Ya think?
(photos: El Universal Television)
Nacha Cattan, in The (Mexico City) News:
Mexico City’s human rights commissioner expressed concern Friday that some of the 23 marchers arrested in Thursday’s rally commemorating the Oct. 2, 1968, Tlatelolco massacre showed signs of having been beaten.
While condemning the few marchers who vandalized and attacked police at the end of the largely peaceful rally, Emilio Alvarez Icaza said police may have engaged in revenge attacks on those arrested.
The commission is investigating six complaints by those detained, including one whose nose was fractured, as well as allegations that plainclothes cops roughed up the prisoners. Photos released on El Universal’s Web site show some of the detained with black eyes and gashes on their bodies.
Every year, the Tlaltelolco Massacre Memorial March is, as Cattan says, “raucous affair, as thugs unaffiliated with the 1968 student movement seize on the event to act violently.” I’m not sure the people who every year smash out McDonald’s windows are “thugs” … it seems to me every year a McDonalds’ gets their windows smashed, and every year, the Sec. de Goberacion finds new “outside agitators” to blame. My favorite so far was Santiago Creel who blamed goths and skateboarders.
The “annual striking of symbolic blows against the imperalist corporate hegemony” is a traditional part of the exercise. The banks finally installed shatter-proof glass (actually, the Lopez Obrador administration forced the banks to adopt a few basic security measures common in Europe and the United States, which the bankers tried to spin as socialist impositions, but that’s another story), but not Micky D’s. They must pay a fortune for breakage insurance.
And, who were the “thugs” who infiltrated the march anyway? In 1968, military units were with the students (and, historians and witnesses agree, opened fire on the crowd), but there were no cell phone cameras, or I-pods. El Universal — and ordinary protesters — discovered Judiciales among the marchers — in civilian clothing, but all wearing Pumas football warmup jackets — and carrying weapons, among the marchers.
I made a mistake when I said Felipe Calderon made no mention of the anniversary. He did, claiming that was then, it was tragic, but we’re democratic today. His remarks were at an awards ceremony for academic achievement. One of these academic achievers — Leonardo Gómez Emilsson — responded “¡Espurio!” (a rather learned word for “bullshit!”, but then young Gómez is an award-winning academic achiever). Young Mr. Gómez was surrounded by officers from the
- Would you trust free speech to this kid?
Estado Mayor (the military unit that functions like the Secret Service in the United States) and told to cool it. His compadre, fellow academic achiever Marco Jiménez Santiago, apparently disagreeing with Calderon’s statement that the country had overcome its repressive past, spoke up: saying ¡no hay libertad en este país, no hay libertad! also earned him a second award. Gómez and Jiménez were arrested and hauled before a federal judge for their temerity.
Uh-ohhh. These are good kids, from very good (i.e., establishment) families who go to good schools (i.e. expensive private ones) and have dads who will come bail you out of jail. And show up with their lawyers. Who will call the media and the civil rights organizations.
At least they weren’t beaten… or shot. Progress, not perfection?
No comment
The one event that marked the beginning of the end of the “perfect dictatorship” has been noted by everyone in Mexico, and most of the rest of the planet… with one glaring exception.
President Felipe Calderón made no statement about the Tlatelolco massacre on Thursday in spite of mounting calls from rights groups that his administration open up new investigations to clear up all unanswered questions.
…
Amnesty also urged the Calderón administration to provide reparations for the families of the victims.
José Luis Arena, a spokesman for Los Pinos, would not give a reason for the president´s failure to address Tlatelolco on Thursday.
Past presidents, Vicente Fox among them, have made moves toward investigating the facts of what happened at Tlatelolco, but according to researchers and victims´ relatives, a lack of follow-through on the government´s part – or its reneging on promises – has meant that little progress has been made to uncover the truth.
Two drips… or peas in a pod
Anyone who has ever taught a foreign language knows what a trap idioms and expressions can be. While some English expressions (“six of one, a half-dozen of the other”) are a tad tricky for cultural reasons (who counts by dozens outside the English-speaking world?) you can usually find a cultural substitute to give the same idea.
This ad is from a Florida congressional district where both English and Spanish advertising is essential to selling any product. The Colombian-born challenger claims the Cuban-born incumbent is basically just a clone of George W. Bush. But, saying that in both languages requires different idiomatic expressions and a different ad.
First in English:
Then in Spanish:
(Sombrero tip to DailyKos.com)
It was only a matter of time
Mexican President Felipe Calderón, who has made fighting drug traffickers the centerpiece of his administration, proposed legislation on Thursday that would decriminalize the possession of small quantities of cocaine and other drugs for addicts who agreed to undergo treatment.
A similar measure two years ago provoked strong opposition from the United States and was eventually dropped.
Under Calderón’s proposal, Mexican authorities would not prosecute people found to be carrying small amounts of drugs if they declared they were addicts and submitted to a treatment program.
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
I don’t think this should surprise anyone. I mentioned back in August that the PRD was thinking of introducing legislation to decriminalize narcotics use in the Federal District, and Calderon’s proposal seems to be a more Washington-friendly version of the same bill. Incidentally, the recent abortion ruling is what makes the decriminalization proposal likely... the court didn’t rule that abortion was moral or immoral, but that legislatures had the right (and duty) to regulate public health.
Narcotics use had been seen as a public health issue until recently, and my only objection to legalizing the narcotics sales is that the largest customer — the United States — and major source — Colombia — also treat the trade as a criminal matter, which means distribution will still be in the hands of gangsters, and not really contibute to security here.
My only concern about the rule requiring users to seek treatment (and, I’m not convinced that just using narcotics makes one an addict — or a social problem necessarily) could be used, as it is in U.S. states that have similiar laws, as an easy way to raise revenue (making the user pay for his or her treatment) and, that treatment models from the U.S. may not be completely applicable to Mexico. I know plenty of “recovering alcoholics” who claim that vows to the Virgin of Guadalupe (and a pilgrimage to the Shrine) is responsible for their recovery. Who am I to say it’s not true? It works for them. And, there are those who use narcotics for ritual and social reaons in this country (think peyote) — setting up yet another “usos y costumbres” clash.
Fraude Mexico 2006 — part 10 of 10
2 October 1968: A scene straight out of Hell
Malcolm Beith in today’s The (Mexico City) News:
“The soldiers fired at the buildings, from the buildings, and then, into the masses,” Félix Hernández said. “The plaza was full, there were kids there. We could see that many were dead. The massacre was brutal.”
The bullets were indiscriminate, according to eyewitnesses who lived to tell their story. Women, children – even the white-gloved special forces, by some counts – were fired upon.
“In a few minutes the whole thing became a scene straight out of hell. The gunfire was deafening,” recounted one witness in Elena Poniatowska’s “The Night of Tlatelolco.”
Unable to get past soldiers and Olympic special forces to help those below, Félix Hernández and his fellow students ran to the third floor of the Edificio Chihuahua, and knocked on a friend’s door. About 20 of them crammed into the friend’s apartment, sneaking glances out the window every now and then to survey the carnage in the square. The soldiers were firing everywhere.
Making sense
Crimes, when first reported, don’t always make sense. I started out to write on the Eiler murder in Oaxaca (a twenty-year old dance teacher’s murder that was being used as – I think unconscionably — for political purposes), but I can’t think straight.
I’m tired. It happens. I haven’t NOT written at least one new post a day since at least April. I find myself writing more about politics and current events than about history and culture and havent’ had the time to work on other projects like I should. And, though this isn’t a “personal blog” I have a personal life and sometimes that has to take priority. Like admitting to myself that I just need a day off.
I posted the “Fraude Mexico 2006” videos to run this week, fully intending to comment on each one as they were scheduled to appear. But, I just couldn’t work yesterday, and will have to catch them up later. All I was able to do last night was this short piece (I’ll schedule it to post at 9:30 on Thursday) and come back to things later.
Here, in Mazatlan, an attempted payroll robbery at one of the new condo construction projects went south…. with army chases down the beach, shootings, etc. Of course, the retirees and foreigners who live up that way were freaked, but the baddies were caught, and… once it got weirder, the robbery made sense. And actually showed that things are getting better, not worse.
The payroll robbers were out-of-town hitmen (which nicely clears up the not very mysterious discovery of a couple headless corpses in a stolen SUV down by my local supermarket) who’d been operating out of a nice, quiet home in a gringo-heavy neighborhood while doing their various torturing, beheadings, and other dirty deeds. Now that should freak out the gringos, but it demonstrates what I’ve thought for some time… that the gringo ghetto-dwellers don’t have anything to do with their Mexican neighbors, and — unlike people in a normal Mexican neighborhood — don’t notice the neighbors to begin with. And, of course, gangsters are looking to improve their economic status in ways that legitimate workers can’t: of course they want to live in the upscale areas. I used to figure the safest place in any town to live was next to the local mafia boss…. though these guys weren’t ‘da boss’ and they tended to bring their work home with them.
Anyway… and this is very interesting… these guys turned to robbing payrolls for the simple reason that they hadn’t received their paychecks. Did Lehman Brothers cut off credit to the cartels? Or, is the “surge” in the war on (some) drugs working? Either way, it’s a good thing when eight hitmen go to the slammer, a few crimes get resolved and there’s every indication that the cartels are having financial problems.
Fraude Mexico 2006 — part 9 of 10
Fraude Mexico 2006 — part 8 of 10
Confronting terrorism
The grenade attack on the Independence Day Grito in Morelia was called, among other things, a Mexican 9-11.
The upcoming celebration of Morelia’s namesake, Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon will go on as scheduled… with President Calderon in attendence. And… Crown Prince Felipe of Spain and Princess Leticia.
No panic… no sense that “everything has changed,” no calls for radical legal changes and — beyond a one-day media blitz of politicians posturing about a return of the death penalty (saner people, including the Bishops, put the kibosh on that one)… the best response to terrorism is simple. Refuse to be terrorized.
Like a rock…
The peso took a nosedive yesterday (probably temporary)… but this is an excellent opportunity to make contributions to the Mex Files go further… your dollars, Euros, pounds… are a much safer investment here than anywhere else, apparently.
And, though Mexico is taking a hit, Mexicans themselves are being realistic. Carlos Slim, in Mercopress this morning, goes up in my estimation, being willing to face reality and not — like his Wall Street brethren is willing to suck it up and deal with the situation. Muy macho:
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and Latinamerica’s richest man is calling the current financial crisis the worst he has ever seen and anticipated it is going “to impact everybody”. It’s a very difficult situation and it will affect all economies he added.
Slim says today’s crisis is “more complex” than any other since 1929, when stock markets plummeted, triggering the Great Depression.Slim spoke Monday minutes after U.S. lawmakers rejected a financial bailout that US Treasury officials had hoped would calm jittery investors.
Instead, markets plunged in the US, and Latin American indices saw some of their biggest losses in years.
Slim suggested that bank shareholders and executives should shoulder some responsibility for failing financial institutions, predicting that they “will obviously lose their capital in a substantial manner”.
Ironically, or otherwise, Mexican banks are sound, and Latin America in general is probably a safe place to park your funds. As a matter of fact, Carlos Slim is involved in setting up yet another Mexican bank… specifically designed for those poor people (and IXE bank is expanding into retail banking) the right-wingers in the U.S. would have us believe are responsible for the collapse in their own country, as opposed to the management and criminally irresponsible lack of oversight and their failure to investment in goods and services, but instead, to gamble:
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and Bangladeshi Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus are joining forces to offer credit to poor people in Mexico.
Slim and Yunus are creating Grameen-Carso, a lending institution that in its first phase will provide at least 80,000 loans.
Slim is committing at least US$45 million to the venture, which they expect to expand to other parts of Latin America.
Slim said Monday the institution will follow the model developed by Yunus’ Grameen Bank.
Yunus and his Grameen Bank in 2006 won the Nobel Prize in economics for pioneering the use of microcredit to spur creation of small businesses in poor nations.
Fraude Mexico 2006 — part 7 of 10
With several questionably close elections in recent years (and possibly this year) in even “advanced democracies”, it’s not unreasonable to suspect that the vote count was manipulated for the advantage of entrenched power groups. Nor, is it unusual for to accuse the media of spinning the news, or of taking sides on behalf on the elite. While in the U.S. it’s generally the left (or what passes for a left), both on the right and the left there’s an assumption that the “mainstream media” has an agenda at odds with their own.
The questionably close count in the 2006 election, and the seeming avidity of Televisa (the only television network of any significance in Mexico) and other media giants to claim the very narrow Calderon victory was legitimate was not uniquely Mexican. Nor was Lopez Obrador’s call for a complete recount. Costa Rica had recently had a similarly close election, and — having an electorial system similar to Mexico’s — did recount the ballots.
This clip shows the buildup to what would become mass street protests following the official announcement of Calderon’s assumed election based on the original PREP count. Specifically, AMLO is questioning the political ties of Televisa’s CEO Emilio Fernando Azcárraga Jean to the Fox administration and PAN. Azcárraga Jean is the son of Emilio Azcárraga Milmo (who is alleged to have once said in an unguarded moment “Mexico is a fucked up country that needs to be kept entertained”) and grandson of Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta, who founded the network. Televisa has always been accused of being uncritical of the government in power (their most famous newscaster, Jacobo Zabludovsky said he considered it his job to support the PRI during their long reign).
Azcárraga Jean’s personal ties to the Fox Administration are questioned by AMLO, and this portion of the video shows dubious ballot handling (questioned by a “citizen journalist”) in Tabasco. Tabasco, incidentally is where AMLO started his political career, and where he first had to confront overt fraud denying him public office. That election, for state governor resulted in federal investigations into spending irregularities (the “winner” — Roberto Madrozo who was the PRI Presidential candidate in 2006 — spent more on advertising in this election than Bill Clinton spent running against Bob Dole for President of the United States in 1996. The federal investigator, Santiago Creel, would run against AMLO for governor of the Federal District in 2000 and then became Home Secretary or “Interior Minister” in the Fox Administration. As a result of Creel’s investigation — which led to no prosecutions — an interim governor was appointed until a new election was held).
The only thing unusual would be the massive non-violent protest movement.
mexfiles.net 