Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Remembering dead children, women and men at Acteal, Chenalhó, Chiapas.

It´s funny -in the most bitter sense of the word- when one realises how things really work in Mexico...

Plan Mérida: a US government initiative to fight crime (any kind) in Mexico and some countries south of Mexico. Approximately $400 million dollars will be given to Mexico during the first of three years of implementation of such initiative.

However, not all is sweet and candy for Mr. President of Mexico, Felipe Calderón: the implementation of Plan Mérida has been halted temporarily to force the mexican government to comply with human rights regulations, "to set their record straight" with regard to human rights.

Now the funny part:

1) It is widely believed that one of the consequences of plan Mérida will be an increase in human rights violations with the justification of prosecuting criminals (e.g. true social movements will be considered criminal acts).

2) at the joint meeting between the presidents of Canada, US, and México (held in the mexican state of Jalisco) these past few days, president Calderon challenged his audience (and the whole world, i guess) to demonstrate that accusations of human rights violations in Mexico have not been processed by the propper authorities and have not received enough attention.

Does president Calderón think that the future release (this thursday) of 40 indigenous people (identified as paramilitary agents) who were responsible for the killing of innocent indigenous women and children at Acteal, Chiapas in december of 1997 amounts to "propper treatment" of a human rights violation accusation?

Does president Calderón think that the so-called "doubts" about the "brain" behind this killing amount to "enough attention" to human rights violations in Mexico?

Is his non-experienced diagnosis of a "badly treated gastritis" (president Calderón is not a doctor) that allegedly killed an old indigenous woman in Zongolica, Veracruz (a gastritis that left her naked, beaten, and with evident traces of rape), "propper treatment" of human rights violations in Mexico?

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Who said something about "low-intensity" war?



This morning, I was listening to Miguel Angel Granados Chapa, leading voice of a morning news show that sometimes provides interesting comments about Mexico´s current political situation. He commented on a newspaper note (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/08/04/index.php?section=politica&article=014n1pol) about the privation of freedom of 5 indigenous young women in Chiapas. He said that "Chiapas is not, as many people say, living under a state of low-intensity war from the Mexican government; instead, indigenous people in Chiapas are victims of religious conflicts given the diversity of spiritual beliefs characteristic of the region".

What kind of religious conflict, I wonder, is responsible for the persistent violent actions of the Orcao group against indigenous people that are living under zapatist autonomy for the last 15 years or so?
(The Orcao group, a so called cooperativist group of coffee growers, has been identified in the past with paramilitary activities)
(http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/08/04/index.php?section=politica&article=014n2pol)