NAFTA Linked to Massive Human Rights Violations in Mexico

[Judi Lynn]

NAFTA Linked to Massive Human Rights Violations in Mexico
Sunday, 6 April 2014, 12:44 pm
Article: Kent Paterson

NAFTA Linked to Massive Human Rights Violations in Mexico

by Kent Paterson

In a series of preliminary opinions, an international tribunal of conscience has condemned massive violations of human rights in Mexico.

Now wrapping up a four-year process of evidence gathering, members of the Mexican chapter of the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) have found grave threats to the environment, food sovereignty, indigenous autonomy, and democratic rights of self-expression and organization of the Mexican people.

A common denominator is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), according to PPT representatives and collaborators.

“Groups and movements participating in the tribunal have documented ways in which NAFTA has been pernicious to Mexico’s social, economic and cultural life,” says Dr. Zulma Mendez, member of the Group for the Articulation of Justice in Ciudad Juarez and a participant in the gender violence and femicide section of the PPT.

According to Mendez,“The unequal relations of power that are present in NAFTA and which help to make it attractive to U.S. interests have been addressed: Transnational corporations that divest communities of a viable future through practices that turn communities into mass production spaces, workers into a pair of arms, and life as disposable…”

More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1404/S00032/nafta-linked-to-massive-human-rights-violations-in-mexico.htm

[Judi Lynn]

1. Important info. to see from the article:

~snip~

As for environmental transgressions, the PPT does not limit responsibility to the Mexican State per se, but also holds transnational corporations and the governments of the United States and Canada accountable for assaults on communities and ecosystems. Familiar names cited in testimony before the PPT include Halliburton, Monsanto, Wal-Mart of Mexico, Home Depot, and the convenience store chain Oxxo, among numerous others. The PPT hearings also brought evidence regarding the murders of environmental activists, including anti-mining activists Mariano Abarca in Chiapas (2009), Bernardo Mendez Vasquez in Oaxaca (2012) and Ismael Solorio in Chihuahua (2012).

The PPT notes that Canadian companies dominate 75 percent of the mining industry and that 16 percent of Mexico’s national territory has been contracted out to mining companies.

In a comprehensive overview for the PPT, veteran pro-democracy activists Dr. Felix Hernandez and Dr. Raul Alvarez of the ’68 Committee compiled 5,000 cases of repression dating back to the army’s 1946 massacre of protesters in Leon, Guanajuato, to the present day. In hearings related to the dirty war, the so-called drug war, which intensified as the NAFTA economy grew, figures in prominently. According to PPT testimony, the northern border state of Chihuahua, Ground Zero for narco-tainted violence, has been one of the most dangerous places for human rights defenders in recent years.

The tribunal reports the killing of 17 activists in Ciudad Juarez and other parts of Chihuahua state from 2009 to 2012 alone, including anti-femicide activist Marisela Escobedo, Raramuri land rights attorney Ernesto Rabano and six members of the Reyes Salazar family near Ciudad Juarez, which the PPT characterized as constituting a “particularly dramatic” attempt to exterminate an entire family.

Evidence provided before jurors revealed a consistent modus operandi of government repression, including tactics of infiltrating demonstrations with paid provocateurs, splashing ink on protester’s clothing to identify them, trailing activists, threatening dissidents, and mistreating, isolating and even torturing detainees.

Thank you.

[Flatulo]

2. I think most people here on DU would agree that NAFTA

has been a loser for most of the parties involved, except the corporations that are exploiting cheap labor and lax environmental standards.

Unfortunately, the PPT has no enforcement or legal authority of any kind, and is just 'an international tribunal of conscience'.

[bemildred]

3. Human rights violations is what "free trade" is all about. nt