Armed Border Militia Apprehends Bat-Counting Scientists

Note: Heavily armed militia in Arizona and Texas are threatening people. Here near Sonoita, Arizona scientific researchers were held at gunpoint. Local officials say they don't appreciate the presence of the armed groups. Then why don't they do something? Is this really legal or desirable behavior? You know that if these groups were Latino citizens they'd be behind bars. While it is legal to bear arms, it is not legal to hunt human beings and threaten them at gunpoint. - Laura Carlsen 

Huffington Post: An armed border militia group confronted three researchers in Arizona last month, mistaking them for undocumented immigrants or drug traffickers in an incident that drew criticism from local law enforcement officials.

Border militias, or "untrained, utterly anonymous gunmen with no accountability to anyone" who prowl the border on their own time and look for illegal activity, have become an increasing concern for law enforcement officials, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The recent incident with the researchers is the second time in the last few weeks the militias have caused an issue for U.S. border authorities.  Read more. 

22 police held following southern Mexico violence

AP: Authorities in Mexico say 22 local police have been arrested following the deaths of six people in Guerrero state.

Unidentified gunman and numerous officers were involved in several violent incidents that killed six people late Friday and early Saturday in Iguala, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of Mexico City. Read more. 

Mexican cartels steal billions from oil industry

AP: Mexico overcame 75 years of nationalist pride to reform its flagging, state-owned oil industry. But as it prepares to develop rich shale fields along the Gulf Coast, and attract foreign investors, another challenge awaits: taming the brutal drug cartels that rule the region and are stealing billions of dollars' worth of oil from pipelines.

Figures released by Petroleos Mexicanos last week show the gangs are becoming more prolific and sophisticated. So far this year, thieves across Mexico have drilled 2,481 illegal taps into state-owned pipelines, up more than one-third from the same period of 2013. Pemex estimates it's lost some 7.5 million barrels worth $1.15 billion. Read More. 

Army unit in Mexico killings has past controversy

AP: An army officer and seven soldiers who face disciplinary action for their participation in the killing of 22 people in rural southern Mexico belong to an army battalion with a history of incidents.

The Mexican Defense Department said the eight were involved in the June 30 incident in San Pedro Limon, an encounter that the military initially reported as a shootout but that a witness has described as a massacre. Read more, 

Mexico Inflation Above Target as Increases Exceed Forecasts

Bloomberg: Mexican consumer prices rose more than expected in the first half of September, keeping the annual inflation rate above the upper limit of the central bank’s target range.

Prices increased 0.32 percent from two weeks earlier, the national statistics institute said on its website today, compared with the 0.25 percent median forecast of 24 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The annual inflation rate was 4.21 percent, above the 2 percent to 4 percent target range.  Read more. 

Laundering Mexico's Drug Money: Washing Up

The Economist:Drug traffickers, like everyone else, only want money because they want what money can buy. But turning dirty cash from drug sales into clean, usable currency has become harder for Mexican drug gangs as a result of tighter banking regulations at home and in the United States, their main market.

The criminals are responding by piggy-backing on cross-border trade to launder their gains. Read more. 

Witnesses Say Killings by the Army in Mexico State was a Mass Execution

Last June 30, 22 young people were shot and killed in Mexico State by an Army unit. No soldiers were killed. The Army reported that they were attacked but news stories in Spanish and the AP reported that the circumstances were suspicious, to say the least. Representatives of the UN High Commission reportedly investigated the scene. The National Human rights Commission has opened aninvestigation.

Now the story has surfaced again (really, the possibility of an Army massacre of this size should never have disappeared from the news without clearing up the basic facts). The Spanish-language magazine Esquire Mexico and the AP found witnesses to the killings who reports that the Army executed the youth. "Caso Tlatlaya" as Esquire calls it after the place where the killings took place, is becoming big news.

The basic facts are not disputed. Twenty-two mostly young people hiding in a warehouse were shot to death. The allegations are that they belonged to a gang that crossed over the border from Guerrero. The biggest point of contention is whether anyone from the group ever attacked the soldiers. The witnesses and much of the forensic evidence suggests they did not. 

The Mexico State government of Eruviel Avila has denied any wrong-doing. At the same time, they refused to release autopsy reports to AP, heightening suspicions. AP ,reports, again following the Esquire lead,

The state government refused to release autopsy reports the AP requested under Mexico's freedom of information law, declaring them state secrets to be guarded for nine years.

A Christian Science Monitor article picks up the news of the eye-witness accounts.  Now  international human rights groups are jumping on the case and calling for investigations. It is not clear where the investigation of the UN High Commission mentioned in the first article currently stands. Tha National Human Rights Commissons refused to comment as its investigation is still in course.  This version from Aristegui Noticias (in Spanish) reproduces part of the Esquire article and interviews the courageous reporter.

Recall that Mexico state is the power bastion of President Peña Nieto y Avila is his selected successor. Bad publicity in Mexico state could throw off succession plans for the 2018 presidency and cast aspersions on the president.

Also, such a serious human rights abuse by the Armed Forces in the drug war casts even more doubt on the already-unpopular strategy. It also undermines the claims we have been criticizing here since its inception: that you can effectively control human rights abuses under the drug war model. This repressive model will continue to produce human rights abuses. Call it social cleansing, extra-judicial executions or abuse of power, both the police and the armed forces have been accused of huge rise in human rights violations since the drug war began in December of 2006

The latest revelations are causing a stir, with excellent Mexican investigative journalists asking questions and even the US press echoing concerns.  We will also continue to follow the story in these pages. The hope is that this will not be swept under the rug like so many cases in the past.
 
Laura Carlsen

Daughter of farm workers nominated

Mexico News Daily: The daughter of Mexican immigrant farm workers has been nominated the next American ambassador to Mexico.

Maria Echaveste, 60, is President Barack Obama’s choice to replace Anthony Wayne, who leaves the post this month after three years. Read more.

Certification prison: new onslaught of American interventionism?

Latin America Info: Last August 50 Women’s Social Rehabilitation Center of Atlacholoaya, Morelos, went on a hunger strike to protest mistreatment and tighter security measures in that prison, in the context of the certification process that promotes American Correctional Association (ACA, for its acronym in English).

The protest action, which just led to a small note in local newspapers, was a call of attention to a broader process that is taking place across the country: the importation of a punitive American prison model, on behalf security and governance.  Read more.

Mexico says will scrap limits on business dollar cash deposits

Reuters: Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Friday he would scrap limits on companies making dollar deposits in cash that were imposed by the previous government.

"Now companies will not have restrictions in their banks to deposit dollars in cash, or carry out currency exchanges," Pena Nieto said during a speech in the northern border city of Reynosa.  Read more. 

Mexico denounces deployment of National Guard in Texas border

Noticias MVS: Through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the government of Mexico reiterated its "strongest rejection" and condemnation of the deployment of these military forces and said it is "irresponsible to manipulate the current state of border security for political purposes."

The government of Mexico reiterated its strongest condemnation of the deployment of the first units of the National Guard of Texas, announced Wednesday by the office of the state governor, Rick Perry.

Through a statement, the Foreign Ministry said that our country states that it is irresponsible to manipulate the current state of border security for political purposes and reiterated that migration must be addressed from a holistic and regional perspective, with a medium-term shared vision that guarantees peace, inclusion and prosperity in the region.

He added that the action taken unilaterally by the government of Texas is undoubtedly wrong and does not contribute to the efforts undertaken by both countries to build a secure border and a solution to migration. This decision does not accredit the collaboration among civil society and opposes the principles and values on which Mexico and the United States govern their bilateral relationship.

Translated by Nidia Bautista 

See Original Article

Mexico Is Only OECD Country Where Work Trumps School Among Youth

Latin American Herald Tribune: Mexicans between the ages of 15 and 29 will spend an average 6.4 years working and 5.3 years studying, according to a report released Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The study, Education at a Glance 2014, found that Mexico is the only country among the 34 OECD members where youth spend less time in school than on the job.  Read more. 

Youth in Mexico Confront a Bleak Job Market

Vallarta Daily: The National Survey of Occupation and Employment (ENOE) indicated in late August that 85% of youth between the ages of 20 and 29 earn the lowest wages in the country, at 6,000 pesos (US$450) or less a month.

The youth unemployment rate nationally stood at 8.3 percent, equivalent to 349,000 young people between the ages of 14 and 29, of which 14.5 percent are college graduates.  Read more. 

Latin American Herald Tribune - Planned Mexico City Airport Threatens Environment, Senator Says

Latin American Herald Tribune: The new airport to be built in a Mexico City lake system threatens 120 species in the area with extinction, Sen. Alejandro Encinas said.

“The Lake Texcoco area is a flood zone, making it less than ideal for an airport,” Encinas, a member of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), said in a statement.  Read more. 

Mexico first with dengue vaccination?

Mexico News Daily: Vaccination against dengue fever could soon become a reality and Mexico could well be the first country to approve its use.

The French drugmaker Sanofi says its vaccine reduced cases of the disease — sometimes known as breakbone fever — by 60.8% in its second major clinical trial. Read more. 

Fueling drug gangs' impunity, unidentified corpses pile up in Mexico

Reuters: In Mexico's blood-soaked northern state of Sinaloa, a simple gravestone adorned with pink, blue and yellow plastic flowers marks the tomb of 42-year-old assistant carpenter Carlos Montano.

But Montano is alive and well in the city of Tijuana, hundreds of miles away near the U.S. border, the victim of different enemies: incompetence and indifference in a land where authorities have failed to identify thousands of people killed in grisly gangland violence.  Read more. 

Tijuana gets help from federal cops

San Diego Reader: Members of a newly created and specially trained federal police force began arriving in Tijuana last week to help local officers combat a growing wave of violent crime.

According to press reports, about 100 members of the Gendarmería Nacional arrived in Tijuana on Thursday, September 4, the second contingent to be dispatched to the city; on September 1, 300 members of the elite federal police force arrived.  Read more. 

Latin American Herald Tribune - Agricultural Experts Discuss Responses to Climate Change at Mexico Gathering

Latin American Herald Tribune: Agricultural experts from Latin America and the European Union are meeting in the Mexican capital to discuss ways to improve adaptation to climate change, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture said.

The Euroclima program, carried out by the Costa Rica-based IICA and the EU’s Joint Research Centre, aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge about adapting agriculture to climate change in Latin America, the institute said in a statement.  Read more. 

Mexican President Peña Nieto’s Ratings Slip with Economic Reform

Pew Research Center: Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has been praised internationally for his ambitious reforms of everything from the energy sector to education to telecommunications, but a new Pew Research Center survey in Mexico finds that domestically his positive image is faltering and a key component of his political agenda – economic reform – is decidedly unpopular.

Mexicans today are evenly divided in their opinion of Peña Nieto, as negative ratings of the president’s influence have increased by nine percentage points in the past year to 47%. Similarly, negative views of the national government and Congress, both led by Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), have gone up by roughly the same share over the past year, though 57% still say the national government has a positive influence.  Read more. 

Many Mexican child migrants caught multiple times at border

Pew Research Center: With the surge in unaccompanied children apprehended at the Southwest border, much has been written about the unusually high numbers of kids arriving from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. The number of apprehensions of Mexican child migrants rivals those of the other three countries, but many of those caught are ones who tried to cross multiple times — meaning that the total number of child migrants from Mexico is lower compared with the Central American nations.

Out of the more than 11,000 apprehensions of unaccompanied Mexican minors during this fiscal year (October 1 through May 31), only 2,700 children (24% of all the apprehensions) reported being apprehended for the first time in their lives, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Mexican government data obtained from the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The other three quarters of the apprehensions were of children who reported that they had been apprehended multiple times before — 15% were of children who had been apprehended at least six times. Read more. 

Mexico authorities stage midnight migrant raid

AP:  The lumbering freight train known as "The Beast," a key part of the route for migrants heading north to the United States, rolled to an abrupt, unscheduled stop in the black of midnight.

Mexican federal police and immigration agents had waited silently in the brush alongside for at least hour, visible only by the glint of their powerful flashlights. Read more. 

Arson Suspected in Deadly Fire at Mexican Preschool

Latin American Herald Tribune: The June 2009 fire at a daycare facility in the northern Mexican city of Hermosillo that left 49 children dead might have been deliberately set, Reporte Indigo newspaper said Monday, citing documents from the investigation.

The federal Attorney General’s Office has had in its hands for several months the statements of three people who implicate the senior aide to the then-governor of Sonora state, Eduardo Bours, the daily said.  Read more. 

Tourists are pouring back to Mexican beaches after a security image facelift

Global Post: Sunbathers stretch out along white beach after white beach on the sweltering Caribbean coast. Tequila-swigging revelers pack the glittering nightclubs wall to wall. Surfers carve up the Pacific waves.

Yup, that sounds like Mexico all right — but it’s actually been a summer like no other.

As the season draws to an end, officials here are boasting a bumper season in the country’s top resorts, including Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos and Cancun, where hotels have been packed to the highest levels ever.  Read more. 

A failed journey: Central American migrants turned back before US border

Christian Science Monitor: When 5-year-old Georgina first saw her older brother and cousin descend from the bus that brought them back from Mexico, she let out a joyful scream.

But her aunt sobbed and her mother couldn’t bear to look. For them, the return of Ismael and Abraham – after just eight days en route to the United States – marked a quick and painful defeat for their family. They had mortgaged their home to pay $8,000 for a coyote to smuggle the cousins to the US.  Read more.