Mexican Government Terrorizes It's Own Citizens - Bush Backed Bandoleros

[autorank]

Mexican Government Terrorizes It’s Own Citizens

"...gross, systematic, federally- and seemingly internationally-sanctioned, human rights abuses – and this from the country occupying the chair of the United Nations Human Rights Council..."

Here we go again...The Mexican people: Heroes of Democracy are being punished for seeking just the most reasonable freedoms. Thanks to the election of the Bush backed presidential winner Calderon, we're now seeing the Federal government attacking those sources of resistance to the criminal conspiracy that allows foreigners to loot Mexico's labor and natural resources. Word is oil is short in Mexico. What happens then? Will the corporate exploiters simply leave behind a fine people in a shell of a country? You bet they will!

link: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0708/S00301.htm

First Atenco, then Oaxaca – Chiapas, You’re Next

Saturday, 25 August 2007, 5:20 pm
Article: Julie Webb-Pullman


Clouds over Chiapas
While the international corporate media studiously maintains a silence bordering on autism, Mexican human rights abuses look set to surpass even those of their northern neighbour – who seemingly shares the increasing disquiet at their methods, and is building a BIG fence to keep them out of his backyard. After all, the US mostly does it to foreigners, and preferably in other countries, whereas these honchos have it in for their own citizens – and anyone else who sticks their nose in.

Take the four Spanish citizens snatched off the street in Oaxaca a couple of weeks of ago. Laia Serra (human rights lawyer), Ramón Sesén (professor), Nuria Morelló (anthropologist) and Ariadna Nieto (journalist) were walking with a Mexican friend in the historic centre of Oaxaca at 9.30pm on 5th August when they were surrounded by police, thrown up against a wall, then forced into a pick-up truck. They were taken to what appeared to them to be military or police quarters “...where people were dressed in blue and green uniforms. When they took us out of the truck they covered our heads and dragged us to a wall where we were forced to kneel down while they took away our back packs, fanny packs, documentation, and money.” After being robbed, they were variously photographed, interrogated, threatened, beaten, sexually assaulted, forced to do “humiliating acts” and terrorized – but they were not informed of what offences they were accused of or why they had been detained ie, they were subjected to what now appears to be standard Mexican police procedure – violent arbitrary detention.

Snip

For several months, the Community of 24 de Diciembre, Autonomous Municipality of San Pedro de Michoacán, has been under constant attack from members of the organisation UES (partners and distributors of Cafe de la Selva), supported by federal institutions and the federal army. The 31 families are at risk of being expelled from their lands, as occurred this week to the people of Montes Azules. This month alone:

-- on August 2 in the Community of Francisco Villa, Autonomous Municipality of La Paz, Northern Zone, anti-Zapatistas burned down María López Oñate’s house. There are constant threats against this community to keep the population in fear, especially threats of rape directed at the women.
-- August 10 in the Community of Ba yulumax, Autonomous Municipality of Chilón, 13 members of the paramilitary organization OPDDIC brutally attacked Leonardo Navarrese, kidnapping, beating and shooting him, resulting in six serious bullet wounds, while his son Juan received a head injury, and a bullet wound in his shoulder.
-- August 18, in addition to the attack in Montes Azules, seven people were detained in Buen Samaritano, San Manuel Municipality. Their identities and whereabouts are stillunknown, as are their physical and psychological welfare.
-- Eviction threats also currently exist for the communities of Salvador Allende and Nuevo Corozal.

The events of Atenco, Oaxaca, Chiapas are clearly not aberrations. They all involve the considered, premeditated, and continued use of municipal, state, and federal forces and institutions to illegally, and with apparent total impunity, trample the human rights of both Mexicans and foreigners alike, including those of international human rights observers and media representatives like the four Spanish citizens abducted by police in Oaxaca, like Valentina Palma, Cristina Valls, and María Sostres similarly abducted then deported from Atenco, like Brad Will murdered in Oaxaca while trying to get word out to the rest of the world about what was happening then, and is still happening today, right now, in Mexico – gross, systematic, federally- and seemingly internationally-sanctioned, human rights abuses – and this from the country occupying the chair of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
*************
Julie Webb-Pullman is a expat Kiwi writing from Mexico


link: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0708/S00301.htm

[MisterP]

1. when Robberon stole the election last year (with Rove's help), I knew he'd end his term

either as a vegetable or a third Mexican Emperor: it looks like it's the second choice

[autorank]

2. You mean this guy?

[althecat]

4. What a lovely picture... seems that pulling the wool over the people's eyes is a touch harder...

... than pulling it over the eyes of the US Media and Legislature.

[autorank]

9. They're living the dream...

...or I should say, nightmare.

The looting of Mexico is a crime of such immense proportions.

Nice article chief.

[Me.]

3. Part & Parcel

The same people trying to destroy us, are trying to do it to them. My question has always been why. How does it benefit them to destroy 2 countries?

[althecat]

5. Since you asked - one answer to your question....

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0304/S00228.htm

The American Tapeworm (Part 1)

A Tapeworm’s Triumph

The other day, a natural healing practitioner explained the strategy used by a tapeworm to prosper. A tapeworm, she said, injected a chemical into its host that triggered a craving by the host for what the tapeworm wished for its dinner. By managing it’s hosts desire, a tapeworm manipulated its host to set aside self-interest and please its parasite. And so the tapeworm proceeded to consume its host’s energy and health, with the host doing most of the work.

The story of how a tapeworm parasitically eats away at its ecosystem came at a moment when the math lover in me was having an adverse reaction to the description of America as the new Roman Empire that seems to be inspired by the recent occupation of Iraq. The investment economics of American imperial conquest work more along the lines of the tapeworm than of the Romans.

If my rudimentary understanding of the rise and fall of ancient empires is useful, the Roman Empire brought an advancement of science, infrastructure, technology and material progress to many of the poorer lands that it conquered. In essence, Rome’s territory grew in part from its ability to increase the ‘return on investment” of many of the places it conquered.

While those who believe in self-determination may not approve of the Romans right to do so, or their methods, those of us who appreciate roads, bridges and infrastructure understand the positive investment yields that the introduction of intellectual capital to a place can generate. From one point of view, Rome financed its conquests not just by ransacking them --- but by making places smarter in the material sense.

The tapeworm -- a parasite that over time eats its host ---can more accurately describe the demonic patterns of stripping places of intellectual capital that come with American imperial conquest. The “dumbing down” so often complained about within America’s borders is a phenomenon that our military appears to be implementing globally. We seem intent on removing spiritual power and intellectual IQ as we depopulate globally, moving out the honest and competent and putting the corrupt and bureaucratic in charge.


MORE:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0304/S00228.htm

[Me.]

11. An Excellent Read

And not unfamiliar in its concepts. However, the bottom line thing I've never understood is that eventually, a parasite, unchecked, kills the host, and then neither of them can live. That is what I can't understand, and what they don't seem to grasp, that by killing us they eventually kill themselves, it is a dependent situation. For example, the polluters of the world can't seem to grasp that the dirty air we breathe is the same dirty air they and their children breathe. It is as if the parasite has gorged so much that it's brain may be affected. I've wondered if, in these last years, it has begun to 'indulge' itself to death.

They think they have us, I’m not willing to have faith in them. I am finding hope in the millions of small movements that are occurring all over the world, Small events, like ‘buying local’, all which are flying under the radar, but gaining in strength and size.



BLESSED UNREST

How the Largest Movement in the World Came Into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming.

By Paul Hawken.


Grass Roots Rising
Article Tools Sponsored By
By ROBERT SULLIVAN
Published: August 5, 2007

“Blessed Unrest” is about a movement that no one has noticed, not even the people involved. “The movement,” as Paul Hawken calls it, is made up of an unknowable number of citizens and mostly ragtag organizations that come and go. But when you do see it, you understand it to include NGOs, nonprofit agencies and a seemingly disparate range of people who might describe themselves as environmental activists, as well as people who might not describe themselves as anything at all but are protesting labor injustices, monitoring estuaries, supporting local farming or defending native people from being robbed of the last forests. There are a few billionaires, working hard to give their wealth away, and there are even some Christian evangelicals, who have decided the earth is not theirs to trash, but the movement is mostly about shared beliefs, even if those beliefs are unproclaimed. “Life is the most fundamental human right,” Hawken writes, “and all of the movements within the movement are dedicated to creating the conditions for life, conditions that include livelihood, food, security, peace, a stable environment and freedom from external tyranny.”

Still confused? Skip to the 100-plus-page appendix, a list of movement-oriented concerns from child labor to “green banking” to climate change, reflecting years of post-lecture business-card collecting on the author’s part. Hawken, the ecologically conscious founder of the gardening chain Smith & Hawken as well as a number of other enterprises involving things like sustainable agriculture and energy-saving technologies, makes the movement’s disparateness seem not so disparate — in its critique of markets, for example. “If there is a pervasive criticism of global capitalism that is shared by all actors in the movement, it is this observation: goods seem to have become more important, and are treated better, than people. What would a world look like if that emphasis were reversed?” The movement, most importantly, is very lowercase, its sensitivity being its great strength and, naturally, its tactical weakness. Do-gooding will always have a perception problem. Mountaintop-removal mining rarely risks seeming behind the times, even though it is; Amazonian tribesmen’s marching on a World Trade Organization meeting seems futile and quixotic, even though it’s not.” Cont…

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/books/review/Sullivan-t.html?ex=1188187200&en=ee2ed709829efabc&ei=5070

[althecat]

12. Almost by defnition that is the only solution that will work,...

Given the extent to which the tapeworm has control over our lives at present. I think that Catherine's thesis is that the death throws of the tape worm are a great deal nearer than anyone suspects....

* fingers crossed *

[Me.]

13. They Are Gorging Themselves To Death

'And as they say, 'all good things must come to an end" and they've had a good run of several hundreds of years. Another mistake they made, I believe, was creating an 'entitled' society, where everyone came to believe they should have 'the good life'. This was a subterfuge, you now have a good life, so you won't mind if I have a better one. What I think the parasite doesn't understand, any more than * knows how to govern, is that people won't give it/up back without a fight. They have expectations for themselves and their children and this is where another turning point for the parasite may come.

An interesting situation is developing in China. In the beginning, the low priced goods, were achievable, in a great part, because they brought people from the country and trained them. They built dorms where they could live which had toilets, running water, beds etc. They had cafeterias that were open 24 hours a day. It was manna for most of the people who had deprived lives and they accepted low wages as part of the bargain for better living conditions. But a change is occurring. People there want to be middle class now. A great many of those factory workers have learned they can earn double or triple, cleaning apts. in Beijing, and other jobs. So they're leaving the factories in great numbers. The new people aren't up to the job and the training is not going so well. In addition, the factories are finding themselves understaffed and can't deliver in the quantities and the amount of time they used to. It boils down to the fact that the factories will have to pay more or go under and higher wages mean higher priced goods here. Which will kill the advantage of places like Wal-Mart.

[Greyhound]

7. Because "they" are the same people, the ruling families of our respective

countries. Mexico is just one of the models for our future, as envisioned by those that matter.
:kick: & R

[autorank]

10. Binge and purge

It's a common practice but in this case the appetite is endless. It's a crime against nature precisely due to the fact that it is the perpetrators nature to binge, party hardy, cram it down their throats until there is no more. It's a hard question for Me to answer but the pattern is clear - binge on everything that's available and useful then purge the destroyed remains leaving the country behind in a mess. The Fitts article is a great exposition of the process.

As the Scorpion said to the Ox before they both went down, "It's my nature."

:hi:

[Me.]

17. Going With Binge & Purge

Don't forget, with excessive purging, they destroy the very parts of the body they need to binge. And, it's interesting, that while they think no one knows or can tell, those extended facial muscles on both sides of the face are a dead giveaway.

[seemslikeadream]

6. Militarizing Mexico’s Drug War

http://www.coanews.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=1945

More than 1,000 police officers, soldiers and members of enemy cartels have been killed this year as President Calderon has turned up the heat


“In the helicopter is where they began to beat us,” recalls Sara, a 17-year-old who was released on May 16 after a week in military detention. (Her name has been changed to protect her identity.)

“They threw me really hard into the helicopter,” she says. “They kicked me all over my body. Then one got on top of me; I could hear the other girls screaming. The soldiers said that this would take the whore out of us, that we were going to hell, that they were the law.”

Seven months ago, President Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party took office and declared war on drug traffickers, ordering 20,000 troops into the streets to put an end to drug-cartel related murders. Despite the troops, the number of drug-related murders has tripled and the army’s massive deployment has yielded tales of widespread human rights violations, like that of Sara.

More than 1,000 people, mostly police officers, soldiers and members of enemy cartels, have been killed since Jan. 1. In Veracruz, elite armed gangs linked to the Gulf Cartel planted a decapitated head outside an army barracks with a note: “We’re going to keep going when the federal forces get here.” In Tabasco, men in a Jeep Cherokee delivered a refrigerator to the front door of the newspaper Tabasco Hoy; inside security agents found the severed head of a city councilman.

[althecat]

8. Which is ironic given that Calderon is a bought and paid for member of the CIA drug cartel....

!!!!

It really is too sad for words.

[madeline_con]

14. "... the chair of the United Nations Human Rights Council..."

Isn't that fact irrelevant? They just pass the hat to whomever's trun it is. There was a big stink raised when Libya sat in said chair. :shrug:

[autorank]

15. Not if you're interested in the irony.

The rotating chairmanship of the council is relevant however. It shows that the UN criteria for coordinating human rights assumes that the chair of the the committee focusing on those rights need not be filled by a nation supporting those rights;and, presumably that the committee could work to guarantee human rights in the nation of the chair where human rights were being violated. Those are both untenable assertions but they're necessary if you accept the UN's role in supporting human rights. If you reject those assumptions, then the alternative is to assume that human rights through the UN is a charade.

We live in a world where torture is called a "rendition" and countries like Mexico end up heading committees on the rights they so systematically violate. It's disgusting.

[madeline_con]

16. Touche. :)

[msedano]

18. ...writing from Mexico, hopefully just travelling through?

is that a nom de plume, or does
Julie Webb-Pullman is a expat Kiwi writing from Mexico
trust that Mexicans don't read Scoop or DU?

The expulsion of the Spaniards might offer a sign that Mexican police agencies finally have gotten a p.r. guy working for them. The assassination of Will, documented in chilling photos from his own lens, had been anteceded a generation ago by the massacre at Tlatelolco concurrent with rampant disappearances as part of prepping for the olympics in 68 is the old order.

recommended

btw, want to read a hard-boiled mexican cop novel, check this out...
http://labloga.blogspot.com/2005/07/rolo-diez-tequila-blue-mato-y-voy.html

mvs

[autorank]

19. A what party???!!!???

Damn, that looks like a great read. The wife is particularly interesting, just wanted a bit more so she leaves hubby and the kids. Now that's harsh.

[althecat]

24. Welcome to DU Msedano

I had some similar thoughts myself about Julie and the Spaniards. Enough said I guess:) Nice blog.

[Nothing Without Hope]

20. Spreading nightmare, while the media silence continues.

Here are three DU threads on Mexican horrors from late last year:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2610113
11-11-06 Editor Found Dead in Mexican Hotel Room

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x246197
11-13-06 Massacre in Chiapas (Mexico):Six Women, Three Men,Two Children...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2840483
12-1-06 Mexican pretender Calderon can't be sworn in in public because ...

Of COURSE these greedy, murderous thugs are pals of the Bushies.

[althecat]

23. At least DU is not forgetting....

[eleny]

21. Bandolero In Chief

[autorank]

22. Who is that masked man;) btw, he's right

[bobbolink]

25. I'm pretty ignorant of all this, but I'm so exasperated with oppression

of all kinds that I could...

:nuke:

Thanks for posting this! :toast: