Forgotten victims of Mexico drug war's stray bullets

AFP: The mechanic was working under a car when he turned his head and saw a dozen pick-up trucks creeping down the street in Mexico's western state of Jalisco.

"The devil is on the loose," Jorge Gerardo Herrera said ominously to his colleagues as he turned back to the car he was fixing in the town of Ocotlan. Read more. 

Media reports say Mexican police were involved in January killings

Reuters: Three media outlets said on Sunday that Mexican federal police killed 16 unarmed people in two separate attacks in January, appearing to contradict an account by the federal government that the deaths could have been caused by friendly fire.

Aristegui Noticias, Univision and Proceso published similar accounts of the deaths in Apatzingan in the restive western state of Michoacan. They were the latest reports to allege abuses by security forces in the country. Read more. 

"Not Counting Mexicans or Indians": The Many Tentacles of State Violence Against Black-Brown-Indigenous Communities

TruthOut: "They tried to bury us, but they didn't know we were seeds." - Popul Vuh

Between my eyes, I bear a scar in the shape of a "T" that I received on March 23, 1979, on the streets of East Los Angeles. It functions as a reminder that my skull was cracked, but more importantly, that I did not remain silent and that I won two police violence trials, for witnessing and photographing the brutal beating of a young man by perhaps a dozen sheriff's deputies.

These events are seared into my memory because of how I remember them. After coming back to consciousness, amid violent threats, I was handcuffed and left facedown on the cold street, bleeding profusely from my forehead. While in shock and unable to even lift my head, in my own pool of blood, amid flashing red and blue lights everywhere, I could see many dozens of officers giving chase and arresting everyone in sight. What I also witnessed in the reflection of my own blood was everything that I will relay here. Read more. 

Enough! Mexico Is Ready to Explode

Huffington Post: Mexico has been profoundly shaken by atrocities and high-level corruption in Guerrero. The earthquake's epicenter is Iguala, the state's third largest city.

Fifty thousand marchers thronged Mexico City's main avenues last Wednesday, and demonstrations took place all over the country. More than 80 delegates to the Inter-University Assembly have called for a nationwide halt to all educational activities on Nov. 5, and are asking other social groups to join them. Protesters set fire to state headquarters in Chilpancingo, Guerrero's capital, and are sacking supermarkets and shopping centers. Read more. 

Behind Mexico’s latest massacre: Authorities were warned but didn’t listen

The Hill: The U.S. government-funded Merida Initiative was supposed to bolster Mexican government efforts to promote the rule of law and human rights. The accountability failures exposed by the Iguala atrocity suggest that it’s time to take a closer look, to ensure that U.S. taxpayer money is part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

Yet so far, Mexico’s government has long treated Guerrero’s civil society as a threat rather than as a partner – jailing its leaders – like Nestora Salgado, a migrant who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in the state of Washington. She returned to her hometown of Olinala to lead the community police, taking on rapists and murderers. Her “crime” was to challenge her local government’s collaboration with organized crime, naming names. She remains in federal prison even though a court dismissed the charges – and her daughter has recently received death threats. Read more.

U.S. 'Interference' in Michoacan is the Last Thing Mexico Needs (La Jornada, Mexico)

WorldMeets 
 La Jornada – Original Article (Spanish)
January 20, 2014

A member of the community police of Michoacan, a vigilante group, in the home of the leader of the Knights Templar drug cartel [Caballeros Templarios], in Nueva Italia, Jan. 16. The raging drug conflict in the Mexican state has led to a loss of governance, with vigilate groups and drug cartels opposing one another and the government largely sidelined.

According to information released Jan. 15 by Germany's DPA News Agency, a senior U.S. State Department official remarked that the violence and loss of governance in Michoacan is "extremely worrisome," and characterized the situation as one of "communities that were already under pressure from drug traffickers and criminal gangs now caught in a battle between those who claim they are protecting them, and those using them for their own interests." She also said that the citizens affected fail to receive the necessary support from the central or local governments. Moreover, the official also said that the United States stands ready to provide assistance to the Mexican government in terms of the security operation undertaken few days ago by federal forces in the state.

Without denying the gravity of the events occurring on the territory of Michoacan and the type of problems they present for governing the region and country, the statements of this official are unwelcomed and irrelevant, to the extent that the situation she described is an internal affair of Mexico, and the solution exclusively for Mexicans. There is no reason for a foreign authority to in any way address the issue or to state its opinions on the situation.  Read more. 

On Location Video: Mexico's drug cartels recruit migrant labor

GlobalPost
By: Deborah Bonello
August 4, 2013

Mexico — As the US Congress mulls legislation to increase fencing and manpower on the United States southern border, migrants from Central America face increasing perils as they cross Mexico. The Mexican crackdown on drug trafficking, partly financed by the US government, is prompting criminal gangs to exploit other revenue streams such as kidnapping and extortion. And these gangs are now tapping migrant streams for new recruits. Those fleeing poverty back home find it hard to resist the lure of a life of crime, and some are being given no choice.  Watch here. 

Torture in Mexico: ‘I still think it was a nightmare’

Amnesty International 
June 21, 2013

The Mexican National Human Rights Commission recently reported that during 2012 alone, it had received 1,921 complaints of human rights violations committed by the armed forces and 802 against federal police.

“Security forces across Mexico continue to target people perceived as the enemy, particularly those believed to have links to drug trafficking – without necessarily possessing any real evidence. This has resulted in arbitrary detentions, torture, enforced disappearances and unlawful killings,” said Rupert Knox, Mexico researcher at Amnesty International.  Read more. 

Mexico: Where a doctor sleeps with a loaded gun, bulletproof vest

GlobalPost
June 24, 2013

Ecatepec, Mexico — A family doctor in this tattered suburb of Mexico City, Roman Gomez tends to his patients under the constant threat of death from neighborhood thugs.

A squad of state policemen stands round-the-clock guard at the four-story building that serves both as Gomez's clinic and home, vetting all who enter. He wears a bulletproof vest under his medical tunic, keeps a large pistol tucked into his belt, rarely ventures into the street.

Gomez, 53, has lived this way since early February, when he shot and killed two of three armed men who burst into his crowded waiting room to collect $20,000 in protection money. Now members of the dead men's gang are gunning for Gomez.  Read more. 

Mexico: Conduct Federal Investigation Into Activists’ Killings

Human Rights Watch 
June 20, 2013

(Washington, D.C.) – Mexico’s federal prosecutors should conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into the killing of three political activists in Guerrero state, including examining allegations against government officials, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should offer robust protection for survivors of the attack and their families.

The victims, all members of an organization that campaigns on behalf of peasant farmers and marginalized communities, were abducted along with five fellow activists on May 30, 2013. The previous day, 11 members of the organization had filed a formal complaint with the Guerrero state prosecutor’s office, expressing the fear that the mayor and the police chief of Iguala municipality might have them killed in retaliation for their activities, according to documents obtained by Human Rights Watch.  Read more. 

Mexico divided over memorial to drug-war victims

USAToday 
ByAdriana Gomez Licon
Associated Press /  April 5, 2013

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico, a country suffering the turmoil of a drug war, can’t agree on how to honor the victims of a six-year assault on organized crime that has taken as many as 70,000 lives.

The government’s official monument was dedicated Friday, four months after its completion, in a public event where relatives of the missing chased after the dignitaries in tears, pleading for help in finding their loved ones.

Only some victims’ rights groups recognize the monument, while others picked an entirely different monument to place handkerchiefs painted with names and personal messages in protest of the official site, which does not bear a single victim’s name.

‘‘Other organizations asked us for other space because they’re against this one,’’ Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said at the official dedication of the government monument, which consists of steel panels bearing quotes from famous writers and thinkers. ‘‘What took us so long was trying to get agreement among the groups, and we failed.’’  Read more. 

3rd National Meeting Of Women Human Rights Defenders: Public Statement

National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders*
January 30, 2013

On the 25th and 26th of January, the National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) convened a meeting of more than 60 indigenous, rural and mestiza WHRDs.  Dedicated to the defense and promotion of the human rights of women, they gathered from diverse regions of the country for the Third National Meeting of Women Human Rights Defenders.

Together we recalled that to date in Mexico there have been more than 70 000 assassinated, 20 000 disappeared, more than 250 000 displaced, and that up to five women are assassinated daily.  We also remembered the past election, marked by unlawfulness, a lack of legitimacy, and the repression of protesters on December 1, 2012.  Far from respecting and protecting our human rights, security forces at the state and federal level continue to be involved in acts of corruption, impunity, authoritarianism, and state terrorism.  

This violent reality has cost at least 25 WHRDs their lives, among them 8 journalists.  Mexico’s rate of death threats to WHRDs is the second highest in the Americas, exceeded only by Colombia, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders.

Call for Solidarity: For Kuy, in Coma Following Mexican Presidential Inauguration Protest

My word is my weapon by Kristin Bricker
February 1, 2013

In a recent communique, the Zapatista National Liberation Army called upon their supporters to donate money to help with the medical expenses of Juan Francisco "Kuy" Kuykendall, who was injured by a police projectile during the protests against Enrique Peña Nieto's presidential inauguration on December 1, 2012.  Kuy is in a coma and has undergone multiple surgeries.  He's lost portions of his brain due to the attack and subsequent surgeries, including a recent one where surgeons had to cut out infected brain tissue.  Read more. 

Honoring Drug War Dead, and Spurring a Debate

The NY Times

By Randal Archibold
Published: January 23, 2013

MEXICO CITY — Reeling from a drug war that has killed tens of thousands and a boom in violent crime in general, Mexico has built a memorial to victims of violence. But like a crime scene still under investigation, it sits off limits behind white tarp, wrapped in questions and uncertainty.

A series of rusted metal slabs amid reflecting pools in a corner of Mexico City’s biggest park, the memorial now stands as an accidental metaphor for the fog and doubts that swirl around the country’s layered debates on violence and victimhood.

Rushed to completion by President Felipe Calderón, whose six-year term was overwhelmed by the explosion of violence, the site has not yet publicly opened. On Nov. 30, in Mr. Calderón’s last 90 minutes in office, his administration sent a short e-mail to reporters announcing that the memorial was complete and in the hands of the civic groups that had called for it.

But in fact the transfer of the military-owned site has been mired in bureaucratic delays, and there remains disagreement over who the victims are — particularly in the bloody war against drug cartels and other organized crime that has consumed the country.  Read more. 

Mexico enacts law to compensate victims of crime

BBC: January 10, 2013

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has enacted a law to trace and help thousands of victims caught up in drug violence and other crimes.

The bill sets up a compensation fund and establishes a national registry to record what happened to victims.

Some 70,000 people have died in drug violence since 2006, with at least several thousand more missing.

Campaign groups say the law is a first step but needs to go further to be effective.

The legislation was passed last April but was held up after the former President, Felipe Calderon, argued that it was flawed.

But Mr Pena Nieto, who took office on 1 December, signed the bill into law on Wednesday, saying it was an important step in recognising victims' rights.

"There are thousands of people who sadly have lost a loved one, their children, their spouses, their siblings. There are thousands of people who have suffered the havoc wrought by violence," he said. Read more. 

Newtown: Gun 'Barbarism' that Cannot be Removed by Legislation

Mexico – La Jornada

Translated By Miguel Gutierrez for WorldsMeets.us 

December 15, 2012

Few single episodes of violence have shaken both the society of the United States and international public opinion like the slaughter that occurred yesterday at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, where a man opened fire indiscriminately, killing 26 people - including 20 children aged five to ten before killing himself.

Without ignoring that this episode is part of a long series of shootings in schools, workplaces and public places in the country - such as the infamous massacre at Columbine High School in April 1999, which left 15 people dead; the murder of 33 students at Virginia Tech at the hands of one of its students in April 2007; and the recent slaughter at a Colorado cinema that saw 12 people fatally shot - and without overlooking that fact that any homicide is reprehensible - the chilling effect of the school attack in Sandy Hook is multiplied because most of the victims were from the most vulnerable and sensitive segment of any society: its children. Needless to say, none of the toddlers who were murdered represented threats to the "free State," in the language in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which is used to justify the unrestricted possession of weapons in the country - much less to the aggressor himself.

Yesterday, offering the official position of the White House, a visibly distraught President Barack Obama said: "And we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this." Read more. 

#YoSoy132 Pronouncement

Mexico City, December 7, 2012!

Pronouncement!

The events of Dec. 1 confirm the trepidations that during the last few months have sealed a wave of indignation opening the way for the mass mobilization of the countries multiple sectors. We recognize an orchestrated overwhelming onslaught against social movements and particularly against youth and the 132 Movement. With these facts we are forced to endure the imposition of Peña.

We denounce the aggressive operation mounted by the military and police in the center of Mexico City whose responsibility falls on federal and state government security commissions. A similar operation was repeated in other cities, and especially Guadalajara.

The violence came from state security forces and began with the erection of a fence spanning San Lázaro and the neighboring colonies. The testimonies and video speak for themselves of how the government introduced confrontation and provocation, with arbitrary detentions and also by dealing blows, sexual harassment and point blank shots of rubber bullets aimed at protesters.

We call for a well organized, united, and wide campaign for the preservation of democratic liberties beginning with the immediate release of all men and women political prisoners.

For all of the above:

1. We demand that the penal actions exercised against the 58 men and 11 women remanded under the criminal statues of 287/2012 of the 47 court of the Mexico City jail all of them men and women victims of a political strategy and orchestrated media coverage by the Mexican state in coordination with methods of communication that have also criminalized at a minimum five of the remanded with their presumed innocence under threat and in detriment to the human rights of this process.

2. As it is we demand the repeal of article 362 of the Mexico City penal code that describes the crime as and attack on public peace (equivalent to the crime of federal terrorism laws) as in the rest of the state penal codes which contemplate by treating the crime as an attempt to blame the victims of the very disturbance of the public peace conducted by the state and for trying to act as a trap using the same to reprimand fights, manifestations and social protests along the history but under another regime as occurred in the atrocities of 1968 and 1971 under the penalty of social crisis. The investigation and punishment should fall exclusively on those responsible for the provocations and state violence. We reject the politicization of justice that does not lead to the construction of an authentically direct democratic state.

3. We demand guaranteed rights for all men and women. We protest against the criminalization of the struggle and social protest, we also demand respect for the character of our mobilizations and actions that the #YoSoy132 movement in its peaceful approach carries out.

IMMEDIATE LIBERTY FOR ALL WOMEN AND MEN POLITICAL PRISONERS!

WE ARE ALL PRISONERS! NOT ONE MORE ISOLATED STRUGGLE!

BECAUSE PROTESTING IS NOT A CRIME!

National Assembly of the #YoSoy132 Movement!

Protests erupt in Mexico as Senate mulls labor reform bill

Global Post: Alex Pearlman October 17, 2012 

Violence leaves over one hundred people arrested and schools shut down, as the Mexican legislature attempts to pass controversial labor reform laws.

A tense raid took place yesterday in Mexico's Michoacan state, as student protesters faced off against police after repeated hijackings and more than a week of protests against curriculum changes. 

Police stormed three campuses, where students held buses and delivery trucks hostage, according to the BBC. Over 100 people were arrested and both protesters and police were injured. 

According to the Latin American Herald Tribune, students also set 13 vehicles on fire in the latest and most violent of the many protests sweeping across Mexico since late September. 

The students were protesting a planned change in the curriculum of their schools, known as normal schools, which prepare students for careers in teaching. They say learning English and computer science shouldn't be priorities for the rural areas they'll be working in, and had taken control of three sister campuses earlier this month. Read more. 

Mothers search for missing CentAm migrants in Mexico

EFE. Oct. 14: A caravan made up of Central American women whose children went missing in Mexico while trying to reach the United States has set out to try to find out what happened to the migrants.

The caravan - made up of 10 women from Guatemala, 19 from Nicaragua, three from El Salvador and 28 from Honduras - set out Saturday on the 4,600-kilometer (2,858-mile) journey on the so-called "route of the immigrant" in southeast and central Mexico.

"They started today in Guatemala (and) in 24 days they will cover 14 states in southeastern and central Mexico, as well as 23 specific locations in that country identified on the route of the immigrant," a National Roundtable for Migration in Guatemala, or Menamig, spokeswoman told reporters Saturday. Read more.

Mexico's drug cartels target journalists in brutal killing spree

The Guardian, Ed Vulliamy

He shakes as he speaks and at moments his eyes fill. "It's certain that the people who killed my colleague were criminals," he says. "The killing had the modus operandi of organised crime. But who sent them and why? That's the question, that's the smokescreen."

This is a colleague of Víctor Manuel Báez Chino, whose mutilated body was found in June in the main square of Xalapa, capital of the Mexican coastal state of Veracruz. Báez was the state's crime editor for an online edition of the national newspaper Milenio and editor of the Police Report website (currently down) which covered crime.

In August, state prosecutors declared the case closed. Witnesses, they said, had identified the bodies of two men killed in a shootout as the same people who had kidnapped the reporter. Báez's circles were "entirely unconvinced", says his colleague.

Báez is one of 56 journalists killed during Mexico's drug war since 2006 (a figure calculated by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists). The war reached a climax last week with the killing by Mexican marines of the leader of the wildest – albeit not the biggest – narco cartel: the paramilitary Zetas, which counts Veracruz, with its strategically crucial gulf port, among its strongholds. Read more.