Human Rights Organizations Break from Amnesty International’s 2008 Pro-Merida Initiative Letter
Check out this excellent piece by Kristin Bricker, written especially for The Narco News Bulletin on May 7, 2009.
Federal Police Pressure Imprisoned APPO Defendant Juan Manuel Martinez to Confess; Will Family Lawyer Faces Legal Harassment
Read the entire story April 21, 2009 by Kristin Bricker via the Narcosphere here.
Incisive and (historically, economically) contextualized analysis of Obama’s trip to Mexico and the positions he took vis-a-vis human rights, neoliberalism and the ‘war on drugs’.
Check out Mr. President: Calderón Is Not Mexico by Laura Carlsen, Director of the Americas Program at the Center For International Policy
Posted April 17, 2009
http://www.newspapertree.com/features/3441-mexico-in-the-international-human-rights-spotlight
by Frontera NorteSur
“Torture continues, extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances occur, freedom of expression is limited, and practically none of the cultural and economic rights is guaranteed or protected,” charged a report from civil society organizations delivered to the UN Human Rights Council.
Posted on February 10, 2009
Mexico’s government is under the glare of stage lights in different national and international venues for allegedly allowing the systematic violation of human rights. The administration of President Felipe Calderon faces a test today (Feb. 10, 2009), when the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council will submit Mexico to a three-hour exam and possibly assign voluntary make-up work.
Luis Alfonso de Alba is not only the Permanent Representative of Mexico to the United Nations, but also was the first President of the United Nations Human Rights Council. So, his speech on Thursday November 20th at the University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA) was an opportunity to speak to a powerful figure who has worked for human rights causes. He was the keynote speaker for the Ethics in Intelligence, Security and Immigration: The Moral and Social Significance of Gathering and Managing Information and Borders in the Global Community Conference. Friends of Brad Will’s Nick Cooper was present and brought up Brad’s case and got a vague response (hear the audio or read the transcript). Meanwhile, outside, students held a protest over influence of the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security on their campus. Specifically, the IGKNU, (Integrated Global Knowledge and Understanding Collaboration) is seen by protesters as Homeland Security and the CIA using a partnership with the University to recruit for and legitimize the role of covert and surveillance agencies. Homeland Security is responsible for implementing many problematic policies for those living close to the border who have seen their families separated by recent border policies, increased violence and militarization, and destruction of local economies. A presentation by leftist professors earlier in the day highlighted the history of abuses of the CIA.
(Mentions the unresolved nature of Brad’s case and the corruption of the Mexican government)
by Frontera NorteSur
Rodriguez’s murder topped a spectacularly violent week, in which victims in public thoroughfares were shot during peak business hours, businesses were firebombed and the bodies were dumped with intimidating messages in public places.
Posted on November 14, 2008
El Diario de Juarez journalist Armando Rodriguez Carreon was well-known for countless stories about gangland killings in his hometown of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. For years, the 40-year-old police beat reporter tirelessly published pieces about the latest executions in a violence-torn city.
Rodriguez launched his journalistic career as a technician and photographer for the Ciudad Juarez Channel 44 television station before moving into print during the early 1990s. His newspaper career closely paralleled the violent rise of the Juarez drug cartel and the women’s slayings that became known worldwide as femicides. Popularly known as “El Choco,” Rodriguez was among the first reporters to write about the discoveries of raped and slain women on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez.
Rodriguez’s stories, which relied a lot on police sources and often did not implicate any particular suspects, were characterized by an almost matter-of-fact quality that kept to the narrative even as violence kept escalating. On Thursday morning, Nov. 13, Rodriguez became a victim himself when he was shot outside his home by a gunman who reportedly fled in a waiting car. (more…)
By Jorge Carrasco Araizaga and Francisco Castellanos J., Proceso
Translated from the original Spanish by Kristin Bricker for NarcoNews
Through confessions obtained “under torture” and with multiple irregularities, the Federal Attorney General’s office (PGR in its Spanish initials) maintains the three alleged culprits under arrest in the September 15 terrorist attack in Morelia, Michoacan—which left eight people dead and 106 injured—even though many family members and neighbors assure that the accused were in Lazaro Cardenas [250 miles south of Morelia] the moment the attacks occurred.
As U.S. voters go to the polls the issue of the ‘war on drugs’ looms large both domestically and internationally.
The best journalism on the international ‘front’ has come out of Rolling Stone magazine[the failed ‘war on drugs’ (Dec. 2007)and the ‘war next door’ (Nov. 2008). On the domestic ‘front’, Alternet (Nov. 2008) has written a compelling short piece about efforts to undo some of the damage in the U.S.
And as a corruption scandal hits the Mexican AG’s (Prosecutor General of the Republic’s) office, with more than 35 of its officials revealed to be working for narcotraffickers. today’s New York Times also has an important piece from which a key excerpt is included here.
Take note that it is this AG’s office - which Bush’s Plan Mexico/Merida Initiative is slated to provide $60 million to - which promoted the cover up story that Brad was shot at close range and that he was shot by the activists who in reality were helping him (as is clear in the video and photographic footage, forensic and witness evidence etc.).
November 2, 2008
In Mexico’s Drug War, Sorting Out Good Guys From Bad
By MARC LACEY
It has long been known that drug gangs have infiltrated local police forces. Now it is becoming ever more clear that the problem does not stop there. The alarming reality is that many public servants in Mexico are serving both the taxpayers and the traffickers.
The latest corruption scandal has prompted President Calderón’s attorney general to order a restructuring and purging of his office, and specifically of Siedo, which was formed from another agency that was shut down after being infiltrated by drug spies.
The men in suits, it turns out, were both bureaucrats and bad guys, officials say, corrupt employees high up in an elite unit of the federal attorney general’s office who were feeding secret information to the feared Beltrán Leyva cartel in exchange for suitcases full of cash.
Their arrest, and the firing of 35 other suspect law enforcement officials, represents the most extensive corruption case that this country, which knows corruption all too well, has ever seen. And it raises a question that is on the lips of many Mexicans: how does one know who is dirty and who is clean?
From article: “According to Robert Jereski from Friends of Brad Will, his organization chose to oppose Plan Mexico outright instead of pushing for human rights conditions because “we saw what happened with Plan Colombia and those human rights conditions. These human rights conditions didn’t stop that country from becoming the worst country in the world for rights for labor activists, where hundreds have been assassinated by the government or government-supported paramilitaries. We saw how ineffective the conditions were, that [Plan Colombia] resulted in 4 million displaced people driven off of resource-rich land by the same thugs the US government has been supporting through the Uribe government and military. We had serious doubts about (the) value of human rights conditions.
The big players in human rights, however, remained silent throughout much of the debate over Plan Mexico. Human Rights Watch did not take a stance on the initiative until after it was passed. Amnesty International only weighed in publicly after the measure had passed both houses of congress. Its Mexico office circulated a letter calling US collaboration with Mexico “appropriate and timely” and simply requested that human rights conditions be included in the final version that would be sent to the president. ”
Posted by Kristin Bricker - October 24, 2008
Official human rights ombudsman says the government believed Plan Mexico funds were conditioned on resolving Brad Will case
The Mexican government’s human rights watchdog, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH in its Spanish initials) slammed the Federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) yesterday over the arrests of Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) supporters in the Brad Will murder case.
The PGR arrested three APPO supporters and has issued warrants for eight more in the Will case. José Luis Soberanes Fernández, the head of the CNDH, said that with the arrests, the PGR made the decision “to ignore the body of evidence that we sent it” regarding the case.
One principal component of the CNDH report that the PGR explicitly rejected was that Will was shot from a distance of 35-55 meters, not the 2 meters that the PGR claims. Despite the fact that a forensic video specialist hired by the Will family has found bullet streaks in the last two frames of Will’s video, and that anyone who shot Will at close range would have appeared in his video since he was shot head-on, the PGR maintains that the APPO supporters standing around Will were the ones who murdered him. (more…)
Would it have been too much for the Times to mention the fact that protestors/witnesses had identified then-current members of the Mexican government shooting at the protestors and that there was photographic evidence of this!?
After you read this piece, check out the excellent blog on Narcosphere of journalist Kristin Bricker for the real scoop.
The state and federal officials responsible for investigating the murder of Brad Will were strongly denounced by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) which declared that the federal and state attorneys general have violated ‘human rights, legality, judicial security and access to justice.’
Soberanes of the CNDH has also given the AGs a very short time frame to find and punish those who botched the investigation immediately after the murder and thereafter.
Well, at least they wrote about it. Really key for us to reach out to our Representatives to demand they speak out against this cover-up of Brad Will’s murder and the intimidation of witnesses.
Rob
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/world/americas/18mexico.html?_r=1&ref=worl
d&oref=slogin
Mexico Says U.S. Journalist Was Killed by a Protester
By ELISABETH MALKIN
Published: October 17, 2008
MEXICO CITY — Bradley Will, a journalist from New York City, was shot and killed at close range by an antigovernment protester during civil unrest in the state of Oaxaca two years ago, the Mexican authorities said Friday, a conclusion that was challenged by Mr. Will’s family and human rights groups.
(more…)
