Los Angeles Times
By Kathleen Hennessey and Tracy Wilkinson
May 3, 2013
Mexico City -- President Obama painted a sunny picture of a modern, “emerging” Mexico in a speech before an audience of young people Friday, his second day of a three-day swing through Latin America.
Speaking at the National Museum of Anthropology, the president expressed optimism about the push for reforms led by the new administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto and called on young people to be persistent.
“You honor your heritage, thousands of years old, but you are also part of something new, a nation that’s in the process of remaking itself,” Obama said, speaking in a central courtyard of the iconic museum with Mexican and American flags hanging behind him. “And as our modern world changes around us, it is the spirit of young people, your optimism and idealism, that will drive the world forward.”
The president’s message of a rising Mexico serves both his and his counterpart’s domestic agendas. Obama is pushing for immigration reform, and is seeking to reassure skeptics at home that the root causes of illegal immigration – poverty, violence and corrupt institutions in Mexico – are easing under new leadership. Read more.
The MexicoBlog of the CIP Americas Program monitors and analyzes international press on Mexico with a focus on the US-backed War on Drugs in Mexico and the struggle in Mexico to strengthen the rule of law, justice and protection of human rights. Relevant political developments in both countries are also covered.
May 3, 2013
Attack on train in Mexico injures at least 10 Honduran migrants; activists put toll higher
Washington Post
May 2, 2013
VERACRUZ, Mexico — An assault on mainly Honduran migrants traveling on a freight train through Mexico left at least 10 of them injured, authorities said Thursday. Activists and paramedics said dozens of the U.S.-bound migrants were hurt, many badly.
The migrants had hopped on the train in southern Mexico and were traveling north through the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz when armed men demanding money attacked them with machetes and guns. Some jumped from the train to escape and others were thrown off, said migrant rights activist Tomas Gonzalez Castillo.
Gonzalez Castillo said he received reports of dozens of migrants seriously injured in the attack. Red Cross worker Daniel Fernandez said at least 200 migrants were treated for contusions and cuts at a migrant shelter in the town of Acayucan.
Veracruz’s government, however, only confirmed that 10 people were injured in Wednesday’s attack near the town of Cosoleacaque. It said nine of the injured had been treated at local hospitals and released, and that one remained hospitalized. Read more.
May 2, 2013
VERACRUZ, Mexico — An assault on mainly Honduran migrants traveling on a freight train through Mexico left at least 10 of them injured, authorities said Thursday. Activists and paramedics said dozens of the U.S.-bound migrants were hurt, many badly.
The migrants had hopped on the train in southern Mexico and were traveling north through the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz when armed men demanding money attacked them with machetes and guns. Some jumped from the train to escape and others were thrown off, said migrant rights activist Tomas Gonzalez Castillo.
Gonzalez Castillo said he received reports of dozens of migrants seriously injured in the attack. Red Cross worker Daniel Fernandez said at least 200 migrants were treated for contusions and cuts at a migrant shelter in the town of Acayucan.
Veracruz’s government, however, only confirmed that 10 people were injured in Wednesday’s attack near the town of Cosoleacaque. It said nine of the injured had been treated at local hospitals and released, and that one remained hospitalized. Read more.
Guns, Drugs and Money Laundering: What Does Obama Want from Mexico? (El Universal, Mexico)
"While here we bury the dead of this war, there they are providing the places and conditions for marijuana consumption. Nor is there any evidence that political forces in the United States are willing to halt the free sale of weapons, nor is there any indication that a serious crusade against money laundering is in the offing. Is President Obama willing to engage in discussions vital to eliminating the root causes of drug trafficking, or will he simply tell us that in our bilateral relations, we are subordinate to them?"
Editorial
El Universal
Translated By Miguel Gutierrez
May 2, 2013
Today the president of the United States, Barack Obama, arrives in the country for a working visit. He will hold high-level talks with President Enrique Peña Nieto on the bilateral agenda, which, as the Mexican government has insisted on in recent weeks, will not be limited to security issues.
In Mexico, but also in some influential sectors of our neighboring country, agenda items considered subordinate to security must regain their importance: investment, trade, migration, geopolitical collaboration, and diplomacy. All the forgotten issues that remain relevant on both sides of the border. Read more.
Editorial
El Universal
Translated By Miguel Gutierrez
May 2, 2013
Today the president of the United States, Barack Obama, arrives in the country for a working visit. He will hold high-level talks with President Enrique Peña Nieto on the bilateral agenda, which, as the Mexican government has insisted on in recent weeks, will not be limited to security issues.
In Mexico, but also in some influential sectors of our neighboring country, agenda items considered subordinate to security must regain their importance: investment, trade, migration, geopolitical collaboration, and diplomacy. All the forgotten issues that remain relevant on both sides of the border. Read more.
May 2, 2013
Advocates for Press Freedoms Take Action for Slain US Reporter Brad Will
For Immediate Release
(Houston, May 1) Advocates for press freedom and human rights are pressuring President Obama to remember murdered US journalist, Brad Will, who was slain in broad daylight by Mexican government-backed paramilitaries over six years ago. They issued an 'Action Alert' today, for people who shared their concern with the impunity with which the murder of a US journalist has been greeted in Mexico, to contact senior Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont. The alert urged Senator Leahy to ask the President, on his trip to Mexico this week, to "raise to Mexican President Nieto publicly the lack of sound prosecution of the shooters who murdered Brad Will and . . .(to) insist that accountability for his murder, and the murder of other journalists, mostly Mexican, who had, before they were killed, been publishing stories of corruption and brutality by top Mexican government officials, be achieved promptly".
Senator Leahy was instrumental in inserting a requirement for an investigation into Brad Will's murder in earlier appropriations for Plan Mexico, a militarization package that has poured guns and other lethal aid into the Mexican military and police, forces that are widely seen as unaccountable, corrupt and which systematically abuse human rights. The resulting violence has contributed to the estimated 100,000 murders of civilians many of whom were innocent bystanders uninvolved in the drug trade.
As the Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, Senator Leahy has the power to influence President Obama's discussions with President Nieto of Mexico, a major recipient of US military aid.
Brad Will was murdered in broad daylight over six years ago. There were many witnesses. Mexican government officials, at least four of them, were identified as the shooters. Yet only two were questioned by the Mexican prosecutor's office and both let go without charge.
(Houston, May 1) Advocates for press freedom and human rights are pressuring President Obama to remember murdered US journalist, Brad Will, who was slain in broad daylight by Mexican government-backed paramilitaries over six years ago. They issued an 'Action Alert' today, for people who shared their concern with the impunity with which the murder of a US journalist has been greeted in Mexico, to contact senior Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont. The alert urged Senator Leahy to ask the President, on his trip to Mexico this week, to "raise to Mexican President Nieto publicly the lack of sound prosecution of the shooters who murdered Brad Will and . . .(to) insist that accountability for his murder, and the murder of other journalists, mostly Mexican, who had, before they were killed, been publishing stories of corruption and brutality by top Mexican government officials, be achieved promptly".
Senator Leahy was instrumental in inserting a requirement for an investigation into Brad Will's murder in earlier appropriations for Plan Mexico, a militarization package that has poured guns and other lethal aid into the Mexican military and police, forces that are widely seen as unaccountable, corrupt and which systematically abuse human rights. The resulting violence has contributed to the estimated 100,000 murders of civilians many of whom were innocent bystanders uninvolved in the drug trade.
As the Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, Senator Leahy has the power to influence President Obama's discussions with President Nieto of Mexico, a major recipient of US military aid.
Brad Will was murdered in broad daylight over six years ago. There were many witnesses. Mexican government officials, at least four of them, were identified as the shooters. Yet only two were questioned by the Mexican prosecutor's office and both let go without charge.
Over 100 Groups Call on Obama & Mesoamerican Leaders to Tackle Root Causes of Violence at SICA
By CIP Americas with several others and signed by more than 145 organizations
Dear Honorable:
President Barack Obama
President Enrique Peña Nieto
President Laura Chinchilla
President Otto Pérez Molina
President Porfirio Lobo
President Mauricio Funes
President Daniel Ortega
President Ricardo Martinelli
Attorney General & Minister of Foreign Affairs Wilfred
Elrington
April 30, 2013
We, the undersigned civil society organizations from
throughout the region, are writing to you on the eve of your meetings in Mexico and at the Summit of the Central
American Integration System (SICA) in Costa Rica.We welcome the opportunity for our nations to discuss
cooperation on critical cross-border issues and urge our States to address our concerns about the dire human
rights crisis in Mesoamerica.
Our organizations have documented an alarming increase in
violence and human rights violations. While we recognize that transnational crime and drug trafficking play
a role in this violence, we call on our governments to acknowledge that failed security policies that have
militarized citizen security have only exacerbated the problem, and are directly contributing to increased human
suffering in the region.
It is time to refocus regional dialogue and resource
investment to address the root causes of violence,
understanding that for many citizens and communities, drug
trafficking is not the principal cause of insecurity. Harmful “development” policies have similarly caused
increased conflict and abuses, while forced migration and criminalization of migrants and human rights activists
continues to divide families. Most importantly, the region’s challenges must be addressed without violating
fundamental rights and human dignity.
US President Obama to discuss trade in Mexico
BBC
May 2, 2013
US President Barack Obama is travelling to Mexico on Thursday for talks expected to focus on bilateral trade.
Mexico is the third largest trade partner of the US and the president has said he is keen to discuss job creation on both sides of the border with his Mexican counterpart Enrique Pena Nieto.
President Obama's planned immigration reform is also likely to feature high on the agenda.
During the three-day trip the president will also visit Costa Rica.
Policy shift
US National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said strong economic ties between Mexico and the US had been overshadowed by a focus on security in the past, but that Thursday's trip would attempt to redress the balance.
That sentiment was echoed by Sergio Alcocer, Mexico's Deputy Foreign Minister for North America, who said the two presidents would discuss "the benefits and the need to re-balance and diversify the relationship" between Mexico and the US.
It will be the second meeting between the US leader and Mr Pena Nieto, who was invited to the White House even before he was sworn in on 1 December 2012. Read more.
May 2, 2013
US President Barack Obama is travelling to Mexico on Thursday for talks expected to focus on bilateral trade.
Mexico is the third largest trade partner of the US and the president has said he is keen to discuss job creation on both sides of the border with his Mexican counterpart Enrique Pena Nieto.
President Obama's planned immigration reform is also likely to feature high on the agenda.
During the three-day trip the president will also visit Costa Rica.
Policy shift
US National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said strong economic ties between Mexico and the US had been overshadowed by a focus on security in the past, but that Thursday's trip would attempt to redress the balance.
That sentiment was echoed by Sergio Alcocer, Mexico's Deputy Foreign Minister for North America, who said the two presidents would discuss "the benefits and the need to re-balance and diversify the relationship" between Mexico and the US.
It will be the second meeting between the US leader and Mr Pena Nieto, who was invited to the White House even before he was sworn in on 1 December 2012. Read more.
The Mexico Bubble
Foreign Policy
By John Ackerman
When U.S. President Barack Obama travels to Mexico this Thursday for his first summit with new President Enrique Peña Nieto, he's going to hear a lot about the country's uptick in international portfolio investment, its recent discovery of vast new petroleum reserves, and its new political grand bargain, called the "Pact for Mexico," in which the leaders of the three largest political parties have gone behind closed doors to hammer out deals on tax, education, energy, banking and telecom reform, among other areas.
But instead of giving priority to the interests of Wall Street and of Mexico's discredited political class, Obama should turn his gaze to Main Street and listen to the voices of the Mexican people on both sides of the Rio Grande. Otherwise, he risks committing the United States to a highly risky political game run by Latin American cronies that could soon end in disaster, with an impact that could be felt across North America. Read more.
By John Ackerman
When U.S. President Barack Obama travels to Mexico this Thursday for his first summit with new President Enrique Peña Nieto, he's going to hear a lot about the country's uptick in international portfolio investment, its recent discovery of vast new petroleum reserves, and its new political grand bargain, called the "Pact for Mexico," in which the leaders of the three largest political parties have gone behind closed doors to hammer out deals on tax, education, energy, banking and telecom reform, among other areas.
But instead of giving priority to the interests of Wall Street and of Mexico's discredited political class, Obama should turn his gaze to Main Street and listen to the voices of the Mexican people on both sides of the Rio Grande. Otherwise, he risks committing the United States to a highly risky political game run by Latin American cronies that could soon end in disaster, with an impact that could be felt across North America. Read more.
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