en los anales de la historia como la generación de políticos que aceptó que prevaleciera el mal.
Hasta William Shakespeare se retorcería en su tumba y exclamaría: “Os dije que para que triunfe el mal basta con que los hombres de bien no hagan nada”.
No debemos olvidar que los africanos, que todavía se resienten de la humillación, de la subyugación, de la brutalidad y del complejo de inferioridad provocados por el colonialismo, no necesitan que se les haga retroceder a otra forma de colonialismo, aunque sea sutil.
El Africom ha sido controvertido en el continente desde el mismo momento en que el ex presidente estadounidense George W. Bush lo anunciara por primera vez en febrero de 2007.
Los dirigentes africanos no deben olvidar que bajo la administración de Barack Obama la política estadounidense respecto a África y al resto del mundo en vías de desarrollo no ha cambiado un ápice. Sigue siendo una política militar y materialista.
Los altos cargos tanto de la administración Bush como de la de Obama argumentan que el objetivo principal del Africom es profesionalizar a las fuerzas de seguridad en países clave de toda África.
Sin embargo, ninguna de las dos administraciones trata de considerar el impacto del establecimiento del Africom sobre partidos y gobiernos minoritarios, y sobre dirigentes fuertes considerados infieles, ni si Estados Unidos utilizará Africom para promover a dictadores amigos.
Los programas de adiestramiento y de armamento, y la transferencia de armas desde Ucrania a Guinea Ecuatorial, Chad, Etiopía y al gobierno de transición en Somalia indican claramente el uso de poder militar para mantener la influencia [estadounidense] en los gobiernos de África, que sigue siendo una prioridad de la política exterior estadounidense.
Con la Revolución Naranja Estados Unidos llevó al poder a los actuales dirigentes de Ucrania y se les está dando carta blanca para suministrar armamento a los conflictos africanos.
Los dirigentes africanos deben dar muestras de solidaridad y bloquear todo movimiento por parte de Estados Unidos para establecer sus bases en la madre patria, a menos que quieran ver un nuevo asalto de la colonización.
Si se permite que el Africom establezca una base en África, Kwame Nkrumah, Robert Mugabe, Sam Nujoma, Nelson Mandela, Julius Nyerere, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Kenneth Kaunda, Augustino Neto y Samora Machel, entre otros, habrán luchado las guerras de liberación para nada.
Miles de africanos que murieron en las cárceles coloniales y en los frentes de guerra durante las luchas de liberación habrán derramado su sangre por nada si África es colonizada de nuevo.
¿Por qué debería el grupo actual de dirigentes africanos aceptar sistemáticamente la recolonización cuando han aprendido tanto del colonialismo, el apartheid y el racismo? ¿Por qué no iba el actual grupo de dirigentes africanos a tratar a la administración estadounidense de igual a igual y decirle a la cara que no necesita un ejército extranjero ya que la Unión Africana esta preparando su propio ejército?
Los dirigentes africanos no necesitan profetas procedentes de Marte para saber que la fascinación estadounidense por el petróleo, la guerra contra el terrorismo y el ejército se centrará ahora en África después de la aventura en Iraq.
* N. de la t.: La Comunidad de Desarrollo del África Austral (Southern African Development Community, SADC) es una organización intergubernamental creada en 1979 cuya sede se encuentra en Gaborone, Botswana. Su objetivo es fomentar una mayor cooperación e integración así como la cooperación política y de seguridad entre 15 Estados del África austral (Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauricio, Mozambique, Namibia, República Democrática del Congo, Seychelles, Sudáfrica, Swazilandia, Tanzania, Zambia y Zimbabwe).
Tichaona Nhamoyebonde es un politólogo que reside en Ciudad del Cabo, Sudáfrica.
allAfrica.com
Traducido del inglés para Rebelión por Beatriz Morales Bastos
Los revolucionarios africanos tienen que dormir ahora con un ojo abierto porque Estados Unidos de América no se detiene ante nada en su intento de establecer Africom, un ejército estadounidense altamente equipado que residirá permanentemente en África para supervisar los intereses imperialistas estadounidenses.
A finales del año pasado el gobierno estadounidense intensificó sus esfuerzos por establecer un ejército permanente en África llamado Comando de África (Africom, African Command) como la última herramienta de la sutil recolonización de África.
Antes de que terminara el año pasado el general William E. Garret, comandante del ejército estadounidense para África, se reunió con los agregados de defensa de todas las embajadas africanas en Washington para vender a sus gobiernos la idea de un ejército estadounidense basado en África.
Los últimos informes de la Casa Blanca de este mes de enero indican que el 75% del trabajo del ejército se ha hecho a través de una unidad militar con base en Stuttgart, Alemania, y que el resto se dedica a conseguir un país africano que albergue al ejército y haga que las cosas se muevan.
Liberia y Marruecos se han ofrecido para albergar al Africom, mientras que la Comunidad de Desarrollo del África Austral (SADC, en sus siglas en inglés*) se ha cerrado a toda posibilidad de que alguno de sus Estados miembros albergue al ejército estadounidense.
Otros países han permanecido en silencio.
Liberia tiene una larga relación con Estados Unidos debido a su historia de esclavitud, mientras que el descarriado Marruecos, que no pertenece a la Unión Africana y no celebra elecciones, puede que quiera al ejército estadounidense para que éste le ayude a suprimir cualquier levantamiento democrático.
La negativa de la SADC es una pequeña victoria para los pueblos de África en su lucha por la independencia total, pero el resto de los bloques regionales de África tienen que llegar todavía a una postura común, lo cual es preocupante.
El propio Estados Unidos quiere un país más estratégico que Marruecos y Liberia ya que el ejército será el epicentro de influyentes, articuladoras y protectoras políticas estadounidenses económicas y exteriores.
El otro peligro es que el Africom abra África como un campo de batalla entre Estados Unidos y grupos terroristas antiestadounidenses.
El Africom no es ni más ni menos que una cortina de humo detrás de la cual Estados Unidos quiere esconder sus medios de asegurar el petróleo y otros recursos naturales de África.
Los dirigentes africanos no deben olvidar que Estados Unidos y Europa han utilizado una y otra vez la fuerza militar como el único medio eficaz de cumplir su agenda y de asegurar que los gobiernos de cada país están dirigidos por personas sumisas a la disciplina estadounidense.
Por el hecho de residir en África, el Africom garantizará que los tentáculos de Estados Unidos lleguen fácilmente a cada país africano e influyan en cada acontecimiento a beneficio de Estados Unidos.
Al albergar al ejército [estadounidense] África habrá subcontratado su independencia militar a Estados Unidos y habrá aceptado el proceso que inicia su recolonización a través de un ejército que puede contener cualquier intento por parte de África de mostrar su propia destreza militar.
La pregunta fundamental es: ¿quién quitará el Africom una vez se establezca? ¿Con qué medios?
Debido a su origen el Africom será técnica y financieramente superior a cualquier ejército de un país africano y marcará el paso para el cambio de régimen en cualquier país a voluntad [de Estados Unidos], y también dará profundidad, dirección e ímpetu al esquema estadounidense de explotación de recursos naturales.
No cabe la menor duda de que en cuanto el ejército [estadounidense] sea operativo en África se revocarán todos los logros de la independencia.
Si los actuales dirigentes africanos sucumben a los deseos de Estados Unidos y aceptan la operación de su ejército en África, constarán en los anales de la historia como la generación de políticos que aceptó que prevaleciera el mal.
Hasta William Shakespeare se retorcería en su tumba y exclamaría: “Os dije que para que triunfe el mal basta con que los hombres de bien no hagan nada”.
No debemos olvidar que los africanos, que todavía se resienten de la humillación, de la subyugación, de la brutalidad y del complejo de inferioridad provocados por el colonialismo, no necesitan que se les haga retroceder a otra forma de colonialismo, aunque sea sutil.
El Africom ha sido controvertido en el continente desde el mismo momento en que el ex presidente estadounidense George W. Bush lo anunciara por primera vez en febrero de 2007.
Los dirigentes africanos no deben olvidar que bajo la administración de Barack Obama la política estadounidense respecto a África y al resto del mundo en vías de desarrollo no ha cambiado un ápice. Sigue siendo una política militar y materialista.
Los altos cargos tanto de la administración Bush como de la de Obama argumentan que el objetivo principal del Africom es profesionalizar a las fuerzas de seguridad en países clave de toda África.
Sin embargo, ninguna de las dos administraciones trata de considerar el impacto del establecimiento del Africom sobre partidos y gobiernos minoritarios, y sobre dirigentes fuertes considerados infieles, ni si Estados Unidos utilizará Africom para promover a dictadores amigos.
Los programas de adiestramiento y de armamento, y la transferencia de armas desde Ucrania a Guinea Ecuatorial, Chad, Etiopía y al gobierno de transición en Somalia indican claramente el uso de poder militar para mantener la influencia [estadounidense] en los gobiernos de África, que sigue siendo una prioridad de la política exterior estadounidense.
Con la Revolución Naranja Estados Unidos llevó al poder a los actuales dirigentes de Ucrania y se les está dando carta blanca para suministrar armamento a los conflictos africanos.
Los dirigentes africanos deben dar muestras de solidaridad y bloquear todo movimiento por parte de Estados Unidos para establecer sus bases en la madre patria, a menos que quieran ver un nuevo asalto de la colonización.
Si se permite que el Africom establezca una base en África, Kwame Nkrumah, Robert Mugabe, Sam Nujoma, Nelson Mandela, Julius Nyerere, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Kenneth Kaunda, Augustino Neto y Samora Machel, entre otros, habrán luchado las guerras de liberación para nada.
Miles de africanos que murieron en las cárceles coloniales y en los frentes de guerra durante las luchas de liberación habrán derramado su sangre por nada si África es colonizada de nuevo.
¿Por qué debería el grupo actual de dirigentes africanos aceptar sistemáticamente la recolonización cuando han aprendido tanto del colonialismo, el apartheid y el racismo? ¿Por qué no iba el actual grupo de dirigentes africanos a tratar a la administración estadounidense de igual a igual y decirle a la cara que no necesita un ejército extranjero ya que la Unión Africana esta preparando su propio ejército?
Los dirigentes africanos no necesitan profetas procedentes de Marte para saber que la fascinación estadounidense por el petróleo, la guerra contra el terrorismo y el ejército se centrará ahora en África después de la aventura en Iraq.
* N. de la t.: La Comunidad de Desarrollo del África Austral (Southern African Development Community, SADC) es una organización intergubernamental creada en 1979 cuya sede se encuentra en Gaborone, Botswana. Su objetivo es fomentar una mayor cooperación e integración así como la cooperación política y de seguridad entre 15 Estados del África austral (Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauricio, Mozambique, Namibia, República Democrática del Congo, Seychelles, Sudáfrica, Swazilandia, Tanzania, Zambia y Zimbabwe).
Tichaona Nhamoyebonde es un politólogo que reside en Ciudad del Cabo, Sudáfrica.
Help Save the Macehualli Center
Dear Friends,
As we reach the beginning of a new year we would like to thank you for
all the support you have given us to help save the Macehualli Center.
However, the families helped with the center will lose this important
pillar of support early next year unless we do an extraordinary effort
to save it. We have had many fundraising activities to save the Center
in this time of financial distress. However, with the frontal attack
by Sheriff Joe Arpaio many have cowered and now face the same attacks
the Jornaleros were the first to confront. What better way to confront
oppression than using our culture in a virtual counter attack by
helping the workers during Posadas and Xmas with a virtual tamale
sale.
You can donate online anywhere from $1 to $50 and receive a virtual
tamale, you choose the flavor and quantity that helps a great cause
this holiday season. Tonatierra is a Non-Profit and your contributions
are tax deductible.
If you wish to help us with purchasing virtual tamales please click on
the link below.
http://shop.centromacehualli.org/
Thank you for all your support throughout this year!
Sincerely,
Salvador Reza & Sylvia Herrera
As we reach the beginning of a new year we would like to thank you for
all the support you have given us to help save the Macehualli Center.
However, the families helped with the center will lose this important
pillar of support early next year unless we do an extraordinary effort
to save it. We have had many fundraising activities to save the Center
in this time of financial distress. However, with the frontal attack
by Sheriff Joe Arpaio many have cowered and now face the same attacks
the Jornaleros were the first to confront. What better way to confront
oppression than using our culture in a virtual counter attack by
helping the workers during Posadas and Xmas with a virtual tamale
sale.
You can donate online anywhere from $1 to $50 and receive a virtual
tamale, you choose the flavor and quantity that helps a great cause
this holiday season. Tonatierra is a Non-Profit and your contributions
are tax deductible.
If you wish to help us with purchasing virtual tamales please click on
the link below.
http://shop.centromacehualli.org/
Thank you for all your support throughout this year!
Sincerely,
Salvador Reza & Sylvia Herrera
Por qué marchamos en Arizona?
Pablo Alvarado
La Jornada
Estados Unidos enfrenta una crisis que debe resolver preservando su carácter de nación de inmigrantes. Esto comienza respetando la dignidad e integridad de los seres humanos. Caracterizar el fenómeno de la migración como un asunto de criminalidad aleja al país, cada vez más, de estos principios universales. Cuando 12 millones de personas huyen de la violencia, de desastres naturales y de la extrema pobreza no se habla de crimen, sino de crisis humanitaria.
Este año, esa nación intentará nuevamente reparar y modernizar un sistema migratorio quebrantado que permite que la sociedad estadounidense se beneficie y goce de los frutos del trabajo del inmigrante sin aceptar su humanidad y sin reconocer sus derechos. Los legisladores ya hicieron un intento y fallaron en 2006 y 2007. No pudieron llegar a un acuerdo alrededor de la reforma migratoria, dando luz verde para que los estados, los condados y las municipalidades asuman la responsabilidad del gobierno federal y adopten su propia versión de reforma migratoria. Esto únicamente ha causado sufrimiento y caos.
Las fuerzas antimigrantes extremas de ese país han envenenado el debate con odio y racismo. La ola de ataques contra el pueblo migrante toma matices cada vez más agresivos, más groseros y crueles. Pareciera que la ingratitud y perversidad no tienen parámetros éticos, morales o espirituales. Los adversarios procuran hacer la vida del pueblo migrante tan mísera y desdichada como para que éste se autodeporte. Para ello, deben cerrar todas las posibilidades de sobrevivencia económica y despojar a la persona migrante de sus derechos y de su humanidad.
Las agresiones van desde negar servicios de salud básicos hasta transformar doctores y enfermeras en agentes de migración. Desde negar subsidios de vivienda, incluso a personas con documentos, hasta criminalizar a propietarios de casas y apartamentos por rentarle a indocumentados. Desde tener a agentes de migración en las cárceles hasta dar poder a la policía de parar a cualquier persona en la calle y pedirle sus documentos migratorios. Desde quitarle el derecho a un proceso debido al indocumentado hasta dar poder de decisión absoluta a los oficiales de migración.
La embestida contra el migrante no sólo se reduce a una estrategia de desgaste económico. Despojarlo de su dignidad humana es ciertamente una de las premisas fundamentales para legitimar y normalizar cualquier allanamiento en su contra. Es decir, se trata de humillarlo para que sus derechos sean vistos, de alguno u otro modo, en otra dimensión. Se comienza caracterizándolo como un ser "ilegal", calificativo que ha adquirido connotaciones racistas, de desprecio y de burla. Este epíteto ha evolucionado de "ilegal" a "invasor", de "criminal" a "terrorista".
En su afán de materializar este proceso de deshumanización, los adversarios de los inmigrantes están implementando prácticas de perfil racial, persecución sistemática y niveles de degradación de la persona no vistos en más de una generación. En este sentido, no es una simple coincidencia que madres indocumentadas detenidas tengan que dar a luz esposadas de pies y manos a las camillas. No es casualidad que se desfile por las calles a prisioneros indocumentados y que se llame a los medios de comunicación para humillarlos y montar un show. No es una eventualidad arrancar a una madre de sus hijos en público y dar a los niños juguetes para consolarlos. No es una simple circunstancia establecer una línea telefónica para que cualquier persona sospechosa de indocumentada pueda ser reportada. No es puramente un incidente que alguaciles y oficiales electos se conviertan en héroes de grupos supremacistas blancos. Sobre todo, no es algo surgido de la nada que este tipo de maltrato se vea como normal, incluso por personas que simpatizan con el pueblo migrante indocumentado.
Esta estrategia de desgaste impulsada por la extrema derecha y los grupos antimigrantes ya no distingue entre los indocumentados y los que poseen estatus migratorio legal. El resultado es que en algunos lugares de Estados Unidos, los latinoamericanos (inmigrantes y estadounidenses) no gozan de las mismas protecciones constitucionales que posee la comunidad blanca. Arizona es prueba de esta realidad. El jefe del Departamento de Alguaciles del condado de Maricopa deliberadamente ha decidido interrogar, detener, arrestar y deportar a todas aquellas personas que tengan apariencia mexicana.
Muchas de estas prácticas están ocurriendo en el país, pero de manera más pronunciada en ese condado. Dicho estado se ha convertido en el laboratorio donde se experimentan las medidas y prácticas antimigrantes más aberrantes del país.
Pero en Arizona también hay lucha y resistencia. Las familias inmigrantes, sus organizaciones, sus aliados y amigos están alzando la voz y diciendo basta. El 16 de enero saldrán a las calles para denunciar la persecución y criminalización del migrante. Van a exigir el fin de los programas que permiten la colaboración entre la policía y agentes federales, incluyendo la medida 287g. Van a marchar para contener la expansión de las políticas y prácticas antimigrantes a otros lugares del país. Van a marchar para exigir una reforma migratoria justa, inclusiva, que conduzca a la ciudadanía y la igualdad política. Van a marchar para asegurar que Estados Unidos preserve su carácter de nación de inmigrantes. Van a marchar para asegurar que éste sea un país de inclusión, no de exclusión. Van a marchar para reclamar su derecho a existir. Van a marchar para defender los derechos civiles y humanos de todos y todas.
Dos días antes de celebrar el aniversario del doctor Martin Luther King Jr. la comunidad inmigrante y sus aliados en Arizona van a recrear su legado. Van a continuar marchando y resistiendo pacíficamente para que el sueño del Dr. King se haga realidad. A cuatro décadas de su asesinato, las comunidades de color, los latinos y los afroamericanos continúan luchando para que las personas sean juzgadas por el contenido de su carácter y no por el color de la piel. Si el Dr. King viviera, el 16 de enero marcharía junto a las familias latinas de Arizona. Pero su sueño se cumplirá algún día. Algunas veces la justicia tarda, pero no olvida. Sí se puede.
La Jornada
Estados Unidos enfrenta una crisis que debe resolver preservando su carácter de nación de inmigrantes. Esto comienza respetando la dignidad e integridad de los seres humanos. Caracterizar el fenómeno de la migración como un asunto de criminalidad aleja al país, cada vez más, de estos principios universales. Cuando 12 millones de personas huyen de la violencia, de desastres naturales y de la extrema pobreza no se habla de crimen, sino de crisis humanitaria.
Este año, esa nación intentará nuevamente reparar y modernizar un sistema migratorio quebrantado que permite que la sociedad estadounidense se beneficie y goce de los frutos del trabajo del inmigrante sin aceptar su humanidad y sin reconocer sus derechos. Los legisladores ya hicieron un intento y fallaron en 2006 y 2007. No pudieron llegar a un acuerdo alrededor de la reforma migratoria, dando luz verde para que los estados, los condados y las municipalidades asuman la responsabilidad del gobierno federal y adopten su propia versión de reforma migratoria. Esto únicamente ha causado sufrimiento y caos.
Las fuerzas antimigrantes extremas de ese país han envenenado el debate con odio y racismo. La ola de ataques contra el pueblo migrante toma matices cada vez más agresivos, más groseros y crueles. Pareciera que la ingratitud y perversidad no tienen parámetros éticos, morales o espirituales. Los adversarios procuran hacer la vida del pueblo migrante tan mísera y desdichada como para que éste se autodeporte. Para ello, deben cerrar todas las posibilidades de sobrevivencia económica y despojar a la persona migrante de sus derechos y de su humanidad.
Las agresiones van desde negar servicios de salud básicos hasta transformar doctores y enfermeras en agentes de migración. Desde negar subsidios de vivienda, incluso a personas con documentos, hasta criminalizar a propietarios de casas y apartamentos por rentarle a indocumentados. Desde tener a agentes de migración en las cárceles hasta dar poder a la policía de parar a cualquier persona en la calle y pedirle sus documentos migratorios. Desde quitarle el derecho a un proceso debido al indocumentado hasta dar poder de decisión absoluta a los oficiales de migración.
La embestida contra el migrante no sólo se reduce a una estrategia de desgaste económico. Despojarlo de su dignidad humana es ciertamente una de las premisas fundamentales para legitimar y normalizar cualquier allanamiento en su contra. Es decir, se trata de humillarlo para que sus derechos sean vistos, de alguno u otro modo, en otra dimensión. Se comienza caracterizándolo como un ser "ilegal", calificativo que ha adquirido connotaciones racistas, de desprecio y de burla. Este epíteto ha evolucionado de "ilegal" a "invasor", de "criminal" a "terrorista".
En su afán de materializar este proceso de deshumanización, los adversarios de los inmigrantes están implementando prácticas de perfil racial, persecución sistemática y niveles de degradación de la persona no vistos en más de una generación. En este sentido, no es una simple coincidencia que madres indocumentadas detenidas tengan que dar a luz esposadas de pies y manos a las camillas. No es casualidad que se desfile por las calles a prisioneros indocumentados y que se llame a los medios de comunicación para humillarlos y montar un show. No es una eventualidad arrancar a una madre de sus hijos en público y dar a los niños juguetes para consolarlos. No es una simple circunstancia establecer una línea telefónica para que cualquier persona sospechosa de indocumentada pueda ser reportada. No es puramente un incidente que alguaciles y oficiales electos se conviertan en héroes de grupos supremacistas blancos. Sobre todo, no es algo surgido de la nada que este tipo de maltrato se vea como normal, incluso por personas que simpatizan con el pueblo migrante indocumentado.
Esta estrategia de desgaste impulsada por la extrema derecha y los grupos antimigrantes ya no distingue entre los indocumentados y los que poseen estatus migratorio legal. El resultado es que en algunos lugares de Estados Unidos, los latinoamericanos (inmigrantes y estadounidenses) no gozan de las mismas protecciones constitucionales que posee la comunidad blanca. Arizona es prueba de esta realidad. El jefe del Departamento de Alguaciles del condado de Maricopa deliberadamente ha decidido interrogar, detener, arrestar y deportar a todas aquellas personas que tengan apariencia mexicana.
Muchas de estas prácticas están ocurriendo en el país, pero de manera más pronunciada en ese condado. Dicho estado se ha convertido en el laboratorio donde se experimentan las medidas y prácticas antimigrantes más aberrantes del país.
Pero en Arizona también hay lucha y resistencia. Las familias inmigrantes, sus organizaciones, sus aliados y amigos están alzando la voz y diciendo basta. El 16 de enero saldrán a las calles para denunciar la persecución y criminalización del migrante. Van a exigir el fin de los programas que permiten la colaboración entre la policía y agentes federales, incluyendo la medida 287g. Van a marchar para contener la expansión de las políticas y prácticas antimigrantes a otros lugares del país. Van a marchar para exigir una reforma migratoria justa, inclusiva, que conduzca a la ciudadanía y la igualdad política. Van a marchar para asegurar que Estados Unidos preserve su carácter de nación de inmigrantes. Van a marchar para asegurar que éste sea un país de inclusión, no de exclusión. Van a marchar para reclamar su derecho a existir. Van a marchar para defender los derechos civiles y humanos de todos y todas.
Dos días antes de celebrar el aniversario del doctor Martin Luther King Jr. la comunidad inmigrante y sus aliados en Arizona van a recrear su legado. Van a continuar marchando y resistiendo pacíficamente para que el sueño del Dr. King se haga realidad. A cuatro décadas de su asesinato, las comunidades de color, los latinos y los afroamericanos continúan luchando para que las personas sean juzgadas por el contenido de su carácter y no por el color de la piel. Si el Dr. King viviera, el 16 de enero marcharía junto a las familias latinas de Arizona. Pero su sueño se cumplirá algún día. Algunas veces la justicia tarda, pero no olvida. Sí se puede.
*Pablo Alvarado es director ejecutivo de la Red Nacional de Jornaleros y Jornaleras (National Day Laborer Organizing Network, NDLON), alianza nacional de 41 organizaciones de base dedicada a la defensa y organización de trabajadores inmigrantes eventuales en Estados Unidos.
Mexico Welcomes 2010 With Bombs and Riots
The Mexican Revolution at 100
By JOHN ROSS
CounterPunch
Every hundred years on the tenth year of the century, Mexico seems to explode in social upheaval. In 1810, the war of liberation from the Spanish Crown unleashed a genocidal decade-long conflict. In 1910, the overthrow of dictator Porfirio Diaz triggered a fratricidal bloodbath. In recent months, dire expectations that 2010 would signal similar violence have been running high in this distant neighbor country, mired as it is in a grinding depression where 80% of Mexico's 107,000,000 citizens subsist in and around the poverty line.
It is now the tenth of January 2010 and no new revolution has broken out - yet.
Nonetheless, the New Year was welcomed in here with a blast of revolutionary fireworks: bank bombings in Mexico City, surrounding Mexico state, and San Luis Potosi in the distant north, blew out a dozen ATM machines. Walls were scorched and windows shattered by firebombs at three auto showrooms in the greater metropolitan area and the government palace in the Mexico City delegation (borough) of Milpa Alta (an explosive device failed to ignite in Ixtapalapa, the capital's most conflictive demarcation.)
Incendiary attacks also struck a Telmex branch office, the Mexican phone monopoly owned by Carlos Slim, the richest tycoon in Latin America. A slaughterhouse and a police car were also firebombed. In Tijuana on the northern border, an anarchist group claimed to have machine-gunned three municipal police vehicles and a private security patrol car to welcome in 2010 in addition to "expropriations" at seven OXXO convenience stores during one of which a police officer ("placa") was killed.
"It was either him or us," lamented a communiqué from the purported perpetrators who signed off as "another anonymous anarchist action" in a document posted January 2nd on "Conspiracy of Fire", a direct action electronic clearing house (www.conspira1970.wordpress.net)
The spate of bombings by anarchist cells was similar to a string of 15 such incidents in Mexico City and Guadalajara timed to coincide with Mexican Independence Day last September. A student activist at the National Autonomous University was jailed briefly by federal police for several of the fiery assaults in September and released.
Among the groupings that claimed responsibility for the actions that took place between December 31st and January 2nd were the Propaganda Of The Deed Brigade which posted a declaration of war on the Conspiracy of Fire page that read in part "with this document, we declare a war that will not end until all business people, the Bourgeois, militaries, governments, and all kinds of totalitarian power are exterminated.
"What has happened today is just a small demonstration that we have lost our fear and our hatred of the system has grown. They can no longer kill or jail us with impunity. We are not afraid. Un Ojo por Un Ojo! ('An Eye for an Eye.'")
The document and two other communiqués taking responsibility for the bombings made explicit reference to the exorbitant cost of government celebrations of both the centennial of the revolution and the bi-centennial of independence and noted that "although we do not believe in absolute dates, 2010 will be a year of struggle and a platform of preparation for what is to come…" - the 1910 uprising led by Francisco Madero was only the opening gong of a series of revolutions that finally fizzled out in 1919 with the assassination of the revolutionary martyr Emiliano Zapata.
Among the heroes lauded in the communiqués were historical anarchist leaders Praxides G. Guerrero and Ricardo Flores Magon, the Great Zapata, the Centaur of the North Francisco Villa, and Lucio Cabanas, the 1970s guerrillero leader of the Party of the Poor. Conspicuously absent from the list was Subcomandante Marcos who 16 years ago this January 1st gave voice to the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas in the very first hour of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Other participants in the New Year's Eve Molotov cocktail party were the Simon Radowisky Brigade, named for a little-known Ukrainian-Argentinean anarchist who died in Mexico in 1956 while at work in a toy factory he was trying to organize, and the "May 25th 1910 Committee of Adjudication" which takes its name from the date that Praxides G. Guerrero fell in Janos Chihuahua, the first anarchist to give up his life in the Mexican Revolution - the anarchist-led insurrection in Chihuahua preceded Madero's revolution by six months.
Meanwhile, in Chiapas where mass psychosis that the Zapatistas would rise again January 1st has reigned for months, the Mayan rebels' "caracoles" or public centers were shut down tight for the first time in 15 anniversary markings of that historic rebellion.
But the Zapatista Army of Liberation is hardly the only armed indigenous force for which rebellion in 2010 is an option. The Conspiracy of Fire page features an analysis of revolutionary prospects attributed to the TAGIN or National Indigenous Guerilla Triple Alliance that predicts "the calendar of conflict will spread throughout the country in the next 12 months ", claiming that 70 armed organizations have joined forces for concerted action in 2010. The article is illustrated by photos of armed guerilleros taken at a press conference held in Guerrero last summer by "Comandante Ramiro" (Omar Solis) of the ERPI ("Revolutionary Army of The Insurgent People") - several months later, Ramiro's body was recovered from a clandestine grave in the high sierra of that conflictive state.
While boasts of renewed revolution fly, President Felipe Calderon, now halfway through his calamitous six years in office, sought to put a happy face on the disasters his administration of Mexico has inflicted upon the country. Speaking from sunny Acapulco where the beaches were buckling under the weight of buxom bikini-clad tourists while the rest of the country shivered in the glacial cold, Calderon urged his compatriots to celebrate "this Year of the Patria ('Fatherland') with happiness, working together in each home. This year we will write pages of glory and live the flame of our values that make us proud to be Mexicans (sic)."
In what could only have been an effusion of irony, the beaming president wished his bankrupt constituents a "Prosperous New Year." Many observers (this writer was not alone) wondered what country Calderon thought he was addressing.
The COPAMEX, Mexico's most influential business federation, was significantly more guarded in greeting the New Year, warning Mexicans to avoid violence in celebrating the duel centennials.
Despite veiled threats from the business sector, Mexico's working class is in an uproar. A New Year's Day "zafarancho" (riot) outside a power generating sub-station in Mexico state between displaced members of the Mexican Electricity Workers Union (SME) trying to prevent scabs from taking their jobs, and heavily armed federal police left a dozen injured and the nearby pyramids of Teotihuacan, the City of the Gods, wreathed in tear gas fumes.
The confrontation marked the first violence in what has been largely a peaceful resistance movement ever since Calderon shut down the Luz y Fuerza power company last October putting 42,000 workers on the street, and suggests that an increasingly frustrated rank and file is prepared to raise the ante. On January 5th and again on the 6th, bands of SME workers stormed through the old quarter of Mexico City after the explosions of electrical transformers in the neighborhood brought out detachments of federal police.
Sabotage is rumored.
It is not mere coincidence that both the confrontation at Teotihuacan and many of the anarchist "bombazos" took place in Mexico state, which is governed by Enrique Pena Nieto, the presidential front-runner in 2012. Pena Nieto is a luminary of the resurgent Party of the Institutionalized Revolution (PRI) that ruled Mexico for seven decades until it was displaced from power in 2000 by Calderon's rightist PAN party. The PRI won a landslide majority in the lower house of congress in 2009 mid-term elections and is expected to sweep all 12 governors' races up for grabs in 2010.
In a remarkable reprise of the social unrest that detonated after runaway inflation excited hungry masses to rise up against the Diaz dictatorship 100 years ago, an abrupt jump in gasoline and diesel prices that kicked in on the final day of 2009 has set off a chain reaction of protests in Mexico City and the provinces.
On the first workday of 2010, 2000 truck drivers shut down key national highways for seven hours to protest the hikes - in Puebla, the drivers were joined by 500 electricistas from nearby Necaxa, the so-called "cradle" of Luz y Fuerza and the SME. The success of the blockade in Puebla, Hidalgo, and Veracruz states has inspired truckers' association director Edmundo Morales to call for a national strike. Participation of the SME at the barricades may well be a precursor of increased worker solidarity in the coming year.
In Tepic Nayarit, bus drivers protested the increase in fuel prices by parking their vehicles, paralyzing that provincial capital. Massive protests in Mexico City by independent unions and farmers' organizations are expected later in the month.
The price surge viscerally wounds a popular economy that was grievously lacerated in 2009. The Calderon government's annual daily minimum salary increase is less than 5% for 2010 and fails to match 6% inflation. The 2.60 peso a day "raise" does not even buy a ride on the Mexico City Metro that ferries millions of workers to their jobs each day. On New Year's morning, the leftist Mexico City government of Mayor Marcelo Ebrard raised the heavily subsidized Metro ticket price from two to three pesos a ride. The back of the ticket now reminds riders that the real cost is nine pesos.
A survey of public markets reported by the left daily La Jornada calculates a 30% rise in the basic food basket in the first week of 2010, largely due to fuel and electricity rate increases - tortillas, the essential nourishment for 26,000,000 Mexicans living in extreme poverty leaped 10% a kilo throughout central Mexico.
Much like Obamaland, where the President crows about recovery in a jobless economy, Calderon pledged in a nationally-televised New Year's message that 2010 will be a "year of recuperation" for Mexico although his predictions of 3% growth seems delusionally rosy - in 2009, the Gross National Product contracted 7% and growth was negative.
Unemployment, as measured by the government's obfuscated system, is at a 15 year high of 6.8% - in the real world 6.8% translates to 40% of the work force not working, according to social economist Julio Boltvinik. 100,000 jobs are reportedly being lost each month (nearly 50,000 went down the tubes in October when Calderon fired the Luz y Fuerza workers.) But there is light at the end of the tunnel: according to the Wall Street Journal, a half million Mexican workers have found employment in the illicit drug industry.
The much-respected Economist Intelligence Unit's yearly ratings of political instability take into account the socio-political dynamic in 165 countries. In 2010, Mexico places in the upper third of nations at risk of violent political upheaval. Whether this is an indicator of resurgent revolution here in 2010 is a story
To Be Continued
During the next three months, John Ross will travel the U.S. from sea to stinking sea with his new cult classic "El Monstruo - Dread & Redemption in Mexico City" which the New York Post (!) recently recommended as a "gritty, pulsating" read. For suggested venues (particularly in the Chicago and St. Louis areas) write johnross@igc.org
By JOHN ROSS
CounterPunch
Every hundred years on the tenth year of the century, Mexico seems to explode in social upheaval. In 1810, the war of liberation from the Spanish Crown unleashed a genocidal decade-long conflict. In 1910, the overthrow of dictator Porfirio Diaz triggered a fratricidal bloodbath. In recent months, dire expectations that 2010 would signal similar violence have been running high in this distant neighbor country, mired as it is in a grinding depression where 80% of Mexico's 107,000,000 citizens subsist in and around the poverty line.
It is now the tenth of January 2010 and no new revolution has broken out - yet.
Nonetheless, the New Year was welcomed in here with a blast of revolutionary fireworks: bank bombings in Mexico City, surrounding Mexico state, and San Luis Potosi in the distant north, blew out a dozen ATM machines. Walls were scorched and windows shattered by firebombs at three auto showrooms in the greater metropolitan area and the government palace in the Mexico City delegation (borough) of Milpa Alta (an explosive device failed to ignite in Ixtapalapa, the capital's most conflictive demarcation.)
Incendiary attacks also struck a Telmex branch office, the Mexican phone monopoly owned by Carlos Slim, the richest tycoon in Latin America. A slaughterhouse and a police car were also firebombed. In Tijuana on the northern border, an anarchist group claimed to have machine-gunned three municipal police vehicles and a private security patrol car to welcome in 2010 in addition to "expropriations" at seven OXXO convenience stores during one of which a police officer ("placa") was killed.
"It was either him or us," lamented a communiqué from the purported perpetrators who signed off as "another anonymous anarchist action" in a document posted January 2nd on "Conspiracy of Fire", a direct action electronic clearing house (www.conspira1970.wordpress.net)
The spate of bombings by anarchist cells was similar to a string of 15 such incidents in Mexico City and Guadalajara timed to coincide with Mexican Independence Day last September. A student activist at the National Autonomous University was jailed briefly by federal police for several of the fiery assaults in September and released.
Among the groupings that claimed responsibility for the actions that took place between December 31st and January 2nd were the Propaganda Of The Deed Brigade which posted a declaration of war on the Conspiracy of Fire page that read in part "with this document, we declare a war that will not end until all business people, the Bourgeois, militaries, governments, and all kinds of totalitarian power are exterminated.
"What has happened today is just a small demonstration that we have lost our fear and our hatred of the system has grown. They can no longer kill or jail us with impunity. We are not afraid. Un Ojo por Un Ojo! ('An Eye for an Eye.'")
The document and two other communiqués taking responsibility for the bombings made explicit reference to the exorbitant cost of government celebrations of both the centennial of the revolution and the bi-centennial of independence and noted that "although we do not believe in absolute dates, 2010 will be a year of struggle and a platform of preparation for what is to come…" - the 1910 uprising led by Francisco Madero was only the opening gong of a series of revolutions that finally fizzled out in 1919 with the assassination of the revolutionary martyr Emiliano Zapata.
Among the heroes lauded in the communiqués were historical anarchist leaders Praxides G. Guerrero and Ricardo Flores Magon, the Great Zapata, the Centaur of the North Francisco Villa, and Lucio Cabanas, the 1970s guerrillero leader of the Party of the Poor. Conspicuously absent from the list was Subcomandante Marcos who 16 years ago this January 1st gave voice to the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas in the very first hour of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Other participants in the New Year's Eve Molotov cocktail party were the Simon Radowisky Brigade, named for a little-known Ukrainian-Argentinean anarchist who died in Mexico in 1956 while at work in a toy factory he was trying to organize, and the "May 25th 1910 Committee of Adjudication" which takes its name from the date that Praxides G. Guerrero fell in Janos Chihuahua, the first anarchist to give up his life in the Mexican Revolution - the anarchist-led insurrection in Chihuahua preceded Madero's revolution by six months.
Meanwhile, in Chiapas where mass psychosis that the Zapatistas would rise again January 1st has reigned for months, the Mayan rebels' "caracoles" or public centers were shut down tight for the first time in 15 anniversary markings of that historic rebellion.
But the Zapatista Army of Liberation is hardly the only armed indigenous force for which rebellion in 2010 is an option. The Conspiracy of Fire page features an analysis of revolutionary prospects attributed to the TAGIN or National Indigenous Guerilla Triple Alliance that predicts "the calendar of conflict will spread throughout the country in the next 12 months ", claiming that 70 armed organizations have joined forces for concerted action in 2010. The article is illustrated by photos of armed guerilleros taken at a press conference held in Guerrero last summer by "Comandante Ramiro" (Omar Solis) of the ERPI ("Revolutionary Army of The Insurgent People") - several months later, Ramiro's body was recovered from a clandestine grave in the high sierra of that conflictive state.
While boasts of renewed revolution fly, President Felipe Calderon, now halfway through his calamitous six years in office, sought to put a happy face on the disasters his administration of Mexico has inflicted upon the country. Speaking from sunny Acapulco where the beaches were buckling under the weight of buxom bikini-clad tourists while the rest of the country shivered in the glacial cold, Calderon urged his compatriots to celebrate "this Year of the Patria ('Fatherland') with happiness, working together in each home. This year we will write pages of glory and live the flame of our values that make us proud to be Mexicans (sic)."
In what could only have been an effusion of irony, the beaming president wished his bankrupt constituents a "Prosperous New Year." Many observers (this writer was not alone) wondered what country Calderon thought he was addressing.
The COPAMEX, Mexico's most influential business federation, was significantly more guarded in greeting the New Year, warning Mexicans to avoid violence in celebrating the duel centennials.
Despite veiled threats from the business sector, Mexico's working class is in an uproar. A New Year's Day "zafarancho" (riot) outside a power generating sub-station in Mexico state between displaced members of the Mexican Electricity Workers Union (SME) trying to prevent scabs from taking their jobs, and heavily armed federal police left a dozen injured and the nearby pyramids of Teotihuacan, the City of the Gods, wreathed in tear gas fumes.
The confrontation marked the first violence in what has been largely a peaceful resistance movement ever since Calderon shut down the Luz y Fuerza power company last October putting 42,000 workers on the street, and suggests that an increasingly frustrated rank and file is prepared to raise the ante. On January 5th and again on the 6th, bands of SME workers stormed through the old quarter of Mexico City after the explosions of electrical transformers in the neighborhood brought out detachments of federal police.
Sabotage is rumored.
It is not mere coincidence that both the confrontation at Teotihuacan and many of the anarchist "bombazos" took place in Mexico state, which is governed by Enrique Pena Nieto, the presidential front-runner in 2012. Pena Nieto is a luminary of the resurgent Party of the Institutionalized Revolution (PRI) that ruled Mexico for seven decades until it was displaced from power in 2000 by Calderon's rightist PAN party. The PRI won a landslide majority in the lower house of congress in 2009 mid-term elections and is expected to sweep all 12 governors' races up for grabs in 2010.
In a remarkable reprise of the social unrest that detonated after runaway inflation excited hungry masses to rise up against the Diaz dictatorship 100 years ago, an abrupt jump in gasoline and diesel prices that kicked in on the final day of 2009 has set off a chain reaction of protests in Mexico City and the provinces.
On the first workday of 2010, 2000 truck drivers shut down key national highways for seven hours to protest the hikes - in Puebla, the drivers were joined by 500 electricistas from nearby Necaxa, the so-called "cradle" of Luz y Fuerza and the SME. The success of the blockade in Puebla, Hidalgo, and Veracruz states has inspired truckers' association director Edmundo Morales to call for a national strike. Participation of the SME at the barricades may well be a precursor of increased worker solidarity in the coming year.
In Tepic Nayarit, bus drivers protested the increase in fuel prices by parking their vehicles, paralyzing that provincial capital. Massive protests in Mexico City by independent unions and farmers' organizations are expected later in the month.
The price surge viscerally wounds a popular economy that was grievously lacerated in 2009. The Calderon government's annual daily minimum salary increase is less than 5% for 2010 and fails to match 6% inflation. The 2.60 peso a day "raise" does not even buy a ride on the Mexico City Metro that ferries millions of workers to their jobs each day. On New Year's morning, the leftist Mexico City government of Mayor Marcelo Ebrard raised the heavily subsidized Metro ticket price from two to three pesos a ride. The back of the ticket now reminds riders that the real cost is nine pesos.
A survey of public markets reported by the left daily La Jornada calculates a 30% rise in the basic food basket in the first week of 2010, largely due to fuel and electricity rate increases - tortillas, the essential nourishment for 26,000,000 Mexicans living in extreme poverty leaped 10% a kilo throughout central Mexico.
Much like Obamaland, where the President crows about recovery in a jobless economy, Calderon pledged in a nationally-televised New Year's message that 2010 will be a "year of recuperation" for Mexico although his predictions of 3% growth seems delusionally rosy - in 2009, the Gross National Product contracted 7% and growth was negative.
Unemployment, as measured by the government's obfuscated system, is at a 15 year high of 6.8% - in the real world 6.8% translates to 40% of the work force not working, according to social economist Julio Boltvinik. 100,000 jobs are reportedly being lost each month (nearly 50,000 went down the tubes in October when Calderon fired the Luz y Fuerza workers.) But there is light at the end of the tunnel: according to the Wall Street Journal, a half million Mexican workers have found employment in the illicit drug industry.
The much-respected Economist Intelligence Unit's yearly ratings of political instability take into account the socio-political dynamic in 165 countries. In 2010, Mexico places in the upper third of nations at risk of violent political upheaval. Whether this is an indicator of resurgent revolution here in 2010 is a story
To Be Continued
During the next three months, John Ross will travel the U.S. from sea to stinking sea with his new cult classic "El Monstruo - Dread & Redemption in Mexico City" which the New York Post (!) recently recommended as a "gritty, pulsating" read. For suggested venues (particularly in the Chicago and St. Louis areas) write johnross@igc.org
Legalizar indocumentados aportaría a la economía de Estados Unidos 1.5 billones de dólares
Un informe advierte de los riesgos de una deportación masiva
David Brooks
La Jornada
Una reforma migratoria integral que incluya la legalización de trabajadores indocumentados nutriría el crecimiento económico y beneficiaria a trabajadores estadunidenses e inmigrantes, concluye un nuevo informe presentado hoy, que intenta repudiar uno de los principales argumentos de fuerzas antimigrantes en este país.
Si se implementa una reforma integral que incluya la legalización de los aproximadamente 12 millones de indocumentados en el país y establezca límites flexibles para flujos migratorios a futuro, se calcula que tal reforma aportaría por lo menos 1.5 billones de dólares adicionales al producto interno bruto de este país a lo largo de una década, y elevaría los salarios tanto para trabajadores estadunidenses como para los inmigrantes, según la investigación presentada hoy en Washington.
A corto plazo, de acuerdo con la investigación, la legalización generaría entre 4.5 y 5.4 mil millones en ingresos tributarios adicionales para el gobierno y suficiente gasto de consumo para apoyar hasta 900 mil empleos.
Si, por el contrario, se adopta una política de deportación masiva y la clausura de todo flujo migratorio en la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México, el impacto económico sería de una reducción del PIB por 2.6 billones a lo largo de una década, o sea una reducción de 1.46 por ciento anualmente.
Estas conclusiones son el resultado de una investigación encabezada por Raúl Hinojosa Ojeda, director fundador del Centro Estadunidense de Integración y Desarrollo y profesor en la Universidad de California en Los Ángeles, patrocinada por el Centro para el Progreso Estadunidense y el Centro de Política de Inmigración, ambos reconocidos centros de investigación y estudios de políticas en Washington. El informe divulgado hoy, Elevando el nivel salarial mínimo de los trabajadores estadunidenses: los beneficios económicos de la reforma inmigratoria integral, se presenta al arrancar de nuevo el gran debate político sobre una reforma migratoria que el gobierno de Barack Obama ha prometido promover.
Hinojosa subrayó, en conferencia de prensa, que la legalización aporta a la economía general no sólo al elevar los salarios de los trabajadores, sino contribuye a mayor consumo, más impuestos, mayor inversión en forma capital humano y mayor productividad. A la vez, si se promueve una política de control y represión de la migración, tendrá un efecto drásticamente negativo sobre la economía. Hinojosa señaló que se aplicó una política de deportación masiva entre 1929 a 1932 que contribuyó al desplome de la economía, y esa política fue revertida por Franklin Roosevelt al llegar a la Casa Blanca.
Indicó que los migrantes indocumentados ya contribuyen a la economía, pero contribuirán mucho más si son legalizados, ya que serán participantes plenos, con derechos, en la economía.
El informe podría ser clave, ya que el impulso a una reforma integral en torno a la migración que incluya la legalización de los indocumentados enfrenta enormes obstáculos políticos, sobre todo la dificultad de promover tal reforma en medio de una de las peores crisis económicas en la historia del país, con una tasa de desempleo de aproximadamente 10 por ciento.
Las conclusiones de esta extensa investigación buscan anular el principal argumento de las fuerzas que se oponen a una reforma migratoria y que han descarrilado dos intentos previos para lograrla desde inicios de esta década: que los migrantes roban los empleos de los ciudadanos, y que presionan hacia abajo los niveles salariales de todos al aceptar trabajar por menos.
La investigación fue elaborada empleando bases sobre la experiencia real de los efectos de la última reforma migratoria en 1986, la cual incluyó la legalización de casi 3 millones de indocumentados. El informe está disponible aqui
David Brooks
La Jornada
Una reforma migratoria integral que incluya la legalización de trabajadores indocumentados nutriría el crecimiento económico y beneficiaria a trabajadores estadunidenses e inmigrantes, concluye un nuevo informe presentado hoy, que intenta repudiar uno de los principales argumentos de fuerzas antimigrantes en este país.
Si se implementa una reforma integral que incluya la legalización de los aproximadamente 12 millones de indocumentados en el país y establezca límites flexibles para flujos migratorios a futuro, se calcula que tal reforma aportaría por lo menos 1.5 billones de dólares adicionales al producto interno bruto de este país a lo largo de una década, y elevaría los salarios tanto para trabajadores estadunidenses como para los inmigrantes, según la investigación presentada hoy en Washington.
A corto plazo, de acuerdo con la investigación, la legalización generaría entre 4.5 y 5.4 mil millones en ingresos tributarios adicionales para el gobierno y suficiente gasto de consumo para apoyar hasta 900 mil empleos.
Si, por el contrario, se adopta una política de deportación masiva y la clausura de todo flujo migratorio en la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México, el impacto económico sería de una reducción del PIB por 2.6 billones a lo largo de una década, o sea una reducción de 1.46 por ciento anualmente.
Estas conclusiones son el resultado de una investigación encabezada por Raúl Hinojosa Ojeda, director fundador del Centro Estadunidense de Integración y Desarrollo y profesor en la Universidad de California en Los Ángeles, patrocinada por el Centro para el Progreso Estadunidense y el Centro de Política de Inmigración, ambos reconocidos centros de investigación y estudios de políticas en Washington. El informe divulgado hoy, Elevando el nivel salarial mínimo de los trabajadores estadunidenses: los beneficios económicos de la reforma inmigratoria integral, se presenta al arrancar de nuevo el gran debate político sobre una reforma migratoria que el gobierno de Barack Obama ha prometido promover.
Hinojosa subrayó, en conferencia de prensa, que la legalización aporta a la economía general no sólo al elevar los salarios de los trabajadores, sino contribuye a mayor consumo, más impuestos, mayor inversión en forma capital humano y mayor productividad. A la vez, si se promueve una política de control y represión de la migración, tendrá un efecto drásticamente negativo sobre la economía. Hinojosa señaló que se aplicó una política de deportación masiva entre 1929 a 1932 que contribuyó al desplome de la economía, y esa política fue revertida por Franklin Roosevelt al llegar a la Casa Blanca.
Indicó que los migrantes indocumentados ya contribuyen a la economía, pero contribuirán mucho más si son legalizados, ya que serán participantes plenos, con derechos, en la economía.
El informe podría ser clave, ya que el impulso a una reforma integral en torno a la migración que incluya la legalización de los indocumentados enfrenta enormes obstáculos políticos, sobre todo la dificultad de promover tal reforma en medio de una de las peores crisis económicas en la historia del país, con una tasa de desempleo de aproximadamente 10 por ciento.
Las conclusiones de esta extensa investigación buscan anular el principal argumento de las fuerzas que se oponen a una reforma migratoria y que han descarrilado dos intentos previos para lograrla desde inicios de esta década: que los migrantes roban los empleos de los ciudadanos, y que presionan hacia abajo los niveles salariales de todos al aceptar trabajar por menos.
La investigación fue elaborada empleando bases sobre la experiencia real de los efectos de la última reforma migratoria en 1986, la cual incluyó la legalización de casi 3 millones de indocumentados. El informe está disponible aqui
1/11/10
Mexican Editor Detained & Interrogated
Frontera NorteSur
As Mexico prepared to mark the twin anniversary of its 1810 War of Independence and 1910 Revolution--events ushered in with cries of freedom and justice--a prominent newsman was detained and interrogated because of an article he wrote.
Juan Angulo Osorio, general director and co-founder of the Guerrero daily El Sur, was forcibly detained December 29 by six agents of the Guerrero Ministerial Police (PIM) at El Sur’s office in the state capital of Chilpancingo and hustled off to the state attorney general’s office for a round of questioning. Before he was let go several hours later, Angulo was questioned by state prosecutors Jesus Miranda and Fernando Monreal about bloody episodes that rocked Guerrero in 2009.
The Guerrero Ministerial Police is headed by Valentin Diaz Reyes, a former military man who commanded the embattled Delicias division of the Ciudad Juarez municipal police before he was appointed the director of the state police force by the administration of Governor Zeferino Torreblanca last October. Diaz’s superior is Albertico Guinto Sierra, the temporary state attorney general.
Angulo’s detention arose from a September 3 editorial he authored about the previous month’s assassination of Armando Chavarria, the coordinator of the Guerrero State Legislature who was widely considered a gubernatorial hopeful in upcoming elections. Chavarria had also once served as state secretary for the Torreblanca administration, a sensitive post in which he was privy to matters of internal security.
Earlier instructed by the state attorney general’s office to render testimony about the editorial, Angulo legally challenged the order on the grounds of press freedom. Angulo also received protective orders from the Guerrero State Human Rights Commission and the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), both of which were ignored when the veteran journalist was detained this week during Mexico’s long holiday season, a time when government activities are largely suspended and the public’s attention focused on family and festivities.
Arguing he was protected by Articles Six and Seven of the Mexican Constitution, Angulo said after his release he cannot be “bothered by any authority due to my writings or what is published in the newspaper for which I am director general.”
Angulo said he told prosecutors his only relationship with Armando Chavarria was the latter’s status as a source of information.
According to El Sur, Angulo also was asked about Raul Lucas Lucas and Manuel Ponce Rosas, two indigenous Mixtec leaders kidnapped and murdered nearly one year ago, and Omar Guerrero Solis, a purported field commander of the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People (ERPI) who was reported
slain in murky circumstances last November.
“I believe the state attorney general’s office is not obligated to follow orders that violate the Constitution of the Republic,” Angulo said, “even though these orders come from the state’s governor, who has been the main one interested in seeing me render legal testimony in a case in which the
only knowledge I have is from my journalistic work.”
Pressed by an El Sur reporter, interim State Attorney General Guinto denied Angulo was detained because of his writings or due to political pressure from Governor Torreblanca.
“I reiterate that at no moment was he detained because of his journalistic work or for his articles,” Guinto insisted, stressing that Angulo was not forced to testify or treated badly by officers. Without elaborating, Guerrero’s top law enforcement official added that authorities were pursuing four lines of investigation in the Chavarria murder.
Alerted to Angulo’s detention, reporters from different media outlets and human rights advocates quickly mobilized outside the state attorney general’s headquarters. Leaders of the PRD, PRI, PT and Convergencia political parties, environmentalists and social activists, joined by the international organization Reporters without Borders, all were among numerous voices condemning the detention.
Ironically, Angulo was detained by an administration headed by a political figure, Zeferino Torreblanca, whose career as a federal congressman, Acapulco mayor and then state governor was greatly boosted by El Sur. In the 1980s and 1990s, Torreblanca was widely considered a champion of good government, human rights and political tolerance.
El Sur was in the vanguard of the new critical Mexican press which emerged after the 1980s, and played a vital regional role in the movement to democratize Mexico and move it away from a one-party state. Over the years, the newspaper’s journalists have been the target of telephoned and direct verbal threats, lawsuits and other forms of intimidation.
Members of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), a grouping which ran Torreblanca as their successful gubernatorial candidate in 2005, were among the early supporters of El Sur’s journalistic initiative. However, El Sur’s editorial line has been highly critical of many of Torreblanca’s policies since he assumed the governorship.
Nearing the end of his term, Torreblanca’s tenure in office has been characterized by extreme bouts of narco-violence, which have reached a crescendo in recent months. Of 1,136 murders registered in Guerrero from January to mid-October 2009, at least 706 were linked by authorities to organized crime. Among this year’s victims were three journalists from different media: Juan Raul Ibarra Ramirez, Juan Carlos Hernandez and Juan Daniel Martinez Gil.
Angulo’s detention capped a grim year for the Mexican press. Thirteen journalists were reported murdered in 2009, and Ciudad Juarez journalist Ricardo Chavez Aldana of Radio Canon sought political asylum in the United States this month after receiving death threats. Chavez was the fourth journalist to flee Ciudad Juarez within the past 18 months.
A recent CNDH report documented steadily rising attacks against journalists since 2000, the year of Mexico’s much-heralded democratic transition. In a separate report, the non -governmental Freedom of Expression Foundation slammed conditions confronted by Mexican journalists. Without freedom of expression, warned the foundation’s president Armando Prida Huerta, journalists have “absolutely nothing.”
In the case of El Sur’s Juan Angulo, the CNDH has initiated a complaint against the Guerrero state attorney general’s office for violating the right of free expression.
Sources: El Sur, December 30 and 31, 2009. Articles by Jesus Saaveda, Daniel Velzaquez, Karenine Trigo Molina, Claudia Venalonzo, Noe Aguirre Orozco, and editorial staff. La Jornada (Guerrero edition), December 24 and 30, 2009. Articles by Citlal Giles Sanchez and Marlen Castro. Proceso/Apro, December 15 and 30, 2009. Articles by Miguel Cabildo S. and editorial staff. Cimacnoticias.com, December 22, 2009. CEPET, December 14, 2009. Press release. El Universal, October 29, 2009. Article by Juan Cervantes.
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
As Mexico prepared to mark the twin anniversary of its 1810 War of Independence and 1910 Revolution--events ushered in with cries of freedom and justice--a prominent newsman was detained and interrogated because of an article he wrote.
Juan Angulo Osorio, general director and co-founder of the Guerrero daily El Sur, was forcibly detained December 29 by six agents of the Guerrero Ministerial Police (PIM) at El Sur’s office in the state capital of Chilpancingo and hustled off to the state attorney general’s office for a round of questioning. Before he was let go several hours later, Angulo was questioned by state prosecutors Jesus Miranda and Fernando Monreal about bloody episodes that rocked Guerrero in 2009.
The Guerrero Ministerial Police is headed by Valentin Diaz Reyes, a former military man who commanded the embattled Delicias division of the Ciudad Juarez municipal police before he was appointed the director of the state police force by the administration of Governor Zeferino Torreblanca last October. Diaz’s superior is Albertico Guinto Sierra, the temporary state attorney general.
Angulo’s detention arose from a September 3 editorial he authored about the previous month’s assassination of Armando Chavarria, the coordinator of the Guerrero State Legislature who was widely considered a gubernatorial hopeful in upcoming elections. Chavarria had also once served as state secretary for the Torreblanca administration, a sensitive post in which he was privy to matters of internal security.
Earlier instructed by the state attorney general’s office to render testimony about the editorial, Angulo legally challenged the order on the grounds of press freedom. Angulo also received protective orders from the Guerrero State Human Rights Commission and the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), both of which were ignored when the veteran journalist was detained this week during Mexico’s long holiday season, a time when government activities are largely suspended and the public’s attention focused on family and festivities.
Arguing he was protected by Articles Six and Seven of the Mexican Constitution, Angulo said after his release he cannot be “bothered by any authority due to my writings or what is published in the newspaper for which I am director general.”
Angulo said he told prosecutors his only relationship with Armando Chavarria was the latter’s status as a source of information.
According to El Sur, Angulo also was asked about Raul Lucas Lucas and Manuel Ponce Rosas, two indigenous Mixtec leaders kidnapped and murdered nearly one year ago, and Omar Guerrero Solis, a purported field commander of the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People (ERPI) who was reported
slain in murky circumstances last November.
“I believe the state attorney general’s office is not obligated to follow orders that violate the Constitution of the Republic,” Angulo said, “even though these orders come from the state’s governor, who has been the main one interested in seeing me render legal testimony in a case in which the
only knowledge I have is from my journalistic work.”
Pressed by an El Sur reporter, interim State Attorney General Guinto denied Angulo was detained because of his writings or due to political pressure from Governor Torreblanca.
“I reiterate that at no moment was he detained because of his journalistic work or for his articles,” Guinto insisted, stressing that Angulo was not forced to testify or treated badly by officers. Without elaborating, Guerrero’s top law enforcement official added that authorities were pursuing four lines of investigation in the Chavarria murder.
Alerted to Angulo’s detention, reporters from different media outlets and human rights advocates quickly mobilized outside the state attorney general’s headquarters. Leaders of the PRD, PRI, PT and Convergencia political parties, environmentalists and social activists, joined by the international organization Reporters without Borders, all were among numerous voices condemning the detention.
Ironically, Angulo was detained by an administration headed by a political figure, Zeferino Torreblanca, whose career as a federal congressman, Acapulco mayor and then state governor was greatly boosted by El Sur. In the 1980s and 1990s, Torreblanca was widely considered a champion of good government, human rights and political tolerance.
El Sur was in the vanguard of the new critical Mexican press which emerged after the 1980s, and played a vital regional role in the movement to democratize Mexico and move it away from a one-party state. Over the years, the newspaper’s journalists have been the target of telephoned and direct verbal threats, lawsuits and other forms of intimidation.
Members of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), a grouping which ran Torreblanca as their successful gubernatorial candidate in 2005, were among the early supporters of El Sur’s journalistic initiative. However, El Sur’s editorial line has been highly critical of many of Torreblanca’s policies since he assumed the governorship.
Nearing the end of his term, Torreblanca’s tenure in office has been characterized by extreme bouts of narco-violence, which have reached a crescendo in recent months. Of 1,136 murders registered in Guerrero from January to mid-October 2009, at least 706 were linked by authorities to organized crime. Among this year’s victims were three journalists from different media: Juan Raul Ibarra Ramirez, Juan Carlos Hernandez and Juan Daniel Martinez Gil.
Angulo’s detention capped a grim year for the Mexican press. Thirteen journalists were reported murdered in 2009, and Ciudad Juarez journalist Ricardo Chavez Aldana of Radio Canon sought political asylum in the United States this month after receiving death threats. Chavez was the fourth journalist to flee Ciudad Juarez within the past 18 months.
A recent CNDH report documented steadily rising attacks against journalists since 2000, the year of Mexico’s much-heralded democratic transition. In a separate report, the non -governmental Freedom of Expression Foundation slammed conditions confronted by Mexican journalists. Without freedom of expression, warned the foundation’s president Armando Prida Huerta, journalists have “absolutely nothing.”
In the case of El Sur’s Juan Angulo, the CNDH has initiated a complaint against the Guerrero state attorney general’s office for violating the right of free expression.
Sources: El Sur, December 30 and 31, 2009. Articles by Jesus Saaveda, Daniel Velzaquez, Karenine Trigo Molina, Claudia Venalonzo, Noe Aguirre Orozco, and editorial staff. La Jornada (Guerrero edition), December 24 and 30, 2009. Articles by Citlal Giles Sanchez and Marlen Castro. Proceso/Apro, December 15 and 30, 2009. Articles by Miguel Cabildo S. and editorial staff. Cimacnoticias.com, December 22, 2009. CEPET, December 14, 2009. Press release. El Universal, October 29, 2009. Article by Juan Cervantes.
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
Enfermos de terror
Amy Goodman
Democracy Now
En los últimos días, los medios de comunicación se han visto inundados con informes acerca del frustrado atentado al vuelo 253 de Nothwest Airlines el día de Navidad. Cuando Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, ahora conocido como “el hombre del explosivo en la ropa interior”, falló en su presunto ataque, casi 300 personas se salvaron de lo que muy posiblemente habría sido un horrible y violento final. A partir de este incidente aéreo, se ha reiniciado el debate en torno al terrorismo y la mejor manera de proteger al pueblo estadounidense.
Al mismo tiempo, otro asesino acecha a los estadounidenses. Según cifras estimativas recientes este asesino se cobra la vida de 45.000 estadounidenses al año (uno cada 10 minutos) pero aún así pasa desapercibido. Esto significa que 3.750 personas que mueren cada mes —más de las que murieron en los atentados del 11S— podrían salvarse con una simple firma.
Este asesino es la falta de una adecuada cobertura médica en Estados Unidos. A finales de 2009, investigadores de la Escuela de Medicina de Harvard llegaron a la conclusión de que 45.000 personas mueren innecesariamente cada año a causa de la falta de seguro de salud. Los investigadores revelaron además otro hecho sorprendente: en 2008 murieron cuatro veces más veteranos del ejército estadounidense porque no tenían seguro de salud que el número total de soldados caídos en Iraq y Afganistán en el mismo período. El dato es correcto: 2.266 veteranos de menos de 65 años murieron porque no tenían seguro médico.
El martes, el Presidente Barak Obama se mostró vehemente en su declaración pública tras la reunión que mantuvo con el equipo de seguridad nacional para tratar el tema del atentado. Obama afirmó: “No fue un error al recabar información de inteligencia, fue un error al integrar y entender la información que ya poseíamos. La información existía. Las agencias y analistas que la necesitaban tenían acceso a ella y nuestros profesionales estaban entrenados para buscar y compilar ese tipo de información. Voy a aceptar que por su naturaleza, la información de inteligencia es imperfecta, pero está cada vez más claro que en este caso, la información de inteligencia no fue analizada por completo ni aprovechada al máximo. Esto no es aceptable y no voy a tolerarlo. Una y otra vez hemos visto que es crucial compilar información y actuar en forma inmediata para permanecer un paso por delante de hábiles adversarios. Como consecuencia, debemos actuar mejor y actuaremos mejor. Es imperativo que lo hagamos rápidamente. Están en riesgo vidas estadounidenses.”
Todo lo cual es realmente admirable. Imagínense si se tratara con la misma urgencia el tema del resquebrajado sistema de salud que innecesariamente causa la muerte de 45.000 personas por año. Y ya que ahora se destinarán fondos de estímulo para proveer a los aeropuertos con más equipos de escaneo, ¿por qué no destinar dinero a garantizar que en todos los centros de salud comunitarios se puedan realizar mamografías y exámenes de próstata?
Está también el tema de la investigación acerca de quién es responsable por el atentado fallido de Navidad y el intento de obtener del presunto atacante “información de inteligencia procesable” a fin de prevenir futuros ataques. Todo eso está muy bien.
Sin embargo, tenemos “información procesable” acerca de por qué la gente muere por falta de seguro médico y de cómo las compañías de seguros de salud privan sistemáticamente de cobertura a sus afiliados para aumentar sus ganancias, y ¿qué se ha hecho acerca de este tema?
El día anterior al incidente de la bomba escondida debajo de la ropa interior, en vísperas de Navidad, el Senado de Estados Unidos aprobó el Proyecto de ley de Reforma del Sistema de Salud con 60 votos a favor y 39 en contra. Obama describió el proyecto como “la legislación social más importante desde la Ley de Seguridad Social aprobada en la década de 1930”. Sin embargo, para llegar a ese mágico número de 60 votos en el Senado, el ya debilitado proyecto de esa cámara tuvo que ponerse de rodillas ante los gustos del Senador Joe Lieberman de Connecticut, el Estado conocido como la meca de las empresas de los seguros de salud, y del demócrata conservador Ben Nelson de Nebraska. Las versiones de la reforma del sistema de salud del Senado y de la Cámara de Representes deben ahora ser conciliadas en un Comité bicameral especial.
En Estados Unidos, el proceso de los comités bicamerales especiales es poco conocido. Es frecuente que durante este proceso los proyectos de ley sufran cambios importantes que pasan casi o totalmente desapercibidos. Es por este motivo que Brian Lamb, Director General de C-SPAN envió una carta a los líderes del Congreso el 30 de diciembre solicitando autorización para televisar el proceso. En ella escribió: “Respetuosamente solicitamos a ustedes permitan que el público tenga acceso total, a través de la televisión, al proceso de definición de esta legislación, que afectará la vida de cada uno de los estadounidenses.” Pero en lugar de simplemente permitir el acceso, la Presidenta de la Cámara de Representantes, Nancy Pelosi, afirmó que “nunca ha habido un proceso más abierto que este”.
Además, Pelosi y los demócratas dicen ahora que el proyecto ni siquiera pasará por un comité bicameral formal, sino que más bien se negociará en sesiones informales a puertas cerradas entre los presidentes de los comité claves. De esta manera los republicanos no tendrían oportunidades de obstruir el proceso, pero al mismo tiempo esto daría a unos pocos individuos un enorme poder para hacer tratos, tal como hicieron los senadores Nelson y Lieberman. Dado que las industrias de seguros, de equipos médicos y las farmacéuticas gastaron cerca de 1,4 millones de dólares por día para ejercer influencia en el debate acerca de la reforma de la salud, debemos preguntarnos: ¿quién tendrá acceso a los pocos legisladores detrás de esas puertas cerradas?
Wendell Potter, el ex portavoz de la aseguradora CIGNA y quien se ha convertido en denunciante de la industria de los seguros de salud dice saber “dónde se sepulta a los muertos”. Seamos consistentes. Si nos preocupamos por salvar vidas estadounidenses, pongámonos en acción ahora.
______
Denis Moynihan colaboró en la producción periodística de esta columna.
Democracy Now
En los últimos días, los medios de comunicación se han visto inundados con informes acerca del frustrado atentado al vuelo 253 de Nothwest Airlines el día de Navidad. Cuando Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, ahora conocido como “el hombre del explosivo en la ropa interior”, falló en su presunto ataque, casi 300 personas se salvaron de lo que muy posiblemente habría sido un horrible y violento final. A partir de este incidente aéreo, se ha reiniciado el debate en torno al terrorismo y la mejor manera de proteger al pueblo estadounidense.
Al mismo tiempo, otro asesino acecha a los estadounidenses. Según cifras estimativas recientes este asesino se cobra la vida de 45.000 estadounidenses al año (uno cada 10 minutos) pero aún así pasa desapercibido. Esto significa que 3.750 personas que mueren cada mes —más de las que murieron en los atentados del 11S— podrían salvarse con una simple firma.
Este asesino es la falta de una adecuada cobertura médica en Estados Unidos. A finales de 2009, investigadores de la Escuela de Medicina de Harvard llegaron a la conclusión de que 45.000 personas mueren innecesariamente cada año a causa de la falta de seguro de salud. Los investigadores revelaron además otro hecho sorprendente: en 2008 murieron cuatro veces más veteranos del ejército estadounidense porque no tenían seguro de salud que el número total de soldados caídos en Iraq y Afganistán en el mismo período. El dato es correcto: 2.266 veteranos de menos de 65 años murieron porque no tenían seguro médico.
El martes, el Presidente Barak Obama se mostró vehemente en su declaración pública tras la reunión que mantuvo con el equipo de seguridad nacional para tratar el tema del atentado. Obama afirmó: “No fue un error al recabar información de inteligencia, fue un error al integrar y entender la información que ya poseíamos. La información existía. Las agencias y analistas que la necesitaban tenían acceso a ella y nuestros profesionales estaban entrenados para buscar y compilar ese tipo de información. Voy a aceptar que por su naturaleza, la información de inteligencia es imperfecta, pero está cada vez más claro que en este caso, la información de inteligencia no fue analizada por completo ni aprovechada al máximo. Esto no es aceptable y no voy a tolerarlo. Una y otra vez hemos visto que es crucial compilar información y actuar en forma inmediata para permanecer un paso por delante de hábiles adversarios. Como consecuencia, debemos actuar mejor y actuaremos mejor. Es imperativo que lo hagamos rápidamente. Están en riesgo vidas estadounidenses.”
Todo lo cual es realmente admirable. Imagínense si se tratara con la misma urgencia el tema del resquebrajado sistema de salud que innecesariamente causa la muerte de 45.000 personas por año. Y ya que ahora se destinarán fondos de estímulo para proveer a los aeropuertos con más equipos de escaneo, ¿por qué no destinar dinero a garantizar que en todos los centros de salud comunitarios se puedan realizar mamografías y exámenes de próstata?
Está también el tema de la investigación acerca de quién es responsable por el atentado fallido de Navidad y el intento de obtener del presunto atacante “información de inteligencia procesable” a fin de prevenir futuros ataques. Todo eso está muy bien.
Sin embargo, tenemos “información procesable” acerca de por qué la gente muere por falta de seguro médico y de cómo las compañías de seguros de salud privan sistemáticamente de cobertura a sus afiliados para aumentar sus ganancias, y ¿qué se ha hecho acerca de este tema?
El día anterior al incidente de la bomba escondida debajo de la ropa interior, en vísperas de Navidad, el Senado de Estados Unidos aprobó el Proyecto de ley de Reforma del Sistema de Salud con 60 votos a favor y 39 en contra. Obama describió el proyecto como “la legislación social más importante desde la Ley de Seguridad Social aprobada en la década de 1930”. Sin embargo, para llegar a ese mágico número de 60 votos en el Senado, el ya debilitado proyecto de esa cámara tuvo que ponerse de rodillas ante los gustos del Senador Joe Lieberman de Connecticut, el Estado conocido como la meca de las empresas de los seguros de salud, y del demócrata conservador Ben Nelson de Nebraska. Las versiones de la reforma del sistema de salud del Senado y de la Cámara de Representes deben ahora ser conciliadas en un Comité bicameral especial.
En Estados Unidos, el proceso de los comités bicamerales especiales es poco conocido. Es frecuente que durante este proceso los proyectos de ley sufran cambios importantes que pasan casi o totalmente desapercibidos. Es por este motivo que Brian Lamb, Director General de C-SPAN envió una carta a los líderes del Congreso el 30 de diciembre solicitando autorización para televisar el proceso. En ella escribió: “Respetuosamente solicitamos a ustedes permitan que el público tenga acceso total, a través de la televisión, al proceso de definición de esta legislación, que afectará la vida de cada uno de los estadounidenses.” Pero en lugar de simplemente permitir el acceso, la Presidenta de la Cámara de Representantes, Nancy Pelosi, afirmó que “nunca ha habido un proceso más abierto que este”.
Además, Pelosi y los demócratas dicen ahora que el proyecto ni siquiera pasará por un comité bicameral formal, sino que más bien se negociará en sesiones informales a puertas cerradas entre los presidentes de los comité claves. De esta manera los republicanos no tendrían oportunidades de obstruir el proceso, pero al mismo tiempo esto daría a unos pocos individuos un enorme poder para hacer tratos, tal como hicieron los senadores Nelson y Lieberman. Dado que las industrias de seguros, de equipos médicos y las farmacéuticas gastaron cerca de 1,4 millones de dólares por día para ejercer influencia en el debate acerca de la reforma de la salud, debemos preguntarnos: ¿quién tendrá acceso a los pocos legisladores detrás de esas puertas cerradas?
Wendell Potter, el ex portavoz de la aseguradora CIGNA y quien se ha convertido en denunciante de la industria de los seguros de salud dice saber “dónde se sepulta a los muertos”. Seamos consistentes. Si nos preocupamos por salvar vidas estadounidenses, pongámonos en acción ahora.
______
Denis Moynihan colaboró en la producción periodística de esta columna.
Shall We Gather at the CIA?
Be There or Be Scared
By MISSY COMLEY BEATTIE
CounterPunch
On January 16th, peace devotees will gather at Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia to protest the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), operated primarily by the CIA to kill al-Qaida in Iraq, Pakistan, and along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. These attacks have killed many more civilians, children included, than the “terrorists” they target.
I often wonder, especially when I’m trying to fade into sleep, if many Americans are considering the collide-with-disaster tragedy our leadership is directing. It seems the majority go about their lives as if the most important contemplation is selecting a fast-food joint to patronize or what to watch on television.
We are a country that now accepts torture. According to a Pew report, 67 percent of Republicans and 47 percent of Democrats support its use. We imprison and place in solitary confinement the young and the old, those who may be guilty of one thing only—being in the wrong place at a time when justice has been rendered meaningless by something called the Global War on Terrorism and the Patriot Act, a weird acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act.” This chilling mouthful, especially “Providing Appropriate Tools,” describes a nation gone rogue.
For decades, we have endured inept lawmakers and cabinet appointees. But 9/11 turned many into caricatures. The invasion of Afghanistan with its resultant war fever added another level of absurdity. We witnessed jaw-dropping, waste-of-time lunacy during the buildup to topple Saddam Hussein. When France refused to sign on to the disastrous destabilizing of the Middle East, French fries were renamed freedom fries on the menus of eateries run by the House of Representatives. This derangement was contagious. Francophobes poured French wine down sink drains. Restaurants removed it from their wine lists. Germany weighed in on the side of France. Gerhard Schroeder, Chancellor at the time, said, “War may never be considered unavoidable.” His sanity was anathema to a nation of warmongers. Soon, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld referred to France and Germany as “old Europe.” All this would have been farcical had the Project for the New American Century not been so diabolical.
We have watched Congress become frenzied to avenge the deaths of those who died on that September morning by funding operations that have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, creating a widening gyre of violence that has expanded to Pakistan. The director of the Afghanistan Rights Monitor, Ajmal Samadi, reports “at least three children were killed in war-related incidents every day in 2009.”
At least a half million people who lived in the lands we’ve ruptured have been displaced. Their countries are environmental disasters as a result of our weaponry.
Army historians now say that early errors are to blame for the current problems in Afghanistan. This is inaccurate—because the initial mistake was invading in the first place.
With the Christmas 2009 “incident,” Yemen has become the new front in the war on terror. Yemeni leaders stress that they don’t want our boots on their ground, and Obama’s top counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan, said the US has no plan to deploy troops to Yemen. But with Obama’s continuation of his predecessor’s policies, the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war forebodes more aggression.
Each day of combat is another 24 hours of desolation somewhere. Here at home with the ringing of the doorbell by a messenger of death. In lands far away where entire families are incinerated by the technology of drone warfare, war fire, war power.
We created what we’re fighting and we’ve become what we’re fighting. Our troops are illegal enemy combatants.
So, how do we forge peace? What can we do to reach inside our hearts and find humanity—that which connects each of us regardless of ethnicity, borders, religious beliefs, gender, philosophies? How can we hold what seems to be moving inexorably from our grasp, nurture, and then deliver it to those who will shepherd its safe passage through the tomorrows of our children and grandchildren?
Only by taking nonviolent action can we stop the atrocities, can we stop the dronings, stop the suffering, stop the wars.
Come to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia on January 16th to protest drones. If you can’t make the distance, organize a rally in your community. Also, participate in Peace of the Action (www.peaceoftheaction.org) in Washington, DC, starting in March and continuing until our troops come home.
Missy Beattie lives in New York City. She's written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. An outspoken critic of the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq, she's a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. She completed a novel last year, but since the death of her nephew, Marine Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley, in Iraq on August 6,'05, she has been writing political articles. She can be reached at: Missybeat@aol.com
By MISSY COMLEY BEATTIE
CounterPunch
On January 16th, peace devotees will gather at Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia to protest the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), operated primarily by the CIA to kill al-Qaida in Iraq, Pakistan, and along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. These attacks have killed many more civilians, children included, than the “terrorists” they target.
I often wonder, especially when I’m trying to fade into sleep, if many Americans are considering the collide-with-disaster tragedy our leadership is directing. It seems the majority go about their lives as if the most important contemplation is selecting a fast-food joint to patronize or what to watch on television.
We are a country that now accepts torture. According to a Pew report, 67 percent of Republicans and 47 percent of Democrats support its use. We imprison and place in solitary confinement the young and the old, those who may be guilty of one thing only—being in the wrong place at a time when justice has been rendered meaningless by something called the Global War on Terrorism and the Patriot Act, a weird acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act.” This chilling mouthful, especially “Providing Appropriate Tools,” describes a nation gone rogue.
For decades, we have endured inept lawmakers and cabinet appointees. But 9/11 turned many into caricatures. The invasion of Afghanistan with its resultant war fever added another level of absurdity. We witnessed jaw-dropping, waste-of-time lunacy during the buildup to topple Saddam Hussein. When France refused to sign on to the disastrous destabilizing of the Middle East, French fries were renamed freedom fries on the menus of eateries run by the House of Representatives. This derangement was contagious. Francophobes poured French wine down sink drains. Restaurants removed it from their wine lists. Germany weighed in on the side of France. Gerhard Schroeder, Chancellor at the time, said, “War may never be considered unavoidable.” His sanity was anathema to a nation of warmongers. Soon, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld referred to France and Germany as “old Europe.” All this would have been farcical had the Project for the New American Century not been so diabolical.
We have watched Congress become frenzied to avenge the deaths of those who died on that September morning by funding operations that have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, creating a widening gyre of violence that has expanded to Pakistan. The director of the Afghanistan Rights Monitor, Ajmal Samadi, reports “at least three children were killed in war-related incidents every day in 2009.”
At least a half million people who lived in the lands we’ve ruptured have been displaced. Their countries are environmental disasters as a result of our weaponry.
Army historians now say that early errors are to blame for the current problems in Afghanistan. This is inaccurate—because the initial mistake was invading in the first place.
With the Christmas 2009 “incident,” Yemen has become the new front in the war on terror. Yemeni leaders stress that they don’t want our boots on their ground, and Obama’s top counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan, said the US has no plan to deploy troops to Yemen. But with Obama’s continuation of his predecessor’s policies, the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war forebodes more aggression.
Each day of combat is another 24 hours of desolation somewhere. Here at home with the ringing of the doorbell by a messenger of death. In lands far away where entire families are incinerated by the technology of drone warfare, war fire, war power.
We created what we’re fighting and we’ve become what we’re fighting. Our troops are illegal enemy combatants.
So, how do we forge peace? What can we do to reach inside our hearts and find humanity—that which connects each of us regardless of ethnicity, borders, religious beliefs, gender, philosophies? How can we hold what seems to be moving inexorably from our grasp, nurture, and then deliver it to those who will shepherd its safe passage through the tomorrows of our children and grandchildren?
Only by taking nonviolent action can we stop the atrocities, can we stop the dronings, stop the suffering, stop the wars.
Come to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia on January 16th to protest drones. If you can’t make the distance, organize a rally in your community. Also, participate in Peace of the Action (www.peaceoftheaction.org) in Washington, DC, starting in March and continuing until our troops come home.
Missy Beattie lives in New York City. She's written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. An outspoken critic of the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq, she's a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. She completed a novel last year, but since the death of her nephew, Marine Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley, in Iraq on August 6,'05, she has been writing political articles. She can be reached at: Missybeat@aol.com
Un agente de Estados Unidos asesina a un migrante mexicano
ARGENPRESS
El inmigrante mexicano Jorge Alfredo Solís Palma murió al recibir el impacto de una bala disparada por un agente de la Patrulla Fronteriza de Estados Unidos, informó hoy la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (SRE) de México.
En un comunicado, la SRE expresó su "profunda preocupación" por el fallecimiento, el pasado 4 de enero, de Solís Palma, en la ciudad de Douglas, Arizona, cerca de las oficinas de la Patrulla Fronteriza.
Según datos de la Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (CNDH) de México, por lo menos 5.000 mexicanos han muerto en los últimos años en su intento por cruzar la frontera con Estados Unidos en busca de una mejor vida.
"La investigación del incidente, por parte del Sheriff de Cochise, de la Oficina Federal de Investigaciones (FBI) y de la propia Patrulla Fronteriza (PF) está en curso", agregó la cancillería.
El consulado de México en Douglas mantiene comunicación con todas las autoridades locales competentes para dar seguimiento puntual al proceso, se añadió.
La SRE informó que ya inició el procedimiento para localizar a los familiares del inmigrante para proporcionarle ayuda y gestionar la repatriación del cuerpo del migrante.
El inmigrante mexicano Jorge Alfredo Solís Palma murió al recibir el impacto de una bala disparada por un agente de la Patrulla Fronteriza de Estados Unidos, informó hoy la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (SRE) de México.
En un comunicado, la SRE expresó su "profunda preocupación" por el fallecimiento, el pasado 4 de enero, de Solís Palma, en la ciudad de Douglas, Arizona, cerca de las oficinas de la Patrulla Fronteriza.
Según datos de la Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (CNDH) de México, por lo menos 5.000 mexicanos han muerto en los últimos años en su intento por cruzar la frontera con Estados Unidos en busca de una mejor vida.
"La investigación del incidente, por parte del Sheriff de Cochise, de la Oficina Federal de Investigaciones (FBI) y de la propia Patrulla Fronteriza (PF) está en curso", agregó la cancillería.
El consulado de México en Douglas mantiene comunicación con todas las autoridades locales competentes para dar seguimiento puntual al proceso, se añadió.
La SRE informó que ya inició el procedimiento para localizar a los familiares del inmigrante para proporcionarle ayuda y gestionar la repatriación del cuerpo del migrante.
Geithner and the AIG Emails: Scandal Is Only Tip of the Iceberg
By Eliot Spitzer and William K. Black and Frank Partnoy
NewDeal 2.0
In a December New York Times op-ed, we called for the full public release of AIG email messages, internal accounting documents and financial models generated in the last decade. This Thursday, a Bloomberg story revealed that under Timothy Geithner's leadership, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York told AIG to withhold details from the public about its payments to banks during the crisis. This information was discovered when emails between the company and the Fed were requested by representative Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The emails requested by Issa span five months beginning in November 2008. If five months of emails reveal information key to our understanding of the aftermath of the crisis, imagine what 10 years of emails could contribute to our understanding of its causes. We believe the AIG emails and other internal company documents are the 'black box' of the financial crisis. If we understand the failure of AIG, we will more fully understand the crisis -- what caused it and more importantly how to prevent it from happening again.
The emails today detail the efforts of the Fed to suppress the disclosure of payments made to banks such as Goldman, Sachs Group for reimbursement of their credit-default swap exposure. When the Treasury Department stepped in, AIG had at least $440 billion in credit-default swaps outstanding. The Fed, led by Tim Geithner, paid Goldman, Sachs Group and other banks 100 cents on the dollar for these instruments rather than negotiating a lower rate closer to the actual value, (estimated by some to have been as little as 20 cents). In testimony to the Congressional Oversight Panel, Tim Geithner insisted it was necessary to make these payments in full, arguing that even a small downward negotiation would prove catastrophic to the financial sector. Elizabeth Warren, head of the oversight panel has repeatedly challenged repeatedly this assertion.
Regardless the size of the payments, the Fed's request to suppress both their amount and the parties to whole these payments were made would not have come to light without the release of these emails. Without the rest of the emails, we will be unlikely to fully understand what led to the collapse of AIG and the financial markets. If we can't understand it, we will be unable to prevent it from happening again.
As such, today we are renewing our request for the full public disclosure of all AIG documents. We believe the government should put these documents on-line, thereby establishing an open-source investigation that would allow journalists and citizens the opportunity to piece together the story of what happened at AIG and in so doing more fully understand what happened in the broader financial collapse. AIG -- and more specifically its credit-default swaps exposure -- was an important contributing factor to the crash of the financial markets. What sets this company apart from others that played a role in the crisis is that we, the taxpayers, own it. As we noted in our original piece, US taxpayers bought 80% of AIG when they bailed the company out with $180 billion last year. As owners of the company, taxpayers are also owners of AIG. As owners of the company we can demand the release of these documents.
The taxpayer's stake in AIG is held by the A.I.G. Credit Facility Trust, whose three trustees are Jill M. Considine, a former chairman of the Depository Trust Company and a former director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Chester B. Feldberg, a former New York Fed official who was chairman of Barclays Americas from 2000 to 2008; and Douglas L. Foshee, chief executive of the El Paso Corporation and chairman of the Houston branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. We call on these three officials (interestingly all former Fed officials) to immediately release the documents we request.
The value of these documents, if it were ever in doubt, was certainly proved by Thursdays's revelations.
Release the emails.
NewDeal 2.0
In a December New York Times op-ed, we called for the full public release of AIG email messages, internal accounting documents and financial models generated in the last decade. This Thursday, a Bloomberg story revealed that under Timothy Geithner's leadership, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York told AIG to withhold details from the public about its payments to banks during the crisis. This information was discovered when emails between the company and the Fed were requested by representative Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The emails requested by Issa span five months beginning in November 2008. If five months of emails reveal information key to our understanding of the aftermath of the crisis, imagine what 10 years of emails could contribute to our understanding of its causes. We believe the AIG emails and other internal company documents are the 'black box' of the financial crisis. If we understand the failure of AIG, we will more fully understand the crisis -- what caused it and more importantly how to prevent it from happening again.
The emails today detail the efforts of the Fed to suppress the disclosure of payments made to banks such as Goldman, Sachs Group for reimbursement of their credit-default swap exposure. When the Treasury Department stepped in, AIG had at least $440 billion in credit-default swaps outstanding. The Fed, led by Tim Geithner, paid Goldman, Sachs Group and other banks 100 cents on the dollar for these instruments rather than negotiating a lower rate closer to the actual value, (estimated by some to have been as little as 20 cents). In testimony to the Congressional Oversight Panel, Tim Geithner insisted it was necessary to make these payments in full, arguing that even a small downward negotiation would prove catastrophic to the financial sector. Elizabeth Warren, head of the oversight panel has repeatedly challenged repeatedly this assertion.
Regardless the size of the payments, the Fed's request to suppress both their amount and the parties to whole these payments were made would not have come to light without the release of these emails. Without the rest of the emails, we will be unlikely to fully understand what led to the collapse of AIG and the financial markets. If we can't understand it, we will be unable to prevent it from happening again.
As such, today we are renewing our request for the full public disclosure of all AIG documents. We believe the government should put these documents on-line, thereby establishing an open-source investigation that would allow journalists and citizens the opportunity to piece together the story of what happened at AIG and in so doing more fully understand what happened in the broader financial collapse. AIG -- and more specifically its credit-default swaps exposure -- was an important contributing factor to the crash of the financial markets. What sets this company apart from others that played a role in the crisis is that we, the taxpayers, own it. As we noted in our original piece, US taxpayers bought 80% of AIG when they bailed the company out with $180 billion last year. As owners of the company, taxpayers are also owners of AIG. As owners of the company we can demand the release of these documents.
The taxpayer's stake in AIG is held by the A.I.G. Credit Facility Trust, whose three trustees are Jill M. Considine, a former chairman of the Depository Trust Company and a former director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Chester B. Feldberg, a former New York Fed official who was chairman of Barclays Americas from 2000 to 2008; and Douglas L. Foshee, chief executive of the El Paso Corporation and chairman of the Houston branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. We call on these three officials (interestingly all former Fed officials) to immediately release the documents we request.
The value of these documents, if it were ever in doubt, was certainly proved by Thursdays's revelations.
Release the emails.
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