Mexico can overcome hunger: FAO

El Universal 
By Mariana León
May 27, 2014

José Graziano, general director of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, said that hunger can be eradicated from Mexico with a greater participation of society and less "political pettiness".

In an interview with EL UNIVERSAL, he said that in order to fight violence it is necessary to have a well-fed society.

Graziano, who was Brazil's Minister of Food Security under the administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was responsible of applying the program entitled "Fome Zero" (Zero Hunger) in the South American country.

Can a country like Mexico, and others in the region with high levels of violence, exit poverty?

Extreme poverty and hunger are directly related to food security; when that is not guaranteed, conflicts emerge. The issue of tortillas in Mexico is very clear: when prices rise, protests, revolts and conflicts emerge. I think one way to calm society is having plenty of bread. Read more. 

Public Perceptions Exacerbate Security Problems in Mexico

By Patrick Corcoran
InSight Crime

Mexico's newest survey of popular perceptions of public security reveals a country of citizens pessimistic about their physical integrity and distrustful of their leaders, as well as a government unable to make meaningful advances.

As Excelsior recently reported, the National Survey on Victimization and Perception of Public Security highlights a series of significant challenges for Mexico's government, both in the realm of public relations and in terms of actually improving the institutions charged with combating crime.

According to INEGI, the statistical agency charged with carrying out the poll, Mexican citizens are highly unlikely to report crimes they see. The national average of reported crimes is just 12.2 percent of the total, but in the state of Guerrero, which registered the lowest such level in the country, the rate of reporting dropped all the way to 6.7 percent. (As a comparison, in a recent study the US Bureau of Justice Statistics said that a little more than half of all violent crimes were not reported in the United States.)

See also: Mexico News and Profiles

In what are both a cause and a consequence of the poor rates of reporting crimes, Mexican citizens have very pessimistic attitudes about the likelihood of crimes being punished. Across the country, 83 percent believe that crime is rarely or never punished. That figure rises to 94.5 percent in Mexico City and 90.4 percent in the State of Mexico. Nowhere in the country is it lower than in Yucatan, where, despite being one of the nation's safest states, 69 percent perceive crime as being rarely or never punished.

In Mexico, activist mother of missing man is slain

Los Angeles Times 
By Tracy Wilkinson
May 20, 2014

For 2 1/2 years, Sandra Luz Hernandez, like so many Mexican mothers, searched for her missing son.

Her activism grew steadily over time. She hung posters of her son and others who had disappeared. She led marches through her hometown of Culiacan, in the infamous drug cartel state of Sinaloa. She staged sit-ins outside the governor's office to demand justice. She scoured morgues and clandestine mass graves.

Last week, friends and colleagues say, her activism got her killed. Gunmen leaped from an SUV, put on masks and shot Hernandez dead in broad daylight on a Culiacan street. Read more. 

The Philippines and Mexico: Emerging Markets? Think Again.

Foreign Policy in Focus, May 16, 2014.  

The Philippines and Mexico: Emerging Markets? Think Again.

Fellow columnist at FPIF Walden Bello, a prominent expert and critic of globalization, has written a fascinating article on Mexico and the Philippines as the new darlings of the international finance world. In the article he brilliantly summarizes the three phases of the global crisis and how these two countries have risen to stardom in the current phase of the crisis.

What we see is a the latest effort to create a self-fulfilling prophesy: by using Wall Street and Madison Avenue echo chambers, speculators hope to generate a climate that attracts investment so their fantastic predictions for these two "emerging economies" will come true.

Of course, as Walden points out, this requires hiding some pretty ugly facts about these nations' economies. Like massive poverty, inequality, crime and corruption. I talked about some of these myths regarding the enthusiasm for Mexico in a BBC article (in Portuguese) earlier this year. 

He concludes:

The aura that surrounds them [Mexico and the Philippines] at present reflects less the realities of their economies than the desperate fantasies of international finance capital and the partisans of a failed globalization.

Well worth a read.   Read the article here.

NYT Article Highlights US NSA Corporate Spying, Mentions Spying on Mexican Oil Company

New York Times, May 21,  "Fine Line Seen in U.S. Spying on Companies"
The New York Times ran an article today noting that the Chinese have accused the NSA of applying a double standard regarding spying on companies to obtain trade advantages. Although the article leaves a lot out and uses language like "digging into corporations" instead of infiltrating their communications, it is exceptionally bold in implying that a double standard exists:

In each of these cases, American officials insist, when speaking off the record, that the United States was never acting on behalf of specific American companies. But the government does not deny it routinely spies to advance American economic advantage, which is part of its broad definition of how it protects American national security. In short, the officials say, while the N.S.A. cannot spy on Airbus and give the results to Boeing, it is free to spy on European or Asian trade negotiators and use the results to help American trade officials — and, by extension, the American industries and workers they are trying to bolster.

Among the things the article almost says but steps back from the brink of actually documenting with existing information from the NSA leaks, is that:
1) NSA stolen data is used to help US companies compete in the global market. This violation of basic trade rules caused Brazil to snub Boeing and go with Saab for a long-coveted $4.5 billion contract for jet fighters shortly after the NSA scandal broke.

In the context of all we now know about NSA operations thanks to whistleblower Edward Snowden, the defense offered by national intelligence director James Clapper rings hollow indeed:

“What we do not do, as we have said many times,” James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, said after some of the initial N.S.A. revelations last year, “is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of — or give intelligence we collect to — U.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line.”

2) NSA spying operations make a mockery of the US's draconian global intellectual property crusade.

3) The NSA defends its disregard for international or local laws abroad. The New York Times puts it  euphemistically: "The N.S.A. says it observes American law around the globe, but admits that local laws are no obstacle to its operations." That the law is no obstacle is a polite way of saying that it is wantonly disregarded.

All this is critical to Mexico as it reviews the implementing legislation on energy reforms. We have always known that PEMEX is among NSA targets--and not just for national security reasons. The agency is ascertaining reserves, the shape of reforms, conditions for investment. Glenn Greenwald says in an interview with CNN Español in September of last year:

There are documents that indicate that one of the issues they most spy on Mexico for is energy and oil. They (the NSA) are interested in these issues, not just national security or drugs like most people think. They are interested in economic and energy resource issues." (my translation)

 The Mexican government is carefully controlling information that could affect the future of the energy sector privatization legislation. Information that the Chinese will present regarding NSA spying to benefit U.S. corporations will not help to convince those who are already reluctant to relinquish Mexican natural resource management (and profits) to U.S. oil companies.

IACHR Expresses Concern over Attacks on Migrants and Human Rights Defenders by State Agents in Mexico

As the U.S. and Mexican governments move toward the creation of a Mexican Border Patrol to further persecute and criminalize immigrants at the border (more on that later), the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has come out with this bulletin to express  its concern over recent attacks on 300 migrants, detentions and attacks on defenders of migrant rights, including the director of the shelter in Tabasco, Tomas Gonzalez, Father Aurelio Moreno and Ruben Figueroa, a leader of the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement.

 Below the full text of the IAHRC release:

May 12, 2014

Washington, D.C.—The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) expresses its concern over the alleged attacks reportedly suffered by some 300 migrant persons, as well as their subsequent detention, in the Mexican state of Tabasco. The Commission also expresses its concern about information concerning alleged attacks directed against Fr. Tomás González, Fr. Aurelio Montero, and Rubén Figueroa, defenders of migrants’ human rights and beneficiaries of Precautionary Measures 273/11, granted by the IACHR on April 19, 2013. 

According to publicly available information, a group of around 300 migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala were walking toward the municipality of Emiliano Zapata, in the state of Tabasco. The information available indicates that the group included two pregnant women, as well as children, adolescents, and senior citizens, and that they were being accompanied by members of “La 72” Migrant Shelter. It was reported that on April 30, 2014, on the outskirts of the community of Chacamax, the group was intercepted and violently detained by agents of the National Migration Institute (INM), the federal police, and Tabasco state police. 

The IACHR has received troubling information indicating that Fr. Aurelio was arrested and that Rubén Guerrero was beaten. It was indicated that subsequently Fr. Tomás González, having seen that two migrant children were being separated from their mothers, placed himself in front of the bus in which they were going to be taken away; he was apparently pushed by an agent of the State, which reportedly caused injuries to his right hand.

According to the information available, during the immigration control operation, a large number of migrants were struck and insulted by State agents. Since May 1, the migrants have reportedly been detained at the “Siglo XXI” Migrant Holding Center in Tapachula (Chiapas). Human rights organizations have reported that they were having a hard time gaining access to this holding center. 

IACHR Commissioner Felipe González, Rapporteur on the Rights of Migrants, stated: “As Rapporteur on the Rights of Migrants, I am deeply troubled by these incidents. The State, including authorities at the federal, state, and local level, has the obligation to respect the human rights of everyone under its jurisdiction, including migrants, particularly rights such as the right to life, physical integrity, personal liberty, the protection of family, and the special protection of children and adolescents.” 

For his part, Commissioner James Cavallaro, IACHR Rapporteur for Mexico, expressed his concern over the fact that some of those said to have been attacked in these incidents are beneficiaries of precautionary measures granted by the Commission. “Friar Tomás González, Rubén Figueroa, and other members of ‘La 72’ are beneficiaries of precautionary measures granted by the IACHR. In this sense, the State has a special obligation of protection. We urge the Mexican State to implement these precautionary measures, which are still in effect, in order to ensure the safety of the beneficiaries.” 

In light of these events, the IACHR urges the State of Mexico to immediately and urgently adopt all necessary measures to guarantee the right to life, physical integrity, and safety of migrants in transit through Mexico who are in a situation of risk, as well as of those who work to defend migrants’ human rights. Moreover, the IACHR urges the State to ensure the application of international standards regarding the use of force in migration control operations and the observance of due process guarantees in migration proceedings for deportation; the exceptional nature of migrant detention and the need to implement alternatives to deportation; detention in conditions that respect human dignity; the need to guarantee the right to seek and receive asylum; protection of the principle of non-return; and the prohibition of collective expulsions. 

Finally, the Commission urges the Mexican authorities to investigate these incidents diligently and impartially, and in particular to investigate the reports of abuse and excessive use of force by agents of the INM and police from different agencies during the events that occurred between April 30 and May 1 of this year.

The Commission reiterates that acts of violence and other attacks on human rights defenders not only affect the guarantees of every human being, but undermine the fundamental role that human rights defenders play in society and leave all those for whom they fight defenseless. The Commission also calls to mind that the work of human rights defenders is essential for the construction of a solid, lasting democratic society, and rights defenders play a leading role in the process of pursuing the full attainment of the rule of law and the strengthening of democracy. 

A principal, autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), the IACHR derives its mandate from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has a mandate to promote respect for human rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to the OAS in this matter. The Commission is composed of seven independent members who are elected in an individual capacity by the OAS General Assembly and who do not represent their countries of origin or residence.

The Creeping Expansion of the Border Patrol

Aljazeera America 
By Belén Fernández
May 7, 2014

A couple of years ago, a chatty Border Patrol Agent in Texas told me about a recent experience he had near El Paso, a West Texas city near the U.S.-Mexico border. While he was visiting a particular stretch of the border fence that was normally outside his area of operation, he said, a potential threat to homeland security was detected by colleagues on surveillance duty. Attack helicopters were summoned.

The cause for alarm turned out to be a goatherd on the Mexican side of the fence wielding a stick that had been mistaken for a weapon. The helicopters were sent back. As the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Created in 1924 to secure the borders of the United States, the Border Patrol is now part of the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency. It currently boasts more than 21,000 agents, up from 8,500 in 2001. (If certain members of Congress have their way, that number will continue to multiply.) Read more.