Dirty War Against Indigenous Peoples

The Mexican Military Uses the Cover of the Drug War to Repress Indigenous Movements in Guerrero

by Gloria Leticia Diaz, Proceso

translated from the original Spanish by Kristin Bricker

Guerrero's recent history is full of violence against its indigenous communities at the hands of the successive local governments and, especially, the military. [Center-left] Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) member Zeferino Torreblanca's rise to power in 2005 didn't stop the attacks; instead, they got worse. Within this context, the murder of social activists Raul Lucas and Manuel Ponce sparked international organizations' demand that the Mexican State end this escalation of repression.

Considered a "State crime against humanity" by Mexican and international civil organizations, the murder of Raul Lucas Lucia and Manuel Ponce Rosas has been added to the list of offenses against social organizers in Guerrero during Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo's administration.

The elimination of the indigenous leaders is part of "a counterinsurgency strategy and low-intensity warfare against all social organizations that resort to protests and public demonstrations," says Abel Barrera Hernandez, director of the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center.

In a resolution unanimously passed on Wednesday, March 11, the [Guerrero] State Congress rejected Gov. Torreblana's February 27 request to create a special prosecutor's office. The resolution would have requested the intervention of the Federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) to investigate the homicides.

Likewise, a group of PRD representatives and another of senators made arguments for why the PGR should take over the case. The victims' families do not trust the local authorities, who refused to intervene when the forced disappearance of Lucas Lucia and Ponce Rosas during a public event was first reported on February 13.

After the bodies of the president and secretary of the Organization for the Future of the Mixtec People (OFPM)--Lucas and Ponce, respectively--were located, the Tlachinollan Center, as the families' legal representative, criticized the the State Attorney General's Office's actions. In response, the state attorney general, Eduardo Murueta Urruitia, declared that the OFPM was mounting a "little campaign" against the Torreblanca Galindo administration and accused the OFPM of blocking the investigations, including the one carried out by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), which took up the case after the international condemnation, according to the newspaper El Sur in its Thursday, March 5 edition.

"Those declarations leave us in a high state of vulnerability and fit in with the pattern of stigmatization that has been pinned on human rights defenders. We're seen as destabilizing forces whose purpose is to damage the Mexican State's image," says Barrera Hernandez.

He adds that Lucas Lucia and Ponce Rosas stood out for having filed complaints against members of the Mexican military in Ayutla, and that their deaths "are the drop that spilled the cup of impunity, of the series of cases of human rights violations against social organizers that have been documented at the international level."

In October 2006, while Lucas Lucia was already president of the OFPM, he was unjustly detained and interrogated in a military checkpoint. In 2007 he was ambushed at a gate and shot; he almost lost his life. He filed formal complaints about these two incidents in the CNDH and the PGR.

With this record, in Abel Barrera's opinion "there's no doubt that his and Manuel's deaths fit within this strategy of low-intensity warfare against indigenous peoples, whose only crime is to live in ravines, raise their voices, and independently organize themselves."

Commotion

This past February 13, during the grand opening of a school in Ayutla, the director of municipal Public Security, retired military officer Luis Jose Sanchez, received a call on his cell phone and left the event. Minutes later, three individuals with military-style haircuts entered the place and detained Raul Lucas and Manuel Ponce, whom they violently threw into a white Jeep Liberty and left.

Lucas' wife, PRD regent Guadalupe Castro Morales, immediately went to the District Attorney's office to file a complaint regarding the forced disappearance, but it wasn't accepted; the office only opened the file ALLE /SC /O3 /AM /015 /2009, without the power to begin an investigation.

Guadalupe Castro states that moments after her husband's illegal detention she received a threatening call from Ponce's cell phone telling her to stop filing complaints in the case. On February 18 her sister-in-law, Carmen Lucas Lucia, was similarly threatened and was warned that her daughter would be the next victim.

On February 20, two decaying bodies wrapped in plastic bags were found alongside the Ayutla-Tecoanapa highway. The following day they were identified: they were the remains of Raul and Manuel.

According to the forensic report, the leaders were murdered 3-5 days prior. The bodies had signs of torture. Raul died from two gunshots to the head, and Manual was murdered by blows to the head and throat (El Sur, February 23).

The murders shook the town and hundreds of national and international human rights organizations demanded that the Mexican government punish those responsible. One declaration stands out: that of the UN's High Commissioner of Human Rights in Mexico, who visited Ayutla February 18-20 to document the leaders' forced disappearance.

"This office expresses its concern regarding the condition of vulnerability in which human rights defenders carry out their work of promoting and protecting human rights, particularly in the Costa Chica, Costa Grande, and la Montaña regions in Guerrero," stated the United Nations office's communique dated February 24.

The Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Peace Brigades, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), the Latin America Working Group (LAWG), the Due Process Foundation, and Front Line (headquartered in Dublin, Ireland) joined in.

The CNDH didn't react until February 26, and in the communique CGCP/027/09 it announced that it would take up the case and begin an investigation. By then, Raul and Manuel's bodies had already been buried.

Repression

Ever since the massacre of 11 Mixtecs in the El Charco community in June 1998 at the hands of members of the Mexican military, the indigenous region of Ayutla has been permanently militarized. The Tlachinollan Human Rights Center says that a counterinsurgency strategy disguised as federal action against drug cultivation is being developed there.

The massacred Mixtecs belonged to the Independent Organization of Mixtec and Tlapaneco Peoples (OIPMT), created in 1994. After the massacre, the Organization of Me'phaa Indigenous Peoples (OPIM) and the Organization for the Future of the Mixtec people (OFPM) arose and took up the defense of indigenous peoples faced with military or governmental aggressions.

Both organizations fight for compensation for at least 30 indigenous Tlapenecos who were tricked into being sterilized in 1998. They also denounce the rape of indigenous women as well as arbitrary detentions and abuses committed by soldiers in that region of Guerrero.

Abel Barrera points out that "raising their voices against injustice is what put them [the indigenous leaders] in the sights of those dark sectors of the State and automatically, without reason, subjected members of those organizations to monitoring, threats, and direct military actions against them."

Amongst the aggressions against members of these organizations, the raping of the Me'phaa indigenous women Valentina Rosendo Cantu and Ines Ortega Fernandez in 2002 stand out. Currently, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) is analyzing their cases in order to determine if it will send them to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, considering the Mexican State's serious failures.

Here, these cases were referred to Military Jurisdiction, which is why those responsible for the crimes enjoy impunity. On the other hand, the victims and their legal counsel, including OPIM leader Obtilia Eugenio Manuel, suffer harassment and threats (Proceso 1589 and 1616).

Since at least 2002, international bodies such as the IACHR, the UN's High Commissioner on Human Rights, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have conveyed to the Mexican State their concern for the serious human rights violations in the state of Guerrero.

Not withstanding, the intimidation has not ceased because indigenous organizations are "independent organizations' weakest link," says Barrera Hernandez.

The Tlachinollan Human Rights Center's 2008 annual report is revealing in this sense: it says that in 2007 only one complaint was filed with the CNDH for military abuses committed in the Ayutla region, but between April and May 2008 there were eight, three of them in communities where OPIM has a presence, and the others where the OFPM operates.

Barrera Hernandez points out that [the OFPM] "has had to bear the stigma of El Charco, and for defending the victims [the government] has tried to link it to guerrillas, and [as for] its leaders Raul and Manuel, it's known that they were on the military's black list."

The 2008 formal complaints are signed by 20 direct victims, as well as inhabitants of the La Fatima, El Camalote, La Cortina, and Barranca de Guadalupe communities. The abuses they suffered are raids on their homes, torture, robbery, threats, detentions in military camps, illegal interrogations, harassment, and intimidation.

In a military action that was coordinated with federal and state police, various members of the OPIM were detained on April 17, 2008: Manuel Cruz Victoriano, Orlando Manzanares Lorenzo, Natalio Ortega Cruz, Raul Hernandez Abundio, and Romualdo Santiago Hernandez. There were accused of murdering Alejandro Feliciano Garcia, an informant for the military, who was killed on January 1, 2008.

The following October 15, four of those five indigenous people obtained a permanent injunction against their imprisonment pending trial, but on October 30, an agent from the federal District Attorney's office challenged the release of the activists, who in November 2008 were declared "prisoners of conscience" by Amnesty International. Finally, this past Thursday, March 19, four were freed, and only Hernandez Abundio remains imprisoned.

In the same case, another 10 arrest warrants were issued against OPIM members, including Cuauhtemoc Ramirez, the husband of Obtilia Eugenio Manuel.

The detentions have repressive undercurrents: Orlando Manzanares and Manuel Cruz were key in the formal complaints regarding 14 forced sterilizations in El Camalodo. Meanwhile, Natalio Ortega and Romualdo Santiago Enedina are nephews of Ines Fernandez Ortega [the woman raped by soldiers who took her case to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights] and Lorenzo Fernandez Orgeta, an OPIM member who was tortured and murdered on February 9, 2008 in Ayutla, a crime that continues unpunished.

In the communique that condemns the murder of Raul Lucas Lucia and Manuel Ponce Rosas, Amnesty International Deputy Director Kerrie Howard considers the Ayutla region to be "a constant danger for those who defend the human rights of the more marginalized indigenous communities." But it isn't an exception in the state of Guerrero.

The Crime of Protesting

During the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights' 133rd session on October 15-31, 2008, Tlachinollan produced a report about the 201 criminal proceedings brought against social leaders during PRD member Zeferino Torreblanca's administration. At the close of 2008 the number had risen to 215, and even more criminal proceedings have been brought in 2009.

The human rights center details how, as a consequence of protests in which the activists took part, they were accused of crimes such as illegal privation of freedom, attacks against means of communication and transportation, rioting, damaging public facilities, sedition, sabotage, and robbery.

Tlachinollan documented that the Regional Council for the Development of the Me'paa-Bathaa Indigenous People has been subject to four criminal proceedings against nine of its leaders, and five of them are imprisoned. The Xochistlahuaca traditional authorities and the community radio station "ñmndaa, The Word of Water" have criminal proceedings against eleven leaders; two of them are already detained. The Regional Coordinating Committee of Community Authorities and Community Police has 16 criminal proceedings against 39 members, and eleven of them are imprisoned.

Likewise, the Organization of Me'phaa Indigenous Peoples has criminal proceedings against 15 of its members, and five of them are imprisoned. The Council of Communities and Ejidos* Against the La Parota Dam has two criminal proceedings against seven members, and three of them are detained. And the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Guerrero has three criminal proceedings against three leaders; one of them is detained.

In terms of people detained during protest gatherings and later charged, Tlachinollan mentions 28 students and graduates of the Ayotzinapa Normal School; 70 members of the Carrizalillo Ejido Assembly; 42 members of the Chilapa Citizen Council; and the director of the Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon Regional Center for the Defense of Human Rights, Manuel Olivares Hernandez.

For demanding respect for their labor rights, four ex-employees of the National Institute for Statistics and Geography (Inegi) were also detained in the state; in this case 25 arrest warrants were issued.

This grave situation, notes Abel Barrera, "makes it so that there is a legitimate concern amongst bodies such as the UN and the Organization of American States (OAS) over what is happening in Guerrero. [It has to do with] a lot of cases that are related to militarization and the counterinsurgency strategy, and with a State's inability to respond to demands for justice."

Translator's note:

* Ejido is piece of communally-held land and is incorporated into Mexican law.

Más de mil 200 quejas contra militares durante 2008 en México

Alejandro Montaño

Púlsar

Organizaciones mexicanas defensoras de los Derechos Humanos informaron que en los últimos dos años han aumentado 6 veces las denuncias contra militares por violaciones a garantías individuales.

Son 6 las ONGs de México que denunciaron ante la Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos (CIDH) un incremento de las denuncias en contra de las fuerzas castrenses mexicanas.
De acuerdo al informe presentado a la CIDH por los organismos defensores, en el 2006 la Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos de México (CNDH) registró 182 querellas en contra de la Secretaria de la Defensa Nacional (SEDENA). por presuntas violaciones las garantías individuales.Para el año 2008, las quejas por los mismos motivos sumaron un total de mil 230.

El documento afirma que en 28 casos se registraron muertes como consecuencia de los atropellos.

El reporte detalla que las presuntas violaciones a los derechos humanos consistieron en "cateos ilegales, detenciones arbitrarias, violaciones sexuales y torturas”.

Las ONGs mexicanas señalaron que hasta el momento no existen datos sobre alguna sentencia condenatoria a militares por violaciones graves a los derechos humanos.

Ls códigos mexicanos de Justicia Militar permiten que "cualquier delito cometido por militares sea investigado por la procuraduría castrense y juzgado por los tribunales del mismo ámbito".

Do GM Crops Increase Yield? The Answer is No

by Devinder Sharma

Dissident Voice

Lies, damn lies, and the Monsanto website. Tell a lie a hundred times, and the chances are that it will eventually appear to be true. When it comes to genetically modified crops, Monsanto makes such an effort — and it could be that you too are duped into accepting their distortions as truth.

My attention has been drawn to an article titled “Do GM crops increase yield?” on Monsanto’s web page, although I must confess that this is the first time I have visited their site.

This is how it begins: “Recently, there have been a number of claims from anti-biotechnology activists that genetically-modified (GM) crops don’t increase yields. Some have claimed that GM crops actually have lower yields than non-GM crops. Both claims are simply false.”

It then goes on to explain the terms germplasm, breeding, biotechnology, and then finally explains yield.

Here is what it says: “The introduction of GM traits through biotechnology has led to increased yields independent of breeding. Take for example statistics cited by PG Economics, which annually tallies the benefits of GM crops, taking data from numerous studies around the world:

* Mexico — yield increases with herbicide tolerant soybean of 9 percent.

* Romania — yield increases with herbicide tolerant soybeans have averaged 31 percent.

* Philippines — average yield increase of 15 percent with herbicide tolerant corn.

* Philippines — average yield increase of 24 percent with insect resistant corn.

* Hawaii — virus resistant papaya has increased yields by an average of 40 percent.

* India - insect resistant cotton has led to yield increases on average more than 50 percent.”

These assertions are not amusing, and can no longer be taken lightly. I am not only shocked but also disgusted at the way corporations try to fabricate and distort the scientific facts, and dress them up in such a manner that the so-called ‘educated’ of today will accept them without asking any questions.

Distorted Science

At the outset, Monsanto’s claims are flawed. I have seen similar conclusions, at least about Bt cotton yields in India, in a study by The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) — although I have always said that IFPRI is an organization that needs to be shut down. It has done more damage to developing country agriculture and food security than any other academic institution.

Nevertheless, let us look at Monsanto’s claims.

The increases in crop yields that Monsanto has shown in Mexico, Romania, the Philippines, Hawaii and India are actually not yield increases at all. In scientific terms these are called crop losses, which have been very cleverly masqueraded as yield increases. By indulging in a jugglery of scientific terminologies that take advantage of the layman’s ignorance, Monsanto has made claims based on evidence that does not exist.

As written in Monsanto’s article: “The most common traits in GM crops are herbicide tolerance (HT) and insect resistance (IR). HT plants contain genetic material from common soil bacteria. IR crops contain genetic material from a bacterium that attacks certain insects.”

This is true. Herbicide tolerant plants and insect resistant plants do perform broadly the same function as chemical pesticides. Both the GM plants and the chemical pesticides reduce crop losses. In fact, GM plants work more or less like a bio-pesticide - the insect feeds on the plant carrying the toxin, and dies. Spraying the chemical pesticide also does the same.

In the case of herbicide tolerant plants, the outcome is much worse. Biotech companies have successfully dovetailed the trait for herbicide tolerance in the plant. As a result, those who buy the GM seeds have no other option but to also buy the companies own brand of herbicide. Killing two birds with one stone, you might say.

GM companies have only used the transgenic technology to remove competition from the herbicide market. Instead of allowing the farmer to choose from different brands of herbicides available in the market, they have now ensured that you are only left with a Hobson’s choice. As several studies have conclusively shown in the US, the use of herbicide does not go down over time, but rather increases.

Here is the question that must now be asked: if the chemical herbicide used by Monsanto’s herbicide tolerant soybeans (so-called ‘Roundup Ready’) truly increases yields, then why don’t all the other herbicides available in the market also increase yields?

Surely, if all herbicides do the same job of killing herbs, then all herbicides should increase crop yields. Am I not correct? So why are we led to believe that only Roundup Ready soybeans (a GM crop) increase yields, whereas others do not?

When was the last time you were told that herbicides increase crop yields? Chemical herbicides are only known to merely reduce crop losses. This is what I was taught when studying plant breeding — a fact that is still being taught to agricultural science students everywhere in the world.

Cotton Lies

A similar story holds true for cotton. We all know that cotton consumes about 50 percent of total pesticides sprayed, and these chemical pesticides are known to reduce crop losses. I am sure that Monsanto would also agree without question that pesticides do not increase crop yields, and I repeat DO NOT increase cotton yields.

Monsanto’s Bt cotton, which uses a gene from a soil bacteria to produce a toxin within the plant that kills certain pests, also does the same. It only kills the insect, which means it does the same job that a chemical pesticide is supposed to perform. The crop losses that a farmer minimizes after applying chemical pesticide is never (and has never) been measured in terms of yield increases. It has always been computed as savings from crop losses.

If GM crops increase yields, shouldn’t we therefore say that chemical pesticides (including herbicides) also increase yields? Will the agricultural scientific community accept that pesticides increases crop yields?

This brings me to another relevant question: Why don’t agricultural scientists say that chemical pesticides increase crop yields?

While you ponder over this question (and there are no prizes for getting it right), let me tell you that the last time the world witnessed increases in crop yields was when the high-yielding crop varieties were evolved. That was the time when scientists were able to break through the genetic yield barrier. The double-gene and triple-gene dwarf wheat (a trait that was subsequently inducted in rice) brought in quantum jumps in yield potential. That was way back in the late 1960s. Since then, there has been no further genetic breakthrough in crop yields. Let there be no mistake about it.

Monsanto is therefore making faulty claims. None of its GM crop varieties increases yields. At best, they only reduce crop losses. If Monsanto does not know the difference between crop losses and crop yields, it needs to take some elementary lessons again in plant breeding.

But please, Monsanto, don’t try and fool the world by distorting scientific facts.

For the record, let me also state that when Bt cotton was being introduced in India in 2001 (its entry was delayed by another year when I challenged the scientific claims made by Mahyco-Monsanto), the Indian Council for Agricultural Research had also objected to the company’s claim of increasing yield. It is however another matter that ICAR’s objections were simply brushed aside by the Department of Biotechnology, and we all know why.

Interestingly, ISAAA and several consultancy firms (and how can we believe them anyway after their role in the economic collapse now facing the world) have been claiming that cotton yields in India increased after Bt cotton was introduced. Such claims are made about other crops too. I have seen this happening again and again over the past two decades; whenever the crop yields increase, the scientists and agribusinesses take the credit. But when the crop yields go down, the blame invariably shifts to weather conditions.

Which may make you wonder why agricultural scientists and companies never thank the weather at times of bumper harvest. As a former Indian Agriculture Minister, Mr. Chaturanand Mishra, always used to say, the only real Agriculture Minister is the monsoon.

This year, cotton production estimates in India have been scaled down by 14 percent. Using the same yardstick, does it not mean that the productivity of Bt cotton is also falling? But of course the blame cannot lie with Bt cotton. You guessed right — it must be the fault of inclement weather.

Devinder Sharma is a New Delhi-based food and trade policy analyst. He is a regular contributor to Share the World's Resources (STWR), where this article originally appeared, and can be reached at hunger55@gmail.com. Read other articles by Devinder, or visit Devinder's website.

"Exigimos al gobierno federal que presente con vida y en libertad a nuestros compañeros"

Rebelión

Comunicado del PDPR-EPR

AL PUEBLO DE MEXICO


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

A casi dos años de cumplirse la detención-desaparición de nuestros compañeros Edmundo Reyes Amaya y Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sánchez y de la indolencia deliberada de los gobiernos federal y estatal de Oaxaca planteamos:

Sr. Calderón, como en reiteradas ocasiones no ha permitido que olvidemos que es el Jefe Máximo de las fuerzas armadas y que asume las consecuencias que deriven de sus decisiones como gobierno, señalamos ante el pueblo de México y el mundo que usted es el responsable y culpable directo del crimen de lesa humanidad de detención-desaparición forzada cometido en la persona de nuestros compañeros Edmundo Reyes Amaya y Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sánchez, usted sabe perfectamente quiénes los detuvieron y en dónde están, porque sería ingenuo pensar que -aunque no tiene el control absoluto de su gabinete- usted no supiera la verdad. Durante este proceso de su gobierno ha habido la intención de dejar pasar deliberadamente el tiempo para que los sigan torturando física y psicológicamente, apostando al olvido y al desgaste, ya la CNDH plantea en su Recomendación 072009, los obstáculos que han interpuesto para aclarar este crimen de lesa humanidad.

Como gobierno se han comprometido positivamente con las demandas de la Comisión de Mediación, pero siguen dando largas al asunto y no hay la voluntad política ni la concreción de dichas demandas, para tener un resultado veraz y concreto sobre la detención-desaparición forzada de nuestros compañeros.

El Sr. Secretario de Gobernación Fernando Gómez Mont, tomó las riendas de la SEGOB a pesar de tener un pasado en el que siempre ha defendido a los grandes jerarcas del capital, es decir, a grandes millonarios capitalistas, lo cual a pesar de retirarse de su bufete jurídico implica un conflicto de intereses y hoy se rige supuestamente por la política que dicta su jefe el Sr. Calderón. Suponemos que a estas alturas ya está enterado sobre este asunto que nos concierne y estamos en la espera de la concreción de los compromisos que la SEGOB adquirió con la Comisión de Mediación.

Sin embargo, el gobierno calderonista insiste en hostigar y amenazar a todos y cada uno de los luchadores sociales, sobre todo a los que están por la defensa y libertad de los presos políticos y de conciencia, persiguiendo y desapareciendo a algunos de estos luchadores, como lo sucedido en Guerrero con los dos indígenas Raúl Lucas Lucia y Manuel Ponce Rosas.

Se mandan tropas militares por millares al norte del país, como en Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua bajo el supuesto combate al crimen organizado, dejando una estela de violación de los derechos humanos, anulando de facto garantías y derechos constitucionales justificando la militarización de la sociedad con la falsedad de combatir un problema que tiene origen en el mismo Estado mexicano y sus instituciones, fenómeno al cual volvemos a repetir, los revolucionarios no somos parte de él.

Somos parte de una insurgencia revolucionaria, de los luchadores sociales que condenamos a este régimen neoliberal y que pugnamos por una sociedad sin iniquidades, como tal no hemos hecho declaraciones amorfas, sino concretas en cuanto a las demandas de justicia social y la exigencia de la equidad entre nuestra sociedad para que el 75% de nuestro pueblo tenga lo mínimo para no sufrir la hambruna que ya existe en el país, somos parte del pueblo en descontento y somos un partido revolucionario propositivo para terminar con la pobreza y la miseria que agobia a la mayoría de los mexicanos.

Por enésima ocasión le exigimos al gobierno federal que presente con vida y en libertad a nuestros compañeros y declare públicamente en dónde los ha tenido en todo este tiempo así como a todos los detenidos desaparecidos del país. En este tiempo el CISEN, la SEDENA, la PGR y el gobierno de Ulises Ruiz han negado insistentemente su responsabilidad en la detención-desaparición de nuestros compañeros cuando todas las evidencias dicen lo contrario, cuando previamente unos días antes de su detención agentes de la PGR detuvieron a dos indígenas de los Loxichas a quienes les pidieron el retrato hablado del compañero Edmundo Reyes Amaya, hoy sabemos que estos fueron a comunicar dichos hechos a un luchador social y éste hasta la fecha ha guardado silencio, comprobado está que así fue.

Hay muchas pruebas que se han acumulado con el tiempo, tantas que la propia CNDH -a destiempo- plantea que fue forzada a dar a conocer el entorpecimiento de las investigaciones, entendemos que están pretendiendo entretener a la Comisión de Mediación para poder hacer un enjuague más entre el gobierno federal y Ulises Ruiz para seguir obstaculizando la investigación sin permitir llegar al fondo porque la policía estatal en complicidad con la PGR y el ejército detuvieron a nuestros compañeros.

Consideramos que si en un lapso de tiempo razonable no hay una respuesta que satisfaga a las necesidades de nuestro pueblo y partido, es el gobierno federal, sobre todo usted señor Calderón el responsable directo de lo que se pueda desencadenar ante este ominoso silencio y dilación, sabemos que el combate al narcotráfico y al narcomenudeo es una cortina de humo, porque sólo con ese pretexto pueden llegar a regiones pobres a hacer destrozos y violar los derechos humanos, “amparados” por “su guerra” cuando el motivo fundamental es tratar de descubrirnos y realizar aprehensiones, si así fuese tomen en cuenta que habría una respuesta inmediata y el rompimiento de la tregua.

Confiamos en la calidad de la Comisión de Mediación y nos congratulamos que hoy existan más personalidades que busquen la libertad de los presos políticos de Atenco que tienen una aberrante condena, y los exhortamos a pronunciarse por la libertad no sólo de ellos sino de todos los presos políticos y de conciencia del país.

De nuestra parte nos sumamos a su justa lucha por la liberación de los presos políticos y de conciencia de Atenco y de todo el país como un intento más de evitar una conflagración violenta.

Cuando Calderón dice, que no quiere que nuestra soberanía sea violada, no corresponde su dicho a la realidad, son años que nuestra soberanía ha sido violada, por años en el país han estado funcionando la DEA, el FBI, la CIA, organismos de inteligencia francés, española e israelí, asesorando, instruyendo y capacitando a policías y militares, llevándolos a preparar a Estados Unidos con enseñanzas antiguerrilleras, los cuales, después desertan y ponen esos métodos al servicio del crimen organizado.

¿Dónde vive y quién es ese “misterioso” israelita y todas las demás personas a las cuales les hablaron desde el teléfono de Edmundo Reyes Amaya? Seguramente ese israelita es un agente del Mossad, es decir, la policía de inteligencia judía que junto con los demás participan en cateos, detenciones y torturas contra luchadores sociales. Los asesores colombianos son también quienes se dedican a perseguir a los defensores de los derechos humanos en nuestro país. ¡Claro que hay una soberanía violada! Pero es con la venia de los gobiernos priístas y panistas, las declaraciones gubernamentales no son más que un acto histriónico, no es más que eso, para confundir levantando otra cortina de humo intentando engañar a nuestro pueblo con supuestas posiciones hasta anti norteamericanas.

Nuestro pueblo sigue esperando una respuesta satisfactoria sobre la libertad de todos los presos políticos y de conciencia y la presentación de todos los detenidos desaparecidos. Exigimos ya, solución a este problema. ¿Qué camino nos queda cuando ustedes no tienen la capacidad política ni el control de sus fuerzas armadas, y las están poniendo bajo el control de las fuerzas armadas norteamericanas para que ellas determinen qué hacer cuando ven que el peligro para sus intereses en México no es la delincuencia organizada, sino el descontento, la rebeldía y la organización popular? No en vano están proponiendo usar tácticas antiguerrilleras en el “combate” contra la delincuencia organizada.

Repetimos no queremos la guerra, no queremos la violencia, amamos la paz; pero cada día ustedes están orillando a nuestro pueblo a que tome decisiones, el aparente conformismo, este supuesto callar, no es más que el embrión de otras cosas, como fue la gestación de la independencia de nuestro país y la revolución de 1910 contra la dictadura porfirista.

Han pretendido callar a la prensa y a los medios electrónicos porque son la única forma de comunicarnos con la Comisión de Mediación. A los que se han plegado a las exigencias gubernamentales les decimos que también serán responsables de un desenlace con medidas drásticas porque han estado presionando para una salida militar.

Sr. Calderón es preferible morir de pie que vivir de rodillas, nuestro pueblo, nosotros lo sabemos porque estamos dentro de él, se está cansando de su política entreguista, proempresarial y explotadora que camina del brazo con quienes tienen las grandes riquezas nacionales y transnacionales.

¡VIVOS SE LOS LLEVARON, VIVOS LOS QUEREMOS!
¡A EXIGIR LA LIBERTAD DE TODOS LOS PRESOS POLITICOS Y DE CONCIENCIA DEL PAIS!
¡POR LA PRESENTACION DE TODOS LOS DETENIDOS DESAPARECIDOS!
¡POR LA REVOLUCION SOCIALISTA!
¡VENCER O MORIR!
¡POR NUESTROS CAMARADAS PROLETARIOS!
¡RESUELTOS A VENCER!
¡CON LA GUERRA POPULAR!
¡EL EPR TRIUNFARA!
COMITÉ CENTRAL

DEL


PARTIDO DEMOCRATICO POPULAR REVOLUCIONARIO


PDPR


COMANDANCIA GENERAL


DEL


EJERCITO POPULAR REVOLUCIONARIO


CG-EPR

Año 45
República Mexicana, a 23 de marzo de 2009.

"I Want Them to Arrest Me, If That's What It Takes to be Heard!"

LA Teacher's Sit-In Over Layoffs
By SARAH KNOPP

CounterPunch

Fifty teachers along with parent supporters disrupted a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) School Board meeting March 10 and occupied the boardroom in an attempt to stop a vote on sending out "reduction in force" notices to almost 9,000 district employees.

Claiming a $718 million budget shortfall, the district is threatening to lay off teachers--both permanent and non-permanent--as well as counselors, administrators, custodial and support staff, and other district employees.

The board, led by Monica Garcia--an ally of LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa--slunk out of the boardroom and into an undisclosed location somewhere in the building. There, on display to the public only via a closed-circuit broadcast to the cafeteria of the building, they voted 5-2 to authorize Superintendent Ramon Cortines to send out the notices. Board members Julie Korenstein and Richard Vladovic dissented.

For the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) members who participated, the action was transformative.

We had planned the civil disobedience in advance, and the union paid for substitutes so that we could attend the board meeting. School board meetings always start at 1 p.m., so teachers attending is usually not possible.

The meetings take place in a room in a fancy glass building in the middle of downtown LA with seating for about 250. There are 740,000 students in LAUSD, so if only one-tenth of 1 percent of parents wanted to participate, the room would need to be three times bigger.

Most of us on the protest were seasoned activists, but when we chanted "One! Don't cut the budget! Two! A little bit louder! Three! We need the money! Four! Our students!" for an hour in the hot sun before being permitted into the building, we all felt more angry, more energized and many times more confident than we had at such protests in the past. This time, they'd have to drag us out of there if they wanted to shut us up!

And while most of us were veterans whose jobs were not on the line, we were joined by a handful of probationary teachers who won't be returning next year if the layoffs go through.

We were also joined in our civil disobedience by parents and grandparents who were organized by the community group ACORN. One of the protesters, 83-year-old Julia Botello, has 12 children and more than 30 grandchildren who have gone through the public school system. Four of her granddaughters are now teachers.

Julia had just stepped up to the mic to plead with board members not to make the cuts when they stood up to leave the room for their secret chambers. Later, surrounded by a dozen TV cameras, she said, "I'm calling on the president, the governor, and all those above us to help us...I want them to arrest me, if that's what it takes to be heard."

When the school board left the room, the media stayed. School police were ordered not to arrest teacher-occupiers while the media was still present, so we were never arrested. As UTLA President A.J. Duffy explained to reporters and participants:

Some people say that what we are doing today is improper. Was it improper when they did it in the civil rights movement? Was it improper when César Chávez used civil disobedience to force Gallo wine to meet the demands of the field workers? Isn't this how India won its independence from the British Empire? In fact, this whole country that we love was born out of civil disobedience!

Then, each of the teachers present took turns standing up and explaining what would happen at their schools if the cuts went through. Gym teachers who have used their own paychecks to buy volleyballs, teachers with more than 40 students in remediation classes, and a cohort from a social justice academy at a large high school, afraid to lose the energy, drive and innovation of their newest teachers--all told their stories. Teachers made it clear that layoffs resulting in larger class sizes will be a disaster for students.

Since we had the boardroom occupied, we used the opportunity to debate strategies, tactics and the next actions we could take to escalate the fight and involve more parents and teachers. Afterwards, we joined a support rally outside. Students from three prominent high schools had organized a bus to bring them to the protest. The action drew widespread coverage in the local media.

THE SIT-IN was the latest in a series of actions by UTLA in the last few months.

On June 6 of last year, the union organized a one-hour strike to protest state budget cuts targeting schools. The next big action came December 10, when some 10,000 UTLA members demonstrated at seven regional school board offices to protest LAUSD's insulting "last, best, and final offer" that threatened draconian cuts to teachers' health care coverage.

Since then, UTLA and seven other school employee unions have reached a tentative agreement on health care, a deal that turns back LAUSD's most aggressive demands. That agreement will soon be voted on by members.

In parallel bargaining, negotiators for the teachers and LAUSD are far apart on the main contract. Key issues are salary and a series of non-monetary demands dealing with workplace democracy, shared decision-making, rights for school counselors and substitutes, and a fair grievance procedure.

UTLA has been rebuilding the union's capacity to fight since a reform leadership took over in 2005. Teachers won a 6 percent raise in the 2006-07 negotiations. The re-opener rounds in years two and three of our three-year contract have so far yielded nothing but offers of less than zero from the district.

Employees who receive pink slips will not definitely lose their jobs until after a final school board vote in June. Many hope that by then, federal stimulus money will have provided a way for LAUSD to avoid most of the layoffs.

But we intend to make it clear to the district that if they don't find the money by any means necessary to save every single job, they will pay the price of massive unrest.

David Rapkin contributed to this article.

Sarah Knopp is a public school teacher in Los Angeles.

This article originally appeared in the Socialist Worker.

El gobierno estadounidense puso como condición para liberar a un preso de Guantánamo que negara que fue torturado

Reuters, The Independent y Afp




Abogados del gobierno de Estados Unidos intentaron que Binyam Mohamed, un residente británico que estuvo preso en el centro de detención de Guantánamo, Cuba, durante casi siete años, firmara un acuerdo en el que asegurara que jamás había sido torturado y que se comprometiera a no hablar con los medios de comunicación, como condición para ser liberado según documentos presentados ante la Suprema Corte de Justicia británica.

Los textos, relacionados a un fallo que emitieron los jueces británicos en octubre pasado, revelaron que el ejército estadunidense quería que Mohamed aceptara no demandar a Estados Unidos ni a sus aliados. También pretendía que cualquier derecho a indemnización fuera asignado al gobierno estadunidense.

Sin embargo, los abogados de Mohamed rechazaron el acuerdo antes de que el hombre de 31 años fuera liberado hace un mes sin condiciones y sin cargos, tras un acuerdo entre Estados Unidos y Gran Bretaña.

Los hechos revelados hoy reflejan el modo en que el gobierno estadunidense intentó cubrir la verdad sobre la tortura de Binyam Mohamed, declaró Clive Stafford-Smith, abogado de Mohamed y director del grupo de derechos humanos Reprieve.

Mohamed, quien tenía calidad de refugiado en Gran Bretaña desde 1994, viajó a Pakistán para someterse a un tratamiento contra adicciones, pero fue detenido como sospechoso de terrorismo en 2002. Fue torturado en Marruecos y Afganistán, hasta que, bajo tortura, admitió las acusaciones y posteriormente fue trasladado a Guantánamo en 2004.

Por otro lado, abogados defensores de varios detenidos en Guantánamo presentaron dos demandas contra el gobierno de Estados Unidos por el trato que reciben los reclusos y por las nuevas reglas dictadas este mes por el gobierno de Barack Obama en las que justificó que el Estado mantenga detenidos a los sospechosos de terrorismo.

A todo esto, el presunto agente de Al Qaeda, Alí Marri, quien es el último combatiente enemigo detenido en Estados Unidos, se declaró inocente en una corte federal en Peoria, Illinois, de los cargos de conspiración para el apoyo al terrorismo.

El juez de distrito, Michael Mihm, fijó para el 26 de marzo el comienzo del juicio contra Marri, y afirmó que podría durar hasta fin de año.

Ignoring Health Concerns in Nuevo Laredo, US Border Patrol Will Spray 1.1 Miles of Border Land with Chemical Herbicide

The Border’s “Agent Orange” Controversy

By FNS
Frontera NorteSur


In the Vietnam War, the United States sprayed vast tracts of land with the chemical defoliant Agent Orange as part of a counter-insurgency strategy aimed at removing forest cover for Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces. Although the toxic dioxin released by Agent Orange was later blamed by US veterans’ groups and Vietnamese officials for illnesses and diseases that struck thousands of former US soldiers and upwards of four million Vietnamese citizens, the US Supreme Court recently refused to consider a case by pursued by Vietnamese plaintiffs against the manufacturers of Agent Orange.

Four decades later, on the US-Mexico border, the US Border Patrol intends to employ a chemical herbicide in order to eradicate stands of the Carrizo cane, an invasive plant that grows as tall as 30 feet and provides convenient cover for undocumented border crossers and smugglers. The variety of Carrizo cane that is common in the Laredo-Del Rio borderlands is from the region of Valencia, Spain.

Possibly beginning next week, the US Border Patrol could commence aerial herbicide spraying along a slice of the Rio Grande between the twin cities of Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. The experimental spraying would cover an area that stretches 1.1 miles between the Laredo Railroad Bridge and Laredo Community College directly across from Mexico, said Roque Sarinana, public affairs officer for the Border Patrol’s Laredo sector.

In addition to aerial spraying of the herbicide Imazapyr, the Border Patrol will employ hand-cutting and mechanical methods that involve applying the killer chemical at ground-level, Sarinana told Frontera NorteSur in an a phone interview. Getting rid of Carrizo cane should improve the Border Patrol’s “line of sight up and down the river, ” Sarinana said.

Depending on weather conditions, the first dustings of .Imazapyr could begin March 25, Sarinana confirmed. “As of now, that’s the plan,” he said.

Concerned about risks to public health from possible herbicide spray drift, runoff and leaching, officials from the city government of neighboring Nuevo Laredo are steadfastly opposed to aerial spraying. “I’ve always been respectful of the law and sovereignty,” said Nuevo Laredo Mayor Ramon Garza Barrios. “But herbicides that affect health in both countries can’t be sprayed.”

Mayor Garza’s stance is supported by other elected and appointed officials in Mexico. On Thursday, March 19, the Tamaulipas State Legislature issued a statement requesting information about the proposed spraying from the Mexican and US sections of the International Boundary and Water Commission as well as Mexican federal agencies.

The zone targeted for spraying is across the Rio Grande from Nuevo Laredo’s Hidalgo neighborhood and only hundreds of yards from the Mexican city’s public water intake system.

Carlos Montiel Saeb, general manager for Nuevo Laredo’s water utility, said the Border Patrol advised his office to turn off water pumps a few hours prior to spraying. “If there is no problem, why are they asking us to do this?” Montiel questioned.

Border Patrol spokesman Sarinana said he had not seen a written objection from Mayor Garza, but stressed it did not mean other US officials had not received a letter. “This is all in the works, so we’ll see what happens,” Sarinana said, adding the Border Patrol plans on releasing a more detailed statement about the future of the Carrizo cane project.

Opposition to the Border Patrol’s aerial spraying plans is likewise growing in Laredo, Texas. The two sides turned out to a March 16 meeting of the Laredo City Council in which elected officials narrowly approved by a controversial 5-4 vote an easement for the US government on city property targeted for spraying.

Jay J. Johnson Castro, Sr., executive director of the Rio Grande International Studies Center at Laredo Community College told Frontera NorteSur the planned aerial spraying caught residents off guard. The aerial applications could threaten more than 1,000 bird and other species at a time when spring hatchings begin and migratory birds are still in the area, Johnson said by phone from his office. The Border Patrol’s Carrizo Cane Eradication Project abuts a nature trail running near the community college, Johnson lamented.

“Nobody knows the impact of Imazapyr,” Johnson contended. “It’s no different than Agent Orange.” Citing the program’s environmental assessment, Johnson said aerial spraying could eventually extend along a strip of river bank 16 miles upriver from the pilot project zone. Despite the potential magnitude of the project, the Border Patrol did not gather local input as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, Johnson charged.

Like virtually all chemical pest control agents, lack of complete public information and multiple, contradictory reports surround the history of Imazapyr, a substance first registered in 1984 and currently manufactured under the trade name Habitat by the multinational BASF corporation.

A fact sheet prepared by the Washington State Department of Agriculture reported Imazapyr was “low in toxicity to invertebrates and practically non-toxic to fish, birds and mammals.” Still, the fact sheet reported Imazapyr was highly mobile and persistent in soils.

In 2007, BASF spokesman Joel Vollmer told the press his company’s Imazapyr product was widely used in wildlife refuges across the US and along the Pecos River and its tributaries to control salt cedar, another troublesome, invasive plant species afflicting the US Southwest.

Public controversies over Imazapyr applications have previously erupted in Alaska, California and Colombia, where experimental use of the herbicide to control illegal coca plantings was approved in 2000. A report on the chemical’s history developed for the non-governmental group Alaska Community Action on Toxics said evidence existed that identified imazapyr as a contaminant of soil, groundwater and surface water. Imazapyr also contains an acid that can irritate the eyes, skin and respiratory system, the report stated. According to the report’s authors, additional evidence linked the herbicide to Parkinson’s Disease-like symptoms.

In developing its Carrizo cane aerial spraying project, the Border Patrol ignored studies by Laredo Community College researchers that examined different means of killing off the invasive species, Johnson charged.

“We are not opposed to the eradication of Carrizo,” he affirmed. “We think it has to go because it consumes about 500 gallons of water per meter and chokes out native vegetation.”

At the federal level, Department of Homeland Security-sponsored researchers earlier explored using biological controls, including wasps, to control Carrizo cane.

US officials have been urging a Carrizo cane eradication program for some time. In 2007, US Representative Henry J. Cuellar (D-Tx) called the tall, thirsty plant a national security issue. Quoted in the news media, Rep. Cuellar said then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had been to the border to get a first-hand look at the Carrizo cane foe. The Laredo Congressman assured the press officials were “looking at what is the fastest, safest way to address the effectiveness of addressing this issue of Carrizo.”

With the clock ticking, Johnson and a growing network of activists on both sides of the border are lobbying high officials to prevent aerial spraying before it occurs.

In an e-mail, longtime border environmental advocate and Sierra Club activist Bill Addington contended spraying would violate the 1983 La Paz accord between the United States and Mexico that requires mutual notification in the event of projects impacting the environment within a 60 mile radius on either side of the border.

“We considering all democratic options-court actions, political protests, media attention,” Johnson added. “We expect our message to be heard by the environmentally-friendly Obama administration. This is too unprecedented to aerially spray a toxic chemical in a densely-populated area.”

Meanwhile, word of the planned herbicide spraying is spreading fast in the two Laredos. Interviewed on the banks of the Rio Grande, a 26-year-old Honduran migrant told the Mexican press he intended to cross into the US without papers before spraying commenced. “They say they will put poison into the river,” said Walter Hernandez. “That’s why I want to cross before then.”

Mario Garcia, a Mexican national who frequents the Rio Grande on the Nuevo Laredo side with his sons, also expressed concern to a Mexican reporter. “I frequently come to fish in the area,” Garcia said. “With what degree of confidence are we going to eat a fish if we know it is contaminated?”

In response to an article about the Imazapyr controversy in the Laredo Morning Times, several readers sent pointed e-mails to the news publication that proposed solutions to the Carrizo cane issue or, as is increasingly the case with border news web sites, used the immediate topic at hand to vent ideological broadsides on issues of race, the environment and US-Mexico relations.

Additional Sources: Enlineadirecta.info, March 19, 20 and 21, 2009. Articles by Gaston Monge and Hugo Reyna. Laredo Morning Times, March 19, 2009. Article by Miguel Timoshenkov. Lider Informativo (Nuevo Laredo), March 17, 2009. Article by Ericka Morales.

El Diario de Juarez, March 16, 2009. Commondreams.org/Inter Press Service, March 16, 2009. Article by Helen Clark. La Jornada, March 8 and 11, 2009. Articles by Carlos Figueroa and editorial staff. Rio Grande Guardian, November 8, 2007. Homelandsecurity.org/journal/, April 2007. Article by Gail Cleere. Panna.org (Pesticide Action Network) August 1, 2000 and April 11, 2008. Akaction.net (Alaska Community Action on Toxics.)