Yael Anahí López Torres
Rebelión
“La salvación del Estado es la ley suprema para los gobernantes, pero por derivación también para los gobernados”.
Norberto Bobbio.
1. Líneas introductorias:
Empezamos el año 2010 en México, año lleno de expectativas pero también de pesimismo dados los estragos del año anterior en todos los ámbitos [2] , asimismo mucho se ha hablado de un posible estallido social como parte de una historia trágica mexicana [3] .
En este escrito no se rechaza tal posibilidad dadas las condiciones que ha dejado un gobierno cuyo propósito se ha centrado en la seguridad bajo una equivocada estrategia que ha traído como consecuencia el debilitamiento de la legitimidad en el uso de la fuerza estatal y violación al Estado de derecho. En un análisis de prospectiva, se hace una referencia a la concepción de Estado de Norberto Bobbio; y al concepto de represión gubernamental estudiado por Isaiah Berlin.
2. Marco Teórico:
En el tema de la acción coercitiva del Estado es necesario retomar las ideas de Norberto Bobbio. Para entender al Estado, Bobbio distingue al Estado como ente racional (teoría de la razón de estado), o al Estado como reino de la fuerza (concepción marxista del Estado). La primera es la concepción positiva del Estado, mientras que la segunda es la concepción negativa. Para efectos de este análisis, y con el objeto de tratar la vulnerabilidad de la legitimidad y la violación del Estado de derecho, se hará referencia a la segunda concepción.
Se le llama concepción negativa del Estado en el sentido de que el momento de la fuerza es esencial para el Estado en el desempeño de su función. En la concepción tradicional negativa del Estado de inspiración religiosa, exige la maldad de los súbditos, mientras que en la concepción de Marx, es por necesidad un aparato coactivo porque sólo mediante la fuerza la clase dominante puede conservar perpetuar su dominio.
Se podría decir que en la doctrina tradicional el Estado es un mal necesario; mientras que en la doctrina marxista es un mal no necesario para los gobernados, sino para el interés de los gobernantes. [4]
En cuanto a la concepción negativa clásica del Estado, la historia del pensamiento político clásico occidental reina la interpretación agustiniana, tomada después por Martín Lutero, según la cual “el Estado es un mal necesario para reprimir la maldad de la gran mayoría de los hombres, los que no podrían vivir en comunidad sin constricción”. A esta concepción se le llama Teoría terrorista del Estado. [5]
En la justificación de las acciones del Estado en el uso de la “fuerza legítima”, Bobbio retoma el problema de la relación entre moral y política, con base en el pensamiento de Hegel al decir que la moral individual es inferior a la del Estado por lo que se refiere a su validez, y debe cederle el paso a ésta cuando la misión histórica del Estado así lo requiera.
¿Y qué pasa cuando la utilización de esa fuerza legítima es causa de un juicio político negativo? Aquí habría una discusión entre la moral y ética de la acción política. El problema de la idoneidad de los medios se plantea cuando se quiere emitir un juicio sobre la eficacia del gobierno, que a fin de cuentas, es un juicio no moral.
Isaiah Berlin también estudia el juicio político, él argumenta que la paz es el fin mínimo del derecho, y para establecerla es preciso usar la fuerza para hacer entrar en razón a los que no respetan las reglas; en el plano de las relaciones internacionales, esa fuerza sería la guerra. [6] Pero también arguye que la ineficiencia del aparato gubernamental puede provocar el paso de un orden a otro en un choque violento entre facciones opuestas, ya que “mucha represión evita que demasiadas personas digan lo que quieran y paulatinamente atrofia su capacidad de comprensión y expresión… si evitas que la gente piense, y les embotas la imaginación, se quedarán asustados, estúpidos o infantiles..” [7]
El juicio político, es decir, “el juicio sobre las acciones que se localizan en la esfera de la política” también puede verse desde el punto de vista jurídico, o sea de la conformidad o la disconformidad con las normas fundamentales de la Constitución, a la que el ejercicio de la acción política por parte de los órganos superiores del Estado también es sometido. El juicio se centra en el mayor o menor apego de los órganos del Estado de esa parte integrante del poder soberano que son los partidos, a sus normas y a sus principios que da el Estado de derecho que con frecuencia se oye de “incorrección constitucional y práctica antidemocrática”. [8]
2. México en el 2010: Escenario de choque social ante la pérdida de legitimidad en el uso de la fuerza y violación al estado de derecho.
México se encamina hacia un año controversial, no por el hecho o “tradición” de llevar una vida llena de truculentos estallidos sociales cada cien años, sino por el contexto que actualmente se vive durante el régimen de Felipe Calderón. Prácticamente desde el inicio de su periodo en el 2006, Calderón ha desatado un profundo descontento social debido a las acciones políticas que se han realizado, tomando como principal objetivo: la “guerra” [9] contra el crimen organizado, especialmente, contra el narcotráfico.
Para este gobierno, el tema de la seguridad ha tenido la importancia fundamental en medio de una crisis internacional tanto económica como financiera. Ante esto hay que decir que la cuestión de la seguridad no carece de importancia sobre todo cuando los niveles de violencia se han incrementado en cifras históricas, el problema es cuando la estrategia no es la adecuada. Desde que los militares salieron a las calles, especialistas y analistas vieron con preocupación esta decisión, cuya prospectiva se encaminaba, lejos de una recuperación de legitimidad, a un descontento aún mayor de los diferentes sectores sociales y a una vulneración de las instituciones estatales. [10]
El resultado no estuvo alejado de estas perspectivas. Esta estrategia de seguridad vino a combinarse con la represión gubernamental, característica en la historia del Estado mexicano; si bien el objeto del control es preservar el status quo, la “estabilidad, la paz y el bienestar”, esta represión ha avivado un creciente recelo de la sociedad mexicana. Por un lado, se ha visto un incremento de los movimientos sociales, y por otra se ha llevado a un plano de criminalizar la protesta social. A parte, tendríamos que ponernos a pensar al menos cuántos presos políticos actualmente existen en las cárceles, un caso muy particular es el de Jacobo Silva Nogales y Gloria Arenas, exguerrilleros del Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo Insurgente (ERPI), liberados en noviembre del 2009, después de diez años de prisión. Tampoco olvidemos las controversiales declaraciones de la Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) sobre la detención de Jacinta Francisco Marcial, indígena otomí acusada de secuestrar a seis ex-AFIs. También libre después de estar tres años en prisión, gracias a las presiones de organizaciones nacionales e internacionales. Sus otras dos compañeras indígenas, Alberta y Teresa, siguen aún presas.
La paramilitarización se ha mantenido en posiciones estratégicas donde existe incidencia de grupos “subversivos” o incluso “terroristas”, como lo califica el gobierno mexicano. Se ha tenido evidencia en la zona del Ejército Popular Revolucionario (EPR) en Guerrero o incluso aún en Chiapas con el Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN). [11] Por supuesto que no son los únicos. La estrategia de infundar terror genera una permanente tensión y miedo en la población, lo que se decía en la primera parte: la excesiva represión provoca dejar a la población en un estado infantil, pero también da pauta para un nuevo orden ante un choque social.
En el combate al crimen organizado México parece tomar la concepción de insurgencia que aplica Estados Unidos, ya que la guerrilla y el narcotráfico son considerados enemigos que se erradican con las mismas medidas. Es por ello que también se ha criticado esta guerra disfrazada para poner en acción la contrainsurgencia. Y con ello, los casos de culpas fabricadas han ido en aumento, muchas veces con el adjetivo de “presunto” responsable de X.., bastaría recordar los dos casos de Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno y de Mario Romero Tinoco. El primero detenido hace un año en Oaxaca, por el asesinato del periodista norteamericano Brad Will en el 2006; el segundo, está preso desde hace cuatro meses culpado por supuesta complicidad con el narco. A ambos se les ha declarado como culpables por la misma PGR, a pesar de irregularidades en sus respectivos casos. [12]
Deberíamos tomar en cuenta que el Estado de derecho no se hizo para limitar al individuo sino para limitar al poder. [13] Sin embargo en la práctica vemos lo contrario. Somos testigos que en el círculo de la impunidad no solo se ven implicados civiles en la violación a los derechos humanos, también los propios servidores públicos se ven enmarañados en la gran facultad del fuero castrense. Al menos 25 policías municipales, han sido víctimas de tortura por militares, los casos aun quedan impunes y se ha recurrido a la Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos (CIDH) . Más aún, resulta difícil creer en un Estado que no puede velar por la protección de sus testigos protegidos como lo fue Édgar Enrique Bayardo, ex integrante de la Policía Federal (PF), testigo protegido de la PGR, asesinado en un Starbucks del D.F. [14] O bien, hasta policías desaparecidos durante su envió a una misión contra el crimen organizado en Michoacán. [15]
Se ha aplaudido la acción del operativo en Cuernavaca, Morelos, realizada por la Armada de México, donde resultó muerto Marcos Arturo Beltrán Leyva, el llamado Jefe de jefes, líder del Cártel que lleva sus mismo apellidos. Pero parece ser que entre mayores golpes al narcotráfico, mayor resulta la tensión entre el gobierno y no se diga entre los civiles inocentes, que esta no fue la excepción en decesos. [16] El caso del asesinato de la familia en Tabasco del marino Mequisedet Angulo, recae en preocupación tanto nacional como internacional por la fuerza del crimen y la constante violencia en México.
En la legitimación de la guerra, según Bobbio, es un valor positivo, pero en la “guerra contra el narcotráfico” de Calderón, el concepto negativo ha englobado prácticamente todos los aspectos con los que el Estado mexicano está respondiendo a la creciente violencia que vive el país, peor aún, por la pérdida de confianza en el aparato jurídico al dejar inconclusas las violaciones a los derechos humanos por parte de militares. [17] Hay que tomar en cuenta que en México los militares tienen su propio tribunal de justicia, cuando en otros países americanos como Brasil y Chile son Tribunales civiles quienes juzgan al aparato castrense.
Todo ello ha causado decepción en opinión pública de manera evidente al gobierno de Calderón, como lo explican Jorge Castañeda y Rubén Aguilar en su libro: “Narcotráfico: La Guerra Fallida”. [18]
La pérdida de legitimidad en el uso de la fuerza, se ha dado no solamente por las consecuencias que ha traído el mal manejo de los medios, sino también por los fines que se buscan. El acto fascista de la toma de Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LyFC) y con ello después la privatización de la energía, es un golpe directo contra las organizaciones sindicales del país que no congenien con el gobierno. Asimismo, la tendencia ha llevado a criminalizar la pobreza, es decir, orillarla al crimen organizado ante la falta de empleo. He ahí otro punto medular para el uso de la fuerza ilegítima de México.
Para estos tiempos, prácticamente todos los sectores sociales, incluso la red empresarial, no están de acuerdo con las medidas que ha tomado el presidente Calderón en el alza de precios para este nuevo año. La falta de oportunidades en el ámbito económico, la situación de inestabilidad y tensión ante la violencia en las calles, la represión gubernamental, la violación del estado de derecho y la falta de legitimidad, son algunos de nuestros elementos para poder argumentar que en el año 2010, si aun no se replantea la estrategia de seguridad, México tendrá un escenario de constantes conflictos y muy probable, un choque social como prueba de descontento y hartazgo de la población.
3. A manera de conclusión.
Bobbio argumentó que “la seguridad del Estado como ente colectivo debe servir en última instancia para garantizar la seguridad de los propios ciudadanos”. Respecto a esto, los medios utilizados (en este caso la fuerza) para conseguir este fin (el status quo), corresponderán al gobierno que se encuentre en el poder. Pero no olvidemos que en el uso de la fuerza del Estado es vital estar apoyado no solo por las instituciones, sino por el consenso legítimo, ya que la población avala las acciones del gobierno para salvaguardar la estabilidad del pueblo. Empero, la desviación de las medidas de coerción por parte del Estado recaen en consecuencias que pueden causar el colapso social.
Utilizando la concepción negativa del Estado, los marxistas consideran que el “Estado es el reino de la fuerza”, el cual utiliza este medio coercitivo como un instrumento de dominación. Ante ello se crea el juicio político, el cual avala las acciones gubernamentales. Indiscutiblemente, al emitir un juicio político es común ser dominados por el aspecto moral. El problema comienza cuando el juicio político sea constante en el aspecto negativo. He ahí la señal de modificar las prácticas seguidas hasta ahora por el gobierno en turno. Ya que si bien la represión y el estado de derecho pueden someter a los ciudadanos en la práctica, su mal empleo puede provocar descontento y vulnerabilidad de la estabilidad de los aparatos que sostienen a la entidad jurídica.
En el caso de México, ante el intento de recuperar la legitimidad de Calderón luego de una contienda sospechosa en el 2006, soltando la “guerra” contra el crimen organizado, se ha obtenido un resultado contraproducente, desatando con ello una ola de violencia que lejos de dar seguridad a la población, recitando la concepción marxista: provoca un mal innecesario.
Ante el debilitamiento de las instituciones por la corrupción entre los gobernadores, su involucramiento con el crimen, ante la impunidad que se tiene, ante el crecimiento de la pobreza y de la carencias necesarias, y ante la represión de todos los sectores sociales, muy difícilmente México será visto como un país donde se mantenga un eficaz Estado de derecho y, más aun, un pueblo que legitime esa hazaña fallida del gobierno de Calderón.
FUENTES CONSULTADAS
Berlin, Isaiah “Filosofía y represión gubernamental” El Sentido de la Realidad, Taurus, 1998.
Carlsen, Laura, “¿Guerra contra el narcotráfico o militarización de México?”, Programa de las Américas, http://www.ircamericas.org/esp/4377
Castañeda Jorge, Aguilar, Rubén, Narcotráfico: La Guerra Fallida, Punto de Lectura.
Dresser, Denise, “Aquí están, señor Presidente” En Semanario Proceso, Opinión, http://www.proceso.com.mx/opinion_articulo.php?articulo=71519
“Estado de derecho”, 21 de marzo de 2005, en La Jornada, http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2005/04/21/023a2pol.php
Fernández Santillán José. Norberto Bobbio: El filósofo y la política: Antología, , Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, 1996, 84-85 p.
Garza, Ramón Alberto, “En la antesala del Estado Fallido”, Reporte Índigo, 4 de diciembre de 2009, http://www.encuentro29.com/vernoticias.php?artid=63627&relacion=ESPECIALES&mas=351
Granados Chapa, Miguel Ángel, “Dos casos de injusticia”, Periódico El siglo de Torreón, martes 13 de octubre de 2009 http://www.elsiglodetorreon.com.mx/noticia/469047.dos-casos-de-injusticia-penal.html
Martínez, Alba, “Movimientos sociales en aumento” en Revista Contralínea, 5 de abril de 2009, http://contralinea.info/archivo-revista/?p=1546
Mandujano, Isaín, “Chiapas: paramilitares vigentes”, en Semanario Proceso, 1717/ 27 de septiembre de 2009, 31-33p.
Ravelo, Ricardo, “Un golpe lleno de dudas”, en Proceso, No. 1729 10-17 pp.
“PGR pierde a testigo protegido” El Universal, 6 de diciembre http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/173476.html
- Yael Anahí López Torres estudió la licenciatura en Relaciones Internacionales en la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, FES Acatlán. Actualmente colabora en el área de investigación en el Departamento de Estudios de Imagen Institucional de la misma institución.
[2] De acuerdo con una encuesta realizada por Consulta Mitofsky, el 55% de los mexicanos considera que en 2009 le fue peor que en otros años. “El sentimiento de mal año que el mexicano tiene respecto a su situación coincide con la forma en que ve al país, ya que, de acuerdo con el mismo estudio, 87% considera que la economía es peor que hace un año; 78% que la política está en esas condiciones y 76% que es la seguridad la que ha empeorado.” Cfr. El Universal, “2009 el peor año para los mexicanos: encuesta” en la edición en línea del periódico El Universal, 5 de enero de 2010; disponible en: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/649663.html
[3] Recordemos que en 1810 comenzó el movimiento de independencia de México y que en 1910 sucedió un movimiento revolucionario contra el gobierno dictatorial de Porfirio Díaz.
[4] Bobbio Norberto, En Fernández Santillán José. Norberto Bobbio: El filósofo y la política: Antología, , Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, 1996, 84-85 p.
[5] Fernández Sanillán, José. Op. Cit.
[6] Íbid 321 p.
[7] Isaiah Berlin, “Filosofía y represión gubernamental” El Sentido de la Realidad, Taurus, 1998.
[8] Bobbio, Norberto, en Fernandez Santillán.. Op. Cit.. 176 p.
[9] El término de “guerra contra el narcotráfico” fue empleado por primera vez durante la administración de Nixon, cuando la situación política de los Estados Unidos era muy parecida al contexto que actualmente se vive en México. Este término de guerra contra los narcóticos causó la manipulación del miedo a la población, para “expandir extralegalmente los poderes de la presidencia y consolidar una imagen de líder fuerte frente a la sociedad y en medio de circunstancias difíciles y debilidades políticas”. Carlsen, Laura, ¿Guerra contra el narcotráfico o militarización de México?, Programa de las Américas, http://www.ircamericas.org/esp/4377
[10] Martínez, Alba, “Movimientos sociales en aumento” en Revista Contralínea, 5 de abril de 2009, http://contralinea.info/archivo-revista/?p=1546
[11] Mandujano, Isaín, “Chiapas: paramilitares vigentes”, en Semanario Proceso, 1717/ 27 de septiembre de 2009, 31-33p.
[12] Granados Chapa, Miguel Ángel, “Dos casos de injusticia”, Periódico El siglo de Torreón, martes 13 de octubre de 2009 http://www.elsiglodetorreon.com.mx/noticia/469047.dos-casos-de-injusticia-penal.html
[13] Batres Guadarrama, Martí, Estado de derecho, en La Jornada http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2005/04/21/023a2pol.php
[14] Garza, Ramón Alberto, “En la antesala del Estado Fallido”, Reporte Índigo, 4 de diciembre de 2009, http://www.encuentro29.com/vernoticias.php?artid=63627&relacion=ESPECIALES&mas=351
[15] “PGR pierde a testigo protegido” El Universal, 6 de diciembre http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/173476.html
[16] Véase Ravelo, Ricardo, “Un golpe lleno de dudas”, en Proceso, No. 1729 10-17 pp.
[17] Al menos diez casos han sido ejemplos de la violación a los derechos humanos por parte de militares, como una pequeña referencia, véase: Dresser, Denise, “Aquí están, señor Presidente” En Semanario Proceso, Opinión, http://www.proceso.com.mx/opinion_articulo.php?articulo=71519
[18] Castañeda Jorge, Aguilar, Rubén, Narcotráfico: La Guerra Fallida, Punto de Lectura.
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1/27/10
The U.S., Latin America and Haiti
Hugo and the Shockwave
By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF
CounterPunch
When it comes to making perceptive statements of fact, Hugo Chávez doesn’t have a very good track record. As of late the Venezuelan leader seems to have become mentally unhinged, remarking that former Ugandan dictator and genocidal murderer Idi Amin was a “patriot.” And now Chávez has another zinger: the United States intentionally created the earthquake in Haiti through means of a secret weapon.
Chávez seemingly believes he’s in the middle of the Mel Gibson movie, Conspiracy Theory. According to Spanish paper ABC Chávez has joined the ranks of the truly paranoid, declaring that the earthquake was the result of an insidious U.S. naval test. Ultimately, Chávez believes, Haiti served as a test case for further U.S. machinations. Later, the Venezuelan reportedly exclaimed, the U.S. would like to destroy Iran with a series of earthquakes which would overthrow the regime in Teheran.
Chávez is basing his over the top suppositions on a report prepared by the Russian North Fleet which has been monitoring the U.S. military in the Caribbean since 2008. The wild claims have been echoed on state-run Venezuelan TV station Vive. The network sent out a press release saying that the 7.0 earthquake was caused by an experimental shockwave system which could also create “weather anomalies to cause floods, droughts and hurricanes.”
I was a little disappointed to hear of Vive’s fall: when I was in Venezuela a few years ago the network seemed a cut above some of the other shrill pro-Chávez media outlets. According to Fox News, Vive’s website issued a report claiming that “the U.S. government’s HAARP program, an atmospheric research facility in Alaska (and frequent subject of conspiracy theories), was also to blame for a Jan. 9 quake in Eureka, Calif., and may have been behind the 7.8-magnitude quake in China that killed nearly 90,000 people in 2008. What's more, the site says, the cataclysmic ruin in Haiti was only a test run for much bigger game: the coming showdown with Iran.”
Unfortunately, like Vive other Venezuelan media have given play to the accusations. Radio Nacional de Venezuela for example conducted an interview with Vladimir Acosta, an international analyst and professor, who also remarked that the earthquake could be associated with project HAARP.
Not content to stop there, some leftist Latin leaders claim that the U.S. is actually using the tragedy in Haiti as a means to reoccupy the impoverished Caribbean island. Indeed, if you compare U.S. and Latin American rhetoric regarding Haiti, you might think you were residing in two separate, parallel universes.
“The empire (the U.S.) is taking Haiti over the bodies and tears of its people,” Chávez remarked during a press conference. While the Venezuelan supports ongoing humanitarian efforts, he has questioned the need for so many troops. “I read that 3,000 soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they were going to war. They are occupying Haiti undercover,” he added.
Bolivia’s Evo Morales echoed Chávez, declaring that the U.S. relief effort was “unjust, inhuman and opportunistic.” In a further inflammatory retort to Washington, Morales even called for a United Nations action to counter supposed Yankee imperialism. Morales’s Vice President Álvaro García Linera has been no less confrontational. U.S. efforts in Haiti, he said, formed parted of a larger strategy to occupy the continent militarily. In Port-au-Prince, he added that what Haiti needed most fundamentally was food, medical and economic assistance and not more boots on the ground.
Like Bolivia, Nicaragua has warm diplomatic and political ties to Venezuela. The United States, declared Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, was “manipulating a drama in order to install troops in Haiti.” “It would appear,” he added, “that the military bases which the U.S. already possesses are not sufficient and they want to take advantage of this tragedy…to install themselves in Haiti.” Furthermore, Ortega stated, it was “worrying” that the U.S. army had taken control over the Port-au-Prince airport.
While Americans bask in a sea of self-congratulation, many Latin Americans perceive the Haitian humanitarian effort in quite a different light. With Latin leaders escalating their rhetoric, U.S. officials have sought to blunt charges made by Chávez and others by declaring that the American military is in Haiti at the request of the local government.
But recent reports, which seldom make their way into mainstream TV coverage of Haiti relief efforts, raise concerns about what the U.S. is actually doing. Doctors Without Borders has complained that the U.S. has diverted some of its planes from landing at the Port-au-Prince airport, thus forcing the organization to truck in supplies all the way from the Dominican Republic.
Francoise Saulnier, head of Doctors Without Borders’ legal department, said days had been lost because the Port-au-Prince airport had been blocked by military traffic. “We lost three days,” she remarked. “And these three days have created a massive problem with infection, with gangrene, with amputations that are needed now, while we could have really spared this to those people.”
If that was not perplexing enough, disturbing reports have circulated about the U.S. military’s handling of foreign journalists. In my recent column, “Middle Eastern and Latin American Media: A Thorn in the Side of the U.S. Military in Haiti,” I raised the question of whether the U.S. military might be running out of patience with foreign media.
“One recent report by Cuba's Prensa Latina,” I wrote, “is worth noting. According to the story, U.S. marines recently barred Venezolana de Televisión journalists from entering Haitian hospitals. At Haiti's central hospital, Haitians seeking to help their loved ones inside were reportedly mistreated. Those who tried to bring water and food to their relatives were unable to enter the hospital, as the marines stopped them from entering the facilities.”
It now seems however that Venezolana de Televisión is just the tip of the iceberg. According to Reuters, the U.S. army has ordered foreign journalists residing in camps alongside the Port-au-Prince airport to leave and look for other accommodation within the city. The military did not provide any explanation for its decision.
As long as the United States military continues to behave in a brazen and draconian manner in Port-au-Prince, it will fuel the fears and concerns of many Latin Americans who are all too familiar with U.S. interventionism throughout the region.
Nikolas Kozloff is the author of the upcoming No Rain In the Amazon: How South America’s Climate Change Affects The Entire Planet (Palgrave Macmillan, April 2010). Visit his website, senorchichero.
By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF
CounterPunch
When it comes to making perceptive statements of fact, Hugo Chávez doesn’t have a very good track record. As of late the Venezuelan leader seems to have become mentally unhinged, remarking that former Ugandan dictator and genocidal murderer Idi Amin was a “patriot.” And now Chávez has another zinger: the United States intentionally created the earthquake in Haiti through means of a secret weapon.
Chávez seemingly believes he’s in the middle of the Mel Gibson movie, Conspiracy Theory. According to Spanish paper ABC Chávez has joined the ranks of the truly paranoid, declaring that the earthquake was the result of an insidious U.S. naval test. Ultimately, Chávez believes, Haiti served as a test case for further U.S. machinations. Later, the Venezuelan reportedly exclaimed, the U.S. would like to destroy Iran with a series of earthquakes which would overthrow the regime in Teheran.
Chávez is basing his over the top suppositions on a report prepared by the Russian North Fleet which has been monitoring the U.S. military in the Caribbean since 2008. The wild claims have been echoed on state-run Venezuelan TV station Vive. The network sent out a press release saying that the 7.0 earthquake was caused by an experimental shockwave system which could also create “weather anomalies to cause floods, droughts and hurricanes.”
I was a little disappointed to hear of Vive’s fall: when I was in Venezuela a few years ago the network seemed a cut above some of the other shrill pro-Chávez media outlets. According to Fox News, Vive’s website issued a report claiming that “the U.S. government’s HAARP program, an atmospheric research facility in Alaska (and frequent subject of conspiracy theories), was also to blame for a Jan. 9 quake in Eureka, Calif., and may have been behind the 7.8-magnitude quake in China that killed nearly 90,000 people in 2008. What's more, the site says, the cataclysmic ruin in Haiti was only a test run for much bigger game: the coming showdown with Iran.”
Unfortunately, like Vive other Venezuelan media have given play to the accusations. Radio Nacional de Venezuela for example conducted an interview with Vladimir Acosta, an international analyst and professor, who also remarked that the earthquake could be associated with project HAARP.
Not content to stop there, some leftist Latin leaders claim that the U.S. is actually using the tragedy in Haiti as a means to reoccupy the impoverished Caribbean island. Indeed, if you compare U.S. and Latin American rhetoric regarding Haiti, you might think you were residing in two separate, parallel universes.
“The empire (the U.S.) is taking Haiti over the bodies and tears of its people,” Chávez remarked during a press conference. While the Venezuelan supports ongoing humanitarian efforts, he has questioned the need for so many troops. “I read that 3,000 soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they were going to war. They are occupying Haiti undercover,” he added.
Bolivia’s Evo Morales echoed Chávez, declaring that the U.S. relief effort was “unjust, inhuman and opportunistic.” In a further inflammatory retort to Washington, Morales even called for a United Nations action to counter supposed Yankee imperialism. Morales’s Vice President Álvaro García Linera has been no less confrontational. U.S. efforts in Haiti, he said, formed parted of a larger strategy to occupy the continent militarily. In Port-au-Prince, he added that what Haiti needed most fundamentally was food, medical and economic assistance and not more boots on the ground.
Like Bolivia, Nicaragua has warm diplomatic and political ties to Venezuela. The United States, declared Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, was “manipulating a drama in order to install troops in Haiti.” “It would appear,” he added, “that the military bases which the U.S. already possesses are not sufficient and they want to take advantage of this tragedy…to install themselves in Haiti.” Furthermore, Ortega stated, it was “worrying” that the U.S. army had taken control over the Port-au-Prince airport.
While Americans bask in a sea of self-congratulation, many Latin Americans perceive the Haitian humanitarian effort in quite a different light. With Latin leaders escalating their rhetoric, U.S. officials have sought to blunt charges made by Chávez and others by declaring that the American military is in Haiti at the request of the local government.
But recent reports, which seldom make their way into mainstream TV coverage of Haiti relief efforts, raise concerns about what the U.S. is actually doing. Doctors Without Borders has complained that the U.S. has diverted some of its planes from landing at the Port-au-Prince airport, thus forcing the organization to truck in supplies all the way from the Dominican Republic.
Francoise Saulnier, head of Doctors Without Borders’ legal department, said days had been lost because the Port-au-Prince airport had been blocked by military traffic. “We lost three days,” she remarked. “And these three days have created a massive problem with infection, with gangrene, with amputations that are needed now, while we could have really spared this to those people.”
If that was not perplexing enough, disturbing reports have circulated about the U.S. military’s handling of foreign journalists. In my recent column, “Middle Eastern and Latin American Media: A Thorn in the Side of the U.S. Military in Haiti,” I raised the question of whether the U.S. military might be running out of patience with foreign media.
“One recent report by Cuba's Prensa Latina,” I wrote, “is worth noting. According to the story, U.S. marines recently barred Venezolana de Televisión journalists from entering Haitian hospitals. At Haiti's central hospital, Haitians seeking to help their loved ones inside were reportedly mistreated. Those who tried to bring water and food to their relatives were unable to enter the hospital, as the marines stopped them from entering the facilities.”
It now seems however that Venezolana de Televisión is just the tip of the iceberg. According to Reuters, the U.S. army has ordered foreign journalists residing in camps alongside the Port-au-Prince airport to leave and look for other accommodation within the city. The military did not provide any explanation for its decision.
As long as the United States military continues to behave in a brazen and draconian manner in Port-au-Prince, it will fuel the fears and concerns of many Latin Americans who are all too familiar with U.S. interventionism throughout the region.
Nikolas Kozloff is the author of the upcoming No Rain In the Amazon: How South America’s Climate Change Affects The Entire Planet (Palgrave Macmillan, April 2010). Visit his website, senorchichero.
1/25/10
La resistencia en Honduras rechaza el Acuerdo de Reconciliación
Jesús D. Fuentes
TerceraInformación
El llamado Acuerdo para la Reconciliación y Fortalecimiento de la Democracia en Honduras establece que al asumir la Presidencia de Honduras la próxima semana, Porfirio Lobo emitirá un salvoconducto que garantice a Zelaya el respeto a sus garantías individuales.
En apenas dos días de la toma de posesión del cargo como presidente de Porfirio Lobo, ganador de las ilegales elecciones celebradas el 29 de noviembre, el Presidente Constitucional Manuel Zelaya sigue recluido en la embajada de Brasil, los golpistas continúan en el gobierno y la represión es la cotidianidad en el país.
Ante el Acuerdo para la Reconciliación Nacional y el Fortalecimiento de la Democracia en Honduras, firmado por Porfirio Lobo Sosa y el Presidente de la República Dominicana Leonel Fernández, el Frente Nacional Resistencia Popular ha manifestado su desacuerdo en varios puntos del mismo.
En concreto el Frente se queja de que el mismo título del Acuerdo "se evade con eufemismos la calificación de problema por su verdadera naturaleza, al hablar de reconciliación nacional simplemente dejando en el pasado el golpe se Estado, sin castigar a quien los ejecutaron", al igual que hablan de fortalecimiento de la democracia, en vez de restuauración de la democracia, término más exacto para el Frente, al haberse usurpado la voluntad popular con el golpe de Estado.
El Acuerdo contiene implícito, según el Frente de Resistencia, el reconocimiento de que Porfirio Lobo Sosa es presidente legalmente electo, por lo que se acepta la legalidad de las elecciones.
En el documento habla de “Presidente Manuel Zelaya” y de que lo será hasta la toma de posesión de Porfirio el próximo 27, sin embargo, el Frente ha criticado este punto, pues Zelaya no actúa como presidente, además de tener que pedir un salvoconducto para salir del país “cuando ningún presidente ha necesitado algo así al terminar su mandato.”
La solicitud para que se suspendan las sanciones internacionales a Honduras, supone un reconocimiento de que una vez firmado este acuerdo, se dejan atrás los actos del 28 de junio y la crisis política se cierra con las elecciones, la asunción de Pepe Lobo, y la instalación de un gobierno integrado por representantes de todos los sectores políticos.
El Frente de Reisistencia teme que la firma de este acuerdo tenga otros propósitos y otras exigencias entre líneas, “aparte de que fluya el dinero,” como bajar el nivel a la oposición que se le hace y se haría al gobierno de Lobo desde los sectores agrupados en el Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular y “disminuir la incidencia de Zelaya en la vida política del país”.
Después de este "compromiso formal que se ha suscrito el día de hoy, de respeto a los derechos humanos y fortalecimiento del Estado democrático y de derecho en Honduras, República Dominicana estará presente en la toma de posesión del presidente Lobo y regresará a la República Dominicana con el presidente Zelaya", declaró Fernández, Presidente de la República Dominicana.
El documento, que no deja claro si Zelaya podrá regresar a Honduras en el momento que lo desee, fue firmado también por los ex candidatos presidenciales que compitieron el los comicios de noviembre pasado.
Entre ellos están Elvin Santos, del Partido Liberal; César Ham, de Unificación Democrática; Félicito Avila, del Demócrata Cristiano; Ricardo Alvarez, alcalde de Tegucigalpa y presidente del Partido Nacional, y Mario Canahuate, del Partido Nacional.
TerceraInformación
El llamado Acuerdo para la Reconciliación y Fortalecimiento de la Democracia en Honduras establece que al asumir la Presidencia de Honduras la próxima semana, Porfirio Lobo emitirá un salvoconducto que garantice a Zelaya el respeto a sus garantías individuales.
En apenas dos días de la toma de posesión del cargo como presidente de Porfirio Lobo, ganador de las ilegales elecciones celebradas el 29 de noviembre, el Presidente Constitucional Manuel Zelaya sigue recluido en la embajada de Brasil, los golpistas continúan en el gobierno y la represión es la cotidianidad en el país.
Ante el Acuerdo para la Reconciliación Nacional y el Fortalecimiento de la Democracia en Honduras, firmado por Porfirio Lobo Sosa y el Presidente de la República Dominicana Leonel Fernández, el Frente Nacional Resistencia Popular ha manifestado su desacuerdo en varios puntos del mismo.
En concreto el Frente se queja de que el mismo título del Acuerdo "se evade con eufemismos la calificación de problema por su verdadera naturaleza, al hablar de reconciliación nacional simplemente dejando en el pasado el golpe se Estado, sin castigar a quien los ejecutaron", al igual que hablan de fortalecimiento de la democracia, en vez de restuauración de la democracia, término más exacto para el Frente, al haberse usurpado la voluntad popular con el golpe de Estado.
El Acuerdo contiene implícito, según el Frente de Resistencia, el reconocimiento de que Porfirio Lobo Sosa es presidente legalmente electo, por lo que se acepta la legalidad de las elecciones.
En el documento habla de “Presidente Manuel Zelaya” y de que lo será hasta la toma de posesión de Porfirio el próximo 27, sin embargo, el Frente ha criticado este punto, pues Zelaya no actúa como presidente, además de tener que pedir un salvoconducto para salir del país “cuando ningún presidente ha necesitado algo así al terminar su mandato.”
La solicitud para que se suspendan las sanciones internacionales a Honduras, supone un reconocimiento de que una vez firmado este acuerdo, se dejan atrás los actos del 28 de junio y la crisis política se cierra con las elecciones, la asunción de Pepe Lobo, y la instalación de un gobierno integrado por representantes de todos los sectores políticos.
El Frente de Reisistencia teme que la firma de este acuerdo tenga otros propósitos y otras exigencias entre líneas, “aparte de que fluya el dinero,” como bajar el nivel a la oposición que se le hace y se haría al gobierno de Lobo desde los sectores agrupados en el Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular y “disminuir la incidencia de Zelaya en la vida política del país”.
Después de este "compromiso formal que se ha suscrito el día de hoy, de respeto a los derechos humanos y fortalecimiento del Estado democrático y de derecho en Honduras, República Dominicana estará presente en la toma de posesión del presidente Lobo y regresará a la República Dominicana con el presidente Zelaya", declaró Fernández, Presidente de la República Dominicana.
El documento, que no deja claro si Zelaya podrá regresar a Honduras en el momento que lo desee, fue firmado también por los ex candidatos presidenciales que compitieron el los comicios de noviembre pasado.
Entre ellos están Elvin Santos, del Partido Liberal; César Ham, de Unificación Democrática; Félicito Avila, del Demócrata Cristiano; Ricardo Alvarez, alcalde de Tegucigalpa y presidente del Partido Nacional, y Mario Canahuate, del Partido Nacional.
Government Attacks APPO Political Table and Vendors
Another Confrontation Disrupts Oaxaca City
By Nancy Davies
Commentary from Oaxaca
Narco News
Once again the government municipal inspectors accosted a group of APPO vendors in the zócalo. The APPO set up a table to collect political signatures in condemnation of the government and Ulises Ruiz Ortiz for violence against the population during the 2006 uprising. Affiliated vendors use the APPO presence as a legal shelter for selling their products, since the city government has banned ambulant vendors from the area. This ban, ironically, is supposed to protect tourists — horrified witnesses to another confrontation — and commercial shop-owners and workers. By chance, members of the political opposition played a role in defying the police.
The officials, whom in the past I personally have witnessed taking cash from zócalo vendors, accosted these vendors, not to rob them, but to evict them, in line with the current policy. At the same time, they took advantage of the moment to throw over the table for signatures and petitions denouncing the governor.
The eviction took place before noon in a warm, sunny zócalo populated by Friday strollers and shoppers. According to Noticias reporter Luis Ignacio Velasquez, PRI officials exhorted state and municipal police to attack about twenty vendors, and destroy the political table with collected papers and signatures denouncing the governor. APPO shelters under legal protection, as do all citizens, to conduct peaceful signature gathering. The signatures they gather demand political justice against Ulises Ruiz, whom the Supreme Court declared guilty of human rights violations during 2006, but the court’s judgment includes no criminal procedures. Therefore it would take an act of the local Oaxaca congress to impugn Ruiz.
Meanwhile, at the APPO table and encampment, former political prisoner Marcelino Coache Verano maintains a hunger strike. At the scuffle he shouted, “I am not going to permit this new aggression against my companions, what you’re doing is illegal, you have no justification for taking their merchandise! They [the police] are trampling the goods that belong to that girl, they can’t do that!” An inspector grabbed him by the neck trying to strike him in the face, but was thwarted. Coache is a small man maybe five feet tall and weighing not much more than a hundred pounds. He was tortured in prison.
The chief of police Pedro Cruz tried to coordinate the rumpus, shouting at the cops, “You cover, you cover, you can’t be standing there doing nothing but watching, fuck them!”. To their credit, the police seemed reluctant. They formed a security belt to protect the municipal officials while the merchants and APPO sympathizers tried to recover their merchandise. Police shouted to both sides to stay calm, with small results, while a young woman on the ground cried, “That’s mine, that’s mine!” as she tried to retrieve her plastic bagful of merchandise which inspectors had grabbed.
“You killed our people. I know you, you’re one of the auxiliary [paramilitary] of Alejandro Barrita, you participated in the Caravan of Death,” Coache accused one of the state police, who according to the Noticias reporter began to shrink and turn away.
When the violence broke out, members from the Forum for Democratic Transition in Oaxaca and members of the State Democratic Convention Free Oaxaca happened to be talking with the state PRD man José Montero Garnica in one of the zócalo cafes. Along with him were players in the current political alliance: Francisco Martínez Neri, Luis Ugarteche Begné, Victor Raúl Martínez Vasquez, Faustino Díaz Montes and Pedro Sosa Gutiérrez, and others. They rushed to defend the abused vendors, taking the stage at the APPO encampment.
“We condemn the police brutality, it can’t be that a group of people who collect signatures in a peaceful manner in the zócalo of Oaxaca be treated this way, we condemn it and we call the commander [Pedro Cruz] to give back the things they are carried off; we cannot continue to consent to this type treatment of the people. No more violence in Oaxaca. Oaxaca will not be reconciled with a police presence,” Ugartechea affirmed at the microphones.
“Is seeking political judgment against Ulises Ruiz a crime, while national and international visitors witness it? That is the reply of the government, that’s how it works in Oaxaca, that’s how the municipal police act, they are the ones who have stolen power and keep punishing the citizens,” APPO sympathizer César Mateos declaimed in turn.
And then, spontaneously the crowds began to shout: “Assassins! Assassins! Assassins!” and “Eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, Ulises assassin your bill is coming due!” Something for those working on the political opposition coalition to take to heart, along with another example of the incredible arrogance of the PRI machine.
By Nancy Davies
Commentary from Oaxaca
Narco News
Once again the government municipal inspectors accosted a group of APPO vendors in the zócalo. The APPO set up a table to collect political signatures in condemnation of the government and Ulises Ruiz Ortiz for violence against the population during the 2006 uprising. Affiliated vendors use the APPO presence as a legal shelter for selling their products, since the city government has banned ambulant vendors from the area. This ban, ironically, is supposed to protect tourists — horrified witnesses to another confrontation — and commercial shop-owners and workers. By chance, members of the political opposition played a role in defying the police.
The officials, whom in the past I personally have witnessed taking cash from zócalo vendors, accosted these vendors, not to rob them, but to evict them, in line with the current policy. At the same time, they took advantage of the moment to throw over the table for signatures and petitions denouncing the governor.
The eviction took place before noon in a warm, sunny zócalo populated by Friday strollers and shoppers. According to Noticias reporter Luis Ignacio Velasquez, PRI officials exhorted state and municipal police to attack about twenty vendors, and destroy the political table with collected papers and signatures denouncing the governor. APPO shelters under legal protection, as do all citizens, to conduct peaceful signature gathering. The signatures they gather demand political justice against Ulises Ruiz, whom the Supreme Court declared guilty of human rights violations during 2006, but the court’s judgment includes no criminal procedures. Therefore it would take an act of the local Oaxaca congress to impugn Ruiz.
Meanwhile, at the APPO table and encampment, former political prisoner Marcelino Coache Verano maintains a hunger strike. At the scuffle he shouted, “I am not going to permit this new aggression against my companions, what you’re doing is illegal, you have no justification for taking their merchandise! They [the police] are trampling the goods that belong to that girl, they can’t do that!” An inspector grabbed him by the neck trying to strike him in the face, but was thwarted. Coache is a small man maybe five feet tall and weighing not much more than a hundred pounds. He was tortured in prison.
The chief of police Pedro Cruz tried to coordinate the rumpus, shouting at the cops, “You cover, you cover, you can’t be standing there doing nothing but watching, fuck them!”. To their credit, the police seemed reluctant. They formed a security belt to protect the municipal officials while the merchants and APPO sympathizers tried to recover their merchandise. Police shouted to both sides to stay calm, with small results, while a young woman on the ground cried, “That’s mine, that’s mine!” as she tried to retrieve her plastic bagful of merchandise which inspectors had grabbed.
“You killed our people. I know you, you’re one of the auxiliary [paramilitary] of Alejandro Barrita, you participated in the Caravan of Death,” Coache accused one of the state police, who according to the Noticias reporter began to shrink and turn away.
When the violence broke out, members from the Forum for Democratic Transition in Oaxaca and members of the State Democratic Convention Free Oaxaca happened to be talking with the state PRD man José Montero Garnica in one of the zócalo cafes. Along with him were players in the current political alliance: Francisco Martínez Neri, Luis Ugarteche Begné, Victor Raúl Martínez Vasquez, Faustino Díaz Montes and Pedro Sosa Gutiérrez, and others. They rushed to defend the abused vendors, taking the stage at the APPO encampment.
“We condemn the police brutality, it can’t be that a group of people who collect signatures in a peaceful manner in the zócalo of Oaxaca be treated this way, we condemn it and we call the commander [Pedro Cruz] to give back the things they are carried off; we cannot continue to consent to this type treatment of the people. No more violence in Oaxaca. Oaxaca will not be reconciled with a police presence,” Ugartechea affirmed at the microphones.
“Is seeking political judgment against Ulises Ruiz a crime, while national and international visitors witness it? That is the reply of the government, that’s how it works in Oaxaca, that’s how the municipal police act, they are the ones who have stolen power and keep punishing the citizens,” APPO sympathizer César Mateos declaimed in turn.
And then, spontaneously the crowds began to shout: “Assassins! Assassins! Assassins!” and “Eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, Ulises assassin your bill is coming due!” Something for those working on the political opposition coalition to take to heart, along with another example of the incredible arrogance of the PRI machine.
Regeneración
Gerardo Fernández Casanova
Argenpress
La celebración del centenario de la Revolución Mexicana invita a la reflexión respecto a la enseñanza de su legado. Es particularmente importante hacerlo en la mesa del debate respecto de nuestra identidad como nación, tema este que ha permanecido inconcluso a lo largo de los doscientos años de vida intentando ser independientes, durante los cuales la discusión se ha visto dominada por las tendencias a parecernos a una u otra imagen modelo del mundo, en un lastimoso afán de imitación.
Si en algo cabe distinguir a la dicha revolución es en su carácter de auténtica, ajena a recetas o modelos importados que, incluso, dio lugar al diseño y operación de un sistema político sui generis, hijo legítimo de la realidad y la idiosincracia nacionales. De la terrible destrucción que implicó la etapa armada surgió el cimiento y la simiente de una sociedad que se encontró consigo misma y construyó una incipiente identidad.
El esfuerzo cultural y educativo de los gobiernos emanados del movimiento revolucionario contribuyó enormemente a la profundización del carácter de lo mexicano, no ajeno a un insano chauvinismo pero, de cualquier forma, auténtico y autóctono. El sistema creado generó un importante flujo ascendente en la sociedad, cuyo resultado se concretó en una vigorosa clase media. La economía creció sobre la base de un, también creciente, mercado interno. México se insertó en el mundo con personalidad propia, jugando un delicado papel de vecino del imperio y sometido a sus presiones e intereses, pero que se dio oxígeno para dotarse de un cierto grado de libertad.
No comparto la opinión de quienes se limitan a interpretar el hecho histórico sólo como la eliminación de la dictadura porfirista para reemplazarla por la dictadura priísta; que consideran que la lucha no fue más que entre facciones ambiciosas del poder, carentes de ideología y de proyecto de país. Indudablemente que en el proceso se manifestaron las ambiciones personales en el río revuelto, como suele suceder en cualquier obra humana.
No puede ignorarse, por ejemplo, la influencia intelectual de personajes como Ricardo Flores Magón que, de alguna manera, ilustró a los ejércitos campesinos de Zapata y Villa; ni a la de Andrés Molina Enríquez y Wistano Luis Orozco, cuyos trabajos intelectuales dieron pie a la reforma agraria.
Ni a los progresistas que se avocaron a la elaboración de la Constitución de 1917, con personalidades como la de Heriberto Jara y Francisco Mújica, que caracterizaron el contenido social de la norma jurídica esencial. Tampoco pueden ser ignorados militares del tipo de Salvador Alvarado que, en la acción de gobernar, dieron muestra de honestidad y compromiso con el progreso. Menos pueden ser ignorados los presidentes Carranza, De la Huerta, Obregón, Calles y Cárdenas que, independientemente de las diferencias entre ellos, algunas dirimidas por las armas, fueron consolidando el producto afirmativo de la Revolución. A ninguno de ellos habría que colocarlos en el panteón de la santidad pero, a no dudarlo, merecen sitio privilegiado en el del patriotismo.
¿Qué nos pasó? ¿Dónde se fracasó? Nadie puede negar que el ímpetu revolucionario se agotó en sí mismo. La democracia fue una asignatura pendiente, por lo menos en sus aspectos formales de tipo representativo; en su ausencia, la clase revolucionaria devino en plutocracia; el güisqui suplantó al tequila y al sotol; las universidades gringas educaron a los hijos de los revolucionarios; la promoción social de la educación degeneró en instrumento de control político, al igual que la reforma agraria y el fomento agrícola. Los cañonazos de dinero a los generales revolucionarios para que se mantuvieran en paz, terminaron en las jugosas comisiones por contratos o adquisiciones. La revolución se bajó del caballo y se subió al Cadillac. Los conflictos sociales terminaron en represión. Ahí se acabó el ensueño. También se ahogó la identidad y el patriotismo, por lo menos en lo que toca a la clase gobernante. Hoy estamos en la más lastimosa orfandad. Carentes de horizonte para dirigir el esfuerzo. Sometidos a la más feroz de las violencias, la del hambre y el infortunio. Estamos ante el riesgo de perder la viabilidad como país independiente, al grado que hay pensadores que postulan la plena entrega a los Estados Unidos.
Castañeda y Aguilar Camín, desprovistos de toda suerte de vergüenza se manifiestan proclives a que México deje de ver al pasado y se decida por incorporarse de lleno al esquema norteamericano de dominación, como clave para acceder al progreso; van al contrario de la conseja que dice que es preferible ser cabeza de ratón que cola de león. Es una verdadera necedad suponer que quienes dominan en el país vecino harán algo que suponga beneficiar los intereses de los mexicanos; con todo derecho ellos ven por los suyos y la historia, esa terca historia que convocan a olvidar, nos demuestra que no sólo son distintos a los nuestros, sino que son en alto grado contradictorios. Con una argumentación engañosa pretenden comparar los casos de México y Turquía, esta última respecto de su pretensión de incorporarse a la Unión Europea. La ligera diferencia es que los europeos proyectan un estado supranacional basado en el fortalecimiento del conjunto mediado del fortalecimiento de cada una de las partes; en tanto que el norteamericano sólo entiende de destinos manifiestos de dominación y explotación de los dominados. Es la degeneración.
Bienvenida la nueva publicación periódica del Gobierno Legítimo y del Movimiento Nacional en Defensa del Petróleo, la Soberanía y la Economía Popular. REGENERACION es su título y resulta por demás simbólico. De un lado, recupera el nombre de la publicación en que Ricardo Flores Magón y el Partido Liberal Mexicano plasmaron el pensamiento revolucionario de contenido social; del otro, atiende a la emergencia por rescatar al país de la debacle degenerativa en que los han sumido los tecnócratas neoliberales al servicio de la mafia de privilegiados que dice gobernarnos.
Argenpress
La celebración del centenario de la Revolución Mexicana invita a la reflexión respecto a la enseñanza de su legado. Es particularmente importante hacerlo en la mesa del debate respecto de nuestra identidad como nación, tema este que ha permanecido inconcluso a lo largo de los doscientos años de vida intentando ser independientes, durante los cuales la discusión se ha visto dominada por las tendencias a parecernos a una u otra imagen modelo del mundo, en un lastimoso afán de imitación.
Si en algo cabe distinguir a la dicha revolución es en su carácter de auténtica, ajena a recetas o modelos importados que, incluso, dio lugar al diseño y operación de un sistema político sui generis, hijo legítimo de la realidad y la idiosincracia nacionales. De la terrible destrucción que implicó la etapa armada surgió el cimiento y la simiente de una sociedad que se encontró consigo misma y construyó una incipiente identidad.
El esfuerzo cultural y educativo de los gobiernos emanados del movimiento revolucionario contribuyó enormemente a la profundización del carácter de lo mexicano, no ajeno a un insano chauvinismo pero, de cualquier forma, auténtico y autóctono. El sistema creado generó un importante flujo ascendente en la sociedad, cuyo resultado se concretó en una vigorosa clase media. La economía creció sobre la base de un, también creciente, mercado interno. México se insertó en el mundo con personalidad propia, jugando un delicado papel de vecino del imperio y sometido a sus presiones e intereses, pero que se dio oxígeno para dotarse de un cierto grado de libertad.
No comparto la opinión de quienes se limitan a interpretar el hecho histórico sólo como la eliminación de la dictadura porfirista para reemplazarla por la dictadura priísta; que consideran que la lucha no fue más que entre facciones ambiciosas del poder, carentes de ideología y de proyecto de país. Indudablemente que en el proceso se manifestaron las ambiciones personales en el río revuelto, como suele suceder en cualquier obra humana.
No puede ignorarse, por ejemplo, la influencia intelectual de personajes como Ricardo Flores Magón que, de alguna manera, ilustró a los ejércitos campesinos de Zapata y Villa; ni a la de Andrés Molina Enríquez y Wistano Luis Orozco, cuyos trabajos intelectuales dieron pie a la reforma agraria.
Ni a los progresistas que se avocaron a la elaboración de la Constitución de 1917, con personalidades como la de Heriberto Jara y Francisco Mújica, que caracterizaron el contenido social de la norma jurídica esencial. Tampoco pueden ser ignorados militares del tipo de Salvador Alvarado que, en la acción de gobernar, dieron muestra de honestidad y compromiso con el progreso. Menos pueden ser ignorados los presidentes Carranza, De la Huerta, Obregón, Calles y Cárdenas que, independientemente de las diferencias entre ellos, algunas dirimidas por las armas, fueron consolidando el producto afirmativo de la Revolución. A ninguno de ellos habría que colocarlos en el panteón de la santidad pero, a no dudarlo, merecen sitio privilegiado en el del patriotismo.
¿Qué nos pasó? ¿Dónde se fracasó? Nadie puede negar que el ímpetu revolucionario se agotó en sí mismo. La democracia fue una asignatura pendiente, por lo menos en sus aspectos formales de tipo representativo; en su ausencia, la clase revolucionaria devino en plutocracia; el güisqui suplantó al tequila y al sotol; las universidades gringas educaron a los hijos de los revolucionarios; la promoción social de la educación degeneró en instrumento de control político, al igual que la reforma agraria y el fomento agrícola. Los cañonazos de dinero a los generales revolucionarios para que se mantuvieran en paz, terminaron en las jugosas comisiones por contratos o adquisiciones. La revolución se bajó del caballo y se subió al Cadillac. Los conflictos sociales terminaron en represión. Ahí se acabó el ensueño. También se ahogó la identidad y el patriotismo, por lo menos en lo que toca a la clase gobernante. Hoy estamos en la más lastimosa orfandad. Carentes de horizonte para dirigir el esfuerzo. Sometidos a la más feroz de las violencias, la del hambre y el infortunio. Estamos ante el riesgo de perder la viabilidad como país independiente, al grado que hay pensadores que postulan la plena entrega a los Estados Unidos.
Castañeda y Aguilar Camín, desprovistos de toda suerte de vergüenza se manifiestan proclives a que México deje de ver al pasado y se decida por incorporarse de lleno al esquema norteamericano de dominación, como clave para acceder al progreso; van al contrario de la conseja que dice que es preferible ser cabeza de ratón que cola de león. Es una verdadera necedad suponer que quienes dominan en el país vecino harán algo que suponga beneficiar los intereses de los mexicanos; con todo derecho ellos ven por los suyos y la historia, esa terca historia que convocan a olvidar, nos demuestra que no sólo son distintos a los nuestros, sino que son en alto grado contradictorios. Con una argumentación engañosa pretenden comparar los casos de México y Turquía, esta última respecto de su pretensión de incorporarse a la Unión Europea. La ligera diferencia es que los europeos proyectan un estado supranacional basado en el fortalecimiento del conjunto mediado del fortalecimiento de cada una de las partes; en tanto que el norteamericano sólo entiende de destinos manifiestos de dominación y explotación de los dominados. Es la degeneración.
Bienvenida la nueva publicación periódica del Gobierno Legítimo y del Movimiento Nacional en Defensa del Petróleo, la Soberanía y la Economía Popular. REGENERACION es su título y resulta por demás simbólico. De un lado, recupera el nombre de la publicación en que Ricardo Flores Magón y el Partido Liberal Mexicano plasmaron el pensamiento revolucionario de contenido social; del otro, atiende a la emergencia por rescatar al país de la debacle degenerativa en que los han sumido los tecnócratas neoliberales al servicio de la mafia de privilegiados que dice gobernarnos.
Has Obama Sold Out to Big Ag?
How Water Hogs Hijacked Obama's Delta Science Team
By DAN BACHER
CounterPunch
A scientific panel charged with reviewing federal plans to rebuild imperiled Central Valley salmon and Delta smelt populations has been "hijacked" by advocates of increased water pumping from the California Delta, fishing, tribal and environmental groups charge.
Fishermen and environmental justice advocates are alarmed that no coastal or Delta Representatives, commercial fishermen, recreational anglers, Indian Tribal leaders, Delta farmers and others who are directly impacted by the collapse of Central Valley salmon and other fish populations are being asked to testify before the panel convened by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
The team of scientists empanelled by the NAS begins a five-day meeting on Sunday, January 24 at the University of California, Davis. The federal fish restoration plans (biological opinion) under review are strongly opposed by western San Joaquin Valley corporate agribusiness, southern California land speculators and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"The NAS panel came about after one of the biggest corporate agricultural operators in the San Joaquin Valley, Stewart Resnick, asked Senator Diane Feinstein to request the review and earmark $750,000 in taxpayer funds to make it happen," according to Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA).
Feinstein and the Obama administration complied with Resnick's request to reexamine the biological opinion after Resnick sent a letter to Feinstein on September 4. In the letter, Resnick claimed that the biological opinion to prevent endangered salmon and smelt from becoming extinct was “exacerbating the state’s severe drought” because it reduced the water available to irrigate farmland. He claimed that “sloppy science” by federal fishery agencies had led to “regulatory-induced water shortages." “I really appreciate your involvement in this issue,” Resnick stated.
Resnick, a major campaign contributor to leading California politicians in both the Democratic and Republican parties, has made tens of millions of dollars from buying public water on the cheap and reselling it back to the state at substantial profit. He has contributed heavily to the campaigns of Senator Feinstein, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Governor Schwarzenegger.
Resnick is a Beverly Hills billionaire, philanthropist and major political donor whose companies, including Paramount Farms, own more than 115,000 acres of land in Kern County, according to the Contra Costa Times. The "limousine liberal" also owns Westside Mutual Water Company in Bakersfield, which has taken control of the formerly public Kern Water Bank. Other companies that Resnick and his wife, Lynda, own include POM Wonderful, Teleflora, the nation’s largest floral wire service, FIJI Water, and Suterra, a pesticide company.
Resnick’s agricultural companies, based in Kern County, Kings, Tulare, and Fresno Counties, comprise the largest farming operation of tree crops in the world, processing citrus fruit, pomegranates, almonds, and pistachios.
Is the Obama Administration Repeating the Same Blunders As the Bush Regime?
Grader said the strategy of getting the NAS to review salmon restoration plans was first used by then Vice President Dick Cheney when federal plans in 2001 restricted the water diverted by agribusiness in the upper Klamath River in an effort to protect threatened salmon from extinction during drought.
"The Cheney strategy was to have a rushed NAS review identify enough areas of scientific uncertainty that the salmon restoration measures might be cast in doubt," said Grader. "Six months later, the resulting change in the federal water plans on the Klamath helped spark the biggest adult salmon kill in Western U.S. history."
Over 68,000 salmon perished in the unprecedented environmental disaster, spurred by warm, low water conditions on the Klamath at the height of the fall salmon spawning run.
“The good news is the science is solid behind this salmon rebuilding plan,” Grader stated. “The truth supports salmon fishermen who have been warning that too much water is being taken from the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta estuary and its salmon. Those who covet the water needed to keep our salmon and the Delta alive are piling on to sway the NAS panel against salmon conservation.”
“The federal National Marine Fisheries Service did a good job developing the salmon restoration plan. The NAS panel will also hear at length from the federal fish scientists who put this plan together, which is good,” added Grader.
The Delta is the largest and most important estuary on the West Coast of the Americas and provides habitat and a migratory pathway between Central Valley streams and the Golden Gate for the West Coast’s second largest salmon run. The chinook (king) salmon of the Central Valley that depend on the Delta are the "backbone" of ocean salmon fisheries off California and Oregon, according to Grader.
However, the NAS panel will also hear from U.S. Rep. Jim Costa of Fresno, CA and a representative of U.S. Rep. Dennis Cardoza of Merced, CA, who are the Democratic Party "water boys" for corporate agribusiness.
"Both Congressmen are well-known proponents of maximizing water diversions from the Delta," emphasized Grader. "Both are strong advocates for corporate San Joaquin Valley agriculture operations and their quest for ever-more northern California water from the Delta. Western San Joaquin growers and their Congressional representatives have overlooked or belittled clear evidence that Delta water withdrawals have exceeded the ecological carrying capacity of the Delta."
Grader said twice before Western San Joaquin interests and developers have pressured sitting California governors to quash scientific information and findings by the State Water Board – in 1988 and again in 1993 – because the science indicated water exports from the Delta would have to be reduced in order to save the Delta, its fish, and the economies that rely on the health of the estuary.
The water exporters have further refused to acknowledge the economic damage done to Oregon and California’s multi-billion dollar sport and commercial salmon fishery caused by the excessive water withdrawals from the Delta.
“Why weren't our congressional representatives that represent the coastal communities invited to address this group? We’ve been reeling from two consecutive years of no salmon fishing, and our voices deserve to be heard,” said Larry Collins, a San Francisco-based commercial salmon fishermen.
While commercial salmon fishermen aren't even represented on the witness list, the NAS, in a bizarre move, has invited a representative of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, which studies skipjack and yellowfin tuna populations, to testify before the pane. These deep sea fish breed in Mexico and in warm years are sometimes found as far north as Point Conception in Santa Barbara.
"It is ridiculous to suggest that the West Coast's largest salmon run can be replaced by increased fishing of skipjack tuna in Southern California," quipped Grader. "This leads me to question whether the Department of the Interior is serious about restoring the West Coast salmon fishery and the thousands of lost jobs in coastal communities in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington."
Delta Residents, Fishermen and Tribes Are Insulted by Exclusion from Panel Testimony
The NAS will also hear from a representative of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California that supports increased transfer of water from the Delta, where it’s needed to keep Delta farms and fish thriving, to new residential developments in southern California. The NAS panel will also hear from water transfer advocate B.J. Miller, an independent consultant who has made a career representing many of the largest water agencies in California.
Miller, who is listed on the panel as a "consultant," is expected to testify that he has found no correlation between Delta smelt populations and Delta pumping, according to the fishing and environmental groups. Miller has no University affiliations and his research has never been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. He has been listed as a "Consulting Engineer" for agricultural groups, including the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, a major beneficiary of Delta pumping.
"The panel has also unexplainably invited testimony from Scott Hamilton who is with a group called Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, which is anything but," said Grader. "This group is housed in Stewart Resnick's Paramount Farms in Kern County."
The Coalition for a Sustainable Delta is one of four "Astroturf" groups - front organizations set up by big business and water agencies to portray themselves as "grassroots" groups - lobbying for increased pumping of northern California and Delta water to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness and southern California.
"This is an insult to Delta residents who will be most affected by the decisions of this panel," said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla of Restore the Delta. "Delta farmers and Delta cities rely on water from the Delta, which has suffered from water quality problems from overpumping in previous years. The collapse of Delta fish populations has also severely impacted the Delta's and California Coastal commercial, sportfishing and tourism industries, to say nothing of the natural environment. Neither Restore the Delta staff, nor any of its 4500 members were invited to testify before the panel."
Mark Franco, headman of the Winnemem Wintu (McCloud River) Tribe, said the exclusion of tribal representation from the panel testimony is "a continuation of the past 150 plus years of denial that tribal people have a right to discuss the protection of this state's resources."
"By not including a tribal perspective of the connectedness of all parts of the environment, plans will be made and years of hard work by all of us will be wasted while the delta and the rivers connected to it are destroyed," Franco stated. "When will the government leaders wake up and see that we who have lived in these areas for centuries know what the past brought and the future holds? As Florence Jones, our spiritual leader, said, 'We all just can't be dumb and die.'"
Franco was hopeful that someone from the tribal communities impacted will be able to speak at these "government sanctioned circuses."
Representatives of fishing, tribal and environmental groups wonder whether these industry groups even belong as "expert witnesses" at a hearing for an "independent scientific review" of the biological opinion determining freshwater flows needed to restore salmon, smelt, and other species of fish.
"We had expected better from the current administration," said Byron Leydecker of Friends of the Trinity River. " Seeing that the National Academy of Science review will be an extended process, we hope that representatives from the salmon industry, Delta communities and the independent, University-affiliated biologists who are studying the decline of Delta fish populations will be given an equal opportunity to testify in the near future."
A Political Farce Disguised as "Science"
I have called and emailed representatives from the National Academy of Sciences. However, I haven't yet received any response to my question as to why big agribusiness and water district officials have been invited to testify before the science panel, but no coastal or Delta Representatives, fishermen, Delta farmers, California Indian tribal members or environmental justice communities have been asked to speak before the panel.
I am appalled that Feinstein, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar and the Obama administration have agreed to conduct a political farce under the guise of "science." The irony is that the biological opinion that is being "reviewed" by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a plan that a federal judge ordered rewritten under the Bush administration. Now the Obama administration is doing a review of court-ordered biological opinion that was started under the Bush administration!
Doesn't that put the Obama administration to the environmental right of the Bush administration, since it was the re-written biological opinion begun under the Bush administration that "limousine liberal" Stewart Resnick and southern California water interests are challenging because it is "too protective" of salmon, smelt and other fish?
The same agribusiness and southern California interests that are pushing for the gutting of Endangered Species Act protections for salmon and smelt are campaigning for the construction of a peripheral canal and new dams. These big water interests collaborated with Steinberg, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to ram a water policy/water bond package through the Legislature in November 2009 that creates a clear path to the construction of a peripheral canal and Temperance Flat and Sites reservoirs.
If the canal is built, fish advocates believe that it will result in pushing Sacramento River winter run and spring run chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and southern resident killer whales over the edge of extinction. For more information, go to http://www.calsport.org or http://www.restorethedelta.org.
Dan Bacher can be reached at: Danielbacher@fishsniffer.com
By DAN BACHER
CounterPunch
A scientific panel charged with reviewing federal plans to rebuild imperiled Central Valley salmon and Delta smelt populations has been "hijacked" by advocates of increased water pumping from the California Delta, fishing, tribal and environmental groups charge.
Fishermen and environmental justice advocates are alarmed that no coastal or Delta Representatives, commercial fishermen, recreational anglers, Indian Tribal leaders, Delta farmers and others who are directly impacted by the collapse of Central Valley salmon and other fish populations are being asked to testify before the panel convened by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
The team of scientists empanelled by the NAS begins a five-day meeting on Sunday, January 24 at the University of California, Davis. The federal fish restoration plans (biological opinion) under review are strongly opposed by western San Joaquin Valley corporate agribusiness, southern California land speculators and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"The NAS panel came about after one of the biggest corporate agricultural operators in the San Joaquin Valley, Stewart Resnick, asked Senator Diane Feinstein to request the review and earmark $750,000 in taxpayer funds to make it happen," according to Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA).
Feinstein and the Obama administration complied with Resnick's request to reexamine the biological opinion after Resnick sent a letter to Feinstein on September 4. In the letter, Resnick claimed that the biological opinion to prevent endangered salmon and smelt from becoming extinct was “exacerbating the state’s severe drought” because it reduced the water available to irrigate farmland. He claimed that “sloppy science” by federal fishery agencies had led to “regulatory-induced water shortages." “I really appreciate your involvement in this issue,” Resnick stated.
Resnick, a major campaign contributor to leading California politicians in both the Democratic and Republican parties, has made tens of millions of dollars from buying public water on the cheap and reselling it back to the state at substantial profit. He has contributed heavily to the campaigns of Senator Feinstein, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Governor Schwarzenegger.
Resnick is a Beverly Hills billionaire, philanthropist and major political donor whose companies, including Paramount Farms, own more than 115,000 acres of land in Kern County, according to the Contra Costa Times. The "limousine liberal" also owns Westside Mutual Water Company in Bakersfield, which has taken control of the formerly public Kern Water Bank. Other companies that Resnick and his wife, Lynda, own include POM Wonderful, Teleflora, the nation’s largest floral wire service, FIJI Water, and Suterra, a pesticide company.
Resnick’s agricultural companies, based in Kern County, Kings, Tulare, and Fresno Counties, comprise the largest farming operation of tree crops in the world, processing citrus fruit, pomegranates, almonds, and pistachios.
Is the Obama Administration Repeating the Same Blunders As the Bush Regime?
Grader said the strategy of getting the NAS to review salmon restoration plans was first used by then Vice President Dick Cheney when federal plans in 2001 restricted the water diverted by agribusiness in the upper Klamath River in an effort to protect threatened salmon from extinction during drought.
"The Cheney strategy was to have a rushed NAS review identify enough areas of scientific uncertainty that the salmon restoration measures might be cast in doubt," said Grader. "Six months later, the resulting change in the federal water plans on the Klamath helped spark the biggest adult salmon kill in Western U.S. history."
Over 68,000 salmon perished in the unprecedented environmental disaster, spurred by warm, low water conditions on the Klamath at the height of the fall salmon spawning run.
“The good news is the science is solid behind this salmon rebuilding plan,” Grader stated. “The truth supports salmon fishermen who have been warning that too much water is being taken from the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta estuary and its salmon. Those who covet the water needed to keep our salmon and the Delta alive are piling on to sway the NAS panel against salmon conservation.”
“The federal National Marine Fisheries Service did a good job developing the salmon restoration plan. The NAS panel will also hear at length from the federal fish scientists who put this plan together, which is good,” added Grader.
The Delta is the largest and most important estuary on the West Coast of the Americas and provides habitat and a migratory pathway between Central Valley streams and the Golden Gate for the West Coast’s second largest salmon run. The chinook (king) salmon of the Central Valley that depend on the Delta are the "backbone" of ocean salmon fisheries off California and Oregon, according to Grader.
However, the NAS panel will also hear from U.S. Rep. Jim Costa of Fresno, CA and a representative of U.S. Rep. Dennis Cardoza of Merced, CA, who are the Democratic Party "water boys" for corporate agribusiness.
"Both Congressmen are well-known proponents of maximizing water diversions from the Delta," emphasized Grader. "Both are strong advocates for corporate San Joaquin Valley agriculture operations and their quest for ever-more northern California water from the Delta. Western San Joaquin growers and their Congressional representatives have overlooked or belittled clear evidence that Delta water withdrawals have exceeded the ecological carrying capacity of the Delta."
Grader said twice before Western San Joaquin interests and developers have pressured sitting California governors to quash scientific information and findings by the State Water Board – in 1988 and again in 1993 – because the science indicated water exports from the Delta would have to be reduced in order to save the Delta, its fish, and the economies that rely on the health of the estuary.
The water exporters have further refused to acknowledge the economic damage done to Oregon and California’s multi-billion dollar sport and commercial salmon fishery caused by the excessive water withdrawals from the Delta.
“Why weren't our congressional representatives that represent the coastal communities invited to address this group? We’ve been reeling from two consecutive years of no salmon fishing, and our voices deserve to be heard,” said Larry Collins, a San Francisco-based commercial salmon fishermen.
While commercial salmon fishermen aren't even represented on the witness list, the NAS, in a bizarre move, has invited a representative of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, which studies skipjack and yellowfin tuna populations, to testify before the pane. These deep sea fish breed in Mexico and in warm years are sometimes found as far north as Point Conception in Santa Barbara.
"It is ridiculous to suggest that the West Coast's largest salmon run can be replaced by increased fishing of skipjack tuna in Southern California," quipped Grader. "This leads me to question whether the Department of the Interior is serious about restoring the West Coast salmon fishery and the thousands of lost jobs in coastal communities in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington."
Delta Residents, Fishermen and Tribes Are Insulted by Exclusion from Panel Testimony
The NAS will also hear from a representative of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California that supports increased transfer of water from the Delta, where it’s needed to keep Delta farms and fish thriving, to new residential developments in southern California. The NAS panel will also hear from water transfer advocate B.J. Miller, an independent consultant who has made a career representing many of the largest water agencies in California.
Miller, who is listed on the panel as a "consultant," is expected to testify that he has found no correlation between Delta smelt populations and Delta pumping, according to the fishing and environmental groups. Miller has no University affiliations and his research has never been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. He has been listed as a "Consulting Engineer" for agricultural groups, including the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, a major beneficiary of Delta pumping.
"The panel has also unexplainably invited testimony from Scott Hamilton who is with a group called Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, which is anything but," said Grader. "This group is housed in Stewart Resnick's Paramount Farms in Kern County."
The Coalition for a Sustainable Delta is one of four "Astroturf" groups - front organizations set up by big business and water agencies to portray themselves as "grassroots" groups - lobbying for increased pumping of northern California and Delta water to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness and southern California.
"This is an insult to Delta residents who will be most affected by the decisions of this panel," said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla of Restore the Delta. "Delta farmers and Delta cities rely on water from the Delta, which has suffered from water quality problems from overpumping in previous years. The collapse of Delta fish populations has also severely impacted the Delta's and California Coastal commercial, sportfishing and tourism industries, to say nothing of the natural environment. Neither Restore the Delta staff, nor any of its 4500 members were invited to testify before the panel."
Mark Franco, headman of the Winnemem Wintu (McCloud River) Tribe, said the exclusion of tribal representation from the panel testimony is "a continuation of the past 150 plus years of denial that tribal people have a right to discuss the protection of this state's resources."
"By not including a tribal perspective of the connectedness of all parts of the environment, plans will be made and years of hard work by all of us will be wasted while the delta and the rivers connected to it are destroyed," Franco stated. "When will the government leaders wake up and see that we who have lived in these areas for centuries know what the past brought and the future holds? As Florence Jones, our spiritual leader, said, 'We all just can't be dumb and die.'"
Franco was hopeful that someone from the tribal communities impacted will be able to speak at these "government sanctioned circuses."
Representatives of fishing, tribal and environmental groups wonder whether these industry groups even belong as "expert witnesses" at a hearing for an "independent scientific review" of the biological opinion determining freshwater flows needed to restore salmon, smelt, and other species of fish.
"We had expected better from the current administration," said Byron Leydecker of Friends of the Trinity River. " Seeing that the National Academy of Science review will be an extended process, we hope that representatives from the salmon industry, Delta communities and the independent, University-affiliated biologists who are studying the decline of Delta fish populations will be given an equal opportunity to testify in the near future."
A Political Farce Disguised as "Science"
I have called and emailed representatives from the National Academy of Sciences. However, I haven't yet received any response to my question as to why big agribusiness and water district officials have been invited to testify before the science panel, but no coastal or Delta Representatives, fishermen, Delta farmers, California Indian tribal members or environmental justice communities have been asked to speak before the panel.
I am appalled that Feinstein, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar and the Obama administration have agreed to conduct a political farce under the guise of "science." The irony is that the biological opinion that is being "reviewed" by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a plan that a federal judge ordered rewritten under the Bush administration. Now the Obama administration is doing a review of court-ordered biological opinion that was started under the Bush administration!
Doesn't that put the Obama administration to the environmental right of the Bush administration, since it was the re-written biological opinion begun under the Bush administration that "limousine liberal" Stewart Resnick and southern California water interests are challenging because it is "too protective" of salmon, smelt and other fish?
The same agribusiness and southern California interests that are pushing for the gutting of Endangered Species Act protections for salmon and smelt are campaigning for the construction of a peripheral canal and new dams. These big water interests collaborated with Steinberg, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to ram a water policy/water bond package through the Legislature in November 2009 that creates a clear path to the construction of a peripheral canal and Temperance Flat and Sites reservoirs.
If the canal is built, fish advocates believe that it will result in pushing Sacramento River winter run and spring run chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and southern resident killer whales over the edge of extinction. For more information, go to http://www.calsport.org or http://www.restorethedelta.org.
Dan Bacher can be reached at: Danielbacher@fishsniffer.com
Mujeres mexicanas y residentes en México expresan su solidaridad con el pueblo saharaui
Rebelión
Recientemente y por primera vez desde 1975, cuando al abandono de España de su colonia y provincia en el Sáhara Occidental siguió la guerra de Marruecos y Mauritania contra el Frente Polisario, los medios mexicanos dedicaron algunas líneas al pueblo saharaui. Los diarios, la televisión y la radio de nuestro país cubrieron la huelga de hambre de Aminetu Haidar, defensora de los derechos humanos arbitrariamente detenida y despojada de su pasaporte por el gobierno marroquí, potencia ocupante del territorio del Sáhara Occidental. La huelga de hambre de Aminetu se prolongó durante 32 días, hasta que se atendió su legítima demanda de volver a su hogar y su familia en la ciudad de El Aaiún en el Sáhara bajo ocupación militar marroquí. Sin embargo, el sufrimiento del pueblo saharaui continúa, ya sea en los campamentos de población refugiada en el desierto más inhóspito en territorio argelino, en los territorios ocupados por Marruecos o en la soledad del exilio como única opción de vida.
La represión marroquí se ha endurecido a partir del regreso de Aminetu al Sáhara Occidental y se ha cebado con las mujeres saharauis. Aminetu se encuentra prácticamente bajo arresto domiciliario, se prohibieron las manifestaciones de alegría por su retorno y se detiene y tortura a toda persona que desee acercarse a saludarla. Además, siete activistas saharauis de derechos humanos permanecen en la cárcel de Salé, al norte de Rabat, desde el 8 de octubre de 2009 como presos de conciencia: Alí Salem Tamek, Brahim Dahane, Ahmad Anasiri, Dagja Lachgar, Yahdih Ettarrouzi, Saleh Lebayhi y Rachid Sghayar. A esta lista habría que sumar los cientos de nombres de personas detenidas o desaparecidas cuyos casos han sido documentados por la Asociación de Familiares de Presos y Desaparecidos Saharauis.
Pedimos al periodismo mexicano no hacerse cómplice del olvido al que el bloqueo mediático ha condenado al pueblo saharaui. Invitamos al pueblo de México a conocer la historia del Sáhara Occidental y a manifestar su repudio a la cobarde política española que dejó trunco el último proceso de descolonización en el África, y su repudio a la política genocida y expansionista del reino marroquí contra un pueblo que lleva 34 años confiando inútilmente en el derecho internacional y sus instituciones. Las personas interesadas pueden comunicarse a la Asociación Mexicana de Amistad con la República Árabe Saharaui (http://www.mexicoporelsahara.org).
1. Atenea Acevedo, internacionalista, traductora y escritora feminista
2. Sandra Hernández, internacionalista
3. Olivia Mora, diseñadora
4. Adriana Guadalupe Velasco Arzamendi, geógrafa, Programa Oportunidades
5. Eloína López Cano, académica, periodista y regidora del Ayuntamiento de Acapulco
6. Asela de la Vega Verduzco, periodista, directora de Cultura Municipal
7. Zoraida Vásquez Beveraggi, locutora y escritora
8. María Antonieta Ávalos Tenorio
9. Francesca Gargallo Celentani, académica y escritora
10. Helena Scully Gargallo
11. Érika Núñez Alcántar, reportera
12. Reveca Enriqueta Rivera Galicia, diseñadora
13. Yunuen Montero Salcedo
14. Yuriria Montero Salcedo
15. Joanna It-zel Becerra Ibarra, cooperante mexicana en los campamentos de población refugiada
16. Ana Georgina Negrete Salinas, antropóloga
17. Norma Salinas González, química
18. Yolanda Bello Olvera, traductora
19. July Méndez Tovar, locutora
20. Martha Mora
21. Celia Gutiérrez Reveles
22. Michelle Chantal Iturbe Mazari, estudiante
23. Isabel Salazar
24. Aída Teresa Segovia Peñúñuri, catedrática universitaria de la Universidad de Guadalajara
25. Michelle Solano
26. Beatriz Eugenia Romero Cuevas
27. Livia Olvera Snyder
28. Claudia M. Salazar Villava, académica de la UAM Xochimilco
29. Linamar Campos-Flores, editora de la Ballena de Jonás y estudiante
30. Michèle Chauveur, librepensadora por la Luz y la Paz
31. María de Lourdes Márquez Gómez, historiadora
32. Mónica Peña, estudiante, Facultad de Economía, UNAM
33. Maria Amparo Cervantes Gómez, cantante
34. Alejandra Villalpando Rentería, psicóloga
35. Diana Gutz, internacionalista
36. Adriana Acevedo Gutiérrez, empresaria pyme y comerciante
37. Elke Maria Schilling Schwerdtfeger, intérprete-traductora, voluntaria comunitaria y rescatista
38. Maritza Macín
39. Azucena Caballero Ruiz, química industrial
40. Gloria Careaga, académica de la UNAM
41. Rosario del Carmen Servin Lopez, fotógrafa y diseñadora
42. Gema Estrada Escudero
43. María Hernández Gómez, contadora pública
44. Alejandra Salgado Martínez, estudiante
45. Deyanira Pérez Hernández
46. María del Rayo Casas Ruíz, psicóloga
47. Monserrat Rojas Ortíz, estudiante
48. Noemí Luna García, periodista
49. Alejandra Ramírez Pérez, internacionalista
50. Fernanda Ytaí Cruz Pineda, estudiante de relaciones internacionales
51. Guadalupe Guerra
52. Abril Abundes, Administradora de empresas
53. Martha Maria Natalie Arrellin Rosas, Internacionalista
54. Margarita Gutiérrez
55. Jessica Pineda, comunicóloga
56. Jimena Cid del Prado García de León, diseñadora industrial
57. Zyanya Erendira López Palacios, Internacionalista
58. Mónica Hernández Ochoa, profesora de historia
59. Rosangela García Tufiño, Internacionalista
60. Asociación Vida Plena Puebla
Recientemente y por primera vez desde 1975, cuando al abandono de España de su colonia y provincia en el Sáhara Occidental siguió la guerra de Marruecos y Mauritania contra el Frente Polisario, los medios mexicanos dedicaron algunas líneas al pueblo saharaui. Los diarios, la televisión y la radio de nuestro país cubrieron la huelga de hambre de Aminetu Haidar, defensora de los derechos humanos arbitrariamente detenida y despojada de su pasaporte por el gobierno marroquí, potencia ocupante del territorio del Sáhara Occidental. La huelga de hambre de Aminetu se prolongó durante 32 días, hasta que se atendió su legítima demanda de volver a su hogar y su familia en la ciudad de El Aaiún en el Sáhara bajo ocupación militar marroquí. Sin embargo, el sufrimiento del pueblo saharaui continúa, ya sea en los campamentos de población refugiada en el desierto más inhóspito en territorio argelino, en los territorios ocupados por Marruecos o en la soledad del exilio como única opción de vida.
La represión marroquí se ha endurecido a partir del regreso de Aminetu al Sáhara Occidental y se ha cebado con las mujeres saharauis. Aminetu se encuentra prácticamente bajo arresto domiciliario, se prohibieron las manifestaciones de alegría por su retorno y se detiene y tortura a toda persona que desee acercarse a saludarla. Además, siete activistas saharauis de derechos humanos permanecen en la cárcel de Salé, al norte de Rabat, desde el 8 de octubre de 2009 como presos de conciencia: Alí Salem Tamek, Brahim Dahane, Ahmad Anasiri, Dagja Lachgar, Yahdih Ettarrouzi, Saleh Lebayhi y Rachid Sghayar. A esta lista habría que sumar los cientos de nombres de personas detenidas o desaparecidas cuyos casos han sido documentados por la Asociación de Familiares de Presos y Desaparecidos Saharauis.
Pedimos al periodismo mexicano no hacerse cómplice del olvido al que el bloqueo mediático ha condenado al pueblo saharaui. Invitamos al pueblo de México a conocer la historia del Sáhara Occidental y a manifestar su repudio a la cobarde política española que dejó trunco el último proceso de descolonización en el África, y su repudio a la política genocida y expansionista del reino marroquí contra un pueblo que lleva 34 años confiando inútilmente en el derecho internacional y sus instituciones. Las personas interesadas pueden comunicarse a la Asociación Mexicana de Amistad con la República Árabe Saharaui (http://www.mexicoporelsahara.org).
1. Atenea Acevedo, internacionalista, traductora y escritora feminista
2. Sandra Hernández, internacionalista
3. Olivia Mora, diseñadora
4. Adriana Guadalupe Velasco Arzamendi, geógrafa, Programa Oportunidades
5. Eloína López Cano, académica, periodista y regidora del Ayuntamiento de Acapulco
6. Asela de la Vega Verduzco, periodista, directora de Cultura Municipal
7. Zoraida Vásquez Beveraggi, locutora y escritora
8. María Antonieta Ávalos Tenorio
9. Francesca Gargallo Celentani, académica y escritora
10. Helena Scully Gargallo
11. Érika Núñez Alcántar, reportera
12. Reveca Enriqueta Rivera Galicia, diseñadora
13. Yunuen Montero Salcedo
14. Yuriria Montero Salcedo
15. Joanna It-zel Becerra Ibarra, cooperante mexicana en los campamentos de población refugiada
16. Ana Georgina Negrete Salinas, antropóloga
17. Norma Salinas González, química
18. Yolanda Bello Olvera, traductora
19. July Méndez Tovar, locutora
20. Martha Mora
21. Celia Gutiérrez Reveles
22. Michelle Chantal Iturbe Mazari, estudiante
23. Isabel Salazar
24. Aída Teresa Segovia Peñúñuri, catedrática universitaria de la Universidad de Guadalajara
25. Michelle Solano
26. Beatriz Eugenia Romero Cuevas
27. Livia Olvera Snyder
28. Claudia M. Salazar Villava, académica de la UAM Xochimilco
29. Linamar Campos-Flores, editora de la Ballena de Jonás y estudiante
30. Michèle Chauveur, librepensadora por la Luz y la Paz
31. María de Lourdes Márquez Gómez, historiadora
32. Mónica Peña, estudiante, Facultad de Economía, UNAM
33. Maria Amparo Cervantes Gómez, cantante
34. Alejandra Villalpando Rentería, psicóloga
35. Diana Gutz, internacionalista
36. Adriana Acevedo Gutiérrez, empresaria pyme y comerciante
37. Elke Maria Schilling Schwerdtfeger, intérprete-traductora, voluntaria comunitaria y rescatista
38. Maritza Macín
39. Azucena Caballero Ruiz, química industrial
40. Gloria Careaga, académica de la UNAM
41. Rosario del Carmen Servin Lopez, fotógrafa y diseñadora
42. Gema Estrada Escudero
43. María Hernández Gómez, contadora pública
44. Alejandra Salgado Martínez, estudiante
45. Deyanira Pérez Hernández
46. María del Rayo Casas Ruíz, psicóloga
47. Monserrat Rojas Ortíz, estudiante
48. Noemí Luna García, periodista
49. Alejandra Ramírez Pérez, internacionalista
50. Fernanda Ytaí Cruz Pineda, estudiante de relaciones internacionales
51. Guadalupe Guerra
52. Abril Abundes, Administradora de empresas
53. Martha Maria Natalie Arrellin Rosas, Internacionalista
54. Margarita Gutiérrez
55. Jessica Pineda, comunicóloga
56. Jimena Cid del Prado García de León, diseñadora industrial
57. Zyanya Erendira López Palacios, Internacionalista
58. Mónica Hernández Ochoa, profesora de historia
59. Rosangela García Tufiño, Internacionalista
60. Asociación Vida Plena Puebla
Security Fools
The Rule of Law Has Been Lost
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
CounterPunch
What is the greatest human achievement? Many would answer in terms of some architectural or engineering feat: The Great Pyramids, skyscrapers, a bridge span, or sending men to the moon. Others might say the subduing of some deadly disease or Einstein’s theory of relativity.
The greatest human achievement is the subordination of government to law. This was an English achievement that required eight centuries of struggle, beginning in the ninth century when King Alfred the Great codified the common law, moving forward with the Magna Carta in the thirteenth century and culminating with the Glorious Revolution in the late seventeenth century.
The success of this long struggle made law a shield of the people. As an English colony, America inherited this unique achievement that made English speaking peoples the most free in the world.
In the first decade of the twenty-first century, this achievement was lost in the United States and, perhaps, in England as well.
As Lawrence Stratton and I show in our book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions (2000), the protective features of law in the U.S. were eroded in the twentieth century by prosecutorial abuse and by setting aside law in order to better pursue criminals. By the time of our second edition (2008), law as a shield of the people no longer existed. Respect for the Constitution and rule of law had given way to executive branch claims that during time of war government is not constrained by law or Constitution.
Government lawyers told President Bush that he did not have to obey the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which prohibits the government from spying on citizens without a warrant, thus destroying the right to privacy. The U.S. Department of Justice ruled that the President did not have to obey U.S. law prohibiting torture or the Geneva Conventions. Habeas corpus protection, a Constitutional right, was stripped from U.S. citizens. Medieval dungeons, torture, and the windowless cells of Stalin’s Lubyanka Prison reappeared under American government auspices.
The American people’s elected representatives in Congress endorsed the executive branch’s overthrow of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Law schools and bar associations were essentially silent in the face of this overthrow of mankind’s greatest achievement. Some parts of the federal judiciary voted with the executive branch; other parts made a feeble resistance. Today in the name of “the war on terror,” the executive branch does whatever it wants. There is no accountability.
The First Amendment has been abridged and may soon be criminalized. Protests against, and criticisms of, the U.S. government’s illegal invasions of Muslim countries and war crimes against civilian populations have been construed by executive branch officials as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” As American citizens have been imprisoned for giving aid to Muslim charities that the executive branch has decreed, without proof in a court of law, to be under the control of “terrorists,” any form of opposition to the government’s wars and criminal actions can also be construed as aiding terrorists and be cause for arrest and indefinite detention.
One Obama appointee, Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, advocates that the U.S. government create a cadre of covert agents to infiltrate anti-war groups and groups opposed to U.S.government policies in order to provoke them into actions or statements for which they can be discredited and even arrested.
Sunstein defines those who criticize the government’s increasingly lawless behavior as “extremists,” which, to the general public, sounds much like “terrorists.” In essence, Sunstein wants to generalize the F.B.I.’s practice of infiltrating dissidents and organizing them around a “terrorist plot” in order to arrest them. That this proposal comes from a Harvard Law School professor demonstrates the collapse of respect for law among American law professors themselves, ranging from John Yoo at Berkeley, the advocate of torture, to Sunstein at Harvard, a totalitarian who advocates war on the First Amendment.
The U.S. Department of State has taken up Sunstein’s idea. Last month Eva Golinger reported in the Swiss newspaper, Zeit-Fragen, that the State Department plans to organize youth in “Twitter Revolutions” to destabilize countries and bring about regime change in order to achieve more American puppet states, such as the ones in Egypt, Jordan, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada, Mexico, Columbia, Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic states, Britain, and Western and Eastern Europe.
The First Amendment is being closed down. Its place is being taken by propaganda in behalf of whatever government does. As Stratton and I wrote in the second edition of our book documenting the destruction of law in the United States:
Similar assaults on the rule of law can be observed in England. However, the British have not completely given up on accountable government. The Chilcot Inquiry is looking into how Britain was deceived into participating in the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq. President Obama, of course, has blocked any inquiry into how the U.S. was deceived into attacking Iraq in violation of law.
Much damning information has come out about Blair’s deception of the British government and people. Sir David Manning, foreign policy advisor to Blair, told the Chilcot Inquiry that Blair had promised Bush support for the invasion almost a year in advance. Blair had told his country that it was a last minute call based on proof of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction.
Sir William Patey told the inquiry that President Bush began talking about invading Iraq six or seven months prior to September 11, 2001. A devastating official memo has come to light from Lord Goldsmith, Prime Minister Blair’s top law official, advising Blair that an invasion of Iraq would be in breach of international law.
Now a secret and personal letter to Prime Minister Blair from his Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has surfaced. In the letter, the Foreign Secretary warned the Prime Minister that his case for military invasion of Iraq was of dubious legality and was likely as false as the argument that removing Saddam Hussein would bring Iraqis a better life.
Blair himself must now testify. He has the reputation, whether deserved or not, as one of the slickest liars in the world. But some accountability seems to be heading his way. The Sunday Times (London) reported on January 17 that the latest poll indicates that 52 percent of the British people believe that Blair deliberately misled his country in order to take Britain to war for the Americans. About one quarter of the British people think Blair should be put on trial as a war criminal.
Unlike the U.S., which takes care to keep the government unaccountable to law, Britain is a member of the International Criminal Court, so Blair does stand some risk of being held accountable for the war crimes of President George W. Bush’s regime and the U.S. Congress.
In contrast, insouciant Americans are content for their government to behave illegally. A majority supports torture despite its illegality, and a McClatchy-Ipsos poll found that 51 percent of Americans agree that “it is necessary to give up some civil liberties in order to make the country safe from terrorism.”
As our Founding Fathers warned, fools who give up liberty for security will have neither.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. His new book, How the Economy was Lost, will be published next month by AK Press / CounterPunch. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
CounterPunch
What is the greatest human achievement? Many would answer in terms of some architectural or engineering feat: The Great Pyramids, skyscrapers, a bridge span, or sending men to the moon. Others might say the subduing of some deadly disease or Einstein’s theory of relativity.
The greatest human achievement is the subordination of government to law. This was an English achievement that required eight centuries of struggle, beginning in the ninth century when King Alfred the Great codified the common law, moving forward with the Magna Carta in the thirteenth century and culminating with the Glorious Revolution in the late seventeenth century.
The success of this long struggle made law a shield of the people. As an English colony, America inherited this unique achievement that made English speaking peoples the most free in the world.
In the first decade of the twenty-first century, this achievement was lost in the United States and, perhaps, in England as well.
As Lawrence Stratton and I show in our book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions (2000), the protective features of law in the U.S. were eroded in the twentieth century by prosecutorial abuse and by setting aside law in order to better pursue criminals. By the time of our second edition (2008), law as a shield of the people no longer existed. Respect for the Constitution and rule of law had given way to executive branch claims that during time of war government is not constrained by law or Constitution.
Government lawyers told President Bush that he did not have to obey the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which prohibits the government from spying on citizens without a warrant, thus destroying the right to privacy. The U.S. Department of Justice ruled that the President did not have to obey U.S. law prohibiting torture or the Geneva Conventions. Habeas corpus protection, a Constitutional right, was stripped from U.S. citizens. Medieval dungeons, torture, and the windowless cells of Stalin’s Lubyanka Prison reappeared under American government auspices.
The American people’s elected representatives in Congress endorsed the executive branch’s overthrow of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Law schools and bar associations were essentially silent in the face of this overthrow of mankind’s greatest achievement. Some parts of the federal judiciary voted with the executive branch; other parts made a feeble resistance. Today in the name of “the war on terror,” the executive branch does whatever it wants. There is no accountability.
The First Amendment has been abridged and may soon be criminalized. Protests against, and criticisms of, the U.S. government’s illegal invasions of Muslim countries and war crimes against civilian populations have been construed by executive branch officials as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” As American citizens have been imprisoned for giving aid to Muslim charities that the executive branch has decreed, without proof in a court of law, to be under the control of “terrorists,” any form of opposition to the government’s wars and criminal actions can also be construed as aiding terrorists and be cause for arrest and indefinite detention.
One Obama appointee, Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, advocates that the U.S. government create a cadre of covert agents to infiltrate anti-war groups and groups opposed to U.S.government policies in order to provoke them into actions or statements for which they can be discredited and even arrested.
Sunstein defines those who criticize the government’s increasingly lawless behavior as “extremists,” which, to the general public, sounds much like “terrorists.” In essence, Sunstein wants to generalize the F.B.I.’s practice of infiltrating dissidents and organizing them around a “terrorist plot” in order to arrest them. That this proposal comes from a Harvard Law School professor demonstrates the collapse of respect for law among American law professors themselves, ranging from John Yoo at Berkeley, the advocate of torture, to Sunstein at Harvard, a totalitarian who advocates war on the First Amendment.
The U.S. Department of State has taken up Sunstein’s idea. Last month Eva Golinger reported in the Swiss newspaper, Zeit-Fragen, that the State Department plans to organize youth in “Twitter Revolutions” to destabilize countries and bring about regime change in order to achieve more American puppet states, such as the ones in Egypt, Jordan, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada, Mexico, Columbia, Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic states, Britain, and Western and Eastern Europe.
The First Amendment is being closed down. Its place is being taken by propaganda in behalf of whatever government does. As Stratton and I wrote in the second edition of our book documenting the destruction of law in the United States:
“Never in its history have the American people faced such danger to their constitutional protections as they face today from those in the government who hold the reins of power and from elements of the legal profession and the federal judiciary that support ‘energy in the executive.’ An assertive executive backed by an aggressive U.S. Department of Justice (sic) and unobstructed by a supine Congress and an intimidated corporate media has demonstrated an ability to ignore statutory law and public opinion. The precedents that have been set during the opening years of the twenty-first century bode ill for the future of American liberty.”
Similar assaults on the rule of law can be observed in England. However, the British have not completely given up on accountable government. The Chilcot Inquiry is looking into how Britain was deceived into participating in the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq. President Obama, of course, has blocked any inquiry into how the U.S. was deceived into attacking Iraq in violation of law.
Much damning information has come out about Blair’s deception of the British government and people. Sir David Manning, foreign policy advisor to Blair, told the Chilcot Inquiry that Blair had promised Bush support for the invasion almost a year in advance. Blair had told his country that it was a last minute call based on proof of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction.
Sir William Patey told the inquiry that President Bush began talking about invading Iraq six or seven months prior to September 11, 2001. A devastating official memo has come to light from Lord Goldsmith, Prime Minister Blair’s top law official, advising Blair that an invasion of Iraq would be in breach of international law.
Now a secret and personal letter to Prime Minister Blair from his Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has surfaced. In the letter, the Foreign Secretary warned the Prime Minister that his case for military invasion of Iraq was of dubious legality and was likely as false as the argument that removing Saddam Hussein would bring Iraqis a better life.
Blair himself must now testify. He has the reputation, whether deserved or not, as one of the slickest liars in the world. But some accountability seems to be heading his way. The Sunday Times (London) reported on January 17 that the latest poll indicates that 52 percent of the British people believe that Blair deliberately misled his country in order to take Britain to war for the Americans. About one quarter of the British people think Blair should be put on trial as a war criminal.
Unlike the U.S., which takes care to keep the government unaccountable to law, Britain is a member of the International Criminal Court, so Blair does stand some risk of being held accountable for the war crimes of President George W. Bush’s regime and the U.S. Congress.
In contrast, insouciant Americans are content for their government to behave illegally. A majority supports torture despite its illegality, and a McClatchy-Ipsos poll found that 51 percent of Americans agree that “it is necessary to give up some civil liberties in order to make the country safe from terrorism.”
As our Founding Fathers warned, fools who give up liberty for security will have neither.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. His new book, How the Economy was Lost, will be published next month by AK Press / CounterPunch. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
Veteranos de guerra luchan contra deportación
Líos con la ley hacen de indocumentados víctimas de norma migratoria en EEUU
Pilar Marrero
La Opinión
Ni el servicio militar más honroso y condecorado sirve para proteger a veteranos de guerra de Estados Unidos de la implacable ley de inmigración, que considera una larga lista delitos no violentos como causa de deportación.
Cada vez surgen a la luz más casos de veteranos que, habiendo servido en las Fuerzas Armadas de este país y en conflictos armados, se meten en problemas con la ley a su regreso y terminan en proceso de deportación.
De acuerdo con activistas, varios cientos de veteranos, quizá miles, ya han sido deportados. No hay una cifra oficial porque todas las deportaciones se cuentan juntas y el servicio militar no afecta el proceso, ni para bien ni para mal, según indicaron abogados.
Héctor López, quien ahora reside en Rosarito, Baja California, es uno de ellos.
"Luego que volví del servicio me involucré en drogas y alcohol. Me arrestaron varias veces por esa razón, por tener botellas abiertas en el carro, o drogas", comenta López en entrevista telefónica desde México. "Nunca me metí en delitos violentos, ni soy un terrorista. Pero mi servicio no importó. Me deportaron".
Para algunos, es una situación que los tomó desprevenidos después de muchos años de residencia y servicio.
Es el caso de Louie Álvarez, quien llegó de México a los 4 años de edad y a los 17, en los años 70, se enlistó en los Marines porque se sentía totalmente estadounidense. "Crecí con las películas de John Wayne y de Jimmy Stewart", apunta.
Álvarez sirvió en Vietnam, y a su regreso comenzó a andar con personas de su barrio que tomaban drogas, y a consumirlas a su vez él mismo. Lo arrestaron varias veces por posesión simple de drogas y fue a la cárcel por poco tiempo. Luego de varios años lo volvieron a arrestar con una "pequeña cantidad de marihuana en el carro". Fue a prisión, y tras cumplir su condena pasó a manos de las autoridades de inmigración para ser deportado.
Tras muchos intentos, Álvarez logró salir en libertad bajo fianza. Actualmente está en su tercer intento de apelación ante el Noveno Circuito. Pero sabe que va a perder la apelación.
"Estoy tratando de ganar tiempo", comenta Álvarez, quien vive con su familia en Aliso Viejo, en el condado de Orange. Cuando estaba detenido por la Oficina de Control de Inmigración y Aduanas (ICE), en El Centro, solicitó la naturalización para ver si se la otorgaban. Después de todo, los soldados reciben actualmente un proceso acelerado y generoso de naturalización, incluso si no son residentes, sobre todo cuando han servido en tiempos de guerra.
Su caso no ha sido negado, pero tampoco aprobado. Pero lo más probable es que no se la otorguen. Una de las condiciones que los veteranos sí deben cumplir —a pesar de que se les exime de varias otras— es la "buena conducta moral". Es decir, no haber cometido delitos.
Es más facil decirlo que hacerlo, señala Robyn Sword, quien junto con algunos de los soldados fundó el grupo Veteranos Desterrados, que busca difundir su situación.
Sword es la novia de Rohan Coombs, un veterano jamaiquino que sirvió en la primera guerra del Golfo y regresó sufriendo de PTSD (Síndrome de Estrés Postraumático), un desorden mental que no se tomó en serio hasta hace pocos años y que muchos soldados sufren al regresar de conflictos.
"Él sufría de PSTD sin saberlo, y luego su esposa murió poco antes de Navidad, y el problema creció. Comenzó a caer en picada, empezó a usar marihuana y a tomar para tratar de paliar los sentimientos que tenía. Se metió en problemas varias veces y fue convicto en tres ocasiones por delitos de droga", comenta Sword.
Aparte de la incidencia de PSTD, los problemas de drogas y alcohol no son inusuales en veteranos de guerra. Por ejemplo, un estudio del Departamento de Salud y Servicios Sociales halló que una tercera parte de los veteranos muestran problemas mentales o sicosociales y un 20% son diagnosticados con un problema de alcohol o drogas.
Muchos, alega Sword, ni siquiera saben que tienen un problema y por eso terminan en conflictos con la ley.
Coombs está en un centro de detención de ICE desde hace más de un año y tiene que ir a la corte en marzo. "Sabemos que será deportado y apelaremos el caso. Lo único que queda es que la secretaria de Seguridad Interna [Janet Napolitano] dé una orden de parar la deportación de estos veteranos… o que cambie la ley", agrega.
Si estos soldados hubieran sido ciudadanos estadounidenses al salir del servicio, nada de esto estaría pasando, explica Heather Boxeth, abogada de San Diego que ha representado, gratis, a varios de los veteranos. Un ciudadano, no importa cuántos delitos cometa, no puede ser deportado. Pero un extranjero, un residente permanente que no sea aún ciudadano, es deportable a partir de una larga lista de delitos tipificados desde la reforma migratoria de 1996 como "felonías agravadas", aunque muchos de ellos ni siquiera son delitos mayores bajo el código penal.
"Hay muchos de ellos, más de los que uno se imagina", afirma Boxeth. "El martes pasado acabo de perder otro caso, un veterano de Vietnam deportado. El juez no quería hacerlo, me lo dijo después de la audiencia. Pero no tenía opción bajo la ley".
Boxeth, la organización National Lawyers Guild y otros abogados y activistas afirman que los veteranos deberían ser considerados "nacionales" de Estados Unidos porque cuando se enlistan en las Fuerzas Armadas hacen un juramento de lealtad casi exactamente igual que el de la toma de juramento de naturalización.
"No estamos diciendo que tengan que hacerlos ciudadanos, sino que son nacionales por servir en las Fuerzas Armadas. Los tribunales me niegan ese argumento, la ley necesita cambiar", señala Boxeth.
Es una gran contradicción, dice la abogada. La ley permite la naturalización póstuma de soldados que fallecen en la guerra, pero al mismo tiempo deporta "a quienes sobrevivieron, sirvieron honradamente y luego se metieron en problemas, en muchos casos, debido a ese mismo servicio".
Algunos legisladores en Washington se han mostrado favorables a sus casos. El congresista de California, Bob Fillner, y el senador Patrick Leahy, de Vermont, han expresado su solidaridad y han hablado en beneficio de su causa.
Pero la mayoría de los legisladores "piensa que como han cometido delitos, no pueden defenderlos políticamente", señala Sword.
Justo hace unos días, el Departamento de Seguridad Interna terminó los reglamentos que facilitan la ciudadanía a los veteranos de las Fuerzas Armadas. En la actualidad, un inmigrante puede convertirse en ciudadano tan sólo con servir un día en la guerra, incluso sin ser residente permanente.
Pero la ley actual no permite a los soldados inmigrantes, por muy honorable que sea su servicio, naturalizarse si han tenido algún problema serio con la ley. Tampoco impide su deportación.
"A pesar de lo agradecidos que debemos de estar por ese servicio, eso no quiere decir que cuando la gente comete delitos no pagará las ramificaciones de los mismos. Si eres residente y cometes ciertos delitos, puedes ser deportado. Y muchos de esos delitos también probablemente dificulten la ciudadanía", afirma Chris Bentley, portavoz del DHS.
Héctor López, quien tras ser deportado a México —donde no vivía desde hacía más de 30 años— tuvo que aprender español, no entiende cómo su país puede haberlo abandonado de esa manera.
"Es muy dificil. Yo me considero un estadounidense, aquí no hay trabajos, los que hay pagan 60 pesos al día. Es cierto que cometí errores, pero tengo razones para vivir. Ahora estoy limpio de drogas, estoy saludable, esto no es justo. No soy un terrorista ni puse una bomba en ninguna parte. Yo quiero volver a mi país".
Pilar Marrero
La Opinión
Ni el servicio militar más honroso y condecorado sirve para proteger a veteranos de guerra de Estados Unidos de la implacable ley de inmigración, que considera una larga lista delitos no violentos como causa de deportación.
Cada vez surgen a la luz más casos de veteranos que, habiendo servido en las Fuerzas Armadas de este país y en conflictos armados, se meten en problemas con la ley a su regreso y terminan en proceso de deportación.
De acuerdo con activistas, varios cientos de veteranos, quizá miles, ya han sido deportados. No hay una cifra oficial porque todas las deportaciones se cuentan juntas y el servicio militar no afecta el proceso, ni para bien ni para mal, según indicaron abogados.
Héctor López, quien ahora reside en Rosarito, Baja California, es uno de ellos.
"Luego que volví del servicio me involucré en drogas y alcohol. Me arrestaron varias veces por esa razón, por tener botellas abiertas en el carro, o drogas", comenta López en entrevista telefónica desde México. "Nunca me metí en delitos violentos, ni soy un terrorista. Pero mi servicio no importó. Me deportaron".
Para algunos, es una situación que los tomó desprevenidos después de muchos años de residencia y servicio.
Es el caso de Louie Álvarez, quien llegó de México a los 4 años de edad y a los 17, en los años 70, se enlistó en los Marines porque se sentía totalmente estadounidense. "Crecí con las películas de John Wayne y de Jimmy Stewart", apunta.
Álvarez sirvió en Vietnam, y a su regreso comenzó a andar con personas de su barrio que tomaban drogas, y a consumirlas a su vez él mismo. Lo arrestaron varias veces por posesión simple de drogas y fue a la cárcel por poco tiempo. Luego de varios años lo volvieron a arrestar con una "pequeña cantidad de marihuana en el carro". Fue a prisión, y tras cumplir su condena pasó a manos de las autoridades de inmigración para ser deportado.
Tras muchos intentos, Álvarez logró salir en libertad bajo fianza. Actualmente está en su tercer intento de apelación ante el Noveno Circuito. Pero sabe que va a perder la apelación.
"Estoy tratando de ganar tiempo", comenta Álvarez, quien vive con su familia en Aliso Viejo, en el condado de Orange. Cuando estaba detenido por la Oficina de Control de Inmigración y Aduanas (ICE), en El Centro, solicitó la naturalización para ver si se la otorgaban. Después de todo, los soldados reciben actualmente un proceso acelerado y generoso de naturalización, incluso si no son residentes, sobre todo cuando han servido en tiempos de guerra.
Su caso no ha sido negado, pero tampoco aprobado. Pero lo más probable es que no se la otorguen. Una de las condiciones que los veteranos sí deben cumplir —a pesar de que se les exime de varias otras— es la "buena conducta moral". Es decir, no haber cometido delitos.
Es más facil decirlo que hacerlo, señala Robyn Sword, quien junto con algunos de los soldados fundó el grupo Veteranos Desterrados, que busca difundir su situación.
Sword es la novia de Rohan Coombs, un veterano jamaiquino que sirvió en la primera guerra del Golfo y regresó sufriendo de PTSD (Síndrome de Estrés Postraumático), un desorden mental que no se tomó en serio hasta hace pocos años y que muchos soldados sufren al regresar de conflictos.
"Él sufría de PSTD sin saberlo, y luego su esposa murió poco antes de Navidad, y el problema creció. Comenzó a caer en picada, empezó a usar marihuana y a tomar para tratar de paliar los sentimientos que tenía. Se metió en problemas varias veces y fue convicto en tres ocasiones por delitos de droga", comenta Sword.
Aparte de la incidencia de PSTD, los problemas de drogas y alcohol no son inusuales en veteranos de guerra. Por ejemplo, un estudio del Departamento de Salud y Servicios Sociales halló que una tercera parte de los veteranos muestran problemas mentales o sicosociales y un 20% son diagnosticados con un problema de alcohol o drogas.
Muchos, alega Sword, ni siquiera saben que tienen un problema y por eso terminan en conflictos con la ley.
Coombs está en un centro de detención de ICE desde hace más de un año y tiene que ir a la corte en marzo. "Sabemos que será deportado y apelaremos el caso. Lo único que queda es que la secretaria de Seguridad Interna [Janet Napolitano] dé una orden de parar la deportación de estos veteranos… o que cambie la ley", agrega.
Si estos soldados hubieran sido ciudadanos estadounidenses al salir del servicio, nada de esto estaría pasando, explica Heather Boxeth, abogada de San Diego que ha representado, gratis, a varios de los veteranos. Un ciudadano, no importa cuántos delitos cometa, no puede ser deportado. Pero un extranjero, un residente permanente que no sea aún ciudadano, es deportable a partir de una larga lista de delitos tipificados desde la reforma migratoria de 1996 como "felonías agravadas", aunque muchos de ellos ni siquiera son delitos mayores bajo el código penal.
"Hay muchos de ellos, más de los que uno se imagina", afirma Boxeth. "El martes pasado acabo de perder otro caso, un veterano de Vietnam deportado. El juez no quería hacerlo, me lo dijo después de la audiencia. Pero no tenía opción bajo la ley".
Boxeth, la organización National Lawyers Guild y otros abogados y activistas afirman que los veteranos deberían ser considerados "nacionales" de Estados Unidos porque cuando se enlistan en las Fuerzas Armadas hacen un juramento de lealtad casi exactamente igual que el de la toma de juramento de naturalización.
"No estamos diciendo que tengan que hacerlos ciudadanos, sino que son nacionales por servir en las Fuerzas Armadas. Los tribunales me niegan ese argumento, la ley necesita cambiar", señala Boxeth.
Es una gran contradicción, dice la abogada. La ley permite la naturalización póstuma de soldados que fallecen en la guerra, pero al mismo tiempo deporta "a quienes sobrevivieron, sirvieron honradamente y luego se metieron en problemas, en muchos casos, debido a ese mismo servicio".
Algunos legisladores en Washington se han mostrado favorables a sus casos. El congresista de California, Bob Fillner, y el senador Patrick Leahy, de Vermont, han expresado su solidaridad y han hablado en beneficio de su causa.
Pero la mayoría de los legisladores "piensa que como han cometido delitos, no pueden defenderlos políticamente", señala Sword.
Justo hace unos días, el Departamento de Seguridad Interna terminó los reglamentos que facilitan la ciudadanía a los veteranos de las Fuerzas Armadas. En la actualidad, un inmigrante puede convertirse en ciudadano tan sólo con servir un día en la guerra, incluso sin ser residente permanente.
Pero la ley actual no permite a los soldados inmigrantes, por muy honorable que sea su servicio, naturalizarse si han tenido algún problema serio con la ley. Tampoco impide su deportación.
"A pesar de lo agradecidos que debemos de estar por ese servicio, eso no quiere decir que cuando la gente comete delitos no pagará las ramificaciones de los mismos. Si eres residente y cometes ciertos delitos, puedes ser deportado. Y muchos de esos delitos también probablemente dificulten la ciudadanía", afirma Chris Bentley, portavoz del DHS.
Héctor López, quien tras ser deportado a México —donde no vivía desde hacía más de 30 años— tuvo que aprender español, no entiende cómo su país puede haberlo abandonado de esa manera.
"Es muy dificil. Yo me considero un estadounidense, aquí no hay trabajos, los que hay pagan 60 pesos al día. Es cierto que cometí errores, pero tengo razones para vivir. Ahora estoy limpio de drogas, estoy saludable, esto no es justo. No soy un terrorista ni puse una bomba en ninguna parte. Yo quiero volver a mi país".
U.S. War Veterans Fight Deportation
La Opinión
Not even the most decorated and honorable military service can protect U.S. war veterans from ruthless immigration laws, which consider a long list of non-violent crimes as grounds for deportation.
More and more cases have come to light of veterans who, after serving in this country’s Armed Forces and armed conflicts, get in trouble with the law when they come home and end up in deportation proceedings.
According to activists, hundreds of veterans – perhaps even thousands – have already been deported. There are no official figures because all deportations are counted together and military service has no effect, positive or negative, on the process, immigration lawyers say.
Héctor López, who now lives in Rosarito, Baja California, is one of them.
"When I came home from the service I got involved in drugs and alcohol. I was arrested a few times for that, for having open bottles in the car, or drugs,” says López in a phone interview from Mexico. "I never got involved in violent crimes, and I’m not a terrorist. But my service didn’t matter. I was deported."
For some, it’s a situation that took them by surprise after many years of residence and service.
That’s what happened to Louie Álvarez, who came here from Mexico when he was four years old. When he was 17, in the 1970s, he joined the Marines because, he says, he felt totally American. "I grew up with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart movies," he says.
Álvarez served in Vietnam, and when he came home he started hanging out with people in his neighborhood who did drugs, and he started doing drugs himself. He was arrested several times for possession and went to jail for a short time. A few years later he was arrested again with a “small quantity of marijuana in the car.” He went to prison, and after serving his time he was handed over to immigration authorities to be deported.
After many attempts, Álvarez was released on bond. He is now in his third appeal before the Ninth Circuit. But he knows he’s going to lose.
"I'm trying to buy time," said Alvarez, who lives with his family in the town of Aliso Viejo, in Orange County, Calif. When he was detained by the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in El Centro, he applied for naturalization to see if they would grant it to him. After all, soldiers currently receive an accelerated and generous process of naturalization, even if they are not residents, especially when they have served in times of war.
His case wasn’t rejected, but it wasn’t approved wither. But most likely it will not be granted. One of the conditions that veterans have to meet – despite being exempt from many others – is having “good moral conduct.” In other words, they can’t have committed any crimes.
That’s easier said than done, according to Robyn Sword, who along with some soldiers founded the group Exiled Veterans, which seeks to bring attention to their situation.
Sword is the girlfriend of Rohan Coombs, a Jamaican veteran who served in the first Gulf War and returned with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a mental disorder that was not taken seriously until recently that many returning soldiers suffer from.
"He was suffering from PTSD without knowing it, and then his wife died right before Christmas, and the problem got worse. He started to fall into a downward spiral, he started using marijuana and drinking to try to alleviate the feelings he had, He got into trouble a few times and he was convicted three times for drug offenses,” said Sword.
In addition to the incidence of PTSD, drug and alcohol problems are not uncommon in war veterans. For example, a study by the Department of Health and Human Services found that one third of veterans demonstrate mental or psychosocial problems, and 20 percent have been diagnosed with an alcohol or drug problem.
Sword claims that many don’t even know they have a problem and end up in trouble with the law.
Coombs has been in an ICE detention center for more than a year and has a trial date set for March. "We know he will be deported and will appeal the case. The only thing left is for the Secretary of Homeland Security (Janet Napolitano) to give an order to stop the deportation of these veterans ... or to change the law," she added.
If these soldiers had been U.S. citizens when they got out of the service, none of this would have happened, explained Heather Boxeth, a San Diego lawyer who has represented several veterans pro bono.
A citizen cannot be deported, no matter how many crimes he or she committed, she explained. But a foreigner, a permanent resident who is not a citizen, can be deported for committing various offenses outlined in the 1996 immigration reform act as “aggravated felonies” -- even many of them are not actually felonies under the criminal code.
"There are many more than you can imagine," said Boxeth. "Last Tuesday I lost another case, a Vietnam veteran who was deported. The judge told me after the hearing that he did not want to (deport him). But he had no choice under the law."
Boxeth, the National Lawyers Guild and other lawyers and activists argue that veterans should be considered U.S. "nationals" because when they enlist in the military, they have to take an oath of loyalty almost exactly like the oath people take to become naturalized citizens.
"We're not saying they have to make them citizens, but nationals for serving in the Armed Forces. If the courts reject that argument, the law needs to change," says Boxeth.
It is very contradictory, Boxeth says, that the law allows for the posthumous naturalization of soldiers who die in war, and yet deports "those who survived, who served honorably and then got into trouble, in many cases, because of their service."
Some lawmakers in Washington, D.C., have shown sympathy for these cases. California Congressman Bob Filner, D-Calif., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, have expressed their solidarity and spoken out on behalf of the veterans facing deportation.
But most lawmakers "think that since they have committed crimes, they can’t be defended politically," said Sword.
A few days ago, the Department of Homeland Security ended regulations that facilitated citizenship for veterans of the Armed Forces. Currently, an immigrant can become a citizen after serving only one day in a war, even if he or she is not a permanent resident.
But current law does not allow immigrant soldiers to become citizens -- regardless of how honorable their service was -- if they have had any serious problems with the law. It doesn’t prevent their deportations either.
"Even though we should be grateful for their service, that doesn’t mean that when people commit crimes they don’t pay the consequences. If you are a resident and you commit certain crimes, you can be deported. And many of these crimes also probably complicate the path to citizenship,” says Chris Bentley, spokesman for DHS.
Hector Lopez, who was deported to Mexico--where he hadn’t lived for more than 30 years, had to learn Spanish. He doesn’t understand how his country can abandon him like this.
"It is very difficult. I consider myself an American. There are no jobs here, they pay 60 pesos a day. Certainly I made mistakes, but I have reasons to live. Now I am clean, I'm healthy, this isn’t fair. I’m not a terrorist, I didn’t bomb anything. I want to return to my country. "
Not even the most decorated and honorable military service can protect U.S. war veterans from ruthless immigration laws, which consider a long list of non-violent crimes as grounds for deportation.
More and more cases have come to light of veterans who, after serving in this country’s Armed Forces and armed conflicts, get in trouble with the law when they come home and end up in deportation proceedings.
According to activists, hundreds of veterans – perhaps even thousands – have already been deported. There are no official figures because all deportations are counted together and military service has no effect, positive or negative, on the process, immigration lawyers say.
Héctor López, who now lives in Rosarito, Baja California, is one of them.
"When I came home from the service I got involved in drugs and alcohol. I was arrested a few times for that, for having open bottles in the car, or drugs,” says López in a phone interview from Mexico. "I never got involved in violent crimes, and I’m not a terrorist. But my service didn’t matter. I was deported."
For some, it’s a situation that took them by surprise after many years of residence and service.
That’s what happened to Louie Álvarez, who came here from Mexico when he was four years old. When he was 17, in the 1970s, he joined the Marines because, he says, he felt totally American. "I grew up with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart movies," he says.
Álvarez served in Vietnam, and when he came home he started hanging out with people in his neighborhood who did drugs, and he started doing drugs himself. He was arrested several times for possession and went to jail for a short time. A few years later he was arrested again with a “small quantity of marijuana in the car.” He went to prison, and after serving his time he was handed over to immigration authorities to be deported.
After many attempts, Álvarez was released on bond. He is now in his third appeal before the Ninth Circuit. But he knows he’s going to lose.
"I'm trying to buy time," said Alvarez, who lives with his family in the town of Aliso Viejo, in Orange County, Calif. When he was detained by the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in El Centro, he applied for naturalization to see if they would grant it to him. After all, soldiers currently receive an accelerated and generous process of naturalization, even if they are not residents, especially when they have served in times of war.
His case wasn’t rejected, but it wasn’t approved wither. But most likely it will not be granted. One of the conditions that veterans have to meet – despite being exempt from many others – is having “good moral conduct.” In other words, they can’t have committed any crimes.
That’s easier said than done, according to Robyn Sword, who along with some soldiers founded the group Exiled Veterans, which seeks to bring attention to their situation.
Sword is the girlfriend of Rohan Coombs, a Jamaican veteran who served in the first Gulf War and returned with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a mental disorder that was not taken seriously until recently that many returning soldiers suffer from.
"He was suffering from PTSD without knowing it, and then his wife died right before Christmas, and the problem got worse. He started to fall into a downward spiral, he started using marijuana and drinking to try to alleviate the feelings he had, He got into trouble a few times and he was convicted three times for drug offenses,” said Sword.
In addition to the incidence of PTSD, drug and alcohol problems are not uncommon in war veterans. For example, a study by the Department of Health and Human Services found that one third of veterans demonstrate mental or psychosocial problems, and 20 percent have been diagnosed with an alcohol or drug problem.
Sword claims that many don’t even know they have a problem and end up in trouble with the law.
Coombs has been in an ICE detention center for more than a year and has a trial date set for March. "We know he will be deported and will appeal the case. The only thing left is for the Secretary of Homeland Security (Janet Napolitano) to give an order to stop the deportation of these veterans ... or to change the law," she added.
If these soldiers had been U.S. citizens when they got out of the service, none of this would have happened, explained Heather Boxeth, a San Diego lawyer who has represented several veterans pro bono.
A citizen cannot be deported, no matter how many crimes he or she committed, she explained. But a foreigner, a permanent resident who is not a citizen, can be deported for committing various offenses outlined in the 1996 immigration reform act as “aggravated felonies” -- even many of them are not actually felonies under the criminal code.
"There are many more than you can imagine," said Boxeth. "Last Tuesday I lost another case, a Vietnam veteran who was deported. The judge told me after the hearing that he did not want to (deport him). But he had no choice under the law."
Boxeth, the National Lawyers Guild and other lawyers and activists argue that veterans should be considered U.S. "nationals" because when they enlist in the military, they have to take an oath of loyalty almost exactly like the oath people take to become naturalized citizens.
"We're not saying they have to make them citizens, but nationals for serving in the Armed Forces. If the courts reject that argument, the law needs to change," says Boxeth.
It is very contradictory, Boxeth says, that the law allows for the posthumous naturalization of soldiers who die in war, and yet deports "those who survived, who served honorably and then got into trouble, in many cases, because of their service."
Some lawmakers in Washington, D.C., have shown sympathy for these cases. California Congressman Bob Filner, D-Calif., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, have expressed their solidarity and spoken out on behalf of the veterans facing deportation.
But most lawmakers "think that since they have committed crimes, they can’t be defended politically," said Sword.
A few days ago, the Department of Homeland Security ended regulations that facilitated citizenship for veterans of the Armed Forces. Currently, an immigrant can become a citizen after serving only one day in a war, even if he or she is not a permanent resident.
But current law does not allow immigrant soldiers to become citizens -- regardless of how honorable their service was -- if they have had any serious problems with the law. It doesn’t prevent their deportations either.
"Even though we should be grateful for their service, that doesn’t mean that when people commit crimes they don’t pay the consequences. If you are a resident and you commit certain crimes, you can be deported. And many of these crimes also probably complicate the path to citizenship,” says Chris Bentley, spokesman for DHS.
Hector Lopez, who was deported to Mexico--where he hadn’t lived for more than 30 years, had to learn Spanish. He doesn’t understand how his country can abandon him like this.
"It is very difficult. I consider myself an American. There are no jobs here, they pay 60 pesos a day. Certainly I made mistakes, but I have reasons to live. Now I am clean, I'm healthy, this isn’t fair. I’m not a terrorist, I didn’t bomb anything. I want to return to my country. "
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