Laura's Blog: USAID's Cuban Twitter Scandal, US "democracy promotion" and Freedom House Mexico

I've been writing and speaking about the scandal broken by the AP over the Cuban twitter-like program run by USAID lately. While not a surprise to those of us who have been researching US "regime change" and "democracy promotion" over the years, some elements need to be much more widely analyzed and criticized--especially from the point of view of what this means for Mexico. The AP article quotes from the documents it obtained on the program:

"Mock ad banners will give it the appearance of a commercial enterprise," one written proposal obtained by the AP said. Behind the scenes, ZunZuneo's computers were also storing and analyzing subscribers' messages and other demographic information, including gender, age, "receptiveness" and "political tendencies." USAID believed the demographics on dissent could help it target its other Cuba programs and "maximize our possibilities to extend our reach."

The fact that USAID programs were used for regime change caused Senator Patrick Leahy to warn about the erosion of USAID's credibility abroad. For many, of course, this is nothing new. USAID has been closely associated to U.S. political goals in the guise of development projects since its inception. That's why Evo Morales kicked them out last year. The history is full of documented instances of USAID involved in spying, personal data collection, funding opposition NGOs and other forms of intervention in internal affairs. 

On Democracy Now! Peter Kornbluh who directs the Cuba Documentation Project of the National Security Archive calls the USAID "the new CIA" and details how USAID funds covert operations in Cuba and across the globe.

And Mexico?
We could expect these type of programs in Cuba. Since the revolution, U.S. efforts to subvert the government on the island and assassinate Fidel Castro range have been illegal, unethical and often frankly ludicrous.

But Cuba is not the only place where these programs exist. USAID programs in Mexico should also be examined far more closely. For example, a USAID project on freedom of expression passes directly through Freedom House, a well known regime-change organization also funded by the US government for "promotion of democracy". 

The Freedom House program in Mexico uses many of the same covert methods discovered in the Cuban twitter scam. It carefully covers up its ties to U.S. political aims. It also does not mention that it is a U.S. government funded program, despite the fact that according to Freedom House's own financial statement for 2013, 87% of its budget comes directly from the federal government.

The open-door policy of the Calderon government has indeed opened the door to make it far easier for U.S. programs like the fake twitter and Freedom House to make inroads in Mexico. The amount of information that U.S. government agencies have on each and every one of us goes beyond imagination.

The Peña Nieto government shook up the bilateral relationship by demanding more controls on US agency operations within Mexico. But that was more a power play than a genuine concern for national sovereignty or human rights. Now it's the Congress that should step up and carry out a full review of US aid in the country to determine if the Cuban twitter is, indeed, just the tip of the iceberg.

Action Alert: New Commander of Colombian Army Oversaw Civilian Killings, Tell Congress no US Aid

Note from the Americas Program: We encourage our readers of the Americas MexicoBlog to sign on to this message. Although it relates to Colombia and not Mexico, it is directly related to our work to stop U.S. support for the bloody drug war and support human rights. As you know, SOAW is one of our partners in the Mesoamerican Working Group (MAWG), as is John Lindsay-Poland, who is doing ground-breaking human rights work on the false positives. The US government is holding up Colombia as the model for security in the region--we must talk about the . Our program is working on research now to ascertain what SOA graduates in Mexico are linked to human rights violations and therefore subject to Leahy Law restrictions. 
If anyone would like to help with that research, please drop us a line at: lecarlsen@gmail.com

Take Action: Send a message to the State Department
School of the Americas Instructor Who Oversaw Dozens of Killings Leads U.S.-Backed Army

In the wake of Colombian military scandals earlier this year, General Jaime Lasprilla Villamizar has been appointed commander of the Colombian Army. He had just served as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, and previously as commander of Joint Task Force Omega – both units that have been the focus of U.S. assistance in Colombia.

The special operations unit, known by its Spanish acronym CCOES, has been a key vehicle for U.S. military aid in Colombia. A Washington Post investigation in December reported that the unit is sent in after bombing runs to gather bodies of guerrillas and other material. CCOES is the Colombian counterpart to the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, which conducts secret targeted killings around the world.

A former instructor at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (the SOA's new name), General Lasprilla previous commanded Task Force Omega, which received tens of millions of dollars in U.S. training, supplies and equipment, under Washington’s ill-conceived drug war and ‘war on terror.’

There is just one catch. In 2006-2007, Lasprilla directed the Ninth Brigade in Colombia’s Huila Department, which was responsible for at least 75 killings of civilians under his command. Under the U.S. Leahy Law, aiding a foreign unit is prohibited if there is credible information that the unit’s commander committed gross human rights abuses. To abide by Leahy Law, Washington must end its assistance to the Colombian Army, until those responsible for the killings committed under Lasprilla’s command are brought to justice.

Take Action: Click here to send a message to the State Department. Most of the killings committed under Lasprilla in Huila are called “false positives,” many under investigation by Colombian human rights prosecutors. “False positives” were executions of civilians by troops who then claimed the victims were guerrillas killed in combat. The Army reportedly carried out more than 4,000 such killings from 2002 to 2010.

Lasprilla was an instructor at WHINSEC in 2002-2003, and studied for a year at the National Defense University in Washington in 2005-06, just before his deployment to Huila.

Take action: Send a message to Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, Tom Malinowski, and urge him to apply Leahy Law to the Colombian Army under General Lasprilla’s command: http://SOAW.org/colombia

Article by John Lindsay-Poland, one of the authors of the upcoming report The Rise and Fall of “False Positive” Killings in Colombia. The research in the report shows that the 25 Colombian WHINSEC instructors and graduates from 2001 to 2003 for which any subsequent information was available, 12 of them – 48% - had either been charged with a serious crime or commanded units whose members had reportedly committed multiple extrajudicial killings.

Mexico Lags in Taking Steps to Protect Journalists, According to Several Reports

April 28, 2014
Justice in Mexico 

According to a recent review by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Mexico ranks in the bottom seven countries worldwide in its efforts to investigate and punish crimes against journalists. With this ranking, Mexico remains in the same position it found itself in 2013 in CPJ’s Global Impunity Index, ranking above only Iraq, Somalia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Syria, and Afghanistan.

CPJ found that Mexico has 0.132 unsolved murders of journalists per million inhabitants. By comparison, Iraq, at the bottom of the list, had 3.067 unsolved murders per million inhabitants. Afghanistan, ranking 6th, had 0.168, while India (13th) had just 0.006. Colombia and Brazil were the only other Latin American countries included on the list, with Colombia ranking one spot below Mexico, with 0.126 unsolved journalist murders per million inhabitants, and Brazil at the 11th position, with 0.045. CPJ criticized that “justice continued to evade Mexican journalists who face unrelenting violence for reporting on crime and corruption.” The organization reports 16 journalists killed with impunity during the past ten years, with one killed in 2014, though other groups, including Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos, CNDH) estimate the number to be much higher. CPJ did recognize Mexico’s efforts last April to create a special federal prosecutor for pursuing crimes against journalists that circumvents what it deems “more corrupt and less effective state law enforcement officials.” Nevertheless, it says, many criticize that the new office has thus far been slow to implement its new authority. The report points out the failed prosecution in the case of Proceso reporter Regina Martínez Pérez, killed in 2012, in which some, including the editorial board of Proceso, believe that the wrong person was convicted for her murder. It also mentions the dismissal of charges last September against one of the men alleged to have gunned down Zeta magazine editor J. Jesús Blancornelas in 1997. These shortcomings, says CPJ, “further fueled concerns that the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto is not up to the task of breaking Mexico’s cycle of impunity and violence.” Read more. 

Laura's Blog: NYT Portrays Achievements of Immokalee Workers--Can it be Done in Mexico?

This article from the New York Times takes a close look at the great achievements of the Florida farmworkers organization, Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Although the organization and its Campaign for Fair Food work on the national level, it is an experience that the Americas Program has been watching closely for years, due to its success with grassroots organizing for farm justice, an end to sexual harassment and defense of immigrant rights.

I visited briefly in 2008 and hope to make another visit to learn more about this experience and write more. Many of the workers affected are immigrants and the issues they address--immigration, worker justice and transnational food production--are at the heart of our Program.

Of course, a major priority is the possibility of obliging transnational retailers to apply the same or similar terms of fair and humane treatment to their suppliers here in Mexico. Walmart now controls a huge part of the food sales market and wields power over supply chains, and by extension, conditions in the production and industrialization of food.

Conditions for day laborers in the agroexport industry are among the worst imaginable in states including Sinaloa and Sonora. As we approach the harvest season, hundreds of impoverished, often indigenous, workers will travel north from Guerrero, Veracruz, Oaxaca and other states to work in the fields. Entire families will endure slave-like conditions in some cases, for a pittance. Several weeks ago, I wrote about a case of migrants allegedly kidnapped (a fact reported by the Mexican Army and later disputed by the Institute of Migration) and the grape harvest in Sonora.

In addition to the Fair Food Program, the CIW has developed an anti-slavery campaign that should also be a model for Mexico. To get an idea of the problem and legal efforts to confront it, here is a case from their website:

U.S. vs. Flores — In 1997, Miguel Flores and Sebastian Gomez were sentenced to 15 years each in federal prison on slavery, extortion, and firearms charges, amongst others. Flores and Gomez had a workforce of over 400 men and women in Florida and South Carolina, harvesting vegetables and citrus. The workers, mostly indigenous Mexicans and Guatemalans, were forced to work 10-12 hour days, 6 days per week, for as little as $20 per week, under the watch of armed guards. Those who attempted escape were assaulted, pistol-whipped, and even shot. The case was brought to federal authorities after five years of investigation by escaped workers and CIW members.

This is another example of how organized workers can compel the state to do its job of enforcing labor and human rights law.

The New York Times article titled, "In Florida Tomato Fields, a Penny Buys Progress" details the organizing efforts and the achievements. It is a story that gives hope, as well as nitty-gritty advice on effective organizing:

IMMOKALEE, Fla. — Not long ago, Angelina Velasquez trudged to a parking lot at 5 each morning so a crew leader’s bus could drop her at the tomato fields by 6. She often waited there, unpaid — while the dew dried — until 10 a.m., when the workers were told to clock in and start picking.

Back then, crew leaders often hectored and screamed at the workers, pushing them to fill their 32-pound buckets ever faster in this area known as the nation’s tomato capital. For decades, the fields here have had a reputation for horrid conditions. Many migrant workers picked without rest breaks, even in 95-degree heat. Some women complained that crew leaders groped them or demanded sex in exchange for steady jobs.

 Read more

"Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2013" Now Available

Justice in Mexico Project 
April 15, 2014

The Justice in Mexico Project (JMP) based at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of San Diego is pleased to announce the publication of “Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2013.” Thanks to the generous funding of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, this is the project’s fifth annual report providing a detailed analysis of the problem of crime and violence in Mexico, which has been a major preoccupation for both policymakers and ordinary people in Mexico, as well as a shared concern for the U.S. government and its citizens. Justice in Mexico’s annual reports have compiled the latest available data and analysis to evaluate problems of crime and violence related to drug trafficking and organized crime in Mexico. These reports are especially intended to inform a U.S. and English language audience, since international news media coverage of Mexico tends to be fleeting and gravitates toward sporadic, sensationalistic incidents rather than the analysis of broader issues and longer-term trends.  Read more. 

Mexican Telecommunication Law Expands Government Surveillance and Censorship Powers: Digital Rights Activist

FSRN Radio News
April 11, 2014

New telecommunications regulations in Mexico have met opposition online and in the streets. The reform was originally presented as a way to break up telecom monopolies, but critics say it is being used to push through laws which would make lawful the mass surveillance of online activites and make government censorship easy and arbitrary. Activists in Mexico City protested the law Thursday by marching from the headquarters of Televisa – the country’s largest broadcaster – to the Senate. At the march, FSRN’s Andalusia Knoll spoke with Mexican digital rights activist Luis Fernando Garcia. Read more. 

Laura's Blog: The Iceberg in the Desert

Mexican new reports state that 162 migrants were rescued from clandestine camps by the Mexican Army on April 3 and freed. During rounds, soldiers of the 45th Batallion discovered four camps in Saric, Sonora, near the U.S. border, located on the edge of the Sasabe desert, a common crossing zone that has recently become an area teeming with organized crime groups seeking to use crossers to carry contraband.

The Secretary of Defense release gave very few details, stating,

Among the persons liberated were 97 mexicanos, 60 Guatemalans, three Hondurans and 2 Salvadorans, who appeared in good health and were placed in the hands of the corresponding authorities.

The brief note leaves a lot of questions unanswered. It does not tell us who was holding the migrants (if they were kdnapped, they had to have guards), nor why, according to the information provided, not one single culprit was arrested. 

It does not tell us if drugs, arms, cash or other possible contraband was found at the scene of the alleged crime. We don't know how many are men, how many are women, what their ages are or where they were heading. We also don't know what states they are from or if they are indigenous.

The authorities have this information but the fact that it has been reserved from publication creates deep doubts regarding any subsequent investigation or judicial process.

Once again, nameless victims make ephemeral headlines under strange conditions. Then they disappear into anonymity, taking the dark secrets of what really happened with them.

For public consumption, there is only this (again, from SEDENA):

With these actions, the Mexican Army and the Air Force are working alongside the efforts of the Government of the Republic to attain a Mexico in peace, affirming its commitment to guarantee the security and tranquility of the citizenry.

The release of captive migrants is cause for celebration. And 162 is a huge number. But I, for one, don't feel tranquil.

If this represents the tip of the iceberg--and that seems to be the case given the number of similar cases in the area within the last year--then we're looking at a tremendous iceberg in the desert. Local newspapers have been reporting an increase in the use of border-crossers as "mules" to carry small quantities of prohibited drugs over the border. Scores of stories report the abduction, confrontations and murder of migrants in run-ins with alleged criminal groups. In most of the reports, the story is unclear and the migrants' themselves seldom speak publicly about what occurred.

The area is famous for flows of drugs, cash, arms and human trafficking. Inexplicably, this all happens under the nose of the 45th Battalion, police and other security agents and in spite of, or sometimes with the help of, U.S. and Mexican government agents. 

The Globalized Grapes of Wrath
In addition to forced recruitment for the drug smuggling that is the lifeblood of cartels, human trafficking for agrobusiness is growing.

Sin Embargo, a Mexican information service, notes of this recent case and others:

The victims of kidnapping are not just migrants from other countries, but also Mexicans from other states, like the case of 54 day laborers from the state of Puebla who were kidnapped in Caborca by a criminal group. The day laborers escaped to denounce that their captors had offered them a well-paid job in Sonora.

Some 57,000 farm laborers arrive in Sonora every year from the states of Puebla, Chiapas, Guerrero and others to work in the grape harvest, where 59 companies install work camps for the harvest. Companies even receive government support and subsidies to bring migrant workers in. The state of Veracruz, for example, announced this year that it will provide $42,000 pesos "to support the day laborers" being sent from the state to Sonora. 

This is not a subsidy to low-wage farmworkers--it's a subsidy to private-sector agribusiness. The government of Tlaxcala also has a program to send migrant laborers to the grape harvest. Sin Embargo and others have documented child labor and the death of several children-workers in the Sonora farmworker camps.

Dossier Político, out of Hermosillo, Sonora notes that in May of 2010 in a similar incident 66 farmworkers were rescued. The workers reported being recruited and held as virtual slaves, working 13-hour days in the vineyards without pay and prohibited from communicating with their families.

The grape industry has sprung up in Sonora since the eighties and especially since NAFTA. Tucson Business reported in 2012 that the Mexican state produces 16.3 million, 19-pound boxes that pass through at the U.S. Port of Entry at Nogales beginning in May for about nine weeks.

Sonora accounts for 90 percent of Mexico’s table grape production. The state exports almost all of its production, dispatching several dozen brands to more  than 30 countries. Some10,000 acres are under cultivation...

the recent abductions could indicate a trend toward the alliance of agrobusiness with organized crime to provide virtual slave labor in the harvest. The possibility merits at least full investigation.

The news reports on the rescue of migrants indicates that at least some were kidnapped as forced labor for the harvest.

The government of Veracruz states that the average wage for the farmworkers is $153 dollars a week, with some workers earning more. However, reports from the region say it's more like ten dollars a day, and half that for children.

So what kind of a society makes it an attractive business plan to kidnap workers as slaves rather than to pay ridiculously low wages?

A society where life is cheap. And where the criminals know they can get away with murder.