San Francisco Peaks ruling evokes negative response from many

Tribes, individuals struggle to protect sacred sites

By Gale Courey Toensing

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/national/39219172.html

SAN FRANCISCO, Ca. – A 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling emblematized the disregard for indigenous religion held by some in the dominant society.

In August, the court overturned a previous ruling that prevented an Arizona ski resort from using recycled sewage water to make artificial snow on the San Francisco Peaks, a mountain held sacred by 13 American Indian nations.

The U.S. Forest Service manages the San Francisco Peaks as public land and, since approving the site for development in 2005, has faced multiple lawsuits from the Navajo Nation, the Hopi, White Mountain Apache, Yavapai Apache and Hualapai and Havasupai tribes.

The tribes argued under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, that they regard the mountain as “an indivisible living entity. &hellip home to deities and other spirit beings.”

A circuit panel led by Judge William Fletcher took their side, but the case went en banc and in an 8-3 ruling in August, the court gave the ski owner the go ahead, saying the tribes had failed to establish a violation of the RFRA “because the presence of recycled wastewater on the ski area would not coerce the tribes to act contrary to their religious beliefs.”

Writing for the majority, Judge Carlos Bea held that Congress did not mean to hamstring the government when it passed the RFRA. So when analyzing whether the government’s actions “substantially burden” a religious practice, the plaintiffs should have to demonstrate a certain kind of impact.

“The use of recycled wastewater on a ski area that covers one percent of the peaks,” Bea wrote, “does not force the plaintiffs to choose between following the tenets of their religion and receiving a governmental benefit. &hellip The use of recycled wastewater to make artificial snow also does not coerce the plaintiffs to act contrary to their religion under the threat of civil or criminal sanctions.”

The “only effect of the proposed upgrades is on the plaintiffs’ subjective, emotional religious experience. That is, the presence of recycled wastewater on the Peaks is offensive to the plaintiffs’ religious sensibilities. ... the diminishment of spiritual fulfillment - serious though it may be - is not a ‘substantial burden’ on the free exercise of religion,” the justices said.

But you don’t have to be Indian or even spiritual to have a yuck response to the idea of spraying recycled human waste on a mountain. Environmental groups including Sierra Club, Flagstaff Activist Network and Center of Biological Diversity also objected.

The “decision not only places these ways of life in peril, but sets the stage for an ecological and public health catastrophe,” said Jeneda Benally, member of the Save the Peaks Coalition, in a release.

The National Congress of American Indians’ Tribal Supreme Court Project is working with the plaintiff to prepare a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court and the development of an amicus strategy in support of the petition.

San Francisco Peaks was the most spectacular example of an endangered sacred site, but efforts to protect other sites occurred across the country, including:

In June the Hopi Nation, Navajo Nation, and the Zuni, Laguna and Acoma pueblos formed the first steps in forcing a dialogue with mining companies in an effort to safeguard Mount Taylor from potential uranium mining.

In July, the Great Plains Tribal Chiefs Association, which represents 16 nations, signed a resolution drawn up by Tamra Brennan, founder/director of the grass-roots organization Protect Sacred Sites Indigenous People, One Nation, to protect Bear Butte, known as Mato Paha to the Sioux, and sacred areas listed in the 40 Laramie treaties of 1851 and 1868.

In September, Brian Spirit Bear Michaud, a Pennacook/Micmac man representing a small group of unrecognized American Indians in northern New Hampshire and southern Maine, fought local authorities in York, Maine, to protect an ancient stone mound on Mount Agamenticus that memorializes the 17th century Pennacook Chief Sachem Passaconaway. The group comprises some of the surviving descendants of eastern woodlands tribes that were wiped out by the wars, diseases and assimilation of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

Celebrado en Perú el 1er Encuentro Político entre Organizaciones LGBT

Lesbianas, bisexuales y transexuales de Latinoamérica discuten por el derecho a la diversidad sexual


Julia Vicuña Yacarine
SEMlac




El derecho a la orientación e identidad sexual, el libre tránsito, el reconocimiento de familias alternativas, la no discriminación y a la protección legal fueron algunos de los temas que discutieron lesbianas, bisexuales y transexuales latinoamericanos en la capital peruana.
El I Encuentro Político entre Organizaciones LGBT (lesbianas, gays, bisexuales y transexuales) de Latinoamérica reunió a representantes de la Comunidad de Mujeres Creando y del Colectivo de Investigación-Acción en Derechos Trans Familia Galán, ambos de Bolivia.

También acudieron el grupo Tres Gatas (República Dominicana), organización Trans Siempre Amigas (República Dominicana), Fundación de Desarrollo Humano Integral (Ecuador), Corporación Promoción de la Mujer-Taller de Comunicación (Ecuador) y los grupos peruanos Lesbianas Independientes Feministas Socialistas (LIFS) y del colectivo La Mestiza.

Las representantes de Bolivia y Ecuador compartieron con sus compañeras la experiencia de haber ganado nuevos derechos en las constituciones recientemente aprobadas en sus países.

Carina Vancé, de la Fundación de Desarrollo Integral de Ecuador, destacó los avances en la nueva carta magna de su país, como la aprobación de uniones sin importar el sexo de sus integrantes, el reconocimiento de familias alternativas (desde abuelos y nietos hasta parejas del mismo sexo) y la protección legal para ejercer el derecho a la orientación e identidad sexual.

Para la aymara, feminista y lesbiana Julieta Paredes, del Colectivo Mujeres Creando, el proceso hacia la aprobación de la nueva Constitución en su país significó "un espacio para el desafío, la ansiedad y el vacío existencial en el sentido de que antes no contaban con algo a qué aferrarse".

"Hemos aprobado el permitirnos soñar, porque el texto con el que contamos está más rezagado que la reflexión política de la sociedad boliviana. Lo importante es que esta Constitución no la han escrito los doctorcitos, sino nosotras y nosotros. Y como parte del pueblo, las mujeres lesbianas feministas estamos aportando con demandas referidas no sólo al derecho a casarse, sino con una reflexión profunda sobre el cuerpo", explicó Paredes.

La Constitución, aprobada el pasado 25 de enero en Bolivia, reconoce en su artículo 14 la diversidad sexual.

Las dominicanas relataron lo importante que ha sido para ellas aliarse con otros grupos y su lucha por combatir abusos a través de la difusión de información.

Según algunos de las participantes, el intercambio de experiencias alcanzado en este encuentro, podría ser el punto de partida para una alianza regional de organizaciones LGBT.

"Aunque sería pretencioso decir que ya tenemos un movimiento común, a partir del debate que se ha abierto podemos decir que estamos caminando en reconocer que tenemos mucho por lo qué luchar juntas, dentro de nuestra diversidad", afirmó la peruana Gladys Galarreta, de LIFS.

The Face of the New American Bigot

New America Media, Commentary, Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez


On the issue of immigration, there is little difference between conservatives and extremists. Both camps have come to greatly admire Sheriff Joe Arpaio – America's toughest sheriff. To this Arizona lawman, there is nothing wrong with racially profiling red-brown peoples and communities And of course, his supporters applaud his every antic, including the recent public spectacle of humiliating some 220 migrants in Phoenix by parading them in public.

This is arguably why the GOP is dying. Arpaio has become the Bull Conner of our times. For conservative Republicans to embrace him – akin to how extremists embrace him – gives the nation a clear message: the GOP is more interested in preserving its outdated ideology and (racial) heritage, than in expanding its base.

As the economy continues its uncontrolled convulsions, the nation also continues to convulse with an increasing number of ugly cases of racial bigotry and acts of violence against immigrants.

Indeed, this era is now marked by the rise of the New American Bigot. The old one has undergone an extreme makeover; save for lawman Arpaio, the New American bigot is no longer the Aryan extremist or unrepentant segregationist. George Wallace is out and CNN's jolly Lou Dobbs is in.

Don't misunderstand: Racial supremacists and ultra-nationalists are up in arms because of President Obama's historic election. Many are on a gun-buying shopping spree. Others are prophesizing doomsday.

However, among the nation's mainstream body politic, outward displays of racial bigotry are generally now frowned upon. The GOP has a new face, which is but a mask. Witness the election of Michael Steele to head the Republican Party, or what has now become America's far-right, anti-immigrant party. Steele's mission is to convince people generally not attracted to his party that they are now welcome under the GOP's shrinking white tent. With Obama in office, the chance of siphoning off black voters is nil.

Theoretically, sizeable inroads could be made from the expanding Latino/Latina electorate. Yet with racially tinged xenophobia rampant within the GOP, the chances of making inroads there don't look good. Unquestionably, xenophobia is also present within Democratic circles; it's just not trumpeted as loud.

The GOP's inability to attract new voters has little to do with an image or perception problem. As long as their views come wrapped in patriotism, legalese and law-and-order, they believe that their views are appealing to all. Outward displays of racial bigotry are out, but one exception is allowed: "illegal aliens."

Purportedly, the objection to them is not directed at any one racial or ethnic group. It is strictly directed at those who have broken the law; at the brown hordes that have crossed the Mexican border illegally (the Canadian border is okay); at those who refuse to assimilate into the American way of life; and at those who refuse to learn good English (never mind former president Bush).

In their fervor, they forget that almost half of "illegal aliens" do not enter the country from Mexico. The other half enter legally, but overstay their visas. They also forget that refusing to assimilate or to speak English is not an indicator of legality or illegality. Besides, they are seemingly unaware that there are no laws that compel anyone to assimilate (particularly their conservative or extreme right-wing values.)

The "illegal alien"-obsessed Lou Dobbs does not take a backseat to brazen xenophobes such as Arpaio. Dobb's daily rants have made it respectable for Republicans to clamor for a gated, checkpoint society. Dobbs and most of his talking head counter-parts are anything but jolly, speaking with the same venomous tongue. On the airwaves and on the Internet, racial extremism, xenophobia, scapegoating and dehumanization are part of the daily soup. Both extremists and conservatives hold the views that the fewer red-brown peoples in this country, the better… the less Spanish spoken, the better.

The New American Bigot has a new face, and it, too, is but a mask – a Janus-faced mask.

Rodriguez can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com

Los ciclos de los movimientos sociales

Raúl Zibechi
Página/12

http://www.rebelion.org


Los foros sociales mundiales, regionales y nacionales nacieron en un período de ascenso de las luchas sociales contra la primera fase del modelo neoliberal, como forma de establecer relaciones no jerárquicas ni centralizadas entre los más diversos movimientos del mundo. En buena medida sus éxitos se debieron a que, a diferencia de los movimientos antisistémicos del período anterior, no reprodujeron algunos de sus errores y afirmaron su autonomía de los partidos de izquierda y de los gobiernos progresistas, aunque mantengan fluidas relaciones con ellos.

Naturalmente, luego del ascenso vino el declive de la actividad pública de los movimientos, que se enfrentaron con escenarios políticos mucho más complejos en los que no siempre acertaron a ubicarse. En poco tiempo dejaron de ocupar, como en la década anterior, un lugar central en el tablero político. La llegada a los gobiernos de una camada de fuerzas y presidentes progresistas y de izquierda, gracias a la oleada de movilizaciones y resistencias que deslegitimaron el modelo neoliberal, contribuyó a desplazarlos del lugar que habían jugado en los ’90. Como se señaló repetidamente en el reciente Foro Social Mundial en Belém, el papel de los movimientos fue y seguirá siendo relevante desde el punto de vista del cambio social, pese a que una buena parte de ellos hayan sido cooptados. Sin embargo, sería poco responsable culpar de ello sólo a una de las partes, ya que en el seno de los movimientos las tendencias a la subordinación han desplazado, en no pocos casos, las tendencias a la autonomía. Este debería ser uno de los ejes de los debates en el período actual.

El problema mayor que atraviesa el continente está, sin embargo, en otro lugar. Sería demasiado simplista asegurar que el neoliberalismo es cosa del pasado por el solo hecho de que el aparato estatal sea gestionado por fuerzas que enarbolan un discurso antineoliberal. El modelo inspirado en el Consenso de Washington, pese a la profunda crisis en curso y a la erosión de su credibilidad, está lejos de haber desaparecido. Luego de una primera fase anclada en las privatizaciones, la apertura de las economías y un conjunto de desregulaciones que redundaron en un debilitamiento del Estado, fue creciendo hasta hacerse hegemónica una segunda fase basada en la minería a cielo abierto, los monocultivos de soja y caña de azúcar para biocombustibles y el complejo forestación-celulosa.

Este tipo de emprendimientos muestra la hegemonía del capital financiero en el control de los recursos y bienes comunes, de tal magnitud que están rediseñando de arriba abajo las economías sudamericanas. Mientras la primera fase del modelo fue piloteada por gobiernos conservadores como los de Fernando Henrique Cardoso y Carlos Menem, esta segunda fase la comandan los gobiernos progresistas, lo que induce a confusión a numerosos analistas que se focalizan en el discurso de los gobernantes. Pero los movimientos no se han dejado seducir por los argumentos que hablan de un “posneoliberalismo”. El MST de Brasil asegura una y otra vez que el agronegocio creció como nunca bajo el gobierno de Lula, desplazando a la agricultura familiar y expandiendo la frontera agrícola al punto de poner en peligro la sobrevivencia de la Amazonia.

En segundo lugar, se suelen omitir las contradicciones existentes aquí y ahora entre los gobiernos progresistas y los movimientos sociales. Por debajo del discurso de Rafael Correa, en Ecuador se despliega una durísima batalla de los movimientos indígenas contra la minería a cielo abierto apoyada con entusiasmo por los mismos que hablan de “socialismo del siglo XXI”. La huelga y movilización del 20 de enero para impedir la aprobación de la Ley Minera se saldó con decenas de heridos y detenidos en el marco de una represión no muy diferente de la que ejercían gobiernos anteriores. La compacta defensa de Correa de una actividad como la minera, que es punta de lanza del neoliberalismo actual, pone en negro sobre blanco los límites del progresismo de la región.

La debilidad por la que atraviesan los movimientos no permite concluir que ahora sean los gobiernos la punta de lanza contra el neoliberalismo o los hacedores del cambio social. Es cierto que el progresismo ha reforzado el papel del Estado en la economía, frenó las privatizaciones cuando ya queda poco por privatizar, promueve políticas sociales más ambiciosas y busca regular algunos aspectos de la actividad económica. Pero en modo alguno puede decirse que se esté procesando una ruptura con el modelo, quizá con la excepción de Bolivia. Pese a estos cambios, la “acumulación por desposesión”, que es el núcleo del neoliberalismo, sigue intacta como lo demuestran la creciente concentración de riqueza y la depredación del medio ambiente. Será imposible salir del modelo sin mediar una profunda crisis política, ya que las fuerzas interesadas en mantenerlo han acumulado mucho poder material y mediático y cuentan con amplios apoyos sociales que abarcan capas nada despreciables de los asalariados.

En los períodos de repliegue de la movilización social suelen tejerse en la sombra los lazos de las futuras acciones que conformarán nuevos ciclos de lucha. Así sucedió en los oscuros primeros años de la década de 1990, y es muy probable que ahora esté sucediendo algo similar. Cuando la acción social vuelva a desplegarse con todo su vigor, serán los gobernantes progresistas los que deberán tomar su lugar de un lado u otro de las barricadas. Porque en el próximo ciclo de luchas serán, en buena medida, el blanco de la actividad de los movimientos sociales.

Raúl Zibechi, Periodista uruguayo.

FBI Investigating Oakland Police Department

By Thomas Peele, Bob Butler | Oakland Tribune |


http://www.centerforinvestigativereporting.org

OAKLAND – The FBI is investigating allegations that the head of the Oakland Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division nearly nine years ago beat a drug suspect who later died and then ordered subordinate officers to lie about it, according to police sources, some of whom federal agents have recently interviewed.

The beating allegations are just one aspect of a wide-ranging FBI probe, covering many of the department’s recent high profile problems, including the handling of the 2007 slaying of journalist Chauncey Bailey, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of workplace reprisals.

Capt. Edward I. Poulson, who heads Internal Affairs, was suspended by the department Thursday.

Poulson, of Danville, did not return messages Thursday. Police Chief Wayne Tucker refused requests for an interview. In a written statement released Thursday night, Tucker said the department was cooperating with the FBI.

The FBI is investigating allegations that Poulson, working with an undercover team in April, 2000 kicked a drug suspect, breaking his ribs, the sources said. The suspect, Jerry Amaro, died about a month later of pneumonia caused by broken ribs and a collapsed lung, according to police documents. Before Amaro died he told several people about the incident, according to police reports.

Internal Affairs investigators at the time found that Poulson ordered subordinate officers to lie about his involvement, and they called for his firing, according to the sources. Then-Police Chief Richard Word instead suspended Poulson for two weeks. No charges were brought in Amaro’s death following a homicide investigation, the sources said.

During that investigation, officers who arrested Amaro said they saw no use of force as he was captured, according to homicide case notes obtained by the Chauncey Bailey Project.

But during a subsequent Internal Affairs investigation, the same officers said Poulson ordered them to protect him, according to an officer familiar with their statements. It was those statements that that led to administrative charges against Poulson and the two-week suspension.

Officers with knowledge of the matter said colleagues were angry that a member of the command staff who had been punished for interfering in an Internal Affairs investigation was later put in charge of Internal Affairs, and they alerted the FBI. Two senior members of the department said Thursday that Tucker had been advised last year not to put Poulson in charge of Internal Affairs becasue of the Amaro case.

The investigation of Poulson comes as the Internal Affairs Division remains under the oversight of U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson and a team of independent monitors under the Negotiated Settlement Agreement reached following the infamous Riders corruption case in 2001.

The U.S. Attorney for Northern California, Joseph Russanello, said Thursday he couldn’t confirm nor deny the investigation, adding that the only confirmation could come from people FBI agents interviewed.

Mayor Ronald Dellums was returning from inauguration festivities in Washington and could not be reached on Thursday.

A former federal officer with knowledge of the matter said two teams of agents are conducting the investigation – one concentrating on possible civil rights violations and the other on public corruption.

Two police officers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Thursday FBI agents have interviewed them in recent days about the Amero’s arrest and death, and a raft of other incidents that include:

• The department’s handling of Bailey’s Aug. 2, 2007 slaying, for which police arrested only one person on murder charges. The Chauncey Bailey Project reported in October that the lead detective in the case, Sgt. Derwin Longmire, failed to document in his case notes evidence of a conspiracy pointing to former Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV’s involvement in the killing.

• The recent scandal involving the falsification of search warrants. Department leaders last week notified 11 officers of their intention to fire them. Another officer was fired last month.

• A whistle-blower complaint that police Lt. Lawrence Green filed last month alleging that Tucker squashed a rank-and-file vote of no-confidence in his administration by promoting then police union president, officer Robert Valladon, to "acting sergeant," a move that increased Valladon’s pay and boosted his eligibility for a higher pension.

• Allegations that former City Administrator Deborah Edgerly’s last year leaked news of a pending drug raid to a nephew who was a gang member.

• The conduct of Deputy Police Chief Jeffrey Loman who is accused of sexually harassing a subordinate female officer and is also being investigated for his supervision of Longmire’s work in the Bailey case.

The FBI probe comes nearly three months after Dellums requested the state Justice Department conduct a parallel investigation of an internal affairs probe of how the Bailey case was handled.

Since then, the department fired officers in the warrant-falsification scandal, sexual harassment charges were filed against Loman, and Green filed the whistle-blower complaint about Tucker and Valladon.

In the statement he issued Thursday night, Tucker urged Oakland residents "not to allow recent allegations misconduct to overshadow the successful policing efforts achieved by" the department.

City council members provided a harsher view.

"We are in chaos and no end in sight to some of the problems we are facing here when it comes to the police department," City Council member Ignacio de la Fuente, a frequent department critic, said Thursday.

Council President Jane Brunner said Poulson’s record should have been considered.

"The lead Internal Affairs investigator should have been vetted," Brunner said. "It’s like in Congress and the person who is leading the ethics commission, you need to vet the people doing Internal Affairs to the point that they need to be squeaky clean."

Oakland Tribune reporter Kamika Dunlap and Roland De Wolk, of KTVU-TV, contributed to this report.Thomas Peele is an investigative reporter for the Bay Area News Group. Bob Butler is an independent journalist. Reach them at Tpeele@bayareanewsgroup.com and Bobbutler7@comcast.net.

“Misión cumplida”: Evo da paso al Estado plurinacional con autonomías

ABI


Con la promulgación de la nueva Constitución Política del Estado (CPE), en un acto calificado de histórico que congregó a decenas de miles de bolivianos, el presidente Evo Morales viabilizó este sábado la transición del Estado colonial y neoliberal a un Estado plurinacional con autonomías, a tiempo de enfatizar un solemne “¡misión cumplida!”.

“Hermanas y hermanos de Bolivia, en este día histórico, proclamo promulgada la nueva Constitución Política del Estado boliviano, la vigencia del Estado plurinacional unitario, social y económicamente, y el socialismo comunitario a partir de la promulgación de la nueva Constitución”, afirmó Morales.

El Mandatario boliviano especificó que “después de 500 años de permanente sometimiento colonial y más de 20 años de neoliberalismo se da paso a la refundación de Bolivia.

“Quinientos años de rebelión contra la invasión, contra el saqueo permanente, después de 180 años de resistencia contra un estado colonial, después de 20 años de lucha permanente contra un modelo neoliberal, hoy siete de febrero de 2009 es un acontecimiento histórico y singular para Bolivia y Latinoamérica”, afirmó en su discurso central y único del acto de promulgación de la Ley de leyes.

Reconoció que por medio de la conciencia del pueblo boliviano y el apoyo de los movimientos sociales se obtuvo una nueva Constitución, por primera vez con el voto popular, que se materializó el 25 de enero cuando el Sí de aprobación a la carta magna ganó con el 61.43 por ciento de votos.

Durante las 18 veces que se modificó el texto constitucional, nunca se lo puso a consideración del voto popular para que defina el destino de la Patria. En esta oportunidad la nueva Constitución fue producto de la participación de los movimientos sociales, obreros, campesinos, originarios, intelectuales, profesionales, gremialistas, mineros, mujeres y otros.

“En algún momento los partidos liberales, neoliberales, acordaron las reformas a puertas cerradas, porque tenían representación parlamentaria, pero el pueblo boliviano nunca tuvo la oportunidad de participar porque siempre fue excluido”, deploró.

Desde muy temprano del sábado, miles de mujeres y hombres de diferentes regiones de Bolivia se concentraron en inmediaciones de la avenida 6 de Marzo de la ciudad de El Alto, vecina de la urbe de La Paz.

Puso énfasis en su discurso para rendirle tributo póstumo al indígena Tupac Katari como uno de los artífices de la revolución libertaria del sometimiento colonial.

Según el Mandatario, la Asamblea Constituyente que el año 2006 redactó una nueva Constitución, inspirada en la rebelión del movimiento indígena encabezado por Tupac Katari.

Hizo mención a los luchadores por la libertad de hombres y mujeres como; Bartolina Sisa, Mikaela Bastida, Tomás Katari, Eustaquio “Moto” Méndez, Juana Azurduy de Padilla, Sebastián Pagador, hermanos Lanza, las heroínas de Coronilla, Tomás Barrón, Pedro Ignacio Muyba que aportaron a la independencia de Bolivia.

En una muestra de conocimiento de la historia, el Jefe de Estado se refirió también al aporte de Simón Bolívar, Antonio José de Sucre, Andrés de Santa Cruz y Calahumana, Germán Busch, Gualberto Villarroel, Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz, y Luis Espinal entre otros.

No olvidó referirse a los héroes de la denominada guerra del gas, en 2003, que ofrendaron sus vidas para terminar con el gobierno del ultraliberal Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, jornadas que terminaron con la vida de más de 65 personas y dejaron cientos de heridos.

ASAMBLEA CONSTITUYENTE

El Presidente recordó que reducidos grupos violentos pretendieron boicotear por todos los medios la Asamblea Constituyente, sólo para mantener sus privilegios.

Saludó el trabajo de la ex presidente de la Constituyente, Silvia Lazarte, de los asambleístas del Movimiento Al Socialismo y sus aliados. Además de algunos patriotas de partidos opositores que contribuyeron con su conocimiento y trabajo al mejoramiento del nuevo texto constitucional.

Rememoró, con emoción inocultable, las jornadas lamentables de humillación que sufrieron los constituyentes en la ciudad de Sucre, entre 2006 y 2007, cuando opositores radicales se daban a la tarea de hostigar a los asambleístas oficialistas, principalmente indígenas, campesinos y mujeres.

ALCANCES

Morales repasó los alcances y beneficios de la promulgada Constitución. Citó el reconocimiento de los servicios básicos como derecho humano.

“Por primera vez en la historia en Latinoamérica y en el mundo los servicios básicos, el agua, la luz, el teléfono, son un derecho humano, por tanto no será negocio privado sino de servicio público”, resaltó.

Para Morales es fundamental en la vigente Carta Magna la homologación de los idiomas de los pueblos originarios, “también se reconoce el idioma español o castellano como decimos, no excluye a nadie”.

Otro aspecto que destacó fue el carácter pacifista del Estado boliviano. “Nunca se declarará una guerra (…) eso no significa, hermanas y hermanos, si hay agresión no tenemos derechos a defendernos, sino que si hay agresión nos defenderemos, para eso está el mando único de las Fuerzas Armadas de Bolivia como también de la Policía nacional”, subrayó.

Según el dignatario boliviano, la nueva Constitución ha sido el eje central de unidad de todos los sectores de trabajadores.

Morales se dijo convencido que en la historia boliviana nunca se vio una gran marcha como la de octubre del 2008 para obligar al Congreso la aprobación de una ley que permita consultar al pueblo boliviano sobre el texto constitucional.

“Quienes lucharon por las autonomías tienen garantizadas las autonomías departamentales, regionales, indígenas para todos los bolivianos”, agregó.

FFAA - POLICIA

El Mandatario valoró a las Fuerzas Armadas como eje fundamental de la democracia en este último tiempo.

Dijo que la institución castrense, al igual que el mando policial los años 2006, 2007, 2008 y2009, trabajó para su pueblo, apoyando decididamente las transformaciones profundas que ejecuta este Gobierno

“Un comandante de las Fuerzas Armadas me decía, díganme, dígannos, con qué dirigentes sindicales debemos coordinar para defender la unidad de la patria cuando, so pretexto de autonomía, algunos grupos querían dividir Bolivia”, recordó.

CONVOCATORIA – MISIÓN CUMPLIDA

El Presidente convocó a los alcaldes, prefectos y sectores sociales a trabajar en la implantación de la nueva Carta Magna

“Aprovecho esta oportunidad para convocar a todos los alcaldes de Bolivia, saludar la presencia de los alcaldes de la ciudad de El Alto, de la ciudad de La Paz, los honorables concejales, consejeros, concentrados, acompañando a sus delegaciones de Bolivia, convocamos a todos los prefectos de Bolivia para, juntos, implementar esta nueva Constitución Política del Estado boliviano”, enfatizó.

Morales también recordó que en varias oportunidades pretendieron sacarlo de Palacio Quemado y, “ahora, puedo decirles; pueden sacarme del Palacio, pueden matarme, ¡misión cumplida! por la refundación de una nueva Bolivia unida”, aseveró a tiempo de comprometerse a que, mientras tenga vida, continuará trabajando por la unidad, la igualdad y la dignidad.

PROCLAMA - JURAMENTO

Al cabo de un conmovedor discurso, el Jefe de Estado proclamó la instauración del “Estado plurinacional desde la ciudad de El Alto, para el mundo”.

“El Alto de pie, nunca de rodillas”, “Bolivia de pie, nunca de rodillas”, “Patria o muerte, venceremos”, “Que viva Bolivia unida con autonomías”, gritó al tiempo de cerrar su alocución.

Acto seguido Morales tomó el juramento para que el país acate la nueva CPE.

Las Fuerzas Armadas, la Policía Boliviana, movimientos sociales, campesinos, originarios, trabajadores y el pueblo reunido en la ciudad de El Alto, juraron respetar y hacer respetar la nueva Constitución Política del Estado (CPE), ante los símbolos patrios.

“A nombre de los próceres de la liberación, a nombre de los héroes de nuestros antepasados que dieron la vida por la vida de los demás, a nombre del pueblo boliviano, ¿juran respetar y hacer respetar la nueva Constitución Política del Estado del Estado boliviano?”

Decenas de miles de bolivianos congregados en la avenida 6 de Marzo, en El Alto, respondieron, “Sí, juro”.

Posteriormente se interpretó el himno nacional de Bolivia e inmediatamente se desarrolló el desfile militar, policial y de los movimientos sociales.

Pese a la lluvia, la gente permaneció su sitio y no se rompieron filas durante la marcha.

Mariano Herran Salvatti, Former Mexican Drug Tsar and Chiapas Attorney General, Arrested

Posted by Kristin Bricker


http://narcosphere.narconews.com


Herran Salvatti boasts a public service career allegedly filled with embezzlement, drug money, human rights violations, and impunity

On January 24, the Chiapas state government arrested former federal drug tsar Mariano Herran Salvatti for embezzlement. Additional charges and accusations--ranging from links to drug cartels to torture of political prisoners--continue to pile up.

Another Drug Tsar on the Sinaloa Cartel Payroll?

When the Mexican federal government arrested drug tsar Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo in 1997 for his ties to the Juarez cartel, it needed a trustworthy, incorruptible man to take his place. It chose Mariano Herran Salvatti. Then-Attorney General Jorge Madrazo told the press that Herran Salvatti had been rigorously vetted, passing drug, character, and lie detector tests, as well as a review of his finances. The US Embassy, the DEA, and then-drug tsar for the US, Barry McCaffrey, reportedly blessed the nomination.

Wishing to turn over a new leaf, the Mexican government closed the anti-drug agency Guiterrez Rebollo led, the National Institute for Combating Drugs (INCD), and opened a new agency under Herran Salvatti: the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes Against Health (FEADS). During the three short years Herran Salvatti ran FEADS, it too became mired in corruption scandals.

Shortly after Herran Salvatti left his post at FEADS in 2000, Mexico’s daily El Universal reported[1] that officials from the German Embassy in Mexico accused Herran Salvatti, the late Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos[2], and Jorge Espejel Contreras, of embezzling USD$750,000. The German Embassy gave FEADS the money while Herran Salvatti was at its helm in order to purchase “interception equipment” to combat drug trafficking. Embassy officials Federic Koch and Stephan Koop told El Universal that the piece of equipment the FEADS officials claimed they purchased with the money was worn out and obviously used.

Herran Salvatti’s name has also come up in Operation Clean-Up, the Mexican government’s latest purge of officials allegedly on cartels’ payrolls. Mexico’s weekly national magazine Proceso reports that Roberto Garcia Garcia, a former soldier from the Mexican military's High Command Special Forces Airmobile Group who was also caught in Operation Clean-Up but turned state’s witness, has testified that Beltran Leyva operative Jose Antonio Cueto Lopez[3] told him that high-ranking Sinaloa cartel operative Rey Zambada Garcia[4] gave FEADS administrative coordinator Hiram Gonzalez money, part of which was to be used to pay Herran Salvatti.

Proceso also reports that Herran Salvatti and then-Attorney General Jorge Madrazo Cuellar were the first to incorporate the military into the war on drugs. In 1997, the two requested that soldiers from the military’s High Command Special Forces Airmobile Group be assigned to FEADS to help the agency in its fight against drug trafficking. Famously, a significant number of these elite US-trained soldiers deserted their FEADS assignments and formed Los Zetas to become the Gulf cartel’s private military. Seemingly concerned about possible connections between Los Zetas and Herran Salvatti, the Chiapas government installed police checkpoints around the state following the arrest “as a preventative action, because an attack by Los Zetas is feared,” reports Excelsior.

FEADS closed in January 2003 when the military raided its offices in response to widespread corruption; the Assistant Attorney General’s Office for Specialized Investigation of Organized Crime (SIEDO) took its place in August of that year and continues to be the nation’s main anti-drug agency.

While the accuracy of some of Operation Clean-Up’s depositions are in question, Chiapas District Attorney Luis Alberto Martínez Medina says he’s found hard evidence of Herran Salvatti’s relationship with organized crime. On January 31, the district attorney obtained and verified the authenticity of a 22-page document hand-written by Herran Salvatti from his Chiapas prison cell and sent to his brother, Oscar Herran Salvatti. The document reportedly solicits help from government officials, ex-officials, businessmen, journalists, ex-governors, religious leaders, and family members to negotiate his release and help him economically.

The document also has a message for people whom the Chiapas Attorney General’s Office refers to as “suspected members of organized crime.” In the document, Herran Salvatti sends a message to ex-commissioner of the Federal Judicial Police (the federal police department that was shut down in 2002 due to pervasive corruption related to organized crime) to “tell your friends that I am selling them my soul, knowledge, wisdom, and contacts in exchange for being out [of jail]; they are familiar with how.” The attorney general’s office says the document was found during a raid on one of Herran Salvatti’s properties. It says that it will open another investigation into “the suspected crime of attempted escape from prison, criminal association, and whatever else arises” from the information gleaned from the document.

Embezzlement in Chiapas

Despite Herran Salvatti’s appearance in Operation Clean-Up depositions, the federal government has thus far not made any moves to arrest him. It was the Chiapas state government who put Herran Salvatti behind bars last week and began raids on his estimated forty properties.

Herran Salvatti, a Chiapas native, stands accused of illegal exercise of public service, embezzlement, malfeasance, misuse of funds, and conspiracy against the state patrimony. The conspiracy charge makes Herran Salvatti ineligible for bail. The accusations stem from multiple incidents that occurred while Herran Salvatti served as Chiapas State Attorney General and later as the state’s Minister of Economy.

The Chiapas government originally arrested Herran Salvatti for embezzling six million pesos (approximately USD$408,000) from a local business development fund during his seven-month stint as Minister of Economy in late 2007 and 2008. Herran Salvatti allegedly wrote himself 2 million peso checks.

Herran Salvatti was fired from the Ministry of Economy on June 5, 2008, over another embezzlement scandal. $170 million pesos (about eleven million dollars) from Chiapas’ “Fund Against Organized Crime” went unaccounted for under his watch as State Attorney General during 2000-2007. The state reports that its investigation revealed a lack of documentation proving and justifying expenditures, inappropriate expenses, and failure to comply with acquisitions regulations. Herran Salvatti’s finance coordinator in the attorney general’s office, Gabriel Salcedo Torres, was detained after the state congress discovered the discrepancy during an audit. Herran Salvatti had managed to stay out of prison up until now thanks to a court injunction.

Luxury and Guns

The Chiapas government says that Herran Salvatti owns forty properties around the country—so many, in fact, that it still hasn’t raided all of them. The government has not explained how it can protect and guarantee the integrity of any evidence that might be found in the remaining properties.

The properties the government has raided thus far have painted a picture of extreme wealth. In just one of Herran Salvatti’s ranches, investigators found twenty thoroughbred horses valued between thirty and forty thousand dollars apiece. In his other properties they recovered receipts for 23 automobiles and diamond-encrusted jewelry. Herran Salvatti also owns a rodeo arena, a private zoo with endangered species, a shooting range with moving targets.

The police also found nineteen firearms in multiple Herran Salvatti properties, including unregistered weapons and weapons that are designated under Mexican law as exclusively for military use. The illegal weapons are: a 9mm Intratek submachine gun, a Smith & Wesson .40 caliber pistol, and an FMJ .45 caliber pistol. Possession of these weapons is a federal crime. The Chiapas Attorney General’s Office says that a federal prosecutor will likely charge Herran Salvatti with the crimes of arms dealing and possession of weapons and explosives.

Political Prisoners

The long list of Herran Salvatti’s alleged misdeeds doesn’t end at embezzlement, supporting drug cartels, and unlawful firearms possession. In 2008, the Chiapas state government released over 140 political prisoners after reviewing their cases.[5] Many of them were imprisoned while Herran Salvatti was attorney general. Herran Salvatti is not currently facing charges related to the many human rights abuses that occurred in Chiapas under his watch, but the accusations and evidence against him are overwhelming.

While Herran Salvatti did not directly intervene in many of these cases, Frayba director Diego Cadenas Gordillo points out that the former attorney general can be held legally responsible for the injustices if they are due to his “action or omission [failure to act].” In some cases, Herran Salvatti is accused of actively participating in the violation of the suspects’ human rights. In other cases, Herran Salvatti did not directly oversee the miscarriages of justice, but he did nothing to intervene when his office violated citizens’ human rights. Either way, Cadenas Gordillo says, Herran Salvatti is responsible under criminal law.

Some of the many accusations against Herran Salvatti accuse him in directly and actively participating in human rights abuses. Former political prisoner Julio César Pérez Ruiz, who was accused of murdering former Chiapas governor Pablo Salazar Mendiguchia’s godmother, says Herran Salvatti was present while authorities tortured him. Pérez Ruiz was released for lack of evidence after serving six years of his sentence. Jose Pérez Pérez, another political prisoner who is serving a 32-year sentence for homicide, makes the same claim.

Herran Salvatti also allegedly fabricated evidence to repress social movements. In 2003, normalistas (students training to teach in rural schools) from the Normal Teneria in Mexico State traveled to Chiapas in solidarity with the Normal Mactumactza to protest the lack of available teaching positions for the Chiapan normalistas after graduation. The driver of the bus transporting the Teneria normalistas was shot and killed during the protest. The students say a Dodge Ram stopped alongside the bus and shot the driver. While ballistics tests determined the gunshot entered the bus from outside, Herran Salvatti held a press conference saying the driver had been shot from inside the bus, and that the students had shot him. “He did this with the goal of criminalizing protest,” Cadenas Gordillo says.

Herran Salvatti also implemented policies that led to human rights abuses. Frayba, for example, has long criticized the practice of arraigo, or a form of administrative detention that places a detainee who has not yet been convicted of a crime under travel restrictions or house arrest, or the detainee is held in what is known as a “security house” while the case is investigated.[6] Cadenas Gordillo points out that Herran Salvatti abused arraigo, preferring to keep detainees in security houses rather than under house arrest. There, detainees were “isolated from their families, isolated from their lawyers, surrounded by police. We have testimony from people who say they were physically and psychologically tortured during arraigo,” says Cadenas Gordillo. “They’re under constant pressure in order to break their spirit. Many confessions have came out after long periods of detention under arraigo.” Cadenas Gordillo says the practice of abusing arraigo is something Herran Salvatti was known for during his term as federal drug tsar, and that he brought it with him to Chiapas when he became the state’s attorney general.

In other cases, Herran Salvatti did nothing to intervene when human rights organizations and the media brought travesties of justice to his attention. Under Herran Sarvatti, the district attorney’s office, which is part of the attorney general’s office and answers to the attorney general, often put indigenous defendants on trial without interpreters or lawyers. Frayba has documented numerous cases of indigenous detainees being tortured or mistreated while in the district attorney’s custody. “Detainees would state to judges that they were tortured by the district attorney, and neither the judge nor the district attorney would carry out an investigation,” Cadenas Gordillo says.

Herran Salvatti’s office’s eventually imprisoned so many political dissidents that it sparked a statewide movement for the freedom of political prisoners—a movement initiated and organized from within the prisons and led by prisoners themselves. On January 28, 2003, the Attorney General’s Office issued arrest warrants falsely accusing Paraje Tres Cruces residents Candelario Heredia Hernández, Pascual Heredia y Enrique Hernández Hernández of murdering two people. Cadenas Gordillo says they were political dissidents from the community. The local government—run by the Institutional Revolution Party (PRI), of which Herran Salvatti was also a member—accused the men of homicide, and Herran Salvatti’s office issued the warrants without further investigation.

In order to execute the arrest warrants, the Attorney General’s Office carried out a poorly planned operation that included agents from the State Investigation Agency (the AEI which is the Attorney General’s police force), local police, and civilians from the Assistant Attorney General’s Office for Indigenous Justice. The local PRI members told the Attorney General’s Office that Zapatistas were present in the community, leading the officials planning the operation to utilize a disproportionate number of agents who were heavily armed, and excessive force.

Witnesses say that the police surrounded a house in Tres Cruces. One nervous police officer’s gun went off, causing the other police to open fire. Because they had formed a circle around the house, their bullets struck other officers who were positioned on the other side of the house.

Five people died in the operation: Gregorio Heredia Hernández, a young town resident, and four police officers who were killed by their colleagues’ crossfire. Residents Candelario Heredia Hernández, Pascual Heredia Hernández, Mariano Heredia Gómez, Enrique Hernández Hernández, and Zacario Hernández were blamed for the deaths. During the subsequent investigation, officials excluded some evidence, including a re-enactment of the incident. Frayba requested permission to visit the scene of the crime to investigate, but local officials denied the request, and the state district attorney’s office upheld that decision. All of the defendants except Candelario were imprisoned.

In a statement released on the sixth anniversary of the massacre, Frayba states: “The Assistant Attorney General’s Office for Indigenous Justice, which at that time was headed by Isidro Gomez Entzin and answered to Herran Salvatti’s State Attorney General’s Office, was who ordered the operation and altered the evidence against the indigenous Tsotsiles in order to cover up these crimes with the cover of impunity.” Cadenas Gordillo elaborates: “From the decision to plan the operation to when the district attorney concluded the investigation, Mariano Herran Salvatti had to know about it. And he had to have said how things would be done.”

On February 12, 2008, Zacario Hernandez declared a hunger strike to demand his freedom. Almost forty other prisoners from jails around the state joined him, declaring, “Dead or alive, they will release us from prison because we don’t belong here.” Others fasted and set up protest encampments inside the prisons. As a result of the protests both within and outside of the prisons, over 140 prisoners were released, including Hernandez and his co-defendants. Herran Salvatti had imprisoned many of them.

Following the prisoners’ release, the Chiapas state congress called upon Herran Salvatti to testify during an investigation of systemic “irregularities” that resulted in their unjust imprisonment. At the time, Chiapas Minister of Justice Amador Rodríguez Lozano told the press that “sooner or later” the law would catch up with those who sent many innocent people to jail by fabricating evidence. Nothing came of the investigation.

Many of the political prisoners Herran Salvatti jailed are still being held in El Amate, the Chiapas prison where Herran Salvatti currently resides. El Amate is where the successful prisoner hunger strike began, and it is the home of the strongest political prisoner movement in the state. Prison officials are holding Herran Salvatti in a special area of the prison away from general population for fear that the people he falsely imprisoned (and who have endured severe beatings during their prison terms, both at the hands of prison guards as well as prisoners who work for prison authorities) might exact revenge.

The El Amate political prisoners, however, don’t appear to be interested in revenge. They want justice and freedom. In an open letter following Herran Salvatti’s arrest, the prisoners state: “We declare that not only should he [Herran Salvatti] be investigated and tried for the crimes he committed in the Ministry of Economy such as illicit enrichment and embezzlement; he should also be investigated and tried for all of the acts of humiliation and arbitrary detentions he committed when he was the state’s attorney general. The way we see it, the most important thing is that justice be done for all of us who were imprisoned and who have been charged with made-up crimes, and where his prosecutors and district attorneys who, under his orders, invented our crimes and put together the dossiers which are now the basis for keeping us here kidnapped, and many already sentenced.”

Not Just Another Bad Apple: It’s a “Vicious Cycle”

Despite the numerous accusations of human rights violations (Proceso writes “hundreds”) Cadenas Gordillo stresses that Herran Salvatti was not the worst attorney general Chiapas has ever seen; he unfortunately wasn’t even out of the ordinary by Chiapas standards. “There have always been human rights violations, the attorney generals have always used the law to punish dissidence.”

Current governor Juan Sabines, who imprisoned Herran Salvatti on January 24 and freed over 140 political prisoners in 2008, is not extraordinary either. “[Former governor] Pablo Salazar[7], for example, freed over one hundred political prisoners at the beginning of his term. Many of them were self-identified as members of the EZLN. Herran Salvatti was present when they were released and almost certainly helped find the legal instruments necessary to free them. It appeared to be an act of good will. [But] it’s part of a vicious cycle. There are laws…that exist in order to free the previous administration’s political prisoners. Freeing political prisoners gives the administration the opportunity to negotiate with the prisoners’ organizations, and in many cases to subjugate them. The government uses this to maintain its power.”

Cadenas Gordillo argues that under the human rights rubric, former governor Pablo Salazar Mendiguchia and Chiapas state legislators can be held “objectively responsible” for having nominated and ratified Herran Salvatti as attorney general. “If Pablo Salazar and the [state] congress were aware of criminal human rights violations committed by Herran Salvatti, and if they had done something to stop those violations or crimes when they were being committed or in a timely manner, they wouldn’t have been responsible for those crimes and all of the others that he committed afterwards.” Cadenas Gordillo says Salazar and the state legislators can’t claim they weren’t aware of Herran Salvatti’s alleged crimes: “Many of the human rights violations and crimes that Herran Salvatti committed were made public…in the media. The Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center has always publicly decried the human rights violations and abuse of authority that have occurred over the course of various administrations—not just those committed under Pablo Salazar and Herran Salvatti.”

While Herran Salvatti’s crimes are not extraordinary by Chiapas standards, an investigation into the human rights abuses he committed are not likely to go beyond his former boss, Gov. Salazar—and it may not even reach that far. Cadenas Gordillo points to a legal loophole that may shield other politicians from going down with Herran Salvatti for “objective responsibility” for his actions.

In Mexico, re-elections and multiple terms are extremely rare and almost always prohibited by law. In Chiapas, Salazar attempted to maintain his power even after he was out of office. Before leaving office, Salazar changed the laws governing the Attorney General’s Office in order to allow multiple terms for Attorney Generals and to give the Attorney General’s Office autonomy from the governor—meaning that the governor was no longer legally responsible for Herran Salvatti’s policies and actions. Salazar’s successor, current governor Juan Sabines, inherited both Herran Salvatti and indemnity for his actions.

Footnotes:

[1] Miguel Badillo, El Universal, November 25, 2000. Cited in Ricardo Revalo, Proceso #1683.

[2] Vasconcelos died along with Minister of the Interior Juan Camilo Mouriño in an airplane crash in Mexico City’s financial district on November 4, 2008. The government has ruled the crash an accident due to pilot error.

[3] Cueto is a former federal police officer who later allegedly became the Beltran Leyva organization’s recruiter of and link to officials in the Federal Attorney General’s Office

[4] Rey Zambada Garcia is Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada’s brother. “El Mayo” is one of the leading drug barons in the Sinaloa cartel.

[5] While the government says the reviews found irregularities, injustices, and insufficient or fabricated evidence that were substantial enough to overrule the prisoners’ convictions, the government released the prisoners on parole rather than exonerating them outright. This obligated the indigenous prisoners to travel from their communities to the Chiapas capital every week to fulfill parole requirements.

[6] Arraigo has long been criticized by national and international human rights organizations as an instrument that violates due process. A Mexican court declared arraigo unconstitutional. However, while the recent judicial reform that intensified Mexico’s two-track legal system technically did away with arraigo for most crimes, it maintains the practice in cases that involve organized crime. Mexico’s broad definition of organized crime and its pervasive drug war have kept arraigo a fairly common practice despite the reform.

[7] Salazar appointed Herran Salvatti to the Attorney General’s Office.