Mexico's human rights record blasted

[Judi Lynn]

Source: The Star

Mexico's human rights record blasted
Despite bid to combat violence, torture, sex abuse, arbitrary arrests on the rise, watchdog report states
Feb 11, 2009 04:30 AM

Mexico's human rights efforts are falling short of its good intentions, says a report by Amnesty International.

"There is ingrained impunity for human rights violations," said Rupert Knox, a Mexico researcher with the London-based organization. "The government talks about rights in general terms. But what's lacking is a dynamic commitment that has some impact on the ground."

~snip~
Meanwhile, ongoing bloodshed and a fraying economy have undermined support for President Felipe Calderon's conservative government, and a recent poll shows public confidence sliding ahead of mid-term elections in July.

~snip~
Amnesty said the justice system is in need of broad reform, charging it continues to try cases in military rather than civilian courts; human rights defenders face persecution or detention on trumped-up charges, and indigenous communities may be harassed for opposing development projects affecting their livelihoods.

Read more: http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/585539

[Judi Lynn]

1. Mexican Troops Detain Police Chief in Cancun, 36 Other Officers Arrested in Connection to Murder of

Mexican Troops Detain Police Chief in Cancun, 36 Other Officers Arrested in Connection to Murder of ex-Army Leader

Atlanta, Ga. 2/10/2009 04:18 PM GMT (TransWorldNews)

Mexican troops swarmed a police station in the municipality of Benito Juarez in Cancun and detained the police chief along with 36 other officers who may have been connected to the murder of an ex-army leader who had headed up a special unit designed to tackle the drug cartels.

The troops seized the weapons of police chief Francisco Velasco and the other officers and Velasco was then flown to Mexico City for questioning. Velasco is alleged to have connections to the murder of former general Mauro Enrique Tello.

Tello, along with two other men, had been abducted, tortured and shot earlier this year; one day after Tello took his new position.

Many are blaming a corrupt police force and powerful drug cartels for the staggering 5,400 murders in Mexico in 2008.

http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?storyid=75905

[Judi Lynn]

2. Anti-drugs squad chief's violent death

Anti-drugs squad chief's violent death
4:00AM Wednesday Feb 11, 2009

CANCUN - The popular resort city of Cancun, on Mexico's Caribbean coast, is under an unprecedented military clampdown after the kidnap, torture and murder of a retired Army general days after he had been brought in to combat drug-related violence.

Brigadier-General Mauro Enrique Tello Quinones was ambushed in his car with an aide and his driver. Their bodies were found hours later, the general with both arms and legs broken and having been shot in the head.

Heavily-armed troops have been deployed to Cancun, setting up checkpoints and roadblocks.

Tello, 63, retired last month after a long, controversial career. He had been asked to set up an elite anti-drugs squad in Cancun.

President Felipe Calderon, whose campaign against the drug cartels in Mexico has unleashed a wave of violence, attended the general's funeral.

More:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10556037

http://www.theepochtimes.com.nyud.net:8090/news_images/2006-11-19-2006-11-17-calush72479122.jpg http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/03dW4ttgyU9C6/340x.jpg

Heck of a job there, _Bushie.

[trungpa ricochet]

3. Legalize all drugs and stop the market

I have watched Mexico all my life, having lived in two states on the border and having visited many times. My opinion is that corruption is so much a part of the culture that no amount of military-style intervention is ever going to stop the drug problem. The stuff that has been happening in Mexico is beyond hideous. If the US legalized drugs, the market would dry up immediately. I realize that's way too radical for most Americans, but it's the only solution.

[Peace Patriot]

4. It seems to me that, wherever the U.S. "war on drugs" goes, there follows

thousands of murders mostly of innocent people. Then yet MORE "war" is inflicted in the name of killing drug lords, at a cost of billions MORE dollars to U.S. taxpayers--and a thriving industry in weapons, and military helicopters and high tech surveillance, etc., etc.--with no decrease in drug trafficking, and an increase in weapons traffic and MORE violence.

It is a downward spiral into hell of the WRONG solution to a problem.

Notice that the Pentagon recently announced that they are going to "war" on the heroin traffic in Afghanistan. That's their new justification for being there and daily bombing innocent civilians. The "war on drugs." The irony is that the Taliban had shut the heroin industry down. It has taken the U.S. military to start it up again, full bore.

Colombia has become a horrorsville of murder and mayhem--with thousands of union leaders, human rights workers and other innocents slaughtered by rightwing death squads, under color of the U.S. "war on drugs." The best governments in South America have evicted the U.S. military and its "war" (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, soon Paraguay). It is cruel (toxic pesticide spraying of small peasant farmers), violent (often indiscriminately), promoting of fascist behavior of all kinds (torture, murder, rape, theft against the poor, racism), corrupt (drives up the price of illicit drugs, making corruption very lucrative), and on top of everything else, fails to even stem the drug trade. The drug trade just becomes more violent.

And that appears to be what's happening in Mexico--a syndrome of violence fed by the U.S. "war on drugs."

I don't know if this recent victim of the U.S. "war on drugs"--Brigadier-General Mauro Enrique Tello Quinones--was intent on doing good or not. I certainly lament the way he died, and hope the perpetrators of this horrible crime (the real ones) are caught and held accountable. But General Tello was appointed by a bad, rightwing Bush ally, Felipe Calderon, to continue an extremely bad, violent, wrongful, self-defeating policy.

My solution, I suppose, would be to legalize drugs, take away the profit motive, and use the money wasted on military boondoggles to do something about poverty. That is what the new president of Guatemala wants to do. That is what many good leaders want to do. Meanwhile, human lives on all sides of this conflict are being destroyed; what may be good and well-meaning people are being wasted on corrupt, failed military solutions; many of the poor, in hopeless poverty, are getting sucked into lives of crime; and neither the U.S. nor Mexico can afford universal health care, or high quality universal education, or proper nutrition for all citizens, and on and on. The "war on drugs" is a heartbreaking disaster, that more violence, more militarism and more prisons will never, never solve.

[Baby Snooks]

5. "The Adventurers"

It's an old film. But one of those films based on a book that is regarded as fiction but reflective of fact. Latin America is rooted in revolution and Mexico is headed for another revolution. The last revolution was at the hands of criminals who rose up against the government and became the "ruling class" once they took power. The ruling families of Mexico are all descended from the revolutionaries who overthrew the government a century ago.

It is and always has been an oligarchy from the point it became independent of Spain. As have most Latin American countries. Those with the money rule. Those who overthrow the government end up with the money. And the government merely serves them. Which is what is happening here in our country.

It is a cycle of men, and now women, who rise up in reaction to oppression and then once they have power, oppress the people as well.

The problem is this time the revolutionaries are drug dealers who have enriched themselves off the misery they spread with their drugs. They are not selling the drugs in the wealthy neighborhoods. They are selling the drugs in the slums. And selling the drugs to American drug dealers. Who also sell the drugs in the slums.

Most of them of course emerged from the slums and the poverty and discovered wealth and power through drug dealing. And the wealth brought the ability to buy guns. And the power brought the ability to become more powerful than the government. Legalizing drugs would change nothing. They would just control the legal drug trade. Which would serve only to oppress the poor even further. And possibly allow the drug dealers to use ballot boxes instead of guns to overthrow the government.

They aren't selling marijuana. They are selling cocaine and heroin. And other drugs. To control the poor. Who will support the revolution.

The problem has worsened in the past eight years because of the policies of the Bushes and many others who care only about the ability to enrich themselves off the industry of Mexico which is controlled by the ruling families who believe the association protects them but of course in a revolution we would probably do nothing. Fearful of it spreading across the border. There are an estimated 50 million Mexican immigrants here illegally. They will stay here. To suddenly start deporting them all would be to invite revolution here as well. Why would anyone want to return to Mexico? They came here to escape the corruption and the crime.

The "guest workers" who have come here and for the most part become a new worker class which has displaced American workers and is slowly forcing American workers, along with outsourcing, to work longer hours for less money and with no benefits. It is all tied together. Most people cannot see the dots let alone connect them.

We are an oligarchy. Looking at Mexico that should frighten everyone. It doesn't. Most people believe we are still a democracy. We are not.