| PRD weekend meet beset by internal strife |
| BY KELLY ARTHUR GARRETT/The Herald Mexico El Universal
Sábado 10 de febrero de 2007 |
| The Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) staggers into its annual National Council Saturday beset by internal rivalries, strategic blunders and image disasters.The leftist party had a decent year in 2006, snagging the Chiapas governorship and winning enough congressional races to be the No. 2 force in Congress, behind the National Action Party (PAN).
But the shock of Andrés Manuel López Obrador´s narrow loss is still causing debate over who´s to blame and how to proceed. More ominously, the decision to protest the election by blocking streets, and then declare López Obrador the “legitimate president” was controversial both inside and outside the party. Those issues will color the agenda of the 300 PRD delegates who will be gathering over the weekend. That agenda includes coming up with a broad strategy for the rest of this year and the 14 state elections it holds in store. Topic A will be the proposed candidacy of Ana Rosa Payán for governor of Yucatán for the coalition that includes the PRD (along with the Convergence and Labor parties). Payán reached an agreement with party leaders to run with the coalition, even though she was until recently a 23-year member of the PAN and a severe critic of López Obrador during the 2006 presidential campaign. … …said Dolores Padierna, a former federal deputy and now leader of the PRD faction known as the National Democratic Left, or IDN. “If she wins, what does the left win?” Other CEN members have a more nuanced view, however, noting that the PRD will have little chance of gaining even 10 percent of the Yucatán vote without Payán, but could win a tight three-way race with her. Agustín Guerrero, a PRD member of Mexico City´s legislative assembly (ALDF), said a Payán-PRD match could hand the PAN “a great defeat.” The PAN currently holds the Yucatán governorship. “It´s not an accord with the PAN; it´s an accord with a detached member of the PAN,” said Guerrero, who belongs to the same PRD faction as Padierna. … The PRD, which grew out of an ad hoc coalition of leftist parties and disgruntled PRI members put together for the 1988 presidential election, is riddled with more than a dozen competing factions. |
Mexico City safe for tourists
… With an average 12 million visitors to the city every year, less than 200 crime reports are filed by tourists. This is less than the number filled each week in Chicago. We are convinced that the problem is more one of perception, and although the 200 incidents involving tourists every year force us to continue our work, it doesn’t justify the constant alerts put out regarding travel.
Alejandra Barrales Magdaleno, Federal District Secretary of Tourism quoted in today’s Jornada . A reminder for foreigners. In the unlikely event that you do need to report a crime, their embassy can file the reports on behalf of U.S. and Canadian citizens and passport-holders. The police station at Florencia 10 (a few doors down from el Angel de Independencia) can take reports in English.
(a tip of the sombrero to Kelly Dowdell)
No Canadians were injured while writing this post
A year ago a Canadian couple got their throats cut in Cancán, probably over something to do with their own affairs in Canada. A couple of weeks ago, a 19 year old got hit by a car in Acapulco (though his family kept insisting it was some convoluted murder plot. Then another Canadian couple got hit by a car in Chapala (the biggest concentration of Canadians outside of Canada, btw). Then a lady from Niagara, Ontario got dinged in the foot by a riccocheting bullet (again in Acapulco).
The LATEST “grief in Mexico from the Great White North” story seems to lack legs… this one involves a guy who showed up in rural Oaxaca with his wife (or, as the Canadian papers are careful to say, “Common Law Wife”and seven kiddies) was squatting in a broken down schoolbus (just the thing to endear yourselves to the neighbors… even in rural Oaxaca… especially around tourist resorts) and has ended up in the slammer.
According to his supporters (a British Columbia-based radio evangalist and some guy named John Joseph Kennedy who claims he’s running for President of the United States), the fellow is expected to pay a $20,000 (dollar, but whether U.S. or Canadian, I can’t say) “bribe” to get out of prison. That’s their story, and they’re sticking to it. The reality seems to be the BC-hillbillies set themselves up as illegal contractors, cheated a British couple out of 200,000 pesos and… the guy got tossed in jail as a common, ordinary conman and crook. Mrs. Hillbilly and the little Hillbillies, having no visible means of support, and… if some stories are to be belieived, also renting themselves out by the hour, were deported as undesirable aliens.
The “bribe” the Rev. and the wannabe President are talking about is called RESTITUTION – he held himself out as a real estate agent and contractor, cheating the owners of the Casa Blanca Cafe and Bar in Hutalaco (an English couple with the all-too-delightful name of Kevin and Tess Hunneybell), out of a substantial sum of money… somewhere around, oh… 200,000 pesos, or $20,000.
I can see why the “poor Canadian in the clutches of the dirty Mescans” story only had a one-day life in the Canadian press. I’ve looked, but it died out.
Not that some Canadians are going to let a little thing like the facts interfere with their “demand” that their country do something about the alleged slaughter and miscellenous mahyem in Mexico. The Canadian government, to it’s credit, brushed them off.
“Harding”, who usually manages to find enough murder and mayhem just in Toronto to put out the hard–boiled (and, in a twisted way, very entertaining) “T.O. Crimes: True Crimes of the True North” (ok, so he’s also got a cannibal/serial killer from British Columbia to write about, but geeze, how could any crime writer resist that?) has been overlapping OUR geographic portion of the blogosphere. Ok, he can have the throat-cutting, since Canadians are suspected – though of course, they’re saying the Mexican hotel staff did it (obviously not a robbery, so why would they bother with a middle-aged couple from Woodbridge Ontario?).
The hit-n-run in Acapulco at least had some piquancy, but it sounds more like a family in need of serious grief counseling than anything else (isn’t social services the thing Canada is famous for?). In Ajijic you have to be a very good driver NOT to hit a Canadian. And, the foot-dinging was just one of those things that happens when gangsters are shooting at each other. Ok, maybe he can have that one too.
If you went to Mexico, you’re more likely NOT to get shot than you are to get shot. Chances are… you’ll make it back.
…
Hey, if you really want to play the odds… you don’t have to go to Mexico. Just hang out at Yonge and Dundas… or in Flemingdon Park.
None of which are anything like Tepito or Ciudad Nezahuacoatl, where you’re more likely to emerge alive than otherwise, but what the hey… I’ll bet you can’t buy a used coffin in Flemingdon Park, like a friend of mine claims she saw being sold in Tepito (you can buy ANYTHING in Tepito… that’s its charm). Or, if you could, they’d probably make you get all kinds of health certificates (why?) and a business license and sell in a building and post the building inspector’s report and…
Which is possibly the reason Canadians sometimes run into problems in Mexico. Canada, despite its large immigrant population is extremely homogenous (90% “white”, they have to use terms like “Irish” and “English” on their census reports. They wiped out most of their indigenous people in the 18th and 19th centuries) and depends on the government to make the social rules. They did have a very brief rebellion in the 1860s, but never broke with their colonial overlords, the British. They’re idea of a rebel is Michael J. Fox.
Mexico is a very mixed population, not particularly wealthy and tends to make up the rules as they go along – or relies on the extended family to enforce conformity. The indigenous-other population is the majority, and they never particularly cozzened to the idea of colonial rule. After a bloody ten year struggle, they were invaded three times by foreigners in the 19th century, occupied twice and had a spectacular social revolution in the 20th century. These are not the kind of folks who pay much attention to the authorities. Their idea of a rebel is Cantinflas. Or Fidel Castro (who lived in Pozo Rica for a time)… or Subcomandante Marcos… or…. you get the picture.
Canadians, for all their good qualities, sometimes can be awfully provincial. Two things to remember (besides the basic “don’t act like a dick”):
The local copper isn’t paid to serve and protect you. He’s paid by the authorities (who no one listens to when they don’t want to) to maintain control. Next time you have trouble go to to the Ministerio Publico. They’re better paid, and even if they’re sometimes a bit crude (I had two conversation students who used to work as federal prosecutors. It even weirded me out when they were talking about the uses of torture to expedite confessions… otherwise nice guys). The CSI type guys are as good as anywhere… and know it. Alas, they get a lot of practice.
Things move slowly. Canada is a rich country, but you guys have enough oil and minerals of your own. You don’t buy Mexico’s. The big country right next door, which buys most Mexican oil and minerals, and invaded a couple of times to maintain control over the stuff, might expect to get served first. Sorry, guys… the only aggressive Canadian Imperalist down here was Lord Cowdray, and he was only a Canadian when it was convenient. Usually he was “British”. And Mexico tossed him out when they nationalized the oil. Afraid the Canadians will have to wait in line with the Swedes and the Argentines when your diplomats come knocking. Patience is a Mexican virtue, but then, living in a country where it can take months to get your telephone installed teaches you patience.
Dick Nixon dice “¡Viva Mexico!” (sorta, kinda)
… though Tricky Dicky complaining about thieves and crooks is a little like the pot calling the kettle black (which is definitely the WRONG metaphor to use here!)
From a May 13, 1971, conversation among President Richard Nixon, John D. Ehrlichman, and H. R. Haldeman. On October 5, 1999, the National Archives made available to the public 445 hours of previously unreleased Oval Office tapes. The following dialogue was transcribed by Chicago Tribune reporter James Warren.
RICHARD NIXON: I have the greatest affection for them [blacks], but I know they’re not going to make it for 500 years. They aren’t. You know it, too. The Mexicans are a different cup of tea. They have a heritage. At the present time they steal, they’re dishonest, but they do have some concept of family life. They don’t live like a bunch of dogs, which the Negroes do live like.
JOHN EHRLICHMAN: The Mexican American is not as good as the Mexican. You go down to Mexico–they’re clean, they’re honest, they’re moral.
NIXON: Mexico is a much more moral country.
EHRLICHMAN: Monterrey, Cuernavaca. Go into slum areas, and by God they come out with clean shirts on a Sunday morning.
NIXON: The church. You find a helluva lot less marijuana use in Mexico than the United States…
Felipe Calderón in Davos…
Didn’t expect to win friends and influence people (in Latin America), but apparently, that was what he planned to do, Laura Carlson writes in Counterpunch:
Calderón… went to Davos to pick a fight. As a strategy to appeal to foreign investors, he painted a divided Latin America-with Mexico standing as a regional leader of those countries adhering to the rules set forth by the United States and the international finance organizations, and standing up to other countries that seek alternatives and modifications to the neoliberal model.
… Mexico is a nation that exports half a million people a year-mostly the poor and underemployed who “vote with their feet” against an economic system that has failed them. Just days after the Davos forum, tens of thousands of Mexicans marched in the streets to protest a price rise in tortillas and declining real wages. Social protest in several states, notably Oaxaca, has refused to subside even in the face of violent repression.
A presidential crusade to position Mexico as a model of the right in Latin America is not good for Mexico, no matter what one’s ideological orientation.
By claiming obedience to globalization’s strictest rules as a virtue, Calderon publicly eliminates policy space for much-needed corrective measures. By making conservative free-market economics Mexico’s platform for competition, Calderon rejects demands for a new or modified economic model and for social programs to reduce inequality. These are policies that will inevitably inflame Mexico’s internal differences.
As foreign policy, the strategy simply defies common sense. It’s never a good idea to antagonize the neighbors. The PAN government has routinely exacerbated conflicts with heads of state in the South, made the terms for cooperation more difficult, and drawn lines of difference where there could be a common search for solutions to shared problems. It has also explicitly rejected interesting prospects for alternative forms of integration on the continent.
Most right, but … WTF???
Although the Mex Files deals with U.S. politics now and again, this is (theoretically) a Mexican cultural and news site … and was originally set up in Mexico, and still listed as Mexican blog written mostly in English (a sincere ¡GRACIAS! for the nomination for a minor category Koufax Award, but I’m not eligible).
I don’t think I’ll be asked, but the Mex Files does not endorse candidates. Last Presidential election, I didn’t bother to vote (I would have had to vote absentee in Texas, and it was a foregone conclusion that George W. Bush would get the state’s electorial votes. The other guy’s main virtue was he was relatively sane by comparison, but he was an ignoramus when it came to Latin America).
Having said all that, I’m gonna post again about Bill Richardson. Richardson happened to grow up in Mexico City, which is more or less within the boundries of this site, and besides, it was an excuse to talk about the Mormons of Chihuahua. I don’t think a Governor, with diplomatic and cabinet officer experience (and coming from a rich family) would be a unlikely choice for a candidate (and there are several — maybe too many — “interesting” choices right now).
Anway, Richardson gave a speech Thursday (08 February) to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which was apparently well-received, establishes his “creds” as an international expert and said a lot of right things (reported in the Dallas Morning News):
Richardson, now governor of New Mexico, said demonstrating a commitment to multilateral cooperation could start by expanding the U.N. Security Council from its current five permanent members to 10. He said he would grant membership but not veto power to Germany and Japan and representation to Asia, Africa and Latin America, perhaps with countries in those regions rotating the seat.
He also called for the United States to join the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on curbing such emissions “and then go well beyond it.”
He said that would mean sacrifice to cut oil imports from 65 percent of fossil fuel use to 10 percent in 15 years. He said it would require a massive public and private investment in renewable technology and a drastic increase in automobile fuel economy standards. “This has to be led by a president,” Richardson said.
…
Richardson also said to win the war against Jihadism, the United States must first live up to its own ideals.
“Prisoner abuse, torture, secret prisons, renditions, and evasion of the Geneva conventions must have no place in our policy,” Richardson said. “If we want Muslims to open to us, we should start by closing Guantanamo.”
All very good (as is his support of medical marijuana in his own state)… I like Richardson (but, I like a lot of the “Ds” so far). But why did he have to add this (picked up from a Jornada report) at that Center for Stategic and International Studies speech… Mexican blogs in English noticed:
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said Thursday that Mexico would have to restrict citizens moving to the northern border in order to reduce emigration to the United States.
Would this mean President Calderón (or “legitimate president Lopez Obradór”) can request we be moved off the southern border to reduce gun running and money laundering? Sounds a tad imperalist to me, not to mention I think the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has something to say about the free movements of people. Uh… Bill… you were a U.N.Ambassador.
I hope this was just an observation, and not something the crazies are gonna start suggesting. I can see Tom Tancredo DEMANDING something like this. Anyway, it’s too DAMN EARLY to talk about the November 2008 Presidential Elections. Why can’t the U.S. do like Mexico and have closely contested, probably fraudulent elections in a 90-day campaign and let us talk about something else (oh… global warming, agricultural policy, etc.) until then.
Another border attack — again, not coincidence
I have a few questions… both about the story, and about the reporting.
By ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN
TUCSON, Ariz. (Feb. 08) – Gunmen stopped a pickup truck full of illegal immigrants, shot several and took the rest captive Thursday in an attack that left at least three men dead and two people wounded, authorities said.
The men shot three people, one fatally, along a known smuggling corridor near Tucson, then forced the six or seven other immigrants in the group to leave with them, Pima County sheriff’s officials said.
The bodies of two of those immigrants were found a few miles north in the cab of the pickup truck that had been carrying the group. The other four or five immigrants had not been found by midday Thursday.
Investigators did not immediately know a motive for the attack, but gangs of bandits are known to roam border areas preying on illegal immigrants as they cross into the country. Feuding among smuggling organizations also is not uncommon, sometimes involving demands for ransoms from the immigrants relatives to gain their freedom.
Kastigar said the immigrants were heading north when four men armed with assault rifles in another vehicle forced the truck to stop. During a confrontation, one man was killed, another was shot in the hand – losing several fingers – and a woman was shot in the neck, Kastigar said.
Sheriff’s Sgt. James Ogden said the two wounded immigrants were taken to a hospital with “very, very serious injuries.”
Two more men who were not injured were taken into custody as witnesses and were questioned by investigators, Ogden said.
Kastigar said the confrontation followed another incident about 12 hours earlier more than 70 miles south, near the border at Sasabe, in which 18 illegal immigrants were robbed at gunpoint by four heavily armed men wearing ski masks.
This is actually the THIRD attack in the area. ON February 1, there was the disturbing report of four men opening fire on a group of “illegal aliens” — which initially suggested an inter-gang war, but later reports suggest could be a anti-immigrant death squad operating in the desert. (The attackers didn’t speak Spanish, and were dressed in paramilitary outfits. In the first of today’s attack, they were in “pasamontañes”…and speaking Spanish, according to El Voz (Phoenix), but there’s no indication the two are related, or, for that matter, that these three are. But… something sure is going on).
Don’t the AP editors follow up on their own reports? The Texas Civil Liberties Review sensibly suggests following up English-language reports with those in the Spanish-language press. I’ll look around later this evening, and see if I can come up with anything… if so, I’ll update.
“There are no coincidences”
Bush to visit Mexico in March
Associated Press
} MEXICO CITY — President Bush will travel to Mexico in March to meet with President Felipe Calderon, the government said Wednesday.The Foreign Relations Department said in a statement that Bush will be in Mexico March 12-14 as part of a tour of Latin America.
Bush and Calderon met for the first time at the White House on Nov. 9, before the Mexican president had been sworn in, and discussed border security and illegal migration, among other topics.
The statement said that the leaders have spoken on the phone twice recently and that the meeting in March would serve to review several bilateral issues.
It didn’t specify what those issues were but immigration and trade issues have dominated relations in recent years.
The White House declined to comment.
Texas lawmaker proposing Texas-run prison in Mexico
By MICHAEL GRACZYK
Associated Press
AUSTIN — With so many non-violent Mexican citizens clogging an increasingly jammed Texas prison system, a state lawmaker thinks it may be time for Texas to set up its own prison in Mexico….
SCJN to probe Atenco abuses
This is very good news, indeed. I wrote about the Atenco incident back on May 12, 2006.
| > |
>By Kelly Arthur Garrett/The Herald Mexico |
| The Supreme Court voted 7-4 Tuesday to launch an investigation into state and federal police conduct during the arrests last May of some 240 men, women and children in the State of Mexico town of San Salvador Atenco.The decision represents a victory for human rights groups who have contended that officers intentionally used unnecessary force during the May 4, 2006, early-morning sweep of the town.The rights groups have alleged those arrested were subjected to serious abuses – including rape and torture – as they were transported for six hours to prison.It also represents hope for Atenco residents and local activist groups, who insist that those still being held in jail are political prisoners.”The decision is a first step that brings us closer to the exercise of justice in these regrettable events,” said a spokesperson for the People´s Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT), an organization embracing many communities in the area that has been in the forefront of local clashes with state and federal officials.An investigation overseen by the Supreme Court could also bring unwanted attention to key political figures. One would be Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto, a rising star in the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who is being groomed as a possible presidential candidate. As governor of the State of Mexico, Peña Nieto is ultimately responsible for the state officers´ actions.
Another prominent public official who could be inconvenienced by the probe is Eduardo Medina Mora, President Calderón´s attorney general. Medina Mora was the public security secretary at the time of the Atenco events and he has refused to accept recommendations by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), which found evidence of widespread abuse during the arrests. As recently as January, Medina Mora was grilled by opposition legislators for his snubbing of the CNDH, and directly criticized by CNDH head José Luis Soberanes. By choosing to look into rights abuse allegations, the Court asserted a position that may go beyond the Atenco issue. Article 97 of the Constitution gives the Court the leeway to form special committees to investigate violations of individual guarantees, which in the article´s language includes voting irregularities serious enough to jeopardize the public´s right to fair elections. Supreme Court minister Mariano Azuela, then the president of the Court, criticized Article 97 last year as “written with feet” and there was some doubt about whether a court majority would avail itself of its investigative power. On Tuesday, however, Azuela was joined only by ministers Sergio Aguirre Anguiano, José de Jesús Gudiño Pelayo, and Sergio Valls Hernández in voting against the investigation. … Tensions between Atenco and the state and federal authorities are historic, but came to a head in 2001 when the Fox administration attempted to expropriate some 4,500 acres of land for a new international airport, offering 7 pesos per square foot. The resulting ongoing battle, often violent, eventually forced the federal government to shelve the airport plans in 2002. But tempers flared again on May 3, 2006, when police removed flower sellers from their temporary stalls in nearby Texcoco. In solidarity, Atenco residents blocked the local highway, leading to a battle with riot police that left two dead, including a 14-year-old boy. The next morning, state and federal police executed a door-to-door sweep of Atenco, during which the alleged brutality took place. Those loaded on vehicles reported the most serious abuses. |
Narco News has been covering Atenco since 2002 at least.
English only readers beware
A “Consumer Alert” from the Texas Civil Rights Review:
Sure if you want to read about guns and prisons at the border, English will work for you just fine. But if you want today’s news about peacemakers trying to cut a path of sanity through the provocations and racist hysteria, then sorry, that kind of news is Spanish only.
As I’m chatting these days with Jay Johnson-Castro about the caravan that he and Enrique Morones are bravely driving back and forth along the USA border with Mexico, it becomes a truth hotter than the Arizona desert. English speaking news audiences are being systematically taught to hate and fear the border.
A January 3 “standoff” along the Arizona border between unidentified gunmen and the Tennessee National Guard–during which no shots were fired–is getting rehashed this week in a story by Associated Press writer Alicia A. Caldwell.
But there are two problems with that report. First, Jay expresses doubt about the official story of the “standoff.” He cautions against believing the narrative as reported.
Second, the reader gets the impression from the dateline and opening paragraphs that the story is about something that recently happened in Del Rio. The reader has to dig at least ten paragraphs down to find that this is a rehash of an Arizona story from Jan. 3.
But why would a reporter file a story from Del Rio this week about a month-old incident in Arizona, when Del Rio’s favorite son, Jay Johnson-Castro is busy with widely announced plans for his border caravan?
Aside from what we do find in the English-speaking news world today, consider what we don’t find. Not a single story about Morones or Johnson-Castro. Not a single story about their visits to the walls or cemeteries of San Diego. Not a single story about this weekend’s national leadership convention in Phoenix involving such heavy-hitting Civil Rights organizers such as Peter Schey, Isabel Garcia, or Rosa Rosales.
Not a word about how the convention gave Morones a standing ovation.
English readers beware. If you’re not consuming Spanish language news, then the language of guns and prisons is what you know, and what you know is only part of the story that’s being reported.
Hey, I do the best I can with what I have, but there’s only one of me and I’m having to work part time on the side to make ends meet. Donations, as always, welocme.
She works hard for the money?
Mexico – 6 February. – Mexican authorities have detained the Juárez crime cartel’s four leading financial operatives, also seizing $162,000 belonging to the organization, the Federal Secretariat for Public Security (SSP, for its initials in Spanish) announced today.
According to an official police communication, today’s action in Cuidad Juárez resulted in the capture of a “cell” within the criminal organization dedicated to laundering money received from narcotics sales.
Among the detainees were Alejandro Rodríguez Meza and Armando Corral, both self-confessed lieutenants to Juárez crime boss Vicente Carrillo Fuentes. Also, according to documents, the number two person in the criminal organization, Miriam Elizabeth Martínez Morales, was also arrested. Martínez Morales is the wife of Rodríguez Meza.
The arrestees “returned to Mexico by land with money earned from illicit activities in the Northeastern United States: Detroit Michigan, Chicago Illinois, New York City and other locations.”
Two points: besides the obvious one that it’s people buying drugs that finance gangsters, it appears that the glass ceiling is being broken at least in SOME Mexican business sectors. I wrote about another Mafia Doña back in September 2004.
Stupid, and proud of it… the Minuteman and el Super Tazón
I haven’t a clue who John Boggan is, but he posted this in the Scottsdale (AZ) East Valley Tribune
Tonight while most people were watching the superbowl, I had to make a trip to Wal Mart for my daughter… I went in to find not one english speaking person in the entire store! not only that, I did not not see any shoppers but those of hispanic descent! This is just proof that these people have no intention of becoming american. They wont speak the language, they want us to cater to them, and by god they dont even care about the superbowl! that’s just un-american, but dont try to get them to work during the world cup!
Uh, John … since you probably can’t read Spanish, you probably don’t often read the Mexican intellectual daily, Jornada, but I guess you can figure out what the picture was on Monday’s front page. Sorry you missed the game…
mexfiles.net 