More Sunday readings…
The Amazing Mexican on gay guerrillas …
When I was 18 I joined a in-yo-face gay rights group based on Mexico city who was well know for its rude, raw and loud tactics to rise awareness on HIV , civil unions and some other stuff. The lesson I learned from that was: Mexico wasn’t ready to come out of the closet.
It was in the mid 90’s when before AMLO anti-gay politics and corruption invaded the local congress and ended a lot of initiatives some of the NGO’s and the historical gay movement in Mexico had be trying not to pass as law, but at least discuss it as a possibility in the national agenda. The group would gather in the long-time-gay bunker “El Taller”, located in the hearth of the city, on Tuesday nights there would be readings and conferences on several subjects that had to do with the movement, the HIV crisis and obviously, there would be “onda” and music and booze after that.
Speaking of booze… where were the first wineries in the United States?
…in 1629 the first grapevines were planted along the banks of the Rio Grande on a Piro Indian Mission at Senecu in central New Mexico. Sacramental wine production began there in 1633 and continued for the next 40 years. Meanwhile, vineyards spread along the Rio Grande Valley.
A Taste of Southwest Wine, Becky Brooks, Carmen Estrada, Elvi Nieto and Ruth Vise, Borderlands (El Paso Community College).
Texas may be “the laboratory of bad ideas,” as Mollie Ivins famously put it, but even in Texas, some civil servants try to do the right thing, only to run afoul of Homeland Stupidity, as the Texas Observer reports:
Across Texas, state and federal workers are clashing over children. Toughened federal rules designed to deter illegal immigration are creating unintended consequences for Texas’ Child Protective Services (CPS). Caseworkers along the Texas-Mexico border are struggling to navigate the new policies. It falls to them to care for undocumented children who have been removed from abusive families. Child welfare is a state issue. Immigration is a federal issue. State workers run the risk of five years in prison and several thousand dollars in fines from the federal government just for shepherding their young undocumented charges.
Dang… you know it’s bad when Ronald Reagan was absolutely right: Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.
XicanoPwr — with his usual flair for writing on both pop culture and scholarship — looks at Afro-Mexican culture, and what it means for Mexican-Americans:
African roots go beyond Latina/o pop culture. African roots can be found along side with our indigenous heritage. The long-established Siete Partidas laws of Spain granted slaves the right to select their spouses and during that time, the majority of slaves brought to Mexico were male.
Oaxaca– here we go again…
I haven’t checked in with Jennifer Rogers in a while. When it comes to Oaxaca, and to Mexican traditional agriculture, she’s da (wo)man. Apparently not being physically in Oaxaca right now is a challenge she’s been able to work around.
I wish I was there to give you my own firsthand account. But, for now, here is a post from libcom.org.
Oaxaca in revolt again: the Zócalo reoccupied, motorway tollbooths “liberated”, roads blockaded
May 22nd, 2008 by Alan
A 21 day series of strikes and occupations by the radical Sección 22 in Oaxaca of the Mexican teachers’ union Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores en la Educación kicked off in earnest on Tuesday. As of Thursday, the strike appears to be spreading – with popular support, solidarity and an increasing volume of activity.<!–The teachers’ strike has various demands, although it’s mostly calling for the freedom for all political prisoners, an end to the arrest orders and ongoing intimidation by the judicial authorities against the movement, new elections within the SNTE, and the handing over of all Oaxacan schools controlled by the pro-government Sección 59.
From a blog at the Wall Street Journal:
Posted by David GaffenAnnelena Lobb has this report on how rising corn costs continue to affect Mexico.
As the price of food staples continues to rise around the world, some in Mexico are worrying about another flare-up of the tortilla wars.
Corn prices, which impact the price of tortillas, have been rising.Earlier this week, a tortilla industry group warned of looming price increases for the maize tortilla. The rising price of corn worldwide has fueled inflation in Mexico, causing the central bank to maintain high interest rates in an effort to head off a wage-price spiral in other goods and services.
Thanks, but no thanks
I wrote earlier on the outrage in Mexico over the United States Senate’s conditions attached to “Plan Merida” funding. The plan obviously was meant to subsidize U.S. suppliers of military hardware and training, and the Senate – perhaps with good intentions – added “human rights” conditions that turned out to be unacceptable to the Mexicans. Not because the Mexicans are opposed to human rights, per se, but because it would have given the country that invaded Mexico three times (and has interfered in their internal affairs consistently since 1824) access to sensitive national security data like military personnel records. With this high level PGR (Attorney General’s Office) official weighing in, it appears the Calderon Administration is — like the Mexican left — going to tell the United States to forget it.
This article appeared in Jornada, 24 May 24, 2008 (my translation):
Mexico, DF. Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, Deputy Attorney General for Internatinal Affairs, said that money the United States government proposed sending to Mexico under the so-called “Merida Plan” might be better spent bolstering that country’s Customs’ Service and Border Patrol, to be used to prevent arms trafficking from entering Mexico.
In a radio interview, the high level Federal Justice Department official said that 97 percent of the arsenal used by organized crime groups in Mexico originated with our neighbors to the north.
Santiago Vasconcelos said that the conditions established by the United States Senate for release of the 350 million dollars for anti-narcotics activities in Mexico, required judicial reforms and transparency requirements that “seem a step backwards with respect to our relations with the United States in the matter of illicit drug traffic control, in that they involve unilateral certification. It is up to the Mexican State to accept or reject the funding and, if we accept it, we need to define the terms and conditions.”
The federal civil servant assured that “the initiative is nothing more than a political recognition and a commitment on the part of the North American government to fight the violence in our country, a change from the technology they originally offered Mexico.”
He warned that “overnight, drug trafficking has led to global levels of violence within Mexico. In the Eighties, we did not have a drug problem, and the consumption level was very small. What we are living through now is our lack of foresight then
He added that the most efficient way to combat the problem was more cooperation, in enforcement and, especially, in intelligence
Finally, the assistant attorney general assured that the PGR (Federal Attorney General’s Office) has undertaken a tough job and has had positive results, handicapping the amount of cocaine in the market. As a result, pure cocaine is being replaced in the market by mixtures that are unhealthy for the consumer.
He also added that since the beginning of the present Presidential term, 129 important criminal gang leaders have been extradited: 123 to the United States and the rest to Latin America.
Alfredo (citius64) found this recently in Reforma. It was worth translating in its fully glory, not just for the interesting crime itself, nor for my admiration at the way correspondent Ana Laura Vasquez was able to stretch out the word count by including the police report number (TWICE!) but because I’ve never read a nota rota with such a distinguished list of “victims”.
Tlaxcala, México (21 May 2008 ) — A priest, Rolando Corona Eliosa has been apprehended by the Tlaxcala Federal Prosecutor’s Office on suspicion of robbing sacred art.
The approximately 36 year old cleric was arrested in Municipio San Pablo del Monte, in the southern part of the state, and locked up in the Center for Social Readaption of the Tlaxcalan capital according to informatin provided by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office
According to investigations arising from criminal investigation, AP/RGR/TLAX/35/2004, the suspect, a parish priest in the community of San Andrés Buenavista, took six retablos stored in the chapel of the ex-hacienda El Rosario and from another church in the Municipio of Tlaxco, allegedly for restoration.
However, he did not have the permission of his superiors, nor of the the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) to do so.
In March 2004, he took retablos representing Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Rosalia, Saint Vincent Ferrer, God the Father and the Sorrowful Mother of Jesus as well as an unidentified piece.
On the fifth of September in that same year, when the directors of the ex-hacienda solicited the return of their pieces, Corona Eliosa sent painted replicas.
In March 2005, INAH personnel became suspicious, and conducted tests on the retablos, discovering the counterfeit works.
For having falsified the images, ecclesiastical authorities have suspended Corona Eliosa from his priestly functions.
When questioned, the detainee returned the retablos of Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Rosalia, Saint Vincent Ferrer, God the Father and the Sorrowful Mother of Jesus, but the whereabouts of the unidentified piece are unknown.
As a result of these events, the social representative of the Federation opened criminal investigation file AP/PRG/TLAX/35/3004, including relevent complaints, and – not being able to locate the missing oil painting – determined there was a probable criminal violation of the Federal Law Regarding Monuments, Archeological Zones, Artistic and Historical Works.
“Federal agents complied with an apprehension order requested by the Federal Minister’s Office for crimes against the people of San Pablo del Monte, taking the prisoner to the Center for Social Readaption in the state Capital while the legal process continues,” the Federal Prosecutor’s Office press release stated.
However, the priest could be released on conditional liberty since robbing sacred art is not considered a serious crime in Tlaxcala.
Bullshit, bullshit and more bullshit
An alarming headline in the San Antonio Express-News reads “Mexican homicides jump 47 pct.”
Ah… no… narcotics-dealer related homicides are up 47 percent. Which is supposedly a good thing — dead gangsters don’t commit crimes. According to Eduardo Medina Mora, the Attorney General,
“… the violence reflects drug gangs’ desperation amid the nationwide crackdown, carried out by more than 20,000 soldiers and federal police.
“Evidently when they are cornered and weakened, they have to respond with violence,” Medina Mora said.
Analysts say recent arrests have created a power vacuum and gangs are battling for valuable drug routes and territory.
Grits for Breakfast, Scott Henson’s generally sensible Texas justice blog,
…fears we could soon witness Mexico fall outright into the malaise of a failed state.
He bases this, apparently, on the resignation of the entire Zirandaro, Guerrero police department. It wasn’t clear if he was talking about the town, or the municipio (county) of that name. The municipio has a population of 23,000 and, if the place is known at all, it’s only for having been the birthplace of cardiologist Ignacio Chavez.
Though narcotics violence does tend to dominate the news (“if it bleeds, it leads” doesn’t translate well in Spanish, but the sensibilities of media management is the same around the world), there are more important things than gangsters popping each other, or a small town police force resigning en masse (all what — 4 of them?) … which could have been a dispute over supplies (some of these small town rural departments don’t give their cops bullets, or don’t have the budget for a car) or pensions, or anything.
Even here in Sinaloa, where the gangster wars dominate the news, the lead story in Noroeste was about a protest over a rural road building project. El Debate, which correctly noted that there was a 47% rise in NARCO-homicides, devoted the bulk of their front page to various new health department initiatives around the State.
There’s disagreement about how serious the drug fight is among various political leaders in Guerrero, and a lot of discussion about beach access… but nothing in any of the Guerrero papers from Zirandaro… which doesn’t make the news even on a slow day.
One guy who isn’t full of bullshit is “el longhorn”… though he believes Laura Carleson’s take on PEMEX privatization was full of caca. “el longhorn” writes:
Even to say that Pemex is not contracting out is wrong. As the article notes, Pemex imports 40% of its gasoline from the US – thanks for the money and jobs, Mexico (high paying jobs, too)! Wouldn’t it be better for Mexico if, instead of importing fuel and oil products from US refineries, Pemex allowed the same people to build and operate a new refinery in Mexico? Then the jobs and the capital investment would stay in Mexico instead of being outsourced to the US – what a thought!
I can’t find the original source, but I did read one of the “lefty” commentators making essentially the same point… that ironically it’s the conservatives who are fighting to keep gasoline prices artificially low (he notes they’re the guys who drive gas-using Mercedes to work… not the folks who take deisel-burning buses or the Metro). While the columnist proposes shifting subsidies to diesel, gasoline prices are artificially low, and raising them to reflect the cost of imported gasoline (and refining done outside Mexico) would only minimally affect inflation, and would free up a tremendous amount of capital for PEMEX.
I think el longhorn may have misread Carlsen, or she may have been careless, but it wasn’t so much a sinister plot that the previous four presidential administrations negelected PEMEX… it was just politically easier to ignore long-range problems and continue using the company as a revenue source.
Despite pressure from PAN — and some from PRI — I don’t think we will see PEMEX opened to foreign investment. IF there are foreign contractors, I expect they’ll be from a state-owned company, like Norway’s Statsoil or Brazil’s Petrobrras, or even the Venezuelan-owned PDVSA… not Exxon-Mobile or Shell. Or, possibly, PEMEX will RENT equipment.
Besides which, arguing about the future direction of a state oil company is not what a country does that is supposed to be in melt-down.
Another reason to shoot your television
Paul Waldman (The Sanctuary) reviews a worthwhile “Media Matters” report on U.S. cable news (the idiots I’m spared watching — Lou Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck — since I don’t have American cable television, and don’t want it) coverage of immigration and inter-American affairs:
If your only source of news is cable during prime time, you might be among those who believe that the U.S. government and American society are groaning under the weight of undocumented immigrants. You might believe that there is a terrifying crime wave attributable to illegal immigration. You might believe that undocumented immigrants feast on a cornucopia of social services, while avoiding paying taxes. You might also believe that they are voting illegally in large numbers, and that they bring with them all sorts of diseases. You might also believe that there are secret plans afoot to give away American sovereignty, as the United States joins with Canada and Mexico in a North American Union similar to the European Union. You might even believe that there is an enormous “NAFTA Superhighway,” running all the way from Mexico City to Toronto, in the works as we speak.
All of these ideas are false, but you might believe them if you watch prime-time cable news.
The last shall be first…
It must have to do with the nuances of editorial style. The information in the first paragraph of the Notimex report on statements by Mexican Deputy Federal Attorney General for International Affairs, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, at a border security conference in Austin, Texas is buired down in paragraph six in the Associated Press version:
Here’s the AP version:
AUSTIN — Mexico is attempting to combat organized crime through judicial system reforms while working with the U.S. to try to curb a security crisis on the border, a Mexican deputy attorney general said Wednesday.
Mexico’s leaders are looking to establish public, oral trials and new roles for judges along with protection of crime victims, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, deputy federal attorney general for international affairs, told a border security conference in Austin.
“These are much-needed tools to combat organized crime, and this is what we are debating in Mexico,” he said in Spanish, using an English interpreter. “The goal is to go after the financing of this organized crime.”
He told of one suspected criminal who spent $190 million in Las Vegas, including $14 million in one night.
“This is the enemy that Mexico is confronting with all of its resources,” Vasconcelos said. The country is spending $3.9 billion a year to fight organized crime, he said.
Money and weapons flowing from the United States fuel drug trafficking and organized crime in Mexico, to the tune of some $10 billion per year, he said.
And I suspect the weaponry is being bought at wholesale, not retail, prices. How else can you explain how a couple of Sinaloa farmboys were driving around with one of these in their pickup? (Photo: Noroeste de Sinaloa):
That’s a Barrett 50 mm. “rifle” — that, in the words of a gun enthusiast I interviewed about a manufacturer of these weapons who was moving to Alpine, Texas said, “will turn an elk into fajitas at half a mile.” They’ll also take out a freight train. The list of manufacturers doesn’t include anyone in Mexico.. They retail for about $7000 US, more than most rural families in Sinaloa earn in a good year.
And… maybe some training too? The State Department denies it.
“Peace on Earth…”
For what it’s worth, the 2008 Global Peace Index shows Mexico as the 93rd most peaceful nation on earth. Iceland is the most peaceful, Iraq the least. The United States ranks BELOW Mexico, at 97th — due in part to its military capability, and the huge percentage of the population that is in jail at any time. Mexico particularly lost points for access to weapons of minor destruction… I don’t think they mean machetes and rocks.
A new national record!
Though not one to be proud of: 34 narcotics-related murders in a single day, the most ever. Much like the Bush administration spins the growing casualty rate in Iraq as proof “the surge is working”, the alarming murder rate is supposedly good news.
My local newspaper (el Debate) has taken to running narco-murders on their own page(s), separate from the rest of the normal mayhem of the day reports. I don’t know if it will help or hurt, but every one of our state (Sinaloa) police commanders was replaced with military administrators a few days ago.
Over the weekend, I missed the annual Goat Festival , having to go to Lerdo, through the supposedly lawless mountains of Sinaloa and Durango. It was kind of a boring trip. Which is a good sign, I suppose.
When I think about it, the cartels are no different from any other multinational corporation going through consolidation and “reduction in force.” It’s just that when you hear talk of a “bloodbath” in the automotive or accounting industry, it’s more figurative than literal. And shakeups in the executive suite at the local steel plant aren’t particularly folkloric… though in Sinaloa’s most famous agrobusiness they certainly are.
It’s good to be king
Royalty are usually conservatives, but unlike American conservatives aren’t hypocrites.
North of the border, it appears our republican (and Republican) conservatives — when they aren’t stealing money, or their neighbors’ water (or teenage sons) — or finding some new kink not mentioned in the Ten Commandments… Like thou shalt not cavort in diapers with ladies of the evening, — are begetting “love children”.
We’re always shocked, shocked to discover that conservatives are a bunch of self-serving hypocrites. Down here, we already know that. When the former #2 man in the last administration, point man in spinning a minor spat over eminent domain into an all out push to get Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador tossed in the slammer, wanna-be PAN presidential candidate and presently PAN leader in the Senate, Santiago Creel Miranda, fessed up that he begat four-year old daughter with telenovela star, Edith González, the reaction is… SO????
How do you expect conservatives to act? Creel Miranda comes from a long line of richer than is good for them norteños, who’ve been grabbing what they wanted since the days of Porfirio Diaz. The Creel-Terrazas family were always something like royalty in Chihuahua — at least in the sense that they married for dynastic reasons and hung on to power through regime changes through strategic alliances with whomever was in power at the time.
And, boinking the hoi polloi.
It’s good to be king … even if it’s only King of Chihuahua.
0.000002
With the hoo-haw in the New York Times about a U.S. citizen being one of the latest bodies to turn up among the shake-out in the narcotics distribution business reorganization, something worth noting…
Drug violence killed more than 2,500 people in Mexico last year.
With the Mexican population at about 120,000,000 that’s a death rate of
2500/120,000,000 or 0.000002 per thousand.
This year, so far the attrition rate for narcotics export workers and associated trades is higher (1300 and counting), but overall, hardly enough to justify alarmist rhetoric about a “failed state.”
Bad ass meets hard ass
Crime rears it’s ugly head (or hooves, in this instance) in rural Mexico. Courtesy of yesterday’s Milenio (my translation):
Tuxtla Gutiérrez – A burro has been jailed up for being a real ass. Police jailed a donkey after he bit and kicked two men walking near a hacienda on the outskirts of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, capital of the southeastern State of Chiapas, according to authorities.
Police officer Sinar Gómez said the animal will remain locked up until his owner pays the medical expenses incurred by the affected pair. “Around here, if somebody commits a crime, they go to jail. It doesn’t matter to us who they are,” Gómez explained.
The burro’s owner, Mauro Gutiérrez, said he would pay the medical bills, which are expected to run about 420 Dollars. This is not the first time an animal has been jailed in Chiapas.
Last month, a bull was remanded to custody after eating seed corn and destroying two woodsheds. In that case, the owner also made restitution. In 2006, a dog was jailed for 12 days after biting a person. The judicial authorities ordered the dog’s owners to pay a fine equivalent to 18 dollars.
Photo from: JD Hancock II (http://www.jdhancock.com/baddonkey.asp)
mexfiles.net 