http://www.illinoistimes.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A7107

KEEP UP PRESSURE ON MEXICO
Thanks for the great piece on Plan Mexico and the murdered U.S. journalist Brad Will [R.L. Nave, “Change of plans,” Nov. 29].
We appreciate that U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, among others, have written to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the murder - by members of the Mexican government - of U.S. journalist Brad Will. We know that such powerful lawmakers will be able to shut down consideration of Bush’s plan to spend U.S. taxpayers’ money arming and training notoriously corrupt Mexican “security” forces. These forces have repeatedly and with impunity committed human rights abuses against their own people.

Neither the “drug war” nor the “war on terror” should be used as an excuse to increase the vulnerability of Mexican and foreign journalists, activists, and everyday Mexican citizens who would suffer the depredations of better armed Mexican police and military working with Blackwater-style mercenaries envisioned in Plan Mexico.

The United Steelworkers Union recently joined the growing opposition to this Bush plan. Durbin and others should send a clear signal back to President Bush that human rights are a priority in Mexico and that Democrats recognize that brutality and corruption of the Mexican security forces are some of the reasons that Mexican citizens risk fleeing to the United States.

An end to impunity must precede any consideration of Bush’s new militarization plan for Mexico.

Robert Jereski
Congressional liaison
Friends of Brad Will (NYC Chapter)
New York City

An analysis of Plan Mexico’s proposed introduction of a new ‘dirty war’ to Mexico La Jornada Tuesday exposing many reasons for serious among Mexicans.

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/12/10/index.php?section=politica&article=010e1pol

Entrevista a Carlos Montemayor, politólogo, poeta y novelista
Se está allanando el terreno a una catastrófica guerra sucia

Critica la Iniciativa Mérida por el fomento al paramilitarismo
(more…)

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/12/5781/

Published on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 by The Providence Journal (Rhode Island)

Mexican Human Rights As Important As Drugs

by Renata Rendón

Between June 2006 and January 2007, thousands of state, municipal and federal police violently clashed with citizens of Oaxaca, Mexico. These protests, which began in support of striking teachers, resulted in 20 deaths and serious human-rights abuses, including torture, arbitrary detention, rape and enforced “disappearances.”

U.S. video journalist Bradley Will was among the dead - shot while filming a confrontation between demonstrators and plain-clothed police officers and local officials.

Despite international pressure and more than 1,200 complaints of human-rights abuses received by Mexico’s National Commission on Human Rights, no serious or impartial investigation has been carried out. More than a year later, no one has been brought to justice for the murders and widespread abuses.
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Quote: In August, Blackwater and four other contractors landed what could be its biggest job ever, a series of projects that could total $15 billion for the Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office at the Pentagon. The contract calls for unspecified technologies, training, logistics, and procurement services to fight narcotics trafficking and terrorism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/us/11blackwater.html?_r=1&ref=us&pagewanted=print
New York Times (12/11/7)

“Disputed in Iraq, Blackwater Now Splits California Town” by SOLOMON MOORE

POTRERO, Calif. — The scandal in Iraq involving Blackwater, the private security firm, is a world away from this tiny town near the Mexican border. But five members of the community’s planning group are expected to lose their posts on Tuesday for approving a Blackwater training camp on an old chicken farm here.

Results of a mail-in-ballot recall election against the members are scheduled to be announced on Tuesday. Three of the group’s nine members have already been removed because Blackwater opponents revealed they had been improperly appointed.

Like many Potrero residents, Carl Meyer, 51, a local farmer and environmental activist, never gave much thought to Iraq or private security firms until Blackwater came to town last year. Ever since, he has been opposed to the company’s proposal for 800 acres of rifle ranges, dormitories, classrooms and an armory.

“Having them here wouldn’t be in keeping with our rural character,” said Mr. Meyer, who has helped organize the recall effort. “But it’s more than that for me. They’re not good for our country.”
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Here’s the teaser first:

“With its sixty million poor people – more than half of whom live in extreme poverty – Mexico has recently vaunted two unusual records: the richest man in the world – the telecommunications magnate, Carlos Slim[17] - and the largest confiscation of cash in the history of humanity, $205 million dollars packed into canvas bags in a quiet villa in an exclusive Mexico City neighborhood. [18]
This being the state of things, social control becomes a strategic priority: the country is like a pressure cooker, ready to explode anywhere and at any moment. This explains why the Mexican government is negotiating a “Mexico Plan” with the United States equivalent to the “Columbia Plan” that has so devastated the South American country. With the pretext of combating drug production, organized crime and terrorism, what the Mexico Plan is really about is eliminating all political opposition south of the Rio Grande.”
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(NB: Letter to the editor at bottom)

http://www.illinoistimes.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A7076
a version of R. L. Nave’s piece linked above it provided below.

Change of plans
Friends of murdered reporter denounce Bush’s Mexico-aid program

Brad Will documented clashes between leftists and the government of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Unwittingly, he taped his own death.

Members of the Friends of Brad Will — the Illinois-born videojournalist killed one year ago — recently disrupted congressional hearings on a new security cooperation initiative between the U.S. and Mexico that President George W. Bush announced in October.
Dubbed the Merida Initiative by the White House and Plan Mexico by some detractors (a reference to a similar endeavor, Plan Colombia), the plan is aimed at helping Mexico and Central America combat terrorism, international narcotics trafficking, corrupt local political bosses, as well as to disturb the operations of murderous drug cartels.

“This is an important moment in the fight against transnational drug-trafficking and organized crime and one that requires urgent action on the part of all nations involved,” Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon told the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Relations committee.
“The governments and citizens of Mexico and Central America have recognized the threat to their own stability and prosperity. They are taking courageous steps to confront these criminal elements and are now seeking U.S. support to ensure a comprehensive and integrated regional effort.”
Several Friends of Brad Will members repeatedly interrupted Shannon’s testimony on Wednesday, Nov. 14, by invoking Will’s story. (more…)

great show! many showed great interest in stopping Plan Mexico, filling out postcards to Hilary Clinton and offering to spread the word.

here are some pics and the announcement.


Benefit For Oaxaca, Wednesday 11/28th Brooklyn!

This Wednesday help raise money for Oaxaca and have fun

By love and resistance

Benefit for Oaxacan Radio Projects:
Wednesday, November 28th 7:30pm
1087 Broadway, Brooklyn (J to Kosciusko)
Above Goodbye Blue Monday

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28TH!!
1087 BROADWAY, BROOKLYN

As the rebellion has died down in Oaxaca, people there
are continuing their fight for Autonomy and dignity.
One of the many projects that has sprung up recently
is the creation of a community radio network, that
will serve the city of Oaxaca as well as the
indigenous communities in the surrounding areas.

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