WeT_AhUiZoTe

Mujeres del SME en Huelga de habre

2009-12-07T00:34:00.004Z

Por invitacion y casi exigencia de mis estimados twitteros, @mariana_war y @lamparadiogenes subo el video de las mujeres del sindicato mexicano de electricistas,.. quienes estan haciendo una huelga de hambre para protestar por la ilegalidad de la extincion de Luz y Fuerza del Centro.

This video is about women who are protesting against the unlawful closure of 'Luz y Fuerza del Centro' one of the two electricity state owned companies. It is argued that Mexican government is preparing the terrain to undergo another privatisation.

More videos at lampara de Diogenes youtube channel,..

Paramilitares al poder!!

2009-08-28T15:59:00.002+01:00

Si los 3 anhos que han pasado no te han sido suficientes, solo esperate a lo que viene!

Estos tres primeros anhos de 'gobierno' de Felipe Calderon han estado marcados por la violencia en todos sus sentidos. Desde el no respeto por las instituciones a las cuales se les ha inyectado una buena dosis de corrupcion, la violencia contra las mujeres, de quienes se degrada su imagen, hasta las formas mas crudas de violencia fisica donde ya no solo se asesina, sino que se hace con tal sanha que da la impresion que se esta imponiendo un ejemplo a la poblacion.

Y eso que en estos tres anhos los legisladores y magistrados de la suprema corte no se les podia acusar mas que de ser transas,... bueno a uno que otro priista se le podia acusar de haber sido un gandalla tambien. Esto porque ahora quienes van a llegar al poder legislativo son, han sido, y yo creo que con mayor razon seguiran siendo PARAMILITARES en activo.

Elpidio Desiderio Concha Arellano es quizas no el ejemplo mas fuerte del paramilitarismo Oaxaquenho, pero tal vez es el mas claro en cuanto como estos delincuentes van haciendose de espacios de poder. Este malandrin ha sido acusado casi de todo, desde el asesinato, la extorsion, el robo, bueno que le falta? ahh si legislar,... a favor de sus compadres.

Que podriamos esperar para los anhos que vienen en el Calderonato? desde luego muy poco desde el poder legislativo, y me refiero al estado de Oaxaca. Que beneficios le podria traer este 'diputado' a las comunidades indigenas que el personalmente ha instigado? que beneficios politicos le podria traer al estado en su conjunto. Se ve muy dificil que siquiera se interese en hacer algo por el estado.

Lo que no se ve tan complicado es que quiera beneficiarse el y beneficiar a su gente cercana con el uso del presupuesto federal, y tal vez me pudiera aventurar a decir que con el desvio de los fondos federales destinados a los mas pobres.

Pero mencione que no es quiza el mejor ejemplo del paramilitarismo en Oaxaca. Creo que el ejemplo mas crudo y mas detestable esta en el pueblo natal de Ulises Ruis, tal vez el mismo este dirigiendo las acciones de sus grupos paramilitares, como el que comanda Freddy Eucario Morales Arias quien con sus muchachitos asesinaron a 3 personas el anho pasado.

Tambien mencione que el asesinato ya no es suficiente para estos maleantes, y es que al parecer entre todos empezaron a golpear a un taxista, al verse acorralado y tal vez para huir de la golpiza este se encerro en su coche. Ahi mismo lo rociaron con gasolina, le prendieron fuego y lo le impidieron que saliera, el hombre desesperado solo alcanzo a tocar el claxon pidiendo ayuda pero fue inutil y murio.

Dos personas que fueron a intentar ayudar al taxista tambien fueron golpeados, a uno lo asesinaron disparandole en la cara, al otro ademas segun cuentan le echaron liquido de bateria en las piernas, desde los testiculos hasta los pies. Se deshizo, y los paramilitares que para ese entonces estaban ya borrachos o drogados, o las dos cosas, arrastraron su cuerpo por el pueblo.

El siguiente sitio de internet contiene informacion mas detallada al respecto y fotografias de las personas asesinadas (son muy fuertes).

http://www.santodomingomassacre.org/

y en el siguiente video, se puede ver la version de una persona de la comunidad hacerca de lo que sucedio.

algunos meses despues de estos hechos de violencia y haciendo gala de la impunidad que le brindan tanto la policia estal, la federal como el ejercito, un grupo de paramilitares secuestro a toda la comunidad,

Ulises Ruiz, através de sus empleados hizoo saber que solo era un insignificante grupo de ‘roba vacas’, y que la seguridad de las personas en esta comunidad estaba garantizada al cien por ciento.

Lo cierto es que pueblo quedo incomunicado, y ni la policía ni el ejercito llegaron al lugar o a las cercanías, o si lo hicieron habría sido para llevarles víveres a los alrededor de 50 paramilitares. Que espero la pgr o la pfp para entrar y arrestar a los asesinos? El simple hecho de portar arma es un delito federal, ahora portar armas del calibre que muestran debería ser motivo de actuación inmediata.

El uso de paramilitares con fines de limpieza étnica no es nuevo. En Chiapas esto ha sido una práctica cotidiana. Los chinchulines, paz y justicia son solo algunos ejemplos de grupos que el ejército y la policía han armado y protegido ante el horror de Organismos de Derechos Humanos tanto nacionales como internacionales. En Oaxaca esta practica no ha sido la excepción tal vez no ha tenido la magnitud que en Chiapas donde los grupos paramilitares ocupaban incluso los medios de comunicación para intimidar a personas por nombre y apellido, pero los grupos de Ulises Ruiz coordinados por Jorge Franco ahí la llevan.

La forma de operacion de los paramilitares Chiapanecos se aprecia clarmente en el documental 'a place call Chiapas', que es anterior a la masacre de Acteal.

[En lo personal creo que la docuemtnalista se va mas por el lado romantizoide con el cara de trapo y no le da la importancia que tiene la existencia de grupos paramilitares protegidos y ayudados por el ejercito,.. vaya hasta el capitnacito del ejercito se ve que les tiene miedo,... ]

Otro elemento mas que habra que tomar en cuenta es que la gloriosa suprema corte de 'justicia', decidio liberar a los asesinos de la masacre de Acteal. Esto es, le dio sento un precedente y dio cabida en los hechos a la accion de paramilitares en el pais.

Si bien es cierto que los paramilitares simpre han existido, nomas hay que recordar los pasajes del 68, 73, donde se hablaba del batallon olimpia, los halcones y demas fauna, tambien es cierto que su accion NUNCA fue aceptada por el gobierno, ni tampoco nunca fue tan abierta.

‘El verdadero Andrés Manuel’

2009-06-22T11:57:00.004+01:00

Comentario sobre ‘El verdadero Andrés Manuel’ de Denise Maerker (publicado 19 de Junio de 2009 en el Universal)
Por Wet_ahuizote

Andrés Manuel no es el mismo del 2006, dice la columna de Denise Maerker del 19 de junio. Tiene toda la razón. Tal vez a Denise le sorprenda lo mucho que ha cambiado no solo Andrés Manuel, sino la mayoría de mexicanos, y el país entero. Lo sorprendente para mi es que Denise quiera que sigamos siendo los mismos, que no tengamos esa capacidad de asombro y de indignación ante los miles de asesinatos que nomás no logran justificar la presencia de Calderón y toda su ineptitud y corrupción. Tampoco tendríamos que simplemente continuar con nuestra ‘vida diaria’ como si nada pasara cuando vemos que el modelo económico esta costando vidas de niños. Tal vez para Denise sea de lo más normal emitir una opinión por escrito o ante las cámaras de televisión donde manifieste cierta molestia, para luego una vez fuera del aire, volver a la rutina de una vida cómoda; el resto de los mexicanos no tenemos esa opción.

Denise hace una serie de preguntas interesantes:
‘¿El Andrés Manuel que vimos el martes en Iztapalapa es el mismo que logró que 15 millones de mexicanos lo eligieran en el 2006?’
En mi personal opinión Andrés Manuel es el mismo que rompió con un sistema corrupto que no garantizaba el avance democrático del país. Junto con otro grupo de políticos notables salieron del pri, fundaron un movimiento que terminó en partido político y que ahora da signos de haberse agotado y no representa ninguna garantía de pugnar por el más mínimo avance democrático, sino al contrario. ¿O será que Denise conoce a otro Andrés Manuel? ¿Cual?

¿Ese hombre de semblante duro, actitud desafiante y estrategia arrogante es el que conquistó a millones durante años de campaña?

Si, las trampas y la corrupción que impera en nuestras ‘instituciones’ tienen un efecto desalentador en la mayoría de los ciudadanos. Nos causa molestia ver como gran parte de la riqueza nacional se destina a mantener instituciones que no sirven al interés general, sino a uno muy particular: el de la elite gobernante personificada en Calderón. Claro la diferencia es que no todos tenemos el valor de hacer algo al respecto, ni un pequeño esfuerzo; en cambio Andrés Manuel si ha tenido ese valor. Más aun, ha tenido la capacidad y el liderazgo para planear una estrategia y encabezarla. Creo que eso es lo que ha conquistado a millones, ¿o Denise considera que ha sido otra cosa?

Las ultimas dos preguntas francamente están fuera de lugar dado que se basan en una construcción mental que Denise ha tenido a bien elaborarse para si misma. ¿Nos engañó o es otro? ¿La derrota lo cambió o sólo exacerbó su peor parte? Tal vez Denise se formo una imagen de un político negociador, dispuesto a seguirle el juego a las decisiones de nuestros muy ‘ilustres’ magistrados pero ¿En que baso esta idea Denise? Habrá que esperar a que nos ilustre esta ‘analista’ del canal de las estrellas.

Dice esta mujer que Andrés Manuel humillo a ‘Juanito’ sin necesidad. Me imagino que Denise piensa que la humillación es justificable bajo ciertas circunstancias. Estoy de acuerdo, sin embargo, que si hay humillados por parte de Andrés Manuel, pero a diferencia de Denise (y casi todos los columnistas de la prensa mexicana) creo que los humillados son los magistrados de trife a quienes la estrategia de AMLO exhibe como lo que son: unos corruptos serviles.

Pienso que la humillación no es por parte de AMLO, o por lo menos no del todo. Me explico: AMLO presento una propuesta de acción para hacer valer la voluntad de los votantes en Iztapalapa, si la propuesta prospera o no, dependerá única y exclusivamente de la voluntad de la gente que vote. Si como se espera gana el PT, la gente estaría mandando un mensaje clarísimo al tribunal y de paso al gobierno: La soberanía popular esta por encima de las instituciones. Lo cual seria un logro en términos de avance democrático. Iztapalapa pasaría a ser la primera gran batalla electoral para el movimiento de resistencia civil. Si por el contrario no gana el PT en Iztapalapa porque la gente no voto, el conformismo habrá ganado las instituciones títere y el gobierno podrían darse un respiro por lo menos hasta las próximas elecciones. Y el coro de ‘analistas’ políticos tendrían materia para poder criticar a gusto a Andrés Manuel y al movimiento de resistencia civil pacífica, lo cual les esta haciendo mucha falta.

Por ultimo, Denise no hace más que unirse al coro de voces ‘criticas’ de Andrés Manuel, lo cual es muy lamentable. Personalmente la hubiera preferido como una critica del sistema político, como originalmente decía ser.

Mexican version of a Pink Floyd' song

2009-05-16T16:47:00.003+01:00

Hey I just came across this video,... the guys sitting there seem to have fun, and so did I,.. enjoy,..

pink floyd in hermosillo

New virus,.. new business??

2009-05-05T11:53:00.004+01:00

It has come to my attention that several people started talking about the possibility that this new swine flu was a man made virus. Then they go on linking that with two main things: a) US new war strategy and B) Mexican internal political situation.

A) US new war strategy, where biological weapons are used. That possibility is fueled by a document by the US air force 'air force 2025'. In that document it is predicted that by 2009 there was going to be an outbreak of influenza that would eventually kill some 30 million persons.

the link to such document is here

air force 2025

Especially the report tittled 'Alternate Futures for 2025: Security Planning to Avoid Surprise' in page 68 offers the schedule for the next 16 years of so,.. the whole planning process started back in 1996.

In page 67 it says that 'Technology could not solve some old problems, as in 2009, when an influenza pandemic struck in southern China, then rapidly spread worldwide.17 Three hundred-thirty million people were affected and over thirty million died.18 No one ever determined if the virus was a natural mutation or bioengineered.19
Many feared the latter.'

Then in the following page it presents a diagram where is clear that 2009 is the year influenza strikes. It also predicts that by 2010 UN would dissolve 'due to its inability ot resolve these issues and regional conflicts'

And here is a video with an enterview with Alfredo Jalife who is an expert in geopolitics,..

In addition, there are other voices claiming that the virus was produced in a laboratory somewhere in England, then transported to US and then planted in Mexico. Furthermore, they link pharmaceutical companies with the production of such a virus. Their aim is purely monetary. Mmaking their business grow and their profits does not seem to be a credible explanation to me. However, if the mixture of business and political power is present, then things change.

For example, in the blog of Dr. Horowitz, he urges to investigate 'Dr. James S. Robertson, Englands leading bioengineer of flu viruses for the vaccine industry, and avid promoter of U.S. Government funding for lucrative biodefense contracts, along with collaborators at the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC).'

Further, a video of a call from somebody in NY uploaded onto youtube on April 12th, argues that flu viruses were transported to US.

**
Also, I found out that the company that produces 'tamiflu' happens to be owned by almost all of Bush men. Secretary Runsfield is perhaps the most notorious of them all. Here I'll reproduce a report from 2005.

**
Rumsfeld's growing stake in Tamiflu
Defense Secretary, ex-chairman of flu treatment rights holder, sees portfolio value growing.
October 31, 2005: 10:55 AM EST
By Nelson D. Schwartz, Fortune senior writer

NEW YORK (Fortune) - The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it's proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that's now the most-sought after drug in the world.

Rumsfeld served as Gilead (Research)'s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.

The forms don't reveal the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns, but in the past six months fears of a pandemic and the ensuing scramble for Tamiflu have sent Gilead's stock from $35 to $47. That's made the Pentagon chief, already one of the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet, at least $1 million richer.

Rumsfeld isn't the only political heavyweight benefiting from demand for Tamiflu, which is manufactured and marketed by Swiss pharma giant Roche. (Gilead receives a royalty from Roche equaling about 10% of sales.) Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead's board, has sold more than $7 million worth of Gilead since the beginning of 2005.

Another board member is the wife of former California Gov. Pete Wilson.

"I don't know of any biotech company that's so politically well-connected," says analyst Andrew McDonald of Think Equity Partners in San Francisco.

What's more, the federal government is emerging as one of the world's biggest customers for Tamiflu. In July, the Pentagon ordered $58 million worth of the treatment for U.S. troops around the world, and Congress is considering a multi-billion dollar purchase. Roche expects 2005 sales for Tamiflu to be about $1 billion, compared with $258 million in 2004.

Rumsfeld recused himself from any decisions involving Gilead when he left Gilead and became Secretary of Defense in early 2001. And late last month, notes a senior Pentagon official, Rumsfeld went even further and had the Pentagon's general counsel issue additional instructions outlining what he could and could not be involved in if there were an avian flu pandemic and the Pentagon had to respond.

As the flu issue heated up early this year, according to the Pentagon official, Rumsfeld considered unloading his entire Gilead stake and sought the advice of the Department of Justice, the SEC and the federal Office of Government Ethics.

Those agencies didn't offer an opinion so Rumsfeld consulted a private securities lawyer, who advised him that it was safer to hold on to the stock and be quite public about his recusal rather than sell and run the risk of being accused of trading on insider information, something Rumsfeld doesn't believe he possesses. So he's keeping his shares for the time being.

**

So, Ok,... there are few elements that allow me to be suspicious of this swine flu thing. However, all those elements are external to Mexican political reality. The question is what could possible happen for a president of a country (any country not only Mexico) to put international before national interests. I am sure that everybody loves their country and would do the best they can to protect their people and that it doesn't matter whether we are talking Mexico or China or Peru or any other country. Or at least that is what I would think.

But let's have a look at Mexican political arena for the last couple of years. and That, by the way is option B) the internal political situation and swine flu. And the question am addressing here is how B relates to A, or how the Mexican political situation relates to a breakout of a new virus and its realtion to the US new war strategy.

It does not seem a simple thing to understand. So we need to elaborate a bit for that the best way is to present a sort of events that have shaped Felipe Calderon's relationship with Mexicans.

1) Felipe Calderon and his party ran a presidential political campaign base on generating fear. They discualified Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) the leading candidate of being a 'Threat to Mexico', or in fact a more appropiate translation would be danger instead of thread. Most of what Calderon's campaign said about AMLO was based on imprecise information or plain lies.

here is one example,..

2) Vicente Fox used all the tricks in the book in order to support Calderon's campaign,.. although that is illegal under Mexican law,.. but it has been a common practice under PRI for 70 years or so,.. That explain how the institutions in charge of the elections didn't do anything to stop Calderon's propaganda.

here is a video of Fox, saying that 'it was important to stop AMLO

3) Calderon's brother in law Hildebrando was in charge of designing the software to be used to count the votes in the presidential election. Waste to say that votes had an extrange behaviour,.. where AMLO and Calderon's votes trends were an exact mirror. In otehr words, one vote less for AMLO was automatically one vote more for Calderon. In the end, there was not clarity who won,... the only option was to open the boxes with the votes and count by hand one by one,... of course Calderon and his supporters cried out that that was illegal,.. despite Mexican law allows that situation.

4) Calderon's big day,... was but a battle where he had to enter by the backdoor and be sorrounded by the secret police in order to swear in as president, despite HUGE demosntrations against him.

And just a few meters outside, there were huge demonstrations against Calderon,.. actually after the electoral fraud, a Mexican movement of Civil Resistance was formed and AMLO was elected as the legitimate president of Mexico. Even more worring for Calderon and his friends, AMLO supporters get toghether every now and then and organise protests,... criticise Calderon's acts of corruption and in short had become a real pain on the neck for the government.

5) since Calderon arrival there have been some social movements. At some point it would appear that protesting-repressing has become a Mexican national sport,... and that any political manifestation has to go that way. Things are that deteriorated that the ruling party, Calderon's party keeps proposing to criminalise anyone who dares taking the streets to protest, even thogh it is a constitutional right. We have painful examples of that sort: Oaxaca, that we have briefly docuemnted in this blog, Atenco, Michoacan, Cananea, and a long long long etc.

6) Calderon's sent the army out on the streets to function as antinarcotics police force. But in reality it is functioning as a repressive force that with the excuse of fighting harcotics litmits citicenship. It is interesting how the country divides into two big drug cartels, on the one side 'el chapo Guzman' leading the federation [that's the name of what used to be the Sinaloa Cartel due to the fact that under Fox portection Guzman broke free from prison and organised the traffiking to the USA] and on the other hand is everthing else from 'los Zs' to 'la familia' and other small cartels. It is interesting to notice that the supposedly antinarcotics war focuses on fighting the small cartels but none of the figures of the federation are ever touched.

All those reasons, and others that I don't have in mind now, had made Calderon the most umpopular political figure in recent history. He doesn't even dares to go on the street without having to set a huge 'security' operative.

The magic formulae
Well but how this two things connect each other? how the US military strategy connects with Calderon's umpopularity?

My hupothesis is that they have every reason to be linked. I will describe what I think from the side of Calderon.

With these new virus, he has been able to STOP all their critics at once. Suddenly there are no more protertors on the street, the opposition in both chambers seem to be collaborative in the name of such terrible threat, they are supporting this new biological dictatorship,... or as Munoz Ledo said 'dictadura sanitaria'.

The prospect of the political campaigns are suddenly stopped, with IFE the electoral authority sharing TV time not with the political parties as it used to but with Calderon's health minister,...

World Insitutions are giving him money to face the emergency,.. World Bank and IMF have borrowed money to Mexican government,.. of course is to by 'tamiflu' only favouring only a a couple of companies that produce it, as I pointed out above.

So,.. for Calderon is a perfet world,... now they are saying that this emergency could last until the winter,.. due to, they say, the severity of the 'rebound effect'. All in all, it doesn't seem to me that the virus is a problem, but its political utilisation that seems to be favouring a few people at interantional level and Calderon and his political party at Mexican level.

the first victim of the swine flu,..

2009-04-29T17:27:00.003+01:00

this is a link to a video from the bbc that is trying to trace down the first victim of the virus,.. it is in Oaxaca, and the victim was a 39 years old woman,..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8021947.stm

and this other video shows the very first infected from the flu,.. he is a little boy 5 year old,.. unlike the woman he survived and is fine,..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8024162.stm

Mexico faces criticism over swine flu response

2009-04-29T17:06:00.003+01:00

By NIKO PRICE, Associated Press Writer Niko Price, Associated Press Writer – Mon Apr 27, 7:57 pm ET
MEXICO CITY – Two weeks after the first known swine flu death, Mexico still hasn't given medicine to the families of the dead. It hasn't determined where the outbreak began or how it spread. And while the government urges anyone who feels sick to go to hospitals, feverish people complain ambulance workers are scared to pick them up.

A portrait is emerging of a slow and confused response by Mexico to the gathering swine flu epidemic. And that could mean the world is flying blind into a global health storm.

Despite an annual budget of more than $5 billion, Mexico's health secretary said Monday that his agency hasn't had the resources to visit the families of the dead. That means doctors haven't begun treatment for the population most exposed to swine flu, and most apt to spread it.

It also means medical sleuths don't know how the victims were infected — key to understanding how the epidemic began and how it can be contained.

Foreign health officials were hesitant Monday to speak critically about Mexico's response, saying they want to wait until more details emerge before passing judgment. But already, Mexicans were questioning the government's image of a country that has the crisis under control.

"Nobody believes the government anymore," said Edgar Rocha, a 28-year-old office messenger. He said the lack of information is sowing distrust: "You haven't seen a single interview with the sick!"

The political consequences could be serious. China was heavily criticized during the outbreak of SARS for failing to release details about the disease, feeding rumors and fear. And Mexico's failed response to a catastrophic 1985 earthquake is largely credited with the demise of the party that had ruled the country since the 1920s.

"That is foremost in the minds of Mexican policymakers now," said George Grayson at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. "They're thinking, 'We don't want another '85.'"

Indeed, Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova was defensive at a news conference Monday as he was peppered with questions about why Mexico took so long to identify the outbreak, attempt to contain its spread and provide information.

"We never had this kind of epidemic in the world," he said. "This is the first time we have this kind of virus."

It remained unclear where and how the epidemic began, how it has spread, who it has killed or how fast it is growing. And the government has yet to take some basic steps critical to containing any outbreak, such as quick treatment of people who had contact with the victims.

In the town of Xonacatlan, just west of Mexico City, Antonia Cortes Borbolla told The Associated Press that nobody has given her medicine in the week since her husband succumbed to raging fever and weakened lungs that a lab has confirmed as swine flu.

No health workers have inspected her home, asked how her husband might have contracted the illness or tested the neighbors' pigs, she said.

Cordova acknowledged that her case isn't unique.

"We haven't given medicine to all of them because we still don't have enough personnel," he said.

Cordova said he couldn't provide information on the victims for reasons of confidentiality, but promised to eventually release a statistical breakdown. He said he couldn't provide that data now "because it's being processed."

Asked whether he could at least say how many of the 20 confirmed victims were men and how many were women, he said: "I don't have that information."

The government has insisted it acted quickly and decisively when presented with the evidence of a new virus.

But even as it did so, it acknowledged the outbreak began earlier than April 12, the date it had previously linked to the first case. Cordova confirmed Monday that a 4-year-old boy who was part of an outbreak in eastern Veracruz state that began in February had swine flu. He later recovered.

Residents of the town of Perote said at the time that they had a new, aggressive bug — even taking to the streets to demonstrate against the pig farm they blamed for their illness — but were told they were suffering from a typical flu. It was only after U.S. labs confirmed a swine flu outbreak that Mexican officials sent the boy's sample in for swine flu testing.

Meanwhile, some people complained that health workers were turning them away, even as officials urged people to seek treatment quickly if they felt symptoms of flu coming on.

Elias Camacho, a 31-year-old truck driver with fever, cough and body aches, was ordered out of a government ambulance Sunday because paramedics complained he might be contagious, his father-in-law told the AP. When family members took him to a hospital in a taxi, Jorge Martinez Cruz said, a doctor told him he wasn't sick.

Camacho was finally admitted to the hospital — and placed in an area marked "restricted" — after a doctor at a private clinic notified state health authorities, Martinez said.

In Mexico City, Jose Isaac Cepeda said two hospitals refused to treat his fever, diarrhea and joint pains. The first turned him away because he wasn't registered in the public health system, he said.

The second, he said, didn't let him in "because they say they're too busy."

___

Associated Press writers Olga Rodriguez in Xonacatlan and Peter Orsi and Lisa J. Adams in Mexico City contributed to this report.

***********
I agree with the version saying that government response has been ramdom and confusing,.. especially confusing is the information management, they don't even agree as to the number of persons infected with swine flu alone,.. the number of persosn that in addition to swine flu had illness,.. and their status of poverty.
It is somehow obvious that the poorest are the most vulnerable, but there is no information exactly as to how much,.. neither there is as to what exactly government is doing to reach the poor of the poor and prevent the virus from spreading.
World Health Organistaion just say that officially there are 7 cases of swine flu that had caused death,.. instead there is the impression that Mexican health minister is trying to cover some information,...

Now there is even a debate over the name of the damm flu,...

2009-04-29T16:31:00.004+01:00

Israely health minister has complained about the terms 'swine' and prefer to call it Mexican flu,..

To be honest I don't care whether this new virus is call x or y. What I care is that the problem is controlled and it does not become a cause of death.

Wll the freethinker reports that some are uncomfortable with the term and now had openned a debate over how to call it. They propose, Mexican, Novel or i don't remember what else, but the fact is that the virus is not from Mexico. It was detected in the States and then it came down to Mexico where it supposedly had a deadly effect.

Just yesterday Mexican government said that about 150 persons have died, but today they recognised that out of those only 7 are confirmed to had that swine flu, the rest were suspected and also had other illnesses.

DON'T CALL IT SWINE FLU,...!!!
‘Don’t call it swine flu’ says Israeli health minister
WITH the outbreak of swine flu in Mexico, we were taking bets in the pub last night as to which Islamic country would be the first to demand that the viral condition be renamed so that it would not offend Muslims.

But guess what? No-one thought of Israel.

Today Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman, holding a press conference to update the public on developments regarding the epidemic in Israel, recommended that it be called “Mexican flu” rather than “swine flu”.

According to this report, only two Israelis are believed to have contracted swine Mexican flu. Tomer Vajim, 26, was admitted to the Laniado Hospital in Netanya after returning from Mexico with signs of the viral infection.

A second man who returned from Mexico on Sunday was admitted to the Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba and put in isolation after exhibiting suspect symptoms, including fever and coughing.

******THE DEBATE,...

Debate rages over swine flu name

GENEVA (AFP) — Whether it is swine flu, "Mexican", "North American" or "novel", a debate is raging over the name for the type of influenza that is feared to have caused over 150 deaths in Mexico.

Farming and economic lobby groups have objected to the term swine flu, arguing that it could have a disastrous impact on pork sales and pig farmers even though the World Health Organisation has underlined that the virus cannot be caught by eating cooked or "properly handled" meat.

Brazilian pork producers on Tuesday asked the WHO to change the name to "North American flu" or even "Mexican flu" in order to avoid potentially huge losses for farmers and the meat processing industry as frightened consumers desert their produce.

The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) brought the debate to an official level on Monday, arguing that it was "not justified" to call it swine influenza because the virus had not been found in animals so far.

"The avian strain is of American origin, and of the two swine strains, one is American origin and the other appears to be Asian. The human strain is American," said Bernard Vallat, secretary general of the OIE.

"It would be really unfair to penalise pig farmers, who depend on their output for their livelihood, by talking about a risk which is not at all proven," said Vallat.

US officials were pondering the name as they tried to counter embargoes countries have imposed on pig imports from the United States.

"It's important to not refer to swine flu. It's important to convey the message that consuming pork will not cause this illness," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

Richard Besser, director of the US Centers for Disease Control acknowledged that there had been a fair amount of public misconception, adding, "and that's not helpful."

The OIE noted that past epidemics of human influenza epidemics with animal origin had been named after their geographical origin, such as Spanish flu or Asian flu.

But even that can cause difficulties.

Mexico, which is already facing a huge drop in tourism to its coastal resorts as some tour operators call off trips, protested after an Israeli government official suggested an alternative.

"We will use the term Mexican flu in order not to have to pronounce the word swine," Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman of the ultra-religious United Torah Judaism party said on Monday.

His government colleagues later dismissed the suggestion.

Eating of pork is prohibited by Judaism, the religion practised by the majority of Israelis. Islam, adhered to by most of Israel's Arab minority, likewise bans consumption of pork.

EU Commission is calling it "'novel flu virus' just to avoid the misunderstandings with the animal diseases because it costs a lot to the industry," said spokeswoman Nina Papadoulaki.

"In this case we have human-to-human transmission so it is a human virus not an animal disease."

However, the World Health Organization has not budged from "swine flu."

Assistant Director General Keiji Fukuda warned Tuesday that the naming of epidemics "can be very confusing."

"This epidemic started basically with that name and the virus that is identified is a swine influenza virus."

"Right now we do not have any plans to try to introduce any new names for this disease," he told journalists.

The WHO's "Frequently Asked Questions" on the swine influenza family says that "outbreaks in pigs occur year round" while "outbreaks and sporadic human infection with swine influenza have been occasionally reported."

Pigs, it noted, can also be infected with human and avian influenza.

****

And it seems to me that nobody is concern about offending Mexicans by labeling this virus 'Mexican flu',... Since I called Mexican flu before mainly due to my ignorance about the above,.. I appologise to any Mexican that could have felt offended,.. and promise to call it from now on, SWINE FLU,...

Mexican Flu,...

2009-04-29T01:21:00.004+01:00

It has been a very noisy business. Mexican media and government keep saying that there is a huge problem and they insist in providing growing number of dead persons and the image of people covering their nose and mouth.
But somehow I don't fully believe their story. These are the reasons why:

1) Mexican government says that more than 100 persons have died, but the world health organisation is saying that those persons had also other illnesses.

2) In 2006 there was an exercise in which the scenario was that Mexico was hit by an unknown virus of influenza, here are the links to the exercise and a video that summarises it.

link

and here is the video

So there are some questions I have,... are the Mexican epidemiologists so capable so that they were able to predict an scenario of influenza and to design a strategy to contain it,... or there is something else?

if they have already considered that problem and consequently designed a strategy to prevent it from spreading,.. then why all the mistakes? why isn't there enough medicines?

3)this is also an electoral year,... and Mexican government, or rather Felipe Calderon is tanking every action to ensure his party remains in power.

For example, just few days ago tv channel 11, the public tv station, made major changes to its programming schedule. Among those changes, it moved some of the only opinion tv shows that were somehow independent to the political party in power. And i said somehow because despite being the only critic voice in the Mexican tv it was still soft with cases of government corruption. the program I am talking about is 'primer plano',...

That action pushes Mexican people to consume private tv opinion programs,.. in other words, there is no other choice but to consume Felipe Calderon's allies voice.

Now with the flu problem government advices NOT TO GET TOGETHER, so in fact political rallies and other major political events that are the opposition's only choice are banned.

In addition, the army stop for a moment fighting the narcotics,.. and instead now is fighting the flu,... they have the order to enter a House where any person suspected to be infected with the virus could hide. The question is why somebody who is ill would hide? and in fact that action goes against not only Mexican constitution but universal human rights,...

Of course am not saying that the virus does not exists,... but that Felipe Calderon's government is acting opportunistic and tries to take advantage of it positioning his political party that otherwise would completely loose next elections.

At global scale, perhaps this whole business of the Mexican flu just gives fresh air to the news of the financial crisis and the lack of leadership to solve the situation,... or perhaps is the actual kind of actions already agreed during g20 and that nobody knows about that are being covered.

here is an alternative explanation to the flu,.. although I am not so convinced of it,.. Could this be really happening?????

and here is a link to other video of Erick Pianka,.. a prominent Eugenetic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZJSJ9ilELM

No long ago, Mexican government recognised the usage of forced sterilization in 'undesireble groups' meaning indigenous,...

here is a note taken form
http://www.economista.com.mx/articulos/2006-02-22-8325

La delegación mexicana ante la ONU aseguró que la esterilización forzada no "corresponde en ningún caso a una política de Estado"; sin embargo, reconocen "que esas prácticas discriminatorias perduran y que es necesario combatirlas".
Si pasara lo mismo en los consultorios chilenos en la IX región... nos enteraríamos algún día?.. llega la prensa y la opinión pública hasta esos lugares?

Ginebra.- El Gobierno de México aseguró que la esterilización forzada de indígenas no ha sido ???jamás objeto de una práctica institucional??? en ese país y que tampoco ha formado parte de los programas de salud dirigidos a esa minoría, informaron hoy fuentes de las Naciones Unidas.

Durante la evaluación del informe de México al grupo de expertos de la ONU, la delegación oficial de ese país aseguró que la esterilización forzada no ???corresponde en ningún caso a una política de Estado??? y aseguró que todos los casos que fueron denunciados han sido objeto de investigación.

No obstante, señaló que ???las autoridades mexicanas reconocen que esas prácticas discriminatorias perduran y que es necesario combatirlas???.

En su primer periodo de sesiones del año, que se inició este lunes y concluirá el próximo 10 de marzo, el Comité examina los informes periódicos de trece países, entre los que están México, Guatemala y El Salvador.

El experto a cargo del caso de México, José Cali Tzay, dijo que había recibido informaciones que apuntan que las víctimas indígenas de esterilización forzada -hombres y mujeres- suelen abstenerse de presentar denuncias por temor a las represalias y a no recibir más atención médica.

Cali recordó que el derecho internacional considera esa práctica como ???un delito extremadamente grave???, al tiempo que dijo que las autoridades mexicanas parecen reconocer ahora su existencia, a pesar de haberla negado en el pasado.

Otro asunto abordado en el caso de México fue el referente a la discriminación que, en términos generales, sufren los grupos indígenas y afroamericanos.

Los primeros suman 12 millones de personas, mientras que los segundos son unos 450.000, respectivamente, lo que en total representa algo más del 10 por ciento de la población nacional.

De los 386 municipios considerados como los más marginados del país, 209 están mayoritariamente habitados por indígenas, indicó el presidente del Consejo Nacional para la Prevención de la Discriminación de México, Gilberto Rincón.

Sobre los indígenas de Chiapas, Cali sostuvo que ???todo parece indicar que la situación de esos pueblos no es única ni excepcional, pues todas las comunidades indígenas de México parecen vivir en condiciones similares??? de exclusión.

No obstante, la delegación mexicana afirmo que la situación de ese estado mexicano sí se puede considerar excepcional debido a que el alzamiento armado protagonizado por el Ejército Zapatista de Liberalización Nacional (EZLN) todavía no ha sido resuelto.

A ese respecto, señalaron que el diálogo entre el movimiento rebelde y el Gobierno está en un punto muerto, aunque no se ha roto.

*****
Again, Although I am not into conspiracy theories,.. it seems to me that there is something about eugenics that is been around for a while,..

More on Eugenics,...

part1

part2

Part3

Otro ducumental sobre Oaxaca

2009-04-24T10:01:00.003+01:00

Y otro documental mas sobre Oaxaca, la APPO y su lucha contra el gobierno de Ulises Ruiz. Gracias a Hazel quien me envio el link,
El realizador es Yinh Law. Este documental cuenta la historia de quienes con su musica apoyaron a la APPO. Esta muy interesante,...

Mexican,... Texas,... Mexico,... MexTex,.. TexMex,.. Mexas,...Texican!,...

2009-04-15T17:40:00.004+01:00

Some time ago, I read a book,... well to be honest I didn't complete it as it was rather boring. But the point is that the book was a bout a story that developed in Texas just after its anexation to the States, or in other words just after gringos invaded the land, killed the original owners, for then claim that Mexicans were a danger to their stability,.. (actually that is the sort of line they always use to invade and steal from other countries),...

The problem was that due to geographical and historical reasons gringos in Texas couldn't get rid of Mexican population,...and against their purposes population mixed and more importantly, a light version of Mexican culture prevailed,.. in that book the author called 'Texicans', which was a way of saying that neither of the two cultures dominated each other but they mixed together and were, in a way, inseparable.

So far, so good,... now Burger King is launching a campaign for their new burger,.. the Texican,.. which actually tastes exactly the same than the others [horrible in its versions with/without chile]and also they used a dwarf-like brown actor who dresses the flag and uses a wrestling mask. Which is not original really, it remind me a version of ‘NACHO LIBRE’. On the other hand, the gringo,.. well is just a cowboy gringo,…

The situation is that Mexican politicians made waves by complaining about the usage of the Mexican stereotype. So, ok they are not happy about that. They say is offensive and degrading towards Mexican image.

Of course I somehow agree with that statement. And I also agree that Burger King should not use stereotypes as is offensive. But what bothers me is not the fact that the stereotype exists, as there is little one could do about it; but the racism implicit in it, and it has little to do with Mexicans only.

Else, Mexican government of the last 8 years which was supposed to be the government that changed old practices, is composed by members of the ‘Partido Accion Nacional’ the ultra right wing party. This party has used racism constantly within the electoral campaigns. Moreover, affiliates to that party always behave in a way that in reality creates a system that divides: an apartheid.

At grass level this system holds onto a mixture of racism and classism where by being short and brown people are considered to be inferior with less political rights, their role in society is to obey, and pay. On the contrary, European types are considered by themselves with the natural right to govern,… waste to say that much of the corruption starts just there. Contradictorily, the vast majority of Mexicans are brown ‘mestizo’ and before the eyes of outsiders they all look the same.

This following video is just a sample of how that division actually works, there is a group of demonstrators who are supporting Andres Manuel lopez Obrador, they are passing by and a woman whose political preference is PAN (It is inferred by the stamp on the windscreen of her car) started shouting at them, she uses all the racism she can, and then ask the police to support her against the protestors,…

So, Mexican government should make sure that racism is ended among them first, and then perhaps could ask everyone else to do so.

All this make me think about consuming pizza instead,... but after further consideration I ruled that option out as well,.. and the reasons,.. well,... here are some of them,..

reson1

reson 2

more reasons at:

http://thisis50.com/profiles/blogs/the-reason-why-you-will-never

some few issues,..

2009-04-15T17:28:00.002+01:00

After a long,.. long,.. long,.. period of inactivity; I decided to come back and start reporting about what is happening in Mexico and other issues. So I ssupose I could start by noticing that Obama is coming to town,... and of course Mexico City is upside down. Well I'll report about it later on, now I want ot comment on a docuemtary I saw last night in channel 4 (I think).

It is a following up documentary of father Oliver O'grady, who raped a huge number of children in the States, was jailed for about 8 years, and now is free in Ireland. Few posts ago I uploaded another docuemntary about his story and how he was protected by the Vatican,.. well this latter one shows the struggle of some of the victims in their search for justice.

here is the docuemtnary,..

Well I think that is a well known story elsewhere,.. in Mexico Cardinal Norberto Rivera has covered some of these cases and was also accused in the States but unlike Cardinal Royer Mahony the court found itselft with no jurisdiction to bring him to court.

New video of Zaachila, and the gunman,...

2008-06-29T15:48:00.000+01:00

This new video shows with more clarity the guy who is shooting at APPO.

It is clear, to me that pri supporters have little to say before the evidence,.. although they just don't care,...

APPO and PRIistas Clash in Zaachila, Oaxaca

2008-06-23T13:03:00.000+01:00

by Eliza Ruiz Jaimes, translated by Kristin Bricker
Noticias Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca, June 21, 2008

Supporters of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO in its Spanish initials) were hit with rocks thrown by a group of thugs hired by the municipal president of Zaachila, Noe Pérez Martínez, as well as municipal police, who used stones, firecrackers, and firearms.

With barricades, residents prevented the state governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (URO), from entering the community, where he was supposed to tour.

The protesters accused Natalio Pérez Tomás--father of the current municipal president--of having fired a weapon: "He fired directly at the crowd, fortunately he didn't hurt anyone." The tension between the groups was brought under control after assistant Secretary of State Joaquín Rodríguez Palacios' appeal to the APPO to control itself.

The governor had to cancel the signing of the State-Municipal agreement and the start of public works in the municipality. Various people were wounded during the violence, including Asrael Torres Carmona, 71 years old, who believes that the repressive force is concentrated in the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI in its Spanish initials).

In agreement with Jorge Aragón Martínez, the assistant secretary admitted that the PRIista group was the one who initiated the confrontation. According to him no police force intervened in the clashes, despite the fact that on Thursday dozens of members of the Police Unit for Special Operations (UPOE in its Spanish initials) roamed the streets and installed metal fences in an attempt to impede the demonstrators' passage.

In response, the main roads into downtown Zaachila were closed with burning logs, tires, and rearranged metal fences, grabbed by residents and members of David "El Alebrije" Venegas' collective, who was present during the protest against the governor.

The governor's event was scheduled for 12:00pm yesterday, but it couldn't happen due to the protests of the residents with Zapoteca roots. They met in and around the Municipal Palace in order to keep Ruiz Ortiz from appearing in the community.

The APPO supporters said the government was overconfident because Jorge "El Chucky" Franco Vargas, the current leader of the PRI, arrived to put down the protest against the new municipal leader of the PRI, "but here we aren't going to let in any repressors."

The bandanas returned to cover the faces of protest. The stones returned to be defensive weapons together with firecrackers and chants against URO. The demonstrators warned that the fact that they "tolerate" the government that Pérez Martínez represents doesn't mean that they forgive Ruiz Ortiz's actions in their community. "The struggle continues."

The people who were wounded with cuts and scrapes after the violence in la Villa are considering bringing charges. The residents' assembly will determine the next steps and the stance against the ruler. According to the APPO, Pérez Martínez doesn't represent them: "we will go before the State Congress to request the removal of that repressor," they warned.

******

As usual, Ulises and most media, local and national have avoided to mention that pri supporters fired at APPO. Next video is a report on national television, and there is no mention of the shooting,...

but there is another video that CLEARLY shows a guy who had been identified as pri-supporter, shooting at people. Furthermore that guy has been also identified as Natalio Pérez Tomás,... here is the video,..

Let's remember that Zaachila was declared autonomous and there is a governing committee that APPO formed two years ago (I think,..), and that there is a parallel government (the 'official') run by priistas,.. Like the country as a whole, Zaachila has two governments, one by the people (the legitimate) and one imposed by electoral insitutions (the official).

Sobre la columna de Federico Arreola en el sdp del lunes 16 de junio

2008-06-17T21:43:00.000+01:00

Cachondean a Calderón en España

Recibí una carta de un amigo de Madrid que trabaja muy cerca de la casa del embajador mexicano:
“Hoy vino Calderón a la casa del embajador... Pasó enfrente de mí. Iba en un coche de colección negro, y atrás marchaban, en fila, unos 20 Audis A6 nuevos, que le puso el gobierno español para sus acompañantes.
También vi varios Mercedes.
No exagero... Y unas 10 motos. La gente del vecindario, espantada de plano. Una señora no podía creer lo que veía, ya que en Madrid todos hemos visto pasar al Rey alguna vez y nunca ha traído un contingente tan impresionante.
El carro negro es un Rolls Royce que el Rey usa una vez al año. Nada más en el desfile militar.
No recuerdo haber visto a ninguna otra persona en ese automóvil. Excepto a Francisco Franco, ya que fue un regalo que le hicieron al dictador que terminó por quedarse el Rey. Había también un helicóptero sobrevolando al área. No faltaron las ambulancias y las motos Harleys rodeando al Rolls Royce.
Patrulleros por delante y por atrás. Etcétera. Y ya ves, antes el Rey había cachondeado
a Calderón y Zapatero también.
Otros políticos de los dos partidos se esmeraron en hacerlo sentir importante. Ni duda cabe, cuánta falta nos está haciendo a los españoles el petróleo mexicano. Para eso hemos enamorado a Calderón, que se ve cayó redondo en nuestra trampa de seducción. Pobres mexicanos, qué complejo de inferioridad tienen”.

Sobre la columna de Federico Arreola en el sdp del lunes 16 de junio

El que un presidente (espurio o no) vaya a otro país a ser ‘cachondeado’ creo que no tiene mucho que ver con los complejos y traumas que tenga la población a la que dice representar.

Yo le sugeriría al buen Arreola, que si es cierto que es vergonzosa la actuación de Felipe Calderón y algunos de sus funcionarios en el extranjero. Hacen uso exagerado de lujos y gastos que no corresponden con un país que se supone esta apenas desarrollándose.

Pero también le diría a su amigo, el español, que no se podía esperar otra cosa del heredero del fascismo y amante de los ‘buenos negocios’ Juan Carlos I. No es nuevo saber que el rey tiene el gusto muy desarrollado por los negocios. Por ello tal vez no sea gratis la publicación del libro ‘Juan Carlos I: ’30 años a cuerpo de rey’ donde se relatan hechos que describen a un hombre un tanto corrupto, prepotente, y bastante fascista.

Se dice que cuando ilegítimamente heredo el trono, no tenía dinero. Que su fortuna la hizo con negocios a la sombra de la figura real, usando su poder para ‘agilizar’ proyectos, también pidió dinero prestado (10 millones de euros) que pago permitiendo el uso del territorio español como base de lanzamiento en las guerras de Irak.

Ahora bien, Juan Carlos solo hizo lo que ha venido haciendo desde hace tres décadas tanto a españoles como a extranjeros: aseguro su participación en un negocio más. Que le prestó su coche personal y 20 mas a Calderón, si. Que Calderón es un hombre pequeño que se impresiona fácilmente y que con un poco de protocolo oficial y ‘cachondeo’ no duda en entregar el petróleo, también. Pero y que culpa tenemos el resto de los Mexicanos para que el amigo de Arreola nos diga que tenemos complejo de inferioridad?

En todo caso, Calderón es el que tiene el complejo de inferioridad, y en eso estamos completamente de acuerdo. Como lo estará él con el hecho de que Juan Carlos es un corrupto al que no le importa usar la soberanía española ni la vida de los soldados españoles con tal de obtener ganancias. Que canchondeo a Calderón, yo diría que es un asunto de ilegítimos.

ahi van unos videitos para recordar quien es juan carlos,...

como hizo su fortuna 'el rey'

y claro,.. el rey tambien tiene sus 'defensores' claro quien va a ser,... sino los medios de comunicacion,...

y sobre la 'transicion del franquismo al carlismo,.. y la cia (????) que echa por tierra el discursito democratico de juan carlos,..

Yo no se que puedan hacer los espanholes para controlar a su 'rey' en sus ansias por dinero,.. pero voy a mandar una carta a los diputados en Mexico para que ademas de darle permiso a Calderon de viajar al extranjero,.. que lo obligen a usar cinturon de castidad,.. para evitar futuros 'cachondeos',...

Some questions and answers about the oil and the political battle to secure it

2008-05-19T21:02:00.000+01:00

Is energy security a political, military or market problem?

Developed nations are facing a severe energy security crisis, according to many analysts. And at the heart of energy security are many of the most important political, economic and environmental questions facing the world.

Perennial tensions in the Middle East affect oil supplies. Russia falls out with its neighbours over the supply of gas. Stark warnings of environmental catastrophes demand big changes to energy use. Nuclear power is clearly back on the agenda in some nations.

However, Cambridge University’s Pierre Noël, argues in the FT that the increasing use of energy resources as political tools does not in fact justify a tough new paradigm for energy security policy. He argues that ensuring a free global market in energy is the best line of defence.

So what are the biggest energy security challenges for the world? And what are the best solutions? What, for example, is the role of energy hungry China? How should the European Union deal with Russia?

Our thanks to Dr Noël for answering these questions on Thursday, 17 January 2008.
............................................................................................................................................
’Energy Security’ has become a very frequently used term, but it also seems to be one of the most poorly defined. If we assume that a useful definition goes beyond the assumption that states who have energy are ’secure’ and states that don’t are not, what can you offer by way of a definition of Energy Security, and what are its key dimensions?Iain Grant, Alberta, Canada

Pierre Noël: The most popular definition of energy security mentions the ‘availability’ of energy, its ‘affordability’ and often its ‘environmental sustainability’. This is not a very useful definition.

Affordability is a relative notion: affordable to whom and to do what? Furthermore, energy commodities become less affordable when markets are tight, but that is the very condition for them to remain available. Adding environmental sustainability is not helpful because most of the time there is a clear tradeoff between the ‘affordability’ of energy and its environmental impact.
Clean energy is relatively expensive.

I would advocate a narrow definition of energy security, centered on the availability of energy to those who are willing to pay the market price. Energy insecurity can then be linked to situations when energy markets do not function properly. Energy security policies should be mostly aimed at ‘making markets work’ and letting them work when they do.
............................................................................................................................................

Who will get the last barrel of oil? The country the oil is extracted from, the country with the most money, or the country with the most weapons?Wayne Rogers, Canada

Pierre Noël: There will be many ‘last barrels’ consumed at the same time, probably by relatively poor people in relatively poor countries – some of them extracting oil.
............................................................................................................................................

Is the American policy of projecting military might across the oil-rich Persian Gulf and its support for reactionary governments in the region misguided? After all, even the most hot-headed revolutionaries in the region still need to export oil to survive so there is no meaningful threat to the west’s energy security, whereas the US policies ensure that democracy and pluralism will not take root in the area. Borzou Aram, London

Pierre Noël: Protecting the flow of oil to the world market probably does not require a permanent, massive US military presence in the Gulf. Some in Washington are openly talking about moving back to an “over the horizon” military posture.

The US has long acted as a policeman in the Middle East, simply deterring the “bad guys” (Iran, then Iraq) from unsettling the status quo. When deterrence failed with Saddam Hussein in 1990, the US did not hesitate to send massive military power to the region. Under GW Bush the policy has changed radically as the US has transformed itself into a political engineer in the Middle East, trying to re-draw the political and ideological map of the region.

This policy shift was certainly not required in terms of energy security and it has had negative energy security consequences – not only for the US but for all consumers.
............................................................................................................................................

Are Europe-based energy sources like wind and nuclear bringing more or less security of supply? Jean-Michel Glachant, University Paris Sud, France

Pierre Noël: Wind is an intermittent source of power supply, unpredictable and relatively concentrated geographically (Scotland in the UK example). Massively increasing the share of wind in the electricity mix, as Europe and the UK want to do, almost certainly decreases energy security (or, which is the same thing, increases the cost of maintaining the reliability of the electricity system).

Nuclear is probably neutral in terms of energy security compared to other non-intermittent sources (coal, natural gas).

The fact that wind and nuclear are ‘non-imported’ sources of energy is irrelevant as far as energy security is concerned.
............................................................................................................................................

There is a view that the current spike in energy prices is here to stay, at least for 5-10 years, due to underinvestment in oil and gas production infrastructure. Do you see this current period of high prices being different to those in the past in that they are stimulating a significant shift to alternative energy sources or will oil remain the main source of energy? If so, what do you see being the dominant trends in energy production? Adam Keats, London

Pierre Noël: I will not try to predict the price of oil! That said, the current period of high prices is clearly different from previous periods. Production outside OPEC and the Former Soviet Union has stopped growing, despite five full years of very high prices and record investment budgets from oil companies. It is probably very close to its maximum possible production. In that context, growing demand has come and ‘bumped up’ against production capacities in the Middle East, sending prices to the current levels.

If anything it will be more difficult, not less, to shift to alternatives this time. The 1970s oil shocks had triggered massive substitution, especially in the power generation and industrial sectors. Some of that might be replicable – at a cost – in developing countries, especially Asian emerging economies. But in the OECD oil demand is now highly concentrated in the transportation sector where price elasticities are low.
............................................................................................................................................

The current global energy market is anything but free. The biggest cartel in the history of market economy prevents national governments from responding with free market measures. Do you believe a free global market can exist with the presence of OPEC? Zhou Xi, Hong Kong

Pierre Noël: No market is perfect and the oil market works much, much better than most. All other things being equal, the price would be lower without OPEC, no doubt. But OPEC is here to stay and its market power is bound to increase with the peak in non-OPEC supply.

The relevant policy question is: ‘What should we as oil consumers do to ensure the highest possible level of energy security?’ The answer is:
1. Let the market work freely, always.
2. Maintain emergency storage
3. Invest in R&D for alternative transportation technologies and fuels.
The most important is No. 1.
............................................................................................................................................

Is it possible to calculate the cost in dollars per barrel of securing oil supply through US military intervention in the Mideast Gulf since the first Gulf crisis in 1990-91? Is this a wise foreign policy, and does it make the Pentagon the source of US energy policy rather than the Department of Energy? Ian Bourne, London

Pierre Noël: Academic studies have consistently valued the ‘energy security premium’ at between zero and $0.33/gallon. The price in the US is currently around $3/gallon.
Most of the US military presence in the Middle East is not required to protect the oil market.
............................................................................................................................................

Do you believe that we are living in a time of constricting oil supply based on the Hubbert Peak theory? Ambrose

Pierre Noël: I believe that oil supply will eventually peak. As it continues to grow, by definition it has not peaked yet!
............................................................................................................................................

What options do developing countries have in the future if US, Europe and others impose restrictions on the imports from the countries with no regulations on GHG emission reductions and force developing countries to adopt ’costly’ clean energy options, restricting power generation from cheap and abundantly available coal for their energy security? Hari, Auckland

Pierre Noël: Such taxes would increase the price of imported goods in developed countries (cheap Chinese goods would become a bit more expensive). I doubt it would significantly accelerate the transition of China towards a cleaner energy economy. But these taxes might be welcomed by European and American manufacturers.
............................................................................................................................................

In the case of China, for example, national oil companies are increasingly driven by government agenda to seek resources elsewhere, almost making oil deals into government diplomatic exchanges instead of business transactions. With China’s growing influence, do you believe that re-nationalisation of this sector is inevitable? Zhou Xi, Hong Kong

Pierre Noël: Chinese oil companies seem already to enjoy significant – though far from complete -- strategic autonomy, and will probably enjoy more in the future. They try to build portfolios of assets outside China and they go first where there is relatively less competition (places where international oil companies are reluctant or banned to go). Both the Chinese government and the resource-owner governments love to include these deals into wider diplomatic packages but these are primarily commercial deals which make commercial sense for the Chinese companies.
............................................................................................................................................

The Stern Report described climate change as ‘the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen.’ Correcting market failures typically requires government, i.e. political intervention. How would a free market in global energy address these market failures and help us address the impacts of climate change? Chris Morrison, London

Pierre Noël: Energy markets themselves will simply not address climate change, at least not in a meaningful way. This is why I think it is not helpful to bundle energy security (strictly defined) and climate change into a single, wider definition of energy security. For climate change, the exact size of the market failure is disputed (Stern’s view of the size is clearly way above all other academic economists) but its existence is not and it is certainly a very large one. For energy security, the size of the market failure is usually vastly exaggerated by commentators and politicians.
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I have two questions: 1) The EU and the Russian Federation (RF) have an evolving partnership in energy trade. Can this relationship create observable spill-over effects on the EU-RF political relations? 2) Turkey is an EU candidate country bordering Middle East, Balkans and the Caucasus. What kind of role would Turkey play with regard to the EU-RF energy trade relations? Argun Baskan, Turkey

Pierre Noël: I think that the best the EU can do is to organise its gas market in a way that minimises the impact of supply disruptions, whatever their origins and causes. Europe needs an integrated, competitive gas market which would vastly increase the level of security of supply enjoyed by European consumers. France and Germany fiercely resist because their big gas companies would lose their comfortable (and profitable) positions.

An integrated and competitive gas market in Europe would also trigger a complete re-structuring of the EU-Russia relationship, reducing Moscow’s ability to leverage its bilateral energy links in the foreign policy sphere.

Some see Turkey as a key transit country for Central Asian and Middle East gas exports to Europe. I do not think that Turkish membership of the EU would significantly increase the likelihood of such projects.
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How do you see Asian countries, particularly China using sovereign wealth funds to secure energy resources? How important will the Straits of Malacca be for these countries’ foreign policies? Stephen Ranger, Seoul, Korea

Pierre Noël: The Malacca problem is vastly exaggerated. If the straight were closed, tankers would take a longer route to the South – freight rates would go up, end of story.

About sovereign funds: buying oil and gas reserves abroad will not provide Chinese consumers with any additional energy security. For China - as for every other country - energy security is mostly built at home. Oil supply insecurity in China (chronic shortages of oil products) is due to price regulations and restricted freedom to import crude and products. It has nothing to do with a lack of ‘control’ over oil reserves or shipping lanes.
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About the expert: Dr Noël is at the University of Cambridge’s EPRG, an energy and environmental policy research group and also a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He has worked for almost 10 years on the interaction between foreign policies, energy markets and international security. He specialised in US international oil policy and now works also on Chinese energy security policies, the EU approach to international energy issues, and the geopolitics of natural gas markets.

Bush seeking Saudis' help on oil prices

2008-05-19T20:33:00.000+01:00

This is from the Seattle times,..

=====
By Kevin G. Hall
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — In April 1986, Vice President George H.W. Bush traveled to Saudi Arabia with a stern warning. Record low oil prices of $10 a barrel threatened the U.S. oil industry and U.S. national security. If prices don't rise, he warned, perhaps a U.S. tariff on imported oil would do the job.

More than 22 years later, his son George W. Bush is on a similar mission, but with the opposite goal in mind. President Bush meets today with Saudi King Abdullah and will lobby for help in bringing down world oil prices, which have raced past $125 a barrel.

Then and now, the Saudis are the only oil power with enough unused production capacity to make a difference on price if they increase supply. But the hard fact is that the world oil market has changed, and Saudi Arabia is far from the only producer holding the fate of U.S. consumers in its hands. Even if the Saudis increase production, shortfalls elsewhere, along with rising global demand, can offset their efforts — and are.

Many Americans grumbling at the gas pump are quick to blame the Saudis for their woes — just as many might be surprised to learn that Saudi Arabia trails Canada and Mexico as the chief suppliers of foreign oil to the United States and isn't far ahead of Venezuela, Nigeria and Angola. Saudi Arabia provided 14 percent of U.S. oil imports in 2006. Still, if it boosted production significantly, added world supplies would tend to drive global oil prices down, regardless of who bought its exports.

Saudi Arabia is the world's only significant swing producer: Its oil production can be ratcheted up or down to lower or raise prices worldwide. (Iraq potentially could do the same if it achieved stability, but that's not a near-term prospect.)

So what have the Saudis done since 2005, when oil prices climbed above $70 a barrel, then $80, then $90, and this year broke the once-unthinkable threshold of $100? They have increased production capacity, meaning that in a pinch they could make up the difference between global demand and available supply. They now can produce 11 million barrels per day, or bpd, and expect that number to reach 12.5 million bpd by 2010.

"They've not only invested tens of millions of dollars to increase production capacity. They've increased their actual production from 8.5 million barrels per day (mbpd) to 9.2 mbpd," said Frank Verrastro, director of the energy and national-security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center-right think tank.

His numbers are somewhat squishy; actual production numbers are hard to verify. Some critics believe the Saudi government has increased capacity but actually dropped output by 1 million bpd over the past two years. The Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department, said that in 2006 — the last full year for which it has data — the Saudis produced 10.7 million bpd.

That's why some Democrats in Congress, including New York Sen. Charles Schumer, are threatening to hold up a $1 billion-plus arms deal for the Saudis, a crucial ally in the global war on terror, unless the kingdom puts more oil on international markets.

"We are saying to the Saudis that if you don't help us, why should we be helping you?" Schumer said this week.

The Saudis are said to be reluctant to pump much more oil since U.S. oil inventories of late have been higher than five-year averages. That suggests that oil isn't in short supply here, and that other factors, such as the weakening U.S. dollar and speculation in commodities markets, are driving up prices.

"I think the president has no intention whatsoever of having the Saudis put more oil in the market," said Fadel Gheit, an industry analyst for Oppenheimer & Co. in New York. "If the president wanted the Saudis to do that, he would not have asked them publicly."

Nevertheless, global oil prices are still rising. Why? Because global demand for oil is growing outside the United States, which alone accounts for one-quarter of world oil consumption. China and the Middle East each account for about one-third of new oil demand, and they are sopping up new production. The Paris-based International Energy Agency this month estimated global oil demand in 2008 at 86.8 million bpd, about 1.2 million bpd more than in 2007.

In addition, other important oil suppliers are falling short in production for various reasons.
Nigeria has more than 1 million bpd of production offline because of civil strife. Russia is the world's second-largest oil producer and exporter, but after nearly a decade of increasing production, it seems to have reached a plateau for easily accessible oil, and output is flat.

In Mexico, the second-most important supplier to the United States, production continues to erode faster than forecast in the giant offshore oil field called Cantarell. For political reasons — nationalism — the country has been unable to modify its foreign investment laws to allow state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) to work with major oil companies to explore for deep-water oil in the Gulf of Mexico or develop its hard-to-access oil deposits in Veracruz state.

"Mexico has a lot of potential, but its hands are tied politically," said oil historian Daniel Yergin, author of "The Prize," the definitive account of oil's rise to economic importance. "I think if the Mexican industry had access to the technology and could call upon the skill and experience of the international industry, it could turn the picture around within a few years. But it is just really constrained."

Yergin made headlines two years ago, swimming against the current by predicting a potential oil glut as more production came on line. He turned out to be half right.

Brazil's offshore oil discoveries and a bevy of projects around the world slated for development suggest there's still plenty of petroleum to be pumped. But the rising costs for everything from offshore rigs to petroleum engineers to ocean transportation have delayed completion of these projects significantly.

"There've been shortages of people, equipment, rising prices of steel and other commodities. And that has really constrained the supply" of oil, Yergin said.

President Bush seems resigned to high oil prices for now, telling CBS Radio on Monday before he left for the Middle East that the "demand for oil is so high relative to supply these days that there's just not a lot of excess capacity."

Since about 40 percent of the world's oil comes from the cartel OPEC, member countries have little incentive to reduce the price by producing more. They earn more by producing less. Asking them to produce more is effectively asking them, instead of the American consumer, to swallow a loss.

"We don't ask Microsoft to do that. We don't ask Coca-Cola to do that. But somehow we think the oil companies should do that," Verrastro said.

The United States has 5 percent of the world's population but uses one-quarter of all oil produced. It is the third-largest oil producer, sitting atop plenty of oil in Alaska and along its coastlines that for political reasons it chooses not to tap.

Petrobras ya se puso ranchera!!!

2008-05-02T09:37:00.000+01:00

Segun el financial times, Petrobras la empresa petrolera brasilenha ya se puso ranchera y no esta dispuesta a que Pemex NO comparta el petroleo con ella,... Aunque no dicen que esten presionando para que se lleve a cabo la privatizacion de PEMEX, o que se permitan los contratos riesgo,..

Abajo la nota,....

======
Petrobras rules out Mexican service role
By Ed Crooks in London and Adam Thomson in Mexico City

Published: April 29 2008 18:54 Last updated: April 29 2008 18:54

Petrobras would not be willing to work in Mexico as a service company, being paid a set rate rather than taking a share of oil production, according to Sergio Gabrielli, its chief executive.

Mr Gabrielli told the Financial Times that the Brazilian company had been in negotiations with Mexico. He added, however, that “I think we are not willing to go there as a service company”.

His comments are disappointing for the Mexican government, which faces a mounting crisis in its oil industry.

Oil production, for so long the pillar of Mexico’s economy and from which the government receives almost 40 per cent of its income, is falling faster than expected.

In November 2004, Mexico produced an average of 3.4m barrels per day. In November last year, by contrast, it produced just 2.9m.

Pemex, the state oil company, lacks the money and technical expertise to explore for oil in deep waters, where most analysts believe Mexico’s future lies. Petrobras is a world leader in deep-water exploration.

Mr Gabrielli refused to comment on suggestions that his company would be more acceptable in Mexico than, say, ExxonMobil of the US, saying the issue was “very sensitive”.

He also refused to comment on Mexican policy, saying “they have to decide”.

At the same time, Mexico was “trying to get drilling rigs for their own operation. They’re moving”, he said.

However, he added: “We have a multiple service agreement for gas production but – even though some of our people think differently – I think that the multiple service agreement is not enough for us to go for an actual exploration offshore.”

This month, Mexico’s conservative government led by President Felipe Calderón presented congress with an initiative that it believes will help turn things round. This would be by introducing greater flexibility into the country’s rigid rules governing private investment in oil.

If the bill passes through congress, private companies would be allowed to build and operate refineries, pipelines and transportation networks.

They could also receive bonuses for work carried out for Pemex, potentially increasing interest in one of the world’s most protected oil sectors.

Yet many analysts say the proposed reform does not go far enough. The potential changes do not envisage amending Mexico’s constitution, which prohibits Pemex from entering into joint-risk contracts with the private sector.

Pemex is replacing current production with new finds at a rate of only about 20 per cent. That is very low compared with new discoveries made by the world’s leading oil companies.

by the way,.. business week didn't published my comment,... i wonder why

2008-05-01T10:12:00.001+01:00

I put an extract of the comment to the businessweek's article, but it wasn't published. According to the site, the only restriction they have is the usage of rude language,.. well I didn't used any of it, and yet they didn't include my commment.

However they did include offensive comments to Mexican independece. For example, some guy 'jack' is openly calling to intervene Mexican territory and stole oil.

that position is not far from what Calderon is doing, but cheaper in that US won't spend in sending his mercenaries down to Mexican territory.

here is the comment I made, it was a shorter version of the one I uploaded here in the previous post,..

I would only point out that those in pemex who desperately argue for privatisation are the ones who have been accused of benefiting from Pemex’s corruption. Labastida Ochoa is one of them, and the nearly 2,000 millions that came round to pay for his presidential campaign. Camilo Mouriño and his empire of gasoline in southern Mexico is another. He has been accused of abusing office, and he started in the ministry of energy where he did good contracts benefiting his family enterprises.

Overall I think that the urgency for privatise has little to do with Mexican’s interest and more to do with the big companies, corrupt politicians in Mexico, and some ‘free market fundamentalists’. The question is why should Mexicans sell off the enterprise that has given them the resources to accomplish whatever little development they have?

As you can see there is no offensive language there, only my sincere opinion about the topic. Would this mean that businessweek only allows comments that 'fit' their own editorial view?

here are comments already on the site,...

Mexico's Oil Dilemma
All Reader Comments
page 1 of 1

Jack
Apr 29, 2008 3:36 AM GMT
The U.S. should seize mexico oil fields as payment for the gazillions we spend on 986 billion illegal aliens! We could easily overpower the mexicans and claim the oil fields by right of conquest!
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Clifford J. Wirth
Apr 29, 2008 2:39 AM GMT
A variety of independent sources conclude that Mexico's oil production peaked in 2004 and that it production will continue to decline despite more exploration and drilling. These sources include, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, Energy Watch Group, EnergyFiles, and Peak Oil Associates International
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common sense
Apr 29, 2008 1:44 AM GMT
after reading the article who in their right mind would want to nationalize their oil reserves.
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common sense
Apr 29, 2008 1:43 AM GMT
after reading the article who in their right mind would want to nationalize their oil reserves.
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Sam Siphandone
Apr 28, 2008 11:27 PM GMT
US should nationalize its oil reserves. The Govt should should sell gas like selling postage stamp... Otherwise Exxon Mobil, Chevron and other oil companies reap profits of more than $60 billions per year while we Americans paid $4 or more per gallon....
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Devin Serpa
Apr 28, 2008 6:17 PM GMT
"Unless something is done quickly to allow Pemex to operate more as a real oil company..." You mean rape and pillage the planet?
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Elaine Morton
Apr 28, 2008 4:46 PM GMT
How do I reach Carlos Morales Gil,
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elaine morton
Apr 28, 2008 4:16 PM GMT
I need to desperately reach this gentlemen. I have acquired this Patent/Tool. This test was on Pemex Stationary, signed off by 8 PemexEngineers, and there are 300 Hydraulics in the ground that are applicable for Oi Enhancement. Proved over 40% Increase PEMEX Poza Rico Camp Oilfield Hydroimpact Technology Pilot Testing Results 1. PEMEX Poza Rico Camp Oilfield tested the hydroimpact tool of Wave Energy Resource for a period of 90 days and there was no any damage for the well or the formation; 2.. Please reply 602-263-8046
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More pressure on Pemex privatisation, now is an article from businessweek

2008-04-29T09:08:00.003+01:00

Mexico's Oil Dilemma
As production declines, state-run Pemex struggles to find new reserves under daunting restrictions on foreign involvement

by Geri Smith

Carlos Morales Gil, head of exploration and production for Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, Mexico's state oil company, is sunburned. But it's not because of his frequent visits to offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico; that out-in-the-sun-too-long look is from a weekend spent in a dusty ring, waving a red cape in front of raging 550-pound bulls.

Morales' passion for amateur bullfighting may come in handy in his day job, where he commands thousands of engineers and roughnecks attempting to coax oil from Mexico's complex onshore fields and from thousands of feet below the ocean floor. Like his bosses at Pemex, the world's sixth-largest oil producer, Morales needs grit and fancy footwork to keep the oil flowing in spite of the many restrictions placed on the company by nationalist politicians determined to keep foreign oil companies from partnering with Pemex.

As Mexico's Congress prepares to debate an ambitious energy reform (BusinessWeek, 4/24/08) aimed at modernizing Pemex so that it can stem a precipitous drop in the country's oil production, engineers such as Morales are racing to drill as many wells as possible to discover new reserves. Last year, Pemex drilled 700 wells; this year, around 900 will be completed. "Not many oil companies in the world do that," says the 54-year-old Pemex veteran.

The Days of Easy Oil Are Over
For decades, Mexico has been the world's leading producer of oil from shallow waters, thanks to its Cantarell field in the Gulf of Mexico. Cantarell is the world's second-largest "super-giant" field. Since it was discovered in the mid 1970s, after a local fisherman complained to authorities about oil slicks ruining his nets, Cantarell has provided two-thirds of Mexico's oil production. While a well drilled onshore might typically yield a few hundred barrels per day, some Cantarell wells in the past would serve up gushers of as much as 50,000 barrels a day. That's one reason it costs just $4.20 a barrel to "lift," or pump, a barrel of oil in Mexico.

Today, though, the days of super-cheap, super-easy oil are over. Cantarell is near the end of its useful life, its production dropping 15% per year over the past few years. Today, a typical Cantarell well might produce around 8,000 barrels a day, Morales says, and the reservoir provides just 45% of Mexico's oil. The country's crude oil production peaked at 3.38 million barrels per day in 2004, but by March of this year had fallen to just 2.8 million. Mexico, which in 1999 had 25 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, neglected its exploration duties when oil was easy. Much of the country's drilling equipment became obsolete during years of low investment, Morales says. As a result, the country has just 14.7 billion proven barrels today.

Stepping Up Exploration
At current rates of consumption, that oil will last only 9.2 years, which means Mexico could stop exporting oil within a decade. "Unless something is done quickly to allow Pemex to operate more as a real oil company, and not as a bureaucratic state-run firm, it will become a marginal exporter in the very short run," says David Shields, a Mexico City-based energy analyst and author of two books on Pemex.

That would be a national disaster. The country's treasury relies on Pemex for nearly 40% of overall tax revenues, and oil exports, which in 2007 were worth $44.4 billion, account for around 10% of the country's export revenue. The government has known for years that Cantarell would start declining around now, but Finance Ministry officials ignored the entreaties of Pemex engineers to reduce the oil giant's tax burden so that it would have more funds for investment in exploration. Finally, in 2003, the message was heard.

So now, Morales is stepping up exploration efforts: Four years ago, Pemex spent just $200 million annually on exploration, and this year, it will spend 11 times that much. But Pemex needs more than money: It needs to tap foreign companies to find enough oil to reverse the downward slide.

Potential Reserves in the Gulf of Mexico
Already, oil-service companies such as Houston's Schlumberger (SLB) and Halliburton (HAL) and Irving (Tex.)-based Fluor (FLR) are heavily involved in the efforts (BusinessWeek, 1/3/08). They, along with other smaller service companies, drill two-thirds of Pemex's wells and conduct nearly all of the seismic work needed to locate oil reservoirs.

But Mexico's largest potential reserves are believed to be located in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, as much as 10,000 feet below the surface. Pemex does not have the technology or the expertise to go after that deepwater oil. Over the past five years, it has drilled six test wells in waters about 3,000 feet deep, finding some gas, but it needs the help of international oil companies, such as Brazil's Petrobras (PBR) or Norway's StatoilHydro (STO), to mount a concerted deepwater campaign.

However, Mexico's constitution, which declares that all oil belongs to the state, bars Pemex from signing conventional "risk" contracts with international oil majors that would compensate them in oil or cash for the amount of oil found. Representatives of oil companies in Mexico say it makes little sense for them to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a joint venture with Pemex and lend their expertise if they would be unable to register proven reserves on their books, as they normally do.

Nationalized Oil a Sacred Cow
Even if the foreign companies were willing to join forces with Pemex under simple service contracts just to get their foot in Mexico's door, nationalist politicians would likely mount a legal challenge to their presence. Over the years, successive governments have interpreted the constitution very narrowly as barring all participation by private companies in exploration and production activities of any sort.

When Cárdenas nationalized the oil industry in 1938, kicking out American and British companies, thousands of Mexicans applauded, donating family jewelry and their hard-saved pesos to the government to help pay for the expropriation. Sixty years later, Pemex remains a sacred cow for most Mexicans, who view with suspicion any effort to expand the activities in which foreign oil companies are allowed to engage.

So Morales does what he can. "We just want to be able to work with them [the international oil companies] to do more of the work that we're already doing—to find and pump more oil," he says. Pemex has technical cooperation agreements with a handful of foreign oil companies, which has allowed Morales' team to learn more about directional drilling (i.e., drilling at angles and sideways through rocky formations, instead of drilling straight down, to aim directly at oil reservoirs) and deepwater formations.

Yearning for Joint Ventures
What do foreign oil companies get from the deal, apart from garnering goodwill and getting a rare inside glimpse into the way Pemex is run? Morales says they learn from Pemex about producing the heavy crude that Mexico is known for, and about working with oil flows under high pressure, at high temperature, and within the fractured rock formations typical of Mexico's geology.

Others are more skeptical that the technical cooperation is that significant. David Victor, who heads Stanford University's Program on Energy & Sustainable Development and is coordinating exhaustive studies of the world's leading state-run oil companies, including Pemex, believes the technology-sharing agreements are less about technology than they are about strategic posturing for the day when Mexico may be ready to work more readily with foreign oil majors. "The foreign oil companies don't know what the future is going to look like, so they're jostling for a place in line, to get some information and connections that might be useful in the future."

What Pemex would really like to do is form joint ventures with foreign oil companies to explore for deepwater oil so that its own engineers can learn the ropes. Last year, Brazil's Petrobras approached Pemex about forming a joint venture to drill for oil on the U.S. side of the Gulf of Mexico, and five other foreign companies have made similar offers, Morales says. Forming such partnerships overseas would allow Pemex to gain deepwater experience it could later apply at home. (Such offshore deals aren't unprecedented: In the 1990s, Pemex joined with the private sector in a successful oil exploration and production venture in Argentina, which it later sold. And, with Shell Oil, it jointly owns an oil refinery in Texas where much of the gasoline that Mexico imports is refined.) Morales says Pemex is currently studying the offers to see whether they make strategic sense. "We haven't made a decision yet; we're still evaluating those projects to see if they are better than projects we have here in Mexico," he says. Pemex is only barred from forming such joint ventures at home, where Mexican oil reserves are in play, he says.

Chicontepec Contracts
That may change if the energy reform now under consideration by Mexico's Senate is approved. For now, Morales' team is limited to working with the oilfield service contractors. Since last year, Schlumberger, Halliburton, and Fluor have won contracts (BusinessWeek.com, 4/15/08) to drill hundreds of onshore wells in southern Mexico, including a promising area called Chicontepec. Chicontepec is a complicated field, with dense rock structures that will make it necessary to drill some 15,000 wells, each of which may produce just a few hundred barrels of oil a day.

Pemex is relying on the oilfield service companies to do much of the work because they can deliver a well 20% faster than Pemex employees can, and with fewer operators, Morales says. "The faster we can start pumping the oil, the more quickly the revenues start flowing." That is key to maintaining Mexico's status as one of the world's top oil producers—and exporters.

+++++++++++

my comment on that,...

Despite agreeing in some points with Geri Smith, I would say that the problems Pemex has, have little to do with it being state owned. It is suggested in the article that in order to modernize Pemex ought to go private, or at least partner with private firms. Further, it is also implied that those firms ought to be foreign.

Perhaps our sense of history is rather short or rather fuzzy and we need to revisit again and again. To begin with, prior to Oil industry nationalisation those foreign firms used to run the show, and it was a bad one. We have to remember that working conditions nearly reach slavery point. This would not be a surprise for a third world country as Mexico, but it certainly would for a leading industry regardless of localization.

Next, in more recent years, Mexico privatised thousands of firms, and yet it is not clear whether that action was of any benefit for the country. The most notorious example is Telmex. That used to be an unproductive state monopoly, now a days is an unproductive private monopoly and to make matters worse, a very expensive one as well.

It is also urged Pemex to increase production. The big question is why should it do so? Is it a matter of oil shortage for Mexicans or for the developed world? I strongly believe that those facing supply problems are not Mexicans but those foreign firms. In UK for example shortage of petrol has started to threat to overheat the economy. Canada and the US are not so different stories. We just need to look at how barrel prices grow responding to less resource.

Economic theory says that market forces would move prices up when supply goes down, and in this case it fully applies. Then it all comes to the problem of where you stand. If you are on the demand side, of course you need to urge producers to get productive, no matter what. If you stand on the supply side, wouldn’t it be better to take advantage of peaking prices?

However I agree in that Pemex operates inefficiently and with high levels of corruption. But, tackling inefficiency is a matter of reorganising management and not of whether it is a private or state firm. Norwegian state oil company is a good example of professional management.

As for corruption, I would only point out that those in pemex who desperately argue for privatisation are the ones who have been accused of benefiting from Pemex’s corruption. Labastida Ochoa is one of them, and the nearly 2,000 millions that came round to pay for his presidential campaign. Camilo Mouriño and his empire of gasoline in southern Mexico is another. He has been accused of abusing office, and he started in the ministry of energy where he did good contracts benefiting his family enterprises.

Overall I think that the urgency for privatise has little to do with Mexican’s interest and more to do with the big companies, corrupt politicians in Mexico, and some ‘free market fundamentalists’. The question is why should Mexicans sell off the enterprise that has given them the resources to accomplish whatever little development they have?

fortunately for Mexicans there is a HUGE social movement in defence of Mexican oil. Next photo is the first page of 'la jornada' who reported about the demonstration against privatisation of Pemex,...this sunday 27.

Once in the demonstration people expressed their feelings about Felipe Calderon, who is proposing to sell off Pemex,... well he is identified as a traitor to Mexican interests. In the picture below he is hanged by the "beep ".......

Las adelitas,... frontline women defending Mexican petroleum

2008-04-26T03:15:00.000+01:00

Next is a report from the financial times about 'las adelitas' who are groups of women preventing a piece of legislation going through and by doing this they defend Mexican Petroleum Company from being privatised.

In fact, the thousands of people actively demonstrating and blocking access to the senate were divided by gender,… so women equal to ‘Adelitas’ and men to ‘Juanes’. The name Adelita is very popular in Mexico and during the revolution of 1910 a story developed between a high ranking military and a ‘soldadera’ whose name was Adela, or ‘Adelita’ (little Adela) by custom.

There is actually a popular song that lasted to these days. It depicts the story of Adela. The jealousy of the military who by just thinking about the possibility of her running away with somebody else makes up stories as to how he would chase her up (or rather follow her up).

That figure is serving as symbol for women following the struggle to stop the selling off Mexicans energy firms such as PEMEX (oil) and CFE (electricity). It brings a sort of unity and romanticism.

Comment by wet_ahuizote

******
Mexico’s women thrust on to frontline
By Adam Thomson in Mexico City

Published: April 23 2008 03:47 Last updated: April 23 2008 03:47

Angeles Sánchez, a grandmother with peroxide-blonde hair, has two bullet belts slung across her chest, the stock of a wooden rifle resting against her shoulder and, like hundreds of other women gathered with her, she is dressed all in white.

“For our sons and daughters,” she shouts from a busy street corner of Mexico City’s historic centre in protest at the government’s plans to reform the country’s ailing oil industry. “For our country,” she cries still louder. “They are not going to take our oil.”

In normal times, the police standing just a few yards away would be made up of men. Today, though, the authorities have deployed about 100 policewomen, most with heavy make-up and hair pulled tight into a bun. Some are even wearing riot gear in case trouble breaks out.

In the few days since the conservative administration of Felipe Calderón presented Congress with a bill to allow greater private-sector participation in the country’s nationalised oil industry, women have assumed an increasingly visible role in one of the most divisive issues in Mexican politics.

Virginia Jaramillo, a housewife and one of the organisers of the women’s protest, believes such a high female profile is a clear sign of how much things have changed in a country often more associated with moustaches and a macho, tequila-drinking culture than with women’s liberation.
“We have come a long way in the last generation or two,” she says.

In many ways, she is right. For a start, women are far more involved in politics than they used to be. Of the 500 seats in the lower house of Congress, 117 are held by women. Twenty years ago, women held just six.

Women are also gaining ground economically – albeit more slowly. In 2004, the most recent year for which official statistics are available, there were 54 women in the labour force for every 100 men. In 1995, there were only 48.

There are other signs. Mexico City’s government last year passed legislation allowing women to seek abortions. This month, it proposed drastically simplifying divorce proceedings and, before long, the city’s private and public universities will have to provide students with free condoms.
Even Bonifacio Florín, a Mariachi (musician) wearing a tight black suit, white cravat and a large silver buckle with a horse’s head and a lasso, believes things have progressed.

“My parents gave us boys far more opportunities to go to school than my sisters ever got,” says the rugged-looking violinist. “Nowadays, girls get pretty much the same treatment.”

But Adriana Ortiz Ortega, an academic at the College of Mexico in the capital, argues that while Mexican women have more economic and political power than before, it would be a mistake to see the anti-energy reform movement as evidence of their further political and social empowerment.

One reason is that today’s protest movement is simply another example in a long tradition of women organising social movements in Mexico. Angeles Sánchez and her fellow female protesters have even dubbed themselves the Adelitas after the legendary white-robed female fighters of the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Perhaps more important, says Ms Ortiz Ortega, is the fact that men, particularly Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the leftwing runner-up in the 2006 presidential election, are masterminding the movement in spite of the growing presence of women protesters in the streets – about 20,000, according to the organisers.

“Women are incorporating themselves into the public sphere but they are also bowing to the male agenda,” says Ms Ortiz Ortega. “López Obrador is playing with the gender image to get the idea across that the government’s proposed reform risks affecting the most vulnerable within our society.”

In Mexico City’s historic centre, one of the policewomen agrees. Reluctant to give her name, the officer says the use of women to head the street campaign is a ruse. “It’s a political strategy to make the protesters look more peaceful,” she says. Then, after a moment’s thought, she adds: “But at least it gets us noticed.”

Oil shortage,... it has started!!!, El petroleo se acaba y puede causar crisis economica,... para quien?

2008-04-25T15:03:00.003+01:00

Hoy me econtre con la noticia de que EFECTIVAMENTE el petroleo se esta acabando y TAMBIEN que eso va a tener varios efectos en el corto plazo en la economia: primero, la obligada alza a los precios de la gasolina, gas, y casi todos los precios en la economia,... segundo, y quizas el mas importante es que se impacta en el bienestar de los hogares. Entendiendo como bienestar a la capacidad de gasto que les permite su nivel de ingreso y que al tener que gastar mas en gasolina, gas y demas necesariamente tendran menores recursos para comprar comida. Como siempre, los mas pobres son los mas afectados.

Efectivamente, el petroleo se acaba y ya hay algunas estaciones de gasolina que se han quedado sin liquido. El problema es que esto sucede en Inglaterra, y no en Mexico. Desde luego que para los ingleses y otros paises industrializados el problema ya llego.

A diferencia de Mexico, las companias petroleras son todas privadas. Todas tiene cadenas de distribucion a lo largo y ancho del pais y en teoria podrian competir sin ningun impedimiento. Esto en teoria economica seria una condicion suficiente para presionar los precios a la baja. En tanto que mas competencia hay, menores precios habria.

Sin embargo esto no sucede, parte porque el petroleo es un recurso finito, y parte porque las estructuras de costos son muy elevadas. El petroleo es un recurso no renovable, pero,.. que recurso es renovable? el aire, el agua. NO, cada vez es mas claro que ningun recurso es completamente renovable, el agua que hace anhos se creia un bien libre resulta ser un bien muy escaso en estos dias. Tal vez, el agua no es facilmente apropiable, de ahi que sea tan dificil privatizarla.

Sera que Felipe Calderon con su iniciativa de reforma esta solo obedeciendo ordenes? sera que esas ordenes son que deje entrar a las companhias privadas, aumentar la produccion y con ello evitar una crisis mayor en los paises desarrollados? o sera que nadie le da ordenes y el entregismo le sale de manera natural?

seria interesante saber, ... no?

Bueno ahi va la nota con la historia de la tragedia que ya enfrentan los paises desarrollados por la falta de petroleo. Creo, sin ser estratega, que un los paises en vias de desarrollo tendrian ahi una inmensa oportunidad para reposicionarse en el contexto politico internacional usando el petroleo. Putin ya lo hizo usando el gas.

Lo unico que nos falta, por lo menos a los mexicanos, son politicos con un poco de sentido comun y si acaso fuera posible un poco de interes por que sus propios paises se desarrollen.

Comment by Wet_ahuizote

***********

From Times OnlineApril 25, 2008

Petrol stations run dry ahead of Grangemouth refinery strike

Robin Pagnamenta and Angela Jameson

Petrol stations in Scotland have already started to run dry despite Government appeals for motorists not to panic-buy ahead of an imminent strike at Grangemouth, the country's biggest oil refinery stationed near Edinburgh.

Several filling stations in Edinburgh had just two or three pumps open, with queues two or three cars deep, as customers reportedly stockpiled fuel by filling up jerry cans before paying.

At least one, the Canonmills service station, was closed, with the forecourt taped off while a Shell garage on Ferry Road, was only selling LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) with no petrol or diesel. An Esso petrol station on Willowbrae Road and a Shell garage on Glasgow Road were both out of diesel.

Malcolm Wicks, the Energy Minister, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning that petrol supplies across the UK should not be a problem, but he acknowledged that some motorists could be hit by shortages at certain forecourts.

“I cannot guarantee that every garage forecourt will have petrol at that precise moment," he said.

"I hope the vast majority of people are sensible about this. They might have to be patient. People will have to be sensible and rational."

The 48-hour strike at Grangemouth, which is owned by Ineos, the UK chemicals group, is expected to go-ahead on Sunday as 1,200 workers prepare to walk out in a dispute over pensions.

However, the Forties pipeline system, which pumps crude oil from the North Sea, is set to shut down tonight.

A spokesman for BP, which operates the pipeline, said that it expected the pipeline to close before power from Grangemouth was switched off late on Saturday, ahead of the strike.

Up to 50 North Sea oilfields may have to cease production when the main Forties system closes down tonight.

The pipeline supplies 700,000 barrels of oil a day, equivalent to 20 per cent of North Sea oil production, and the shutdown will cost the UK's economy about £50 million a day, including about £25 million a day in revenues to the Exchequer.

Oil prices have fallen this morning despite continuing supply concerns in the face of the planned strike at the 200,000 barrel per day refinery.

London Brent crude for June delivery was down $1.71 at $112.63.

Ed Meir, an MF Global analyst, said that the strike was potentially very serious for the industry. “We believe that there will be tremendous pressure on the two sides to settle," he said.

John Hutton, Business Secretary, told MPs yesterday that fuel stocks and imports should be sufficient to maintain supplies during the strike.

Steam and electricity from the Grangemouth refinery are essential to operations at the nearby Kinneil processing plant, where crude oil from the Forties pipeline is stabilised by removing sulphur and extracting gas.

Unless Ineos can supply basic utilities to Kinneil to keep it running, oil and gas production from the Forties sector of the North Sea is likely to halt within 24 hours.

Tony Woodley, the general secretary of the Unite union, which represents Grangemouth workers, has indicated that the strike could escalate.

Mr Woodley will address a mass meeting of workers at Grangemouth today.

He has said that after the two-day strike there will be a pause, but he said that if the company remained intransigent then an escalation of the dispute was inevitable.

Unite has indicated that it will begin a work-to-rule after the dispute, which could cause long-term problems for the 24 hour a day, seven day a week operation run by Ineos.

“We understand the seriousness of the situation," Mr Woodley said. "It is extremely serious — that is why Unite has been behaving responsibly.

"We have made sure the plant and equipment is in a state to start up extremely quickly and we have made sure there is emergency cover for the emergency services.”

He has accused Ineos of “going through the motions” during the two days of peace talks this week at Acas.

Flavio Sosa is free,... and is back on the struggle

2008-04-22T14:18:00.001+01:00

Again next post is from my friend Frida, who has been covering Oaxaca situation right from the beggining.

The post is about the liberation o Flavio Sosa, who spent good 16 months in prison and in the end it was judged that 'there was no legal reason to keep him in',...

It shows how Mexican 'justice' works,.. always in favour of the powerful. Some could argue that,.. well after all he is free now,.. but the thing is why such a punishment not only to Flavio, but to his entire family, and but entire I mean extended. Both his brothers were also arrested and jailed his grandfather was harassed and even relatives and frends. In fact, anything related to him, or to APPO, was and still is prosecuted for no legal reasons.

But I am glad he is free now, and more importantly, I am happy he has the energy and courage to continue fighting Ulises and his gang of corrupts assassins.

---
FLAVIO primera y segunda parte
domingo 20 de abril de 2008

FLAVIO

La llegada de nuestro entonces medio fue con radioamlo, después de estar informándonos por medio de radio universidad de lo que sucedía en Oaxaca después de la fuerte represión del 14 de junio del 2006, tras escuchar durante varios meses lo que pasaba, después de hablar en varias ocasiones con diferentes actores dentro de "Vayamos a radio universidad" decía nuestro compañero Octavio, quien había sido nuestro corresponsal en el estado, y" entrevistamos a la Dra. Escopeta", en medio de la sorpresa, el dolor de ver partida a Oaxaca, pero sobre todo el orgullo de ser mexicana por ver la valentía con la que esta gente defendía su lugar de origen nos trasladamos a la Universidad, en medio de toda esa dignidad representada en cada una de las personas que veía….

Y entonces se dio finalmente vimos al tan nombrado Flavio Sosa, entre gritos de "SÍ, SE PUDO" y sobre todo organización tuvimos de frente el triunfo de Oaxaca y su gente maravillosa.El primer contacto con Flavio fue ese, en aquella tan nombrada barricada de cinco señores, sin realmente tenerlo cerca solo lo vimos, festejando aquel histórico "viernes de la victoria de todos los santos".

Horas mas tarde y después de un pequeño desmayo por los gases y una atención rápida por parte de los paramédicos que apoyaban a esta lucha lo encontramos de casualidad en Santo Domingo,-Hola Flavio- ¿nos regalas una entrevista? Fueron las palabras de mi compañero Octavio hacía este enorme hombre junto al cual me sentía chiquitita, físicamente, mis 49 kilos y mi 1.60 de estatura no se comparaban con la anatomía de este hombre.

Mis compañeros realizaron la entrevista Javier y Octavio, Gerardo grababa y yo solo observaba, tratando de ver más allá de todo lo que decía Flavio más allá del personaje.Fuera de todo lo que se pueda decir de este hombre, que si apoyo a "Fox", que si es poder lo que buscaba…Encontré una persona que realmente quería ir mas allá del simple poder
…

Después de dos días mis compañeros tuvieron que regresar a su vida cotidiana.. Difícil de entender eso significaba qué yo no tenía vida ¿? No más bien que tenía la oportunidad maravillosa de quedarme en Oaxaca y ver muy de cerca lo que pasaba, después de la noche en la cual Oaxaca ardió en aquel 25 de noviembre de 2006, el 29 de noviembre salen de Oaxaca todos aquellos miembros visibles de la APPO y radio universidad, aquellos que en "radiociudadana" fueron tachados de peligro para Oaxaca e incitaban en esta radio ¿? a la sociedad Oaxaqueña a que fueran a sus casas y las quemaran, o que donde los vieran los lastimaran. Entre ellos Flavio Sosa, quien fuera detenido y exhibido el 4 de diciembre de 2006 como si se tratase de un criminal de alta peligrosidad, ¿qué es lo peligroso? ¿La conciencia?, fue la última vez que lo vi por la televisión un Flavio sorprendido pero a la vez consciente de lo que estaba pasando, primera parte

SEGUNDA PARTE DE FLAVIO....

Hace un par de semanas después de muchas ganas de ir a visitarlo, al penal de Cuicatlan después de haber estado preso en el penal de máxima seguridad del Altiplano, antes La Palma, en Almoloya de Juárez, estado de México, a petición del gobernador del Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz, quien lo consideraba "delincuente de alta peligrosidad". Lugar en el estuvo por espacio de ocho meses sometido a eso a vivir como un "delincuente", para su familia y amigos era doloroso ir a verlo, primeramente por la situación deplorable en el que mantenían a Flavio en ese lugar bajo condiciones de lamentables, la revisión como un día e comentaba una de las tantas personas que le visitaron en ese lugar "era humillante, desvestirte para revisarte", "muchas veces me hacían esperar minutos que se hacían insoportables sin ropa", "no podía pasarle nada que ellos no revisaban minuciosamente"
Después de esos meses es trasladado Flavio al penal de Cuicatlan, bajo todo un operativo igual de escoltado que aquel en el que lo exhibieron como el más alto delincuente que había en el país.

Finalmente el 5 de abril hace tres semanas pude llegar a verlo, mi primera impresión al ver que no me dejaban entrar al interior del penal fue de sorpresa, -¿No traía su credencial de elector? ¿Dónde vive? ¿Dónde trabaja? ¿Qué es de usted? "deme una credencial para saber quién es usted", "déjeme ver si la puedo dejar pasar" , una hora, para que se me dijera "mmmm solo la dejo para que no se vaya sin saludarlo" "ehh la próxima vez si no traía su credencial no pasa" "y solo diez minutos," "salga sola sin que tenga que ir por usted" , cuando finalmente me dicen estas palabras me indican anotarme en una libreta exclusiva para Flavio, después en otra y minutos después me pasan a revisión, no sufrí el que me desvistieran, lo que si es que se aseguraron de que no trajera ni una pluma en mi ropa, después de la sorpresa pase al enojo de ver que en efecto Flavio era tratado como un "delincuente de alta peligrosidad".

En conclusión esos días terminaron para su familia sus muchos amigos y compañeros que le visitaban, con su salida el día de ayer, la cual lamento no haber estado cerca no para cubrir la nota, si no para poder verlo fuera de esa prisión, para reiterar que la mirada que vi cuando estaba adentro no había cambiado, la mirada de tranquilidad y seguridad de estar fuera y seguir su lucha por crear una conciencia en una sociedad que necesita ser sanada, la prisión seguro dejo en Flavio un aprendizaje importante y sobre todo interpersonal para reforzar la convicción que usó durante el conflicto de 2006.
Me da gusto haber cambiado el final de mi incipiente columna, sobre ese hombre que conocí el 2 de noviembre en la "batalla de todos los santos"

--
Verónica Villalvazo
http://fridaguerrera.blogspot.com
solo cuento con mis ojos y mi mente son las herramientas que uso para trabajar

De mi amiga Frida,...

2008-04-18T14:19:00.000+01:00

Las triquis solo las mujeres triquis
Por Verónica Villalvazo (Fridaguerrera)
http://fridaguerrera.blogspot.com/

Desde agosto de 2007 que conocí a unas mujeres que estaban denunciando la desaparición de dos de sus hermanas triquis, viendo el dolor en sus ojos, sintiendo la necesidad de ser escuchadas, la imperiosa solicitud de dignificar a la mujer en esa zona comencé a interesarme en Las Triquis, sabía algo de ellas tal vez y tontamente solo lo que probablemente muchos vemos en ellas sus maravillosos vestidos rojos, tan emblemáticos y llamativos para los turistas que visitan Oaxaca.

No había alcanzado a descifrar realmente ese mensaje que implica esta vestimenta roja, este vestido, sufrir humillación, dolor, asesinato y esta es la situación en la que tristemente aun viven muchas mujeres en nuestro mundo, sin embargo hoy mi tema son estas mujeres convertidas desde hace algunos años en "botines de guerra", el primer caso como ya mencione que atrajo mi atención fue el de las dos desaparecidas Daniela y Virginia Ortiz Ramírez desaparecidas el 5 de julio de 2007 y las cuales hasta la fecha no han sido ni encontradas ni buscadas, por las autoridades pretextando que no se puede exponer a la policía en esta región por lo peligroso que resulta, en ese caso se estaba acusando a personas del grupo del Movimiento Unificador por la Lucha Triqui Independiente, asegurando las familiares de estas dos jóvenes de 14 y 20 años que MULTI y Unidad de Bienestar Social de la Región Triqui (UBISORT) eran los responsables. Durante casi un año que llevamos siguiendo este caso junto a otros compañeros de la prensa local ha habido en la región diferentes muertes, violaciones tumultuarias a las mujeres y niños asesinados, cabe destacar que fue asesinado Raúl Marcial Pérez, ex asesor de Unidad de Bienestar Social de la Región Triqui (Ubisort) cuando salía de sus oficinas .

Desde el pasado 7 de abril hasta la fecha los ojos de la comunidad Internacional voltearon a ver la zona por la muerte dos jóvenes locutoras, con todo el respeto que nos merecen los periodistas que se solidarizaron con el caso, pero lamentablemente hubo otros muchos que se molestaron al ser señaladas estás dos compañeras locutoras como periodistas, sería bueno nuevamente hablar de quien es o no es periodistas, pero en este caso la situación va mucho más a la profundidad de esto.

Las mujeres triquis son golpeadas, humilladas, sometidas, desparecidas, asesinadas, y a alguien de nosotros realmente nos importa ¿?, mmmm la respuesta es, así viven, eso es ancestral pa que te preocupas si siempre se matan ahí, pa que te preocupas si ahí la mujer no existe, son los usos y costumbres y no los puedes violar…..

La situación aquí no es si el dirigente de una u otra organización dice algo o mueve alguna negociación con el gobierno, el punto final en este "conflicto" como lo llama todo el mundo (yo le llamo violación a los derechos de estas mujeres) es que las mujeres son los premios, los botines de guerra de estos cacicazgos, las que están en medio son ellas y los pequeños niños, y niñas que hay en la zona ya sea de MULT, UBISORT O MULTI, o de los gobiernos estatales y federal las mujeres son las que finalmente están pagando. Primero por la incompetencia del gobierno, segundo por la incapacidad que como sociedades tenemos con ellas, y tercero y más doloroso por el solo simple hecho de ser mujeres triquis.

Primera parte del video a la zona
http://fridaguerrera.blogspot.com/2008/04/las-triquis-solo-las-mujeres-triquis.html

Van los primeros audios de entrevistas a familiares de Felicitas Martínez y Teresa Bautista, testimoniales de gente de la comunidad y comentarios de los locutores de radio "voz que rompe el silencio".

http://portal.radiobemba.org/index.php/archivos/doc/locutores_de_la_voz_que_rompe_el_silencio_hablan_sobre_el_futuro_de_la_radi/

http://portal.radiobemba.org/index.php/archivos/doc/testimonios_de_familiares_de_felicitas_y_teresa_de_la_voz_que_rompe_el_sile/

Radiobemba FM-Comunicadores del desierto AC
(662) 215 9015 / 215 90 05
Calle: Tamaulipas # 123 y cinco de mayo
Hermosillo, Sonora, México
http://www.radiobemba.org/

And here, a small explanation of triqui people's culture

2008-04-18T11:16:00.000+01:00

This article is small enough to be read in a couple of minutes, yet it gives a good panoramic explanation of the triqui people's way of thinking and living.

here is the link

Two reportes shot dead in Oaxaca

2008-04-18T10:23:00.001+01:00

While the rest of the country keeps very busy debating (or rejecting) the so-called energy reform, in Oaxaca Ulises' boys attack again. This time two young women were shot dead at black point.

They worked as reporters for an independent communitarian radio station. The main goal of this media is to promote cultural customs of triqui people. The problem is that triquis are among the most harassed in Oaxaca, and all of Mexico.

Their struggle started long before Oaxaca uprising of the past years, perhaps from the mid 50s of last century. They were, and still are people with strong links to their culture and way of politically organising.

Being reluctant to embrace modern life and also being situated in one of Oaxaca's richest sites in natural resources posed a problem for governors. Either, they had to respect their autonomy and move on, or they allowed the utilisation of their resources and make use of alternative methods to 'convince' the indigenous not to 'interfere' with progress.

Sadly, most of the governors opted for the second choice. So it is not a surprise to find paramilitary groups in the area, along and supported by the federal army and the state police.

In that sense the assassination of indigenous political leaders, communicators working for the community and trying to reinforce triqui's culture and traditions present a risk of having an organised movement at some point in time. So the killing has to continue while resources and big firms' interest in them last.

This report is from propaganda press! link

here (comment by wet_ahuizote)

In Mexico, two women journalists have been killed in the southern state of Oaxaca. Teresa Bautista Flores and Felicitas Martínez were returning from a reporting assignment when they were ambushed by attackers. The victims both worked the indigenous community station called The Voice that Breaks the Silence. The Trique indigenous community in Oaxaca’s San Juan Copala launched the station earlier this year.

Mexico 9 April 2008 Reporters without Borders
Reporters Without Borders is deeply shocked by the fatal shooting on 7 April in Putla de Guerrero, in the southern state of Oaxaca, of Teresa Bautista Flores, 24, and Felicitas Martínez, 20, two women journalists working for La Voz que Rompe el Silencio (“The Voice that Breaks the Silence”), a community radio station serving the Trique indigenous community.

“Although there is so far no evidence that these two women were killed because of their work as journalists, their murders will be traumatic for all of Latin America’s many community radio stations, which are too often ignored or despised by the rest of the media and by governments,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“We are conscious of the risks run by the press in Oaxaca state, where the political climate continues to be tense, where two journalists were killed in 2006 at the height of a period of social unrest, and where other community media have been attacked,” the press freedom organisation continued. “We hope the investigators quickly establish the circumstances and motives for this double murder and catch those responsible. And we join their community in paying tribute to the two victims.”

La Voz que Rompe el Silencio was launched by the Trique indigenous community in San Juan Copala (in the west of Oaxaca state) on 20 January, a year after the locality was granted administrative autonomy. The community appointed Bautista Flores and Martínez to manage and present the radio station, which is dedicated to promoting indigenous culture.

The two young women were returning from doing a report in the municipality of Llano Juárez in the early afternoon when they were ambushed and, after being threatened with abduction, were finally shot with 7.62 calibre bullets of the kind used in AK-47 assault rifles, Reporters Without Borders was told by CACTUS, an organisation that supports indigenous communities. Investigators found 20 bullet casings at the scene. Three other people were wounded in the shooting - Jaciel Vázquez, aged 3, and his parents.

“We are convinced the Oaxaca government was behind all this, with the intention of dismantling municipal autonomy,” a community spokesman told CACTUS, which has called on the federal authorities to intervene.

The Mexican branch of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) said there have been acts of violence against other small radio stations belonging to indigenous groups in Oaxaca, such as Radio Nandia in 2006 and Radio Calenda in 2007.

Two journalists were murdered in Oaxaca during a major wave of protests against state governor Ulíses Ruiz Ortíz in 2006. They were independent Indymedia cameraman Bradley Will, shot on 27 October 2006, and Raúl Marcial Pérez, a indigenous community leader and columnist for the regional daily El Gráfico, who was shot on 8 December 2006.

No one was brought to justice for either of these murders, in which the authorities curiously ruled out any possibility of their being linked to the victims’ work as journalists.

Community Radio Activists Murdered in Oaxaca
from Micro Radio Network

April 7th, 2008. Oaxaca, Mexico.Two indigenous triqui women who worked at the community radio station La Voz que Rompe el Silencio (The Voice that Breaks the Silence), in the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala (Mixteca region), were shot and murdered while on their way to Oaxaca city to participate in the State Forum for the Defense of the Rights of the Peoples of Oaxaca. Three other people were injured.

According to the State Attorney General, the victims are Teresa Bautista Merino (24 years old) and Felícitas Martínez Sánchez (20 years old).

Francisco Vásquez Martínez (30 years old), his wife Cristina Martínez Flores (22 years old), and their son Jaciel Vásquez Martínez (three years old) were also injured in the attack.

According to prelimary reports, the women had left the station, which is part of the Network of Indigenous Community Radio Stations of the Southeast (Red de Radios Comunitarias Indígenas del Sureste), around 1:00 PM. They were travelling in a truck on their way to Oaxaca city, but were ambushed on the outskirts of the community Llano Juarez.

The two community radio activists were supposed to coordinate the working group for Community and Alternative Communication: Community Radio, Video, Press, and Internet, at the State Forum for the Defense of the Rights of the People of Oaxaca, which was to begin the today (Wednesday) in the auditorium of Seccion 22 of the teachers union in Oaxaca.

The Center for Community Support Working Together (CACTUS as the spanish acronym) released a communique denouncing the murders and demanding that the state authorities investigate and punish those responsible for the crime.

The state attorney general said that 20 bullet shells, caliber 7.62, were found at the site of the murders, along with other arms including an AK-47.

People are encouraged to contact their local embassies and consulates (or to organize demonstrations at their local embassies and consulates) to express their condemnation of this paramilitary repression of indigenous women and community media projects.

from narco news,.. a report of triqui movement towards autonomy, which I strongly believe has all to do with the assassinations,... and perhaps the comming violence

By Nancy DaviesCommentary from Oaxaca
January 28, 2007

The Triqui indigenous community of Oaxaca declared its autonomy on January 21, 2007 after the election of its municipal authorities. The election process required two months to complete. The new municipal president is José Ramírez Flores with vice-president Leonardo Merino, constitutional mayor Severo Sánchez and secretary Macario Merino. Six others were named to the new Council of Elders (Concejo de Ancianos).

The chosen new government will employ the traditional indigenous practice of usos y costumbres used among the Triqui, with a council of elders and decisions made openly in assemblies. The authorities will meet with the leaders of the 20 communities which form San Juan Copala, as well as with the Council of Elders, so that decisions can be made

The autonomous government has formed despite death threats against Ramirez and other leaders of the Triqui community who formed the autonomous municipality. In a January 21 interview with the daily La Jornada, Ramirez specifically cited the deception and oppression practiced by local political bosses (known as caciques) in the nearby towns of Santiago Juxtlahuaca, Putla de Guerrero and Constancia del Rosario, which have stayed outside the new autonomous municipality. One day before the new authorities assumed office, paramilitary groups burst into town and shot up the place. Worse, they ambushed Roberto García Flores, assassinating him on route to San Juan to participate in the new municipality.

Many consider the grip of the caciques as the greatest obstacle to peaceful development in Oaxaca. The United Popular Party, (PUP, in its Spanish initials) and the leaders of the Unified Independent Movement for the Triqui Liberation (MULT, in its Spanish initials) control the greater part of the local treasury in the area. Ramírez claims that more than half of received government funds go into their pockets and that MULT and its chief leader Heriberto Pazos are mentioned as stealing resources which should have gone into the relief of poverty for the Triquis.

Therefore, many people support the autonomous community as an act of rebellion against the caciques and their hired gun, identified as the deputy Rufino Maximino Zaragoza, who is accused by representative Edilberto Hernandez Cárdenas, of the Unified Independent Movement for the Triqui Liberation Independiente (MULTI, in its Spanish initials), of being responsible for the killing of more than ten people since March of 2006, the majority of them children between the ages of six and fifteen. Shootings among indigenous and campesino populations have been ignored by state authorities who declare virtually all deaths to be internal, or land boundary, disputes.

Autonomy is a complicated matter anywhere; it’s even more complicated given that the Triqui peoples split off a smaller group, a division fought against by the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI, in its Spanish initials), which believed itself in complete control of Triqui areas. The PRI has been repressing the autonomists ever since.

The autonomous group MULTI dominates five of the municipalities within the new autonomous community of twenty. The MULTI came into existence on April 20 of 2006, and affiliated with the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO, in its Spanish initials). MULTI leaders and activists of the region documented the death or disappearance of 20 of their members, assigning responsibility to paramilitary groups sponsored by the governor Ulises Ruiz.
The other fifteen member towns are non-MULTI. Those remaining entirely outside the new autonomous entity remain predominantly in the control of the original MULT.

As a political entity, the new autonomous community of San Juan Cópala thus far exists only in the determination of the MULTI and united Triqui to maintain it. Its principal objective “is to achieve that our people, countrymen, brother Triquis, may continue struggling for our liberty and thus demand that the state authorities recognize our autonomous government and award us the economic resources that belong to us.”

That statement was given by the new president, José Ramírez Flores, in an interview given to La Jornada and published on January 22, 2007. Ramirez went on to say his challenges are to maintain the unity among the Triquis of the Mixteca region and to combat the daily violence in the community.

Historically, in the 1970s an organization formed to unite the Triqui around social issues. From that “Club,” the MULT emerged. In 2003 it opted for the formation of a political party to run for office and won at the ballot box. The PRI then threw all its power into infiltrating and corrupting the MULT, which was absorbed into the Popular Unity Party (PUP, Partido Unidad Popular). The consequent split between Triqui groups resulted in MULT and MULTI. I was taken aback during the spring of 2006 when I realized that the deaths of three Triquis were not counted among the death toll of the APPO which stood at 11 at that time, apparently because the murders were not directly attributed to the same paramilitary or plainclothes police who were shooting known APPO members. But according to reports, these Triquis (two adults and a young boy) had just left an APPO meeting. That is, one can assume they were MULTI adherents, killed for affiliating with the APPO. But they were not counted as “victims” of the government repression because they were supposedly shot by fellow Triquis, the MULT-PRIistas.

The majority of recent attacks against the residents of San Juan Copala have been against a secondary school, the municipal market, and the Catholic church. As in past “land disputes,” no state assistance to apprehend the criminals has been forthcoming. Abandonment and extreme misery and poverty, accompanied by repression against the Triqui, are the normal state of affairs, according to Edilberto Hernández Cárdenas, spokesperson for the new municipality.

With this declaration of autonomy by the twenty united communities, Edilberto Hernandez explained, they will reclaim the category of “free municipality” which they held in 1826 and which in 1948 was grabbed by the PRI government. MULT, originally formed as an alternative, betrayed the communities when it entered alliance with the PRI, and the rift is yet to be healed.

The state of Oaxaca refuses to recognize the newly constituted municipality, which raises the question of how San Juan Copola can negotiate for its share of state funding. The obvious issue is that the new entity wants all the legal funding to which it is entitled to get down to the base, without it being siphoned off by PRI operatives. One might wonder how that could take place under the current PRI governor, who is fighting for his political life. Nevertheless, Ramírez speaks of negotiating.

“If the state government does not want to recognize us, we will have to resort to another type of action. We want to negotiate, but if it’s not possible, we will carry out marches, meetings, and encampments, until they give us recognition.”

The APPO has congratulated the autonomous municipality. In that context, the attempt to achieve working unity among the twenty (of the thirty-six) Triqui communities of the Mixteca region, who have chosen to constitute the new municipality, is now paramount. Internal unity is placed above any political party, as modeled by the APPO. In other words, in the new municipal body they will act only as Triquis. According to La Jornada, Ramírez Flores was chosen president of the new municipality after three months of discussions among the leaders of the twenty participating Triqui communities, a month more than the “election” timeframe.

The San Juan Copala municipality unifies San Juan Copala, Yoxoyuzi, Santa Cruz Tilaza, Guadalupe Tilaza, Tierra Blanca, Paraje Pérez, El Carrizal, Sabana, Yerba Santa, San Miguel Copala, Yutazani, Unión de los Angeles, Río Metates, Río Lagarto, Cerro Pájaro and Cerro Cabeza, among others, for a total of about 15,000 indigenous people. Including the sixteen communities that remain with MULT, the total Triqui population is about 24,000.

The twenty unified communities placed a paid advertisement in Las Noticias when the autonomy was announced (and it was posted on Narco News). In it, the language affirmed solidarity with all Triquis. The implicit plea is to quit fighting among themselves for the scraps and crumbs that the PRI has shared out. The majority of the Triqui now want to start looking in a new direction. The sixteen non-participant communities that remain in the PRI can be wooed.

The swearing-in ceremony was celebrated by state and national guests, including the Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations, the National Unit Against Neoliberalism, The Peoples Popular Assembly of Oaxaca, the Francisco Villa Popular Independent Front, Section 22 of the National Teacher’s Union, the Extended Front of the Popular Struggle, the Popular Revolutionary Front and dozens more.

It is interesting to note that in Oaxaca, unlike Chiapas, the movement to “autonomy” does not mean withdrawal from contact with the official government, but rather a conquest of that government, in particular as equal members of the APPO. Joining the APPO reflects the demographics of Oaxaca where not only does the majority of the population have indigenous roots, but the majority of the population, in all its ethnicities, is in open revolt against the PRI, as we saw in the voting of July 2, 2006.

and here is one of those who say Calderon's reform is light,...

2008-04-15T15:49:00.001+01:00

Chevron aims at Mexican oil, gas reserves

From Bloomberg News
April 9, 2008

Chevron Corp. submitted proposals to tap oil and natural gas reserves in Mexico amid declining output from the second-biggest crude-producing nation in the Western Hemisphere.

Chevron, which triggered an energy boom with the 1938 discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia, wants to make Mexico "a big part of our portfolio," along with Brazil and African producers such as Nigeria and Angola, said Ali Moshiri, who oversees the company's oil and gas wells in Africa and Latin America.

- Mexico's Calderon seeks to overhaul Pemex

So far Chevron's proposals haven't borne fruit, because Mexico's constitution bars foreign oil companies from pumping oil or gas in the country, Moshiri said. Those restrictions probably won't change until the state-owned oil company, known as Pemex, relaxes its monopoly and pressures politicians to change the law.

"The biggest problem in Mexico is Pemex," Moshiri said. "Pemex needs to be more proactive and say, 'We have a lot on our plate and we need help.' The constitution needs to be modified to reflect today's environment."

Chevron's proposals to the Mexican government involve plans to explore for oil in the deepest areas of the Gulf of Mexico and to tap natural gas deposits neglected by Pemex, Moshiri said.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said last week that he was optimistic that opposition lawmakers eventually would agree to relax controls that have kept Mexico off-limits to international petroleum firms.

Pemex has signed technology-sharing agreements with Chevron, Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell and other companies.

Calderon favors changing secondary laws rather than the constitution to loosen Pemex's monopoly and allow greater foreign-company participation. Moshiri said that wouldn't work.

"You're not going to ask a major oil company to come there for an itty-bitty project," Moshiri said. "We've got opportunities elsewhere." Changing the constitutional ban on foreign ownership of Mexican petroleum resources is crucial to enticing international companies, he said.

Mexico: A Light Energy Reform?

2008-04-15T10:16:00.000+01:00

Monday, April 14, 2008

Although too light for many foreign oil companies, the proposed reform of Pemex is a smart effort by President Felipe Calderon at this point.

BY JEREMY MARTIN
AN ROGER TISSOT

The speculation is over. With a thirteen minute address to the nation last Tuesday, April 8th Mexico's President Felipe Calderon announced, and in turn submitted to Congress, a detailed five point energy reform plan. It is now, to borrow from Churchill, officially the "end of the beginning." And, as to be expected, the dissection is well under way with the punditry weighing in quite vociferously from Mexico City to Houston to New York to London and many arguing that the package lacks vision and is too "light" to affect the changes that PEMEX (and Mexico) truly need. Yet, is it accurate and useful to continue using the qualifier "light" as the debate unfolds? Moreover, is the proposal really a vision-less effort that will have no impact on the current energy woes facing Mexico?

SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY

Not surprising given the several hundred page package itself, there is no short answer to these or the myriad questions surrounding the debate. Indeed, President Calderon's proposal seems to be a classic piece of legislation in that it offers a little something to everybody. For the fervent nationalists, Calderon repeated many times PEMEX will not be privatized. For the business community and private investors he suggested the possibility of building and operating refineries on behalf of PEMEX and investing in downstream transportation infrastructure. For PEMEX management, the proposal appears to respond to the cries for an opening toward greater financial and strategic autonomy. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly from a public affairs vantage, through a creative concept called "Citizens Bonds," the proposal offers all Mexicans the ability to truly own a piece of PEMEX and gain economically from a successful PEMEX.

Mexico's oil woes are a well documented tale: production is in decline and, equally alarming, reserve replacement is well off, particularly in comparison with international oil companies. Meanwhile, these oil business issues occur against the larger backdrop of the government's reliance on PEMEX for almost 40 percent of the Federal budget. Thus the increasing emphasis at PEMEX to reverse the drastic decline of the massive Cantarell oil field is more than just a business issue, it is fiscal balance matter. And it is within these confines that President Calderon has introduced the reform proposal.

MODERNIZING PEMEX

The most pertinent portion of President Calderon's reform package focused on the need to create a more modern, agile PEMEX. The aim is enhanced and increased autonomy through a major re-write of the Organic Law governing the company, including a revamped Board of Directors that would count four highly experienced independent members. This is a particularly welcome idea as to date the PEMEX board has seemed unable to comprehend PEMEX's needs and requirements as one of the world's largest oil companies - and what it takes to maintain that status. Instead, to be blunt, their focus was to ensure PEMEX remained the golden goose: provider of cash to the government and jobs to the PEMEX union.

Meanwhile the proposed modifications and "opening" of the downstream sector seems to have important upsides, not the least of which is addressing PEMEX's - and Mexico's - fuel imbalance. Unclear, however, is how enthusiastic the private sector would be in investing in Mexican refineries.

POCKETBOOK NATIONALISM

One of the more surprising and interesting elements of the measures before Congress is the intention to create a mechanism for Mexicans to invest in PEMEX. The so-called "Citizens Bonds" is a clever form to encourage popular capitalism and allow the Mexican populace to have an increasing sense of ownership over their cherished national oil company. The cry since 1938 has been that "oil belongs to the people." It is one thing to say that as President Calderon repeatedly has, yet it is another case altogether when the people directly own a piece of the national oil company and stand to benefit financially if the company does well. Call it a new paradigm, Pocketbook Nationalism.

Perhaps the most intensely scrutinized element of the current proposal is with regards to PEMEX service contracts, with revisions to allow PEMEX to offer incentives for efficiencies (lower costs). The dissection of this part of the proposal is not without reason as the previous efforts by PEMEX at multiple service contracts for natural gas were underwhelming. Indeed, it is this part of the reform proposal that apparently comes up shortest in the eyes of the industry - see "reform light." Many industry observers were disappointed that there was not a stronger signal from Mexico to entice interest in what has been described as one of the greatest prizes in the oil industry. PEMEX chief Jesus Reyes Heroles seemed to be hedging his bet on this part of the reform package when, in response to who would be interested in these contracts he said "Maybe not Exxon Mobil, but other companies."

On the other hand, local industrial groups seem content with what has been proposed, perhaps aware of the historic role of PEMEX as a tool for domestic industrial development. Not surprisingly, the left is fervently opposed to these reforms and continue to twist this very aspect into their prior and ongoing campaign to fight any effort toward the "privatization of PEMEX."

A GOOD START

Mexico's energy reform does not have to please everyone but it also cannot ignore the risks of the status quo. By focusing first on improving PEMEX's fiscal state and operating efficiency, revitalizing the Mexican Petroleum Institute and defining a long term energy strategy, the reform could achieve more than many critics expect and move past the status quo. As PEMEX grows more confident in its own capabilities, it may also become less difficult for the Mexican population to accept their national oil company partnering with foreign companies which would be eager to share their expertise in order to access Mexican oil. There is simply no reason why PEMEX cannot be as successful as other national oil companies such as Petrobras, Statoil or Petronas. Central to this change is the need to develop a long term vision for Mexico's energy sector, one which would not emphasize the rentier nature of oil, but instead focus on Mexico's long term development goals. The modernization of PEMEX and Mexico's oil industry vis a vis Mexican development has always demanded an incremental approach.

Reaching consensus on energy reform is a Sisyphean task, but most agree that the key to any reform is to provide a more certain future for PEMEX. The disagreement has always been on the "How." This reform package will not completely settle the argument but all in all it should rate a smart effort by Calderon at this point. The old axiom is you need to crawl before you can walk and while PEMEX will not be running marathons anytime soon, they should be able to knock off a few 10K's - at a nimble pace - if the proposed changes are adopted.

Jeremy Martin is director of the energy program at the Institute of the America. Roger Tissot is an independent energy consultant. They wrote this column for the Latin Business Chronicle.

_______My comment on the above,...

Martin and Tissot make a good point in labelling Calderon's reform as 'light'. However it wrongly suggests that this piece of legislation attempts to give something to everybody, as it only provides private firms with presence in the sector and further allows some sort of potential accumulation of 'citizen bonds' that being openly tradable have no obstacle for ending up in the hands of Slim, for example, one of the richest guys around.

As to the tale of decline in production, is it bad? It all depends where you look at it. If you happen to be a US oil company, then it is bad news. If, on the other hand, you are Mexican that could not be so bad, as Mexicans don’t see the rush in getting that oil burn. Instead, as a valuable resource, it well could be the case of its value being higher with time.

In addition to that, such legislation is a clear attempt to cancel the spirit of Mexican constitution, which clearly states that natural resources are NOT tradable. Hence national or foreign private investment is banned. Neither directly nor indirectly private investment is allowed by the constitution and the secondary laws as it has been a rather long process Mexican government has embarked on in order to get rid of firms such as Shell, Exxon, and others.

Those firms came to Mexico in the late XIX century by invitation of Porfirio Diaz. They stayed in the country and exploited or rather exhausted existed petroleum at that time. After Mexican revolution, congressmen passed a newly designed constitution which generally declared Mexican resources to be own by the state.

It, however, didn’t mean the end of foreign firms’ presence in Mexico, as the secondary laws allowed them to, in the name of Mexico, continue to exploit petroleum. It is until 1938, with General Cardenas that those secondary legislations were put in line with the spirit of the constitution by both nationalising and confiscating oil industry at once.

Perhaps, this point in time is the starting point of Mexican modern development as having oil and its derivatives the Mexican miracle was possible. It is a period of economic growth and rapid urban industrialisation that was accompanied by a trend to more equitable income distribution. It all saw an end by the mid 70s when an oil prices crisis happened.

In the early 80s, with the discovery of new production sites among the biggest in the world, Mexico started to believe that future was on their side. Unfortunately, clumsy politicians and foreign pressures put the country in a situation of debt crisis: the biggest in Mexican history, up to that moment of course.

The mid 80s and more evidently the 90s saw the arrival of politicians more keen on fulfilling the Washington consensus than on looking after their country’s own interests. One of them is Carlos Salinas de Gortari, whose personal background is rather obscure coming from a confusing childhood, to say the least. Early in his life he killed his family’s housekeeper. And later, along with his brother Raul, burn a school boy who used to come to their place to play together.

Only the usage of their father political power saved them not only from being put into psychological treatment but from the public eye. And hence those situations were not openly reported. Those incidents, I believe, could just be unfortunate for a boy; however, I also believe that shaped his personality as once in the presidency he used all the political power to silence any kind of opposition, even the systematic assassination.

It does not come as a surprise then that during this period about 2000 oppositors were disappeared, tortured, and killed. Examples of this are by hundreds; however the most notorious and rather shocking is the assassination of the presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta.

All this background information is just to make clear that the privatisation of more than 3000 firms during Salinas’ period was not something Mexican society debated. Instead it was an imposition that continued beyond his government, with later presidents like Ernesto Zedillo, Fox and now Calderon.

Then why Salinas didn’t privatise PEMEX, if he had already done so with most state owned firms? Firstly, it has been of the US government interest to have mexican oil in private hands, and ‘recover’ what Porfirio Diaz gave them, (or at least that’s the line of reasoning). On the other hand, it has been a Mexican interest at least from the late 80s onwards, to have a free zone, not only in commerce but in peoples’ mobility. It is believed that during NAFTA negotiations in 1992-1993, US government attempted to push the PEMEX privatisation agenda, and Salinas replied with the open borders agenda, which was unacceptable for US negotiators.

Zedillo did little in moving that agenda forwards as he faced the biggest Mexican crises with the ‘tequila’ effect that lasted two years, 1995-1996, and then struggle to gain some popularity. He also had the EZLN in front to deal with. So his agenda was pretty much occupied in internal affairs.

Fox, the next president did everything he could to privatise whatever he came across. His government is perhaps the most corrupt of all (and that’s to say a lot in Mexican standards) and his agenda moved around two major issues: one to benefit private firms (foreign preferably) and to promote his wife for the candidature for president.

Examples of Fox’s corruption and bias towards favouring the rich are many. On the corruption side, it has been noted that during his government Mexico received the resources from oil that historically high. Once taxes are taken there is something that is called ‘petroleum exceeding’ and it is the difference between budget estimation of oil barrel price and the actual market price. For example if in the national budget oil is said to be sold at 30 dollars, and the actual price is 50, then the exceeding is 20. Well that money is lost. Along with some special founds Mexican government has to deal with disasters and many others smaller special founds.

On the bias side, on example perhaps speaks for itself. The motorways used to be state owned, then they were privatised, and due to mishandling they had to be rescued by the federal government, put them into healthy state and privatised again. But this time not even at cost of the recovery. And it was the case with many other firms. The sugar cane mills are other good example, they were nationalised, restructured, and then given back to the privates who were broken before the government intervention.

Finally, Calderon came to scene in a middle of a huge electoral fraud in 2006. He was supported by private firms. And his position as president is only due to the intervention of those firms in running a smear campaign against Lopez Obrador, who many believe won that election. So, his position is rather weak and he has to do anything he is told to do. Well, it just so happens that the private sector has told him to give them PEMEX! And that is exactly what he is doing, paying back. And of course, main benefitiaries would want more and qualify this as 'light'.

Comment by wet_ahuizote

next video shows how little all the privatisations and free trade did and do for the poor,...

Telephonic fraud,... the mexican style

2008-04-01T04:49:00.000+01:00

El siguiente es un audio que mi amiga 'Patto' me paso,... a su vez a ella se lo pasaron. Fue grabado desde una estacion de radio del norte de Mexico, al parecer en Sonora. Muestra como se da el llamado fraude telefonico, al final del audio el defraudador, al verse descubierto, de plano se desemascara pero sigue insistiendo en que le manden lo que pide.

Lo tragico del asunto es que si bien es cierto este tipo de fraudes han proliferado en Mexico, tambien lo es el hecho de que NO HAY otras opciones. Quienes estan libres tienen que emplearse por salarios muy bajos, para quienes estan presos la situacion es algo mas desespareante. Es este el 'Mexico ganador' que ofrecio el autollamado 'presidente del empleo'????

The above audio is a telephonic fraud, they have proliferated in recent years in Mexico, along with 'express kidnapping' and many other types of frauds. That is mainly due to the lack of opportunities our global economy has generated. In addition to that general situation, is the lack of capability and willingness by the politicians who seems to be more interested in selling off Mexican oil than in solving any problem the country faces,....

the issue in Mexico is oil,... and the privatisation of the national firm PEMEX

2008-03-26T23:49:00.000Z

It seems that Mexicans are either pro or anti 'modernity' in terms of oil industry. The problem here is that it also seems that Mexican world is up side down,.. as those who recall for modernity are actually looking forward to go back to the situation the country had before 1938 when president Lazaro Cardenas nationalised the oil industry.

The problem as I see it is rather simpler than that, it is about paying back a favour.

The favour, a small one, was to provide some help, financial and tactical to ensure winning the presidency,.. even by ripping the election. Now Calderon and his allies have to pay back by honouring promises they made to the money people, by privatising the oil national company the which occupies the third place in terms of profitability.

The argument they are using is
'that Mexican oil is coming to an end,
but that there is a huge reserve,... -a treasure-
deep into the gulf of Mexico,
and that Mexicans do not have technology to exploit it,...
HENCE,...
there is no other option but to sell off PEMEX',....

WOW,... what about renting the technology out,..???
exxon, halliburton and shell the firms that would be benefited from this don't actually have the technology either,

then how is it the Calderon government is in that hurry to 'sell' them Mexican oil???

fortunately for Mexicans, there is a huge movement opposing this,..

here are two reports on that,...

************
Mexico Party Drafts Proposal to Open Border Oil Wells (Update1)
By Adriana Lopez Caraveo and Jens Erik Gould

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon's party has drafted a bill that would allow state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos to jointly develop wells that straddle the U.S. border with private and foreign companies.

Alonso Manuel Lizaola de la Torre, a member of Calderon's National Action Party in the lower house of Congress, said he had planned to present the initiative yesterday. Hector Larios, his party leader in the lower house, asked him to postpone it.

``To be able to realize contracts and agreements for the joint development of border fields is extremely important for Mexico,'' the proposal says, according to a copy provided to Bloomberg News by Lizaola de la Torre.

The draft is part of a broader plan to loosen the state's monopoly on oil, which the government says is the only way Mexico can halt declines in output and reserves. Calderon wants to allow outside investment in deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as refining and transportation, lawmaker David Maldonado Gonzalez said yesterday.

Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, generates about 40 percent of federal revenue. Crude output may drop by a third by 2016 unless it gains access to technology that would allow it to drill deepwater wells through partnerships with other companies, the government has said.

Oil Protests

Calderon's party postponed presenting the initiative yesterday because of recent protests by those opposed to the reform, including a rally in Mexico City's main square yesterday by former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Lizaola de la Torre said.

Lopez Obrador and members of his Party of the Democratic Revolution have promised to hold protests at congressional buildings, airports and financial institutions to protest reformation of the energy industry.

Mexico's constitution reserves oil to the government, banning any outside investment in exploration or production. The country nationalized most aspects of the oil industry in 1938. Calderon is hoping to change secondary laws to allow private and foreign companies to team up with Pemex, which would retain ownership of the drilling projects.

Lawmakers from Calderon's party intend to present the border well bill along with a larger energy initiative that the government plans to propose, Lizaola de la Torre said.

Calderon's government will present an energy bill in 10 to 15 days, Larios said March 24.

**************

and this one,.. from reuters

By Jason Lange

MEXICO CITY, March 26 (Reuters) - Mexico's ruling conservatives are fine-tuning an energy bill with opposition parties but the reform could disappoint investors by keeping profit-sharing contracts illegal, lawmakers said on Wednesday.

President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN, which lacks a majority in Congress, has been trying to convince the opposition in recent weeks to revamp energy laws to boost the sagging state-controlled oil industry.

But the PAN is giving up on a core part of its vision for turning around the sector: attracting foreign partners to technologically challenging but potentially huge deepwater oil fields by offering them a share in profits.

"Risk contracts are not in the equation," said PAN lawmaker Juan Bueno, who sits on the Senate energy committee.

Under Mexico's constitution, state monopoly Pemex has sole rights to explore for and produce Mexican oil, and left-wingers bitterly oppose allowing contracts that would have Pemex share risks and profits with outside companies.

Bueno said the PAN was considering a less-extreme proposal that would let Pemex form partnerships with other state-owned energy firms. "That is something we are studying," he said.
He did not say what form such partnerships could take.

Pemex announced another fall in total oil reserves on Wednesday, showing that its fledgling deepwater drilling projects have so far not been able to confirm what seismic tests suggest could be some 30 billion barrels of oil under the Gulf of Mexico seabed in water several kilometers deep.

Neither private nor state-run oil companies are expected to sign up for risky deepwater oil projects without contracts that would give them a share in profits.

Cabinet members and PAN lawmakers are meeting opposition legislators all this week to try and reach a consensus on a proposal that could be unveiled within two weeks.

PAN lawmakers said the proposal could also call for reducing state oil company Pemex's heavy tax load and giving the company more freedom to make business decisions.

Mexico is a top supplier of crude to the United States, but decades of underinvestment have left oil reserves and output waning and left Mexico importing 40 percent of its gasoline.

Bueno said the PAN proposal might also include opening up fuel storage and transport to more private investment.

Lawmakers for the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, another key opposition bloc, plan to meet Calderon's energy minister next week to discuss the proposal, the party's leader in the lower house told reporters.

PAN lawmakers said the government wanted to seal a deal with the opposition before presenting its bill.

"That's where we're at. It wouldn't make sense to present a bill that was destined for failure," said Alonso Lizaola, a PAN lawmaker and secretary on the lower house energy committee. (Additional reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez and Catherine Bremer; Editing by Christian Wiessner)

From my friend Joe,...on stop the war campaign

2008-03-24T17:43:00.000Z

while I rethink a bit more about the suicide issue in Mexico and try to solve Google banning the video,... I apologise with Joe for this late uploading of his report,...

My friend Joe joined the demonstration against the war, and comments on what happened there. I can only say that here in UK there is strong opposition to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and further support to PREVENT any attack and further invasion of Iran,...

here is the report and photos,.. ()comment by wet_ahuizote)

====
"Norwich protesters joined the march of around forty thousand that
surrounded Parliament. As the front of the march crossed Lambeth Bridge
the main body of the demonstrators could be seen crossing Westminster
Bridge to the north and along Lambeth Palace Road, so that the march
stretched some two kilometres from Parliament Square in the north to
Victoria Tower Gardens in the south. The police put the estimate at ten
thousand.

This estimate epitomises the frustration felt by many of the
demonstrators, from Quakers and pacifists to the political left and
British people of all ethnicities, faiths and non faiths who march
together. They are protesting mainly under a blanket of media silence and
are demanding an end to the slaughter caused by the US led foreign policy
followed slavishly by the government of the UK. The mood was otherwise
positive with a sea of banners and many demonstrators adopting sometimes
bizarre and eye catching tactics.

People left flowers and shoes at Parliament Square at the short closing
rally. The march also showed the determination of the anti-war movement,
which is bringing public opinion around, so that the majority calls for a
withdrawal of all British troops from the occupied countries of Iraq and
Afghanistan, no attack on Iran and an end to the Siege of Gaza."

by Norwich Stop the War Coalition.

link: http://www.norwichstopwar.org.uk/

poverty and suicide,...

2008-03-17T19:22:00.000Z

video on suicide,...

I will come back later to write about suicide in Mexico as a result of the major crisis in TAbasco.

Three-way faceoff in Colombia escalates

2008-03-05T09:37:00.000Z

Next report is from the associated press,.. it can be seen that despite evidence Colombians follow Bush's example on making things up so that they can justify their crimes. Colombians say something like,... farc were trying to build a bomb!,... which has been proved not to be true. Instead, we strongly believe that Colombia is provoking violence in the region so that Bush can have an opportunity to get rid of Chavez in Venezuela and Correa in Ecuador at once.

With it, access to oil and gas resources could be guaranteed, as it used to be,...

----
By The New York Times and The Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela — As tensions rose among three South American nations on Tuesday, Colombia said its soldiers had found evidence during a raid that the country's largest rebel group had been seeking the ingredients to make a radioactive dirty bomb.

But the documents Colombia shared with reporters didn't support the allegation, indicating instead that the rebels were trying to buy uranium to resell at a profit.

The accusations, made by Colombia's vice president, Francisco Santos, at a U.N. disarmament meeting in Geneva, represent a sharp escalation in rhetoric surrounding the dispute involving Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, which began over the weekend when Colombian forces hunted down and killed a Colombian guerrilla leader on Ecuadorean soil.

Venezuela moved troops toward Colombia and turned away cargo trucks at border crossings on Tuesday. Ecuador also reinforced its border with more troops and sought international condemnation of the attack, which killed a top commander and 22 other guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The Organization of American States (OAS) held an emergency meeting in Washington to try to calm one of the region's worst political showdowns in years. Colombia apologized for the attack, but Ecuador wasn't satisfied, calling for OAS to investigate.

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe said the International Criminal Court should try Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez for "genocide" for allegedly financing FARC, listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union.

He cited documents in laptops Colombia says were recovered at the jungle camp that apparently refer to a $300 million Venezuelan payment.

Material found on a laptop computer recovered in the raid to kill FARC guerrilla leader Raul Reyes provided the basis for Santos' accusations about a dirty bomb — a weapon that combines highly radioactive material with conventional explosives to disperse deadly dust that people would inhale.

Colombia said documents in Reyes' laptop also indicate that Ecuador's internal security minister met recently with a FARC envoy to discuss deepening relations with Ecuador.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa angrily denied the allegations, calling Uribe a "baldfaced liar." He said his military had "captured" 47 rebel camps in Ecuador since he took office last year.

The Bush administration rushed to the defense of Colombia, where the government is a staunch ally of the United States receiving more than $600 million a year in military aid to fight leftist insurgencies and drug traffickers.

President Bush also used the diplomatic crisis Tuesday to push Congress to approve a trade deal with Colombia that has languished for more than a year on concerns among senior Democrats over Uribe's commitment to ending human-rights abuses in Colombia's long civil war.

"My message to the United States Congress is that this trade agreement is more than a matter of smart economics," Bush said. "It is a matter of national security. If we fail to approve the agreement, we will let down our close ally."

it's the oil,... stupid!!!

2008-03-04T14:39:00.000Z

Wile in Mexico the opposition to selling off PEMEX (Mexican oil company) Venezuela is at the edge of engaging in conflict with Colombia,... or for that matter with the United States. The link between those two facts is, I've got the feeling, all because of OIL.

well I think I will need to further elaborate on this later on,... for now just want to invite you to take a look at this documentary,.. which is about how the States have embarked in a the biggest enterprise in human history to 'secure' oil reserves. Waste to say that at the cost of millions of human lives.

However, I am suspicious about this new incident between Colombia and its paramilitary type government and Ecuador and Venezuela,... waste to remember that both Correa (Ecuador) and no to mention Chavez have been on the eyes of CIA, and in the 'general media' in the States they are 'the bad guys' around the back yard. So this trouble makes the perfect excuse for the 'rambo like freedom fighters' to come round down South America and fire some shots,...

Venezuela has been fighting with exxon for the last weeks,.. and it is not a secret that everytime Chavez seems himself at the edge of yet another military coup, he threatens with cutting the oil supply to the States,..

here is the documentary,..

El petróleo

2008-02-28T00:05:00.004Z

Mucho se ha dicho que el petróleo es de los mexicanos. La propia constitución dice que los recursos naturales pertenecen a la nación. Sin embargo, mucho se ha hecho notar también que este recurso ha generado inmensas fortunas y millonarios instantáneos, no solo mexicanos sino también extranjeros. Entonces, cuales son las razones para que los mexicanos nos embarquemos un una cruzada en defensa del petróleo?

El asunto medular, según mi limitado entendimiento, se podría dividir en dos partes: una que tiene que ver con los recursos financieros provenientes del mercado internacional. Otra, quizás la mas difícil, es la propia actuación del país en lo que algunos les da por llamar ‘el concierto internacional’, y que no es otra cosa mas que el lugar que ocupa el país en la jerarquía de poderes con que cada nación al enfrentarse al grupo de países dominantes. No es lo mismo como negocian los Estados Unidos con los Arabia Saudita a como lo harían con Honduras, por ejemplo.

Con respecta a la cuestión financiera, se podría afirmar que el nivel de desarrollo logrado hasta el momento se da a partir de la nacionalización y posterior explotación de petróleo. Solo basta recordar que son los recursos del petróleo los que han financiado la construcción de infraestructura, el pago de salarios, e incluso el pago de la deuda externa.

Entre los recursos con los que cuenta el gobierno actual para hacer su trabajo y los que existían en tiempos anteriores a la revolución hay una diferencia enorme. Aquellos gobiernos dieron forma al país, los periodos juaristas por ejemplo, los que se caracterizaron por la falta de recursos y posteriores crisis sociales causadas por las mismas. Los periodos porfiristas, por otro lado, se caracterizaron por la existencia de recursos y por su pésima distribución, lo cual también genero crisis sociales y revueltas armadas. Ambas características forman parte de nuestra cultura administrativa. Por un lado vemos austeridad juarista cuando se trata de destinar recursos a la solución de problemas sociales; por el otro, el despilfarro, la corrupción, el enriquecimiento de algunos cuantos, siempre ligados al gobierno.

Este hecho es manifiesto claramente en el sentir de quienes redactaron la constitución, que dejaron muy claro que la explotación de los recursos naturales es una actividad reservada para el estado mexicano. Con ello, se dio un gran avance en reforzar y estabilizar la entrada de dinero a la hacienda publica. Mismo que, por ejemplo, financió el ‘milagro mexicano’ que algunos autores sitúan entre mediados de 1950 y mediados de 1975 con la crisis del petróleo.

Es decir, la constitución sienta las bases para que el estado mexicano financie su desarrollo. Estas, se convierten en leyes secundarias las cuales de manera específica asignan los recursos a las áreas que son prioritarias. Un porcentaje para ‘combatir la pobreza’, otro para construcción de infraestructura, otro mas para pago de sueldos y salarios, y muchos otros rubros más que se cubren con ese dinero.

Sobre el segundo aspecto del petróleo y la actuación del estado en el ámbito internacional se podría decir que México ha tenido una actuación muy tímida al respecto. Es decir, los países árabes pasaron de ser comunidades de beduinos semi-nomadas a estados con capacidad real de negociación, lo mismo que Venezuela. El precepto básico es que ‘el petróleo es poder’.

A manera de ejemplo, uno podría hacer el ejercicio de imaginarse tener el poder de hacer que las personas y los bienes se movieran o permanecieran estáticos: ese es el poder del petróleo. Que hace que cualquier persona puede viajar por automóvil, autobús, o casi cualquier medio de transporte. Al mismo tiempo, el petróleo permite que esa persona pueda consumir bienes y servicios gracias a la existencia del combustible.

Una decisión de la OPEP (Organización de Países Exportadores de Petróleo) puede eventualmente afectar el transporte tanto de mercancías como de seres humanos en los países desarrollados. No hace falta ejemplificar con situaciones hipotéticas esto ya ha sucedido en los setenta cuando la OPEP ocasionó escasez de gasolina tanto en Estados Unidos como en Europa.

A continuación presento un documental de principios de los noventa y que fue filmado a mediados de los ochenta. En el se puede ver como los paises productores tuvieron que reaccionar a la voracidad de las compañías petroleras formando la OPEP. Con ello tuvieron la fuerza para negociar en forma de grupo. México, para vergüenza de muchos ha jugado el papel de esquirol minando la influencia de los países productores.

oil 1

oil 2

oil 3,.. episodio sobre Mexico

oil 4,... episodio sobre Mexico, continuacion,..

oil 5

New York Times report on mining in Mexico,... it is a good business,.. would they know about all the deads???

2008-02-21T11:32:00.000Z

Nex is a report from the New York times,.. in which it is said that mining in Mexico is a good business, although risky.

When I first read it, inmideatly though about the dead miners in Coahuila,.. who died while working in extreme insecure conditions. The firm, 'grupo minero Mexico' along with the federal governmnet have repeteadly said that it is not their responsability and that they have no money to even pay for resuing the bodies,...

Also, few post ago, I reported about a press release from cnn money that says something about a foreign firm starting mining operations in Oaxaca, Mexico, where so far there are 23 people assassinated for daring to oppose governor's 'backyard selling' kind of policies.

well I guess that's globalisation all about,.. making huge profits elsewhere at the cost of locals lives. (Note by Wet_ahuizote)

===========

Driving to the Gold Rush
By ELISABETH MALKIN
Published: February 20, 2008

MAGUARICHIC, Mexico — In these mountains, where conquistadors once gouged gold from open veins in the mountainside, the hardened gold miner of film lore is giving way to a new breed of prospector: geologists and engineers, armed with sophisticated equipment and millions of investor dollars.

Largely American and Canadian, they toiled for global mining giants for years. But, now that the price of gold is near record highs, they are leaving their companies, raising capital to start their own prospecting start-ups and heading for Mexico. On Tuesday, an ounce of gold hit $929.30, up from $665 a year ago. Back in 1980, oil shock and economic gloom drove the price to $875 an ounce; that would be more than $2,000 today.

Much of the recent run-up has been caused by economic uncertainty and rising anxiety about the risks of global inflation.

“Gold hit bottom in 2001 at $250 an ounce and it has been going up ever since,” said Craig Stanley, a gold mining analyst at Desjardins Securities in Toronto. “That keeps dragging in more people.”

But like any gold rush, he warned, the promise of riches can outshine the real possibilities — even if more investors are willing to finance start-ups than ever before.

“It is easier to raise more money,” Mr. Stanley said, “but it takes a lot of money to go out and find gold.”

With the price of gold likely to continue its climb, mining companies are ramping up gold exploration budgets all over the world. But many countries that hold out the promise of significant new deposits are either politically capricious, like Russia, or dangerous, like Congo.

By contrast, Mexico has developed friendly investment rules and a relatively efficient bureaucracy, analysts said. Despite the escalating drug war in much of northern Mexico, miners operate quite safely. And Mexico offers an advantage for North American prospectors that no other country can match: geologists can make the drive down in a few days.

Just to start exploring, it takes tens of millions of dollars. The cost of finding and then mining gold has increased about 25 percent in the last year, a result of soaring costs for the energy, steel and cement used in mining.

Specialized equipment and qualified personnel are also in short supply. Modern-day exploration requires aerial mapping and sophisticated sensors.

Even with the most sophisticated sounding and drilling equipment, only one of every 1,000 exploration projects becomes a working mine, said Peter K. M. Megaw, president of Imdex, a consulting and contracting firm based in Tucson that helps foreign companies exploring in Mexico.

“There’s gold everywhere,” said François Auclair, vice president for exploration for Dia Bras Exploration, a small company in Montreal. “But you need special physical conditions to make your deposit worth something.”

That has not slowed the exploratory drilling taking place here. Across the Sierra Madre, bulldozers flatten farm trails to create roads to remote sites and diamond drill tips bore hundreds of meters into rock, collecting truckloads of cylindrical samples for testing.

Even with its long history of mining, this land is relatively underdeveloped. Difficult terrain, Indian raids and political instability made mining a start-and-stop affair. Mexico prohibited foreign mining investment for three decades, relenting only in 1992 as the North American Free Trade Agreement was being negotiated.

Now, analysts say, Mexico is one of the most attractive countries in the world for mining — the 14th-largest producer of gold, up from 18th place in 2006.

The new prospectors’ chief market for raising seed money for their start-ups is a half-continent away from these mountains where volcanic activity laid rich deposits of gold, silver, zinc and lead as long as 130 million years ago. Most companies raise their first few million to begin mapping and testing claims at the TSX Venture Exchange in Toronto.

Known in the industry as juniors, they have become the exploration arm of the industry, said Larry Segerstrom, the chief operating officer of Paramount Gold and Silver, a junior based in Ottawa that is exploring in Chihuahua State.

Mr. Stanley, the analyst, said: “There are over a thousand junior miners listed. Most of them are a couple of guys with an idea, and they have staked some land somewhere.”

Sometimes they stake their own claims, sometimes they ally themselves with other small companies or individual miners who have old claims but lack their modern equipment and their millions.

After spending tens of millions to map and then drill, the juniors may be able to form a joint venture with a bigger company if the results are promising enough. A really big discovery will get the attention of a global mining company.

As part of its pitch to investors, Paramount Gold and Silver says that the structure of its recent finds are similar to those of another project in Chihuahua State called Palmarejo. The Canadian and Australian owners of Palmarejo sold it last year for $1.1 billion to the American company Coeur d’Alene Mines.

Now, Paramount is spending about $1 million a month to explore an area of old mine workings in western Chihuahua for gold and silver. The company raised $24 million from the markets last year to finance the exploration. “Many mines have several lives,” said Bill Reed, vice president for exploration. “As prices and technology change, then they become economical again.”

But it can take years. Minefinders, a small company based in Vancouver, began exploration in 1994 near a mine that had prospered early in the 20th century. Silver and gold production will start at the mine later this year.

“Minefinders rode the gold price all the way to the bottom of the trough and hopefully they will ride it back up,” said Gregg Bush, vice president for operations at the mine.

The company had to build the access roads itself and it took years to negotiate with communal farmers who owned the property. Between cash payments and investments, Minefinders will pay the farmers $17 million.

The old-style miners who are still around hope that the new gold rush will wash over them, too.

After two decades of prospecting here, Jay Zebrowski, 64, still drives his 1983 Chevrolet Suburban every few months from his home near Denver to check on the abandoned mine he and his geologist brother own here.

In a contemporary version of “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” the 1948 classic by the director John Huston, gold has put the Zebrowskis on the edge of ruin.

Almost all of the one million or so dollars they have sunk into mining has come from investors who have yet to see a return. Indebted, Mr. Zebrowski has stayed afloat by selling options on a couple of his claims to the small Montreal company, Dia Bras Exploration, and the Mexican mining giant Industrias Peñoles.

The Zebrowskis’ mine, under a hillside just outside the town of Maguarichic, was worked until the 1940s. Called La Poderosa, it looked anything but powerful when they restarted it in the early 1990s.

“We were not coming up with the grades and not hitting the vein,” Mr. Zebrowski said, meaning they were not striking high-quality gold. Today, much of the mine’s underground works are rotting under groundwater. “We simply ran out of money.”

Looters have carried off part of the processing equipment that turns ore into gold concentrate and a snowstorm last year collapsed the tin roof over the tool shed.

The Zebrowski brothers eventually abandoned their mine and began staking claims instead, hoping to cut deals with bigger companies. When the market collapsed in 1997, they had to let many of the claims go, but held on to the best ones, Mr. Zebrowski said.

They have mining claims on some 14,000 hectares in northern Mexico, in addition to the mine, which is guarded by a goatherd.

Mr. Zebrowski hopes to sell more options on those claims to the companies exploring here. Buying an option would give them the right to prospect for gold, and would pay the Zebrowskis more money if a deposit is developed into a mine.

“We seem to have some good luck now,” Mr. Zebrowski said.

He paused and added, “Well, at least good luck is all around us.”

More violence in Oaxaca,… and why the supposedly poverty fighting strategy has deteriorated into violence in the villages

2008-02-13T14:54:00.001Z

UPDATE,... two persons have died so far,... one on the spot and the other just few hours ago,.... (comment by wet_ahuizote)

====
Poverty fighting strategy in Mexico consists of a number of elements. One is the transfer programme, ‘CONTIGO’. This programme is managed from the federal level directly from an agency in SEDESOL. Although CONTIGO is a federal programme, state governors have some degree of influence on it. I am not saying that they have the power to include or exclude people from it, no, their power is more bureaucratic.

Sedesol, the social development secretariat, has delegates in each Mexican state. They are in charge of looking after the good functioning of federal programmes. They are supposed to work and be representatives of the federal government.

However, in practice these delegates are ‘negotiated’ until their appointment is okayed by the state governor they are going to work with. Furthermore, is not an uncommon practice to find that those delegates are actually representatives of governors’ interest at the federal level and not the other way round.

But why governors would like to have someone pushing their agenda in Sedesol? The reason is simple: MONEY, the business of poverty.

Another part, and perhaps more important, in the strategy of ‘poverty fighting’ has to do with the distribution of fiscal funds. This is, that the amount of money that comes from taxes in a year is to be distributed among the states for them to do the same to the municipalities so that every municipality will have resources to build infrastructure. They way this transference takes place is somehow simple and complicated at the same time.

On the one hand it is simple as it follows a progressive principle; the poorer a state is the more resources it will receive. That is State of Mexico receive more resources as it is the largest in population and more than half of it is poor. Then we have southern states of Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca, where poor population is of about 80 per cent, but as they are far smaller than state of Mexico, they receive less resources, but nonetheless it is a considerable amount.

On the other hand it is a complicated matter as it involves technical and political aspects. Technical, to calculate how much poverty there is at state level. The discussion as to who is poor and who is not is a rather obscure one, only for researchers and policy makers.

The political aspect has to do with governors’ willingness to pass on funds to municipalities. At state level, it is slightly more difficult to enforce that the right amount of money reach the municipalities, and even more difficult to, once in the municipality, that money do what it was supposed to do: build basic infrastructure and reduce certain aspects of poverty.

It is common to find that municipality’ majors spent money in different things. Also, frequently we’ll see the case of open corruption where money just disappears. However the most widespread situation is that ‘some relatives’ happens to be the favourite suppliers, with it majors’ families get richer and richer, and villages get worse and worse.

Until something happens that people just got enough of that and decides to change that situation. Well, in Oaxaca there is currently a situation in one of the municipalities, in Zenzontepec. Twelve people were badly injured and one died due to violence provoked by the ex-presidente municipal (former major), who wants his nephew to become the next person in charge.

In Oaxaca, in most of the rural communities there is a system for electing authorities. It is the so-called ‘usos y costumbres’, which is a direct way of electing the next municipal president and allows people to settle their differences on the spot. This system has prevailed from long time so there used to be a fair and open way for democratically elect public servants.

Now a days however, and this is only my opinion, with the influence of the political parties, especially pri. That system has become useless in present times. Mainly because pri supporters have all the means to bully, and even kill those who date to oppose them. Hence it is normal to find that municipal presidents elected under the ‘usos y constumbres’ tradition are strongly linked to pri.

In Zenzontepec, the former municipal president Heraclio Hernandez Martinez, who now is a deputy in the state chamber of representatives, is accused of corruption. He wants his nephew to take over for him not to be prosecuted. And the community protested and took the municipal building.

Once there, Hernandez Martinez came with some strongly armed men and attacked the community killing one person and injuring twelve more. Some people say that he spent lots of money buying machine guns so that he built a small paramilitary force to control that area.

The fact is, in Oaxaca governor himself has promoted the creation of paramilitary groups. These kind of activities have been financed with money that is supposed to be used to fight poverty. The usage of violence to get away with corruption and political abuses is becoming ‘normal’ and is getting worse by the day.

Next are a video, from our friend Frida and some notes from Mexican newspapers reporting those events, here I summarised what I considered the most important and, of course had my own personal opinion on that matter. (comment by wet_ahuizote)

===================
this is from el imparcial de Oaxaca,...
Habitantes de Zenzontepec piden desafuero del diputado Heraclio
Durante su administración adquirieron armas de alto poder, asegura edil

Habitantes de Santa Cruz Zenzontepec solicitaron este lunes el desafuero del diputado local, Heraclio Juárez Mendoza, al señalarlo como responsable de la violencia que se vivió este fin de semana en esa comunidad, en donde hasta ahora el saldo es de una persona muerta, 16 lesionados y 20 detenidos.

Al respecto, el presidente municipal, Antonio Merino Mejía, manifestó que hay impunidad en cuanto a los hechos de violencia ocurridos este sábado en su comunidad, porque el gobierno sólo quiere pagar las curaciones y los gastos funerarios, pero no castigar a los responsables de este enfrentamiento.

Quieren proteger al ex munícipe Heraclio Juárez, dijo, quien no comprobó más de 5 millones de pesos, pero además mi administración ha sufrido el primer requerimiento para el pago de una obra por más de un millón de pesos, cuyo adeudo es el ahora diputado quien subsidia a los grupos de choque.

A la vez, los acusó que en esa administración adquirieron armas de alto poder, las cuales utilizaron este sábado en el enfrentamiento, por lo que exigió que se investigue al diputado local, porque con dinero del pueblo se compraron las armas que no aparecen en ninguno de los inventarios.

Lo inconformes quienes en un principio se plantaron en la Secretaría General de Gobierno, en donde dialogaron con el sub secretario, Joaquín Rodríguez Palacios, no lograron ningún acuerdo, sólo una cita para las 14:00 horas, con el secretario general, Manuel García Corpus, quien 45 minutos después llegó a la cita.

Ahí, los manifestantes fueron claros en su petición, al exigir el desafuero del diputado local, Heraclio Juárez, al señalar que no tiene la calidad moral para estar en el Congreso, porque no solo saqueó el ayuntamiento de Santa Cruz Zenzontepec, sino poco le ha importado la vida de sus paisanos para tapar sus fechorías.

A la vez advirtieron que si no hay una respuesta en las próximas horas a sus reclamos, los habitantes tomarán otras acciones, porque un grupo caciquil no puede imponerse ante el reclamo generalizado de los pobladores.

===================
and this is from frontera.net
Un muerto y 12 heridos fue el saldo de un enfrenamiento ocurrido anoche y la madrugada de este sábado entre grupos antagónicos del poblado de Santa Cruz Zenzontepec, en la Sierra Sur de Oaxaca, informaron autoridades estatales.

De acuerdo con el reporte de la Subsecretaría de Desarrollo Político del gobierno estatal, los hechos iniciaron cuando un numeroso grupo de pobladores, encabezado por Rogaciano Avendaño, líder de la población, se presentó anoche en el palacio municipal de Zenzontepec.

El palacio, que permanecía en poder de simpatizantes de la pasada autoridad municipal, pretendía ser desalojado por los inconformes, quienes acusan al edil anterior, el priísta Heraclio Juárez Martínez, de intentar imponer al frente de dicho ayuntamiento a su sobrino, Wilfrido Hernández.

Luego de intercambiar golpes e insultos, los inconformes se retiraron del lugar, para presentarse nuevamente a las 6:00 horas de este sábado, armados de palos, machetes y armas de fuego, de los cuales se valieron para recuperar el palacio municipal.

No obstante, derivado del enfrentamiento, una persona murió y al menos 12 resultaron heridas, algunas de ellas de gravedad, quienes ya fueron trasladadas a la capital del estado para ser atendidas en el Hospital Civil "Aurelio Valdivieso".

De acuerdo con el titular de esta dependencia estatal, que interviene en la conciliación de las partes en pugna, Joaquín Rodríguez Palacios, debido al grado de efervescencia, hasta el momento no ha sido posible el ingreso de la Policía Preventiva.

Sin embargo, se espera controlar completamente la situación en las próximas horas.

En tanto, pobladores encabezados por Avendaño realizan su denuncia ante la Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado (PGJE).

El municipio de Santa Cruz Zenzontepec se localiza en la región de la Sierra Sur, y pertenece al distrito de Sola de Vega. Su método de elección de autoridades se rige bajo el Sistema de Usos y Costumbres.

============

On Latin American repression: the Barbie and plaza de mayo grandmothers stories

2008-02-07T04:02:00.000Z

To many people it would be a surprise to find out how closely related is nazi and repression in Latin American countries. After all, Latin American is far away from Germany and Europe and its population is mainly mix.

This geographical characteristic perhaps explains, at lest partly, the nazi presence in the region. Being far away from Europe and the United States, South America was an ideal place to hide. Once there, nazi became some sort of ‘advisors’ to Latin American rules. A case in point, and maybe the most notorious of all, is Klaus Barbie, the butcher of Lyon.

He came to Bolivia running away from his prosecutors in Europe, especially France. Establishing himself and soon he started to make political connexions. Eventually he was invited to be a sort of ‘special advisor’ to prevent communism from spreading. For that he fully used his ‘skills’.

Several Bolivians have accused him of torturing them. Some other of being in charge of especial areas of secret police that illegally arrested, tortured, disappeared, and killed people. All that supported by rightish governments at that moment.

However, those governments didn’t last forever, and as soon as leftist came to power in Bolivia Barbie’s power disappeared as well. He was handed over to the French. Surprisingly, according to Bolivians, the French hesitated in arresting Barbie. And this is a surprise as according to the ‘official’ story nazi were ‘angrily’ chased.

How many more nazi were there in Latin America? In Argentina, or Chile, or Brasil, perhaps? The true is that we don’t know, and that only those notorious guys as Barbie were chased. In Mexico we don’t have a clue about the real influence of these people in the dirty war of the 60s and 70s, neither have we known about their legacy now, apart from the fact that fascism is rising again with all the killings and kidnappings in Oaxaca and elsewhere in Mexico.

A funny anecdote is that when the Bolivian pilots took Barbie to French territory, they asked for a tip for him to be handed over. Next is the last part of a video about the capture of Klaus Barbie, the butcher of Lyon.

Barbie captured

Another example of how repression worked (and still does) in Latin America is Argentina. There is a group called ‘plaza de mayo grandmothers’. They started as ‘plaza the mayo mothers’.

They reason is that during the military government, their sons and daughters were kidnapped. Some of the women were pregnant or had a little baby with them at the moment of being disappeared. Hence, those mothers lost not only their daughters but their grandsons as well. Now they focus their efforts in finding their grandsons, that generally survived, but with were given away to different families.

I would like to say that plaza de mayo grandmothers bring a message of hope to those in Mexico or Oaxaca whose relatives have been disappeared. We hope that one day they all join their families again, and that those who committed those crimes are taken to justice, as in the Argentina example. (In solidarity with Nadin from Oaxaca, whose father is dissapeared)

Next is a video about hose brave grandmothers. It was aired last week in open television in UK, in channel 4.

who am i_1

who am i_2

who am i_3

who am i_4

who am i_5

Oaxaca for sale!!! CNN press release,...

2008-02-04T23:42:00.000Z

CNN money published that Oaxaca is for sale now,.. it is time to invest, if you have some dollars hidden under the bed. I think that all the killing and repression in Oaxaca and Mexico at large is aobut generating fear so that the selling doesn't face any opposition,.. here is the CNN report,... (comment by wet_ahuizote)

Gold Resource Corporation Begins Construction, El Aguila Project, Oaxaca, Mexico

February 04, 2008: 06:00 AM EST

Gold Resource Corporation (GRC) (OTCBB: GORO) (FRANKFURT: GIH) is pleased to report that construction of the new mine/mill access road has commenced at its El Aguila Project in the southern state of Oaxaca, Mexico. The El Aguila Project is targeting gold production the second half of 2008 subject to timely obtaining the balance of the required permits, regulatory approvals and equipment delivery schedules.

Gold Resource Corporation awarded the 6 kilometer road construction contract to Corporacion Minera Y De Construccion S.A. De C.V. of Mexico City. Corporacion Minera Y De Construccion S.A. De C.V. has been operating in Mexico since 1978 and has significant industry experience working for mining companies Goldcorp Inc., Penoles and others. GRC is pleased to have this experienced contractor for the road and for other construction and mining aspects at the El Aguila Project.

As previously announced, GRC was granted local approval by the San Pedro Totolapam Ejido (agrarian community) for the El Aguila Project and federal approval to construct the El Aguila Project mill/mine road. This early granting of approvals is a credit to our personnel in Mexico.

Gold Resource Corporation's president, William W. Reid, stated, "We are pleased to have reached this significant milestone, the start of construction at our El Aguila Project. With local and federal approval to start this road so early in the year, with an experienced contractor to build this road and with our competent and motivated personnel in Mexico we are positioning Gold Resource Corporation to emerge in the peer group of low cost producers in the second half of 2008."

About GRC

Gold Resource Corporation is a mining company focused on production and pursuing development of gold and silver projects that feature low operating costs and produce high returns on capital. The Company has 100% interest in four potential high-grade gold and silver properties in Mexico's southern state of Oaxaca. The company has 34,156,952 shares outstanding and no warrants. For more information, please visit GRC's website, located at www.Goldresourcecorp.com and read the Company's 10-KSB for an understanding of the risk factors involved.

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The statements contained in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Exchange Act. When used in this press release, the words "plan," "target," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "intend" and "expect" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the statements regarding Gold Resource Corporation's strategy, future plans for production, future expenses and costs, future liquidity and capital resources, and estimates of mineralized material. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon information available to Gold Resource Corporation on the date of this press release, and the company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and there can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those discussed in this press release. In particular, there can be no assurance that commercial production at the El Aguila Project will be achieved in the time frames estimated, at the rates and costs estimated, or even at all. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the company's 10-KSB and Form SB-2 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Contact:
Jason Reid
VP / Corporate Development
303-320-7708

Corruption in Africa,... enough seed for war???

2008-02-04T10:01:00.000Z

A few months ago, while sitting at home watching tv,... I come across a documentary by Sorious Samura. He is an african domumentalist whose work has been widely recognised. Perhaps his first documentary on the civil war in Sierra Leone was one of the best as it showed the naked events of a brutal war.

This docuemntary about corruption is interesting, as right at the beggining Samura makes it clear that Kenia is or was the african country with some sort of long run stability and good economy and so on,... now most of that has gone to the waste,... and all for what?

Althought the documentary is done in several locations it makes the point of pointing out that corruption is an african widespread practice and furthemore that the poor are the ones paying that bill.

The poor have to pay for everything, even those good and services supposedly provided by the state. Not only they have to pay for receiving the 'international help' but also to work,... it is a moving documentary, maybe helpful to begin to understand what is happening in Kenia, Uganda, Zimbawe, en most of Africa.

I have just to clarify about quality of the video,... well I recorder from vhs to my computer, but have to use low quality in order for the file to be managable,.. in any case ,... please buy the original, and support one of the best african docuemntalist.

Chief of police killed in Oaxaca: is it good or bad?

2008-01-31T11:22:00.000Z

This Wednesday January 30, one chief of police in Oaxaca was executed. This provokes me a mixture of feelings. Firstly, I don’t feel sorry for him. That is due to his participation in the so-called ‘deadly convoy’ (carvana de la muerte).

During the following nights to that June 14, when police were defeated by teachers in Oaxaca centre (Zocalo), every night police forces and paramilitary used to go round the city in a drive-by shooting convoy.

convoy of death video

In addition Barrita was in charge of repressing APPO supporters; his men illegally detained, tortured and killed people. We have to remember that during walking out demonstrations some people got shoot by snipers that turned out to belong to police. Also, in an everyday environment Barrita was the guy who ordered who was to be arrested, kidnapped and killed. For that I don’t feel sorry for him. But do I feel happy? NO, of course not.

And the reason is that from this moment on I believe repression is going to a different level. I support the hypothesis that this is another provocation. That what is at stake is something bigger than a social revolt in Oaxaca. My personal belief is that Oaxaca is acting as a smoke curtain or more precisely as a blood curtain to something bigger. What could it be?

Mexico now is at the very edge of transferring its petroleum to multinational firms. This is an old project, perhaps as old as its nationalisation in the late 1930s. Right after general Cardenas nationalised petroleum there was pressure to give it back to those multinational firms. Every Mexican president after General Cardenas had to make it clear, not to privatise the energy sector. With Calderon, and actually this started back with Salinas in 1988, Zedillo 1994, and Fox 2000, the intention is to sell it.

Of course the discourse has been from light opposition based on nationalism (Salinas, 1988-1994), to prone attitude towards openness by introducing private investments in the sector, little by little, of course, with Zedillo (1994-2000). Then those tricks Zedillo used to privatise were further extended by Fox, with also a huge increment in both corruption practices and the amount of money drained in corrupted practices.

Calderon’s job is only that: to privatise the energy sector. He was appointed president by a handful of powerful people because he was the only one with the right attitude towards doing business. More precisely he has the attitude for multinationals to make profits out of Mexican petroleum. But then how to do it? And here is where hypothesis come.

Hypothesis one: the smooth transition.
It is well-known that Mexican ordinary people is highly biased against selling PEMEX (Mexican petroleum firm). And there are some reasons; being the principal the fact that PEMEX has a special tax status. It means that most of profits go straight to federal budget to support government current spending in education health and anti-poverty programmes. So, asking people to support such an initiative is out of the question.

Instead, it is possible to have some leading opinions in favour or at least not obstructing those plans. That could be done by bribing some leftists threatening others and in general generating the appropriate environment for the necessary changes to go forward.

All in all this should be smoothly as only few notorious persons would feel violence, and hence the vast majority of Mexicans would not even notice. This is assuming that the mass media does its job by creating soup operas and enough distracters so that people keeps busy wondering about why such artist did that, and why those others do that. Of course in case of emergency we have our narcotics gangs whose could display something so people apart from being busy are afraid of going out.

Another hypothesis would point to a tenser scenario
All of the above but with the inconvenient of facing a well organised social movement that opposes privatisation. How to break it down?

The basics are: to carry on with the bribing, threatening and so on and so forth plus the creation of some focal points to diversify attention and/or to prevent a social movement to get stronger.

It would mean to create conflicts in Oaxaca, Atenco, Michoacan, Veracruz, Coahuila, and many more. These conflicts would be noisy enough so that they generate fear in peoples mind. And the very least, those people would be very busy fighting for their survival and that would prevent them to join a national movement.

Finally a bleeding strategy would imply to carry on from the beginning with scenario two. It all the same but with further provocations of violence among civilians so that government could easily justify repression and even assassination without having to worry for future prosecutions like Pinochet or the military argentineans or Echeverria in Mexico.

My personal opinion is that we are entering now in a ‘bleeding strategy’ and that Oaxaca and the assassination of police chiefs is but a provocation to blame on APPO so that Ulises could justify further repression.

Some days ago, Ulises met with the new appointed (illegally as he is not even Mexican) Juan Camilo Mourinho Terrazo or Juan camote. Mexican media rushed to say that it was a talk off by camote to Ulises. I disagree. I very much see that they met to agree in a new turn that could give federal government more space to carry on with the selling.

The first consequence would be this killing. And I think this is so due to the fact that APPO has endured brutal repression and yet they kept their position of being a peaceful movement but Ulises and federal government desperately need APPO to be blame for something. Government and rightish from ‘pan’ (political party) have labelled APPO as violent, killers and so on. All that is propaganda as it is demonstrated that the dead belong to APPO (except this one).

So what is next? Further repression more killings until the sell is completed. I am afraid future for Oaxacans and Mexicans alike is not good. (Comment by wet_ahuizote)

+++++++++this is from noticias de Oaxaca,...

Un comando armado ejecutó esta mañana, en el parque el Tequio, al director de la Policía Auxiliar, Bancaria, Industrial y Comercial (PABIC), Alejandro Barrita Ortiz. En el atentado murieron en el lugar otros dos civiles hasta el momento no identificados; y camino al hospital, víctima de las lesiones, falleció la promotora deportiva, Vicky Galán.

El ataque se registró alrededor de las 7:15 horas, cuando el jefe policíaco realizaba su rutina diaria de ejercicios matutinos en este lugar conocido como el Flechador del Sol, cuando desde la carretera que comunica a la avenida Símbolos Patrios con el boulevard Guadalupe Hinojosa, el grupo de sicarios disparo desde un vehículo en movimiento, según las primeras hipótesis de la Policía Ministerial.

En el lugar, se encontraron esparcidos casquillos de arma 9 milímetros, por lo que se presume que en la ejecución fueron utilizadas rifles de asalto AK-47, conocidos como “cuernos de chivo”, según reportes policíacos testigos de los hechos no han querido declarar por temor a represalias, por lo que desconoce las características del vehículos en que viajaban los matones y hacia que rumbo huyeron.

El lugar del atentado ya fue acordonado por elementos del Ejército Mexicano, y también se encuentran los directores de la Policía Ministerial, Daniel Camarena Flores; y de la Policía Preventiva Estatal, Pedro Díaz Laredo, para apoyar las primeras investigaciones.

Cabe mencionar que el pasado viernes la Policía Municipal de Oaxaca de Juárez detuvo a cuatro porros que supuestamente portaban armas de fuego –entre ellos el conocido “Dragón”- que pretendían violentar la elección de director de la Facultad de Derecho, los sedimentes estudiantes habrían sido entregados a Barrita Ortiz, a petición del mismo jefe policíaco, sin embargo momentos después sin explicación alguna fueron liberados, a pesar de contar con varias órdenes de aprehensión.

El ex jefe policíaco también ha sido señalado como uno de los principales represores del movimiento social de 2006 y de encabezar grupos parapolicíacos en contra de los dirigentes de la Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca, por lo que era investigado por la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación.

Asimismo, era el único jefe policíaco que se encuentra en activo en Oaxaca, de los que participaron en los llamados “convoyes de la muerte”, el resto emigró a otros estados como el ex director de la Policía Preventiva, Manuel Vera Salinas; y de la Policía Ministerial, Manuel Moreno Rivas, mientras que Aristeo López Martínez, recientemente fue relevado del cargo de coordinador de Seguridad Pública Municipal.

anti-poverty strategy and its political utilisation

2008-01-28T14:52:00.000Z

Mexican anti-poverty program is called ‘oportunidades’. It started with president Salinas back in the early 90s under the name of solidarity and covered about 100,000 families. This figure indicates that such a strategy is really nothing but a pilot programme.

Then with Zedillo, it changed its name to ‘contigo’ (with you) and also widened a bit its coverage, reaching some 150 thousand families. In other words, it continued to be a pilot. Or only something politicians used in speeches against poverty, but in reality it wasn’t doing a thing about poverty as a whole.

In several occasions the way that programme is handle has been accused of being politically used. Being a transfer programme, in which a number of prerequisites have to be covered by families and then the decision as to whether a particular family stays in or out relies on one single person makes it easy to redirect, politically speaking.

For example, if a particular governor wants some areas to be punished he can just put some pressure on the managers to stop sending the transfers, as simple as that. On the other hand, if some communities are to be awarded governor just has to put some pressure on managers to ‘include’ such communities in the list of beneficiaries.

Well, the thing is that it seems to be the case that some areas have started to be punished by taking them out of the programme. The official reasons are: a grown river that prevents health teams from coming to the village and doing the evaluation needed for the families to fill all requisites, and post-electoral conflicts that make it difficult for the money carriers to come and distribute the money. All in all the number of families left out of the programme are 23 due to the grown river, and 649 due to post-electoral conflicts.

While all that sounds good, some questions arise. There have been grown rivers in the past, why is it now that evaluators cannot get in those communities? They even have helicopters to do their job, don’t they? As for post-electoral conflicts, I personally think this is partly true.

It is a post-electoral problem but with the governor who ripped elections almost three years ago, and now is punishing communities that are politically against him. Just imagine that even in areas where narcotics is a widespread practice, such as Sinaloa, Guerrero, and other areas of Oaxaca benefits come and do their job.

In the past, money handlers used to be escorted by police to prevent any problem. Is police been very busy harassing students in Oaxaca city?

Next is the report from Noticias de Oaxaca in spanish (Comment by wet_ahuizote)

=======

OAXACA, Oaxaca , 26-Ene .- Mientras que en la comunidad de Santiago Quiavijolo unas 23 familias acusan que fueron excluidos del programa Oportunidades debido a que la crecida del río los dejó aislados, en el municipio de Santiago Yaveo, 649 familias no recibieron el recurso por un conflicto poselectoral.

Eduardo Vivanco Santiago, coordinador estatal de esta dependencia federal, aseguró que la entrega del apoyo en Santiago Yaveo se suspendió debido a la falta de condiciones de seguridad para ingresar a esa zona.

"La población está en un conflicto postelectoral, como todos sabemos, los ediles iniciaron el uno de enero de este año, pero la comunidad está molesta y no permite el acceso de nadie", dijo.
El funcionario señaló que en la cabecera municipal de Santiago Yaveo, ubicado en los límites con Veracruz; se entrega el dinero destinado a 8 comunidades; las cuales también han resultado afectadas.

Explicó que los habitantes de los poblados vecinos de La Trinidad y San Juan Jaltepec; están confrontados por problemas políticos y sociales; y que para ingresar a Yaveo se requiere cruzar por estos asentamientos.

Aunque el funcionario admite que la entrega de apoyo en comunidades de extrema pobreza como Yaveo es "cuestión de vida o muerte", señala que casos como este están fuera de control.
El responsable de Oportunidades en la entidad aseguró que en caso de que durante este periodo de entrega sea imposible acceder a la comunidad, se volverá intentar en el siguiente, que es en dos meses.

En Santiago Quiavijolo, en cambio, el apoyo se suspendió desde hace 9 meses.

De acuerdo con la ex candidata a alcaldía de este municipio, Eufrosina Cruz, la decisión de retirar a 23 familias el apoyo fue tomada debido a que las brigadas de salud no llegaron a la alejada comunidad debido a la crecida de un río impedía el acceso.

Sin la consulta médica no se cumplió con un requisito para recibir la ayuda pero, cuestiona Cruz, no se tomó en cuenta que a la población, que no cuenta con un centro de salud, no se le avisó que debía tomar su consulta en otro sitio o cuál era la alternativa, para cumplir con el requisito.
Pese a la circunstancia especial, se optó por retirar a las familias que viven en extrema pobreza del programa.

Desde hace nueve meses, cuando se les retiró el apoyo, las mujeres del lugar, que en promedio tienen 9 hijos, acudieron a Santa Ana del Valle en Tlacolula para denunciar que fue la brigada médica la que no llegó a su comunidad y después acudieron a la delegación de Oportunidades para denunciar el caso.

"Hoy faltan unas 23 mujeres en ser reincorporadas, pero fueron más de 50 familias a las que en un principio les sacaron Oportunidades, algunas ya lograron que se les dé nuevamente, pero a otros no", abundó Eufrosina.

En esta comunidad la mayoría de las personas son analfabetas y sobrevive del campo. Aquí la extrema pobreza obliga a sus habitantes a enterrar a sus muertos envueltos en petates, no hay dinero para ataúdes.

La mayoría de las mujeres caminan descalzas, sus pies están agrietados y llenos de callos, algunos niños no cuentan siquiera con un par de huaraches. En esta comunidad la pobreza se respira.
"Es indignante que por una falta ajena a ellos se les haya quitado lo único que tenían para poder comprar al menos fríjol ó azúcar" agregó Cruz.

Sin embargo, la explicación que ofrece Pedro Valentín Benítez responsable de operación de la delegación de Sedesol en esa zona, es que el que se les hayan retirado los apoyos a las familias de Quiavijolo, tiene que ver con los criterios del programa .

"Debe de haber una corresponsabilidad tanto de las familias beneficiadas como del programa para la atención médica, y si no acuden a recibirla se les aplica falta y con dos seguidas, automáticamente se les da de baja", dijo.

Sin embargo no refirió qué alternativa se da a los beneficiarios en circunstancias extremas como el que quedaran aislados, sin el servicio de la brigada médica y que no se les avisara que deberían acudir a otra instancia.

Oaxaca is back to 'normal',... whatever 'normal' means,..

2008-01-28T14:10:00.000Z

Next is an opinion from Ceci Connolly form San Francisco Chronicle. Although it is a fair summary of the situation, it is a bit biased towards tourists from USA views. I would only point out that if you are planning to visit Oaxaca, do it. You would probably put yourself in higher risk by visiting New York, Atlanta, or in fact any medium or major city in the States.

Conflict does not involve tourists, it is between state government and the people. No tourist have been attacked during the 'riots'. Instead, one newyorker (ournalist Brad Will) has been killed by government paramilitary. (comment by wet_ahuizote)

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(01-27) 04:00 PST Oaxaca, Mexico -- The last time I was in Oaxaca, I was frantically trying to improvise a gas mask. The city was a war zone: anti-government protesters packing spray paint, rocks and Molotov cocktails; police in riot gear tossing canisters of black tear gas into the crowd.

My eyes stinging, I raced past the burned-out shell of a bus. Thick smoke filled the air, but there was just enough of a clearing to allow me a glimpse of El Catedral restaurant. It looked so enticing: a serene courtyard, white tablecloths and glass wine goblets with the distinctive Mexican blue rim. But the door was locked.

I kept running.

Fast-forward one year and I'm finally inside El Catedral, and in a city that feels much different.

Seated under the stars on an ancient stone patio, a fountain burbling beside me, I savor sauteed mushrooms in garlic wine sauce. The setting is almost exactly as I envisioned it would be: a place of architectural jewels, one-of-a-kind textiles and culinary surprises.

Except I am alone.

The two-story bar, all polished wood and chrome, is dark. The dining room to the right of the courtyard is as empty as the one to the left.

I have returned to Oaxaca on assignment: To find out if, one year after deadly riots crippled the city, it is again an attractive destination for visitors seeking language schools, colonial history, craft markets and art galleries.

I'm eager - and a bit apprehensive - to check in on friends I'd made here and find out whether Oaxaca still belongs on Mexico's A-list. It didn't take long to realize that the answer is more complicated than I'd thought.

Oaxaca is no longer the filthy, smoldering wreck of 2006. Nor, however, is it the bustling cultural center of years past. It appears safe and clean. But unresolved political tensions have prompted the U.S. State Department to keep it on a watch list. "We're not discouraging tourism," says U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Judith Bryan. "But we want informed and appropriately cautious tourism."

My friend Harry Smith, a Bostonian living in Oaxaca with his wife and three daughters, is keenly aware of the economic and political injustices in the city. But he also wants Americans to appreciate its warmth and beauty.

"I would advise people to come, as long as they come with their eyes open," he says. "But this is not Disneyland."

As in most of Oaxaca, things at El Catedral, where I've come for dinner, are mas o menos, explains my waiter, Alberto. Translated literally, the phrase means "more or less." But Alberto's diplomatic shorthand, which I will hear often during a three-day visit, hints at the conflicted, contradictory state of an emotionally scarred city.

For adventurous travelers, mas o menos can also translate to opportunity. The decline in foreign visitors - from 264,000 in 2005 to 190,000 this past year through October - means there are bargains to be had, and no hordes to fight. Smith, for instance, negotiated half-price rates at the nearby beaches of Puerto Escondido.

As I finish an affordable glass of Spanish Tempranillo, two groups arrive at El Catedral, adding a bit of life to the courtyard.

"It's certainly not like it was three years ago," declares Virginia O'Brien, a San Diegan who has returned to the city every year since her first Spanish-language class in 1984. "This place would be packed; we'd be lucky to get a table."

Now in her 70s, with cropped red hair and kitschy-cool Mexican-silver skeletons dangling from her ears, O'Brien loves Oaxaca so much she even came during the riots. She and a travel agent friend "were going to bring a tour last year, but we canceled it, thank God," she says. This year's group backed out.

"People are taking their kids back to school; they're walking in the Zócalo (town square) again," says her dining companion, Javier Garcia Vigil, who is the director of the Symphony of Oaxaca.

O'Brien, who loves to scout for bargain-price hand-woven rugs, remains bullish on Oaxaca. But she is sad: "It hasn't staged a real comeback yet."

The new normal
Oaxaca - it's the name of both the capital city and the state - is an hour's flight south of Mexico City. The city (population before the riots: 258,000) was laid out by Spaniards in the mid-1500s, and its streets are lined with mossy relics of that era. The surrounding region boasts phenomenal ruins, such as the sprawling hilltop Zapotec village of Monte Alban, and what is believed to be one of the largest and best-preserved indigenous cultures in the Mesoamerican world.

Protest is as much a part of Oaxaca's tradition as its black-clay pottery and hand-woven tapestries. So when the city's teachers announced their perennial strike in May 2006, it barely caused a stir. But unlike in previous years, the dispute escalated into a broader conflict over social justice.

Anti-government demonstrators stormed local radio stations and occupied Oaxaca's famed Zócalo. The city once known for picturesque cathedrals, graceful laurel trees and colorful marketplaces was coated in graffiti and strewn with the charred remains of vehicles.

Some 4,000 federal police descended, erecting barricades and military-style encampments. Masked protesters countered with guerrilla tactics, hurling burning tires and rocks collected from the cobblestone streets. Before order was restored in December 2006, the riots claimed the lives of at least nine and as many as 20 people, including American activist/journalist Brad Will.

Today, mariachi music fills the Zócalo and fresh whitewash covers the walls. But marches in opposition to state Gov. Ulises Ruiz - who sent riot police to battle demonstrators - occur often, and residents say the underlying economic and political tensions remain.

Officially, Oaxaca is back to normal. And as if to prove it, the government has taken a more active role in some of the city's most beloved festivals, which once had been ad-hoc community affairs.

But a more nuanced truth comes out when you share a coffee or a shot of mezcal with Oaxacans or with those, like my friend John Rexer, who have adopted the city.

"It feels antiseptic," he remarks as we walk through the Zócalo and the adjacent square known as the Alameda. Rexer, an expat American, runs the Cafe No Se bar in Antigua, Guatemala. But he spends much of his time in Oaxaca overseeing his latest business venture, a new brand of mezcal named Ilegal. "It feels as though it's been prettied up and staged for the tourists."

Yes, it's nice not to be dodging flying rocks, he acknowledges. But in its effort to remove the ugly barricades and trash, the government also swept away a bit of Oaxaca's soul.

Problems and opportunities
We walk the few blocks to El Naranjo restaurant, where a decade ago, Oaxaca native Iliana de la Vega won international acclaim - and sneers from local culinary purists - with her lard-free mole and organic ingredients. An English-speaking man in chef's whites directs us to a table next to an ancient orange tree. He is friendly, helpful and definitely not de la Vega.

She fled Oaxaca last year, and after drifting from New Mexico to Austin, Texas, hopes to soon join the staff of the Culinary Institute of America in San Antonio.

"We just couldn't make it," she tells me later in a telephone interview. "We had trouble getting downtown; we couldn't get deliveries; we couldn't pay the rent. We'd cook all that food and then no customers would come."

Andrew Peterson, the new owner, proudly announces that he has changed every recipe on the menu save one: de la Vega's gazpacho. In the interest of science, I order that and the mole, which had been El Naranjo's specialty. Neither dish stands out, and Rexer grumbles that he has trouble detecting any chiles in his allegedly spicy shrimp.

Though pleasant, El Naranjo falls short: sadly gringoized, when what we crave is authenticity.

We amble out for a late-night stroll, pleasantly surprised to find others on the streets, a far cry from the days of curfews. As we turn the corner onto Macedonio Alcalá, we can't resist the lure of Caribbean music pulling us into Cafe del Borgo.

Behind the bar, owner Eduardo Evans looks relieved at the sight of a relatively packed house.

"The last four months were the worst," says Evans, better known by his nickname, Lalo. With occupancy at many hotels below 10 percent, he considered leaving but couldn't: "All my money is invested here."

There is one difference nowadays that is both attractive to those who complained Oaxaca had been inundated with gringos and unfortunate for the business owners who survived on U.S. dollars: The majority of visitors - including the two men seated beside me - are Mexicans.

Artists in crisis
Before the riots, Oaxaca had a thriving art scene, from museums with artifacts of pre-Hispanic cultures to galleries with the colorful paintings of 20th-century native Rufino Tamayo. As its reputation grew, the area attracted not only painters but also sculptors, writers, musicians and filmmakers, says local artist Rowena Galavitz.

But last year, several galleries folded, and art students stopped coming to the city for lectures, which meant the artists, too, began abandoning Oaxaca.

"Anybody who was able to get out, did," Galavitz says. Others, including Galavitz, began exhibiting in other cities. Now, "I don't really have a market here in Oaxaca anymore."

Though she is aware that the political disputes could flare up again, Galavitz says the recent calm is helping to slowly revive the art world. As we talk, a team of artists is hanging photos and paintings for an exhibit of pieces about the protests opening that night.

It will be called "Fallen Angels."

If you go
All addresses are in Oaxaca, Mexico; prices are in U.S. dollars.

GETTING THERE
There are no nonstop flights from San Francisco to Oaxaca. Several airlines make one-stop flights, connecting through Dallas, Houston or Mexico City. The bus ride from Mexico City is about six hours and averages $40 round trip.

GETTING AROUND
A rental car is not necessary in the walkable city of Oaxaca. A taxi from the airport to the center of town costs about $14 (buy a voucher at the booth in the airport); a shuttle bus into town averages $3.

WHERE TO STAY
Note: With Oaxaca still in recovery mode, be sure to negotiate for unpublished discounts.

Casa Crespo, 415 Calle Crespo. (011) 52 951 514 1102, www.casacrespo.com. If you can snag one of the two rooms at the bed-and-breakfast, you're in luck. Between $90 and $110 per night.

Hotel Casantica, 601 Avenida Morelos. (011) 52-951-516-2673, www.hotelcasantica.com. I stayed here, where the $110-a-night price is a bit high for what you get: clean rooms with modern amenities such as air conditioning, phone and television; a small pool; and a pleasant courtyard with tables.

Casa de Sierra Azul, 1002 Hidalgo. (888) 624-3341, www.mexonline.com/sierrazul.htm. Charming 14-room hotel a few blocks from the Zócalo. Rates start at $119 double.

WHERE TO EAT
La Olla, 402-1 Reforma. (011) 52-951-516-6668, www.laolla.com.mx. One of the best deals for a full Oaxacan meal is at this two-story spot where the menu of the day is generally under $9.

El Catedral, 105 Calle García Vigil. (011) 52-951-516-3285, www.restaurantecatedral.com.mx. A grand building just blocks from the Zócalo. Traditional Oaxacan cuisine (think suckling pig, pumpkin-blossom soup and mole) and some international dishes are served by knowledgeable waiters. An appetizer, entree and glass of wine goes for under $20, but you can spend more.

El Naranjo, 203 Calle Valerio Trujano. (011) 52 951 514 1878, www.elnaranjo.com.mx. Don't be deceived by the Web site featuring former owner/chef Iliana de la Vega at the internationally acclaimed: The restaurant has been sold and recipes changed. But new owner Andrew Peterson is a friendly host who aims to please, and he's bringing in consultants from neighboring villages to refine his traditional Mexican menu. Dinner for two with drinks is about $56.

La Biznaga, 512 Calle García Vigil. (011) 52 951 516 1800. When you tire of mole and enchiladas, try the fish and salads here, where fresh, innovative dishes are posted on seven-foot-tall chalkboards in a funky setting. Depending on how many drinks you quaff, a meal runs about $16 a person.

Temple, 409-A Calle García Vigil. (011) 52 951 516 8676, www.restaurantetemple.com. A hip spot with a long bar that's great for hanging out, especially if there's jazz. Food here hits some high notes, but there are also some disappointments.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Go-Oaxaca, www.go-oaxaca.com. A relatively new tourism site edited by Casa Crespo owner Carrizosa.

Mexican Tourism Office, www.visitmexico.com.

Oaxaca January 15th 2008: Youth March for the Liberation Of Political Prisoners

2008-01-25T00:13:00.000Z

Oaxaca January 15th 2008: Youth March for the Liberation Of Political Prisoners

On January 12th and 13th the first APPO Youth Encuentro was held in Zaachila, Oaxaca, Mexico
Among the many Plans of Action agreed upon by the diverse group of young folks, was this march on January 15 for the liberation of political prisoners in Oaxaca. In Particular David Venegas Reyes.

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Gabriela León: Sunday Walk to the Zocalo of Oaxaca

2008-01-24T23:28:00.000Z

This is a video by Mexican artist Gabriela Leon,... I have seen it months ago, but only now I came across a new exhibition in the university of california,... so if you are near go and take a look at the artistic side of Oaxaca's revolt.

information in this link: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/23/18474452.php

This exhibition is a multi-media artistic response to the popular revolt and resistance that unfolded in Oaxaca in 2006 and the first traveling solo exhibition outside of Mexico for artist Gabriela León. Some of the elements of the exhibition will consist of a "barricade dress" made of barbed-wire, tire treads and mattress springs found amidst the detritus; a video projection of the artist wearing the dress walking among protestors and police; a sound installation that evokes the voices of the crowds; and tarps inspired by the temporary living structures during the lengthy protest. A bilingual catalogue is available for purchase. Major support for the exhibition comes from the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC Mexus) and artbeam. The exhibition was organized by UC Riverside Sweeney Art Gallery and curated by director Tyler Stallings. Additional support was made possible by the Charles Griffin Farr Fund.

enjoy the video, and Oaxaca's police environment.

Krauze en su estupidez

2008-01-24T21:54:00.000Z

Ya es casi una costumbre que Krauze salga al paso ante cualquier ‘amenaza’ a este sistema político-económico que tenemos en México. Hace no mucho, se montó en su propia propaganda en contra de López Obrador. Ese mesías tropical con sus arranques de autoritarismo mezclados con una especie de fanatismo irracional es un peligro para la ‘democracia’ mexicana, decía entonces (link aca).

Luego, ya consumado el fraude electoral en julio de 2006, se volvió a montar en su propia propaganda. En un artículo que publicó el Washington post, decía que el gobierno del DF, controlado por López Obrador, pagaba a todos y cada uno de los que asqueados por el proceso electoral y el fraude, tomaron reforma y asistieron a las reuniones en el zócalo capitalino. En ese entonces hice el ejercicio de replicarle mandando mi opinión al Washington post, el cual no publicaron completamente sino solamente el link a mi blog en la internet (link aca).

Entonces, decía que México es un mosaico en el que conviven tanto lo moderno, como lo arcaico. Desde luego para el buen Krauze, lo moderno es hacer valer la voluntad de unos pocos mediante los medios que sean necesarios, fraude electoral seria solo uno de ellos. En cuanto a lo arcaico, dijo que se trataba de esos caciques que imponen su voluntad a las masas mediante el manejo discrecional de recursos, y diciendo que López Obrador era uno de ellos.

Es de sorprender su capacidad para generar confusión. Ahora resulta que Elba Esther gordillo, Mario Marín, Ulises Ruiz, Felipe Calderón y demás fauna son la parte moderna de Mexico. En cambio, lo arcaico son los millones de mexicanos que pedían claridad en el proceso electoral. Como si lo viejo y obsoleto en Mexico fuera el querer tener una democracia representativa.

También, en repetidas ocasiones, Krauze ha acusado a otros periodistas de implicar su origen judío. Hace uso de ese recurso lastimero. Habrá que decirle que ser judío no es automáticamente sinónimo de sufrimiento ni de discriminación. Desde luego hay judíos con quienes nos solidarizamos sinceramente, pero no con todos, menos aun con los que llevan a cabo el exterminio sistemático de palestinos. De que lado esta krauze?

Ahora dice que hay racismo al revés. Que el no aceptar a un español en una secretaria de estado es un sinónimo de ese odio racial que los mexicanos tenemos por los extranjeros y especialmente por los españoles. Que estupidez mas grande! Ni los mexicanos odiamos a los extranjeros, especialmente los españoles, por ser españoles, ni todos los extranjeros son amigos de los mexicanos.

Para demostrar que Krauze miente, basa mencionar un solo nombre: Elena Poniatovska. No hay mujer mas amada, que ella. No hay en su origen extranjero ninguna ofensa para los mexicanos. Por el contrario, nos llena de orgullo ver que alguien, que pudiendo tener todo, decidió tener el cariño y la identidad de los mexicanos. Otro ejemplo también notable de nacionalismo y amor a Mexico podría ser, Assa Cristina Laurel, quien has sido y es funcionaria de gobierno. Y nadie le ha expresado su ‘odio’ o su rechazo, como lo sugeriría Krauze.

Podría alguien mencionar una sola obra que haga pensar a los mexicanos que Juan camilo Mouriño tiene algo, por ligero que sea, de nacionalismo? Digo, el pertenecer a un clan de acaparadores de gasolineras no es precisamente un acto de amor al país. El ser operador político de alguien que nunca se ha molestado en demostrar claramente que ganó las elecciones tampoco. Entonces, porque tendríamos que tolerar la presencia de este personaje que NO nació en Mexico, NO es Mexicano, y NO ha hecho nada por el país? Por un acto de fe?

No lo creo, Krauze se monta en el argumento de los judíos en Israel, que los palestinos son un peligro porque los quieren segregar. Por absurdo que parezca ese es el argumento que usan cuando asesinan a niños y mujeres. Será eso lo que dice Krauze en la represión en Oaxaca, donde esa minoría que se cree española desdeña y asesina a los Oaxaqueños? Segun Krauze, la APPO estaria aplicando una politica de limpieza racial, lo cual es por demas una estupidez.

No tardaron los ‘medios de comunicación’ en candidatear a Mouriño para el 2012. En una verdadera sesión de besamanos se convirtió la noticia de la designación de el nuevo secretario de gobernación. No hubo posturas criticas entre los lectores de noticias, ni los noticieros estrella. Solo una serie de especulaciones sobre el futuro político del gasolinera de los litros de 800 mililitros.

Que si va para la grande, que si esto, que si lo otro. Algunos se apresuraron a presentar pruebas de su ‘mexicanidad’ como el universal que publico su acta de nacimiento y su prueba de nacionalidad. Lo cierto es que nadie lo conoce. Hasta tuvieron que convocar estos medios a quienes lo hubieran conocido a compartir alguna anécdota.

Entonces, debemos aceptar a alguien que nadie conoce, y que ni siquiera es mexicano, peor aun que se la ha pasado viviendo de robar a los mexicanos con su red de gasolineras milagrosas donde por puritito milagro le dan a uno 800 mililitros si no es que menos. Ya en gobernación, no podemos esperar otra cosa que gato por liebre.

two events,... from Amnesty International,...

2008-01-24T21:28:00.000Z

These next two emails are from Amnesty International, are invitations to take a look at Dafur situation and to demonstrate in Downing Street against Pakistan dictator Musharraf. I prefer to pass them on as they came, so you can have a look at those links by yourself. (Note by Wet_ahuizote)
Picture is from Oaxaca's Struggle,...

============= email No. 1 Hello, What with the violence and political turbulence in Kenya escalating, attention has definitely faded from the crisis in Darfur. But that doesnâ€™t mean that things in that part of Sudan have improved. Actually Amnesty International would argue that the conflict situation has got worse in 2007. Aid workers had their vehicles hijacked and some have been beaten up or even killed, while hundreds of thousands of ordinary Darfuris were forced to leave their homes and live in IDP camps. Women and girls remain very vulnerable to rape and sexual attack by armed forces. Tomorrow (Tuesday 22 Jan) Amnesty is publishing a new report drawing attention to concerns around the level of insecurity for men, women and children living in those camps. Itâ€™s a strong report revealing that the camps are awash with guns and other weapons; boys are being recruited into armed forces and women and girls who dare to step out of the camp to collect firewood are very vulnerable to sexual attack. The press release has more information on this â€“ should be up on this site first thing tomorrow: www.amnesty.org.uk/news You should be able to read the full report tomorrow via this link: www.amnesty.org.uk/crisis - check it out on Tuesday Frankly this isnâ€™t promising news, especially as Amnesty has been involved in so many global â€˜Days for Darfurâ€™ trying to draw attention to this crisis. Click through to the video on this page, that will give you an idea: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6604555.stm Although thereâ€™s a new UN-AU hybrid force in place, its efforts are being hampered by the Sudanese governmentâ€™s obstructive tactics and the lack of logistical support and appropriate equipment from the international community. Last year the US section of Amnesty International set up a compelling website which gives you a birdâ€™s eye view of the destruction caused in Darfur. When you get a chance, go to http://www.eyesondarfur.org/ for more info on this. It would be great if you could blog about this, as we need to do everything we can to keep this issue high up on the agenda. Thanks so much for your help. Thatâ€™s all for now but hopefully weâ€™ll be in touch again soon Bye for now

======Email No. 2 Hi there- Itâ€™s all go on Pakistan. President Musharraf arrives on these shores tomorrow (Friday) and is due to meet Gordon Brown on Monday. And then there are the elections scheduled in Pakistan on 18 February. The likelihood of those elections being free and fair elections looks pretty unlikely at the moment. During the recent State of Emergency, Musharraf dismissed most of the senior judges and replaced them all with his cronies. Heâ€™s also been responsible for detaining without trial thousands of lawyers, journalists and human rights activists. Tomorrow, weâ€™re issuing a press release condemning Musharrafâ€™s actions and stating our belief that Pakistan is on the brink of â€œpolitical catastropheâ€. The press release should be up on the Amnesty site first thing: www.amnesty.org.uk/news/ It goes into more detail about the wide range of human rights violations that are ongoing there and also what weâ€™re calling for. We could really do with these issues being spread far and wide, so it would be great if you could blog on this. In the meantime, details of our concerns can be found here http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/europe-must-call-musharraf-account-20080121. Then on Saturday (26th January), Amnesty is taking to the streets with a demonstration outside Downing Street. The event is being led by lawyers in support of their colleagues in Pakistan and starts at noon. Feel free to spread the word and do come along if you can. Thanks in advance - until next time,

Kenian situation is getting worse,....

2008-01-21T15:36:00.000Z

Next is taken from 'the vigilante journalist' and is a good explanation and pictures of how is Kenia now. Not much to say, but that things are worse and there is really very little hope for improvement within next month or so.

this is the link: http://vigilantejournalist.com/blog/

============

The Situation is Getting Worse

A man brandishing a Machete in Mathari North speaks in front of a crowd

Mathari North was an absolute nightmare today and it doesn’t look as though things will settle down anytime soon. ODM has called for a fresh round of mass action protests next week and killings have continued to occur at night and during the day on both sides. We are seeing an increased polarization of all the other tribes versus Kikuyu, and tension is mounting on all sides in all sectors. There is reason for concern that things will spiral out of control and that tribal animosity may spread to the middle classes and spill over into the streets of downtown Nairobi if leaders don’t do something fast to try to remedy the situation.

It is difficult to get a full body count for Mathari as many parts are so dangerous that journalists and aid workers are unable to go in. The last tally I received was 3 dead, and 12 seriously wounded for today, but killings are sure to continue through the night and into tomorrow. I was unable to ascertain the specific nature of all the reported wounded.

I arrived in Mathari North early in the evening at a horrific scene. A man accused of being a spy by a mixture of tribes (other than Kikuyu) laid in a pool of his own blood, still breathing, as bystanders continued to beat. His skull was bashed in and he stopped breathing just as we were leaving the scene. Two men lay dead in the street having suffered a similar fate not far away in another section of Mathari but we were unable to get to them due to the security situation.

There have been increasing reports that the Mungiki, a highly organized Kikuyu gang, have been active in Mathari and that they are being helped by the General Service Units (GSU) or Red Berets. It is alleged that they are being armed and given GSU uniforms by the latter and that they often come in after police raids to slash people. Members of tribes other than Kikuyu in Mathari say they have killed Mungiki members and suspected informants such as the man pictured below in order to protect their own people.

I spent the afternoon hanging about a makeshift displaced people’s camp on the main road to Mathari. There is virtually no security for those staying there, mostly Kikuyu who fled Mathari, and reports of attacks at night abound, though apparently no one has been injured as yet. Living conditions are abhorrent. Below are a few pictures from the camp.

Two Kikuyu men living in a makeshift tent just outside Mathari

Children peer through a car window in the refugee camp outside Mathari

GSU and AP units charge into a residential section of Kibera in Nairobi

AP units fire tear gas into a residential section of Kibera in Nairobi

Two lay dead after police fired live rounds into an unarmed crowd

A boy not involved in the protests was shot in the face inside his neighborhood by police

A teenage boy who was shot in the eye during protests in Kibera writhes in pain as he waits for an ambulance to arrive

Narconews report on Oaxaca,...

2008-01-21T10:08:00.000Z

Next report on Oaxaca’s situation highlights price raise as the element bringing back people on the streets. As I pointed out earlier, impacts on the poor are enormous if on the one hand government fails to promote creation of new jobs and hence households’ income struggle to cope with any adverse situation. Further, instead of proper policy, in Oaxaca there has been brutal repression of anyone who dares to raise his voice.

The good thing in all this is that people have got organised themselves and confronted government. APPO is an example of struggle,… the poor struggle against a system that impoverishes them even more. And the best part of it, all this is done appealing at the avoidance in the usage of firearms. It is, has been, and hopefully will continue to be a PEACEFUL movement towards democracy.

Understanding democracy as a system of decisions made by the people and consulted with the people, which are prone to affect peoples’ life. Sounds good, ehh?? Well that’s Oaxaca’s struggle now. (Note by Wet_Ahuizote)

------

A New Strategy for the Popular Movement in Oaxaca?
Something for Everyone as the APPO and the Teachers Hit the Streets for 2008

By Nancy DaviesCommentary from Oaxaca
January 18, 2008

A well-planned movement march of Oaxaca local Section 22 of the Mexican teachers’ union (SNTE in its Spanish initials) and the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) walked on January 16 from the stadium on Vasconcelos avenue at Niños Heroes de Chapultepec, to the zocalo in the center of Oaxaca, a distance of about two miles. Many parents carried children, and some little kids walked holding their mother’s hand. It was a day of “something for everyone”; the marchers represented the spectrum of civil society in Oaxaca. So did the solutions: demands to withdraw government imposition of higher costs or fewer benefits, and to maintain intact the historic city center.

The range of protests includes: removing price increases for basic foods such as tortillas, and for gasoline; freeing political prisoners; returning the disappeared alive; canceling changes to the national social security institute (the ISSSTE); protecting streets in the center of the city; rescinding the increase in bus fares; and handing the schools still held by the breakaway teachers union Section 59 (promoted by governor Ulises Ruiz, who the teachers and APPO tried to force out of office in their 2006 uprising) back to Section 22.

Leading the march were two university youngsters I recognized, one of whom I’ll call Luis. Luis has told me he is a Stalinist; he wears braces on his teeth, which indicates his parents are middle-class (and they are teachers). I often see him around Florentino Lopez of the communist Popular Revolutionary Front (FPR), but today I didn’t see Florentino. Luis was sucking a lollypop as he strolled along. Except for dental care, that was a good sign: a relaxed atmosphere. I also spotted the head of the human rights organization LIMEDDH, Yesica Sanchez, at a street corner going to join the march, and among the several reporters I saw Pedro Matias of Noticias de Oaxaca, who always covers the APPO beat.

Behind the two lead youngsters, a truck moved along with a loudspeaker, with alternating speakers from the APPO and the teachers. Marcelino Coache of the APPO proclaimed the reasons for the march: most important, to protest the new “ISSSTE Law,” which is a national modification of social security benefits. That law affects all government employees, not just teachers, and is nationally opposed. Tomorrow, Coache informed us, 7,000 Oaxaca teachers will head to Mexico City to join protests there.

Directly behind the truck came the families of political prisoners. Five are still captive, although repeated court orders have declared invalid the grounds for keeping the two APPO men, Flavio Sosa and David Venegas. The Oaxaca government, as fast as the court throws out one allegation, files another criminal charge against those two. The accusations fluctuate but tend to focus around sedition and setting fires. Sosa was arrested in December of 2006; Venegas was grabbed in April of 2007 – guilty of offending the ruling powers.

The families were followed by a body of teachers who come from the Central Valley and the Sierra Norte regions. Some were obviously feeling the obligatory attendance required by union decisions; some seemed vigorous and willing to shout the often heard slogan “shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow, we are all the APPO” (hombro con hombro, codo con codo, la APPO, la APPO, la APPO somos todos), plus the newer slogans which demand the rescinding of the one-peso increase in bus fares.

The bus fares, now 4.5 pesos each way, might not seem like much. But they come just after a minimum wage increase of only two pesos, the same as the difference for a round-trip the bus fare. Those two pesos represent a 29 percent bus fare hike, but only a four percent rise in wages. So, those who make the minimum of 50.96 pesos per day (about $4.70 in US dollars) and have to pay nine pesos a day to travel feel the pinch. The general cost of living has gone up in Oaxaca, which is one of the poorest states and whose capital city stands among the most expensive.

Also at issue is the almost ludicrous business of the parking meters, and the closing off of streets in the center to expand the pedestrian mall. The new mayor of Oaxaca City, Hernandez Fraguas, (from Governor Ruiz’ Institutional Revolutionary Party) admits that the parking meters represent a fiasco – they’ve been installed and uninstalled several times since 2006. Hernandez notes that not only do people not want them (those who have cars, plus the shops which would lose business to commercial malls), but the contracted beneficiaries of the profits are a private firm. This fact hints at the typical graft on the part of government officials. The meter machines themselves are a violation of the preservation of the historic city center. So Hernandez says the “contract” will be rescinded – maybe.

And lest we forget, the demand for the ouster of URO continues and is “irrevocable”. The families of the dead, tortured and disappeared proclaim, “We don’t forget and we don’t forgive.”

The clever part of the APPO strategy in all this was to link the parking meters with the closing of additional streets. Expanding the tourist pedestrian mall can only benefit expensive shops, restaurant and hotel owners who, the newspaper Noticias reported, plan three more five-star hotels. (If that involves investment by an international hotel chain, no one is saying so yet.) Small commercial shop-owners (think of an aquarium store with three kinds of tropical fish; think of a clothing shop where nothing costs more than twenty dollars) fear the prospect of being driven out of business – and now they can thank the APPO for taking up their cause.

Behind the teachers came the APPO activists, followed by the youth group Front of Youth and Student Organizations, and students for whom the fare raise is an important issue. A gun battle actually took place at the state university campus this week, of “thugs versus thugs,” and Noticias identified the two rival gangs. Subsequently one gang, whose members were identified by name, called in death threats to Noticias reporters. The gang dispute was over whether or not to sequester and/or burn the buses on the campus. Who hired the two sets of thugs is not known, but clearly rival motives were in play. Urban transport is owned by private persons. The government sent police to end the battle.

Red flags with hammer and sickle as usual brought up the rear of the APPO march, while the graffiti boys, wearing masks against the spray paint, dodged alongside marking the walls with the names of the political prisoners and the recently disappeared. (Since summer of 2007 one indigenous Chatino man, Lauro Juarez, and two Triqui sisters, Daniela and Virginia Ortiz Ramirez, have been disappeared. Also protested were the older disappearances of two members of the Popular Revolutionary Army; and other human rights violations).

The march was preceded and followed by the municipal transit police clearing the traffic. These are the same motorcycle cops who make sure that kindergarten children dressed up as bumblebees march safely – marches are the norm in Oaxaca where everything comes to a halt when a funeral takes the street with a marching band, or a children’s event passes. The hardcore state and preventive police were nowhere to be seen, and I take that as a sign that Governor Ruiz is not willing or able to play the hard hand in high tourist season. As an aside, the Human Rights Commission from Europe has scheduled another Oaxaca visit.

I spotted at least a hundred residents along the route who emerged to watch. Two men looked dismayed and frightened. Many looked bemused. Most looked curious and interested. That’s not what you would call a scientific study of Oaxaca public opinion, but my sense is that the public is united along the family’s economic issues, which the return of tourism in no way addresses; the APPO movement politic embraces their plight.

This seemed to me to be the best organized and most comprehensive march the APPO could have desired at this time in its existence. To revise the structure of the APPO and devise tactics to cope with the ongoing government of Ulises Ruiz, the council meets on January 19. The Popular Assembly of Oaxaca City neighborhoods meet this week, as does the Popular Assembly of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The important Oaxaca City issue: the neighborhoods, or colonias, elect representatives to the city council and don’t want PRIistas, or Institutional Revolutionary Party members. What they do want is an end to the neglect of streets, schools, and the water supply. The Isthmus is struggling with land and water issues caused by the foreign-owned wind-generators, the affects of the enlarged port infrastructure at Salina Cruz, and the juggernaut of “Plan Mexico.” This last, which is supposedly a war on narcotics, evokes at the moment the question of whether any of the Ministerial Police are not involved in drug trafficking; the murder rate has achieved horrendous proportions.

As the pundits endlessly repeat, since the causes of the 2006 uprising remain, the movement won’t vanish. That being so, it was nice to see that the APPO regrouping served well for the first megamarch of 2008: the more the problems, the more the community organizing.

About the shootout in Oaxaca university campus

2008-01-19T13:48:00.000Z

A shootout in Oaxaca university campus could not be compared with those that occurred in the United Sates. Although it involves people shooting, it does not imply that causes are the same, or nearly related.

While shootouts in the States are mainly done by some sort of lonesome students fed up with their life, (maybe mikey-mouse is no longer funny) in Oaxaca motives are far deep within the social structure.

It is about poverty, one could say as a way to identify one of the most important factors. Any rise in price of good and services has a negative impact on people’s everyday life by reducing their available income.

It so happens that in recent days a federal policy of raise the price of many goods and services has had this impact. Especially, growing gasoline prices has a domino effect on almost everything. From tortilla to industrial goods as transportation costs increase.

Opposing such measures, students at the University in Oaxaca (UABJO) organised themselves to demonstrate. However, this action presented an opportunity to intervene and discredit students’ movement by infiltrating some guys aiming at causing trouble so mass media could easily link students with violence and hence criminal actions.

But, experience is cumulative and students didn’t follow those provocations. Instead, they move aside and made clear that it was not their action to fight against police. Proof of that is the fact that students made a press communicate saying that shootings did not involved any of them.

Furthermore, police came to university and started firing at pretty much everything, they identified who was shooting and who didn’t and yet there were NO gunmen arrested. At least, people who was involved in the shooting.

Again, this fact strengthen my initial guess, that it was a provocation. Later on, one of those guys called the newspaper ‘Noticias de Oaxaca’, to threaten reporters who talked and wrote about the event. The guy is called ‘el dragon’ and walked free from the site along with the rest of his gang.

In the pictutes on the right, we can see policemen scrambling at the University campus,... (above)

this picture shows a group of students hiding from the shoots,..

This is 'el dragon' a kind of paramilitary who 'fought' police and then just walked away,... later on, he called a newspaper to threaten reportes' life,...

in this last picture, they guy in blue just walks out,... carrying his machine gun in a plastic bag.

and this is the report from 'noticias de oaxaca' news paper,...

Medio centenar de policías ministeriales y preventivos rescataron ayer seis unidades del transporte urbano de Ciudad Universitaria, que habían sido retenidos por integrantes de la Coordinadora Estudiantil Universitaria (CEU), en protesta por el aumento al precio del pasaje.

El rescate de las unidades se suscitó minutos después de que en las instalaciones universitarias se enfrentarán a balazos el grupo porril de Adrián Marmolejo (a) "El Dragón", "El Roger" y "El Gorila" contra los seguidores de Marcos Mateo Esteban Cruz (a) "El Aladín" y "El Krosty", quienes encabezaron la toma de camiones.

Incluso, cuando los policías ministeriales arribaron a Ciudad Universitaria fueron recibidos con disparos de armas de fuego, aunque la intervención policial no arrojó ningún herido ni detenidos.A las 14:50 horas, los militantes del CEU retuvieron los camiones marcados con los números A-576 y A-065 de la empresa Urbanos de Oaxaca, A-740, A-732 y A-048 de la TUSUG, A-009 de la Chóferes del Sur, cinco de los cuales introdujeron al estacionamiento de la Escuela de Enfermería y uno ocuparon para bloquear la Avenida Universidad, en el carril de sur a norte.

En entrevista, los inconformes informaron que la toma de autobuses era para exigir que se cobre un peso a todos los estudiantes, 2 pesos a las personas de la tercera edad y 4 pesos al pasaje normal.Cubiertos del rostro con playeras, responsabilizaron a Alejandra Gómez Candiani, Erasmo Medina y Moisés Villanueva de cualquier agresión que sufrieran por parte de los porros de "El Dragón", "a quienes ya compraron para proteger las unidades del transporte urbano".

Mientras recogían piedras para defenderse de una probable agresión, exigieron a las autoridades del estado la instalación de una mesa de negociación para liberar las unidades del transporte y desbloquear la calle.Una hora después, a las 15:50 horas, el grupo que retenía los camiones fue agredidos a balazos por los porros que comanda "El Dragón", que se habían mantenido a la expectativa en los alrededores de la Facultad de Contaduría y Administración.

_____and there is more,...

PRD exige garantizar Libertad de ExpresiónCÉSAR MORALES NIÑO

La fracción legislativa del PRD en el Congreso local, condenó ayer las agresiones a los reporteros del periódico NOTICIAS y exigió al Estado garantizar la Libertad de Expresión.

El coordinador de la diputación priísta, Jesús Romero López, lamentó que quienes portaron armas de grueso calibre al interior de Ciudad Universitaria ahora amenacen a los reporteros por dar a conocer esa información.

"El Estado tiene que garantizar el derecho a la Libertad de Expresión y prensa, pero además tiene la obligación de resolver el problema que creó por autorizar el alza al precio del pasaje", asentó el legislador.

____ and,...

Ayer, a las 12:12 horas, del teléfono celular 0449511296345, un sujeto que afirmó ser el porro conocido como "El Dragón", amenazó de muerte a los reporteros de esta casa editorial Mario Jiménez Leyva y Luis Ignacio Velásquez por la información difundida en NOTICIAS, Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca, respecto el enfrentamiento suscitado entre porros en Ciudad Universitaria el pasado martes 15 de enero.

_____but,...

all this is beyond my understanding,.. how can be possible that a big number of police come to the university. To stop the guys who were shooting, I guess,.. then they not only confronted those guys, but also shoot ant identifyied them. But, NO arrests were done.

If you walk on the street in Oaxaca and you look like support APPO struggle, for sure you are arrested, and probably beaten. Or, if it happens that you have something pending with justice, chances are that you are going to be shot by police as this report shows,... It is about four policemen who came to a village to arrest somebody, but, despite the fact that the guy was unarmed at home, police just got there and kill the man, with no more allegations. It was a plain execution on the spot. Just as the Brazilian guy who was executed by scotland yard in the tube in London,... well that's another story,..

SANTA CRUZ DE JUÁREZ, HUAUTLA, OAXACA.- Marcelino García García, de 53 años de edad, que se dedicaba a la quiebra de piedra que vendía como grava en esta localidad, fue asesinado de cuatro balazos R-15 por un grupo de policías ministeriales que llegaron de Huautla en cuatro camionetas cerradas (tipo suburban), supuestamente para ejecutar una orden de aprehensión.

El pasado domingo en la madrugada Marcelino García García dormía en la vivienda de sus hijos, en el paraje "Agua de Hierba", que se localiza arriba de la carretera que va a Huautla de Jiménez y que se halla aproximadamente a un kilómetro del centro de esta población de Santa Cruz de Juárez.Según Aurora Martínez García, una humilde mujer de 44 años de edad y hoy viuda, dijo a NOTICIAS que su marido fue asesinado en el patio de la humilde vivienda de lámina donde acostumbraba a dormir solo, ya que la casa es de sus hijos que radican en el Distrito Federal, y el difunto solo la cuidaba.

Aseguró que ella se encontraba durmiendo y despertó sobresaltada, luego de escuchar fuertes detonaciones de balazos y gritos de gente que provenían de la casa de abajo, donde se quedaba a dormir su marido Marcelino García García.

Escuchó que las personas gritaban y echaban balazos, decían que eran policías ministeriales, pero no quiso bajar por temor a recibir algún tiro.

Dijo que por eso prefirió correr hacia la calle e irse a esconder, y regresó hasta que cesó la balacera, cuando vio que los ministeriales ya se iban con rumbo a Huautla, a bordo de cuatro camionetas. Fue cuando descubrió que su marido Marcelino García García se encontraba tirado en el patio de la vivienda y ensangrentado, con huellas de haber recibido diversos tiros de arma de fuego, en el cuello, brazo derecho y en el costado derecho.

"Cuando lo toqué todavía estaba caliente, pero ya estaba muerto", expresó la humilde mujer, quien posteriormente fue auxiliada por sus familiares y vecinos, quienes llamaron al sindico municipal de Huautla de Jiménez, Salvador Viveros Carrera, quien fue el que ordenó levantar el cadáver del campesino para que fuese metido dentro de la vivienda, aún cuando no se le había practicado la necrosis de ley, hasta el lunes a las seis de la tarde.

La viuda, Aurora Martínez García precisó que los policías ministeriales no llegaron a ejecutar la orden de aprehensión que había contra su difunto marido, sino prácticamente llegaron a matarlo. En virtud de que la vivienda donde se encontraba descansando, presentaba dos perforaciones de bala calibre R-15, por las postas de los cartuchos percutidos que se encontraron en el patio, así como de dos perforaciones que realizaron los ministeriales en la humilde vivienda de lámina. Uno que atravesó el lado derecho donde se hallaba colocada la puerta y otro más del lado izquierdo que perforó también un pedazo de tubular que se hallaba recargado en la pata de una mesa.

Tras eso, pidió una investigación seria de estos hechos, dado a que el grupo de policías ministeriales que supuestamente fueron comisionados por la Procuraduría General de justicia (PGJ) para ejecutar una orden de aprehensión contra del que fue su conyugue, resultaron "unos judiciales asesinos". En el lugar encontraron una placa de identificación con la leyenda "Policía Ministerial" y la razón social de la PGJ del estado de Oaxaca.

Aseveró que su marido efectivamente tenía cuentas pendientes con la justicia, pero dijo que si los policías ministeriales traían la orden de agarrar a Marcelino García García, lo podrían haber hecho de manera como lo marca la ley, "pero no asesinarlo como a un perro, porque primero lo sacaron de la casa y luego lo mataron en el patio".

More violence in Oaxaca,...

2008-01-16T05:25:00.000Z

Reading in http://www.elsenderodelpeje.com/ I learn that open violence in Oaxaca has stroke again. It is not clear to me what or why this is happening. In the report it is said that problems arose when students oppose a rise in bus fares.

Indymedia just publishes a note saying that this is a provocation. It suggest that those groups shooting are but infiltrated trying to generate a climate of violence.

from indymedia,...

Please forward
Today, before the beginning of a youth march for the liberation of political prisoners, Urbam Paramilitaries (porros) have initiated a series of provocations to defame the social movement. Known as urban paramilitaries Identified as Aladin, Crusty, have occupied and burned at least two buses, to provoke violence before the march, and other urban paramilitaries have began to open fire at UABJO the Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca. Students are being force out of class rooms and clashes have ensued. The youth march is scheduled for 4 pm and is beginning to get together. Students and organizers are copncerned for their safety, seeing as how these tactics of provocation always lead to violence in peaceful actions. Please post widely and remain vigilant.

Other media such as 'milenio diario' reports that students at Oaxaca Autonomous University (UABJO) kidnapped at least six buses and shoot at police forces. I have some trouble in buying this story for some reasons.

Firstly, university students or the main student’s organisations are part of APPO.

Secondly, APPO has always asked all their supporters and members NOT to use violence as this only mean deteriorating the already bad human rights situation in the sate.

Third, along the conflict there have been several attempts to break APPO unity by undertaking provocations such as burning buildings and being involved in shoot outs, these actions, however, are carried out by paramilitary, and infiltrated.

And finally, and perhaps this involve not only Oaxaca but the country as a whole. Mexican situation now is tense due to the ongoing process of privatising energy sector enterprises: Mexican petroleum (PEMEX), federal commission of electricity (CFE), and centre light and force (LFE), (own translation,…). In the light of these, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has called for national action against privatisation.

Creating problems in the country can divide and weaken that movement opposing the selling. It would not be a surprise to learn that conflicts elsewhere in Mexico are motivated with this aim. Cananea strike, the killings by narcotics, and many more could be explained under this framework of generating division to prevent formation of a strong opposition.

Who is behind this? The more shallow figures are of course, those in charge of implementing such provocations. Ulises Ruiz, in Oaxaca, Bours in Sonora, and many more, but, are they really benefiting from all this violence? I believe that of course these guys benefit by having free hands to steal whatever they want, and by holding regional political power. However, the bottom line here is that only petroleum and energy firms such as Shell, Texaco, Enron, and others are to benefit.

Selling Mexican assets is an ongoing business and it is necessary to prevent opposition by any mean, even killing open population. I think that this is a very well known signature that most countries have witnesed,... it is CIA in action.

Times ahead in Mexico will be difficult and it is time for the different social movements to unite and organise themselves. Otherwise, further divisions would arise,... (Comment by wet_ahuizote)

Sí Magú, PEMEX es ineficiente,… se le quitará privatizándolo?

2008-01-14T21:27:00.000Z

Pocas veces me detengo más de tres minutos frente a una caricatura política,… a menos que sea muy buena. Sin embargo el cartón de Magú que publica hoy 14 de enero no solo me hizo detenerme un poco y reflexionar sobre su contenido, sino que también me hizo pensar sobre los cambios que vendrán.

Cinco minutos antes había comprobado en una nota de ‘la jornada’, y eso me causó un retortijón, que a los diputados del pri y del pan ya les urge que se abra el sector energético a la inversión privada.

En su cartón Magú se suma a la postura de estos diputados, que de paso sea dicho es la postura de Calderón. Son cuatro los principios que esgrime en su intento de argumento a favor de la privatización.

‘El petróleo esta en manos del gobierno que lo dilapida’, dice Magú. Bueno, si es cierto que en PEMEX hay un derroche de recursos como las ordeñas autorizadas de gasolina. Eso nomás para hablar de lo evidente. Un poco menos evidente es el manejo de los recursos financieros que provienen de PEMEX. Fox nunca dijo que paso con los excedentes petroleros, Calderón parece que tampoco. Pero, que no esto es cuestión de poner a alguien lo suficientemente honrado a cuidar este negocio?

‘Esta en manos de hacienda, que lo exprime’. Esta afirmación es parte mentira. Los recursos que si logran llegar al presupuesto nacional son de alrededor del 40% del total del dinero que se gasta en el país. Es decir, los recursos del petróleo benefician a los mexicanos en su conjunto. Pero que pasa con el resto de los excedentes petroleros. Fox dijo que los iba a destinar a reinversión en la propia empresa para hacerla competitiva. Al contrario, nomás se robó el dinero o lo repartió a sus amigos en forma de devoluciones de impuestos. Otra vez, esto es motivo para privatizar? Yo creo que NO. Esto es motivo para reestructurar fiscalizar la empresa. Pensaba escribir que con mayor eficiencia, pero creo firmemente que con que se fiscalice estaría bien para empezar.

‘Esta en manos del sindicato petrolero quien lo saquea’, continua el buen Magú. La corrupción sindical es una realidad que salta en cualquier análisis de PEMEX, pero, que no los lideres sindicales son corruptos porque se alían con partidos políticos, léase pri y pan? Que no seria un buen inicio el meter a la cárcel a esos lideres tan señalados por corruptos en lugar de aliarse con ellos, como lo ha hecho Calderón?

‘Pero ya estamos para defenderlo si alguien quiere cambiar esas condiciones’. En esta afirmación, Magú no solo pretende hacer mofa de quienes creemos que el petróleo bajo ninguna circunstancia debe privatizarse, sino que además muestra una gran ignorancia del la respuesta social hacia esa nueva campaña privatizadora. Pretender hacer creer que lo que se defiende es el estado de corrupción que priva. No alcanza a entender que si México ha logrado cierto nivel de desarrollo no es gracias a las ideas brillantes de los presidentes que hemos padecido, sino a los recursos del petróleo que no han dejado de fluir a pesar de tanta corrupción y manoseo.

Defendemos el que haya recursos en las generaciones futuras que puedan pagar los sueldos de los maestros, sin que eso signifique que defendamos a Elba Esther gordillo y su pandilla de rateros. Defendemos que haya hospitales en los que se pueda atender a millones de mexicanos que no tendrían recursos para pagar los hospitales privados. Defendemos que haya avances científicos y tecnológicos, y que nuestros estudiantes tengan la oportunidad de formarse en México o en el extranjero a niveles comparables con cualquier país desarrollado. Defendemos que no se nos quite la única oportunidad real de financiar mil y un proyectos más. Y eso es algo que nadie puede negar, el petróleo representa eso precisamente: la posibilidad de financiar el desarrollo de México. Cuesta mucho entender eso Magú?

y aqui la nota de la jornada,... (comment by Wet_ahuizote)

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2008/01/14/index.php?section=politica&article=010n2pol

Diputados de AN quieren gas además del crudo en la “reforma” energética
Enrique Méndez

PRI y PAN en la Comisión de Energía de la Cámara de Diputados iniciaron la discusión de los alcances de una reforma energética, y el presidente de esa instancia legislativa, el panista David Maldonado, consideró que las modificaciones legales deben incluir la participación de la iniciativa privada no sólo en exploración de pozos, sino también en la producción y explotación de gas natural.

Aun cuando el tricolor ha anticipado que será en el Senado donde los priístas presentarán su propia iniciativa, los diputados de ambos partidos señalaron que no deben esperar a que en esa cámara se discuta el proyecto respectivo. Además, según los panistas, la reforma implicaría al menos la modificación de 10 leyes, pues además de Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) pretenden incluir en la “reforma” la Comisión Federal de Electricidad y Luz y Fuerza del Centro.

El priísta Marco Antonio Bernal, integrante de la comisión, dijo que su partido está en favor de “mecanismos de modernización en Pemex”, y ante las coincidencias, ambas bancadas llegarán al próximo periodo de sesiones, que empieza en febrero con una posición definida, una vez que aprueben sus agendas legislativas en sus respectivas plenarias.

Mientras, los diputados de esos grupos parlamentarios ya se han adelantado a expresar que están en busca de los “consensos necesarios” para negociar una específica reforma energética, y anticiparon que buscarán coordinarse con los senadores afines para negociar una sola posición.
De entrada, los panistas como Maldonado González consideran que, además de modificar el régimen fiscal de Pemex, deben considerarse cambios para la participación de la iniciativa privada en extracción de petróleo y explotación de gas natural, pero también en generación de energía eléctrica, e inclusive en importación de energía.

Sus compañeros de partido, Jorge Nordhausen y Luis Mejía afirmaron que el PAN en San Lázaro buscará plantear una “reforma de largo alcance”, para no esperar a que el presidente Felipe Calderón o el PRI en la Cámara de Senadores presenten sus respectivas iniciativas.

“No creo que sea suficiente esperar a que el Ejecutivo se pronuncie o que los senadores nos digan lo que tienen; ya es hora de entrarle al paquete de reformas que contempla alrededor de 10 leyes”, dijo Nordhausen, quien ha hecho carrera en empresas privadas.

Luis Mejía afirmó que la Constitución ya permite la inversión privada en generación de energía, y que una reforma legal sólo delimitaría los alcances de la participación de capitales en CFE o Luz y Fuerza.

Marco Antonio Bernal consideró que el gobierno de Calderón debe definir su propuesta de iniciativa legal en materia energética, para conocer los ejes fundamentales del proyecto gubernamental, así como las leyes y artículos específicos que pretende que el Congreso apruebe para que las bancadas hagan valoraciones propias.

Sin embargo, los diputados Emilio Ulloa y Rafael Sánchez expresaron que, pese a algunas posiciones en el PRD, esa bancada en San Lázaro no permitirá que se entreguen Pemex, CFE y Luz y Fuerza a empresas privadas, y mucho menos a extranjeros. “No estamos de acuerdo siquiera en discutir una reforma energética si sólo se pretende impulsar el régimen privatizador, sin tomar en cuenta el desarrollo del país”, dijo Rafael Sánchez.

Ulloa, por su parte, denunció que como ocurrió en la época de Elba Esther Gordillo en la coordinación priísta en San Lázaro, Emilio Gamboa Patrón impondrá a su bancada la idea de votar en favor de la “reforma” energética. “Así lo hicieron con el régimen de pensiones del IMSS, del ISSSTE y ahora nos quieren dar la puntilla. La pregunta es el precio que les pagarán por su voto a los priístas”, expresó.

liberated after five months in prison,.... what a deal!

2008-01-12T04:04:00.000Z

(pictures are from different moments in APPO struggel)
Last December 14th I received an email from somebody who was just being liberated in Oaxaca. She spent five months and five days in prison for a crime she didn’t commit.

Below is a list of persons who were freed. It is impossible not to ask how is possible that this entire people spent more than five months in prison and yet at the end they are told ‘sorry it was a mistake’? Who is responsible for this? Where is all this going? Why do people endure such aggressions without fighting back in a bigger armed movement?

Perhaps because despite they can fight back with violence, they decided not to do so. It is a admirable political decision. But is it worthy? What is at stake if armed violence happens? For sure, repression. a massacre? Maybe.

My belief is that Ulises Ruiz government actions are based upon revenge against anyone who dares to raise his voice to claim for justice. This environment fills every single of Oaxacan’s life. Is not easy even to go out and not to be afraid of being attacked, arrested, and kidnapped or who knows what else. The tragedy is that wrongdoers are those that supposedly look after peace and order: the police.

I also believe that both federal and state government have bet all they have on provoking revolts so they can have an excuse to use violence widely as in the case of San Salvador Atenco. Only Oaxacan’s sensible attitude has prevented this situation from being a bloody exemplification for the country and beyond.

Adrián Bautista Espinosa,
Avelino Solano Luján,
Agustín Cruz Bautista,
Alberto Santiago Rivera,
Roque Coca Gómez,
Raúl Matías,
Elia Coca Gómez,
Aurora Ruiz García,
San Pérez María,
Hilda Coca Gómez,
Nickel Santiago Rivera,
Jorge Sánchez García,
César Pérez López,
Javier Alvarez Ramírez,
Cristian Marcel Cebolledo Gutiérrez,
Jairo Vásquez García,
Jovita Sánchez Cruz,
Edith Coca Soriano
María del Socorro Cruz Alarcón, entre otros.

here the note from noticias de Oaxaca,... (Note by Wet_ahuizote)

Viernes 14 de diciembre de 2007. Núm. 11084

Dicta Juzgado de Distrito el auto de libertad a 24 appistas
OCTAVIO VÉLEZ ASCENCIO
El Juzgado Tercero de Distrito en el Estado dejó sin efecto el auto de formal prisión dictado por un juez local a 26 simpatizantes de la Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO) y quedaron en libertad absoluta.
Alba Cruz Ramos, abogada del Comité de Liberación "25 de Noviembre", creado por el pintor Francisco Toledo, informó que los seguidores del movimiento magisterial y popular fueron detenidos por la Policía Federal Preventiva (PFP), el 25 de noviembre del 2006, y acusados de los delitos de sedición y resistencia de particulares, para posteriormente ser internados en el reclusorio regional de Miahuatlán de Porfirio Díaz, Oaxaca, y después en el penal de federal de mediana seguridad de San José del Rincón, Nayarit.Expuso que el Juzgado Primero de lo Penal dictó auto de formal prisión a todos ellos en junio pasado y así quedaron bajo proceso penal, aunque la mayoría había salido de la cárcel por el pago de una fianza de 280 mil pesos con 77 centavos.
La caución, señaló, fue pagada inicialmente por la Procuraduría de Defensa del Indígena de la administración estatal por medio de una afianzadora y después por la Sección 22 del Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE) y por el Comité de Familiares de Asesinados, Desaparecidos y Presos Políticos de Oaxaca (Cofadappo) y por familiares, a través de colectas en el llamado "Kilómetro del Peso por la Libertad de los Presos Políticos y de Conciencia".
Ante esto, dijo que el Comité de Liberación "25 de Noviembre" interpuso un juicio de amparo en contra del auto de formal prisión y después de analizar el proceso penal, el Juzgado Tercero de Distrito en el Estado resolvió en el expediente 1151/2007 dejar en libertad a los simpatizantes de la APPO por falta de elementos para ser procesados.
Cruz Ramos dijo que la decisión fue remitida al Juzgado Primero de lo Penal y este día notificó al Comité de Liberación "25 de Noviembre" el cumplimiento de la ejecutoria, al ordenar a la dirección del reclusorio regional de Miahuatlán de Porfirio Díaz, Oaxaca, librar la boleta de libertad correspondiente.Entre los simpatizantes de la APPO favorecidos por el amparo de la justicia federal, se encuentran Adrián Bautista Espinosa, Avelino Solano Luján, Agustín Cruz Bautista, Alberto Santiago Rivera, Roque Coca Gómez, Raúl Matías, Elia Coca Gómez, Aurora Ruiz García, San Pérez María, Hilda Coca Gómez, Nickel Santiago Rivera, Jorge Sánchez García, César Pérez López, Javier Alvarez Ramírez, Cristian Marcel Cebolledo Gutiérrez, Jairo Vásquez García, Jovita Sánchez Cruz, Edith Coca Soriano y María del Socorro Cruz Alarcón, entre otros.

Violent climate in Oaxaca???

2008-01-11T04:56:00.000Z

Well next is from 'noticias de Oaxaca', it reports that policemen arrested three men from APPO. They were beaten and then accused of illegally having firearms in the car they were travelling.

Later on they were released, apparently due to lack of evidence. Lack of evidence???? I believe that it was a warning. They were beaten by police in an attempt to exemplify how APPO supporters are going to be treated at any time.

The report also says that on january 7th Marcelino Coache, adviser to APPO (Popular Assambly of the People of Oaxaca) was knifed twice, one in the hand and the other in the stomach.

The attackers were two guys 1.70 military style hair,.. probably police, paramilitary, or hitmen. 'They are all the same', said Coache.

The attack took place when Coache was getting out of his car and about to go to a stall of tacos, at about 21 hours. The aggressors came from the back, hit, and left the place.

Aggressions like this had happened to Coache three times since he left Cosalapa jail, and furthermore that in one of those occasions Alejandro Barrita Ortiz participated. He is the director of bank and industrial police group.

That is life in Oaxaca; you cannot walk without taken the risk of being beaten, robbed, or jailed, unless you are a tourist. So if you plan to go on holiday, don't be afraid to do so, policemen will do all they can to keep you apart from Oaxacans.

here is the report from Noticias,...(Note by We_ahuizote)
________________
Agentes de la Policía Federal Preventiva (PFP) y de la Unidad Policial de Operaciones Especiales (UPOE) de la policía estatal, detuvieron la noche del viernes a Erick Sosa Villavicencio y dos hermanos de César Mateos Benítez, consejero estatal de la Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO), sobre la carretera Ciudad Alemán-Puerto Ángel, en inmediaciones del municipio conurbado de Ánimas Trujano, a unos cinco kilómetros de esta ciudad.

Los tres hombres fueron golpeados y acusados de transportar armas en el vehículo donde se desplazaban, pero después quedaron en libertad en el cuartel de la Dirección General de Seguridad Pública del Estado sin ningún cargo.

Mientras tanto, otro consejero estatal del movimiento magisterial y popular, Marcelino Coache Verano, fue acuchillado la noche del sábado en el estómago y en la mano por presuntos policías estatales y porros en jurisdicción de Santa Lucía del Camino, otra municipalidad conurbada.

"Estos no son hechos aislados, son parte de la ofensiva represiva de los gobiernos federal y estatal", acusó uno de los portavoces de la APPO, Florentino López Martínez.

Culpó directamente al presidente Felipe Calderón Hinojosa y al gobernador Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, "por la complicidades entre los dos gobiernos para golpear a la APPO".

En conferencia de prensa, César Mateos Benítez, ex preso del penal federal de San José del Rincón, Nayarit, dijo que sus hermanos Ayax e Hiram, junto con Erick Sosa Villavicencio ---hermano de Flavio de los mismos apellidos--- se trasladaban alrededor de las 23:15 horas en un vehículo marca Honda, color verde, del municipio de San Bartolo Coyotepec a esta ciudad.

"Mis hermanos acababan de llegar el viernes en el último vuelo de la Ciudad de México y no están vinculados con la APPO; se encontraron con Erick (en San Bartolo Coyotepec) porque se conocen de toda la vida y al dirigirse a la ciudad a hacer unas compras a un centro comercial, una patrulla de la PFP y varias de la policía estatal les cerraron el paso en la carretera para detenerlos ilegalmente", señaló.

Expuso que los policías, la mayoría encapuchados, justificaron el arresto de sus hermanos y de Erick Sosa Villavicencio ---ex preso del penal federal de Matamoros, Tamaulipas---, a un supuesto reporte recibido sobre la presencia de hombres armados en un vehículo de similares características.

"Cuando mi hermano Ayax (especialista en medicina interna del Centro Médico Nacional) se identificó, uno de los agentes de la PFP ofreció disculpas y procedió a retirarse por no encontrarse nada en el coche, pero los policías estatales los empezaron a golpear y ante esto, el federal regresó y pidió que no los golpearan. Al identificarse los tres, el comandante les preguntó ¿qué casualidad que anden juntos los hermanos de Flavio Sosa y César Mateos? ¿qué hacían juntos? Y sin haber cometido algún delito, se los llevaron", refirió.

Precisó que en el cuartel de la Dirección General de Seguridad Pública, fueron fichados y se les practicó a los tres pruebas de rodizonato de sodio para cerciorarse si habían disparado alguna arma de fuego.

Alrededor de las dos de la madrugada, anotó, fueron dejados en libertad porque no se les pudo imputar algún delito.

Destacó que el procurador general de Justicia, Evencio Nicolás Martínez Ramírez y la subsecretaria de Derechos Humanos, Rosario Villalobos Rueda, acudieron al cuartel de la Dirección General de Seguridad Pública al enterarse de su detención e incluso, conminaron a sus hermanos y a Erick Sosa Villavicencio a presentar una denuncia penal por los hechos.

Responsabilizó del arresto al secretario de Seguridad Pública, Sergio Segreste Ríos, ex presidente de la Comisión Estatal de Derechos Humanos, "por ser el principal represor en Oaxaca".

"Incluso, el propio comandante que encabezó la detención dijo que la detención era por órdenes de su jefe", indicó.

Por su parte, Marcelino Coache Verano denunció que fue agredido alrededor de las 21:15 horas cuando descendía de una camioneta de su propiedad sobre la avenida Camino Nacional, para dirigirse a un taquería a cenar.

"Al bajar, sentí un empujón por la espalda que me hizo que me golpeara en la frente y al voltear para ver de que se trataba, me dieron una patada en la boca y un hombre que tenía un cuchillo me lanzó un golpe y al tratar de pararlo me cortó en la mano, pero a pesar de eso me provocó una herida en el estómago. No me dijeron nada, nada más me golpearon e hirieron", apuntó.

Ante las lesiones sufridas, refirió, se trasladó a un centro hospitalario para ser atendido y más tarde fue dado de alta.

Explicó que en la agresión participaron dos hombres con corte de pelo tipo policía de una estatura aproximada de 1.70 metros.

"Pueden ser policías, pero también porros, casi son lo mismo", añadió.

Coache Verano dijo que esta es la tercera agresión sufrida tras salir de la prisión estatal de Cosolapa, donde en dos de ellas participó directamente el director de la Policía Auxiliar, Bancaria, Industrial y Comercial (Pabic), Alejandro Barrita Ortiz.

Now EFE says that

2008-01-11T03:43:00.000Z

Indians release mayor-elect in Mexico

EFE Ingles Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Oaxaca, Mexico, Jan 1 (EFE).- A group of Indians in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca released the mayor-elect of their town "without any conditions" after having taken the man hostage, binding his hands and feet, the state's political affairs secretary, Joaquin Rodriguez, said.

On Monday, a group linked to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and led by Angelina Benitez and Ines Cruz Nava tied up Heladio Cruz, the mayor-elect of the town of La Trinidad Zaachila, located eight kilometers (five miles) south of Oaxaca city, the state capital.

Rodriguez said the mayor-elect's opponents acted aggressively, but his inauguration on Tuesday was "not subject to negotiation because Cruz won the election."

The political affairs secretary said, however, that the inauguration ceremony might be held somewhere other than city hall to prevent further problems.

The Indians, who belong to the PRI, oppose letting a member of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, take office and have occupied city hall.

Rodriguez said measures, including "constant police patrols," were being taken in Oaxaca's 570 municipalities to ensure that the inaugurations of officials could take place unimpeded on New Year's Day.

Cruz won the municipal elections last October and is to be sworn in on Tuesday.

Last week, PRD supporters in La Trinidad Zaachila took outgoing Mayor Oriol Garcia Gonzalez, who is accused of misappropriation of funds, hostage. The mayor was released after the state government intervened in the dispute.

Over the weekend, an Indian leader was killed and a mayor-elect emerged unscathed from an assassination attempt in separate incidents in Oaxaca, police said, adding that one person died in the failed attack on the incoming municipal official.

Ramiro Francisco Perez, a leader of the MULT Indian political movement, was killed Sunday in Santiago Juxtlahuaca, a community in the Mixtec region, located about 220 kilometers (137 miles) east of Oaxaca city, the state capital.

Police said several individuals opened fire on Perez while he was standing in front of his house.

MULT has been battling for power in the region with the rival Ubisort movement, and Perez ran for mayor of Santiago Juxtlahuaca, where residents elect their leaders in a traditional assembly and not at the ballot box.

Tecomaxtlahuaca Mayor-elect Rigoberto Guadalupe Rivera, meanwhile, was the target of an attack that left a man accompanying him, identified as Hilario Benito Navarro, dead from several bullet wounds, police said.

Navarro was the municipal agent, or top official, in the Indian town of Yucuindi.

On Tuesday, new mayors will be inaugurated in 561 of Oaxaca's 570 municipalities, of which 418 use traditional election methods and 152 use the ballot box.

Oaxaca is one of Mexico's poorest states and is also the one with the largest Indian population, in terms both of absolute numbers and as a proportion of the total inhabitants. EFE

ora/hv

____

So, for EFE agency violence in Oaxaca is due to ethnic differences,.. hhmmmmm,... what about the proliferation of paramilitary groups (from pri). It seems to me that EFE report builds upon disinformation,... it fails to report that there has been a conflict for months, and that pri-supporters regard anyone from 'leftist' prd as their enemy. But that is not all, the conflic goes well beyond partisan hates,... it reaches ordinary people that don't belong to any party.

it has also reached not only the basement of Oaxaquenian society, but some upper class families. For example next is a story of child abuse, to a family that is not necessarily poor or sympathetic with APPO social movement, well at least not till this happend.

the case is that a five year old boy was repeteadily raped by the IT-teacher and other whose name is unknown. It all happened at San Felipe college. The problem is that this school has two powerful lawyers, Jorge and Georgina Franco whose connections with both federal and state goverment have prevented the case to go forward.

So, I think EFE mislead the note and miserably fails in reporting an environment of corruption that affects every aspect of life in Oaxaca.

Furthermore, even the major of the municipality is involved in abusing children from that school, and there seems to be more than three children abused. It is also beleived that those criminals gave them some sort of drug for then rape them with no much opposition.

here is the note: http://www.noticias-oax.com.mx/articulos.php?id_sec=1&id_art=58589&id_ejemplar=1637

and Next is the description of the events that Leticia Valdez Martell mother of the boy has been through,...

is taken from noticas de Oaxaca, link
http://www.noticias-oax.com.mx/articulos.php?id_sec=5&id_art=56731&id_ejemplar=1573

ERNESTO REYES

La historia reciente de un nuevo caso de pederastia comenzó el domingo 23 de septiembre cuando en Noticias, Voz e imagen de Oaxaca, se hace pública la denuncia de la señora Leticia Valdés Martell sobre la presunta violación de su hijo, de 5 años de edad, en el Instituto San Felipe y señala la presunta colusión de las autoridades de la escuela, de sus influyentes abogados ( los señores Jorge Franco Vargas y Georgina Franco), de la Procuraduría de Justicia del estado y de la Fiscalía Especializada en Delitos contra la Mujer.

En el relato periodístico presentado con fotocopias de los exámenes médicos practicados al menor, así como de la averiguación previa radicada en el primer turno de la Agencia del Ministerio Público con el número 191/DS/2007, se da voz a la madre, quien refiere que en septiembre de 2006, un mes después que su hijo ingresó al segundo grado de preescolar del Instituto, comenzó a sufrir cambios drásticos en su comportamiento:

"Llegaba aterrado a la escuela, se sujetaba del asiento de mi camioneta y no quería bajar para entrar en clases. Incluso se pasaba al asiento trasero. A la salida de clases mi hijo estaba desarreglado, sucio, despeinado y con sus ojos enrojecidos, signos de que había llorado. Sentía mucho miedo y llorando se aferraba a mí"

"Por las noches no dormía. Le daba miedo la oscuridad y cuando lo dominaba el sueño presentaba pesadillas. En paralelo a ello, comenzó a sentir constantes dolores en las piernas, espalda y glúteos."

La madre asienta que " el siete de noviembre del mismo año, fue la fecha más trágica de mi vida pues al pasar por mi hijo a la escuela lo noté sumamente triste. Al llegar a casa no comió. Se acostó en el sofá y permaneció dormido hasta las 18: 00 horas. El menor pidió ir al baño pero también mostró miedo porque le dolía mucho evacuar. Pensé que estaba estreñido. Lo senté en el retrete, el niño se aferró fuertemente con sus manos a mi cuerpo, hacía fuerzas al grado de sudar ( pero) al final exclamó: Mamá, ya pude".

Las cosas que vio la madre y que pudo constatar cuando tomó el papel higiénico para limpiar al menor, le aterraron, por lo que llamó por teléfono a su padre, un reconocido urólogo de esta ciudad capital, quien al examinarlo recomendó llevarlo a una valoración proctológica con el médico Carlos Mario Aragón Ziga, especialista en cirugía gastrointestinal.

El diagnóstico del médico, fue puesto a prueba en el examen de laboratorio realizado por el patólogo clínico Miguel Ángel Reyes Núñez en el cual se ofrecen los caracteres físicos observados.

Ante el impacto, refiere la madre, su abuelo recomendó que antes de acudir a la vía judicial para exteriorizar el hecho, era necesario que su hijo recibiera atención especializada en conducta.

Por ello el psiquiatra Juan Manuel Hermoso Limón se hizo cargo del niño a partir del 13 de noviembre de 2006. Pero sería hasta los primeros días de mayo pasado, cuando la señora Leticia acudió a la Fiscalía Especializada en Delitos Sexuales, donde en presencia de una perito psicóloga y mediante la mecánica de juegos, el pequeño pudo declarar que había sufrido abuso sexual por parte de profesores de la institución.

De viva voz, sin que se le indujera en sus declaraciones, mediante una terapia de juego y de dibujos, el pequeño refirió que en su escuela había maestros "malos", detallando que la maestra de nombre Malena lo llevaba a un salón y ahí lo dejaba con su maestro de computación, "Chava", y con otro señor pelón que el niño identificó como Hugo, quienes lo amordazaban y abusaban de él, según expuso el abogado defensor, Juan Meixuero.

A decir de la madre, la primera declaración de su hijo dio elementos para que las autoridades pudieran tener la media filiación de los abusadores, pero la hoja "fue arrancada" de la averiguación previa, por lo que el niño tuvo que rendir una segunda declaración, con todo el daño emocional que ello genera.

Además, señaló, la Fiscalía Especializada en Delitos Sexuales no realizó la inspección ocular en la institución particular cuya propietaria se negó a proporcionar las plantillas y fotografías de profesores, misma actitud, dijo, que mostró la dirección general del Instituto Estatal de Educación Pública de Oaxaca.

En la averiguación previa, la madre asienta que "el 23 de abril pasado, Yolanda León y dos mujeres más pidieron a mi padre que acudiera dos días después ( el 25 ) a la institución educativa para que me retractara ( del señalamiento inicial). "Como no lo hice, buscaron en esa misma fecha a mi padre para darme una segunda oportunidad, y amenazó que su departamento jurídico tomaría cartas en el asunto".

En su equipo de abogados, recuerda la madre, están los Franco Vargas ( emparentados con el ex secretario general de gobierno, Jorge, persona muy influyente del régimen estatal).

Para Leticia Valdés Martell, Aída Gómez Piñón, titular de la Fiscalía Especializada en Delitos Sexuales, en contradicción con las instrucciones del Procurador de Justicia, le solicitó que llegara a un arreglo conciliatorio y de carácter económico ( con las autoridades del Instituto San Felipe), con Yolanda León, a quien familiarmente llama " Yola", persona " muy influyente", que " tiene mucho dinero, ( y ) se mueve en altas esferas del gobierno..."

Las irregularidades iniciales se produjeron en la Procuraduría, pues a pesar de que el niño recordaba perfectamente nombres y características de los agresores y el lugar donde se le mancillaba, incluso con el apoyo de una cámara fotográfica ( o de video), la agente del Ministerio Público " omitió el dato de dichas personas ( según el relato del niño), con la finalidad, decía, de que no se hiciera en ese momento el señalamiento directo, prejuzgando que el menor no tenía capacidad de recordar nombres.

La agente investigadora de la Procuraduría, insiste la madre, arrancó la primera hoja de la denuncia inicial y pidió que no debía llevar los nombres de los responsables ¨ para que la averiguación previa no fuera intervenida".

Sin embargo, en diligencias posteriores, quedó claramente establecido por la denunciante, que se trata de los profesores Adán Salvador Pérez Ramírez y Hugo Gabriel Constantino García, apoyados por la maestra Magdalena García Soto.

A esta última, posteriormente se le detuvo como muestra evidente de que hay razón de la parte ofendida, pero los directamente involucrados en el delito de violación, permanecen libres, ya que el retardo primero en la presentación de la denuncia y luego en la integración de la indagatoria, permitió que salieran de la entidad, supuestamente, rumbo al extranjero.

La pena máxima de 18 a 20 años de prisión es el castigo que la señora Leticia Valdés Martell y su abogado exigen para los culpables del abuso sexual del que fue objeto el menor en el Instituto San Felipe. Pero será hasta que lo analicen los jueces y se comprueben los delitos, cuando se defina plenamente la situación jurídica de los implicados.

La descripción del caso es necesaria para que la opinión pública juzgue y se forme sus propias conclusiones. Seguimos con el tema.

Contactos:

ernesto_reyes_647@hotmail.com

tandemmedios@hotmail.com

ernestreyes@prodigy.net.mx

Update,.. just to include a documentary on coca-cola

2008-01-08T19:18:00.000Z

This is the coca-cola challenge,... coca-cola,... always coca-cola,...

pobreza, paramilitares, y chiapas,... mala combinacion,...!

2008-01-08T16:43:00.000Z

Hace poco dije que en Kenia las personas que protestaban contra el fraude electoral y después se vieron envueltas en hechos de violencia usaban machetes, palos y piedras. Naturalmente la causa es la pobreza. Digo, para tener armas y municiones se necesita dinero.

Ahora leo algunas noticias de México, de esas que no llegan a los medios de comunicación establecidos, ya no decir de las cadenas nacionales. Y veo que en México no cantamos mal las rancheras en las dos cosas, pobreza y violencia.

Ambas parecen ser cortesía de los gobiernos, a todos los niveles, federal, estatal, y municipal. Hay que recordar por un lado que en el 95, con Ernesto Zedillo, el país atravesó por una de sus peores crisis económicas. Por otro lado, y esto es menos publicitado, también fue Zedillo quien promovió la creación de grupos paramilitares que contrarrestaran la influencia Zapatista en la zona de Chiapas. O mejor dicho, que encapsularan a los Zapatistas para que no fueran a dar malos ejemplos al resto del estado o del país.

Con la crisis económica obviamente el nivel de pobreza aumento, aunque no de la manera que uno pudiera haber esperado. Si hacemos caso a la metodología oficial para medir la pobreza de los hogares, según cálculos propios, para 1994 esta era de aproximadamente 47.01 por ciento medida por gasto y 44.26 si se mide por ingreso.

Para 1996 estos niveles subieron a 56.4 y 53.6, respectivamente. Esto equivale de manera muy gruesa a decir que aproximadamente aumento el porcentaje de hogares que no cubría el gasto o ingreso necesario para no ser considerados pobres en 10 por ciento en tan solo dos años. Pero hay que recordar que se trata de la peor crisis económica, en la que miles de familias perdieron no solo empleo sino que también sus activos, como casas, coches, etc.

Para no ponerme a dar cifras que pudieran ser tediosas solo voy a decir que es entre 2000 y 2002 que los niveles de pobreza regresaron a los que existían antes de la crisis del 95. En 2002, 48.8 por ciento de los hogares eran pobres por que sus gastos eran menores a la línea de pobreza, esta estimación es de 44.53 por ciento si se observan los ingresos en lugar de los gastos. En otras palabras tomo entre 6 y 8 años regresar a los niveles de pobreza que había en México en 1994 (antes de la crisis).

Tal pareciera que Zedillo nos embarcó en un viajecito por la miseria, afortunadamente con retorno, por lo menos al punto inicial en cuanto a nivel de pobreza se refiere. Hay otras cosas en las que Zedillo también nos embarcó y de las cuales es difícil ver un punto de retorno. El debilitamiento de la economía es una de ellas, pero por ahora me voy a concentrar en la creación de grupos paramilitares en las regiones más pobres del país.

Guerrero, con su matanza en Aguas Blancas, Oaxaca y la exterminación de los triquis bajo los mandatos de Heladio Ramírez, Carrasco, Murat y Ruiz, y la masacre en Acteal en Chiapas son claro ejemplo de ello. Esta herencia continuó en el foxismo, quien además agravo los problemas de corrupción. Sigue presente ahí en el fecaliato. Y como no van a seguir si calderón no puede ni salir a la calle por su falta de legitimidad. Por el contrario, su ‘administración’ apunta a que la paramilitarización sea un modelo nacional. Será que para eso quiere que pase la reforma judicial?

Bueno, después de la explicación panorámica, voy al punto. Sigue habiendo violencia de los paramilitares hacia las comunidades zapatistas. Los ataques, igual que en Kenia, son con machete, palos y piedras. Es decir, pusieron a pelear a los más pobres entre ellos.

Aca el reporte de indymedia

‘Se reportan dos nuevas agresiones por parte de paramilitares identificados como parte de la Organización para la Defensa de los Derechos Indígenas y Campesinos (OPDDIC) en el Caracol IV (Morelia). Un primer ataque fue machetazos, mientras que el segundo se realizó con arma de fuego.’

Aca el acta que levanto la comunidad sobre el primer ataque a machetazos,

Denuncia de la JBG “Corazón del Arco Iris de la Esperanza”, agresiones de la OPPDIC. 28 de diciembre.

Junta de Buen Gobierno“Corazón del Arco iris de la Esperanza”

Caracol 4 “Torbellino de Nuestras Palabras”, a 28 del diciembre de 2007
A la opinión publica nacional internacional
A los otros medios de comunicación alternativos nacional e internacional
A las organizaciones independientes de derechos humanos
A l@s compañeras de la sexta y de la otra campaña de nuestro país México y del mundo

HERMANOS Y HERMANASCOMPAÑEROS Y COMPAÑERAS

La junta de buen gobierno corazón de arco iris de la esperanza hacemos enérgicamente la presente denuncia ante los hechos tan brutal e inhumanos por parte de la organización paramilitar OPDDIC organización para defensa de los derechos indígenas y campesinos ocurrido el día jueves 27 de diciembre de 2007 en el territorio de la región, San José en rebeldía municipio oficial, chilón Chiapas.

En la comunidad de la ranchería aguazul chico, municipio chión sucedió el acontecimiento.

El día 27 de diciembre aproximadamente a las 9:00 horas de la noche, el hermano de esta comunidad de nonbre: Julio Hernández Gómez de 20 años de edad, colaborarte de nuestro municipio autónomo, salió de su casa para hacer su necesidad, como a los dos metros de su casa un grupo de personas miembros de la OPDDIC de tres personas de nombres:- Oscar García Moreno- Emilio García Moreno- Adolfo Martínez
Que pertenecen en el ejido denominado cascada aguazul municipio de túmbala Chiapas.

Estos personas estaban esperando el hermano a que salga de su casa, cuando lo vieron salir el hermano, este grupo lo fueron a machetear inocentemente y, el hermano se corrió pero a los 32 metros se cayo, ahí lo volvieron a darle otro golpe de machete, en ese momento es cuando escucharon los familiares del Julio Hernández Gómez y salieron a ver y cuando loo vieron que dos personas lo tenían agarrado mientras el otro esta macheteando, estos familiares lo fueron a defender y lo quitaron el machete, es cuando empezaron a huir estos tres personas que son miembros de la organización OPDDIC.

El hermano: Julio Hernández López, quedo gravemente herido, macheteado en la parte de la frente y pago con su sangre solo por apoyarnos con nuestra organización.
Los hermanos colaborante llevan meses y años que están sufriendo estos tipos de violencias, y de amenazas junto con los compañeros bases de apoyo de nuestro municipio autónomo.

La complicidad de las tres personas antes mencionado su nombre también son los siguientes nombres que pertenecen de la misma banda paramilitar.- Salomón Moreno Lopez, que es el líder de la organización OPDDIC, y que ocupa el cargo de tesorero de eco turística- Jacinto Silvano Hernández, líder de la misma organización- Enrique Moreno Álvaro- Rubén Cruz Morales- Alicia Álvaro- Ezequiel López Espinosa- Florentino Silvano López- Elías López Moreno- Juan Gómez Luna- Jeremías López Hernández- José Alberto Urbina López

Ellos también viven en el denominado cascada de aguazul municipio de túmbala Chiapas.
La junta de buen gobiernode caracol IV solicita la aplicación inmediata de la justicia y castigo para estas personas que son responsables de este acto criminal.

ATENTAMENTE
Junta de buen gobierno
Corazón del arco iris de la esperanza
Caracol IVMorelia, Chiapas, México
Carlos
Orlando
Erika

Aca el acta que levanto la comunidad sobre el primer ataque a balazos,

Denuncia de la JBG “Corazón del Arco Iris de la Esperanza”, más agresiones de la OPPDIC. 29 de diciembre.
Junta de Buen Gobierno“
Corazón del Arco iris de la Esperanza”
Caracol 4 “Torbellino de Nuestras Palabras”,

a 29 del diciembre de 2007

A la opinión publica nacional internacional
A los otros medios de comunicación alternativos nacional e internacional
A las organizaciones independientes de derechos humanos
A l@s compañeras de la sexta y de la otra campaña de nuestro país México y del mundo

HERMANOS Y HERMANASCOMPAÑEROS Y COMPAÑERAS

La junta de buen gobierno corazón de arco iris de la esperanza hacemos enérgicamente la presente denuncia ante los hechos violento e inhumanos por parte de la organización paramilitar OPDDIC organización para defensa de los derechos indígenas y campesinos ocurrido el día sábado 29 de diciembre de 2007 en el territorio de la región, San José en rebeldía municipio oficial, chilón Chiapas.

En el poblado betel yochib, municipio de chilón sucedió este indignante
El día 29 de diciembre aproximadamente a las 6:15 horas de la mañana, el compañero de esta comunidad miembro de nuestra organización autónoma de nombre: Pablo Silvano Jiménez de 41 año de edad, fue disparado una bala de una pistola de 9 milímetros.

La persona que uso el arma es: Elías Jiménez López, que vive en el poblado, vetel yochib, municipio de chilón y es miembro de la organización oppdic, y que esta escoltado con dos elemento de de la policía sectorial, hasta ahora sin saber sus nombres pero se distinguió por sus uniformes.

Elías cuando estaba disparando, este compañero empezó a correr, en esos momentos cuando empezó a disparar también la seguridad pública y fue alcanzado en la parte de la pierna derecha. El compañero siguió corriendo pero a los 153 metros se quedo tirado y pidió auxilio me están matando, al escuchar que esta pidiendo auxilió el compañero, empezaron a retirarse los elementos de la sectorial. El número de la matricula del la sectorial es 031 del municipio de palenque Chiapas.

El compañero se quedo tirado en 153 metros en la orilla de la carretera gravemente herido, de una bala de arma AR15, de calibre 5.53 milímetros, del sectorial.

Este compañero lo han amenazado de matar desde el año de 94, y también lo habían secuestrado su hijo donde lo tuvieron colgado en un árbol con un bejuco cuando justo a tiempo llego su hermano para liberarlo.

Este problema fue investigado del lugar de los hechos y se comprueba con 11 casquillos de 9 ¡, milímetro y un casquillo de AR15 de 5.53, milímetro en manos de la junta de buen gobierno de Morelia.

La complicidad de la persona antes mencionada también son los siguientes nombres que son cómplices de la misma banda paramilitar.- Abel Deara Hernández- Gaspar Gómez Álvaro- Emilio Hernández Pérez- Sebastián Guzmán Deara- Carlos de ara Muños- Juan Saragos Luna que es, diacono de presbiteriano- Sebastián Moreno Pérez, ex consejo de vigilancia de chilón- Miguel Saragos Luna, policía local de ejido vetel yochib- Francisco Guzmán Hernández- Miguel Hernández moreno localidad de agua clara y es cómplice de la sectorial- Gaspar Deara López, agente auxiliar de vetel yochib- Gaspar Guzmán Alvaro

De este acontecimiento sucedido responsabilizamos, el gobierno federal, Felipe calderón, el gobierno estatal Juan satines y el presidente municipal, Antonio moreno López.

La junta de buen gobierno de caracol IV manifiesta la aplicación cabal e inmediata justicia y castigo para estas personas responsables de este acto criminal.

ATENTAMENTE
Junta de buen gobierno
Corazón del arco iris de la esperanza
Caracol IVMorelia, Chiapas, México
Carlos
Orlando
Erika

Y aca unas fotos del ataque a balazos,…

El día sábado 29 de diciembre a las 6:30 de la mañana fué herido de bala, Pablo Silvano Jimenéz de 41 años de edad originario del poblado Betel Yochib del municipio San José rebeldía en el estado de Chiapas. Los hechos ocurrieron en la carretera federal que va de Palenque a Agua Azul, aproximadamente a 500 mtros., del crucero Agua Clara. de una patrulla de seguridad pública, bajó Elias, hace el primer disparo con pistola, luego un sectorial, dispara su metralleta dando en la pierna derecha de Pablo, la bala entro por la parte trasera y salió por el frente. Pablo corrio 153 metros por la milpa que no rebasa los 30 cmts. de altura, en ese trayecto le siguieron disparando. En el lugar de los hechos se encontraron once casquillos de 9 mmtrs., y un casquillo de metralleta R-15. Los agresores se han dado a la tarea de hostigar a las bases zapatistas del lugar, ya que Elias Jimenez Lopez es miembro de la OPDDIC(Organización Paramilitar) que ya tiene muchas denuncias en contra. Pobladores de Betel Yochib dicen que los agresores de Pablo, tambien san asaltantes de transeuntes y de vehículos. Komo lo ha denunciado la Junta de Buen Gobierno: “Corazón del Arco iris de la Esperanza”
http://chiapas.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=153470

Entonces? Zedillo genero muchos pobres,... zedillo los arma y los pone a pelear unos contra otros,... Fox solo se dedica a robar, Calderon tambien,... y de Zedillo pocos hablan,... que cosas,... no?

Demonstration next friday against Guantanamo Bay 'facility'

2008-01-08T14:37:00.000Z

Let's demonstrate this coming friday,... is an invitation from amnesty international blogs project team,...

well,... I can't make it, but if you can or know somebody who can, please let vanessa know asap,... details below,..

(Note by Wet_ahuizote) and these are some of the pictures the invitation refers to,...

______________

Hello to all our Amnesty blogger friends -

A very happy new year to you. Weâ€™re starting 2008 with a bang at Amnesty and I wanted to let you know about it (admittedly at the last minute). Friday 11 January (this Friday!) marks the sixth anniversary of illegal detentions at Guantanamo Bay and to mark it, we are holding a demo outside the US embassy in London, calling on the US to close Guantanamo and either give the 300+ detainees still held there a fair trial or release them.

There will also be demos in Edinburgh and Belfast. We will have hundreds of people outside the embassy dressed in orange boiler suits, with Amnesty staff dressed as US guards â€“with real guard dogs â€“ shouting instructions at them.

It should be quite an event. We need more people to come along so we have more impact! Last year we had around 400 people and were all over the news; this year we want to be bigger, bolder and louder so please, come along if you can and let people know on your blogs.

All the details are here: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=10226 If youâ€™d like to come, please let Vanessa know at

guantanamoanniversary6@amnesty.org.uk

We did something similar last year and it looked great â€“ have a look at some of the pics at: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/01/359734.html http://musefulreminiscence.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html

Weâ€™re asking people to assemble at Grosvenor Square, London W1 at 9.30am on Friday 11 January, where theyâ€™ll be given an orange boiler suit and instructions on how it will all work.

The demo starts at 10.30 and finishes at 11.30. Hereâ€™s a link to a map of the location: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=528300&y=180730&z=1&sv=grosvenor+square&st=1&tl=Grosvenor+Square,+W1&searchp=newsearch.srf&mapp=newmap.srf Hope to see you there, and to read all about it online!

Until next time,

Steve

From Amnestyâ€™s Project Blog team

Repression in Oaxaca : One Year Anniversary of State’s Bloody Attack on Popular Movements

2008-01-07T17:53:00.000Z

Next is an excellent piece of writing that puts the conflict in Oaxaca as clear as it can gets. It is taken from globalresearch.com,.. al although is from june 2007 it presents a version of the origins of the problem, hence information contained in it is important.
(Note by Wet_ahuizote),...
_______________
by Prof. Marjorie Cohn

There's an Aztec legend of a warrior who was in love with a princess. When he left to go into battle, the lovers promised each other eternal love. The warrior died in battle, but to fulfill his promise to the princess, he came back as a brilliant orange flower. That flower now graces Flamboyan trees throughout Latin America . Another Flamboyan legend speaks of the struggle of the Puerto Rican people against colonial domination.

On Sunday, June, 10, 2007, under a Flamboyan tree, the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) held a press conference to announce the liberation of one of the leaders of the year-long popular struggle for social and economic justice in Oaxaca . Marcelino Coache Verano, secretary general of the free union of Oaxaca municipal workers, had been arrested, severely beaten, and held for six months in prison before he was released on May 31, with all charges against him dismissed.

The press conference kicked off a week of actions to commemorate the brutal June 14, 2006 attack by 1,000 armed police against people peacefully demonstrating in support of the demands of some 70,000 teachers for higher wages, improvement of school buildings, and better resources for children. A teacher typically earns the equivalent of $220 every two weeks, and must purchase school supplies herself. Although the Mexican constitution guarantees free education, mothers have to pay registration fees.

State governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz sent in state police, accompanied by dogs, who viciously attacked the sleeping teachers and supporters. They tear-gassed everyone in the vicinity, including pregnant women and children; one woman miscarried as a result. Ninety-two people were wounded. Members of the community reacted with outrage, fighting back with anything they could find. They chased the police from the square, and re-established the camp.

On June 17, several hundred local organizations came together to form the APPO, comprising almost 350 different civil organizations working in areas of indigenous issues, sustainable community development, human rights, and social justice. APPO demanded that Governor Ulises Ruiz step down. Meanwhile, the movement continued to grow, with large but peaceful demonstrations. On August 1, hundreds of women marched, and when denied air time by the government radio station, occupied the station and broadcast their position themselves.
Throughout this period, police raids, beatings, and shooting continued. On October 28, four people were killed, including indymedia journalist and U.S. citizen Brad Will and a Mexican teacher, Emilio Alonso Fabian.

The Mexican government sent in the Federal Preventive Police. On November 25, they appeared in full riot gear and encircled the entire area, firing tear gas. As people fled, many were arrested and beaten. Among the prisoners were some simply on their way to work or to the market place that morning. One hundred seventy people were arrested that day, and most were taken to the far away prison of Nayarit. Thirty four were women, and five were minors.

At various times during the seven month period, nearly 1,500,000 teachers, workers, professors and artists, many of them Indigenous people, occupied Oaxaca 's main plaza. Although the movement crystallized to support the striking teachers, the frustration of the people resulted from deep economic and social problems the government has aggravated and allowed to fester. These problems that have harmed workers were exacerbated by NAFTA and the Bush administration's neoliberal policies. The majority of the population of Oaxaca is Indigenous, most of whom live in extreme poverty.

Last week, I participated in a human rights delegation of lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and the National Association of Democratic Lawyers in Mexico to investigate alleged violations of international law by police against the people of Oaxaca during the past year. We met with lawyers, workers and prisoners.

Coache Verano related how he and three other activists had been arrested in Mexico City , on their way to meet with government officials to negotiate an end to the strife. They were stripped naked, beaten, and guards walked on their backs. Coache Verano's finger was broken. One of the other men was released with Coache Verano. The other two, including APPO leader Flavio Sosa Villavicencio, remain in custody. Coache Verano's wife and young children told us how they were terrorized for months with death threats and shots fired at their home.

The two prisoners we interviewed at the Tlacolula prison, about 20 miles outside of Oaxaca , also described how they were beaten by police. Flabiano Juárez Hernández was not part of the demonstration. He was working in the market near the plaza when he was arrested on November 20 and charged with auto theft, a crime considered so serious, there is no possibility of bail. The blows to his head required several stitches and left a scar. Juárez Hernández is indigenous and doesn't speak fluent Spanish; yet he was denied the services of an interpreter.

Wilbert Ramon Aquino Aragón is a worker who participated in the demonstrations on November 20 and 25. On January 10, he was arrested for the attempted murder of a taxi driver he never met. He was told he would be released if he identified people in police photographs. Since he refused, he continues to be held at Tlacolula. The police beat Aquino Aragón so badly he is scheduled for surgery next week. His head bears scars from the blows the police dealt.

Twenty year-old Pedro Garibo Pérez was not involved in the demonstration. Yet on November 20, he was arrested and kept face down for 6 hours with his leg on a hot muffler. The 20 centimeter burn on his leg was left unattended for more than two and a half months. When lawyers finally were able to visit him, they saw a large areas of exposed raw flesh on his leg. As a result of their demands, he finally received medical attention. Garibo Pérez spent 10 days in the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a hematoma and received a skin graft.

A 50-year-old widow named Aurelia was working as a maid inside a house on November 25, and didn't know what was happening outside. She had just left work when they arrested her a half a block away. She was walking down the street and saw people running all over the place. The police started firing tear gas at everyone. She said, "I felt myself asphyxiating and my eyes filled with tears. I couldn't move. I was so scared."

The police grabbed Aurelia by the hair, cursed at her and kicked her. They forced her and several other women to kneel for two hours on the cobblestone. Then they were thrown into a truck in a pile, "like animals, with their hands and feet tied." Many were crying out that they could not feel their legs. The police officers responded, "You may as well die you old hags."

Aurelia had to sleep on a cement block in a cold room with no blanket. "Later that night," Aurelia said, "you could hear the men screaming nearby. I thought about my family members who were there yelling, beaten." Many of the women were beaten; some had head injuries.

They were flown to Nayarit and held there for 21 days. During that time, the women heard nothing about the men or the rest of their families.

The treatment to which these people were subjected violates the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which I explain in my book, Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law. Three of the techniques used by the police in Oaxaca apparently originated in the United States . They include terrorizing people with ferocious dogs, threats to throw prisoners from helicopters into the sea, and a humiliation technique of denying toilet privileges, leaving people to defecate in their pants.

Nine men remain in custody. There are only 13 lawyers representing the 350 people who still have charges pending against them. Many of the lawyers have suffered some form of harassment, including threats, beatings, and sexual harassment. Five inmates were made to sign statements denouncing lawyer Yésica Sánchez Maya, president of the Mexican League for Defense of Human Rights (LIMEDDH), in exchange for their release from prison. The 29-year-old Sánchez Maya, a passionate and effective leader of the movement, told us she knows she might be arrested at any moment. She remains unbowed.

The International Civil Commission for the Observation of Human Rights concluded that 20 people have been illegally executed in the past few months. APPO has documented 29 who have been assassinated and 100 tortured throughout this struggle. The murders have been carried out by paramilitary or parapolice groups presumably linked to the state government.

On March 14, 2007 Mexico 's National Human Rights Commission reported that 12 people had been killed and documented 1,600 rights violations. The Commission demanded that the Senate punish the killings and other human rights abuses in Oaxaca . APPO criticized the report for overlooking killings and failing to implicate Ruiz.

Mexican Supreme Court Justice minister Juan Silva Meza said on May 28 that federal, state and municipal authorities committed grave civil rights violations during the Oaxaca conflict. Silva Meza recommended that the Court create a committee to investigate the responsible public officials.

Lawyers for LIMEDDH and APPO have filed deununcias against Ruiz, the president of Mexico , and the attorney general, seeking to remove Ruiz and hold them criminally accountable. The charges include assassination, torture, forced disappearance, and denial of justice. These requests have not been acted upon although a special prosecutor was named, (who is not independent) and the Supreme Court has indicated its intention to form a committee to investigate.

Marcelino Coache Verano has his freedom for now. But, he told the reporters, "there is no freedom for us if there isn't freedom for our comrades. There is no justice until those responsible for the assassinations and torture are brought to justice."

The government has criminalized the social movement. And the problems underlying the struggle remain unsolved. But like the Flamboyan tree, the movement in Oaxaca will continue to flower. "I never went to the marches before," Aurelia said, "but now after what the government has done to me, I'll be there to show my support. I don't know what the APPO is because I've never been to anything that has to do with APPO, but now I'm going to support them. I've heard of the teachers and I'll support them too, now, because it hurt so much what the government did to me."

Bhutto’s Assassination: Who Gains?

2008-01-07T17:00:00.000Z

Next is a post with a comment on Bhutto assassination, I personally don't believe that the supposedly 'terrorist' group Al-Qaeda did it, or even that it exists as US governement wants us to believe. In any case, there are still a lot of unanswered questions that nobody seems to bother even looking at,...

this is taken from http://www.globalresearch.ca/
(Note by Wet_ahuizote)
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Assassination of prominent political leaders, presumably protected by the best security, is no easy thing. It requires agencies of professional intelligence training to insure that the job is done and that no person is caught alive who can lead to those behind. Typically, from the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo in July 1914 to JFK, the person pulling the trigger is just an instrument of a far deeper conspiracy. So too in the assassination on December 27th, of Pakistani former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto. Cui bono?.

What was behind the murder of Bhutto at the moment her PPP party appeared about to win a resounding election victory in the planned January 8 elections, thereby posing a mass-based challenge to the dictatorial rule of President Musharraf?

Musharraf’s government was indecently quick to blame “Al-Qaeda,” the dubious entity allegedly the organization of Osama bin Laden, whom Washington accused for masterminding the September 11 2001 attacks. Musharraf just days after, declared he was “sure” Al Qaeda was the author, even though, on US pressure, he has asked Scotland Yard to come and investigate. "I want to say it with certainty, that thesepeople (Al Qaeda) martyred ... Benazir Bhutto," Musharraf said in a Jan. 3 televised address. He named Baitullah Mehsud, a militant tribal chief fighting the Pakistani Army, who has alleged ties to al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taleban. Mehsud denied the charge. Had he been behind such a dramatic event, the desired propaganda impact among militant islamists would require taking open responsibility instead.

By linking the Bhutto killing to Al Qaeda, Musharraf conveniently gains several goals. First he reinforces the myth of Al Qaeda, something very useful to Washington at this time of growing global skepticism over the real intent of its War on Terrorism, making Musharraf more valuable to Washington. Second it gives Musharraf aplausible scapegoat to blame for the convenient elimination of a serious political rival to his consolidation of one-man rule.

Notable also is the fact that the Musharraf regime has rejected making a routine autoposy on Bhutto’s body. Bhutto publicly charged that the Government had refused to make followup inquiry after the October bombing which nearly killed her and did 134 followers near her auto. Bhutto accused Pakistani authorities of not providing her with sufficient security, and hinted that they may have been complicit in the Karachi attack. She also made clear in a UK television interview shortly before her death that she would clean out the Pakistan military and security services of corrupt and islamist elements.

In the same David Frost interview, Bhutto also dropped the explosive news that Osama bin Laden had been murdered by Omar Sheikh Mohammad, a British citizen of Pakistani origin, an ISI Pakistani intelligence operative, who 'confessed' to the killing of Daniel Pearl. He was arrested in February 2002. If Benazir's claim is correct, Omar Sheikh must have killed Osama before he was arrested in February 2002, which makes at least all the Osama messages after that date periodically delivered to western media clear forgeries.

Days after the Bhutto killing, Pakistani authorities published a photo alleged to be of the severed head of the suicide bomber who killed Bhutto. Severed heads, like a dead Lee Harvey Oswald don’t talk or say embarrassing things. Also curious is the fact that Bhutto was killed in Rawalpindi, a garrison town, where every millimetre is controlled by the Army security complex. The murder weapon was a Steyr 9mm, issued only to Pakistani Army Special Forces.

Hmmmm.

It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration has been maneuvering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the “war on terrorism” across the region.

Who was Bhutto?

The Bhutto family was itself hardly democratic, drawing its core from feudal landowning families, but opposed to the commanding role of the army and ISI intelligence. Succeeding her father as head of the PPP, Benazir declared herself "chairperson for life" — a position she held until her death. Bhutto’s husband, Ali Zardari, “Mr. 10%,” is known in Pakistan for his demanding a 10% cut from letting major government contracts when Benazir was PM. In 2003, Benazir and her husband were convicted in Switzerland of money laundering and taking bribes from Swiss companies as PM. The family is allegedly worth several billions as a result. As prime minister from 1993 to 1996, she advocated a conciliatory policy toward Islamists, especially the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Harvard educated Benazir had close ties to US and UK intelligence as well. She used the offices of neo-conservative US Congressman Tom Lantos when she was in Washington according to our informed reports, one reason Vice President Cheney backed her as a “safe” way to save his Pakistan strategic alliance in face of growing popular protest against Musharraf’s declaring martial law last year. The ploy was to have Bhutto make a face-saving deal with Musharraf to put a democratic face on the dictatorship, while Washington maintained its strategic control.

According to the Washington Post of 28 Dec., “For Benazir Bhutto, the decision to return to Pakistan was sealed during a telephone call from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice just a week before Bhutto flew home in October. The call culminated more than a year of secret diplomacy -- and came only when it became clear that the heir to Pakistan's most powerful political dynasty was the only one who could bail out Washington's key ally in the battle against terrorism. . . .As President Pervez Musharraf's political future began to unravel this year, Bhutto became the only politician who might help keep him in power.”

In November, John Negroponte, former Bush Administration Intelligence Czar and now Deputy Secretary of State was deployed to Islamabad to pressure Musharraf to ease the situation by holding elections and forming a power-sharing with Bhutto. But once in Pakistan, where her supporters were mobilized, Bhutto made clear she would seek an election coalition to openly oppose Musharraf and military rule in the planned elections.

A cynical US-Musharraf deal?

Informed intelligence sources say there was a cynical deal cut behind the scenes between Washington and Musharraf. Musharraf is known to be Cheney’s preferred partner and Cheney we are told is the sole person running US-Pakistan policy today.

Were Musharraf to agree to stationing of US Special Forces inside Pakistan, “Plan B”, the democratic farce with Bhutto could be put aside, in favor of the continued Musharraf sole rule. Washington would “turn a blind eye.”

On Dec. 28, one day after the Bhutto assassination, the Washington Post reported that in early 2008, “US Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units,” under the US Central Command and US Special Operations Command, a major shift in US Pakistani ties. Until now Musharraf and his military have refused such direct US control, aside from the agreement after September 11, extracted from Musharraf under extreme pressure of possible US bombing, to give the US military direct control of the Pakistan nuclear weapons.

The elimination of Bhutto leaves an opposition vacuum. The country lacks a credible political leader who can command national support, which leaves the military enhanced as an institution, with its willingness to defend Musharraf on the streets. This gives the Pentagon and Washington a chance to consolidate a military oppositionto future Chinese economic hegemony—the real geopolitical goal of Washington.