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Rebelión
Sin el eco que cuando menos debiera una nothttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gificia de esta índole, el Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña de Tlachinollan anunció su cierre la semana pasada.
“Ante la situación de alta vulnerabilidad, los defensores y defensoras dejamos Ayutla para buscar un lugar seguro”. Así lo expresó Abel Barrera, director del centro que hasta la fecha desarrollaba su labor en el estado de Guerrero, México.
La guerra contra las drogas se ha erigido en guerra contra los pueblos indígenas. Están aún sin resolver, ponía como ejemplo, los casos de violación de Valentina Rosendo y de Inés Fernández, mujeres indígenas me`phaa, por parte de soldados en 2002. O los treinta casos de esterilización forzada de mujeres indígenas en comunidades.
Las amenazas, hostigamientos, detenciones arbitrarias y asesinatos de defensores y defensoras se suceden. Los ataques que vienen sufriendo son premeditados.
Está reciente aún el caso de Raúl Lucas y Manuel Ponce, integrantes de la Organización para el Futuro del Pueblo Mixteco (OFPM), detenidos en un acto público por presuntos agentes de policía. Aparecieron días después asesinados tras haber sido torturados. “Nadie dijo nada, ni investigó nada”, expresó Barrera. “No hay justicia. No se investiga. Se nos criminaliza” y denunció la gravedad de la situación que se está viviendo.
Explicó Barrera que la presidenta de la Organización de los Pueblos Indígenas Me´phaa (OPIM), Obtilia Eugenio, recibió amenazas en su celular el pasado 17 de marzo. Iba a seguir la misma suerte que Raúl y Manuel.
Una mala noticia la del cierre de un centro que vela por el respeto de los derechos humanos que día sí y día también se violan en uno de los estados más militarizados de la república mexicana. Lo que pone de manifiesto, una vez más, la situación de injusticia, impunidad y desprecio a la vida de los pueblos, sus integrantes y luchadores y luchadoras sociales que hoy, ahora, se vive en Guerrero y en el país entero.
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4/11/09
'These People Fear Prosecution': Why Bush's CIA Team Should Worry About Its Dark Embrace of Torture
By Liliana Segura, AlterNet
AlterNet
On the night of April 6, a long-secret document was published -- in its entirety for the first time -- that provided a clear, stark look at the CIA torture program carried out by the Bush administration.
Dated Feb. 14, 2007, the 41-page report describes in harrowing detail the "ill treatment" of 14 "high-value" detainees in U.S. custody, as recounted by the prisoners in interviews with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Besides listing the various kinds of harsh interrogation tactics undertaken by the CIA -- among them "suffocation by water," "prolonged stress standing," "beatings by use of a collar," "confinement in a box," "prolonged nudity," "threats," "forced shaving" and other methods -- the report reveals the disturbing role of medical professionals in the torture of suspects, which included using doctors' equipment to monitor their health, even as torture was carried out.
Just as Americans have known about Bush-era torture for years, lawyers and human rights activists have long known about the ICRC report and its contents. Both are due in large part to the work of journalists and their sources, who have brought to light the many post-9/11 abuses committed in the name of counterterrorism.
In February 2005, Jane Mayer of the New Yorker magazine published a story called "Outsourcing Torture: The Secret History of America's 'Extraordinary Rendition' Program," which reported in intricate detail the sordid mechanisms of the Bush administration's kidnap-and-torture program -- a practice so violent and dramatic that it inspired a major Hollywood film a few years later.
As Mayer wrote at the time, however, "Rendition is just one element of the administration's new paradigm."
The CIA itself is holding dozens of 'high value' terrorist suspects outside of the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S., in addition to the estimated 550 detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The administration confirmed the identities of at least 10 of these suspects to the 9/11 Commission -- including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a top al-Qaida operative … -- but refused to allow commission members to interview the men, and would not say where they were being held. Reports have suggested that CIA prisons are being operated in Thailand, Qatar and Afghanistan, among other countries. At the request of the CIA, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld personally ordered that a prisoner in Iraq be hidden from Red Cross officials for several months, and Army Gen. Paul Kern told Congress that the CIA may have hidden up to a hundred detainees."
Among the revelations of the ICRC report is that the CIA did indeed hide prisoners from the Red Cross.
Mayer has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 1995. In the years after 9/11, her investigative articles have been critical to piecing together the story of how the United States became a country that tortures in the name of the so-called "war on terror."
Mayer was recently awarded the Ron Ridenhour Prize for her book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals (Doubleday). Co-sponsored by The Nation Institute and the Fertel Foundation, the Ridenhour prize honors journalists and whistle-blowers whose work has helped to "protect the public interest, promote social justice or illuminate a more just vision of society." Mayer will be honored alongside other winners of the Ridenhour prize on April 16 at the National Press Club in Washington.
AlterNet's Rights & Liberties Editor Liliana Segura spoke to Mayer over the phone from New York, the morning after the release of the ICRC report.
***
Liliana Segura: Last night, the full ICRC report was posted online, detailing the torture at the CIA black sites. Of course, you've been writing for a long time about this; how did you first come to know about the report, and what's the significance of it coming out now, especially with everything it reveals about medical professionals being involved in torture?
Jane Mayer: Well, there are certain confidential source issues that cover how I first came to know about it, but I can say that when I did finally talk to people who were familiar with what was in it -- which was more than a year ago at this point -- what I was hearing was so startling that it just completely stopped me dead in my tracks.
Basically, what I was hearing was that there was a report that was by this independent authority -- the ICRC, which is not a political entity in any way. It's a very cautious group and has tremendous credibility -- saying that there was an actual program of torture that was implemented by the U.S. government, and that the government had been warned that what it was doing was breaking the law.
And what seemed to really catch the eye of the people I was interviewing who were familiar with what was in the report was just the horribleness and the power of the United States government focusing everything that had been learned over the past couple decades on how to break a person down psychologically as well as physically. All that focused on just a couple dozen people who were just basically being tormented in a way that was just kind of unimaginable.
So, people who I interviewed who knew about what was in the report were really upset about it -- really, really upset -- and it certainly caught my eye as a reporter. So I then started to try very hard to see if I could get the report. And I never succeeded. I got close enough to be able to piece together what was in it. And that's what's in The Dark Side. And I'm gratified to see that my sources -- who I consider to have been very brave to tell me what they were able to -- were completely accurate.
So you'll see there are whole scenes from the report that are in The Dark Side and many, many details, including the news that [the treatment of detainees] was considered torture by the ICRC -- not "tantamount to torture," but actual torture.
But, you know, reading the report itself, finally -- there's just no comparison to seeing the actual document.
LS: Is there anything in the report in particular that has struck you that you didn't know before?
JM: One of the things that caught my eye last night was that it's clear that the CIA -- and I think you'd have to guess the Department of Defense -- lied to the Red Cross. They told the Red Cross when it visited Guantanamo [in 2002] that it had seen all of the detainees. But what the report says is that some of the detainees -- some of the high-value detainees -- realized when they were finally sent to Guantanamo in 2006 that they'd been there before. They were there. And yet the Red Cross was not allowed to see them. The Red Cross was told they'd seen everybody.
So the CIA and DOD lied to the Red Cross. There were some hidden prisoners in Guantanamo. That's an overt act; lying to the Red Cross, hiding prisoners from them. So, that's interesting to me.
There are also some specific details [about the torture] I didn't know. I didn't realize they used hospital beds to waterboard people, with motorized reclining backs, which is hideous.
I knew there were doctors there -- I mean, people will tell you that there were doctors there, and it's in the book -- but there's still something so specifically terrible about reading that they would attach some kind of modern monitor that could monitor oxygen to the finger of a prisoner while they were busy depriving him of oxygen.
They told him -- Khalid Sheik Mohammed (and this was in the New Yorker stories I did and it was in the book) -- that they would take him to the brink of death and back but they wouldn't kill him. So, they used sort of the most modern medicine to make sure they did exactly that. Its kind of a horrible combination of modernism and the Dark Ages all in one.
LS: Do we have any idea who these doctors are?
JM: Well, I'm glad people are asking that question, because, really, since the beginning, one of the things that has obsessed me is: Who were the doctors? What kind of doctors would do this? Some of them are described as literally working in ski masks to cover their faces so that people wouldn't know their identity.
LS: Like executioners.
JM: Yeah. So people have to find out, there just absolutely has to be some more accountability about this. Who were the doctors -- and what does the profession say about this? I mean, there's been a tremendous debate about this within the psychiatric profession and within the psychology profession, but there really has not been a similar debate within the medical profession.
I've already heard from one friend who's a doctor this morning, saying "God -- something's got to happen with this." Things will happen, I think.
LS: I wanted to ask you about accountability. It seems like every other day we're hearing about how Obama's Department of Justice is standing up in court and defending some Bush administration practice, or else the administration is making a statement that suggests that there's not going to be any move for accountability. Yet House Judiciary Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., just released a 540-page report reiterating the allegations against the Bush administration and calling for a special prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Eric Holder. What would it take for that to happen?
JM: What would it take for that to happen? It would take Obama. It would take Obama weighing in on this. And, you know, it seems that his general style is to try to find consensus rather than to isolate people and confront them. I think that an early tip-off to his thinking was when he described possible accountability as "witch hunts" and said we're not going to have witch hunts.
And yet I think that they're going to find it impossible to be where they are. Right now, they're trying to assert some kind of neutral position about the Bush years. They've come out critical, they've said "we're fixing this, it was wrong," and they have started to fix it -- I give them credit for doing a lot of the right things.
But what they're trying to do is not have to open up the past, as they keep saying, and I don't think that's going to work because they're going to have a choice here. They're at a fork in the road, where either they're going to open things up, or they're going to have to cover things up. There's not a real neutral position to be there. And that's what I think they're beginning to realize.
LS: A lot of people have been surprised by the positions Obama has taken -- for instance, saying that prisoners at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan don't have the right to habeas corpus (although a court recently contradicted that). Are there any Bush-era tactics that are now an inextricable part of Obama's counterterrorism policies?
JM: The progress so far is: there's no longer torture -- there's no program of torture that's being practiced by the United States anymore. And there are no more secret prison sites. And they are trying to do something to bring all of the prisoners whose rights were violated in the Bush years back inside the rule of law. They're trying to sort out the people in Guantanamo and charge some. … I think it's also progress that they charged [Ali Saleh Kahlah] al Marri, who was being held forever as an enemy combatant without any rights. So, I see this as progress.
LS: Does this mean that the CIA black sites have been dismantled? Also, what about renditions? Isn't Obama keeping open the possibility of keeping Clinton-era style rendition in place?
JM: Obama's executive orders issued in his first week, direct the government to abide by the Geneva Conventions standards as they are internationally understood, and to allow the ICRC to have access to all detainees. This means the U.S. can no longer treat anyone in its custody cruelly, let alone torture them, and it means that the Red Cross can meet with all prisoners, which ends the Bush practice of hidden, black-site prisons and disappearances.
The Obama administration is claiming that it will undertake renditions without torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. They say they will only snatch suspects against whom there are legitimate charges and only deliver them to stand trial in legitimate justice systems where there is no threat of torture. Essentially, they claim it's a return to the pre-9/11 Clinton program, which was ostensibly "rendition to justice." But some sources who were involved in the Clinton years have told me it was a very rough business. The CIA has fought very hard to keep the program going in a modified form. We'll see if they can do it in the transparent, legal and humane way the executive orders require. I have my doubts.
I think that there's a ton still to do here. And some of the early positions they've taken -- defending state secrets and denying, as you say, habeas corpus rights to prisoners held in Bagram -- you know, they're worrisome. I think there's more going on here, though, which people haven't really focused on, which is: there's a real tug-of-war going on about the confirmation process. A number of top appointees who Obama wants to put in to handle some of these issues have not been confirmed. The Republicans in the Senate are really holding up people that Obama needs to make changes for the better.
You've got Harold Koh, who's been nominated to be the top lawyer for the State Department. He's a great defender of human rights. His nomination confirmation is in trouble because the Republicans are talking about trying to block him.
And the same thing is true of Dawn Johnsen, who has been nominated for the head of the Office of Legal Council. And there are a number of other top positions that are open that are really important. The Obama administration doesn't have enough staff to handle what it needs to do.
Meanwhile, it's being hit by wave after wave of litigation, because the human rights community's approach in the Bush years was "we're gonna litigate." So there is case after case breaking and requiring action from the Obama administration, which doesn't have its people in place yet. And I think that's part of the problem. So, I'm cutting them more slack then some critics, because I don't think we're seeing everything they want to do yet.
LS: So is what you're saying that they are buying themselves time, adopting these Bush positions or defending them for the moment?
JM: Well they're definitely buying themselves time on Guantanamo, but they haven't bought themselves very much time. They gave themselves 180 days; they've got three task forces, which took a long time to get up and running. I hear from people who are involved in this that it's a really complicated process.
And on the state-secrets cases -- you know, I don't know whose really making these decisions. But again, on accountability, I think it comes back to Obama himself. And he is spread so thin and so distracted by so many other emergencies right now, I'm not sure that he's really giving it the attention that some of us think it needs.
So that's what I think is going on. I'm not sure that I would impute terrible motives to them at this point. I think it's more disorganization and delay.
LS: I wanted to ask you about "preventive detention" (of terrorism suspects, including the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo Bay), since you wrote about it a few months back. Do you have any recent information on Obama's plans to use it, or is that something that they're still sorting out?
JM: I think it's going to be a big fight in the administration. We're kind of waiting to see.
I mean, some of Obama's Justice Department appointees think that there might need to be some kind of national security court that would allow for some sort of preventive detention. There have been experiments with this elsewhere in the world, and most of them have become real human-rights problems.
And there are other people who think this is anathema and tell me that there's just no way that Obama is going to back this sort of thing. I mean, he's being faced with a lot of very tough choices here and, meanwhile, I think that the intelligence community is bombarding him with threats, saying "if you become more transparent, you're going to endanger the country" -- they're sounding too much like Dick Cheney, [saying] that if they let out information, it's going to really hurt the country, it's going to really hurt our relations with other liaison intelligence agencies. … So, he's stuck in the middle of a big fight.
LS: I'm glad you brought up Dick Cheney. I wanted to ask you about him since he plays such an important role in your book, and also because there's this bizarre way in which he seems to be more in the public eye now than he ever was as vice president. What do you think that's about?
Also, you've noted that interesting quote by Cheney referring to Guantanamo prisoners, "People will want to know where they've been and what we've been doing with them." Do you think he fears prosecution at all? Do you think that's part of why he's out there talking and defending … ?
JN: Listen, all of these people fear prosecution. And it seems unthinkable to prosecute them to most people. But face it: The ICRC report; from some standpoints, it can be seen as a crime scene. And its a crime scene that was authorized by the top of our government. They all have some legal liability here. Cheney coming out -- you know, I can't really -- it's hard to get inside Cheney's mind, but I can say politically what it has the effect of doing is putting a marker down, so that if there's another attack, the Republicans can say, "You see, the Democrats weakened America. We warned them, and we told you so." So, I think in some ways it's a political gambit. And it's also a play for his legacy. He's trying to say "I'm not a war criminal."
Can I say one thing about the Ridenhour Prize? One thing I wanted to say was that Ron Ridenhour -- who was the whistle-blower about My Lai [in the Vietnam War] -- one of his contentions was always that there was authorized slaughter there. It was not just Lt. William Calley who was going on a berserk spree on his own. And so I think that it's kind of fitting that the ICRC report comes out which shows, again, the point that I was trying to make in The Dark Side, which is: This was not just an isolated episode of bad behavior, it was not just the people at the bottom of the barrel, as Donald Rumsfeld called them.
This was an authorized program of abuse from the top of the U.S. government. So there are a lot of parallels there. In both cases, what makes the headlines is the abuse, but the larger point that people have to grapple with is going up the chain of command, how it was authorized.
LS: The importance of whiste-blowers and journalists in the Bush era was, for many people, undisputed. What do you consider to be the role of journalists now?
JM: Abuse is bipartisan. Abuse of power is bipartisan. So I don't think the role of the press ever disappears. As you're pointing out, there's a lot still to do and a lot still to write about. So we're all struggling to keep at it.
AlterNet
On the night of April 6, a long-secret document was published -- in its entirety for the first time -- that provided a clear, stark look at the CIA torture program carried out by the Bush administration.
Dated Feb. 14, 2007, the 41-page report describes in harrowing detail the "ill treatment" of 14 "high-value" detainees in U.S. custody, as recounted by the prisoners in interviews with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Besides listing the various kinds of harsh interrogation tactics undertaken by the CIA -- among them "suffocation by water," "prolonged stress standing," "beatings by use of a collar," "confinement in a box," "prolonged nudity," "threats," "forced shaving" and other methods -- the report reveals the disturbing role of medical professionals in the torture of suspects, which included using doctors' equipment to monitor their health, even as torture was carried out.
Just as Americans have known about Bush-era torture for years, lawyers and human rights activists have long known about the ICRC report and its contents. Both are due in large part to the work of journalists and their sources, who have brought to light the many post-9/11 abuses committed in the name of counterterrorism.
In February 2005, Jane Mayer of the New Yorker magazine published a story called "Outsourcing Torture: The Secret History of America's 'Extraordinary Rendition' Program," which reported in intricate detail the sordid mechanisms of the Bush administration's kidnap-and-torture program -- a practice so violent and dramatic that it inspired a major Hollywood film a few years later.
As Mayer wrote at the time, however, "Rendition is just one element of the administration's new paradigm."
The CIA itself is holding dozens of 'high value' terrorist suspects outside of the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S., in addition to the estimated 550 detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The administration confirmed the identities of at least 10 of these suspects to the 9/11 Commission -- including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a top al-Qaida operative … -- but refused to allow commission members to interview the men, and would not say where they were being held. Reports have suggested that CIA prisons are being operated in Thailand, Qatar and Afghanistan, among other countries. At the request of the CIA, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld personally ordered that a prisoner in Iraq be hidden from Red Cross officials for several months, and Army Gen. Paul Kern told Congress that the CIA may have hidden up to a hundred detainees."
Among the revelations of the ICRC report is that the CIA did indeed hide prisoners from the Red Cross.
Mayer has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 1995. In the years after 9/11, her investigative articles have been critical to piecing together the story of how the United States became a country that tortures in the name of the so-called "war on terror."
Mayer was recently awarded the Ron Ridenhour Prize for her book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals (Doubleday). Co-sponsored by The Nation Institute and the Fertel Foundation, the Ridenhour prize honors journalists and whistle-blowers whose work has helped to "protect the public interest, promote social justice or illuminate a more just vision of society." Mayer will be honored alongside other winners of the Ridenhour prize on April 16 at the National Press Club in Washington.
AlterNet's Rights & Liberties Editor Liliana Segura spoke to Mayer over the phone from New York, the morning after the release of the ICRC report.
***
Liliana Segura: Last night, the full ICRC report was posted online, detailing the torture at the CIA black sites. Of course, you've been writing for a long time about this; how did you first come to know about the report, and what's the significance of it coming out now, especially with everything it reveals about medical professionals being involved in torture?
Jane Mayer: Well, there are certain confidential source issues that cover how I first came to know about it, but I can say that when I did finally talk to people who were familiar with what was in it -- which was more than a year ago at this point -- what I was hearing was so startling that it just completely stopped me dead in my tracks.
Basically, what I was hearing was that there was a report that was by this independent authority -- the ICRC, which is not a political entity in any way. It's a very cautious group and has tremendous credibility -- saying that there was an actual program of torture that was implemented by the U.S. government, and that the government had been warned that what it was doing was breaking the law.
And what seemed to really catch the eye of the people I was interviewing who were familiar with what was in the report was just the horribleness and the power of the United States government focusing everything that had been learned over the past couple decades on how to break a person down psychologically as well as physically. All that focused on just a couple dozen people who were just basically being tormented in a way that was just kind of unimaginable.
So, people who I interviewed who knew about what was in the report were really upset about it -- really, really upset -- and it certainly caught my eye as a reporter. So I then started to try very hard to see if I could get the report. And I never succeeded. I got close enough to be able to piece together what was in it. And that's what's in The Dark Side. And I'm gratified to see that my sources -- who I consider to have been very brave to tell me what they were able to -- were completely accurate.
So you'll see there are whole scenes from the report that are in The Dark Side and many, many details, including the news that [the treatment of detainees] was considered torture by the ICRC -- not "tantamount to torture," but actual torture.
But, you know, reading the report itself, finally -- there's just no comparison to seeing the actual document.
LS: Is there anything in the report in particular that has struck you that you didn't know before?
JM: One of the things that caught my eye last night was that it's clear that the CIA -- and I think you'd have to guess the Department of Defense -- lied to the Red Cross. They told the Red Cross when it visited Guantanamo [in 2002] that it had seen all of the detainees. But what the report says is that some of the detainees -- some of the high-value detainees -- realized when they were finally sent to Guantanamo in 2006 that they'd been there before. They were there. And yet the Red Cross was not allowed to see them. The Red Cross was told they'd seen everybody.
So the CIA and DOD lied to the Red Cross. There were some hidden prisoners in Guantanamo. That's an overt act; lying to the Red Cross, hiding prisoners from them. So, that's interesting to me.
There are also some specific details [about the torture] I didn't know. I didn't realize they used hospital beds to waterboard people, with motorized reclining backs, which is hideous.
I knew there were doctors there -- I mean, people will tell you that there were doctors there, and it's in the book -- but there's still something so specifically terrible about reading that they would attach some kind of modern monitor that could monitor oxygen to the finger of a prisoner while they were busy depriving him of oxygen.
They told him -- Khalid Sheik Mohammed (and this was in the New Yorker stories I did and it was in the book) -- that they would take him to the brink of death and back but they wouldn't kill him. So, they used sort of the most modern medicine to make sure they did exactly that. Its kind of a horrible combination of modernism and the Dark Ages all in one.
LS: Do we have any idea who these doctors are?
JM: Well, I'm glad people are asking that question, because, really, since the beginning, one of the things that has obsessed me is: Who were the doctors? What kind of doctors would do this? Some of them are described as literally working in ski masks to cover their faces so that people wouldn't know their identity.
LS: Like executioners.
JM: Yeah. So people have to find out, there just absolutely has to be some more accountability about this. Who were the doctors -- and what does the profession say about this? I mean, there's been a tremendous debate about this within the psychiatric profession and within the psychology profession, but there really has not been a similar debate within the medical profession.
I've already heard from one friend who's a doctor this morning, saying "God -- something's got to happen with this." Things will happen, I think.
LS: I wanted to ask you about accountability. It seems like every other day we're hearing about how Obama's Department of Justice is standing up in court and defending some Bush administration practice, or else the administration is making a statement that suggests that there's not going to be any move for accountability. Yet House Judiciary Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., just released a 540-page report reiterating the allegations against the Bush administration and calling for a special prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Eric Holder. What would it take for that to happen?
JM: What would it take for that to happen? It would take Obama. It would take Obama weighing in on this. And, you know, it seems that his general style is to try to find consensus rather than to isolate people and confront them. I think that an early tip-off to his thinking was when he described possible accountability as "witch hunts" and said we're not going to have witch hunts.
And yet I think that they're going to find it impossible to be where they are. Right now, they're trying to assert some kind of neutral position about the Bush years. They've come out critical, they've said "we're fixing this, it was wrong," and they have started to fix it -- I give them credit for doing a lot of the right things.
But what they're trying to do is not have to open up the past, as they keep saying, and I don't think that's going to work because they're going to have a choice here. They're at a fork in the road, where either they're going to open things up, or they're going to have to cover things up. There's not a real neutral position to be there. And that's what I think they're beginning to realize.
LS: A lot of people have been surprised by the positions Obama has taken -- for instance, saying that prisoners at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan don't have the right to habeas corpus (although a court recently contradicted that). Are there any Bush-era tactics that are now an inextricable part of Obama's counterterrorism policies?
JM: The progress so far is: there's no longer torture -- there's no program of torture that's being practiced by the United States anymore. And there are no more secret prison sites. And they are trying to do something to bring all of the prisoners whose rights were violated in the Bush years back inside the rule of law. They're trying to sort out the people in Guantanamo and charge some. … I think it's also progress that they charged [Ali Saleh Kahlah] al Marri, who was being held forever as an enemy combatant without any rights. So, I see this as progress.
LS: Does this mean that the CIA black sites have been dismantled? Also, what about renditions? Isn't Obama keeping open the possibility of keeping Clinton-era style rendition in place?
JM: Obama's executive orders issued in his first week, direct the government to abide by the Geneva Conventions standards as they are internationally understood, and to allow the ICRC to have access to all detainees. This means the U.S. can no longer treat anyone in its custody cruelly, let alone torture them, and it means that the Red Cross can meet with all prisoners, which ends the Bush practice of hidden, black-site prisons and disappearances.
The Obama administration is claiming that it will undertake renditions without torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. They say they will only snatch suspects against whom there are legitimate charges and only deliver them to stand trial in legitimate justice systems where there is no threat of torture. Essentially, they claim it's a return to the pre-9/11 Clinton program, which was ostensibly "rendition to justice." But some sources who were involved in the Clinton years have told me it was a very rough business. The CIA has fought very hard to keep the program going in a modified form. We'll see if they can do it in the transparent, legal and humane way the executive orders require. I have my doubts.
I think that there's a ton still to do here. And some of the early positions they've taken -- defending state secrets and denying, as you say, habeas corpus rights to prisoners held in Bagram -- you know, they're worrisome. I think there's more going on here, though, which people haven't really focused on, which is: there's a real tug-of-war going on about the confirmation process. A number of top appointees who Obama wants to put in to handle some of these issues have not been confirmed. The Republicans in the Senate are really holding up people that Obama needs to make changes for the better.
You've got Harold Koh, who's been nominated to be the top lawyer for the State Department. He's a great defender of human rights. His nomination confirmation is in trouble because the Republicans are talking about trying to block him.
And the same thing is true of Dawn Johnsen, who has been nominated for the head of the Office of Legal Council. And there are a number of other top positions that are open that are really important. The Obama administration doesn't have enough staff to handle what it needs to do.
Meanwhile, it's being hit by wave after wave of litigation, because the human rights community's approach in the Bush years was "we're gonna litigate." So there is case after case breaking and requiring action from the Obama administration, which doesn't have its people in place yet. And I think that's part of the problem. So, I'm cutting them more slack then some critics, because I don't think we're seeing everything they want to do yet.
LS: So is what you're saying that they are buying themselves time, adopting these Bush positions or defending them for the moment?
JM: Well they're definitely buying themselves time on Guantanamo, but they haven't bought themselves very much time. They gave themselves 180 days; they've got three task forces, which took a long time to get up and running. I hear from people who are involved in this that it's a really complicated process.
And on the state-secrets cases -- you know, I don't know whose really making these decisions. But again, on accountability, I think it comes back to Obama himself. And he is spread so thin and so distracted by so many other emergencies right now, I'm not sure that he's really giving it the attention that some of us think it needs.
So that's what I think is going on. I'm not sure that I would impute terrible motives to them at this point. I think it's more disorganization and delay.
LS: I wanted to ask you about "preventive detention" (of terrorism suspects, including the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo Bay), since you wrote about it a few months back. Do you have any recent information on Obama's plans to use it, or is that something that they're still sorting out?
JM: I think it's going to be a big fight in the administration. We're kind of waiting to see.
I mean, some of Obama's Justice Department appointees think that there might need to be some kind of national security court that would allow for some sort of preventive detention. There have been experiments with this elsewhere in the world, and most of them have become real human-rights problems.
And there are other people who think this is anathema and tell me that there's just no way that Obama is going to back this sort of thing. I mean, he's being faced with a lot of very tough choices here and, meanwhile, I think that the intelligence community is bombarding him with threats, saying "if you become more transparent, you're going to endanger the country" -- they're sounding too much like Dick Cheney, [saying] that if they let out information, it's going to really hurt the country, it's going to really hurt our relations with other liaison intelligence agencies. … So, he's stuck in the middle of a big fight.
LS: I'm glad you brought up Dick Cheney. I wanted to ask you about him since he plays such an important role in your book, and also because there's this bizarre way in which he seems to be more in the public eye now than he ever was as vice president. What do you think that's about?
Also, you've noted that interesting quote by Cheney referring to Guantanamo prisoners, "People will want to know where they've been and what we've been doing with them." Do you think he fears prosecution at all? Do you think that's part of why he's out there talking and defending … ?
JN: Listen, all of these people fear prosecution. And it seems unthinkable to prosecute them to most people. But face it: The ICRC report; from some standpoints, it can be seen as a crime scene. And its a crime scene that was authorized by the top of our government. They all have some legal liability here. Cheney coming out -- you know, I can't really -- it's hard to get inside Cheney's mind, but I can say politically what it has the effect of doing is putting a marker down, so that if there's another attack, the Republicans can say, "You see, the Democrats weakened America. We warned them, and we told you so." So, I think in some ways it's a political gambit. And it's also a play for his legacy. He's trying to say "I'm not a war criminal."
Can I say one thing about the Ridenhour Prize? One thing I wanted to say was that Ron Ridenhour -- who was the whistle-blower about My Lai [in the Vietnam War] -- one of his contentions was always that there was authorized slaughter there. It was not just Lt. William Calley who was going on a berserk spree on his own. And so I think that it's kind of fitting that the ICRC report comes out which shows, again, the point that I was trying to make in The Dark Side, which is: This was not just an isolated episode of bad behavior, it was not just the people at the bottom of the barrel, as Donald Rumsfeld called them.
This was an authorized program of abuse from the top of the U.S. government. So there are a lot of parallels there. In both cases, what makes the headlines is the abuse, but the larger point that people have to grapple with is going up the chain of command, how it was authorized.
LS: The importance of whiste-blowers and journalists in the Bush era was, for many people, undisputed. What do you consider to be the role of journalists now?
JM: Abuse is bipartisan. Abuse of power is bipartisan. So I don't think the role of the press ever disappears. As you're pointing out, there's a lot still to do and a lot still to write about. So we're all struggling to keep at it.
4/2/09
EE.UU. exporta más de US$1.000 millones en armas a México en 5 años
Armas de EE.UU. y poder de fuego del narcotráfico
Bill Conroy
Narco News
Traducido del inglés para Rebelión por Germán Leyens
Los medios dominantes, expertos y políticos en Washington han desencadenado en los últimos meses una ola de pánico que vincula la escalada de la violencia en México, y su proyección hacia EE.UU., al contrabando ilegal de armas.
La cortina de humo que difunden esos portavoces oficiales del consenso prefabricado es que una serie de operadores criminales están involucrados en compras ficticias (o fraudulentas) de armas, al realizar compras clandestinas en ferias de armas o al reunir pequeños depósitos de armas en EE.UU. a fin de contrabandearlas al sur de la frontera, a los “cárteles de la droga.”
El gobierno de Obama está enviando ahora cientos de agentes federales adicionales a la frontera en un esfuerzo por impedir ese contrabando ilegal de armas para asegurar a la clase media estadounidense agitada de EE.UU. que el Tío Sam se ocupará de esos viles sujetos. La cascada de titulares de los medios dominantes que imprimen pornografía de la guerra contra la droga nos promete en párrafos insertados en medio de la excitación que la Operación Traficante de Armas de la ATF [Oficina de Alcohol Tabaco y Armas de Fuego] y otros programas de acción radical contra vendedores de armas salvará EE.UU. de los ‘banditos’ de México.
Es indiscutible que algunos personajes criminales en EE.UU. contrabandean armas cortas a través de la frontera. Pero la guerra de la droga en México no es librada con ofertas especiales del sábado por la noche, rifles de pasatiempo y escopetas de casa. Las organizaciones de narcotráfico ahora poseen armas de gran potencia en vastas cantidades que no pueden ser explicadas por el vacío legal de las ferias de armas.
Por lo menos hay un informe en un medio noticioso dominante que merece crédito por reconocer esa tendencia:
Narco News, en un informe de diciembre pasado. [“Juarez murders shine a light on an emerging Military Cartel”] también examinó la creciente militarización de los grupos de narcotráfico en México y señaló que munición de origen militar apareció en un depósito de armas confiscado en Reynosa, México, en noviembre de 2008 que fue vinculado a los Zetas, un grupo mercenario que provee servicios de refuerzo a las organizaciones mexicanas de narcotráfico.
En lugar de encarar directamente esa pregunta válida, los medios dominantes, y ahora incluso el gobierno de Obama, han estado tratando de ponerle lápiz labial al cerdo, pregonando, en las palabras de la Secretaria de Estado de EE.UU. Hillary Clinton, los “valerosos esfuerzos emprendidos por el presidente [mexicano] Calderón.”
Y el “valeroso” presidente mexicano Felipe Calderón, por su parte, reexpide a EE.UU. la culpa del creciente poder de fuego de las organizaciones de narcotráfico mexicanas.
En un artículo publicado por Associated Press a fines de febrero de este año, cita al presidente mexicano Calderón, afirmando lo siguiente:
Pero no importa con cuánto esfuerzo Calderón y los funcionarios tratan de disfrazar al cerdo, éste sigue gruñendo.
Una investigación de Narco News sobre el flujo de armas a través de la frontera de EE.UU. parece conducir directamente a la corrupción sistémica que aflige a una amplia zona del gobierno mexicano del presidente Felipe Calderón y la asimilación por su propia nación de políticas de libre comercio impulsadas por el mercado.
Las más letales de las armas que ahora están en manos de grupos criminales en México, en particular a lo largo de la frontera de EE.UU., según todo estándar razonable de análisis de los hechos, parecen estar penetrando a esa nación a través de exportaciones perfectamente legales del sector privado de armas, medidas en miles de millones de dólares, y aprobadas por el propio Departamento de Estado de EE.UU. La evidencia indica que esas mortíferas mercancías comerciales – lanzagranadas, explosivos, y armas de “asalto” – son entonces transferidas mediante la corrupción a organizaciones de narcotráfico a través de su alcance dentro de las fuerzas armadas y de las agencias de mantenimiento del orden mexicanas, en cantidades que pueden repletar bodegas.
“Como en otros negocios criminales en México, como el contrabando de drogas o los secuestros, no es poco usual que oficiales de la policía y personal militar estén involucrados en el comercio ilegal de armas,” señala un informe de octubre de 2007 del grupo profesional de inteligencia global Stratfor, que la revista Barron una vez apodó la “CIA fantasma.” “…Durante los últimos años, varios funcionarios gubernamentales mexicanos han sido arrestados a ambos lados de la frontera por participar en el tráfico de armas.”
El Departamento de Estado de EE.UU. supervisa un programa que exige que las compañías privadas en EE.UU. obtengan una licencia de exportación para vender equipos o servicios de defensa a clientes extranjeros – lo que incluye tanto a unidades gubernamentales como a compradores privados en otros países. Esos negocios de armas son conocidos como Ventas Comerciales Directas (DCS). Cada año, el Departamento de Estado publica un informa que especifica el volumen y el valor en dólares de los ítems de DCS aprobados para la exportación.
Los informes no suministran detalles de a quienes fueron exportadas específicamente las armas o los servicios de defensa, pero provee una lista de los países de destino. Aunque es posible que algunos de los tratos autorizados bajo el programa DCS hayan sido alterados o incluso anulados después de la emisión de licencias de exportación, los datos compilados por el Departamento de Estado proveen una amplia instantánea del amplio volumen de embarques de armas del sector privado de EE.UU. tanto a México como a Latinoamérica en general.
Según un análisis de los informes del DCS, unos 1.000 millones de dólares en equipamientos militares fueron aprobados para la exportación a México a través de compañías privadas de EE.UU. entre el año fiscal 2004 y el año fiscal 2007 – el año más reciente para el que hay datos disponibles. En general, durante el mismo período, un total de unos 3.700 millones de dólares en armas y otros equipamientos militares fueron aprobados para la exportación bajo el programa DCS a toda Latinoamérica y el Caribe.
Aparte de las exportaciones de equipos militares aprobados para México, unos 3.800 millones de dólares en “servicios” relacionados con la defensa [asistencia técnica y entrenamiento por contratistas privados de EE.UU.] también fueron aprobados para su “exportación” a México durante el mismo período de cuatro años, según los informes del DCS.
Eso significa que el valor total de exportaciones a México por compañías privadas de EE.UU. de equipamientos y servicios relacionados con la defensa fue de cerca de 5.000 millones de dólares durante esos cuatro años. Y esa cifra ni siquiera incluye los 700 millones de dólares en ayuda que ya fue autorizada bajo la Iniciativa Mérida [Plan México] o cualesquiera nuevas exportaciones por el DCS autorizadas para los años fiscales 2008 y 2009 [que termina el 30 de septiembre].
Lo que sigue es una muestra de los tipos de embarques de armas aprobadas para ser exportadas a México a través del programa DCS sólo durante los años fiscales 2006 y 2007:
Una revelación inquietante sobre el programa DCS, que tiene relevancia directa para la guerra de la droga en México, forma parte de un informe fiscal de 2007 publicado por el Departamento de Estado. Ese informe Blue Lantern resume los resultados del programa de monitoreo del uso final de exportaciones del DCS.
El informe Blue Lantern estableció que “el Hemisferio Occidental (especialmente Latinoamérica y el Caribe) sigue siendo una región con una alta incidencia de casos desfavorables que involucran armas de fuego y munición.” Los resultados desfavorables indican que puede haber ocurrido fraude y esos casos “podrían ser objeto de acciones policiales civiles o ser enviadas al mantenimiento del orden para investigación criminal.”
De todo el programa DCS, y es una cifra inquietante, de los 634 casos Blue Lantern cerrados en el año fiscal 2007, un total de 143, o sea un 23%, fueron considerandos “desfavorables.”
El informe Blue Lantern no menciona en detalle transacciones específicas, pro suministra ejemplos de estudios detallados. Uno, incluido en el informe, indica que un comerciante latinoamericano en armas de fuego actuó como “compañía fachada para otra compañía latinoamericana.”
En vista de las estrictas leyes para armas de fuego de México respecto a individuos privados, es probable que la mayor parte de los equipamientos de defensa del programa DCS para exportación a esa nación hayan sido dirigidos hacia las agencias militares o de mantenimiento del orden. Pero es precisamente ese hecho el que debería provocar una cierta alarma en Washington.
México, según admite el propio Calderón, enfrenta un serio problema de corrupción dentro de las filas de los organismos del orden público mexicanos.
De un informe de diciembre de 2008 de Los Angeles Times:
El rival de Calderón en la elección presidencial mexicana de 2006, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, en una reciente carta abierta publicada en el periódico mexicano ¡Por Esto! y dirigida a la Secretaria de Estado de EE.UU. Clinton, es aún más directo en su evaluación de la dimensión de la corrupción dentro del régimen de Calderón:
Usted seguramente sabe que todo esto comenzó cuando un grupo de alrededor de 30 traficantes de influencias y políticos corruptos, utilizando como parapeto a la llamada política económica neoliberal, se apoderó del Estado mexicano, así como de una buena parte de los bienes de la nación y del presupuesto público. Y esta política de pillaje que ha enriquecido a una minoría de manera exagerada y obscena, como no ha sucedido en ninguna otra parte del mundo, ha condenado al pueblo de México al destierro y a la sobrevivencia.
Y esa corrupción no se limita a los organismos de orden público mexicanos. Narco News obtuvo una presentación en PowerPoint preparada para la DEA que indica lo siguiente:
Otra diapositiva en la misma presentación en PowerPoint de la DEA muestra que los militares mexicanos informaron de un promedio de 1.200 deserciones por mes en 2006.
Y no hay que olvidar que los Zetas, ahora mismo uno de los grupos de la organización de la droga más violentos en México, fueron fundados por ex soldados de las operaciones especiales de elite mexicanas – muchos de los cuales recibieron algún entrenamiento en EE.UU.
[Los más recientes informes del DCS se encuentran en los enlaces:FY2006 y FY2007.]
Un ex alto Inspector de Aduanas de EE.UU., quien pidió guardar el anonimato, suministró la siguiente reacción cuando le mostramos los datos del DCS:
Pero eso presupone que el gobierno mexicano, y el de EE.UU., realmente quieran rastrear esas armas. Un informe de 2008 en el San Antonio Express News, que incluye detalles de la mayor confiscación de armas en Reynosa, México, en ese mismo mes, con la participación de los Zetas, revela lo siguiente:
Un ex agente de la DEA, que también pidió no ser nombrado, dice que el embarque de armas de grado militar al gobierno mexicano bajo el programa DCS, es esencialmente como “enviar armas a un sindicato del crimen” en vista del grado de corrupción dentro de ese gobierno.
Por lo menos un individuo con antiguas conexiones con agencias de inteligencia de EE.UU. está convencido de que la corrupta transferencia de armas entre militares mexicanos y narcocriminales en México es más que una teoría.
Tosh Plumlee, es ex piloto contratado por la CIA que condujo numerosas misiones de entrega de armas a Latinoamérica y transporte de drogas a EE.UU. como parte de las clandestinas operaciones Irán/Contra en los años ochenta, según antecedentes públicos. Después de inquietarse por esas misiones aprobadas por el gobierno, Plumlee decidió llevar sus preocupaciones al Congreso.
En su momento, Plumlee fue llamado a testificar ante el Congreso en numerosas ocasiones, sólo para descubrir que los comités del Congreso que escucharon su testimonio ordenaron que fuera considerado confidencial – lo que significaba que si Plumlee hablaba posteriormente en público al respecto, estaría violando la ley.
Plumlee, sin embargo, todavía tiene profundos contactos con el mundo de los servicios de inteligencia, algunos de los cuales, al parecer, quieren que presente alguna información sobre la naturaleza de la guerra de la droga en Juárez, México. Como resultado, Plumlee dice que recientemente hizo un viaje con individuos que describió como “fuentes confidenciales” a un pequeño depósito en Juárez – que se encuentra al otro lado de la frontera desde El Paso, Texas. Plumlee dice que aceptó acompañar a las fuentes porque actualmente está investigando para un libro que escribe sobre la guerra de la droga.
Plumlee dice que a su juicio es evidente que el almacén no formaba parte de una operación militar mexicana, y sin embargo estaba repleto de armas militares de EE.UU. – incluidas granadas, lanzagranadas, armas ligeras antitanque LAW [esencialmente bazucas de alta tecnología, rifles M16 y equipos de visión nocturna].
Plumlee dice que sus fuentes indicaron que las armas estadounidenses en el almacén – así como en otro ubicado en otro sitio en Juárez que no visitó – estaban ahora bajo el control de una organización de narcotráfico, que había obtenido la munición de elementos corruptos en el ejército mexicano.
Plumlee reconoce que no sabe por qué le permitieron que entrara al depósito y saliera vivo. Todo lo que puede decir con seguridad es que lo estaban utilizando para revelar la información y sospecha que esas armas han sido cambiadas de sitio desde entonces.
Por increíble que suene la historia de Plumlee, en realidad no puede sorprender que haya depósitos de armas en almacenes clandestinos en una ciudad como Juárez que, desde comienzos de 2008, ha producido cerca de 2.000 de los 7.000 asesinatos que se estima han tenido lugar en la sangrienta guerra de la droga de México. Y, quiérase o no creer la información de Plumlee, es evidente que tiene una larga historia como participante en el mundo infernal de las operaciones ocultas, y que es posible que cuente con la confianza de algunos protagonistas que siguen involucrados en ese arte clandestino.
Mike Levine, ex agente de la DEA que tiene años de experiencia en la participación en peligrosas operaciones clandestinas en el extranjero, dice que Plumlee es quien afirma ser. Levine presenta ahora un show radial en la ciudad de Nueva York en una estación de Pacifica Radio [el Expert Witness Radio Show] y Plumlee ha aparecido varias veces en ese show a lo largo de los años.
Levine dice sobre la credibilidad de Plumlee:
¿Podría ser que Plumlee haya sido utilizado como una especie de mensaje en una botella, porque como ha pasado tantas veces en la historia pasada de EE.UU., la cadena normal de comando y los políticos en Washington, simplemente no quieren oír la verdad, no quieren arriesgar hacer olas en las relaciones internacionales con México o interrumpir el flujo de mercado libre de un multimillonario negocio “legal” de armas?
Después de todo, si el gobierno de EE.UU. tuviera que aceptar que los militares mexicanos están tan devastados por la corrupción y fuera del control del presidente Calderón de México que no se puede confiar en que controlen sus propias armas, ¿cómo puede su cooperación con el gobierno de Calderón tener alguna esperanza de éxito en lo que muchos dirían es una guerra contra la droga mal concebida para empezar?
En los hechos, si lo que ahora EE.UU. enfrenta en México, es probablemente que su cooperación con el gobierno de Calderón, cuando toma la forma de embarques de armas de EE.UU., probablemente sólo va a nutrir más derramamiento de sangre y probablemente sólo pondrá en grave peligro a agentes estadounidenses en el terreno que ayudan a esos esfuerzos.
Narco News trató de conseguir comentarios de funcionarios tanto en el Departamento de Justicia como en el Departamento de Estado sobre los temas presentados en este artículo. Hasta la fecha, esos pedidos – tanto por teléfono como por correo electrónico – han sido recibidos con un silencio total.
Manténganse al tanto…
Bill Conroy
Narco News
Traducido del inglés para Rebelión por Germán Leyens
Los medios dominantes, expertos y políticos en Washington han desencadenado en los últimos meses una ola de pánico que vincula la escalada de la violencia en México, y su proyección hacia EE.UU., al contrabando ilegal de armas.
La cortina de humo que difunden esos portavoces oficiales del consenso prefabricado es que una serie de operadores criminales están involucrados en compras ficticias (o fraudulentas) de armas, al realizar compras clandestinas en ferias de armas o al reunir pequeños depósitos de armas en EE.UU. a fin de contrabandearlas al sur de la frontera, a los “cárteles de la droga.”
El gobierno de Obama está enviando ahora cientos de agentes federales adicionales a la frontera en un esfuerzo por impedir ese contrabando ilegal de armas para asegurar a la clase media estadounidense agitada de EE.UU. que el Tío Sam se ocupará de esos viles sujetos. La cascada de titulares de los medios dominantes que imprimen pornografía de la guerra contra la droga nos promete en párrafos insertados en medio de la excitación que la Operación Traficante de Armas de la ATF [Oficina de Alcohol Tabaco y Armas de Fuego] y otros programas de acción radical contra vendedores de armas salvará EE.UU. de los ‘banditos’ de México.
Es indiscutible que algunos personajes criminales en EE.UU. contrabandean armas cortas a través de la frontera. Pero la guerra de la droga en México no es librada con ofertas especiales del sábado por la noche, rifles de pasatiempo y escopetas de casa. Las organizaciones de narcotráfico ahora poseen armas de gran potencia en vastas cantidades que no pueden ser explicadas por el vacío legal de las ferias de armas.
Por lo menos hay un informe en un medio noticioso dominante que merece crédito por reconocer esa tendencia:
“Traficantes [mexicanos] han escalado su carrera armamentista, adquiriendo armas de grado militar, incluidas granadas de mano, lanzagranadas, munición perforante de blindados y cohetes antitanque con un poder de fuego que va mucho más allá de rifles de asalto y pistolas que han dominando sus arsenales,” señala un informe reciente en Los Angeles Times.
“La proliferación de armamentos más pesados apunta a una amenazadora nueva etapa en la guerra de dos años del gobierno mexicano contra organizaciones de la droga…”
Narco News, en un informe de diciembre pasado. [“Juarez murders shine a light on an emerging Military Cartel”] también examinó la creciente militarización de los grupos de narcotráfico en México y señaló que munición de origen militar apareció en un depósito de armas confiscado en Reynosa, México, en noviembre de 2008 que fue vinculado a los Zetas, un grupo mercenario que provee servicios de refuerzo a las organizaciones mexicanas de narcotráfico.
¿De dónde provienen realmente esas armas de grado militar?
En lugar de encarar directamente esa pregunta válida, los medios dominantes, y ahora incluso el gobierno de Obama, han estado tratando de ponerle lápiz labial al cerdo, pregonando, en las palabras de la Secretaria de Estado de EE.UU. Hillary Clinton, los “valerosos esfuerzos emprendidos por el presidente [mexicano] Calderón.”
Y el “valeroso” presidente mexicano Felipe Calderón, por su parte, reexpide a EE.UU. la culpa del creciente poder de fuego de las organizaciones de narcotráfico mexicanas.
En un artículo publicado por Associated Press a fines de febrero de este año, cita al presidente mexicano Calderón, afirmando lo siguiente:
Tenemos que detener el flujo de fusiles y armas hacia México. Permítame expresarle que hemos confiscado en estos dos años más de 25.000 fusiles y armas, y más de un 90% provenían de EE.UU., y estamos hablando desde lanza misiles a ametralladoras y granadas.
Pero no importa con cuánto esfuerzo Calderón y los funcionarios tratan de disfrazar al cerdo, éste sigue gruñendo.
Una investigación de Narco News sobre el flujo de armas a través de la frontera de EE.UU. parece conducir directamente a la corrupción sistémica que aflige a una amplia zona del gobierno mexicano del presidente Felipe Calderón y la asimilación por su propia nación de políticas de libre comercio impulsadas por el mercado.
Las más letales de las armas que ahora están en manos de grupos criminales en México, en particular a lo largo de la frontera de EE.UU., según todo estándar razonable de análisis de los hechos, parecen estar penetrando a esa nación a través de exportaciones perfectamente legales del sector privado de armas, medidas en miles de millones de dólares, y aprobadas por el propio Departamento de Estado de EE.UU. La evidencia indica que esas mortíferas mercancías comerciales – lanzagranadas, explosivos, y armas de “asalto” – son entonces transferidas mediante la corrupción a organizaciones de narcotráfico a través de su alcance dentro de las fuerzas armadas y de las agencias de mantenimiento del orden mexicanas, en cantidades que pueden repletar bodegas.
“Como en otros negocios criminales en México, como el contrabando de drogas o los secuestros, no es poco usual que oficiales de la policía y personal militar estén involucrados en el comercio ilegal de armas,” señala un informe de octubre de 2007 del grupo profesional de inteligencia global Stratfor, que la revista Barron una vez apodó la “CIA fantasma.” “…Durante los últimos años, varios funcionarios gubernamentales mexicanos han sido arrestados a ambos lados de la frontera por participar en el tráfico de armas.”
Recuento del comercio de armas
El Departamento de Estado de EE.UU. supervisa un programa que exige que las compañías privadas en EE.UU. obtengan una licencia de exportación para vender equipos o servicios de defensa a clientes extranjeros – lo que incluye tanto a unidades gubernamentales como a compradores privados en otros países. Esos negocios de armas son conocidos como Ventas Comerciales Directas (DCS). Cada año, el Departamento de Estado publica un informa que especifica el volumen y el valor en dólares de los ítems de DCS aprobados para la exportación.
Los informes no suministran detalles de a quienes fueron exportadas específicamente las armas o los servicios de defensa, pero provee una lista de los países de destino. Aunque es posible que algunos de los tratos autorizados bajo el programa DCS hayan sido alterados o incluso anulados después de la emisión de licencias de exportación, los datos compilados por el Departamento de Estado proveen una amplia instantánea del amplio volumen de embarques de armas del sector privado de EE.UU. tanto a México como a Latinoamérica en general.
Según un análisis de los informes del DCS, unos 1.000 millones de dólares en equipamientos militares fueron aprobados para la exportación a México a través de compañías privadas de EE.UU. entre el año fiscal 2004 y el año fiscal 2007 – el año más reciente para el que hay datos disponibles. En general, durante el mismo período, un total de unos 3.700 millones de dólares en armas y otros equipamientos militares fueron aprobados para la exportación bajo el programa DCS a toda Latinoamérica y el Caribe.
Aparte de las exportaciones de equipos militares aprobados para México, unos 3.800 millones de dólares en “servicios” relacionados con la defensa [asistencia técnica y entrenamiento por contratistas privados de EE.UU.] también fueron aprobados para su “exportación” a México durante el mismo período de cuatro años, según los informes del DCS.
Eso significa que el valor total de exportaciones a México por compañías privadas de EE.UU. de equipamientos y servicios relacionados con la defensa fue de cerca de 5.000 millones de dólares durante esos cuatro años. Y esa cifra ni siquiera incluye los 700 millones de dólares en ayuda que ya fue autorizada bajo la Iniciativa Mérida [Plan México] o cualesquiera nuevas exportaciones por el DCS autorizadas para los años fiscales 2008 y 2009 [que termina el 30 de septiembre].
Lo que sigue es una muestra de los tipos de embarques de armas aprobadas para ser exportadas a México a través del programa DCS sólo durante los años fiscales 2006 y 2007:
3,3 millones de dólares de municiones y explosivos, incluyendo equipamiento para la fabricación de munición;
13.000 armas de fuego no automáticas y semiautomáticas, pistolas y revólveres por un valor total de 11.600 millones;
42 lanzagranadas por un valor de 518.531 dólares;
3.578 proyectiles, incluyendo granadas, por un valor de 78.251 dólares;
Varios equipos de visión nocturna por un valor de 963.201 dólares.
Una revelación inquietante sobre el programa DCS, que tiene relevancia directa para la guerra de la droga en México, forma parte de un informe fiscal de 2007 publicado por el Departamento de Estado. Ese informe Blue Lantern resume los resultados del programa de monitoreo del uso final de exportaciones del DCS.
El informe Blue Lantern estableció que “el Hemisferio Occidental (especialmente Latinoamérica y el Caribe) sigue siendo una región con una alta incidencia de casos desfavorables que involucran armas de fuego y munición.” Los resultados desfavorables indican que puede haber ocurrido fraude y esos casos “podrían ser objeto de acciones policiales civiles o ser enviadas al mantenimiento del orden para investigación criminal.”
De todo el programa DCS, y es una cifra inquietante, de los 634 casos Blue Lantern cerrados en el año fiscal 2007, un total de 143, o sea un 23%, fueron considerandos “desfavorables.”
El informe Blue Lantern no menciona en detalle transacciones específicas, pro suministra ejemplos de estudios detallados. Uno, incluido en el informe, indica que un comerciante latinoamericano en armas de fuego actuó como “compañía fachada para otra compañía latinoamericana.”
“El propietario admite que la compañía existe sólo sobre papel…,” indica el informe Blue Lantern para el año fiscal 2007. “Las autoridades del país anfitrión habían suspendido temporalmente las licencias de importación para la compañía madre por su vínculo con el contrabando de armas portátiles a bandas en un tercer país.”
En vista de las estrictas leyes para armas de fuego de México respecto a individuos privados, es probable que la mayor parte de los equipamientos de defensa del programa DCS para exportación a esa nación hayan sido dirigidos hacia las agencias militares o de mantenimiento del orden. Pero es precisamente ese hecho el que debería provocar una cierta alarma en Washington.
México, según admite el propio Calderón, enfrenta un serio problema de corrupción dentro de las filas de los organismos del orden público mexicanos.
De un informe de diciembre de 2008 de Los Angeles Times:
El presidente mexicano Felipe Calderón dijo el martes que su gobierno da grandes pasos contra la corrupción, pero advirtió que el soborno sigue siendo una amenaza para los esfuerzos de la nación contra el crimen.
El rival de Calderón en la elección presidencial mexicana de 2006, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, en una reciente carta abierta publicada en el periódico mexicano ¡Por Esto! y dirigida a la Secretaria de Estado de EE.UU. Clinton, es aún más directo en su evaluación de la dimensión de la corrupción dentro del régimen de Calderón:
Usted seguramente sabe que todo esto comenzó cuando un grupo de alrededor de 30 traficantes de influencias y políticos corruptos, utilizando como parapeto a la llamada política económica neoliberal, se apoderó del Estado mexicano, así como de una buena parte de los bienes de la nación y del presupuesto público. Y esta política de pillaje que ha enriquecido a una minoría de manera exagerada y obscena, como no ha sucedido en ninguna otra parte del mundo, ha condenado al pueblo de México al destierro y a la sobrevivencia.
Y esa corrupción no se limita a los organismos de orden público mexicanos. Narco News obtuvo una presentación en PowerPoint preparada para la DEA que indica lo siguiente:
Entre enero de 2000 y diciembre de 2006: Más de 163.000 miembros de las fuerzas armadas fueron sometidos a procesos criminales durante los 6 años en el poder del ex presidente Vicente Fox. La mayoría de los crímenes fueron: [la lista incluye abuso de poder, homicidio, desfalco, secuestro, robo de bancos, posesión ilegal de armas de fuego y crímenes sanitarios [esencialmente crimen organizado].
Otra diapositiva en la misma presentación en PowerPoint de la DEA muestra que los militares mexicanos informaron de un promedio de 1.200 deserciones por mes en 2006.
Y no hay que olvidar que los Zetas, ahora mismo uno de los grupos de la organización de la droga más violentos en México, fueron fundados por ex soldados de las operaciones especiales de elite mexicanas – muchos de los cuales recibieron algún entrenamiento en EE.UU.
[Los más recientes informes del DCS se encuentran en los enlaces:FY2006 y FY2007.]
"No hay peor ciego que el que no quiere ver"
Un ex alto Inspector de Aduanas de EE.UU., quien pidió guardar el anonimato, suministró la siguiente reacción cuando le mostramos los datos del DCS:
Estaría enteramente de acuerdo [en que] armas del DCS (y donadas por el Departamento de Defensa, a diferencia de las vendidas por el DCS) constituyen obviamente la explicación más simple para el masivo aumento en la cantidad de armas totalmente automáticas, granadas, cohetes, etc. obtenidas por las bandas de narcóticos… Es decir, obtienen sus armas de su propio gobierno, mexicano, por diversos medios ilegales.
… El gobierno mexicano tiene una larga y bien documentada historia de corrupción a todos los niveles, de municipal a federal. La mayor parte de las armas “presentadas” [en los medios] simplemente no están a la venta para civiles estadounidenses, en particular las granadas – tanto de 40 mm como tipos manuales…
… La fuente de esas armas puede ser rastreada fácilmente por la ATF… Todas las ventas al extranjero tienen que ser informadas a la ATF antes del embarque, en caso de que gobierno desee retener un embarque a un país en particular, etc. La identificación de los números de serie sería fácil, con ayuda del gobierno de EE.UU., evidentemente.
Pero eso presupone que el gobierno mexicano, y el de EE.UU., realmente quieran rastrear esas armas. Un informe de 2008 en el San Antonio Express News, que incluye detalles de la mayor confiscación de armas en Reynosa, México, en ese mismo mes, con la participación de los Zetas, revela lo siguiente:
Otro ejemplo de problemas de coordinación ocurrió este mes. Autoridades mexicanas en Reynosa al otro lado de la frontera desde McAllen, confiscaron la mayor cantidad de armas de un cártel – cerca de 300 rifles de asalto, lanzagranadas disparados desde el hombro y medio millón de balas.
Pero semanas más tarde, las autoridades mexicanas todavía no habían permitido a la ATF el acceso a los números de serie que hubieran ayudado a rastrear a los compradores y traficantes al lado estadounidense.
No cabe duda de que la corrupción de los cárteles y la intimidación de los órganos de seguridad pública mexicanos a todo nivel y en toda agencia han causado una cierta disfunción.
Un ex agente de la DEA, que también pidió no ser nombrado, dice que el embarque de armas de grado militar al gobierno mexicano bajo el programa DCS, es esencialmente como “enviar armas a un sindicato del crimen” en vista del grado de corrupción dentro de ese gobierno.
Por lo menos un individuo con antiguas conexiones con agencias de inteligencia de EE.UU. está convencido de que la corrupta transferencia de armas entre militares mexicanos y narcocriminales en México es más que una teoría.
Tosh Plumlee, es ex piloto contratado por la CIA que condujo numerosas misiones de entrega de armas a Latinoamérica y transporte de drogas a EE.UU. como parte de las clandestinas operaciones Irán/Contra en los años ochenta, según antecedentes públicos. Después de inquietarse por esas misiones aprobadas por el gobierno, Plumlee decidió llevar sus preocupaciones al Congreso.
En su momento, Plumlee fue llamado a testificar ante el Congreso en numerosas ocasiones, sólo para descubrir que los comités del Congreso que escucharon su testimonio ordenaron que fuera considerado confidencial – lo que significaba que si Plumlee hablaba posteriormente en público al respecto, estaría violando la ley.
Plumlee, sin embargo, todavía tiene profundos contactos con el mundo de los servicios de inteligencia, algunos de los cuales, al parecer, quieren que presente alguna información sobre la naturaleza de la guerra de la droga en Juárez, México. Como resultado, Plumlee dice que recientemente hizo un viaje con individuos que describió como “fuentes confidenciales” a un pequeño depósito en Juárez – que se encuentra al otro lado de la frontera desde El Paso, Texas. Plumlee dice que aceptó acompañar a las fuentes porque actualmente está investigando para un libro que escribe sobre la guerra de la droga.
Plumlee dice que a su juicio es evidente que el almacén no formaba parte de una operación militar mexicana, y sin embargo estaba repleto de armas militares de EE.UU. – incluidas granadas, lanzagranadas, armas ligeras antitanque LAW [esencialmente bazucas de alta tecnología, rifles M16 y equipos de visión nocturna].
Plumlee dice que sus fuentes indicaron que las armas estadounidenses en el almacén – así como en otro ubicado en otro sitio en Juárez que no visitó – estaban ahora bajo el control de una organización de narcotráfico, que había obtenido la munición de elementos corruptos en el ejército mexicano.
Plumlee reconoce que no sabe por qué le permitieron que entrara al depósito y saliera vivo. Todo lo que puede decir con seguridad es que lo estaban utilizando para revelar la información y sospecha que esas armas han sido cambiadas de sitio desde entonces.
Por increíble que suene la historia de Plumlee, en realidad no puede sorprender que haya depósitos de armas en almacenes clandestinos en una ciudad como Juárez que, desde comienzos de 2008, ha producido cerca de 2.000 de los 7.000 asesinatos que se estima han tenido lugar en la sangrienta guerra de la droga de México. Y, quiérase o no creer la información de Plumlee, es evidente que tiene una larga historia como participante en el mundo infernal de las operaciones ocultas, y que es posible que cuente con la confianza de algunos protagonistas que siguen involucrados en ese arte clandestino.
Mike Levine, ex agente de la DEA que tiene años de experiencia en la participación en peligrosas operaciones clandestinas en el extranjero, dice que Plumlee es quien afirma ser. Levine presenta ahora un show radial en la ciudad de Nueva York en una estación de Pacifica Radio [el Expert Witness Radio Show] y Plumlee ha aparecido varias veces en ese show a lo largo de los años.
Levine dice sobre la credibilidad de Plumlee:
Antes de invitar a Tosh a salir al aire, porque su historia era tan increíble, lo investigué a través de agentes gubernamentales, todos los cuales dijeron que era genuino. Tengo una copia del mapa aéreo que entregó a un periódico semanario de San Diego, con anotaciones sobre todos sus vuelos con drogas, que fue lo primero que convenció sobre su persona.
Después que hizo numerosas revelaciones por radio en Nueva York, y los medios dominantes siguieron ignorándolo, el Congreso aparentemente estaba escuchando. Mis propias fuentes me habían dicho que agencias como la CIA grababan regularmente mi programa. (Solía recordarles, durante la emisión, que se aseguraran de apretar el botón rojo para grabar.)
Así que Tosh me llama un día cerca de 1997 y dice que el Congreso le ha pedido que testifique sobre sus experiencias, a puertas cerradas. Le dije: “Si haces eso, no van a hacer nada fuera de clasificar tu testimonio y hacer que sea ilegal que cuentes tu propia historia.”
Y eso, ciertamente, es lo que pasó, según Tosh.
¿Podría ser que Plumlee haya sido utilizado como una especie de mensaje en una botella, porque como ha pasado tantas veces en la historia pasada de EE.UU., la cadena normal de comando y los políticos en Washington, simplemente no quieren oír la verdad, no quieren arriesgar hacer olas en las relaciones internacionales con México o interrumpir el flujo de mercado libre de un multimillonario negocio “legal” de armas?
Después de todo, si el gobierno de EE.UU. tuviera que aceptar que los militares mexicanos están tan devastados por la corrupción y fuera del control del presidente Calderón de México que no se puede confiar en que controlen sus propias armas, ¿cómo puede su cooperación con el gobierno de Calderón tener alguna esperanza de éxito en lo que muchos dirían es una guerra contra la droga mal concebida para empezar?
En los hechos, si lo que ahora EE.UU. enfrenta en México, es probablemente que su cooperación con el gobierno de Calderón, cuando toma la forma de embarques de armas de EE.UU., probablemente sólo va a nutrir más derramamiento de sangre y probablemente sólo pondrá en grave peligro a agentes estadounidenses en el terreno que ayudan a esos esfuerzos.
Narco News trató de conseguir comentarios de funcionarios tanto en el Departamento de Justicia como en el Departamento de Estado sobre los temas presentados en este artículo. Hasta la fecha, esos pedidos – tanto por teléfono como por correo electrónico – han sido recibidos con un silencio total.
Manténganse al tanto…
Iraq War Veteran Returns Home, Wife Faces Deportation
Mara A. Cohen-Marks, Ph.D.
New American Media
Editor’s note: Jack Barrios fought the war in Iraq, got wounded, only to come home to fight another war: his wife’s impending deportation. NAM contributing writer Mara A. Cohen-Marks, Ph.D. is a senior fellow at the University of California, San Diego's Urban Studies and Planning Program and is on the faculty of Loyola Marymount University’s Urban Studies Program.
Jack Barrios, 25, knows a thing or two about war. He is an Iraq war veteran, who suffered brain damage and back and joint injuries while defending his homeland. At home in Los Angeles with his wife and two small children, Barrios is now on the front lines of a new battle.
His wife, who didn’t want her name to be revealed, emigrated from Guatemala, and has lived in the United States for 15 years. When the couple sought to legalize her status, they learned she had an outstanding deportation order from a court in Nebraska – where she never lived. Her father once applied for asylum when she was a minor and included her name on the application. Her name remained on the record after her father moved to Nebraska. Said Jack Barrios: “It’s not right that those of us who serve our country can get separated from our families when we come home.
He only learned that she had an outstanding deportation order when he asked a lawyer to help his wife to apply for legal status, and the lawyer learned about the asylum application that a notary in Los Angeles had helped her father file years earlier.
The soldier’s lament is sadly common. Immigration applicants must navigate a labyrinth of federal paperwork, lengthy backlogs, and unpredictable rule changes. Even permanent legal residents can be detained and deported over an innocent misstep, minor infraction, or government error.
Policies that leave little possibility for reparation are no accident. Advocates of tighter restrictions have lobbied successfully for measures at the federal, state, and local levels they hope will wear down the will of immigrants to live and work in the United States, as well as to dissuade potential newcomers. The Center on Immigration Studies articulated the “attrition through enforcement” strategy in its 2006 report. “A subtle increase in the ‘heat’ on illegal aliens can be enough to dramatically reduce the scale of the problem within just a few years,” the group claimed.
When a bipartisan attempt to overhaul federal immigration policy derailed in 2007, state and local officials enlisted in the attrition war, denying public services to illegal immigrants, banning landlords from renting to them, and making it a crime to transport them. Some jurisdictions have even cracked down on taco trucks.
Federal law enforcement and counter-terrorism efforts have been bogged down in the attrition war. In 2003, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau launched an aggressive campaign to root out fugitive aliens who could be a threat to national security and community safety. Agents were to go after the worst of the worst – transnational street gangsters, child sex offenders, and aliens with prior convictions for violent crimes.
But in 2006, agency put ordinary immigrants in its crosshairs. That’s when officials jacked up each SWAT team’s annual arrest quota from 125 to 1,000, and dropped its initial directive that 75 percent of those arrested had to be guilty of something other than a routine immigration violation.
Yet, that’s exactly who the scattershot raids of homes and workplaces have netted -- ordinary people whose only misdeed was to have entered or remained in the United States illegally. In the program’s five years, nearly three-quarters of the nearly 97,000 immigrants arrested had no criminal records. Fully 40 percent of those arrested in 2007 didn’t even have outstanding deportation orders. Meanwhile, the budget for the operations rocketed from $9 million to $218 million in five years, faster than that of any other Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement program.
Immigration hawks dragged the Department of Justice (DoJ) into the enforcement war, too. DoJ’s prosecutions of petty immigration violations doubled from 2000 to 2007 and then doubled again in 2008 to more than 70,000 cases, taking money and manpower away from tracking down dangerous felons like weapons smugglers, organized crime syndicates and drug kingpins.
Ask border state residents if they feel safer. Phoenix alone has suffered more than 500 kidnappings linked to a bloody cross-border drug trade. With the U.S. Attorney’s Office mired in the attrition war, state prosecutors in Arizona recently lost a case against a local gun dealer accused of knowingly selling about 700 weapons to smugglers tied to a Mexican drug cartel. Approximately 90 percent of the illegal drugs flowing into the United States comes through Mexico, and some 90 percent of the weapons seized from drug traffickers or at crime scenes in south of the border originated in the United States. The drug money flowing south is in the tens of billions of dollars.
The Obama administration has moved to reverse upside-down enforcement priorities. In a joint White House press conference recently, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and other top officials unveiled plans to redeploy hundreds of ICE, Border Patrol, and other federal agents to the border. Officials said the move was part of a “comprehensive strategy” for border security. “We are suspending other small-scale stuff,” said one Homeland Security official. “We are focusing our priorities.”
Representative Lamar Smith, the ranking immigration hawk on the Judiciary Committee, expressed “concern” that border enforcement could “undercut our national security and immigration enforcement responsibilities.”
But to army veteran Jack Barrios, redeploying U.S. government resources to meet the real threats makes good sense. “I believe it is unfair that couples that love each other and children with loving parents have to be separated because of our broken immigration system.”
New American Media
Editor’s note: Jack Barrios fought the war in Iraq, got wounded, only to come home to fight another war: his wife’s impending deportation. NAM contributing writer Mara A. Cohen-Marks, Ph.D. is a senior fellow at the University of California, San Diego's Urban Studies and Planning Program and is on the faculty of Loyola Marymount University’s Urban Studies Program.
Jack Barrios, 25, knows a thing or two about war. He is an Iraq war veteran, who suffered brain damage and back and joint injuries while defending his homeland. At home in Los Angeles with his wife and two small children, Barrios is now on the front lines of a new battle.
His wife, who didn’t want her name to be revealed, emigrated from Guatemala, and has lived in the United States for 15 years. When the couple sought to legalize her status, they learned she had an outstanding deportation order from a court in Nebraska – where she never lived. Her father once applied for asylum when she was a minor and included her name on the application. Her name remained on the record after her father moved to Nebraska. Said Jack Barrios: “It’s not right that those of us who serve our country can get separated from our families when we come home.
He only learned that she had an outstanding deportation order when he asked a lawyer to help his wife to apply for legal status, and the lawyer learned about the asylum application that a notary in Los Angeles had helped her father file years earlier.
The soldier’s lament is sadly common. Immigration applicants must navigate a labyrinth of federal paperwork, lengthy backlogs, and unpredictable rule changes. Even permanent legal residents can be detained and deported over an innocent misstep, minor infraction, or government error.
Policies that leave little possibility for reparation are no accident. Advocates of tighter restrictions have lobbied successfully for measures at the federal, state, and local levels they hope will wear down the will of immigrants to live and work in the United States, as well as to dissuade potential newcomers. The Center on Immigration Studies articulated the “attrition through enforcement” strategy in its 2006 report. “A subtle increase in the ‘heat’ on illegal aliens can be enough to dramatically reduce the scale of the problem within just a few years,” the group claimed.
When a bipartisan attempt to overhaul federal immigration policy derailed in 2007, state and local officials enlisted in the attrition war, denying public services to illegal immigrants, banning landlords from renting to them, and making it a crime to transport them. Some jurisdictions have even cracked down on taco trucks.
Federal law enforcement and counter-terrorism efforts have been bogged down in the attrition war. In 2003, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau launched an aggressive campaign to root out fugitive aliens who could be a threat to national security and community safety. Agents were to go after the worst of the worst – transnational street gangsters, child sex offenders, and aliens with prior convictions for violent crimes.
But in 2006, agency put ordinary immigrants in its crosshairs. That’s when officials jacked up each SWAT team’s annual arrest quota from 125 to 1,000, and dropped its initial directive that 75 percent of those arrested had to be guilty of something other than a routine immigration violation.
Yet, that’s exactly who the scattershot raids of homes and workplaces have netted -- ordinary people whose only misdeed was to have entered or remained in the United States illegally. In the program’s five years, nearly three-quarters of the nearly 97,000 immigrants arrested had no criminal records. Fully 40 percent of those arrested in 2007 didn’t even have outstanding deportation orders. Meanwhile, the budget for the operations rocketed from $9 million to $218 million in five years, faster than that of any other Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement program.
Immigration hawks dragged the Department of Justice (DoJ) into the enforcement war, too. DoJ’s prosecutions of petty immigration violations doubled from 2000 to 2007 and then doubled again in 2008 to more than 70,000 cases, taking money and manpower away from tracking down dangerous felons like weapons smugglers, organized crime syndicates and drug kingpins.
Ask border state residents if they feel safer. Phoenix alone has suffered more than 500 kidnappings linked to a bloody cross-border drug trade. With the U.S. Attorney’s Office mired in the attrition war, state prosecutors in Arizona recently lost a case against a local gun dealer accused of knowingly selling about 700 weapons to smugglers tied to a Mexican drug cartel. Approximately 90 percent of the illegal drugs flowing into the United States comes through Mexico, and some 90 percent of the weapons seized from drug traffickers or at crime scenes in south of the border originated in the United States. The drug money flowing south is in the tens of billions of dollars.
The Obama administration has moved to reverse upside-down enforcement priorities. In a joint White House press conference recently, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and other top officials unveiled plans to redeploy hundreds of ICE, Border Patrol, and other federal agents to the border. Officials said the move was part of a “comprehensive strategy” for border security. “We are suspending other small-scale stuff,” said one Homeland Security official. “We are focusing our priorities.”
Representative Lamar Smith, the ranking immigration hawk on the Judiciary Committee, expressed “concern” that border enforcement could “undercut our national security and immigration enforcement responsibilities.”
But to army veteran Jack Barrios, redeploying U.S. government resources to meet the real threats makes good sense. “I believe it is unfair that couples that love each other and children with loving parents have to be separated because of our broken immigration system.”
¡No a la intervención!
Carta abierta del líder de la izquierda mexicana a Hillary Clinton
Andrés Manuel López Obrador
Rebelión
México, D. F. a 25 de marzo de 2009
Sra. Hillary Clinton
Secretaria de Estado
Gobierno de los Estados
Unidos de América
P r e s e n t e
Respetable señora Clinton:
Aunque sólo a los mexicanos nos corresponde enfrentar y resolver los asuntos internos de nuestra Patria, consideramos pertinente, dado lo que usted representa, expresarle el sentir de millones de ciudadanos que luchamos cotidianamente por hacer realidad la justicia y la democracia en México.
Desde nuestra visión, el problema de la inseguridad y de la violencia en nuestro país se ha originado por la corrupción y la impunidad imperantes, y porque desde hace 26 años no ha habido crecimiento económico y millones de jóvenes han sido marginados de la educación y no han tenido oportunidades de trabajo.
Usted seguramente sabe que todo esto comenzó cuando un grupo de alrededor de 30 traficantes de influencias y políticos corruptos, utilizando como parapeto a la llamada política económica neoliberal, se apoderó del Estado mexicano, así como de una buena parte de los bienes de la nación y del presupuesto público. Y esta política de pillaje que ha enriquecido a una minoría de manera exagerada y obscena, como no ha sucedido en ninguna otra parte del mundo, ha condenado al pueblo de México al destierro y a la sobrevivencia.
Por eso creemos que es un error querer enfrentar el problema de la inseguridad y de la violencia sólo con mano dura, con militares, con cárceles, con leyes más severas y con penas más largas. La solución al flagelo de la delincuencia pasa, necesariamente, por rescatar al Estado, por cambiar el actual modelo económico y por garantizar mejores condiciones de vida y de trabajo a la población. No debe olvidarse que la paz y la tranquilidad son fruto de la justicia.
Señora Clinton: en consecuencia, como en su momento se lo hicimos saber al Presidente Barack Obama, sostenemos que la solución al fenómeno migratorio y a la inseguridad no se encuentra en la construcción de muros ni en la militarización de la frontera, sino en el desarrollo económico y social de México.
Por eso es indispensable que la relación entre México y Estados Unidos se finque en la cooperación para el desarrollo y no en el uso de medidas coercitivas.
De igual modo le manifestamos que aunque padecemos de un gobierno usurpador y fallido, cuya debilidad podría llevarlo a tomar acuerdos contrarios al interés nacional, existe también un movimiento ciudadano fuerte y la voluntad de muchos otros mexicanos, decididos a impedir cualquier actitud intervencionista y a defender nuestro derecho como nación libre y soberana.
Le saludamos de manera respetuosa y le deseamos una buena estancia en nuestro país.
Atentamente
Andrés Manuel López Obrador
Presidente Legítimo de México
Andrés Manuel López Obrador
Rebelión
México, D. F. a 25 de marzo de 2009
Sra. Hillary Clinton
Secretaria de Estado
Gobierno de los Estados
Unidos de América
P r e s e n t e
Respetable señora Clinton:
Aunque sólo a los mexicanos nos corresponde enfrentar y resolver los asuntos internos de nuestra Patria, consideramos pertinente, dado lo que usted representa, expresarle el sentir de millones de ciudadanos que luchamos cotidianamente por hacer realidad la justicia y la democracia en México.
Desde nuestra visión, el problema de la inseguridad y de la violencia en nuestro país se ha originado por la corrupción y la impunidad imperantes, y porque desde hace 26 años no ha habido crecimiento económico y millones de jóvenes han sido marginados de la educación y no han tenido oportunidades de trabajo.
Usted seguramente sabe que todo esto comenzó cuando un grupo de alrededor de 30 traficantes de influencias y políticos corruptos, utilizando como parapeto a la llamada política económica neoliberal, se apoderó del Estado mexicano, así como de una buena parte de los bienes de la nación y del presupuesto público. Y esta política de pillaje que ha enriquecido a una minoría de manera exagerada y obscena, como no ha sucedido en ninguna otra parte del mundo, ha condenado al pueblo de México al destierro y a la sobrevivencia.
Por eso creemos que es un error querer enfrentar el problema de la inseguridad y de la violencia sólo con mano dura, con militares, con cárceles, con leyes más severas y con penas más largas. La solución al flagelo de la delincuencia pasa, necesariamente, por rescatar al Estado, por cambiar el actual modelo económico y por garantizar mejores condiciones de vida y de trabajo a la población. No debe olvidarse que la paz y la tranquilidad son fruto de la justicia.
Señora Clinton: en consecuencia, como en su momento se lo hicimos saber al Presidente Barack Obama, sostenemos que la solución al fenómeno migratorio y a la inseguridad no se encuentra en la construcción de muros ni en la militarización de la frontera, sino en el desarrollo económico y social de México.
Por eso es indispensable que la relación entre México y Estados Unidos se finque en la cooperación para el desarrollo y no en el uso de medidas coercitivas.
De igual modo le manifestamos que aunque padecemos de un gobierno usurpador y fallido, cuya debilidad podría llevarlo a tomar acuerdos contrarios al interés nacional, existe también un movimiento ciudadano fuerte y la voluntad de muchos otros mexicanos, decididos a impedir cualquier actitud intervencionista y a defender nuestro derecho como nación libre y soberana.
Le saludamos de manera respetuosa y le deseamos una buena estancia en nuestro país.
Atentamente
Andrés Manuel López Obrador
Presidente Legítimo de México
Something is Rotten at PBS
Getting Sick of Them
By RUSSELL MOKHIBER
CounterPunch
Last year, former Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid made a great documentary for the PBS show Frontline titled Sick Around the World.
Reid traveled to five countries that deliver health care for all – UK, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, Taiwan – to learn about how they do it.
Reid found that the one thing these five countries had in common – none allowed for-profit health insurance companies to sell basic medical coverage.
Frontline then said to Reid – okay, we want you to go around the United States and make a companion documentary titled Sick Around the America.
So, Reid traveled around America, interviewing patients, doctors, and health insurance executives.
The documentary that resulted – Sick Around America – aired Monday night on PBS.
But even though Reid did the reporting for the film, he was cut out of the film when it aired this week.
And the film didn't present Reid's bottom line for health care reform – don't let health insurance companies profit from selling basic health insurance.
They can sell for-profit insurance for extras – breast enlargements, botox, hair transplants.
But not for the basic health needs of the American people.
Instead, the film that aired Monday pushed the view that Americans be required to purchase health insurance from for-profit companies.
And the film had a deceptive segment that totally got wrong the lesson of Reid's previous documentary – Sick Around the World.
During that segment, about halfway through Sick Around America, the moderator introduces Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the lead health insurance lobby in the United States.
But the hard reality, as presented by Reid in Sick Around the World, is quite different than Ignagni and the moderator claim.
Other countries do not require citizens buy health insurance from for-profit health insurance companies – the kind that Karen Ignagni represents.
In some countries like Germany and Japan, citizens are required to buy health insurance, but from non-profit, heavily regulated insurance companies.
And other countries, like the UK and Canada, don't require citizens to buy insurance. Instead, citizens are covered as a birthright – by a single government payer in Canada, or by a national health system in the UK.
The producers of the Frontline piece had a point of view – they wanted to keep the for-profit health insurance companies in the game.
TR Reid wants them out.
“We spent months shooting that film,” Reid explains. “I was the correspondent. We did our last interview on January 6. The producers went to Boston and made the documentary. About late February I saw it for the first time. And I told them I disagreed with it. They listened to me, but they didn't want to change it.”
Reid has a book coming out this summer titled The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care (Penguin Press, August 2009.)
“I said to them -- mandating for-profit insurance is not the lesson from other countries in the world,” Reid said. “I said I'm not going to be in a film that contradicts my previous film and my book. They said – I had to be in the film because I was under contract. I insisted that I couldn't be. And we parted ways.”
“Doctors, hospitals, nurses, labs can all be for-profit,” Reid said. “But the payment system has to be non-profit. All the other countries have agreed on that. We are the only one that allows health insurance companies to make a profit. You can't allow a profit to be made on the basic package of health insurance.”
“I don't think they deliberately got it wrong, but they got it wrong,” Reid said.
Reid said that he now wants to make other documentaries, but not for Frontline.
“Frontline will never touch me a again – they are done with me,” Reid said.
Reid says that “it's perfectly reasonable for people to disagree about health policy.”
“We disagreed, and we parted ways,” Reid says.
It might be perfectly reasonable for people to disagree about health policy.
But it's not perfectly reasonable to mislead the American people on national television in the middle of a health care crises when Congress is shaping legislation that will mean life or death for the for-profit health insurance industry.
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter. He can be reached at: russellmokhiber@gmail.com
By RUSSELL MOKHIBER
CounterPunch
Last year, former Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid made a great documentary for the PBS show Frontline titled Sick Around the World.
Reid traveled to five countries that deliver health care for all – UK, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, Taiwan – to learn about how they do it.
Reid found that the one thing these five countries had in common – none allowed for-profit health insurance companies to sell basic medical coverage.
Frontline then said to Reid – okay, we want you to go around the United States and make a companion documentary titled Sick Around the America.
So, Reid traveled around America, interviewing patients, doctors, and health insurance executives.
The documentary that resulted – Sick Around America – aired Monday night on PBS.
But even though Reid did the reporting for the film, he was cut out of the film when it aired this week.
And the film didn't present Reid's bottom line for health care reform – don't let health insurance companies profit from selling basic health insurance.
They can sell for-profit insurance for extras – breast enlargements, botox, hair transplants.
But not for the basic health needs of the American people.
Instead, the film that aired Monday pushed the view that Americans be required to purchase health insurance from for-profit companies.
And the film had a deceptive segment that totally got wrong the lesson of Reid's previous documentary – Sick Around the World.
During that segment, about halfway through Sick Around America, the moderator introduces Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the lead health insurance lobby in the United States.
Moderator: Other developed countries guarantee coverage for everyone. We asked Karen Ignagni why it can't work here.
Karen Ignagni: Well, it would work if we did what other countries do, which is have a mandate that everybody participate. And if everybody is in, it's quite reasonable to ask our industry to do guarantee issue, to get everybody in. So, the answer to your question is we can, and the public here will have to agree to do what the public in other countries have done, which is a consensus that everybody should be in.
Moderator: That's what other developed countries do. They make insurers cover everyone, and they make all citizens buy insurance. And the poor are subsidized.
But the hard reality, as presented by Reid in Sick Around the World, is quite different than Ignagni and the moderator claim.
Other countries do not require citizens buy health insurance from for-profit health insurance companies – the kind that Karen Ignagni represents.
In some countries like Germany and Japan, citizens are required to buy health insurance, but from non-profit, heavily regulated insurance companies.
And other countries, like the UK and Canada, don't require citizens to buy insurance. Instead, citizens are covered as a birthright – by a single government payer in Canada, or by a national health system in the UK.
The producers of the Frontline piece had a point of view – they wanted to keep the for-profit health insurance companies in the game.
TR Reid wants them out.
“We spent months shooting that film,” Reid explains. “I was the correspondent. We did our last interview on January 6. The producers went to Boston and made the documentary. About late February I saw it for the first time. And I told them I disagreed with it. They listened to me, but they didn't want to change it.”
Reid has a book coming out this summer titled The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care (Penguin Press, August 2009.)
“I said to them -- mandating for-profit insurance is not the lesson from other countries in the world,” Reid said. “I said I'm not going to be in a film that contradicts my previous film and my book. They said – I had to be in the film because I was under contract. I insisted that I couldn't be. And we parted ways.”
“Doctors, hospitals, nurses, labs can all be for-profit,” Reid said. “But the payment system has to be non-profit. All the other countries have agreed on that. We are the only one that allows health insurance companies to make a profit. You can't allow a profit to be made on the basic package of health insurance.”
“I don't think they deliberately got it wrong, but they got it wrong,” Reid said.
Reid said that he now wants to make other documentaries, but not for Frontline.
“Frontline will never touch me a again – they are done with me,” Reid said.
Reid says that “it's perfectly reasonable for people to disagree about health policy.”
“We disagreed, and we parted ways,” Reid says.
It might be perfectly reasonable for people to disagree about health policy.
But it's not perfectly reasonable to mislead the American people on national television in the middle of a health care crises when Congress is shaping legislation that will mean life or death for the for-profit health insurance industry.
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter. He can be reached at: russellmokhiber@gmail.com
4/1/09
"No canté para evitar cualquier posibilidad de desbordamiento violento en caso de que las autoridades tuvieran intención de venir a por mi"
Comunicado
Manu Chao
Rebelión
Guadalajara 27 de marzo,
Ayer al despertarme se me informó que el gobierno mexicano esta investigando mis declaraciones en rueda de prensa en el Festival Internacional de Cine de la ciudad de Guadalajara.
Declaraciones refiriéndose al operativo policial realizado en mayo de 2006 en la localidad de San Salvador Atenco. Ese operativo dejó dos muertos, más de 200 detenidos y varias denuncias de ultraje sexual de mujeres por parte de policías. Hoy en día siguen en la cárcel 12 personas con condenas absurdas de 31 a 112 años. Sin duda alguna yo me revindico como uno más de toda esa gente que milita para su liberación intentando así acabar con parte de toda esa clamorosa injusticia.
Poco a poco en el día nos llego la información sobre la posibilidad de una orden de verificación migratoria sobre mi persona, y que podría derivar en cualquier momento en mi expulsión inmediata del país sin previo juicio.
Ayer a noche en la Rambla de Catalunya de Guadalajara se proyectaba al aire libre y con libre ingreso la película LT22 Radio La Colifata de Carlos Larrondo en el contexto de la sección Cinelandia que el festival de cine me invito a liderar. Como ya de costumbre existía la probabilidad que cantara unos temas después de la proyección como ocurrió durante el festival en el Instituto Cabañas a lo largo del ciclo Cinelandia.
Me parece importante señalar que esos palomazos informales nunca fueron parte de la programación oficial del evento y son ofrecidos sin ningún ánimo de lucro a los amantes de cine que vinieron a disfrutar de las películas seleccionadas.
La decisión de no cantar en la Rambla Catalunya este último jueves fue expresamente mía. La tomé para evitar cualquier posibilidad de desbordamiento violento en caso de que las autoridades tuvieran intención de venir a por mí durante el acto. Lo que podría haber generado un enfrentamiento entre policía y público. Consciente que en esa velada podían asistir niños y miles de personas, no quise tomar el riesgo de que se transformase esa fiesta cultural en algo incontrolable y penoso para los presentes.
La razón primordial de mi decisión fue ésa. Y ninguna otra.
Aquí mismo me disculpo a toda la gente que acudió al acto y se quedó sin esos temitas rumberos después de la película. Espero que entiendan mi decisión y la valoren en el contexto.
Siempre atento
Manu Chao
Manu Chao
Rebelión
Guadalajara 27 de marzo,
Ayer al despertarme se me informó que el gobierno mexicano esta investigando mis declaraciones en rueda de prensa en el Festival Internacional de Cine de la ciudad de Guadalajara.
Declaraciones refiriéndose al operativo policial realizado en mayo de 2006 en la localidad de San Salvador Atenco. Ese operativo dejó dos muertos, más de 200 detenidos y varias denuncias de ultraje sexual de mujeres por parte de policías. Hoy en día siguen en la cárcel 12 personas con condenas absurdas de 31 a 112 años. Sin duda alguna yo me revindico como uno más de toda esa gente que milita para su liberación intentando así acabar con parte de toda esa clamorosa injusticia.
Poco a poco en el día nos llego la información sobre la posibilidad de una orden de verificación migratoria sobre mi persona, y que podría derivar en cualquier momento en mi expulsión inmediata del país sin previo juicio.
Ayer a noche en la Rambla de Catalunya de Guadalajara se proyectaba al aire libre y con libre ingreso la película LT22 Radio La Colifata de Carlos Larrondo en el contexto de la sección Cinelandia que el festival de cine me invito a liderar. Como ya de costumbre existía la probabilidad que cantara unos temas después de la proyección como ocurrió durante el festival en el Instituto Cabañas a lo largo del ciclo Cinelandia.
Me parece importante señalar que esos palomazos informales nunca fueron parte de la programación oficial del evento y son ofrecidos sin ningún ánimo de lucro a los amantes de cine que vinieron a disfrutar de las películas seleccionadas.
La decisión de no cantar en la Rambla Catalunya este último jueves fue expresamente mía. La tomé para evitar cualquier posibilidad de desbordamiento violento en caso de que las autoridades tuvieran intención de venir a por mí durante el acto. Lo que podría haber generado un enfrentamiento entre policía y público. Consciente que en esa velada podían asistir niños y miles de personas, no quise tomar el riesgo de que se transformase esa fiesta cultural en algo incontrolable y penoso para los presentes.
La razón primordial de mi decisión fue ésa. Y ninguna otra.
Aquí mismo me disculpo a toda la gente que acudió al acto y se quedó sin esos temitas rumberos después de la película. Espero que entiendan mi decisión y la valoren en el contexto.
Siempre atento
Manu Chao
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