“New” Colombian Army Unit Bombards, Pillages Elementary School in Catatumbo Region

Two Steps Back for Human Rights in Colombia



By Andrew Willis Garcés
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
February 17, 2009

The Colombian Army’s brand-new 23rd Mobile Brigade, pursuing National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels, pounded a school and nearby home on Monday, February 2 with bombs, rockets and machine-gun fire in the hamlet of La Esperanza, in San Calixto municipality, Norte de Santander department. The area, part of the war-torn northeastern region known as Catatumbo, is sparsely populated, with less than ten homes within 500 meters of the school, spread out across a perpetually fog-covered mountain.

Photos Andrew Willis Garcés D.R. 2009

Over 300 soldiers first fired on the area from the ground, then laid siege from a helicopter gunship. The Nueva Esperanza school was hit dozens of times, with many bullets falling inside classrooms that, thankfully, were empty of students, owing to a lack of teachers. One young civilian resident was hurt, and bullets also fell on a house nearby, a mortar striking within thirty feet. The soldiers then camped in the homes and on the land of La Esperanza residents – a violation of International Humanitarian Law and Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions, as is the targeting and destruction of a civilian institution. (Article 48 of Geneva Conventions Protocol I requires the armed forces to only carry out operations against military targets, not civilian establishments.) They also stole personal property of local leaders, copies of parents’ identity documents and over $1,000 US in school and community property.

Calls to the army’s 2nd Division commanders requesting comment on the operation and reports of property theft were not returned. The aerial attacks by the Arpia AH-60L gunship were reportedly carried out by Air Force Unit No. 5.

These acts were verified by one Spanish citizen and one US citizen, accompaniers with .International Peace Observatory, and a representative of the San Calixto Personería, a state agency charged with protecting the human rights of Colombian citizens, all of whom visited La Esperanza February 8.

“Fresh Start” After Army Assasinations Scandal?

This wouldn’t be as newsworthy considering similar recent violence in Catatumbo if not for the auspicious origins of the week-old army unit that carried out the ground attack and occupation.

Last month the Minister of Defense Jose Manuel Santos announced a shakeup following the "false positives” scandal that broke in October, in which dozens, perhaps hundreds of army officers were implicated in a scheme to execute ordinary civilians and make their victims look like guerrilla combatants. According to a report by an NGO coalition, at least one civilian was killed in this way every day from January ‘07 to June ‘08. These murders have been an issue particularly in the Catatumbo region, where in December the campesino association ASCAMCAT held a public hearing for a senator, giving voice to the families of over 200 victims.



As a result of the work of the association and others in the region to expose these violations, tirelessly denouncing official murders of campesino civilians for years, the commanders of the army’s 2nd Division were dismissed in October, and in January Santos dissolved the 15th Mobile Brigade, one of the primary culprits of extrajudicial executions. In its place he announced the formation of the 23rd Mobile, which began operating January 29.

Santos had claimed this was a “fresh start” for the 2nd Division. Soldiers were recruited for the brigade from other divisions, reportedly receiving human rights instruction. But the results of the attack were much the same as other recent, arbitrary operations affecting civilians in Catatumbo. On January 1, the Fifth Mobile Brigade carried out a similar bombardment in the community of La India in Tibú municipality, also affiliated with ASCAMCAT. An IPO accompaniment team verified that the army backed by the same air force unit hit the town with 500-pound bombs, and rockets fell within meters of homes. In that case, there was no sign of guerrilla presence, before or after the attack.

Terror Under Seige

The attacks last week left one young campesino injured, two dead cows and wounded a donkey. There are dozens of quarter- and fist-sized holes in roofs, windows and walls, and the area is filled with trash left by the soldiers. Student play areas and the soccer field are pockmarked with craters from rockets and other projectiles. A woman and her two young sons and two pregnant women were present at the time their house was hit by gunfire just south of the school, with a bomb or rocket detonating a mere ten meters away.



The residents we spoke with talked of the terror of being under siege, and hostile treatment by encamped soldiers afterwards. The president of the local town council (Junta de Acción Comunal), José Orlando Pinzón, his cousin and son were detained by the army when they went to check on the damage. They were all interrogated, searched and photographed, and his personal diary, agenda and contacts were seized. Soldiers also stole food and beer from a storage space, music CDs from a teacher’s room and other equipment; total losses estimated at $2.5 million pesos by council leaders. National identity documents of dozens of school parents were taken also. Several residents told us the soldiers camped out in the homes of residents of La Esperanza. Confirming this account, on the way to the town we noticed a soldier stationed inside a farm in neighboring the neighboring village of El Caracol.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

This incident illustrates the halfhearted nature of the Uribe government’s voluntary reforms. Criticized for months in the mainstream media and elsewhere, the government finally acted last month to replace sacked army officers and describe how they planned to prevent these acts from recurring. But the victory won by campesino leaders – official recognition of the widespread “false positive” killings – has not been matched with a change in treatment of campesinos by the army.

So far neither local nor national governments have made any sign of investigating the attacks in La Esperanza. A delegate sent by the General Prosecutor’s office in Ocaña to confirm the attacks reported by ASCAMCAT advised local residents to flee with what belongings they could carry, and told one of the group’s leaders that the school only needed “a little paint.”



Since another administration – Barack Obama’s – with huge responsibility for the funding of army activities has recently started fresh, this may be an opportune time to revisit US-Colombia policy as it relates to operations against civilians. Last month Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the Obama Administration’s intention to support Colombia’s war against guerrillas. She didn’t address rights violations by the armed forces in her confirmation testimony.

It’s unknown if either of the units responsible for the attack receive Plan Colombia funding; several calls to the US Embassy’s State Department Verification Office went unreturned. But the US has in recent years continued to fund army units in areas where the army is responsible for rights violations. A report released last year by Amnesty International and the Fellowship of Reconciliation shows that geographic regions with the highest levels of reported extrajudicial executions of civilians by members of the armed forces in 2006 were also largely regions with the most military units receiving US assistance.

Video of a tour of the elementary school La Nueva Esperanza (“The New Hope”) after the army attack

Interview with a resident whose house was hit in the attack

Andrew Willis Garcés is an organizer from Washington, DC who works with the International Peace Observatory in Colombia

Violencia institucional hacia las mujeres

Alicia Yolanda Reyes

SEMLAC

La abogada Ángela García Reyes está convencida de que en México, especialmente en el Estado de Jalisco, existe una violencia institucional contra las mujeres. Ha sido testigo de cómo las autoridades responsables de impartir justicia ignoran las denuncias y terminan por desechar los casos o, peor aún, acusándolas a ellas.

Uno de las experiencias más cercanas que ha llevado esta letrada, representante del Comité de América Latina y el Caribe para la defensa de los Derechos de la Mujer (CLADEM) en Jalisco, es el de Rosario, de 42 años, casada con un mesero adicto a las drogas y detenido en varias ocasiones por delitos contra la salud, asalto a mano armada y portación ilegal de armas.

La mujer ha levantado denuncias por golpes, amenazas, violaciones y otros hechos violentos por parte del marido, en los 20 años que llevan casados. Estas acusaciones han sido ratificadas por los dos hijos mayores de la pareja, de 19 y 13 años, y por la madre de Rosario.

Existen, asimismo, partes médicos de que ella se ha presentado con heridas, golpes y secuelas de violación. Esto último ni siquiera se tomó en cuenta, porque Rosario lleva una vida sexual activa desde hace varios años. Por lo tanto, al decir de los galenos que la revisaron, no existían huellas de violación.

A raíz de las primeras denuncias que Rosario presentó en el municipio de Tlaquepaque, que forma parte de la zona conurbana de Guadalajara, la llamaron a declarar porque el marido había golpeado a los policías que acudieron a auxiliarla. Es decir, le pidieron ser testigo de los golpes que el señor propinó a los agentes del orden, pero de los que ella recibió, nada. No procede, fue la explicación que recibió.

Ante la falta de atención de las autoridades locales, acudió a los representantes estatales. Elizabeth Gutiérrez Fausto, coordinadora de la Dirección de Víctimas de Violencia, le pidió tener confianza en la solución de su caso.

Curiosamente, al dictarse orden de aprehensión, el marido se presentó amparado, que es una figura jurídica que impide la detención, aunque sí se consigna el caso a un juez y se siguen las investigaciones pertinentes.

El hombre llevó a declarar a sus hermanas, quienes aseguraron que, en la fecha que Rosario dijo haber sido golpeada por este sujeto, él se encontraba trabajando pintando casas, cuando en realidad su trabajo es de ayudante de cocinero y mesero, en lo que dura poco por su carácter violento. En el expediente, al cual SEMlac tuvo acceso, se anexa la valoración psicológica realizada en la unidad de atención a víctimas de violencia firmada por la psicóloga Ana Rosa Olvera, quien reconoce que Rosario presenta daño moral y físico producto de la convivencia disfuncional con Salvador Leyva, su esposo.

Rosario cuenta que él ha llegado a rociarla de gasolina y acercarle un cerillo, amenazándola con prenderle fuego si ella no le obedece.

En una conversación telefónica que grabó Rosario, se escucha al sujeto decirle que ella vivirá hasta que él lo decida, y la obliga a que le entregue parte de su salario. Esta grabación la escuchó Elizabeth y la presidenta del Instituto Jalisciense de las Mujeres, Carmen Lucía Pérez, quien se limitó a enviarle una carta al procurador para solicitarle celeridad a la demanda.

Pero las autoridades no han mostrado su empatía hacía esta mujer, señala la médica Adela Jiménez, quien la ha acompañado en sus trámites con las autoridades y se duele del trato tan déspota que le prodigan.

Rosario, que ya ha intentado suicidarse en dos ocasiones, se pregunta si será necesario que el marido la mate para que las autoridades intervengan.

En opinión de la abogada de CLADEM, Rosario es sólo una de las tantas mujeres que se ha atrevido a dar la cara, pero no ha obtenido el apoyo esperado de las autoridades.

Recuerda el caso de María Gracia, una funcionaria universitaria golpeada por otro profesor en su propia casa, cuando se negó a tener relaciones con él. Las autoridades le cuestionaron a la señora que el hombre estuviera en su casa, pese a tratarse de una reunión con varios compañeros de trabajo, en la cual incluso estuvo presente su hijo.

Cuando los invitados se fueron retirando, el sujeto se negaba a irse y, al quedarse a solas con ella, la conminó a tener relaciones sexuales. Tras la negativa de María, la golpeó. Sus gritos despertaron al hijo, quien llamó a la policía, pero a su queja, ratificada con el parte médico de las lesiones que sufrió, el argumento del juez fue: "¿por qué lo dejó entrar a su casa?, ¿para qué se quedó a solas con él?".

Laura es otra mujer que padeció, durante cuatro años, violencia de parte de su pareja. Ella lo denunció varias veces, pero las autoridades no le hicieron caso, hasta que él la mató.

Otro tanto le ocurrió a otra mujer, también nombrada María, quien sufría violencia de parte de su amante. Ella se refugió en casa de una de sus hijas, pero el hombre la descubrió, asesinó a la hija mayor, a dos pequeños y a la madre de María, para luego suicidarse. Las autoridades, pese a las denuncias interpuestas, nunca le brindaron protección.

Adela se pregunta: ¿de qué sirve que exista en Jalisco, desde hace un año, una Ley por Una Vida Libre de Violencia, si en la práctica los señores pueden seguir golpeando, amenazando y violando a sus parejas y no pasa nada?

Señala que ella también se siente amenazada por el marido de Rosario. Desde que empezó a acompañarla, se siente en riesgo, ella o sus hijos, porque este hombre, bajo los influjos del alcohol o las drogas, puede hacerles daño.

La abogada dice que, en muchas ocasiones, se siente frustrada porque, a pesar de hacer todo lo que marca la ley, presentar pruebas y hablar con las autoridades, los casos siguen ahí, estancados. Reconoce haber creído en las funcionarias públicas que le han ofrecido ayuda.

Menciona un caso concreto: en una rueda prensa en la que se presenta a Rosario, la licenciada Elizabeth se compromete públicamente a sacar adelante el caso y, en la práctica, les dan prioridad a las pruebas presentadas por el marido, porque su cuñado es abogado.

En este, como en muchos casos, concluye Ángela, la víctima termina siendo la mala.

The Return of Immigration As a Wedge Issue

New America Media, Commentary, Angelo Falcón

Editor’s Note: Contrary to popular wisdom after the 2008 elections, immigration as a wedge issue can restore Republicans to power, says a new report from The American Cause. Political scientist Angelo Falcón disputes that but says it would be unwise to dismiss The American Cause as a fringe element, either. Falcón is president and founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy (NiLP), a policy center founded in 1982 in New York City that focuses on Latino policy issues. Immigration Matters reflects the views of leading immigration rights advocacy groups.

Pat and Bay Buchanan, Peter Brimelow, James Pinkerton and company seek to tell the Republican Party what they need to do to win back power in 2010: use immigration as a wedge issue. Through a 16-year-old outfit called The American Cause, founded by Pat Buchanan and friends, they are promoting “traditional American values” rooted in the “conservative principles of national sovereignty, economic patriotism, limited government, and individual freedom.” Hey, wait a minute, isn’t this why the Republicans lost the White House and Congress last year?

Well, they argue, that’s the Democrats and the left promoting one of those cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacies (you know, when correlation does not imply causation), according to a new report, “Immigration and the 2008 Republican Defeat.” Written by The American Cause Executive Director Marcus Epstein (who also heads anti-immigration congressman Tom Tancredo’s Team America and is vice president of something modestly called Youth for Western Civilization), the report asserts that the immigration issue was, in fact, not detrimental to Republican candidates. It concludes that “immigration control could be the issue to bring the GOP back into the majority.”

Epstein reviews 27 congressional races in order to challenge as a propter hoc fallacy the conventional wisdom that Republicans who lost races were the anti-amnesty, border enforcement hardliners and the Democrats were comprehensive immigration reform advocates. The problem with his analysis is that with both Democrats and Republicans downplaying or strategically repositioning the issue of immigration, there is a certain vagueness in the positions taken by most candidates on this issue, as well as in the small number of cases he examines.

About all he documents is how both Republican and Democratic candidates are ideologically slippery when running for office. I kinda knew that before reading this report. In fact, he performed a service to progressives by clearly identifying unprincipled Democrats in Congress worth looking at closely on the issue of immigration. So that’s pretty helpful. Thanks, Marcus.

But the real question is: How seriously should progressives and immigrant advocates take these American Cause people? I would prefer to ignore them at this point and hope they just fade--or immigrate--away due to their own irrelevance. But it is probably more prudent not to ignore them.

The New York Times was alarmed enough about what these people represent to publish an editorial critical of the group titled, “The Nativists Are Restless,” (February 1, 2009), with some follow-ups on the Times’ blog pages. The editorial points out that U.S history teaches us that “racism has a nasty habit of never going away, no matter how much we may want it to, and thus the perpetual need for vigilance.”

I was shocked a couple of years ago when conservative commentator Linda Chavez wrote a column entitled, “Latino Fear and Loathing” (Townhall.com, May 25, 2007), in which she took many of her conservative and Republican friends to task for their anti-Latino attitudes clothed in more innocuous immigration-control language. She pointed out that, “we need to quit pretending that the ‘No Amnesty’ crowd is anything other than what it is: a tiny group of angry, frightened and prejudiced loudmouths back by political opportunists who exploit them.” Wow!

Within a few weeks, though, Chavez backed off, stating, “(o)n reflection, I went too far” (NationalReview.com June 11, 2007). But she expressed her personal frustration (“There are only so many times that you can be told to ‘go back to Mexico’ and far worse before your blood starts to boil”). She concluded that, “The immigration debate has stirred up some pretty ugly sentiments and conservatives need to be especially careful in this regard. We are, after all, the ones who argue for colorblind policies.”

This American Cause crowd apparently remains unconvinced and undeterred. But do they remain relevant? It is important for progressives not to underestimate their impact on the Republican and conservative agendas under an Obama Administration and a Democrati-controlled Congress. The main and most obvious reason is that with an economic crisis here and globally, the racist scapegoating that underlies their take on “traditional American values” will continue to have some currency. The right has also maintained an impressive media and policy advocacy infrastructure that is personified by Rush Limbaugh’s continued influence, to take but one example.

In the Latino community, there is also a need to closely watch a growing new conservative movement that had been fed by eight years of Republican dominance with a president who was trying to develop an “Hispanic strategy.” There are now conservative Latino policy centers, like The Latino Coalition, the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute, the Congressional Hispanic Conference and others, which along with the first black chair of the Republican Party, could influence how the GOP and conservatives will address the immigration debate. With its dramatic population growth and diversity, as well as a growing middle class, the Latino community is becoming more ideologically diverse. Let’s see if Pat and Bay will offer them admission into American Cause or keep theirs a white-only club.

With Obama in the White House, hopes for a more sensible comprehensive approach to immigration reform are warranted. But as we have seen in his first few weeks in office, the need for vigilance and creative grassroots organizing is as important as ever. Si, se puede, but it ain’t automatic.

Más de un millón de niños indígenas en rezago educativo

Visión Mundial/Adital


En la actualidad hay 1.3 millones de niños indígenas entre 6 y 14 años de edad que están en rezago educativo reconocido por el Instituto Nacional de Evaluación de la Educación(INEE), señaló Alejandra Mangino, asesora en educación en Visión Mundial de México al ser cuestionada sobre este tópico.

La especialista indicó que el rezago educativo es la condición en la que se encuentra una persona cuando no ha concluido su enseñanza o no asiste a la escuela de educación básica. Es decir, es sinónimo de atraso. Problema recurrente en las poblaciones indígenas y rurales.

"De la población de niñas y niños indígenas, el 16.43 por ciento (más de 213 mil 500) no asiste a la escuela, aunque hay estados con más rezago, como Chihuahua y Sinaloa, donde 40 y 61 por ciento de los niños indígenas no estudian la primaria, respectivamente, estos son datos oficiales del 2004 del Instituto Nacional para la Evaluación de la Educación", puntualizó Mangino al considerar que existe un incumplimiento de estándares y metas en el sector educativo y compromiso en las políticas públicas.

"Para Visión Mundial el rezago educativo es un indicador de pobreza, porque la educación es uno de los pilares esenciales para el desarrollo sostenible en todos los países. Aunque el gobierno ha hecho algún esfuerzo, la falta de acceso a la educación sigue siendo un aspecto que afecta a las niñas y los niños del país, en particular a la infancia indígena", recalcó Mangino al destacar que las poblaciones en situación de marginación son las más afectadas.

La pobreza impacta en el desempeño de las niñas y niños indígenas debido una serie de factores. De acuerdo a estimaciones de CONAPO/INI, para el año 2000, 3.9 millones eran niñas y niños indígenas cuyas familias sobreviven con menos de dos dólares. En el factor de educación está la precaria infraestructura de los centros, el ausentismo docente y falta de capacitación a los maestros.

"La falta de capacitación y actualización docente es un problema que encontramos recurrentemente en las comunidades que atiende Visión Mundial, aunado a que las poblaciones más pobres muchas veces no son las prioritarias en las políticas públicas y en las escuelas un maestro atiende a varios grados, no se cuenta con mobiliario de bancas pizarrones, mucho menos con una construcción de concreto, algunas son instalaciones de madera con techo de lamina y la mayoría con piso de tierra", manifestó la especialista de Visión Mundial.

"Incluso el mismo informe del INEE del 2004, reconoce la gravedad del rezago educativo que alcanza al 57 por ciento de los estudiantes indígenas que están en el nivel de competencia más bajo. Esto ocasiona que las niñas y los niños indígenas, no puedan aprender español sino también el resto de las asignaturas. A lo cual se le suma que alrededor de 20 por ciento de las escuelas indígenas son incompletas(no ofrecen los seis grados de primaria) y 28 por ciento tienen un solo profesor atendiendo los diferentes grados con que cuenta la escuela", puntualizó Mangino al dar un ejemplo concreto de lo que sucede con la falta de profesores.

Commodifying the Revolution

Zapatista Villages Become Hot Tourist Destinations

By JOHN ROSS

CounterPunch

Mexico City.

The commodification of the Zapatista movement recently reached absurdist heights with the New York Times’ designation of rebel villages in southeastern Chiapas as a hot budget tourist destination. "Chiapas Is Cheap! Indian Villages Flourish And The Price Is Right!" read the cut line in the NYT's Sunday Travel section November 16 - ironically, the eve of the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN.)

The double truck spread also featured a photo of the Zapatista cultural/political center or "caracol" at Oventic, a 45-minute drive from chic San Cristobal. "Their failed revolution (sic)" has given the Zapatista zone "a frisson of danger" the Times' so-called "frugal traveler" Matt Gross wrote a few days later after tricking his way into the caracol for a self-serving hit piece that even listed the bargain price of quesadillas at Oventik's Che Guevara general store.

Spearheading the state of Chiapas's all-out tourism assault on the rebel zone is the on-again, off-again through highway from San Cristobal ("the new Soho" according to tourism publicists) to the magnificent Mayan ruins at Palenque that would infringe on a dozen Zapatista autonomous villages en route. The push to open up Chiapas as a transnational tourist venue continues to generate violence between Zapatista and non-Zapatista communities over control of such sites as Agua Azul, an eco-tourist resort in the San Cristobal-Palenque corridor.

Further south, both Zapatista and non-Zapatista communities have been forcibly evicted from the Montes Azules Biosphere, a 300,000-hectare swatch of the Lacandon jungle as Big Eco-Tourism combines, backed by such transnationals as Ford Motors, stake a claim on the untrammeled sanctuary. The eco-tourism boom has brought five-star hotels and Israeli-led caravans to the region.

The exploitation of sacred Mayan sites like Palenque by the local and transnational tourist trade has also ratcheted up tensions in southeastern Chiapas. Last month (January), Zapatistas threatened to occupy Mayan ruins at Tonina just outside Ocosingo, "the Gateway to the Lacandon Jungle", over a land dispute. Last October, six non-Zapatistas were gunned down by Chiapas state police after activist Tojolabal Mayans took over the ruins at Chinkultik in the Montebello lakes area near Comitan, demanding a bigger slice of the tourism pie.

Tourism is one of Chiapas's "four horsemen of progress" notes daily La Jornada correspondent Hermann Bellinghausen, one of the most knowledgeable writers on the Zapatista struggle whose "Heart Of Time" (Hermann wrote the screenplay), set in the Zapatista zone, was recently shone at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival. Petroleum, biofuels, and mining also add pep to this southernmost Mexican state's future.

Interest in drilling for petroleum in the "Lacandon basin" was revived this past December by Mexico's energy secretary Georgina Kessel. Although she failed to specify just what she meant by the "Lacandon basin", drilling for oil in the jungle is sure to conflict with that other horseman of Chiapas's future, eco-tourism. PEMEX, Mexico's state-controlled oil consortium, drilled sites in the rebel zone in the 1980s and early '90s. The Nazaret complex of 31 platforms less than 10 miles from the Zapatista caracol at La Garrucha was sealed up after the indigenous rebellion exploded in 1994. Confidential assessments by PEMEX noted scant oil (400 barrels a day) at Nazaret but tens of thousands of cubic feet of natural gas, exploitation of which was put on hold by the uprising.

The bio-fuel component in the horserace for Chiapas's future is more transnational flimflam. Under the once-upon-a-time Plan Puebla-Panama, now re-dubbed Plan Mesoamerica and extended through Central America to Colombia, Colombian industrialists are growing 7000 hectares of non-food biomass on the Pacific coastal plain near Puerto Chiapas. Although the plantation involves a non-food crop (pinion), it removes considerable land from food cropping. The bio-fuel project represents an initial collaboration between Colombia's widely disparaged president Alvaro Uribe and Mexico's illegitimately elected Felipe Calderon, both darlings of the U.S. State Department.

As the price of gold has soared, transnational mining is gaining a leg up in the race for Chiapas's future. At least 55 permits for mining development have been granted by state authorities to mostly Canadian speculators in the sierra and highlands of Chiapas. Such transnationals as Linear Gold and Blackfire are decried for widespread deforestation, slave labor wages, and the suppression of workers' rights at the mining sites.

While the state of Chiapas is being put out to bid, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation marked its 25th anniversary as a rebel force and its 15th year on public display over the year-end holidays with an annual conclave of supporters this year slugged "The World Fiesta of Digna Rabia" ("Rage with Dignity"), a more modest outing than previous get-togethers. This year, special invitees such as the British writer John Berger sent along videotaped contributions rather than traveling to Chiapas for in-person appearances.

One international celebrity who did show up live was the Zapatistas' quixotic spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos who delivered what has become his yearly diatribe against self-designated political enemies - Marcos's public statements have been in short supply since the EZLN's ill-fated "Other" campaign and his once-daily epistemological output was virtually reduced to zero in 2008.

Headlining public sessions of the Digna Rabia Fiesta at San Cristobal's University of the Earth, the Sup picked up where he left off last year by attacking Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), the left leader of the Movement to Defend Mexico's Petroleum and the Popular Economy, who was swindled out of the presidency by Felipe Calderon in 2006. Among other calumnies: Marcos damned AMLO and Calderon as two sides of the same coin. The Zapatista mouthpiece also accused Lopez Obrador of being in cahoots with the CIA and labeled his movement, the broadest activist alliance in Mexico today (AMLO drew upwards of 100,000 to Mexico City's Zocalo January 25th) as "sectarian, intolerant, and hysterical" - all pejoratives that could well be applied to the rebel Subcomandante. In an excess of "mala leche" (spoiled milk), Marcos also equated the deaths of 11 young people during a stampede when Mexico City police raided a teenage hang-out last July to Israeli genocide in Gaza, and lambasted veterans of the watershed 1968 student movement and Lopez Obrador's successor as Mexico City mayor Marcelo Ebrard for enshrining the government massacre of 325 students on October 2nd of that year as a national day of mourning.

Other worms in the Subcomandante's can include the unexplained exclusion of Barcelona solidarity workers led by Inaki Garcia from the Zapatistas' international support network and the removal of French leftist Olivier Besancenot from the Digna Rabia panelists' lists after he met with supporters of Senator Rosario Ibarra, founder of the Eureka Mothers of the Disappeared committee in Mexico City. Even the International Womens' Day (March 8th) celebration of the life of the late Concepcion Garcia de Corral ("Mama Corral") who lost two sons in Mexico's 1970s' "dirty war" and was a member of the Eureka committee is a backhanded slap at Dona Rosario, who was once close to Marcos but is now aligned with Lopez Obrador.

The Subcomandante's shameful performance at the Digna Rabia Fiesta is an embarrassment to long-time Zapatista supporters such as this writer who has authored four books chronicling the rebel movement. In recent years, the Sup has transformed himself into a vituperative, narcissistic charlatan who is single-handedly responsible for the depreciation of the Zapatista movement as a national and international player on the Left.

But if Subcomandante Marcos's public posture has been disastrous for the rebel cause, Zapatista communities in the highlands and jungles of southeastern Chiapas have continued to demonstrate the capabilities of collective action. The rank and file rebels' creativeness in providing a Zapatista education for their children and their defense of their environment, particularly native plants, are exemplary.

Moreover, epidemiological studies as reported by former National Autonomous University rector Pablo Gonzalez Casanova underscore the continuing excellence of Zapatista health care projects. In areas such as pre-natal care, Zapatista health providers have extended coverage to 63 per cent of all expectant mothers, double that of non-Zapatista communities in the region. 74 per cent of all Zapatista homes have access to toilets as opposed to 54 per cent in non-Zapatista homes and in terms of vaccination, increased newborn weights, and the diminishment of infant mortality, the EZLN health projects far outshine their non-Zapatista neighbors.

While the EZLN eschews the public spotlight and has auto-marginalized itself from participation in national and international political activism, autonomous Zapatista communities in southeastern Chiapas continue to be living proof that another world is possible.

John Ross is in Alta California to deal with medical problems. These dispatches will continue at ten-day intervals until his return to Mexico. Ross's "El Monstruo - True Tales of Dread and Redemption in Mexico City" will be published by Nation Books in late 2009.

Ampliar investigaciones, penoso colofón de la Corte sobre Atenco

Sólo se emitirán “lineamientos y consideraciones” a las autoridades correspondientes

Jesús Aranda
La Jornada

Una vez que exoneró (por ocho votos contra tres) al gobernador del estado de México, Enrique Peña Nieto; al actual procurador general de la República, Eduardo Medina Mora, y a los altos mandos policiacos federales y estatales de la violación grave de garantías ocurrida en mayo de 2006 en San Salvador Atenco, el pleno de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación (SCJN) terminó por emitir “lineamientos y consideraciones” a las instancias correspondientes para que amplíen las investigaciones sobre abuso de autoridad y agresiones sexuales.

También quedaron libres de culpa los mandos que planearon el operativo, Ardelio Vargas Fosado, entonces coordinador de las Fuerzas Federales de Apoyo, y el almirante Wilfrido Robledo Madrid, quien dirigía la Agencia Estatal de Seguridad, así como otros funcionarios de alto nivel que elaboraron la estrategia de las acciones en Atenco.

Así, sólo los policías ejecutores de las lesiones y agresiones sexuales, sus jefes inmediatos y comandantes sectoriales fueron señalados como los responsables de violar los derechos humanos.

Los ministros exhortaron a los congresos y ejecutivos, federal y de las entidades del país, a aprobar leyes, reglamentos y protocolos para normar el uso de la fuerza pública, además de proponerles que adopten medidas administrativas y políticas públicas para hacer más aficientes y profesionales los cuerpos policiacos.

En el catálogo de buenas intenciones, los juzgadores reconocieron que las víctimas tienen derecho a obtener la reparación del daño por parte del Estado mexicano, pero no precisaron la forma de lograrlo, como tampoco convocaron abiertamente al gobierno a asumir dicha responsabilidad.

A diferencia de las anteriores sesiones, la de ayer fue muy atropellada y apresurada; en sólo tres horas se votaron los puntos pendientes e incluso en temas en los que no había total claridad se acordó que las diferencias fueran subsanadas por el ministro instructor, cuando elabore el documento definitivo de la decisión.

Al dar por finalizado el asunto, el ministro presidente Guillermo I. Ortiz Mayagoitia resaltó la importancia de la resolución para el país y aclaró que ésta será entregada a los congresos federal y estatales, al gobierno del estado de México, a las procuradurías General de la República y de los estados, entre otras autoridades; la Corte busca con ello que el uso de la fuerza pública tenga un fundamento que la legitime, que la sociedad cuente con los “límites y referentes” que garantizan su protección en contra de abusos y excesos, “que bajo ninguna circunstancia son admisibles”.

Ante la comisión de ciudadanos de San Salvador Atenco, encabezada por Trinidad Ramírez, esposa de Ignacio del Valle (líder del Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra, FPDT, quien se encuentra recluido en el penal de máxima seguridad del Altiplano), lo mismo que secretarios y funcionarios que colmaron el salón de sesiones, impidiendo así el acceso a los medios de comunicación, Ortiz Mayagoitia subrayó que el trabajo desarrollado por la Corte “no tiene por objeto desalentar el uso de la fuerza pública so pretexto de temores de quienes deban tomar esas difíciles decisiones”.

Al conocerse el fallo, la indignación de los representantes del FPDT presentes en el salón estalló. El tono de voz comenzó a subir en la medida que eran desalojados por el personal de seguridad, que los copó de inmediato. Gritos de “¡ministros corruptos, asesinan la justicia!”, “¡estamos de pie, no nos han vencido!”, “¡Atenco vive, la lucha sigue!” y “libertad a los presos!”, retumbaban en los pasillos. Su demanda de justicia no había sido escuchada en el máximo tribunal.

Al inicio de la sesión, Salvador Aguirre Anguiano, Sergio Valls, Margarita Luna, Fernando Franco, Olga Sánchez Cordero, Mariano Azuela, José Ramón Cossío y Ortiz Mayagoitia determinaron que no había elementos para inculpar a ningún alto funcionario ni a los jefes policiacos. En todo caso, señalaron que hubo agentes que violaron la ley, y que éstos tenían que responder por sus hechos de manera individual, mientras que sus superiores directos fueron señalados por permitir los abusos.

Esta misma mayoría se opuso al informe de Gudiño que enumeraba a todos los funcionarios involucrados –desde Peña Nieto hasta los policías que pudieron ser identificados–, pero que no fincaba responsabilidades; en cambio, consideraron que era mejor señalar con nombre y cargo a los que violaron garantías, aunque fueran policías y mandos operativos únicamente.

Genaro David Góngora, Juan N. Silva Meza y José de Jesús Gudiño Pelayo dijeron que, en todo caso, todos los funcionarios involucrados tenían un grado de responsabilidad. El más directo fue Góngora, quien censuró que ni Peña Nieto ni Medina Mora, como máximos responsables, tomaran las medidas correctivas para frenar los abusos.

“Era muy sencillo advertir los excesos que se estaban cometiendo, bastaba con prender la televisión para ver las imágenes”. Agregó que tampoco investigaron cabalmente las denuncias de abuso de autoridad ni las agresiones sexuales a 31 mujeres que fueron detenidas.

Cuando se leían los resolutivos, Góngora reflexionó en voz alta: “El hoy procurador debe seguir investigando los hechos de sus subordinados cuando fue secretario de Seguridad Pública federal. Hacer investigaciones a estas alturas parece casi imposible; el dios Cronos, junto con otras personas y otros factores, han dispersado las evidencias, pero en fin, eso ya será problema del procurador”, ironizó.

If Israel's weapons came through a tunnel

Palestinian pupils attend a class set up outside their destroyed school in Rafah, southern Gaza strip, January 2009. Wissam Nassar/MaanImages


Kathy Kelly writing from Chicago, the United States, Live from Palestine, 12 February 2009

Since I returned from Gaza people have asked me, how do the people of Gaza manage? How do they keep going after being traumatized by bombing and punished by a comprehensive state of siege? I wonder myself. I know that whether the loss of life is on the Gaza or the Israeli side of the border, bereaved survivors feel the same pain and misery. On both sides of the border, I think children pull people through horrendous and horrifying nightmares. Adults squelch their panic, cry in private and strive to regain semblances of normal life, wanting to carry their children through a precarious ordeal.

And the children want to help their parents. In Rafah, the morning of 18 January, when it appeared there would be at least a lull in the bombing, I watched children heap pieces of wood on plastic tarps and then haul their piles toward their homes. The little ones seemed proud to be helping their parents recover from the bombing. I'd seen just this happy resilience among Iraqi children, after the 2003 "Shock and Awe" bombing, as they found bricks for their parents to use for a makeshift shelter in a bombed military base.

Children who survive bombing are eager to rebuild. They don't know how jeopardized their lives are, how ready adults are to bomb them again.

In Rafah, that morning, an older man stood next to me, watching the children at work. "You see," he said, looking upward as an Israeli military surveillance drone flew past, "if I pick up a piece of wood, if they see me carrying just a piece of wood, they might mistake it for a weapon, and I will be a target. So these children collect the wood."

While the high-tech drone collected information, "intelligence" that helps determine targets for more bombing, toddlers collected wood. Their parents, whose homes were partially destroyed, needed the wood for warmth at night and for cooking. Because of the Israeli blockade against Gaza, there wasn't any gas.

With the border crossing at Rafah now sealed again, people who want to obtain food, fuel, water, construction supplies and goods needed for everyday life will have to increasingly rely on the damaged tunnel industry to import these items from the Egyptian side of the border. Israel's government says that Hamas could use the tunnels to import weapons, and weapons could kill innocent civilians, so the Israeli military has no choice but to bomb the neighborhood built up along the border, as they have been doing.

Suppose that the US weapon makers had to use a tunnel to deliver weapons to Israel. The US would have to build a mighty big tunnel to accommodate the weapons that Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Caterpillar have supplied to Israel. The size of such a tunnel would be an eighth wonder of the world, a Grand Canyon of a tunnel, an engineering feat of the ages.

Think of what would have to come through.

Imagine Boeing's shipments to Israel traveling through an enormous underground tunnel, large enough to accommodate the wingspans of planes, sturdy enough to allow passage of trucks laden with missiles. According to the UK's Indymedia Corporate Watch, 2009, Boeing has sent Israel 18 AH-64D Apache Longbow fighter helicopters, 63 Boeing F-15 Eagle fighter planes, 102 Boeing F-16 fighter planes, 42 Boeing AH-64 Apache fighter helicopters, F-16 Peace Marble II and III Aircraft, four Boeing 777s, and Arrow II interceptors, plus Israel Aircraft Industries-developed Arrow missiles, and Boeing AGM-114 D Longbow Hellfire missiles.

In September of last year, the US government approved the sale of 1,000 Boeing GBU-9 small diameter bombs to Israel, in a deal valued at up to $77 million.

Now that Israel has dropped so many of those bombs on Gaza, Boeing shareholders can count on more sales, more profits, if Israel buys new bombs from them. Perhaps there are more massacres in store. It would be important to maintain the tunnel carefully.

Raytheon, one of the largest US arms manufacturers, with annual revenues of around $20 billion, is one of Israel's main suppliers of weapons. In September last year, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency approved the sale of Raytheon kits to upgrade Israel's Patriot missile system at a cost of $164 million. Raytheon would also use the tunnel to bring in Bunker Buster bombs as well as Tomahawk and Patriot missiles.

Lockheed Martin is the world's largest defense contractor by revenue, with reported sales in 2008 of $42.7 billion. Lockheed Martin's products include the Hellfire precision-guided missile system, which has reportedly been used in the recent Gaza attacks. Israel also possesses 350 F-16 jets, some purchased from Lockheed Martin. Think of them coming through the largest tunnel in the world.

Maybe Caterpillar Inc. could help build such a tunnel. Caterpillar Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of construction (and destruction) equipment, with more than $30 billion in assets, holds Israel's sole contract for the production of the D9 military bulldozer, specifically designed for use in invasions of built-up areas. The US government buys Caterpillar bulldozers and sends them to the Israeli army as part of its annual foreign military assistance package. Such sales are governed by the US Arms Export Control Act, which limits the use of US military aid to "internal security" and "legitimate self defense" and prohibits its use against civilians.

Israel topples family houses with these bulldozers to make room for settlements. All too often, they topple them on the families inside. American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death standing between one of these bulldozers and a Palestinian doctor's house in 2003.

In truth, there's no actual tunnel bringing US-manufactured weapons to Israel. But the transfers of weapons and the US complicity in Israel's war crimes are completely invisible to many American people.

The US is the primary source of Israel's arsenal. For more than 30 years, Israel has been the largest recipient of US foreign assistance and since 1985 Israel has received about 3 billion dollars each year in military and economic aid from the US ("US and Israel Up in Arms," Frida Berrigan, Foreign Policy in Focus, 17 January 2009)

So many Americans can't even see this flood of weapons, and what it means, for us, for Gaza's and Israel's children, for the world's children.

And so, people in Gaza have a right to ask us, how do you manage? How do you keep going? How can you sit back and watch while your taxes pay to massacre us? If it would be wrong to send rifles and bullets and primitive rockets into Gaza, weapons that could kill innocent Israelis, then isn't it also wrong to send Israelis the massive arsenal that has been used against us, killing more than 400 of our children in the past six weeks, maiming and wounding thousands more?

But, standing over the tunnels in Rafah that morning under a sunny Gaza sky, hearing the constant droning buzz of mechanical spies waiting to call in an aerial bombardment, no one asked me, an American, those hard questions. The man standing next to me pointed to a small shed where he and others had built a fire in an ash can. They wanted me to come inside, warm up, and receive a cup of tea.

Kathy Kelly (kathy A T vcnv D O T org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org).