I have yet to see any positive reaction in any Mexican media outlet to the Senate Appropriations Committee’s approval of “Plan Merida” — with conditions. While even those who welcome the funding (and equipment– or rather the funds to buy the equipment from favored U.S. contractors) recognize the whole thing is, as “Chaotic Order” rightly labels it in his comment “mierda”, the editorial in Monday’s Jornada is just short of one I saw in an Chilpancingo paper that called Felipe Calderón a “Santa Ana” for giving up Mexican sovereignty to the United States without so much as a peep. Santa Ana at least fought back, when it was convenient.
My translation:
The United States Senate Appropriations Committee has imposed a series of conditions for the approval of funds meant to combat narcotics trafficking and insecurity under the so-called “Mérida Initiative” or “Plan Mexico.” Among the requirements are certification by the State Department of the neighboring country that we have, in our country, begun “legal and judicial reforms”; establishing – under the control of authorities in Washington – a database of Mexican police and military forces to guarantee that … troops and police that receive funds are not involved in human rights violations or corruption.”
Also, the legislation demands that the office headed by Condoleezza Rice certifies that “Mexico is making progress in the prohibition against the judicial use of testimonies obtained by means of torture”. In addition, it requires that special agents of the Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives be allowed to operate in Mexico for the purpose of “tracking arms used by drug dealers”..
It is no secret that there is a high level of participation by police and military authorities in serious human rights violations, and it does not escape anyone’s attention that organized crime has manage to infiltrate these corporations to an alarming and scandalous degree. Nor is it unknown that torture continues to be used in our country. .
In that sense, the Senate Finance Committee demands could be morally reasonable, if it was not for their naked attempt to intervene in others’ affairs and the shameless hypocrisy of the thing.
On the one hand, the requirement that a dependency of the Washington government approve or disapprove of the performance of a sovereign nation in a particular area – in this case approving of human rights actions – is a return to the infamous process of “certification”, which was used for many years, by which the State Department rewarded or punished other states’ administrations, not for upholding individual guarantees, or for fighting crime, but for their political and ideological, or as a means to exert interventionist pressures.
The Mexican government always, as a matter of policy, has unequivocally rejected the pretension of the authorities of the neighboring country to apply their laws to other countries. As of now, it would be simply unacceptable for the Calderon administration to allow itself to be put under the scrutiny of, and dependent on, certification from Washington. Calderon’s presidency is seen as a sell-out by diverse sectors in society – especially in regards to its eagerness to transfer entire sectors of the oil industry to multi-national interests — and, given his administration’s questionable legimacy from the beginning, putting his administration under these constraints would entail a serious political cost internally. It is hoped Calderon will come to his own senses, and the sense of the nation in this matter.
To allow to a foreign power, wherever it is, to build a data base designed to “scrutinize” the Mexican armed forces would be an unconscionable abdication of basic national security obligations, unimaginable in any country.. Outside of any other objectionable aspects of the Merida Initiative, this single requirement formulated by the committee is sufficient reason to reject the agreement.
On the other hand, for the United States to verify respect for another nation’s respect for human rights is grotesque and frankly absurd, when one considers that on a global scale, the superpower is the principal violator of these rights. Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, the CIA’s secret flights, the severe curtailment of their citizen’s liberties and individual guarantees, as well as the un-going crimes against humanity perpertrated in Afghanistan and Iraq – the inescapable conclusion is that the government of the United States has turned to murder, kidnapping, bombing civilians and general terrorism as State policy.
In addition, the administration of George W. Bush has declared that torture is legal, on condition that it is not called as such. With those antecedents, Washington lacks any moral authority to blame or to approve of third parties countries. Our country, given the massive impunity enjoyed by public servants who run rough-shod over citizens, faces a long struggle to guarantee our human rights. But the United States is not, in any sense, the referee of respect and legality in this land.
OUCH!
Alas, poor Canada
There has been a string of violent incidents involving Canadians in Mexico since 2007.
Domenic and Nancy Ianiero of Woodbridge, Ont., were found with their throats slit in February, 2006 at a resort near Playa del Carmen, Mexico. No arrests were ever made.
Based on a sketchy report of a Canadian (at least the fellow is reported as a Canadian, though the name isn’t a common one) being shot THREE TIMES IN THE HEAD in a Cabo San Lucas hotel room by a “lone gunman”, the Canadian press takes the opportunity to revisit their greatest “hits”.
I don’t understand it (or maybe I do, given the sorry state of Canadian press ownership), but piecing together a murder from 2006, with a hit and run accident and a fall from a balcony does not create any sort of pattern … other than the three mentioned deaths all involve survivors with the same attorney, who incidentally represented Conrad Black — the former owner of most Canadian media — Edward Greenspun.
THAT might be a pattern worth looking at.
And I’m not anti-Canadian (some of my best friends are…) but I do feel sorry for a country with so little decent press… maybe their good reporters are working in Mexico.
Sunday reading
Laura Carlsen, who is probably the best informed foreign writer on Mexican political and social policy, nicely summarizes “Mexico’s Battle Over Oil” for Foreign Policy in Focus:
Ironically the politicians calling for handing over refining and other Pemex operations to foreign companies are the same ones responsible at least in part for the company’s current incapacity. What all the reports fail to mention is that much of the deterioration of Pemex occurred under the watch of the same political party that now argues that the only way to save the company is to contract out to the private sector. Felipe Calderon served as secretary of energy in the Fox administration from 2003-2004. PAN governments have held power for nearly eight years, during which time Pemex had record sales due to high international oil prices. What happened to all that money? Why wasn’t it reinvested in the oil company to avoid the current crisis?
The bleeding of PEMEX was a conscious administrative and political decision, for two reasons. First, the funds siphoned out of the petroleum behemoth masked the real state of the Mexican economy. The Treasury Ministry used Pemex income, and especially the windfall profits of the past few years that are not earmarked in the congressionally approved budget, as a petty cash box. Much of this money went to pay off foreign debt. Some of it disappeared into corruption such as the Pemexgate case of financing the PRI presidential candidacy. And much of the rest ended up in presidential pet projects. Successive administrations bled Pemex for political aims and with little or no accountability to Congress or the Mexican people.>/span>
Second, neoliberal administrators intentionally sought to create a dismal outlook for the state-owned enterprise to strengthen their difficult case for privatization. Only by presenting a doomsday scenario could they hope to pass the key legislative reforms regarding the oil industry that would finally fulfill the objectives for structural reform envisioned by the World Bank, the U.S. government, and Mexico’s neoliberal governments.
Reuters reports on Mexico’s first transgender wedding.
Joey Gomez, of the Rio Grande Guardian, writes on the latest insanity by the Department of Homeland Stupidity (you, know, the federal department that includes FEMA — the folks who “responded” so well in New Orleans, and elsewhere):
And, in East Side Boxing News: Mexican Jorge “el Travisio” (the Menace) Arce… all 115 pounds of him… is the new WBC super-flyweight champion.
As far as I know, my book is supposed to be out by August. The editor has been reviewing the proofreader’s corrections and working on maps and the index. I’m tied up for the next week or two writing the history section for a guidebook to Mexico City, so will be back to less than daily postings for a few…
via “Raw Story”, I found this gem. P.Z. Meyers, is a biology professor in Morris Minnesota — about as heartland as you can find. Michael Medved is some idiot from Hollywood.
Did someone declare this National Flaming Racist Idiot week, and I just didn’t notice until now? You have got to read Michael Medved’s latest foray into pseudoscience: he has declared American superiority to be genetic, encoded in our good old American DNA. Because our ancestors were immigrants, who were risk-takers, who were selected for their energy and aggressiveness. Oh, except for those who are descended from slaves.
The idea of a distinctive, unifying, risk-taking American DNA might also help to explain our most persistent and painful racial divide – between the progeny of every immigrant nationality that chose to come here, and the one significant group that exercised no choice in making their journey to the U.S. Nothing in the horrific ordeal of African slaves, seized from their homes against their will, reflected a genetic predisposition to risk-taking, or any sort of self-selection based on personality traits.
Medved works for some “intelligent design” think tank, so I’m guessing risk-taking is all part of God’s plan. After all, being an Orthodox Jew, I doubt very much Medved would dare suggest that some people are the natural master race, would he?
I guess not. By Medved’s logic, REAL risk takers — you know, people who cross the desert to live without official work permits… or take any job they can once their leaky raft from Haiti ends up in Florida… are the übermenchen, ja?.
Deliveryman Noe Reyes sends 500 dollars a week home to his family in Puebla. Photo by Dulce Pinzón.
Do we need the troops?
I wasn’t going to post this until tomorrow, but George Friedman’s usual bleak analysis for Stratfor (Mexico: On the Road to a Failed State?) was sent to me a few minutes ago. Friedman, in what you expect from a report meant to sell security services in the United States, at least does see narotics exports as a problem primarily for the United States:
The amount of money accumulated in Mexico derives from smuggling operations in the United States. Drugs go one way, money another. But all the money doesn’t have to return to Mexico or to third-party countries. If Mexico fails, the leading cartels will compete in the United States, and that competition will extend to the source of the money as well. We have already seen cartel violence in the border areas of the United States, but this risk is not limited to that. The same process that we see under way in Mexico could extend to the United States; logic dictates that it would.
The current issue is control of the source of drugs and of the supply chain that delivers drugs to retail customers in the United States. The struggle for control of the source and the supply chain also will involve a struggle for control of markets. The process of intimidation of government and police officials, as well as bribing them, can take place in market towns such as Los Angeles or Chicago, as well as production centers or transshipment points.
I see no evidence that “loyalties are shifting to the cartels.” A lot of thoughtful people are worried by the administration’s response to drug trafficking, but that just means people believe the policy is a failure, not the state. Incidentally, “failed state” — though coined by that old anarchist Noam Chomsky (who says the United States is a “failed state”) — is normally used to justify intervention in the “failed” nation (Haiti, Bosnia, etc.), or to sell military equipment (Colombia) on the pretext that “we” can’t afford to let “them” fail.
Tiny, dirt-poor Guinea-Bissau, is called a “failed state” basically because it has a thriving narcotics transshipment trade… but then, that’s about all Guinea-Bissau has. Mexico has — and will continue to have — oil, gold, silver, lead, agricultural products, fisheries, manufacturing, film, etc. etc. etc. industries. Even if the narcotics trade is — as Friedman claims — responsible for 40 billion dollars a year the U.S. spends overseas, it doesn’t mean all of that money goes to Mexico… nor that the Mexican economy is solely dependent on that money (or that… given about forty years… the source of funding for other Mexican businesses will matter all that much). However, media attention (corporate media attention??? — see the end of my piece) ignores the economic reality in favor of the “failed state” alarmist reports.
My point (which needs to be clarified, and I may revise this later) is that the top-down approach — and military solution — being pursued by the Calderon administration is creating problems. Throwing more military forces at the problem, like the U.S. “surge” in Iraq, is counter-intuitive. Especially when tried and true techniques (like better police work, and rural development programs) — mixed with shutting off the weapons and money spigot from the United States — are likely to be more effective in the long run.
And, besides… everyone expected “drug violence” to include attacks on police officials over the short term. But, unfortunately, we believe what’s in our interest to believe. And, it’s in the interest of Statfor’s clients to invest in military “solutions” rather than resolve the root cause of a national problem.
With the gangsters bumping each other off all over Cuilcán (and one Sinaloa Ministeral Police — i.e., the investigative police — chief here in Mazatlán) the predictable reaction by the Calderon administration is to throw more soldiers at the problem.
Given that the soldiers and federal police are probably a greater danger to us civilians than the gangsters. The gangsters generally hit their targets, anyway. And, seeing they have had to advertise for openings, and aren’t as well armed as you think, maybe going about this the wrong way.
The big hit last week — Chapo Guzmán’s kid — was with a bazooka. You can’t tell me the gangsters have more than one of ’em. That’s basic “CSI” type work — trace back the weapon to its source, and follow it back. When Edgar Millán Gomez (who was a high-ranking police official, but not “Mexico’s Police Chief” as simplistic foreign press reports called him) was killed, it was old fashioned police work that caught the presumed killers. Mexico City doesn’t have the best cops on the planet, but the tried and true “be on the lookout for…” caught the presumed hitman. Yeah, maybe some “extraordinary rendition” was used to work out who else was involved, but in police killings, these things happen.
My point is that the fight against the drug dealers — if it’s necessary — is NOT analogous to some “Shi’ite v. Sunni” war (as a witty observer in Mazatlán noted), but just the same kind of fight Al Capone and Dutch Shultz had with Eliot Ness. In 1920s Chicago the police (then, as now, notoriously corrupt) took their casualties, and sometimes got their man. The feds — despite Eliot Ness’ later tall tales — mostly stuck to basic things like investigating tax returns and following the money. There was never any thought of sending in the soldiers. The only thing calling out the Army does is put more firepower into the mix. Which may be the point.
All of which makes me think that Lopez Obrador is on to something.
Vicente Fox, being a business executive, saw the drug export trade as a business — a nasty one — but a business nonetheless. You get the feeling he was content to let “market solutions” resolve the worst problems (i.e. let the gangsters kill each other) and tried to correct some abuses at the consumer level — must to the horror of the U.S. press, which had Fox’s very good idea (defining what constituted “personal use” narcotics, and not wasting police resources on small users) completely ass-backwards … reporting it as “legalized drug use”. Fox, alas, was not the Great Communicator… or even a particularly good communicator.
You’d expect Felipe Calderon, with degrees in economics and administration, to recognize the drug export wars as economic and the police problem as basically an administrative one. Which he has. But, like George W. Bush and others, he turns away from the conservative belief in “grassroots solutions” and opts for federalizing and nationalizing “problems” with a single solution.
Lopez Obrador, as a social worker, is looking at the problem from his perspective. I realize that Lopez Obrador’s natural reaction to anything Felipe Calderon does is to start singing the old Groucho Marx song, “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It,” but AMLO does seem to be the only one focused on the issue as a social problem.
Fox was correct in a lot of ways. Cocaine is not Mexico’s problem (coca doesn’t even grow in Mexico), but because it is transshipped through Mexico, dumping surplus cocaine on the Mexican market is a problem. Other than working with users, there isn’t a lot that could be done here, until the U.S. deals with their consumption problem, or with the financial and material support it provides to Mexican shippers. But, that’s not a Mexican problem. If cocaine doesn’t come through Mexico, it will come through somewhere else until something is done about consumer demand.
Mexico’s domestic drug exports — marijuana, methamphetamines and some heroin, are alll rural products. AMLO was correct in suggesting more legitimate resources need to go to the rural regions. While Calderon’s government has had some success in cutting off supplies for meth production, until rural residents have better incomes, they’re going to continue growing what they can sell — including opium poppies. (I wonder if it wouldn’t be more costThe Mex Files › Edit — WordPress effective for the U.S. to simply offer to buy up the harvest at market prices… and maybe throw in a school or a few medical clinics and supermarkets than to spend money building prisons and trying to force Mexico to buy hardware with U.S. money).
If I’m reading AMLO’s suggestions correctly, he’s blaming capitalism and the corporate media for the violence. Socialists are supposed to blame capitalism, so that’s expected. But unless he’s talking about nationalizing the marijuana industry (now there’s a thought!… or I suppose Mexico could find a domestic market use, like Bolivia did with coca), I think he’s referring to the same platform he always has… more development funds for the rural areas (and, I’d suggest spending more on rural police training and salaries, which would cut down on the need for military intervention) and concentrating on domestic market development is going to do more than any fleet of heliocopters.
Blaming the media… well, of course AMLO does that, but he doesn’t seem to mean that they’re glorifying the “drug war” or glamorizing the combatants. And suggesting that “one size fits all” when it comes to resolving the issue. And assuming there is a “war” to be won or lost.
PEMEX privatization, DOA
There’s no question that PEMEX has been badly managed in the past, and needs to restructure. While I think some of the more recent problems PEMEX has had (or it is claimed the paraestatal has) might be self-inflicted wounds — it’s no secret that the previous and present administration had “energy reform” (meaning privatization) as a goal, and the politically-appointed management may have paid more attention to the political agenda than to the company’s long-range needs. There’s nothing novel in that, and it’s hardly a complicated plot. Ronald Reagan’s administration in the U.S. was openly appointing cabinet officers with a brief to close down their departments.
Whether PEMEX’s cash problems are ideological or not, assuming the ONLY solution was to privatize the paraestatal was bad logic. You don’t start with a premise (private ownership is better) and then work backwards to find the arguments. It’s how the U.S. got itself stuck in Iraq — Iraq’s government is “evil”… therefore, Saudi Arabian religious fanatics who attacked New York were connected to the radically anti-clerical government of Iraq, for example.
PEMEX’s need for technical support and equipment upgrades (including new refineries) was, in itself, no reason to expect a smaller, private oil company (like ExxonMobile) was the only possible resource… or that by acquiring the resources PEMEX required, it HAD to go private.
Anyway, with PRI leader Beatriz Paredes now saying her party is opposed to privatization, I’ll bet three things are going to happen. The American press (unable to see anything but corporate ownership as “normal”) will start talking about the “failure” of the Calderon Administration. You will start to read about “leftists” sabatoging “needed reforms” — overlooking the fact that 2/3rds of Mexican voters chose socialist or social democratic candidates when they go to the polls, and that the “needed reforms” and privatization are two different things. Parades — the “Ms. Clean” of PRI — has been working to burnish her party’s image, and — still being Mexico’s largest single party — to return it to what it was intended to be: the party upholding what the Mexican Revolution instituted. The PRD, despite their “circular firing squad” leadership, did manage to delay PAN’s attempt to ram privatization through Congress long enough to give PRI time to return to their normal position. And they have… PEMEX will be restructured, and it may be smaller, but it’s not going to turn into a subsidiary of some U.S. company.
I’m guessing that some of PEMEX’s social services will be folded into other federal programs (there’s no particular reason PEMEX hospitals need to be separated from IMSS hospitals, for example), and Calderon’s Administration already won the battle to change the tax codes — which in theory opens up new resources for PEMEX. It’s the right, the left and the middle who are changing PEMEX to fit Mexican realities, not a cadre of hardcore followers of some European ideology.
And — privatization is dead.
Speaking of the press…
Mysteriously, the United States Postal Service has issued a stamp honoring Chicano journalist Ruben Salazar. I say mysteriously because the powers-that-be don’t usually honor people whose heads were blown off by rampaging police officers breaking up a peace demonstration.
A tip of the sombrero to Janinsanfran who has… as they say… the rest of the story.
Keeping the free press alive….
Some developments on the struggle to keep the Mexican press free… and alive.
In Sinaloa, the Reporters’ unions are demanding federal action in response to last week’s Army standoff (and beatings) at El Debate.
In Coahuila, “perioricidio” has been added to the criminal code. Under the legal theory that an attack on a journalist is an attack on civil society as a whole, killing a journalist has been made a separate crime than just ordinary murder and deserves a stiff sentence — 60 years.
in the Senate, PAN (yes… PAN!!) has proposed a “Ley de la Libertad de Conciencia de los Profesionales de la Información” which would codify both the citizen’s right to receive information, and the journalist’s right to provide it.
in the last year — February 2007 to February 2008 — fifteen reporters were murdered, and there were 219 cases of death threats, extortion attempts or attacks on journalists in Mexico.
“I am not a narco…” Rogaciano Alba
In telephoning in his resignation as Guerrero Cattlemen’s Association, Rogaciano Alba Álvarez — whose two sons were killed in one massacre, his daughter kidnapped and was the target of a hit at a hotel meeting in Iguala (where seven more people were gunned down) said he has no idea who wants him dead… but that he’s not involved in the narcotics trade.
I’m tempted to believe him, or at least assume that it isn’t narcos that want Alba dead. Mark Stevenson’s report for the Associated Press begins with the assumption that whomever it is behind the attacks are connected to narcotics, tending to downplay other facets of Alba’s career that might make him enemies.
Although AK-47s and AR-15s were used in the Iguala attack, and “luxury cars” were mentioned on the attack that killed his sons, this doesn’t have the feel of a narcotics hit. Stevenson’s article in Bandaras News is headlined “Massacre of Mexican Strongman’s Family Breaks All the Rules”… a While the attacks may yet turn out to be related to the narcotics industry, these attacks don’t fit the “rules.” Narco hitmen don’t normally shoot up a whole meeting room just to get one guy (and miss), nor do they go after families.
(– added before posting — However, Joaquin “el Chapo” Guzmán‘s son and another gangster’s kid was taken out last night with a bazooka in a Cuilican parking lot. Young Guzman was a student working on a degree in Business Administration, so maybe the second generation in family “enterprises” are now legitimate targets).
Maybe “goodtimebob” (who know his Latin American weaponry) will correct this, but I don’t think sawed off shotguns (used in Petatlan where Alva’s sons and seven others were lined up and shot) are normally used by narcos.
Alva’s cattle operations have dislodged a lot of local farmers, and he may be the kingpin of an illegal logging operation. Despite assurances from his successor as Mayor of Petatlán that “everybody knows everyone, and we all get along,” as a politician, and as a cattle baron — and as a timber smuggler — Alva was going to make a lot of enemies. Including environmentalists.
In rich countries like the U.S. and Canada, we think of environmentalists as middle-class people. And, in Mexico, there are the middle-class and urban environmentalist types too. But there are also the dirt farmers, for whom issues like over-logging and over-grazing are life and death issues. Guerrero is in the middle of a prolonged drought, and the small farmers, already threatened by NAFTA rules changes and transgenetic corn (at the same time that corn producers are feeling pressured to adopt a mongenetic strain, cattlemen are welcoming genetic variety), are in a double bind. The big cattlemen are a theat, as are the loggers.
Violent confrontations between Alba’s people and the farmer/environmentalists are nothing new. Alba remains a suspect in the dummied up suicide of Mexico City attorney Digna Ochoa, who represented several Guerrero farmers who were accused of murder. In 2004, several Guerrero farmers were imprisoned in connection with blockades to stop timber harvesting and the alleged murder of timbermen connected to Alba.
Which makes me wonder whether the release this week of Palemón Cabrera González, who was accused of murder, battery and cattle rustling back in May 2000 might be significant. The cattle were owned by, and the murder victims worked for, one of Alva’s “lieutenants,” according to Jornada.
If the original charges are not completely bogus, it suggests that the environmentalists (or pissed-off dirt farmers) are willing to kill those only slightly connected to the operation (like the cowboy Cabrera was alleged to have murdered), or… the attack on the cattlemen’s association may have been aimed at the association in general, and not just Alba, the then-leader.
Of course, by calling one potential set of suspects “environmentalists” I may be doing what I’ve accused others of doing… applying modern political labels to Mexican traditions. A few years ago, rumors about Marxist guerillas, right-wing death squads and other ills of modern life were circulating after a massacre in Oaxaca. Which turned out to be a 500 year old feud between two neighboring village over water rights (and water is worth killing for in rural Oaxaca… and Guerrero). The attacks in Guerrero — for all their flashy cars and high-powered arms — may just be an old “kill the rich bastard” movement… nothing even particularly Mexican.
(Late) Friday Nite Video
Rainy season is coming… which made me think of this.
Probably the only statue to a cop in all of Mexico (except for the generic one to the night watchman in the Insurgentes Metro Station Plaza) is here in Mazatlán. Though it’s not to a cop, but to Harley riders … and specifically to Mazatlán’s favorite favorite son, the singing Harley riding cop … Pedro Infante:
Pedro was the epitome of cool… and motorcycles, pretty girls, a singing sidekick (OK, Pedro had Luis Aguilar … and nobody’s gonna top that)… is never going to go out of style.
I don’t know that stupid court cases are particularly Mexican, but this particular stupid court case has its own Mexican flavor. Translated from Condena juez a poeta por ultraje a la bandera, reported by Lorenzo Chin in Thursday’s Jornada.
Court fines are multiples of the “salario minimo” which is usually translated as “minimum wage,” although it is more a benchmark figure for the cost of living in geographic areas of the country, as well as the lowest minimum daily wage. With Mexico having gone through devaluations several years ago, this was a handy way of not having to change the legal code every time the country went through a round of inflation or there was a currency change.
Campeche, Camp., 7 May 2008: Second District Court Judge, Jesus Bañales Sanchez, fined the outspoken poet Sergio Hernán Witz Rodriguez 50 pesos and gave him a “public reprimand” after finding the poet guilty of “outrage to the flag” for authoring a poem” to find it responsible for the crime of ultraje to the national standards, by his responsibility of the poem Invitation to a country full of shit [Invitación: La Patria entre la mierda]
Later that afternoon, the writer and university professor appealed his sentence, which he considers “ridiculous”. In spite of the very small fine (one “salario minimo” for Geographic Zone “C” which includes Campeche), Witz said that he will not accept that he has committed any crime by exerting his right to free expression.
In addition, Witz claims Federal Prosecutor’s office for Campeche Delegation prejudged the case. He noted that the Prosecutor’s office issued a press release about his sentence three hours before his court appearance.
Interviewed in person moments after his hearing, the poet said that once again the Mexican judicial system has held itself up for ridicule.
“But, seriously, it’s less the fifty pesos than the arguments on which they based the sentence.”
Of course, for writers in Mexico, fifty pesos could be a big deal.
Horray!
PHOENIX—The arrest of a gun shop owner on Tuesday broke up a suspected firearms trafficking operation that supplied violent Mexican drug cartels, authorities said.
Agents raided X Calibur Guns and arrested George Iknadosian after undercover agents bought guns at the store indicating they were to be trafficked to Mexico, said Carlos Baixauli, a special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Iknadosian, 46, knowingly sold at least 650 firearms, including high-end semiautomatic pistols and assault-style rifles, to drug cartels, the ATF said.
Trailero, at Mexico Trucker Online, has the only possible response:
And the looney toons of the right will decry this arrest and whine about Second Amendment rights while they are demanding a border fence to keep out all of the illegals and the violence spilling over into the United States, while refusing to acknowledge, that in many cases, the cause of the problems in Mexico can be found right here at home! Imagine that!
mexfiles.net 