Argentine Forensics Team Says First Remains Are Not of Ayotzinapa Students

Laura Carlsen, Americas Program

Finally, the Argentine forensics team called in as an independent analyst by human rights groups and parents of the missing students of Aytozinapa, has weighed in. The Team announced today that it analyzed 24 of the 30 remains discovered in Cerro Viejo in six graves outside Iguala, Guerrero and none are of the missing students.

"El EEAF has obtained genetic results from the laboratory The Bode Technology Group in the United States on 24 of the 30 remains recovered in Cierro Viejo. None of those showed probability of biological parentage with the 43 students of the rural college. Work continues on the six additional remains and results are expected soon."

This result concurs with the findings of the Federal Attorney General's office announced on Oct. 14 that the remains were not of the students.

The Argentine team states in its comuniqué that it has participated in the exhumation of 2 of the 30 bodies found at Cierro Viejo, 1 of the 9 found at La Parota and in recovery of remains at the dump in Cocula.

The process-of-elimination method of identification now leaves the Parota bodies and the Cocula bodies--and any others that might turn up as the search continues in a region that has come to be known as a narco-cemetery. AG Jesus Murillo Karam announced on Nov. 7 that detailed testimony from criminals led to the Cocula dump, where --again, according to the criminals--the students were killed, their bodies incinerated, bagged and tossed in a nearby river and other sites.

Murillo Karam stated that those remains have been sent to a lab in Innsbruck. It is not clear why they were sent to a different lab, if the Argentine team is testing remains from that site separately or how long this identification will take.

Although the announcement that 24 of the first remains found are not the students provides the first scientific certainty to the case, it still leaves far more questions than answers.

First, the AG office found the Cierro Viejo remains on the basis of testimony by members of the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel arrested after the crime who said they had driven the students there and murdered them. So the federal government investigators were either duped by the criminals or arranged the exhumations of the wrong bodies as a distraction or a feint, as many of the Ayotzinapa students and families claim. Parents had long been skeptical of the first claims, stating what we now know--that some of the remains were female and that the age ranges were wrong.

Suspicions are now deepened. If criminal testimony proved false the first time, how reliable can it be now that three new cartel members are claiming with graphic detail that they killed the students at the Cocula dump?

The parents have already stated firmly and angrily that they will not accept criminal testimony as a resolution of the case. They maintain that their sons are alive until there is irrefutable scientific proof that the remains are of their loved ones. So far, no matches have been made.

The communiqué of Nov.11 concludes:

"In synthesis, up to now there have been no identifications between the remains found in the 3 locations mentioned and the 43 students. The EEAF continues to work on efforts to identify the recovered remains, alongside official investigations. The institutional policy of the EAAF is to inform results first to the the families of the victims, and to the authorities in charge of the investigations."

 The last statement could be a concern. Does the team have to have the OK from the authorities to announce its findings, or just chronologically inform them first before going public?

The problem with the process of elimination method of identification in Guerrero is that the state seems to be capable of producing an untold number of cadavers to eliminate. The task of connecting these to other disappeared people will be complicated, to say the least. Record-keeping is poor and DNA testing extremely limited.

A persistent accusation dogging the AG in recent weeks is that the government and his office in particular is "managing the crisis" rather than resolving it. That is to say, that it has failed to reveal what it knows and is in the throes not of a real search but of a political dilemma regarding whether it's best to keep the students alive in the public eye or produce evidence of death. The latter prolongs the situation of uncertainty that is feeding demonstrations and actions across the country; the former s admission of a massacre and could ignite even greater public indignation and rage.

Notably, the message from the Argentine team does not indicate that the Cocula remains might be too deteriorated to be analyzed. The government has hinted at the possiblity--the latest version of the criminals' testimony indicates they went to great lengths to assure the bodies not be identified.

It will be vitally important to identify the rest of the remains quickly and reliably. The Aytozinapa families need that, and so do the thousands of families of other disappeared persons whose bodies anonymously in clandestine graves. Like the ones of Cierro Viejo.

Laura's Blog: HSBC: How laundering drug money fuels the drug war violence

Today the Peace Caravan will pay a visit to HSBC Bank, to protest the financial crimes that enable drug cartels to launder their huge illegal earnings. These crimes are rarely punished because of the importance of illegal money to the financial system. HSBC was caught with highly questionable practices between its US and Mexican branches and currently faces charges. They expect to settle for record fines, while avoiding criminal charges.

But financial crimes are not victimless, nor are they non-violent crimes. What looks like white-collar crime on the books is red with blood in the streets. The Caravan will challenge the bankers on Wall Street to look the victims in the eyes and will also call for stricter enforcement and punishment.

HSBC Money-Laundering Fuels Violence in Mexico

FACTS:

* HSBC is a British bank and the largest European bank. HSBC has vast interests in Mexico since 2002, when it bought Banco Bital, Mexico’s fifth largest bank. HSMX (HSBC in Mexico) has $2 billion dollars in assets.

* A Senate investigation found that HSBC transported $7 billion dollars in cash from Mexico to the United States in armed cars or aircraft in 2007 and 2008 alone. The Mexico-U.S. transfers far surpassed that of any other branch. Despite this highly suspicious activity and known cartel activity in the country, HSBC gave Mexico a low-risk rating for money laundering and permitted the transfers.

* A typical strategy of drug cartels to launder money is to smuggle US dollars from drug sales into Mexico, and then use international banks to send them back to the U.S. This is what HSBC did.

* HSBC was also found to have established accounts for Mexican money exchange businesses and other suspicious entities, and cleared billions of dollars in travelers cheques.

* The bank opened US dollar accounts in the Cayman Islands for Mexican clients for more than $2 billion dollars.

* The Mexican regulatory commission fined the bank $27 million in July of this year—a slap on the wrist for one of the world’s largest transnational financial institutions.

* On July 17, a Senate sub-committee published a lengthy report on HSBC case, concluding that it failed to apply anti-money laundering measures.

The over 300-page Senate report, from which most of these facts are taken, can be found here: http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/hearings/us-vulnerabilities-to-money-laundering-drugs-and-terrorist-financing-hsbc-case-history

HSBC in the United States:

* HSBC is being sued in a class action suit for foreclosing on homes of veterans in the U.S. 

As hundreds of families are evicted from their homes due to a crisis caused by the banks themselves, drug money assures the banks themselves see growing profits.

We call for: 

* Real vigilance and strict enforcement of anti-money laundering laws

* Exemplary fines for banks found guilty of money-laundering, like HSBC.

* Divert military/police drug war funding to increased public funding for enforcement of money-laundering laws—destroy the financial structures of the drug cartels, not human lives.

Laura's Blog: Breaking the Silence in New York; Historic Harlem March to End the Drug War

The Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity arrived in New York today and hit the ground running. In the early evening, hundreds of caravan members and New York supporters met each other in Riverside Church to hear the testimonies of the drug war's devastation on both sides of the border. A mammoth, neogothic structure built by the Rockefellers, the church has a long history of housing causes for social justice. It was here on April 4, 1967 that  Martin Luther King made one of his last speeches before he was assassinated--a glaring indictment of the Viet Nam war.

In his speech, called "A Time to Break Silence", King cited his reasons to oppose the Viet Nam war. His words apply almost uncannily to the drug war today. Despite the difference in historical contexts and the differences between the two wars, their similarities and the truth of the words stand not only the test of time but the test of conscience as well.

Both wars were, and are, deadly; both unconventional for their time; both fought for motivations distinct from those professed to the people.

The first reason King listed to oppose the war was "the war as an enemy of the poor". He had watched as advances in fighting poverty and inequality were dismantled to feed the war machine. The trade-off was starkly obvious:

I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.

We also know that today. With a budget in crisis, social programs have been stripped in historic rollbacks of rights and living standards as the defense budget not only maintains its girth but grows. With the Middle East conflicts waning in attention, it's the drug war that has moved in to justify militarism's insatiable appetite.

In Mexico, where the financial crisis, free trade and governmental indifference have created some 12 million more poor people in just a few years, the drug war has absorbed an enormous part of the budget. The war economy in both countries has powerful backers, and the the drug war has the added advantage for them of not only keeping the poor poor, but eliminating a large number of them--behind bars or in mass graves.

That's, of course, King's second reason.

[The war] was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population.We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.

Today's drug war doesn't even have to send young men and women thousands of miles away. It puts them away right here at home. By the millions and with the same discriminatory criteria that sent the poor and African American to fight and die in Viet Nam.

The peace caravan from Mexico marched in a candlelight vigil through the heart of Harlem, Manhattan's poorest areas. A place where every day youth are plucked to fill the cells and coffers of a private prison system. Where drug laws do the dirty work of justifying criminalization based on race and poverty and treating victims as villains.

Carol Eady of Woman on the Rise Telling Her Story (WORTH), a former prisoner on drug charges who has kicked drugs and become an educator and community activist, explained at the church,

Many women in New York, and probably all over the world, are usually incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses. Most of the time, they started using drugs due to past abuse, abandonment by parents, victimization and sexual assaults. Instead of treating these occurrences as health hazards or diseases, when we turn to drugs to medicate our pain they lock us up.  

More than 400 people marched chanting 'No More Drug War' and calling for justice in the streets of Harlem. The "cruel manipulation of the poor" that King spoke of is the modus operandi of the drug war and the prisons are the new battlefields where young lives are lost.

King's third reason stemmed from his deep commitment to non-violence.

I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. 

Likewise, if we do not oppose the drug war, we cannot claim to be non-violent and credibly stand up against more conventional wars or invasions. The U.S. government's Merida Initiative promotes violence and militarization as a solution to drug trafficking. We either condone that and abandon all pretenses of non-violence or we oppose it, despite its political popularity and remain consistent in our beliefs.

By keeping silent since Bush launched the Merida Initiative in 2007, we have allowed the militarized drug war model to spread. Now both political parties have elevated counter-narcotics efforts to national security, as if a white powder used to get high could blow up the world or a corner dealer were tantamount to a terrorist. This is a blatant lie. We are supporting a prohibition model where Mexican communities suffer the presence of violent and corrupt security forces and drug gangs, both funded and armed, whether directly or indirectly, by our country.

Violence becomes the norm and moral outrage dulls through endless repetition.

Another reason is the "vocation of sonship and brotherhood", a religious calling that--when women are added into the language--demands making common cause and understanding the suffering of others. The peace caravan has over this past month forged those bonds and sought out that common cause. The victims, with their photos of murdered or missing loved ones and their stories of pain, have challenged the U.S. public to consider the devastation wrought by support of a drug war without end. 

The stories at Riverside--45 years later after MLK spoke out on Viet Nam--again broke the silence about the war. Not a war on a foreign continent, but a crossborder war that rages within our communities from Harlem to Jalisco. As the U.S. government extends the failed drug war from Colombia and Mexico, to Central America, the Caribbean and Africa, King's closing words fit as well now as then:

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam [or in the drug war] and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors.

This model of annihilation drags us all into more violence. We have alternatives. As hundreds of marchers moved through New York City with the pictures of the victims, calling for an end to the war--again--they carried us closer to what King called "a creative psalm of peace". 

And this time, the silence was broken in two languages. 

Protests Against Elections Heat Up with "National March Against the Imposition"

Photo: Clayton Conn

Mexicans hit the streets again on Sunday, in the third mass demonstration against the apparent president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, in the three weeks since the elections. After months of demonstrations, Mexico's movement to reject the return of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)
shows no signs of fading away.

The July 22 "National March Against the Imposition" began at the presidential residence and arrived shortly after noon at Mexico City's Angel of Independence. Hundreds of people waited to join at the gold-tipped monument, swelling the ranks as students, unions, and citizens moved on to the central plaza.

At the final destination, tens of thousands poured into the square. They marched in clumps and converged from different routes, making it impossible to grasp the full dimension of the march at any given moment. But what the mobilization lacked in route planning, it made up for in energy, indignation and creativity.

This was about the fifth or sixth march against the PRI and its candidate that I've observed first-hand.  I wanted to check out two questions at this one: 1) what difference, if any, the coalition of organizations forged during the National Convention July 14-15 made and 2) what the main demands are, as election day fades into history and evidence of foul play mounts. I also wanted to see if accusations that the student-led movement is controlled by the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) had any substance behind them.

Organizations like the electricians union (SME) and the democratic current of the teachers' union (CNTE) that took part in the planning meeting in the town of Atenco turned out, although not in huge  numbers. The march was called just a week after the accords in Atenco and most organizations have to go through a series of assemblies to make decisions. It may take longer to really assess the impact of the formal incorporation of other sectors into the movement against Peña Nieto and the PRI.

Some unions and universities walked in contingents but for the most part, the march--unlike most Mexico marches--was made up of citizens with home-made signs who marched without visible organizations. Most were young, some were older, including veterans of past movements. The predominance of seemingly unaffiliated people added to the sense of spontaneity of the demonstration, but also to questions about its longer term direction and longevity.

National March Against the Imposition
Since the elections and accusations of fraud, vote-buying and coercion, the marches against the PRI have focused more on the electoral process. "Imposition" refers to the protesters' belief that Peña Nieto was imposed on voters through a series of manipulations and falsifications that violated electoral laws and the popular will. Recent demonstrations called by the student group "Iam132" continue to before the elections denounced the candidate, the way the highly concentrated mass media openly promoted his candidacy and the possible return of the PRI. Most of the students who make up the movement have no real memory of living under a PRI government, since the conservative National Action Party (PAN) has held the presidency for the past twelve years. One young woman carried a sign that read, "We are the children of the ideals you never succeeded in killing".

Photo: Clayton Conn

They have done their history homework. In one of the first demonstration against Televisa, the giant television conglomerate accused of having sold favorable coverage to Peña Nieto as far back as 2009, students projected scenes from the PRI government's massacre of protesting students in 1968 and 1971 against the wall of the media giant's office building. The ruling elite that controlled a one-party system to perpetuate itself in power eternally is a legend they don't want to repeat.

An Ominous Response
The march was replicated in scores of cities across the country and by groups of #Yosoy132  in other countries. Unlike past marches, the July 22 marches met with a violent response from the government in various cities. In Leon, police picked up several protesters and drove them around for three hours, captive, before taking them into detention.

In Oaxaca City, state and federal police arrested and allegedly beat up youth protesters, sexually threatening and abusing the women.

Here is part of the statement from the #YoSoy132 movement:

We also demand the a full explanation of the physical and legal situation of the 24 young people arrested--including two minors, identified in the #YoSoy132 movement, who were arbitrarily imprisoned by state government officials in Oaxaca City. We call on the competent authorities to investigate the cases and clear their names. We request that the officials involved in the various violation of human rights be sanctioned for their acts.

We repudiate the unjustified or disproportionate use of force, arbitrary arrest, torture, just to mention a few, repression that denies freedom of expression and the free manifestation of ideas, as well as abuse of power, threats and harassment against members of social movements. We therefore demand these cases be cleared up and public officials brought to justice and that state and federal authorities prosecute cases of complaints related to these events.

 The violent and arbitrary response by police in these cities could be an ominous sign. The movement continues to insist on peaceful and non-confrontational tactics as it moves into a series of actions decided at the National Convention. The July 22 march was the first of those actions It showed that the movement still has a great ability to draw people into the streets for organized protests-- even weeks after elections that the media and political elite attempted to portray as an unassailable victory-- and among those protestors the rejection of the PRI candidate runs as strong as ever.

As for the second question--what are longer term strategies, beyond the action plan from here to Dec. 1--in all the enthusiasm of the march, I couldn't discern any. The people I talked to said for now, the focus is on consolidating the movement and making its voice here from now to the inauguration.

Mexico's elections peaceful so far

Mexico's presidential elections have so far shown no signs of violence or major disturbances. It's raining here in Mexico City but many people were at the polls early in what appears to be a good turnout. Problems have been reported with voting at special polls (where voters who are out of their home districts can vote) in a repetition of glitches with those polls in past elections.


We sent out the following announcement a few hours ago. It has some interesting live links. I will be commenting on Telemundo tonight at eight, from the Zocalo. California residents can watch the program and we'll get a link to the rest of you. Preliminary results should be out around then.

SPECIAL MEXICO ELECTIONS COVERAGE from the CIP Americas Program

Today more than 79 million Mexicans are voting for a new president. The Americas Program is here, writing for you on the process before, during and after citizens cast their votes. Our team is reporting in from Mexico City and various states to keep you up-to-the minute on events and what it means for the future of the country.

While armchair analysts in Washington and Mexico City expound on the return of the PRI and the evolution of the electoral system, we've been on-the-ground, looking at the deeper story and what it means for Mexico's fledgling democracy.

Americas Program director, Laura Carlsen, has analyzed the past five Mexican presidential elections for the program and international media. Here is what we´re seeing:

The good news:

* There has been very little violence so far. Today's voting is proceeding  peacefully. A morning drive showed polling places where long lines of voters waited patiently to deposit their votes. We have not seen the assassination of candidates that we saw in the mid-term elections. However, it isn't quite a clean slate either. Local newspapers report the assassination of a PRD electoral representative in Guanajuato and minor skirmishes in other parts of the country.

* More than three million citizens are registered as poll watchers. This includes those registered by the Electoral Inistitute (IFE) and by the parties. This is an important guard against the type of anomolies reported in 2006.

* Young people are participating and claiming the process. The "I am 132" movement has mobilized youth to get involved and defend the vote. This movement has a non-partisan, but anti-Peña Nieto orientation and has mobilized thousands of students.

Warning signs:

* Documentation has emerged on the sale of favorable coverage of the PRI candidate. Youth especially have challenged the role of the huge media conglomerates as a factor that creates an uneven playing field for candidates.

* Media have reported extensively on vote- buying, coercion and fraud.

* The many legal reforms in the electoral system are incomplete and are not being applied to the letter. Evidence exists that the PRI has exceeded  campaign spending limits and the above illegal practices continue in many parts of the country.

CONTACT:

Laura Carlsen, Director Americas Program. e-mail: info@cipamericas.org

Tel: (521) 553-551-9993

FOR MORE INFORMATION FROM THE AMERICAS PROGRAM:

Web page: www.cipamericas.org

Americas MexicoBlog

Twitter:  @cipamericas

Facebook: CIP Americas Program

Oops! DEA and Mexican Authorities Admit Man Arrested is Not "Little Chapo"

On June 22 we posted a story that was all over the news in Mexican and U.S. sources, regarding the Mexican Navy's triumphant claim to have captured the son of "Most Wanted" drug kingpin, Joaquin Guzman "El Chapo". The announcement stated that the alleged son named Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar-- a wanted criminal in his own right--was nabbed thanks to U.S. intelligence in a wealthy neighborhood in Guadalajara.

Turns out it the announcement was wrong. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) came out with the announcement, forcing the Mexican government to eat its words--an act that causes severe indigestion, especially eating words right before elections--in this statement from the Federal Attorney General's Office:

“The past June 21 elements of the Ministry of the Navy presented two persons, one of which they considered could be Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar (…) after carrying out the necessary tests for identity, we have determined that the individuals presented are Félix Beltrán León and Kevin Daniel Beltrán Ríos,  23 and 19 years of age, respectively.”

Representatives from both governments did some very public back patting before having to own up to the error. Rusty Payne of the DEA called the capture "a victory in the battle against drug traffickers throughout the world" and congratulated the Mexican government.

The Mexican and U.S. governments have been looking for a way to bolster the shared drug war before the presidential elections July 1. President Felipe Calderon's party runs a distant third in the polls, partly due to the political cost of the war on drugs that has sparked widespread violence that has taken the lives of more than 50,000 people in the country, with tens of thousands more disappeared. The bust of the son of El Chapo was just the break they could use to tell a skeptical public that the governments are making headway in the war on organized crime. When it became known it was false, skepticism deepened.

The families of the two young men detained are demanding justice, stating that they fear their sons are the victims of a media stunt by the Federal Government. The governments, incredibly, after admitting their mistake still insist that the arrest of the two young men is a serious blow to organized crime--indicating that the families' contentions that their sons are being railroaded have some merit in the presumption of guilt.

The mainstream media is trying to spin its way out of the confusion sowed by the false claims. This McClatchy article reports on the mistake and then bends over backwards to assert out of nowhere,

While the latest arrest remained a puzzle, it’s clear that U.S. and Mexican authorities are tightening a noose around Guzman and his family.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/21/3671620/doubts-arise-over-arrest-of-mexico.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/21/3671620/doubts-arise-over-arrest-of-mexico.html#storylink=cpy

The only proof offered for this supposedly "clear" factoid, is that arrest orders have been issued for Guzman's other sons and that El Chapo was "nearly captured" in Los Cabos last February. As we reported here, the near capture (he apparently escaped through the basement door of a private residence) looked more like another case of El Chapo thumbing his nose (or winking his eye) at authorities, since it took place in Los Cabos when the entire area was heavily militarized due the visit of Hillary Clinton and other foreign ministers for a run-up meeting to the G20 summit.

The case of mistaken identity just weeks before the presidential elections made "Confirma la DEA" (the DEA confirms) the instant favorite hashtag among Mexican tweeters. A sample of the hundreds of tweets under tag include:  "The DEA confirms... El Chapo is laughing his head off at 'government intelligence'", "The DEA confirms... El Chapo has almost as many illegitimate children as Peña Nieto" , "The DEA confirms... the Mexican authorities are idiots",  "The DEA confirms... I am REALLY hungry", etc.
Laura Carlsen

Laura's Blog: Mexico at the Helm of the G20

In a few days Hillary Clinton will land on the sunny shores of the Mexican Pacific Ocean to take part in an unusual meeting of foreign ministers. Los Cabos is hosting the ministers of G20 countries, plus a few selected guests, as part of the run-up to the G20 summit to be held in the same peninsular beach resort in June. Mexico took over the presidency of the G20 last December.

The meeting is unusual because foreign minister meetings don't normally form part of the Group of 20 process. But the Mexican government seems to have decided on a strategy of multiple and frequent preparatory meetings as the best guarantee for a successful summit--at a time when the odds against that happening are particularly high.

The G20, with 19 countries and the European Union, claims to represent 90% of global GDP, 80% of international global trade and 64% of the world’s population. It started as a meeting of finance ministers talking about global financial governance and economic policy. Then it morphed into an informal organization with presidential participation that grapples with the world's most pressing issues in a 'members-only club' setting.

The foreign ministers are meeting in part because the G20 is experiencing mission creep at precisely the time when it finds it most difficult to deal with the issues it already has. Because of the hermetic nature of the organization, it's hard to say what Clinton will be talking about, and we likely won't have a clear idea even after the joint declarations and photo ops come out. Mexico has promised more civil society participation and public information, but as hundreds of people work on the elaboration of documents and proposals, getting details from the outside has been like pulling teeth.

The Mexican government may be regretting its decision to take over the 2012 presidency. In the past few meetings the G20 has been virtually paralyzed by the European economic crisis--without reaching effective solutions and without being able to deal with other issues. Mexico hoped to have the European crisis, and particularly the Greek situation, resolved before it held the summit. Not only has the crisis continued, but it threatens to flare up again in a big way despite the Grecian parliament's acceptance of a deal.

The road to Los Cabos has been strewn with obstacles for the beleaguered powerhouses of the world. Besides the crisis, the division between developed countries and developing countries, which Mexico claims to represent, has been growing. Before going into the obstacles, it's important to ask: Why is Mexico doing this? What does the Calderon government hope to obtain?

Mexico has laid out five priorities:

1. Economic stabilization and structural reforms as foundations for growth and employment.
2. Strengthening the financial system and fostering financial inclusion to promote economic growth.
3. Improving the International Financial Architecture in an interconnected world.
4. Enhancing food security and addressing the issue of commodity price volatility.
5. Promoting sustainable development, green growth and the fight against climate change.

Since the first priority is practically the sin qua non for the rest, the whole agenda depends on a miracle to a large degree. Calderon stated that the crisis should be resolved before June to make progress on the G20 agenda. His goal is to "resolve the euro crisis, to isolate the effects of the crisis on viable economies, like Italy or Spain and avoid systemic contamination and, of course, to discount the part of the Greek debt that is simply unpayable." Although he offered some specific measures to reach this goal, it is looking more and more impossible, especially given the current strategy of brutal austerity measures. Instead of an end to the economic crisis, at this rate we can expect it to spread into a broader political crisis.

The proposals for reaching the other goals support the current economic system that got us into this mess in the first place. In trade, the Mexican government recommends free trade, no to all forms of protectionism and a blind faith that fixing macroeconomic factors will eventually improve the lives of the population.

Strengthening the financial system and fostering inclusion appears to be understood as instituting vigilance and monitoring mechanisms, with structural reforms and regulation off the table. Inclusion does not mean a fairer distribution of wealth generated, but access to the banking system for the poor.

The core proposal for improving the international financial architecture put forth to date is to increase funds in the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Mexican government officials have stated that this will be a fundamental goal at the meeting. However, to date it has received few echoes as nations struggle to find funds for rescue programs in their own countries. In member nations, such as Brazil and Argentina, enthusiasm is low, to say the least, for running funds through a non-representative and orthodox IMF that continues to heavily condition its loans.

In food security, Mexico will promote an agenda aimed at reducing volatility but without curtailing speculative markets. Calderon has publicly recognized the link between food prices, poverty and hunger, and the role of speculation but so far has not supported calls for ending speculation in basic foods.

Finally, "green development" and climate change should be the hallmarks of the Mexican G20 presidency but here, especially, the chances of success and the approval of energetic measures in these critical areas appears distant.  Mexico calls for attacking climate change through market mechanisms including promoting carbon markets, REDD+ and payment for environmental services, without a universally binding system of emissions controls--a necessary idea that was already proven politically dead in the water at the Climate Change Conference that Mexico hosted in December of last year.

Mexican civil society has organized in almost as many groups and sub-groups as the G20, to monitor, influence, critique or protest the official events--depending on who you talk to and what tack they're taking. Getting detailed information on the procedures and content of materials and proposals poses difficulties but the idea is to use the meeting to raise issues that affect real people. The question of the basic legitimacy or lack of legitimacy of the G20 as a forum for making global decisions--due to its lack of clear rules and exclusive membership--as well as its orientation toward the interests of the world's wealthiest and most powerful nations--remains central to strategies.

See also G20 Update

Laura's Blog: Kerlikowske Was Right

The Obama administration has been playing policy ping-pong again, with one official bouncing a statement only to be countered by another.

In an interview on Sept. 9 with the Spanish news agency Efe,  under the headline "Kerlikowske Supports Demilitarization of Counternarcotics Struggle in Mexico" the drug czar said (translated from the original article in Spanish),

"Enforcing the law and policing need to be carried out with the police, not the military. The police need to be professional and reliable, and have the trust of the citizenry."

The next day, the Mexican daily La Jornada ran the declarations on the front page. Demilitarization is a central demand of Mexico's peace movement. President Calderon defends the use of the armed forces in the drug war and even proposed reforms to the National Security Law to create a legal framework for them to operate permanently against organized crime within the country.

Given this face-off in Mexican politics,  Kerlikowske hit a hornet's nest--and Washington got the buzz right away.

Maybe it was a call from Los Pinos or maybe from the someone in the massive drug-war structure within the US Embassy here. Whatever the source of the complaints, the response was immediate.

On Sept. 10 the U.S. Embassy issued a communiqué from the spokesperson of the Office of National Drug Control Policy that Kerlikowske leads, saying his remarks were "misinterpreted". According to La Jornada,  the spokesperson amended the original statements, saying:

"We understand that the deployment of military forces in missions against organized crime is a temporary and transitional measure and we fully support the decision of President Felipe Calderon to carry out this deployment, as well as his efforts to develop the capacity of the civil justice system to  confront the organizations of organized crime."

This repeats the State Department, Homeland Security and Pentagon line--the major proponents of the Merida Initiative.

Gil Kerlikowske's declarations really weren't surprising. He's a cop. He was drafted as head of the national drug office after serving as chief of police for Seattle from 2001-2009 and head of police in other cities before that. It's safe to assume that the idea of sending in the army to do the public safety work of the police would be against his principles and training.

What also is not surprising is the instant "damage control" response of the Obama administration. As it digs in deeper and deeper in the bloody quagmire that is Calderon´s drug war, public relations has acquired top priority. Members of both the Obama and Calderón administrations seem to be banking on the power of repetition to convince the public that no matter how bad things get, the drug war is the only answer.

The problem they face is that public support for the drug war is diminishing as the death toll mounts--nearly fifty thousand and counting. The expansion of the Merida Initiative in a time of U.S. budget restrictions and with no positive results to show (arrests of druglords in the absence of signs of improved public safety and with no follow-up on cases is NOT a positive result in itself), has gone on under the radar so far, but citizen groups are beginning to point to the program as another defense boondoggle and a dangerous detonator of violence south of the border.

Kerlikowske probably thought he was merely echoing what both governments have already stated--that deployment of the armed forces is a last resort and the goal is to transfer counternarcotics efforts to police. But in the current political climate, the criticism of the army's role caused agreement from human rights groups and a sharp defensive reaction from the governments.

Although he probably received a slap on the wrist for saying it,  Kerlikowske was right. The use of the army in the Mexican drug war is debated by legal scholars, criticized by human rights groups that note the rising number of abuses committed, and feared by pro-democracy movements that see militarization as a means of turning back Mexico's weak democratic transition.

It also appears to be ineffective; the areas where most military operations have been carried out are also the most violent, with Ciudad Juarez/Valle de Juarez being the longest-running--and bloodiest--example. Victims who have spoken as part of the peace movement repeatedly share stories of a lack of security and justice in areas virtually controlled by armed forces.

It's worth noting another part of Kerlikowske's statements that went off script from the adminstration's standard pro-drug war line. To convince taxpayers that organized crime operating in Mexico is a national security issue for the United States, many hawks in the administration, have hyped the supposed dangers of "spill-over violence" and the idea that Mexican drug cartels are running the drug trade in the U.S. Kerlikowske debunked this image of a foreign crime invasion by stating, quite logically, that U.S. drug dealers have always bought drugs from foreigners:

"It's not that the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico is making decisions about command and control in some U.S. city. I think it is traditional supply and demand: drug dealers in the U.S. go to the Sinaloa cartel to get drugs, sell them and distribute them here." 

He added that police in the U.S. are not seeing U.S. drug dealers operating under direct instructions from Mexico.

Kerlikowske committed the political crime of criticizing a drug war that the Obama administration has decided to unconditionally support-despite its own misgivings, expressed in numerous Wikileaks cables from Embassy staff.

It doesn't matter if it doesn't work, the human collateral damage or the legal violations involved. The commitment of the U.S. and Mexican governments to a military model of attacking illegal drug use and trafficking appears unshakable.

And apparently, it will not allow for diverging opinions on the matter.

Movement for Peace with Justice: Javier Sicilia Warns Against a Military/Police State in Mexico: "This is the last chance to save democracy"

In this second part of the interview by Americas Program director Laura Carlsen with Javier Sicilia on the road with the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity, we talk about the Mexican federal government's response to the peace movement. Sicilia notes that President Calderon seems to be heading toward a military/police state and responding to the call for peace with violence.

Note: this interview took place before the illegal break-in at the offices of the Paso del Norte Human Rights Center on June 7 by Federal Police. This outrageous action seems to underline many people's fears that the government seeks to intimidate participants in the events.

LC: President Felipe Calderon has a made a series of declarations--starting with the military parade in Ciudad Juarez, then calling the federal police a ‘civic priesthood’, and now the campaign to recruit young people, young people without other options, for the federal police. Is this a response to the movement for peace?

JS: Yes, it’s a response--a bad response. As I’ve said a thousand times about President Calderon, whom I’ve had the chance to meet with two times, and throughout the mobilization effort, I have always said that he is not understanding: he is hearing, but not understanding. And their response to our search for peace, which this caravan is a part of, for dignity, which has been taken from us, and justice, which we don’t have, their answer is violence and the glorification of violence.

It seems that Calderon, and others in government, don’t have imagination for anything but violence-- and that is terrifying. I’ve asked Calderon, and I won’t stop asking him, to send a good message. This message is just bad for everyone, it’s putting all of us in danger.

It seems that what he wants a military state, which would be a terrifying state. Or a police state, which would be just as terrifying. This is the last chance we have to save democracy and the rule of law in this country. But not with violence or imposition or by ignoring the demands of the people.

Movement for Peace with Justice: Interview with Javier Sicilia: U.S. Must Change Drug War Strategy, "They are Killing Us"

In an exclusive interview with Americas Program director Laura Carlsen, Javier Sicilia called on the U.S. government to change its strategy and called the Merida Initiative "an initiative that only has imagination for violence and war."

Sicilia's statements are the first directly focused on the role of the U.S. government in the drug war, with the exception of a mention in his speech in the Zocalo May 8th. The following is the interview carried out during a pit stop of the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity on June 5.

See a video of the interview: Exclusive Americas Program video interview with Javier Sicilia – CIP Americas

LC: Good morning and thank you very much for this interview. I wanted to ask you about the role of the United States or the Government of the United States, something that you mentioned in your speech in the Zocalo. What is its importance, how would you define this role?


JS: Well, for us it’s a terrible role. I believe that the United States, looking to protect its global interests, has in a way imposed this war against drug trafficking on us. Because that was how it was born, even though it has since acquired the tone of a war on organized crime, but at first it was a war against drug trafficking. They imposed it on us, even though the U.S. has the highest number of drug users.

They also have something more terrible than drugs themselves, which should be treated as a public health problem and not a security problem as they have been, an issue of criminality. They have this other problem, legalized, which are guns... In four and a half years those weapons have legally armed the military and the police, but they have also illegally armed traffickers and the cartels. And this, in a state as negligent and as corrupt as Mexico, unfortunately we have to admit it. This has left us citizens in a state of absolute defenselessness, that is to say, those weapons are killing us, those guns are wiping us out. And the consumption of drugs in the United States has not dropped one bit.

So, if drugs were legalized, we could considerably reduce the problem and we could begin to work in a different way. But it seems that the United States and Mexico are dead-set on maintaining this strategy. The government and citizens of the United States have a huge debt with us. Behind each one of those drug users, people like Charlie Sheen or Paris Hilton that promote drug use, that promote drug use publicly, behind all of that and behind all of the weapons there are the dead.

The U.S. public needs to become aware of this so they can pressure the Obama administration and other U.S. institutions to change the strategy that they have initiated in Mexico and that the Mexican Government has accepted. They need to realize that they are killing us. And beyond just killing us, these crimes go unpunished. That is extremely serious. If we continue with this state of things, what we are provoking is something terrible, a tragic social cleansing where the innocent and the guilty alike are dying without justice, without clarity. This is terrible and these are crimes against humanity.

LC: The U.S. government says that it is supporting Mexico through, up until now, $1.5 billion in aid under the Merida Initiative. They have no made mention of this movement for peace but have made many declarations in support of Felipe Calderon’s war. What do you think of the Merida Initiative?


JS: Well, it’s very grave. It’s an initiative that only has imagination for violence and war. If you really want to save this nation, to help it, you have to look at the problem integrally. The problem here in Mexico is very serious. It’s not just our rotting institutions serving their own interests, as I have said, and have interests, like the US banks do, with the cartels themselves.

This is the situation, added to the country’s rural problems--the countryside is devastated--, the erosion of the social fabric, the system of economic mutual supports at the community level that has been destroyed. Education is wrecked. There are no jobs. The destruction of mutual support systems has not been replaced by job creation; unemployment, salaries that are absurdly low, just like the era of savage capitalism. That is also national security.

We need to think about the problem comprehensively. We need to go to the root causes of the issue: the young people without opportunities, who are being killed or live in terror, who have a limited chance to make it because salaries are so low, or the others who, without opportunities, join the ranks of organized crime--or unorganized crime, because we don't even know what it is anymore. So the future of our country is dead, the future for our youth, our children, and our grandchildren is practically broken, undone.

If we don’t approach the problem holistically, if we just keep spending money on violent responses to it, then we’re on our way to a military/police state--a disaster worse than what we're experiencing now.

The United States must go back to the drawing board, listen to what the citizens are demanding, and remember that it is a democratic country, that its sovereignty lies in the citizens, not in government officials. They must pay attention and look at what we are perceiving as citizens and what we are proposing to fix the situation that the Mexican and American governments have put us in, sunk us in, a situation that is truly horrifying.

LC: On the other hand, a binational event is planned in El Paso, TX on the last day of this caravan. What significance does this binational effort have?


JS: It’s important because, as we were just talking about, this problem has as much to do with the U.S. government as it does with the Mexican government. The mobilizations and social organizations of the United States have started to become aware of the need to put pressure on the American government to change its policies as we are doing in our country.

I believe this gathering is vital because it’s a citizens’ outcry against institutions that are not doing what they were created to do, which is to serve, to provide security, to protect the lives of citizens and the life of the country. I believe these processes can be really important, because I think we're at an historic crossroads, an unprecedented moment in which institutions, like the state, which is an historic construction, are in crisis and are now not working as they were intended to.

And now the citizenry is emerging to try to discover different political forms that are possible that can dignify human beings. Right now the State, both States [United States and Mexico], seem designed to deny us our human essence. This means that the State is in crisis.

But the people have their way of thinking that goes beyond the institutions, they have a proposal. A proposal that has to be developed along the way, because what we’re going through is unprecedented. Faced with the crumbling of very old institutions, new institutions must emerge slowly, and they are coming from the people themselves.