There will be a morning after (pill)
To no one’s surprise, the Supreme Court ruled, 11 to one that the “morning after” pill had to be made available in all public hospitals. Which it has been since 2005.
This never should have been a Supreme Court case, but the Governor of Jalisco, Emilio Gonzalez insisted on bringing the “issue” (specifically, a claim that the “morning after pill” caused abortions, which was already considered, and discarded back in 2005 when the pill was authorized for distribution by the Secretariat of Public Health) to Minister Sergio Aguirre.
Aguirre is sort of the odd man out on the Supremes, having a background not as a legal scholar, but as a politician: specifically as a right-wing, reactionary Catholic Jalisco politician. As, obviously, is Governor Gonzalez, who you may remember as trying to steer state development funds to a memorial to the reactionary Catholic terrorist movement of the late 1920s, the Cristero Revolt. Oddly, Gonzalez is a PRI politico, Aguirre from PAN. But in Jalisco, political parties seem to matter less than religious affiliation, and both are Opus Dei Catholics.
The Supremes have consistently upheld — in the DF abortion case, in a ruling from last September that involved the rights of narcotics addicts , and in a textbook case (reported at the same time as the abortion ruling), and in a 2007 case upholding HIV positive soldiers’ rights — that citizens have the right to medical and health information and services.
I try to follow the Supreme Court (none of the other foreign writers do), but honestly didn’t much follow this one, since I knew it was going nowhere. I had saved some links, but — with limited time and resources, and posting less lately — finally trashed them.
The way the Supreme Court is structured, complaints are assigned to a Minister (as the justices are called) in either “Sala A” (which handles mostly criminal court cases) or “Sala B” (whose ministers are usually from civil courts). In considering complaints (from Governor Gonzales of Jalisco, naturally) that the Federal District marriage law impacted his state, the question of same gender marriage — being a civil matter — had been assigned it to Minister Sergio Valles. Minister Valles had already found (and the court had already ruled) that marriage laws were a matter for local legislatures, and what the Federal District legislature had decided was no concern to the Governor of another state (and you think he’d have pushed honeymoons in Puerto Vallarta for same-gender couples… but that’s another matter altogether).
The Minister’s findings are then presented to a quorem of the twelve Ministers for consideration, thrashed out in open hearings and a ruling eventually issued. It’s not a bad system, at least in theory.
So, basically, in this instance, the Governor of Jalisco (PRI-Opus Dei) brought a complaint to his buddy, Minister Aguirre (PAN-Opus Dei) which led to a finding, as so many other of Minister Aguirre’s do, in not not persuading the other ministers. Minister Aguirre is assigned to “Sala A” — the criminal courts division, and to make this a criminal matter depended on the “morning after pill” being considered abortion — which is a crime in most parts of Mexico — and that access to (not use of) the “morning after pill” is mandatory for rape victims. The State of Jalisco claimed that their state laws overrode the federal laws on rape, and that decisions by the Federal Secretariat of Public Health could be a local matter. Both of which would be a stretch.
Minister Aguirre — even in matters related to criminal cases is often the lone dissenter. This country has its problems, and the legal system — as the Ministers will tell you — desperately needs reforms — but a politicized Supreme Court is not one of them.
Another reason to avoid Arizona
Via Prominex:
Slightly more homicides, but unlike the United States, nearly all homicides are family or “familia” disputes.
No good deed goes unpunished
Via Guanabee (which I need to look at more often):
Abel Moreno of Charlotte, North Carolina, called 911 to report that a police officer allegedly groped his girlfriend during a routine traffic stop and now faces possible deportation to Mexico.
Apparently, it was more than “alleged”, given that Officer Marcus Jackson now faces 11 counts of sexual battery, extortion and interfering with emergency communications as a result of his false arrest (Moreno and his girlfriend were arrested by Jackson for “resisting arrest” when Abel called the police on the rogue officer) and the subsequent investigation.
HOWEVER… Moreno, as a result of doing what is expected a good citizen should do… and reporting police corruption … now faces deportation. The Acapulco native has been working in the United States for the last six years without proper documentation, and has six months to show why he shouldn’t be deported to Mexico.
New drug law takes effect
With publication in the Diario Oficial de la Federación today, a new law takes effect that will have a huge impact on drug use in this country. Ninety days from today, it will require a prescription to buy antibiotics.
What did you think I meant?
The big spill — a blast from the past
Whether the Deepwater Horizon blowout has been capped or not (there seems to be some question about it this morning), it probably already has topped the record for the biggest oil spill in the Americas, topping the worst ever oil disaster outside of wartime, the Ixtoc I disaster of 1979 -80.
Ixtoc I was drilling in only 3,600 meters below the seafloor (as opposed to Deepwater’s 10,600 m) when its blowout preventer failed.
After the blowout in Bay of Campeche in June 1979, it took until March of the next year to cap the well. In Campeche, the release was an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil daily, a total af 3,000,000 barrels eventually making their way north onto the beaches of Tamaulipas and the United States. Luckily for the beach industry of Campeche and the Yucatan, the currents and winds send the oil north. The greatest economic damage was to the Texas fishing industry.
It is difficult to compare the clean-up costs. PEMEX — as a agent of a foreign state could claim sovereign immunity in U.S. courts, but spent an estimated 100 million dollars in cleanup costs. Within Mexico, the most dramatic — and successful — of the recovery efforts was the great Tamaulipas turtle rescue of 1979, when thousands of baby Ridley Sea Turtles from their single breeding ground in Tamaulipas were airlifted to safer habitats, and a second breeding ground on Padre Island Texas was established (which is now even more threatened). The long term environmental damage has never been (and probably never will be) known.
In both Iztoc and Deepwater Horizon, it was blow-out preventer failures that caused the disaster. Not much has changed really in thirty years.
Luche! Luche! Luche!
“To every village its saint, and to every saint his fiesta,” as the saying goes here. And for every cause, a fighter to wrestle with the problem. A few luchadores I’ve run across recently:
From the far fringes of the U.S. right-wing, those rudos who aren’t clear on the concept, Baracho Liberal:
And… fighting for truth, justice and typography, hailing from the village of San Serif… it’s El Vética!:
2400 boots on the ground in search of a mission
Boz, our “inside the beltway embedded blogger” on Latin American security issues takes the news “1200 troops to border” one step beyond, and asks the obvious question: to do what?
How did the administration arrive at this mission? Under what authorities will the military will be doing intelligence activities inside the US? Aren’t there civilian agencies (FBI, DEA, etc) who could do that better than the National Guard? How does the military “support” counternarcotics enforcement if it is specifically forbidden from being involved in law enforcement? Will the troops be dealing with the south-bound flow of weapons and money too? How many people are Customs and Border Patrol hiring, how long will it take to hire and train them, and is the funding included in the supplemental money? What will the troops be doing on a daily basis? What are the rules of engagement? Are there geographic limits to their activities? How are we coordinating this with the Mexican military fighting on the other side?
I lived on the Texas Big Bend during the last “surge” — which not coincidentally ramped up when immigration and drugs surged as a political issue — and recall several unpleasant incidents. Nothing too serious, and for the most part, people were ok with the extra guys around (the motels and restaurants loved the extra trade) but throwing people at the border, especially soldiers who had no understanding of the border culture (or just the basic demography of the region — Brewster County, where I lived is about half “Hispanic”, Presidio County about 85 percent). Then, as now, it appeared the soldiers were being sent as “backup” to more Border Patrol and other federal agency paramilitary groups mostly to mollify politicians from outside the region who demanded “something must be done” about … what exactly?
Ramon Bracamontes, in the El Paso Times, leads off his report on the troop deployment:
EL PASO — President Barack Obama wants to send 1,200 soldiers and $500 million more to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Obama wants to help Mexico right itself from a drug war while assuring U.S. citizens that the border is secure. The White House staff on Tuesday announced the deployment plan, but would not say when or where on the border soldiers would serve.
Silvestre Reyes and Ciro Rodriguez — the two federal Representatives from the region — both support the deployment, but with reservations.
For Reyes (who worked for over 25 years as a Border Patrol officer and serves on both the Intelligence and Armed Services Committees in the House of Representatives) there is a dual mission:
“The important thing here is that there is a big difference between using the National Guard on the border in a training capacity, as opposed to just deploying soldiers to the border.
“This is a dual request. We get them to help with efforts on the border, and they get training that will help them when they go overseas.”
Which sounds as if sending soldiers to the border is meant to train them to fight “enemies”. One thing I always heard from the soldiers when they were in the Big Bend (many having just returned from overseas assignments without getting a break) was that the region looked like Afghanistan. It does, and the big worry was that WE were seen as the Afghans.
Congressman Rodriguez isn’t specially alluding to that worry (not shared it seems, by all his “Anglo” constituents) when he says:
“Although it’s not clear exactly where these troops will end up, we know they will have a narrowly defined mission and will be at our borders for the express purpose of shoring up existing law enforcement efforts…. Communities like Fort Hancock are living with fear, and that is not acceptable. I am glad that the White House has acknowledged the very real crisis and is sending support troops to the region.”
The “real crisis” of course, being the U.S. supported “drug war”, which this move seeks to escalate, creating even more of a “crisis”.
There will be time, there will be time
…but any visions and revisions are going to have to wait.
I meant to write on General Rafael Buelna, but am hopelessly behind on “real work” right now, not to mention a few deadlines for things that need to be finished this week.
In the meantime, if you think Mexico is hopelessly mired in drugs and corruption, read Bananama Republic for a look at a country that makes Mexico positively puritanical and a model of republican austerity by comparison.
Esther (From Xico) talks about something I mean to get to eventually… the problem of “stuff” and our “first world” insistence on having better stuff than the rest of the planet.
I’d also like to follow up on Hermano Juancito’s dinner party. The grad student who stopped to eat with the visiting Iowans didn’t say much, but what he said is probably the key to all Latin American – “first world” relationships.
And in the always weird world of Mexican politics… I’d like to say more on the Paulette Gebara case (see David Agren for more today). I always thought this was way to early to make assumptions about the 2012 Presidential elections. Peña Nieto is running into trouble (or not) and with Gomez-Mont joining in the criticisms of the State of Mexico governor, I’m leaning more and more to seeing the Secretarío de Gobernacíon as the PAN candidate in 2012. Of course, Gomez-Mont is a protege of Jefe Diego, so there is no hurry on writing about the political mudslinging, when there’s plenty more to dredge up.
And, the black jaguar at Chapultepec Zoo finally has a name. Sicarú (see-ka-ROO) : Zapotec for “handsome”. Indigenous languages swept the name the kitty contest. The second-prize name was “Yaxum” — Chol for “black maize”. Third prize was a Hñähñu name, “Saki” (“leaper”).
Niña Paulette — by any means necessary
Both Gancho and Malcolm Beith have weighed in on the non-settlement (or nonsense) of the Paulette Gebara case. Gancho writes:
To briefly recap, Paulette disappeared in March, the police came and searched the house, both parents acted really oddly (especially the mom), the police came back to recreate the scene of the night of her disappearance, found Paulette’s body in “an opening between the base of the bed, the floor, and the mattress”, detained and interrogated the parents and the girl’s nannies, made public no conclusions, sat on the story for six weeks, and then on Friday suddenly announced that she had smothered herself. This should be in a textbook about how a government can earn the scorn and distrust of its constituents. Freak things do happen in life, and if you told me that a young, developmentally challenged girl (which Paulette was) had fallen awkwardly in her sleep and suffocated, I wouldn’t necessarily think you were full of it. However, given that the government waited so long, that the police could conduct a search of the house and miss the body of the girl they were looking for in her own bedroom, that both parents could behave so oddly in interviews (the mother’s emotions, which appeared utterly incongruent with the circumstances, were especially remarkable), and that Paulette Gebara’s father reportedly has connections to Mexico State governor Enrique Peña Nieto’s political operation, you’d have to be as credulous as a first-grader not to smell a rat.
It looks like, walks like and quacks like a cover-up or basic ineptitude, but there is another avenue for investigation, one I hadn’t even thought of. Paulette, being a developmentally disabled minor, is a person particularly vulnerable to having her human rights violated: which entites here under the Federal District code to special protections. And, with the Gebara family living just across the State of Mexico – Federal District line, there is every indication that some of the actions (or non-actions) that led to her death occurred in the Federal District. So… the Human Rights Commission of the Federal District Assembly is calling on National Human Rights Commissioner Raúl Placencia to mount an investigation.
Of course, it also has to be noted that the Federal District Assembly is overwhelmingly PRD, and the State of Mexico governor is the presumptive PRI presidential candidate in 2012. Unless, oh, some scandal or other derails his ambitions. Yes, that makes her a pawn in a nasty political game, but this may be one of those times where the wheels of justice have skidded and a turn into the skid might be the best course of action.
Where in the world is Jefe Diego?
There were photos, supposedly of the Jefe in captivity, circulating around the internet all weekend, which a few people say show a corpse, but even more note shows the Jefe’s beard appearing to get shorter, which doesn’t sound plausible if the guy is tied up and blind-folded somewhere. When questions started to be raised, suddenly the federal prosecutor announced they were no longer investigating — at his family’s request (or so we’re told). And, oddly enough, no one bothered to tell the Queretaro State Police that they’re off the case.*
I have my doubts about the legal implications of calling off an investigation (and so does the Eduardo Miranda Esquivel, president of the Union of Jurists [the Bar Association]), but — as some have suggested — it’s plausible that kidnappers would tell a family not to work with the investigators.
One mystery has been slightly cleared up. The “bloody scissors” found at the scene (with no indication of the amount of blood nor the size of the scissors, which could have been anything from a beard trimmer to the big honkers used in the market for quartering chickens…. or anywhere in between) were supposedly used to remove the microchip the Jefe — and several other “high visibility” kidnapping targets — had implanted in their arms a few years back.
Both the lack of information — exacerbated by the self-censorship of the nation’s main media outlet, Televisa — over any coverage of the disappearance and no details forthcoming about even minor matters like the type of scissors, the obviously uselessness of the microchips and the national security forces bowing to the wishes of the individual’s family all are likely to make this even more of a political circus than it already is when Congress meets in special session to discuss national security issues.
I’ve suggested two wacky theories I’ve seen floated: that, given Jefe Diego’s ties to organized crime figures, the Army has him or this is all part of an internal political ploy to strengthen the hand of the security hard-liners in the Calderón cabinet. David Agren — who isn’t one for conspiracy theories — seems to offer some evidence of the latter when he writes:
[Diego Fernández de Cevallos] is the political patron of Attorney General Arturo Chávez Chávez and Interior Minister Fernando Gómez-Mont – two of the most senior members of President Felipe Calderón’s so-called security cabinet. Chávez previously worked as a lawyer in Fernández de Cevallos’ firm and only became attorney general last year, replacing Eduardo Medina Mora. Both he and Gómez-Mont are among the most prominent members of the so-called “Diego Faction” in the National Action Party. (“Jefe Diego,” while reputedly pious and, without doubt, controversial – recall the “Highway of Love” built with public and private money to facilitate travelling to his girlfriend’s hometown in the Los Altos region of Jalisco – is not part of the ultra-conservative “El Yunque” as some with unfavorable opinions of the PAN have stated.)
On top of all that we are talking about the guy who engineered Carlos Salinas’ problematic “victory” in 1988, who mysteriously stopped campaigning himself when he started to pull ahead of Ernesto Zedillo during his own run for the presidency in 1994, and who is widely suspected of manipulating the legal case in which Lopez Obrador’s backers were denied a recount of the ballots in 2006.
Figuring out whodunit only scratches the surface of this mystery. Even if it is just an ordinary rich, obnoxious guy kidnapping.
* Something I hadn’t noticed until now, which doesn’t mean anything particularly, but makes the whole thing all that much weirder. Jefe Diego’s disappearance was from his home in Municipio de Pedro Escobedo. That’s where the police chief was unceremoniously sacked after his appearance on national television when he was too shit-faced to get his perp-pix taken by the Federal Police when he and a couple of officers were arrested for drinking and driving and shooting. Cherchez-les-drunks?
Who reads The Mex Files?
Saturday, I suggested the United States government expropriate the B.P. Deepwater gusher — which it would be perfectly legal to do (after all, the government simply takes over and destroys private property during disasters all the time… like when there’s a wildfire, and they tear down houses and bulldoze though properties to build firelines).
Of all people, Lamar Alexander, a Republican Senator from Tennessee, who has been around since the Nixon Administration, seemed to agree with The Mex Files on one of the Sunday Morning snooze programs.
Oh no!
mexfiles.net 