AMLO – “Don’t mourn for me, organize”
From today’s El Universal:
(Jorge Octavio Ochoa, my translation)
Before a capacity crowd of supporters on the Mexico City Zócalo, Andrés Manuel López Obrador said today that violence would never end the protests against the presumed fraud of the July 2 elections.
Instead, he called for the creation of 2,445 municipal commissions, 32 state commissions and a national operating committee to continue working through the National Democratic Convention (Convención Nacional Democrática, or CND) .
At the same time, he set next 20 November as the date of the 3rd National Assembly of the CND.
There is some opposition to the date, some members wanting to hold the convention in July, others on 1 September.
During his talk, Andrés Manuel López Obrador called for a “new social contract, a new economy and a new policy.”
He admitted that falling into the trap of violent protests to the fraud had been a pretext for official repression and intimidation that “opened up fears”.
Had the protests not happened, he added, millions of Mexicans would have supported “real change.
“We reached a crossroad, where lives were lost, there were disappearances, jails, women raped, torture and human rights violations … and we might not be here.
“That is, we have allowed ourselves to fall into a ‘do-nothing policy’ waiting for the next election, when we could be continuing this struggle.”
AMLO never really went away. Foreign commentators thought it was pure theater when AMLO had his inaguaration as “legitimate president”, and set up his alternative cabinet. Forgetting — or never knowing — that when Manuel Clouthier did very poorly in the 1988 elections, PAN also set up an alternative presidency (Vicente Fox was alternative Secretary of Agriculture), and that street protests and refusals to recognize the official winner is not unheard of in Mexican politics (Fox came to prominence leading a civil disobedience campaign against the PRI candidate who narrowly defeated him in the Guanajuanto governor’s race in 1991).
Clothier died soon after setting up his cabinet (there are some who say his auto accident was no accident) and Fox didn’t gain the governorship until 1995, so how successful these kinds of actions are is questionable. Still, there was nothing clownish about the “legitimate presidency”.
While Clothier seemed to have nothing in mind more than a “think tank” slash “political action committee” for his PANista “alternative presidency”, AMLO is taking it a step further.
The FAP (Frente Amplio Progresivo) coalition that emerged from his “Benefit of All” electoral front has held together as a united opposition in Congress. Although the plurinomial system almost guarantees that PAN will remain the largest single congressional bloc, there are signs that some in PRI and the smaller parties, may join the FAP. PRI chair, Beatriz Paredes Rangel, wants to move the party further to the “left” and in the states, the PRI has been pushing “progressive” legislation to avoid being seen as the party of the past.
Nominally, at least, AMLO is still heading the FAP. And, as the coalition’s think tank/PAC/legislative service, it has so far had limited success. Whether they’ll be able to roll back Social Security changes (the Senate approved a measure that allows social security payments into investment funds) and prevent the outright sale of some PEMEX assets is yet to be seen.
However, by calling for the “National Democratic Convention” (the second was the occasion of AMLO’s Zocalo speech), the FAP — and AMLO — and others — are setting up the country for more changes. The CND is working out the mechanism of a whole raft of social changes and political actions — investigations into mispending and graft on privatations, looking into cost overruns, an alternative funding source for PEMEX, some legal and constitutional changes.
What’s going to happen is that the CND will (in July, or September or November) come out with a draft constitution. I don’t think there will be a constitutional convention, but it will lay out an “anti-neoliberal” consensus plan, that could peel off enough PRI support to force through some changes… or force Calderón to offer a slightly watered down, semi-corporate friendly version of the CND plans (things like investments in the south, investigations into the cost overruns at the new National Library and dubious “donations” to Marta Fox’s Vamos Mexico).
Mexican politics — after all the shouting (and sometimes shooting) always ends up in a compromise. Nobody ever came up with a good name for whatever it was that came out of the Revolution, though “socialist” seemed as convenient a shorthand as anything (my favorite is “National Capitalist”, which included a lot of socialist concepts… as opposed to “National Socialist”, which was basically capitalism run amok). SOMETHING will emerge… and if people want to call it AMLOismo, or Bolivarianismo, or neo-socialist or post-capitalist… let them worry about it after November. Things will change. Sort of.
The REAL end to slavery was… Mexican
The English — who understandably are hard-pressed to find things in their imperialist past to celebrate — are making a big to-do over their 1807 anti-slavery bill. That bill forbade the TRANSPORTATION of African slaves after 1825. That’s nice. They didn’t get around to freeing their own slaves until 1838, and even so, they still kept to their beliefs in racial segregation
The British get better press, and certainly they should celebrate the 1807 Act, but I don’t know why we didn’t throw the party back in 2003. After all, the first steps towards abolition were in the Danish West Indies in 1803. The Brits were a few years late.
But who first freed the slaves? Mexico in 1828. And, even more importantly, what was the first country to recognize all persons as equal, regardless of race? Mexico… 1814, under the Chilpancingo Constitution.
Ending slavery in Mexico was relatively painless (outside of Texas, where most slaves were emancipated, but left as peones, or re-enslaved after 1836), in part because there weren’t a lot of slaves, and in part because the “Rational” Spanish confused the heck out of everyone a few years earlier.
Scholar Juan Pedro Viqueira Albán claims the 18th century Bourbon rulers of Mexico were philosophical control freaks . The best way to control the world, for the Bourbons, was to make “rational” distinctions. “Race” being an irrational thing, sort of made them a little nuts, and they did their best to rationalize it — and control the “races”.
Oh, they could figure out Criollo, Indio, Negro easily enough. But who was Zambo, who Mestizo, who Mulatto, and who something else — or some or all of the above… (assuming anybody cared or knew what their great-granny’s “race” was)?
It got a little complicated back there in the 1750s. And in the Spanish and Portugese colonies, where there was never much hangup about “miscegenation” anyway, it got very, very complicated. Slaves themselves, being in the eyes of the Church human beings with souls and free will, had some basic human rights. They could marry whomever they wanted and if they married a free person, the children weren’t slaves. It was, to the 18th centry rationalists, irrational.
The Mexicans just said the hell with it, and decided back in 1814, when they wrote the Chilpancingo Constitution to do something radical and just say all men are equal with no if’s and or buts… or 2/3rds counts, or “except for Indians”.
The United States didn’t get around to freeing its slaves until 1865 (and it took a war to do that), and we still hang on to the British concepts of segregation. The Mexicans are SOOOO over it. Where we think someone like Barack Obama is a novelty, here are three important Mexican leaders, at least two of whom weren’t afraid to count slaves among their ancestors:
Cowboy, priest, guerilla-leader and father of the racial equality before the law, José Maria Morelos y Pavon (1765-1815)
“We should do away with the picturesque jargon of black, mulatto, mestizo… and etc., and instead view ourselves geographically, calling ourselves Americans for where we are from, as do the English, and the French and that other European country that is oppressing us, and the Asian in Asia and the African in his part of the world.”
Gunsmith, farmer, soldier (who won 419 straight battles… not even Napoleon could claim that) and president who emancipated the slaves in 1828 (when Abe Lincoln was 9 years old), Vicente Guerrero (1782 – 1831)
The administration is obliged to procure the widest possible benefits and apply them from the palace of the rich to the wooden shack of the humble laborer. If one can succeed in spreading the guarantees of the individual, if the equality before the law destroys the efforts of power and of gold, if the highest title between us is that of citizen, of the rewards we bestow are exclusively for talent and virtue, we have a republic, and she will be conserved by the universal suffrage of a people solid, free and happy.
Soldier in the War of Independence, in the War of the French Invasion (1838), in the War of the U.S. Invasion (1846), guerilla leader during the Franco-Austrian Invasion of 1862(when he was over 70), farmer, political moderizer, liberal reformer, and President, Juan Alvarez Benítez (1790-1867)
I entered the presidency a poor man, and a poor man I leave it, with the satisfaction that I do not bear the censure of the public because I was dedicated from an early age to personal labor, to work the plow to maintain my family, without the need for public offices where others enrich themselves by outrages to those in misery.
The deaf signal the blind… the DEA and Mexico
Couched in diplomatic niceties, Ambassador Sarakhán is saying what everybody who knows anything about Mexico has been saying for some time. The DRUG USERS have to stop sending money and guns. The training programs are nice, but what’s needed is work from the DEA to control the money and arms flowing to the narcotrafficantes from… where do you think the buyers are?
It’s kind of amusing the way the DEA takes credit for the recent drug bust. It’s like Shakespeare’s grade school teacher claiming that because she taught him to write, she should get credit for his plays. C’mon.
24-March-2007 (my translation):
Maintaining that both the United States and Mexico need to resolve pending issues before they can be described as partners, Ambassador Arturo Sarukhán said he doubted much would happen in the “remaining two years of the George W. Bush presidency.”U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormak ironically commented that the Ambassador is a novice: “He is new and maybe has not had the opportunity to read his textbook. We are clearly working very well with the Mexican government on a subject of importance to both of us.”
Interviewed by the The Washington Post, Sarukhán said that United States contribution of the United States in the fight against narcotics have been “null,” and that “significantly more” cooperation is needed if that fight is to be successful.
Specifically, Sarukhán said that more intelligence information and actions are needed against arms dealers and money laundering.
Sarukhán said that the new Mexican government is looking for a more professional relationship with the United States than the one that existed under the government of Vicente Fox. He added that the Fox-Bush relationship was based on friendship, and at the end of his term, Fox had nothing to show for it.”
President Felipe Calderón is keeping his distance from Bush, “but does not want to send the message that, before there are abrazos and fireworks, the United States needs to demonstrate to Mexico that the relationship produces tangible results. “Then we will be partners,” Sarakhán said.
Sarukhán said, however, that he did not think “much can be done” in reference to the remaining two years of the Bush administration.
Found messagesThe White House budget request for fiscal year 2008 only includes 27.8 million dollars for anti-drug aid to Mexico, as compared to $39 million in 2006. It also includes $388,000 for education and military training.
Undersecretary of State Tom Shannon has indicated that the United States wanted specific information on Mexican needs to fight an effective way against drugs.
In response to the Ambassador, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) administrator, Karen Tandy, said that the recent Mexican seizure of 205 million dollars in cash should be considered U.S. support, since she claimed the seizure was the result of support the DEA provided the Mexican authorities.
The DEA announces courses
While the Mexican ambassador discounted as “null” U.S. support of anti-narcotics detection, the DEA released a report this week, saying that in the last 10 months, it has trained 2100 police officers and civil servants. They received training in detecting and destroying laboratories. According to the report, the recent seizure of more than 205 million dollars from the international network run by ugitive Zhenli Ye Gon, is the fruit of that training.
The DEA reports that training was the result of U.S. preoccupation with the increased amount of methamphetamines coming from Mexico. That training started at the end of May 2006.
Last year the Mexican and United States governments signed an agreement of cooperation that includes training for Mexican officials by the DEA, in the area of detecting “designer drug” production.
Illegal employers?
Do you recognize this guy? He was a migrant worker in California for a time, bummed around in Texas, finally went to college, ended up teaching in a then segregated “Mexican” school for a time… then moved on to a few other things.
I ran this photo, because his spirit lives on in people like State Representative Rafael Anchia of Dallas. As Megan Headley writes in the Texas Observer Anchia mastered the art of devious deal making. Texas Republicans, who apparently don’t get out of the ‘burbs too often (and don’t look around the ‘burbs, apparently) were falling all over themselves to come up with new and creative ways to harrass “illegal immigrants” — make ’em pay a remittance tax, keep their kids from going to school, oh… don’t let em buy auto insurance (and then complain about uninsured drivers)… yadda, yadda, yadda.
Anchia put the kibosh on the whole thing, simply and elegantly. He “reframed the debate.” Since business taxes are based on gross receipts less goods and payroll, Anchia threatened to introduce a bill that would disallow deductions for wages paid to “illegal” workers. In short, he’d make some of the biggest businesses in the state “illegal” employers.
Anchia, part of the Democratic Mexican-American Legislative Caucus was suddenly courted by the two biggest Republican contributers in the state… Bo Pilgrim (of Pilgrim’s Pride — the chicken processors) and Bob Perry, the homebuilder who financed George W. Bush (and a host of lesser varmits). Anchia’s Bill was quietly dropped, but wouldn’t you know it… suddenly the Texas Business Association is coming out in favor of immigration reform.
Lyndon Baines Johnson (the Spanish-speaking ex-migrant worker), like Anchia, instinctively understands Texans… and the way bidness is done (not much different than it’s done in Mexico, really). Make your opponent BEG you to help them. It doesn’t work with Ho Chi Minh, but with Texas Republicans it sure does. As LBJ famously put it “Grab ’em by the balls, and their hearts and minds will follow.”
I’m a little nicer than Lyndon, but I’m not above arm-twisting if I have to…
Yup, I still need the money if I’m not gonna close up shop…
‘El Leon del Corrido’ dies in Reynosa
Beto Quintanilla was a huge star. His raspy voice, always seemed on the verge of breaking into sobs, perfectly suited to the fatalistic outlook on life in the hard-scrabble North. Like any good poet of the corrido, he dealt with life on life’s terms … which today includes the narcos. I’ve included two videos looking at the tragedy and absurdity of life in the North. The heartbreaking “Le Compre la Muerte a Mi Hijo” (I bought my son his death) is personal. The second, looks at a personal tragedy. The second, “Narco Battalion”, a very norteño — look at the stupidity of a “war on drugs” that at least pays for the tortillas.
The McAllen Monitor obiturary is by Miriam Ramirez.
MCALLEN— Beto Quintanilla, known in the musical world as El Leon del Corrido, died Sunday in Reynosa from heart failure. He was 58.
Born Norberto Quintanilla Iracheta in Gen. Teran, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, he moved to Reynosa at 13 to seek better opportunities outside of his poverty-stricken home. He found work as a ranch hand, milking cows for an extra peso and later worked for a relative at a clothing store, according to his official Web site.Although Quintanilla never learned to play a musical instrument, one of his favorite hobbies growing up was reciting prose to his teachers and mother about his homeland.It wasn’t until he made friends with musicians in and around northern Mexico that he found his niche in music as a frontman.To many in the music industry, Quintanilla will long be remembered for his down-to-earth persona and lively stage performances.With more than 20 albums released and multiple Grammy nominations, Quintanilla was a local favorite among listeners.
“He belonged to the people and he was never aloof to them. He was a part of what they were,” said Brenda Huerta, community relations director for KGBT 98.5 FM, which included Quintanilla in heavy rotation. “He was from the area and he never turned up his nose at them. The songs that he sang, they were about the community. He was a part of this area of their lives.”
Quintanilla appeared regularly on stages across the Rio Grande Valley, including the station’s anniversary bash late last year at Dodge Arena in Hidalgo.
“He was always very, very accommodating to play for us,” Huerta said, adding the singer would often rearrange his schedule to perform for fund-raisers and non-profit events. “For us it really has been a big blow. He was a really good friend to us.”
Most recently, the raspy-voiced singer fought off rumors of making narcocorridos, folk songs that often incorporate the lives of people caught up in the drug trafficking business, saying his material was solely music for the people.
In December, on the Internet rumors swirled that Quintanilla had been assassinated. He was thought to be another victim of the ongoing violence between drug cartels and the norteño community that sings about their activity.
“The music we played of his wasn’t glorifying the narcotics industry…that wasn’t his focus,” Huerta said.
Critics challenged his denial by pointing out that Quintanilla often posed with an automatic weapon on nearly every album cover. Others say the Norteño singer simply loved guns.
Local Spanish-language radio stations opted against playing any narcocorridos or any songs with questionable lyrics.
“In all that I have sung in my 30-year career, I have never made corridos against anyone,” Quintanilla said in a radio interview last year to squash the reported rumors. “I never talk about my enemies. Never against anyone.”
His last and final album, Tragedias Reales de la Vida, set for release this spring, included the song, “Le Compre la Muerte a Mi Hijo,” one of the most requested songs on Que Pasa KKPS 99.5 FM, said program director Mando San Roman.
“He did corridos mainly for the working people,” said San Roman. “He had a unique style not only the way he sang but the way he interpreted the music on stage.”
One of the last performances was at Graham Central Station in Pharr in January as fans witnessed a rare performance between Quintanilla and his brother Chuy Quintanilla, one that San Roman will remember fondly.
“There will be a big void in the type of music he played,” he said. “People would hear his music and say, ‘that’s Beto Quintanilla.’”
Quintanilla is survived by his wife and three children.
Funeral services are pending but will be at the Valle de la Paz, located on the Reynosa/Monterrey expressway with burial following at El Panteon Jardines Valle de la Paz.
Whatever it is, he’s against it…
The well-named “lonewacko” doesn’t like any of the immigration proposals. A rather mild compromise, the “STRIVE” Act, sponsored by Representatives Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) would have “illegal” immigrants pay a stiff fine, leave the country and return. That’s not enough for “lonewacko” who provides no reason in particular for objecting to this Bill… other than the leaving part is more a gesture than a permanent exile (sort of like I did to legalize myself in Mexico). Rather than attack the Bill, though, “lonewacko” suggests:
Please contact your representatives and stress your opposition to the scheme, and if you find anyone promoting it do your best to discredit them.
The far-lefties have anticipated the bill, with the Asian American Justice Center “encouraged” and, not to be outdone, the American Immigration Lawyers Association “enthusiastically welcomes” it.
Paging Dr. Göbbels .
Hutto IS child abuse and can be reported
The ACLU, University of Texas Law School Immigration Clinic and the international law firm LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae LLP have filed suit against Michael Chertoff (Oberführer of Homeland Security) and six Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on behalf of ten children from Lithuania, Canada, Haiti, Honduras, Somalia, Guyana and other countries, presently “detained” at the T. Don Hutto Concentration Camp Rent-a-Prison in Tyler, Texas
Approximately 400 people are currently detained in Hutto, half of them children, and many of them are refugees seeking political asylum. What ICE calls a “Family Residential Facility” is in fact a converted medium-security prison that is still functionally and structurally a prison. Children are required to wear prison garb, receive only one hour of recreation a day, Monday through Friday, and some children did not go outdoors in the fresh air the whole month of December, 2006, according to legal papers filed today.
They are detained in small cells for 11-12 hours each day where they cannot keep food and toys and they have no privacy, even when using the toilet.
(ACLU, via Aztlan Electronic News)
From this morning’s Houston Chronicle:
The children at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, 35 miles northeast of Austin, live in cells; they wear uniforms and receive inadequate medical and educational services, are often cold and hungry, separated from their parents as punishment, and until recently received one hour of schooling per day and rarely played outside. They are guilty of no crimes, and endanger no one. Their parents, who are incarcerated here because they are seeking asylum after fleeing such circumstances as war, torture, political persecution and rape, or are accused of violating civil immigration laws, have committed no crimes.
…
It is difficult to fathom why Hutto was ever considered an appropriate shelter for families: It is still essentially a prison, arranged in pods with cells furnished with two metal bunks and a toilet, and a central day room. Cell door systems prevent parents from attending to children after “lights out.”
Teachers at the center are not required to be licensed in Texas, and the state’s family welfare agency exempted Hutto from child care licensing requirements. Along with one other, less prison-like facility in Pennsylvania, Hutto is operated without official regulations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the arm of Homeland Security that runs the two centers, relies on custody rules designed for inmates.
Given the sorry record of incarceration of childen in Texas (where there is a HUGE scandal going on right now over the organized sexual abuse of boys — who at least went before a judge and were sentenced to the place — at the West Texas State School) — caused in part by the juvie’s location in a rural Pyote out of the public spotlight — and the dubious requirements for becoming a private prison guard… AND… the little question of whether or not these kids are receiving even the minimum education required in Texas (“home schooled” kids have to recieve a minimum of 170 days of instruction a year – I can’t find what the minimum is for incarcerated kids. Maybe at Hutto they figure “prison is an education.”).
I’d be really worried that this is going to blow up into a massive scandal. And maybe we can help make it one…
Hutto’s phone number is 512-218-2400. (Fax): 512-218-2450.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Child Abuse Hotline Number is
1-800-252-5400.
The Smith County Sheriff is J.B. Smith: 903-590-2661 (Fax: 903-590-2659. Email: jbsmith@smith-county.com
The Superintendent of the Tyler Independent School District (which is legally responsible for these children’s education) is Gary Mooring: 903-262-1001
Tyler is in Texas’ First Congressional District, represented by Republican Representative Louie Gohmert
United States House of Representatives
510 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-4301
(Phone: 202-225-7742 ; Fax: 202-226-1134)
From Upstate House:
Snowbirds usually are able to be away from home for long periods of time, often can afford to purchase a second home, and have even been known to use their primary and second homes for creative tax purposes and income streams.
David Collins, chairman of Active Living International, a company specializing in the research and development of active adult communities, is an expert in predicting where snowbirds prefer to land. His company’s recent assignments have included a study of the over-50 housing market for Mexican developer CEMEX …
The Mexican project, called Sensara Vallarta, is the first “50-plus” active adult community developed in Mexico and contains 250 luxury condominiums inside the grounds of the El Tigre Golf Course near Puerto Vallarta. The complex, designed by Mexico City architect Jose Vigil who conceived many of the homes in nearby exclusive Punta Mita area, is a 15-minute drive from the Puerto Vallarta airport.
Why Puerto Vallarta? What makes this destination the choice over so many wonderful communities in the sun south of the border?
“In addition to the sun, Puerto Vallarta is all about access,” Collins said. “There are more than 15,000 air flights a year now, and the prices are still reasonable for the type of person our developments target. Cancun definitely is a market, but it’s more of a hotel market. Los Cabos is really more higher-end and not that easy for a lot of people to get to.”
Active Living International’s presence has led to additional interest in the Puerto Vallarta area for developers of the over-50 market. Front Porch Development, a Burbank-Calif.-based company specializing in the senior market, is partnering with Mexico-based Plenus on Luma, a 440-residence community on the ocean in Nuevo Vallarta.
A phenonomal percentage of the “remittances” going south are sent by gringo retirees, and this can be expected to continue. I’d be a little concerned about the “upscale” nature of these developments, which sound like they want to San Miguelize the place.
Should be fun to watch from wherever us “downscale” retirees end up… assuming we can afford to retire, let alone get through the month.
Gabriel Zendejas, a crime reporter for the working class tabloid, Prensa, is something of a literary genius. Although Mexican (and Latin American) crime news is usually churned out for the word count, Zendejas has a literary style that fits. Crime reporters in the U.S. want to simplify the matter to a simple “this happened. That happened. Justice was done,” style that just doesn’t tell the story. The people involved may not know the story, and there is no reason to pretend the reporter does.
Zenejas, working within the genre, is actually a pretty good writer. The story telling element is all there, and he brings pathos, compassion and a dose of black humor to his Prensa reportage. And, even his longest, most complex sentences are usually translatable.
“Drogado intenda robar casa en Tepito” is from the 19 March Prensa.
It was the hospital where an aggressive subject finished up, who, armed with a machete, had sought to ambush the residents of a house in the populated Tepito district, intending to assault them, but as he was under the influence of drugs and intoxicating liquors, was himself overhelmed and disamed before being given a phenomenal blow from his weapon.
These doings occurred at calle de Peñon, number 26, practically across the street from a house on Jesús Carranza, in which the subject was treated, who, due to the severity of his injuries, was unable to give his full name.
According to inhabitants of the place, the subject, a “teporocho” as he was called, entered the apartment building in Colonia Morelos, brandishing a machete, which which to abuse the residents, and having the results described herein.
According to some versions given by those present, it was suggested that the subject was thrown out of the building by those he intended to attack, but, wanting to avoid problems with the authorities, left him laying outside in a pool of his own blood.
Nevertheless, other neighbors decided to report the incident to the authorities, and when a Secretariat of Public Security (SSP) patrol arrived, stated to these officers that a person of disreputable appearance was injured, thus asking for the intervention of first aid assistance from the Escuaudrón de Rescate y Urgencias Médicas (ERUM).
These latter, noticing for themselves that the subject was in need of medical attention, transported him to the Tramuatolical Hospital of Balbuena, where the lengthy process of determining who was responsible for the incident was begun.
One person said that the subject had some quarrel with the neighbors, and that inflamed by strong drink and under the influence of alcohol, sought to resolve them, resulting in the doings which followed, though everything that did happen will be determined by the authorities within the next several hours.
When U.S. videojournalist Brad Will was killed in Oaxaca the “spin” put out by the Oaxacan prosecutor’s office was believed by no one. For one thing, there were photos and reliable witnesses — rather inconvenient for those who wanted to make the whole APPO / Teachers movement — and its supporters as — “anarchist” or suggesting it was much ado about nothing and was needlessly worrying the tourists (who were never in any danger throughout the whole ordeal).
Even those opposed to the APPO admitted it was the police. At the time, Diego Enrique Orsino, in the English-language Narco News, managed to quote a local Oaxacan mayor DEFENDING the killers in Oaxaca as ” police acting in legitimate defense against the threat of an occupation of City Hall”…which at the time confirmed my belief that violence in Oaxaca had been orchestrated by the State, not by the APPO.
The “official government explanation”… that Will was killed by APPO supporters set off bullshit detectors around the world — The including every reliable foreign observer in Oaxaca .
Nobody bought it then, and nobody buys it now. Kelly Arthur Garrett wrote in Monday’s Mexico City Herald:
.. In the city of Oaxaca, the (Will) family plans to meet with Lizbeth Caña, the controversial state prosecutor who has refused to pursue photographic evidence implicating municipal employees of Santa Lucía del Camino, the pueblo where Brad Will was shot.
Instead, Caña has suggested that members of the Oaxaca People´s Assembly (APPO) killed Will at close range.
The Will family isn´t buying that theory.
“It´s pretty obvious that they (Oaxaca state officials) are covering up for their own paramilitaries, who were instructed by somebody at some level to disrupt the protests,” (Brad Will’s father) Hardy Will says. “Men were going around without uniforms shooting and killing protesters.”
(Brad Will’s mother,) Kathy Will said Monday that the family hadn´t foreseen the need for a trip to the site of their son´s death. “We just assumed there would be a complete investigation,” she said. “The evidence that he was shot by paramilitaries while he was filming was so clear-cut that it was a prosecutor´s dream.”
Instead, the investigation stopped dead in its tracks, and the Will family found itself hiring a Mexican lawyer, contacting international human rights groups, and setting up a web site (http://www.bradwill.org/).
One thing we overlook is that Brad Will was not the only journalist shot that day. Milenio reporter Oswaldo Ramírez — who was the first to report that the police had done the shooting — was also wounded.
My rough translation is from Diego Orsono’s interview of Kathy and Hardy Will, published in Monday’s Milenio. The original seemed to be a tape transcript, and I may be translating back into English something that was originally translated from English into Spanish, so there may be some mistakes.
“Don’t get upset… I need to do this, and still cry several times a day. It’s part of the routine,” said Kathy Will.Mrs. Will, a teacher, and her husband, Hardy, a Chicago manufacturer, arrived in the Federal District Monday. Both were sometimes overcome with emotion when discussing the murder of their son, Indymedia cameraman, Brad Will who was shot while filming in Oaxaca on 29 October of last year.
“I knew Brad was in a conflict zone. He told me, “Mom, I’m being careful. But I knew it was dangerous, and I tried to put it out of my mind, and to bury it,” Kathy recalled .
The Will family today (Monday) begins a series of meetings with authorities, civil organzations and mass media within the country to demand a serious investigation into their son’s murder on 29 October, two days before he was scheduled to return to the United States. They have no doubt he was killed by, as they say, “paramilitaries.”
What were your feelings when you received the report from procuradora Lizbeth Caña about Brad’s death?
“Fury, fury, fury! Our first challenge had been to get Brad’s body back home. And to get the other children home. We scheduled the funeral service and – on week later – on 6 November, we wer told that two of the paramilitaries were already in jail. We thought justice was going to be done, but a week later we say Lizbeth Caña’s statements that it was the APPO. That was shocking and frightening. It was a wake-up call for us to get wise to how things were being done in this part of Mexico.”
Hardy added: “It seemed like a simple case, but they kept coming up with these other theories. First, someone shot him [Brad] while he was being taken to the hopital; then he was shot by someone a meter to his side. That is absurd, completely absurd! This infuriated us, but also showed us that things aren’t so simple in Oaxaca.
Kathy: “It’s childish to try to make us think that a Good Samaritan who took him to the hospital shot him. That’s absurd! By the time that story came out, everyone had seen Brad’s video, and there were protests everywhere. Embassies and around the world there was outrage that Brad had been killed when he was recording, and his only weapon was a camera. There was international outrage that this happened in broad daylight. Everyone saw the photos, and had the names and knew what happened.
***
Brad’s father, Hardy, arrived in Mexico armed with photos of the paramilitaries assumed to be PRI members, believed to have murdered his son. He also brings a graphic reconstruction based on suppositions about the incident, notes from journalists and his son’s personal notes. Hardy explained that Brad died of a 9 millimeter bullet wound, and was hit while filming at the the Santa Lucía del Camino barricade on 29 October. In the videos, regidor Santiago Zárate is clearly visible with a gun in his right hand.
“This is the weapon that shoot the bullet that killed Brad. I know it,” he swears. For months Hardy has reviewed every detail of the evidence in his son’s death. Tomorrow, he meets with the PGR (Federal Prosecutor) and Wednesday with the State of Oaxaca prosecutor among others.
***
Kathy recalled finding out about her son’s death: “We were in California on vacation on 28 October. In the morning, a reporter called the house where we were staying. I don’t remember his name. He ased me ‘Are you related to Brad Will?’, and I said ‘yes, and asked what happened. Is he hurt?’.
The reporter said, ‘he’s been fatally wounded,’”
Hardy added, “We knew what he was doing in Oaxaca, and we knew about the barricades, and that people were being killed. We knew it was dangerous.”
Hardy was interrupted by his wife. “Yes we knew it was dangerous. But when we received the news, out first thought was how to return home.
And Hardy added, “That’s when it sinks in. How does a dead person return home?” .
***
Then you believe it was was paramilitaries who killed your son?
“Oh, yes, no doubt. Absolutely, we think that,” Kathy answers.
And what do you hope to accomplish here?
We want a real investigation on what happened to Brad, as much at state level as at the federal level. Also we hope to collect ballistic evidence, for example, to find out if the bullet came from a pistol or a carbine. One of the main things that we will do is to meet with witnesses ourselves, and we want to get mass media and civic organizations, as well as human rights groups like Amnesty International, to put pressure on the Judiciary. And we want to emphatically reject the State Prosecutor’s theory.
Have you received a call, or any direct information from the Oaxaca state government?
No, nothing.
***What did you think about the things Brad was involved in both in Latin America and the United States?
His causes were good ones, and we were convinced that if nothing else, it helped us see things differently. He had so much compassion and, mainly, a desire to help others. He wanted to help people change the course of their lives, and wasn’t prepared to resign himself to waiting for things to change.
“We were told that what Brad was doing was right, and necessary, and just investigating was enough. Our friends would say, “Look, he’s going to grow up at some time, and leave all that behind. He’s just young. But we knew that would never happen. That Brad was not some 20 year old kid, that he’d found his path in life, recording the inequities of the world.”
DEA: “Show us the money”…
The Drug Enforcement Agency put out a press release today, claiming the 2.06 MILLION DOLLARS (and a few hundred thousand in Euros and Pesos) seized last weekend, was somehow their success:
This record-setting feat was the result of tremendous police work by Mexican law enforcement in collaboration with DEA throughout the past year.
Every single news article I’ve found that mentions the DEA repeats the same press release, and the DEA’s claim that “methampetamine dealers on both sides of the border…” None, here or in Mexico, or anywhere else, make any mention of the DEA’s involvement.
It sounds like the DEA wants in on the payout (the seized cash will be going to the Mexican police, the Mexican prosecutor’s office and the Mexican Secretaria de Salud).
What did the DEA do exactly to earn a share of the booty? I haven’t seen any mention — even in the self-congratulatory DEA press releases — of DEA involvement. And the United States goverment hasn’t been particuarly concerned with smugging INTO Mexico. Where else did the cash come from?
The U.S. government still doesn’t want to deal with the unpalatable truth that the SOURCE for the money and guns and the buyer are both THEIR problem, and they’re not real good at stopping them. Besides, they have more money than the Mexican cops (and the Secretaria de Salud sure can use the cash).
So could I. This site doesn’t get payoffs, or grants or even accept advertising. The only way I can write it is by taking time away from other things (like paying jobs) and it depends entirely on donations.
I live on almost nothing, but ALMOST isn’t going to keep the lights on, the phone connected and myself eating.
¡Cabrón! (in the good sense)
OK, so he doesn’t rank up there with the the “Unknown Rebel” who tried to face down tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989, but, this güey ranks high among those who know how to respond to bullies and fascists.
There’s no indication that he’s an “illegal” anything, but, well… he’s “brown,” after all. And he didn’t quite cozen to the goose-stepping friends of Pat Buchanan and Tom Tancredo over at “Stop the Illegal Invasion“.
A tip of the… uh… sombrero to whomever you are:
mexfiles.net 