SIPAZ Report Vol XIII nº3 - August 2008

Analysis: Mexico: Increase in cost of living and poverty pose major concerns

Focus: The Merida Initiative in Mexico: A new phase of the drug wars

- SIPAZ Activities – Mid-April to end of July 2008- New Documents Online

ANALYSIS:

Mexico: Increase in cost of living and poverty pose major concernsIn the last few months, the major concern of the Mexican population has revolved around the increase in the prices of basic foodstuffs. Since April, civil organizations, headed by Food First Information and Action Network, Mexico section, warned that the country is showing signs of a food crisis such as that suffered by at least 37 other nations in accordance with the parameters set by the Unite Nations. It is a high-risk situation due to the importation of basic foodstuffs, which now composes 35% of the overall consumption in the country.A preliminary diagnostic prepared by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) made public in June and titled “Food Prices, Poverty and Social Policy in Mexico,” states that, in the last two years there has been an increase of 1 million 300 thousand people living in poverty (in which individuals are unable to satisfy necessities such as housing, transportation and clothing) and 1 million 800 thousand more Mexicans are now classified as living in extreme poverty. Within this same time frame, an even more alarming report published by the Chamber of Deputies Center for Public Finance Studies (Centro de Estudios Finanzas Públicas de la Cámara de Diputados) prepared a study named, “Impact of the increase in food prices on poverty in Mexico.” It concluded that the number of Mexicans living in extreme poverty rose to at least 7 million people due to the rise in food prices, increasing the percentage of the total national population from 13.7 to 20 percent. The governmental responses were strongly questioned by social actors. In late May, agrarian leaders stated that the steps to be taken in terms of familial economic support as announced by the government were “demagogic,” “insufficient” and “ineffective.” They pointed out that the lifting of tariffs, which was part of the plan, would have little effect in reducing the prices of agricultural products as the majority of imports come from the United States and as such are already not subject to tariffs.In mid June, legislators, union leaders and campesinos considered the control of the prices of various foods, as announced by President Felipe Calderón, were also “insufficient” and above all “late,” since the majority of the present prices already included the raised prices that they had been meant to control.Energy Reform: latent conflict… for nowAnother topic that has continued to have a strong media presence is the controversial energy reform presented by President Felipe Calderón on April

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9. According to those in opposition to the reform, the plan implies a privatization of the national petroleum resources. The fact that the Senate decided to organize more than two months of open debates, with the participation of experts, before making a decision on the reform, allowed for a slight reduction in the tension that had been generated around the subject. The National Democratic Congress (CND), headed by the ex-presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and the Broad Progressive Front (FAP, which is a coalition of the principle leftist political parties in Mexico including the Democratic Revolutionary Party, PRD; the Labor Party, PT; and Convergence, Convergencia) decided to organize a public consultation on the energy reform which took place July 27 in 9 states and the national capital. Both the Senate and the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) had refused to participate in the consultation. The following day the coordinator of the consultation, Manuel Camacho Solís, stated that the consultation had been a “success” as more than one and a half million people participated, of which slightly more than 80% stated that they were against the reform presented by the administration.The Secretary of Energy, Georgina Kessel, stated that the results only confirm the information that is already available. She added that the consultation affirmed the results that were expected with a smaller turnout than anticipated and various irregularities. She also stated that, “there is an enormous quantity of surveys that have been carried out on a national level which tell us that there is a majority of Mexicans that are in favor of a reform to the national petroleum company (Pemex), and who want to modernize our state company.”Questions regarding the consultation have come not only from the government or the right, but also from some sectors of the left which have commented that the PRD would lose credibility organizing the consultation without being able to resolve its internal elections within the party (which took place in March). According to the same critics, while recognizing the value of an open consultation process, the PRD’s internal issues could explain the low turnout rates. The reform has yet to be decided upon in the Congress and the CND and FAP could again take up civil and pacific resistance to it. Human Rights: A lack of “commitment”?One of the most noteworthy events in terms of human rights took place in May when Amérigo Incalcaterra, the representative of the UN High Commission on Human Rights (OHCHR) in Mexico, left his position supposedly due to pressure from the Mexican government. According to the Spanish daily El País, the critical attitude of Incalcaterra in the last two years “made the authorities uncomfortable to the point that the situation became intolerable.” It is interesting to note that this information became public shortly after an agreement was to take effect between the OHCHR and the Mexican government, supposedly allowing for greater participation and greater critical power in the investigations carried out by the organization in terms of the human rights situation in Mexico. Various national human rights organizations have asked the government to clarify the situation, a request that has, as of yet, gone unanswered.

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In late May Amnesty International (AI) pointed out that the Mexican people continue in their hopes that Felipe Calderón will take a leading role in the defense of human rights. However, in 18 months of the Calderón administration, “it has yet to demonstrate a full commitment in advancing protections” for human rights which is considered “worrisome.” The principle complaints have to do with increased militarization, which has marked the administration from the very beginning. So far, during the Calderón presidency the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) has received 634 complaints against the Mexican Army for presumed abuses and violations of fundamental rights, with a significant rise in the frequency of complaints. Even so, the second general inspector of the CNDH, Susana Pedroza, seemed to minimize the situation stating that the complaints were not as serious as those registered in 1997.In May, representatives of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) maintained that the action taken by the CNDH when faced with the complaints against the military was a “limited” response which did not take into account international standards on the matter. In July, the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center (Center Prodh) presented a preliminary report that covers the period between January 2007 and July 2008, in which they denounce close to 50 cases of supposed abuses committed by the by elements of the armed forces, mainly in the states of Tamaulipas, Michoacán, Chihuahua, Guerrero and Sinaloa. They report the deaths of 11 individuals due to military actions in 2007, while in 2008 (as of June 10) another 11 deaths were registered. Among the abuses most frequently encountered are physical aggression and fire arm attacks at road blocks or near military barracks. From Acteal (Chiapas) to Atenco (State of Mexico): the shadow of impunity loomsIn late May the civil organization Las Abejas confirmed that the public prosecutor for their case, Noé Maza Albores, threatened the directors of Las Abejas with imprisonment if they did not put a halt to the public denunciations they issued on the 22nd of each month in commemoration of the massacre of 45 indigenous people on December 22, 1997. In addition, relatives of the 33 indigenous prisoners from Chenalhó, accused of participating in the massacre at Acteal, began a sit-in in Tuxtla Gutiérrez (the capital of Chiapas) in June, requesting a revision of their cases by federal judicial authorities. According to their version, only a dozen of the 78 individuals detained actually participated in the massacre. They maintain that all of the accused were sentenced in criminal proceedings filled with judicial irregularities. In June, more than 10 years after the massacre, the case of those sentenced has been taken up by the National Supreme Court of Justice (SCJN) which has the power to make a decision on the possible irregularities. Two years after the police operation that repressed a demonstration in San Salvador Atenco, on May 3 and 4 of 2006, Amnesty International has once again demanded justice for the women who were raped during the operation and pointed out that the “serious cases of torture” that were committed are “a sign of the insufficient commitment on the part of the Mexican government to end these crimes and violence against women.”

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A few days before the two year anniversary of the events in Atenco, 11 of the 26 women who were assaulted and raped by police enforcement officials during the operation presented a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The Catalan woman Cristina Valls also brought a lawsuit before the National Court of Spain for torture against the police and Mexican authorities that participated in the operation. In July, a judge (magistrado) refused to hear the case. Valls has decided to appeal the decision.In an interview in May, the governor of the State of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto (PRI, Institutional Revolutionary Party) denied that the repression in Atenco was a “burden” for his government, and stated that he would again act in the same way if needed to reestablish order and societal peace. In response to international criticism in terms of human rights, he said that “the same will and disposition remains” in his government to clarify the events currently being analyzed by the National Supreme Court of Justice.Chiapas: intensification of police and military operationsSince the second half of May the police and military operations in indigenous regions of Chiapas have intensified to a level not seen since the late 1990’s, especially, but not exclusively, in zapatista communities located in the Selva and Northern Zones of the state. The Fray Batolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) denounced “a counter-insurgency logic” in which the military and police operate “in tactical deployments in territories with civilian population that are organized around just social demands” and that “also allows them to observe the response of the population to such operations.”According to the Center for Political Analysis and Social and Economic Research (CAPISE), the aforementioned operations represented “threats of repression, imprisonment, dispossession of property, eviction from their land or death made against the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), Zapatista communities, and members of the Other Campaign.” Jorge Lofredo, of the Center for Documentation of Armed Movements, while presenting Corte de Caja, a recently published book by Laura Castellanos and Ricardo Trabulsi that consists of an ample interview with sub-comandante Marcos, referred to one of Marcos assertions, “We are in the same situation as in 1993, except in reverse. (…) Now it is the government that is preparing the attack.” Lofredo emphasized in the same presentation: “Although they have reiterated denunciations in regards to military incursions in the Zapatista zone that have not been solidified, it could be considered the execution of a military strategy that resides precisely there: constant sieges or the threat thereof, in which they speculate that with the constant reaction of the EZLN and non-governmental organizations they will be discredited or will create an indifference, leading to a suicidal end.”In early July, given this situation, more than 200 collectives from various parts of the world demanded a cease to aggression against the Zapatistas. In late July, some 300 activists, principally from Europe, arrived in Chiapas to monitor and denounce a situation which they consider forms part of a “war scenario.”Finally, it is important to note, especially from the perspective of the connection that has been mentioned between economic interests and militarization, that June 28 saw the conclusion of the Tenth Tuxtla Gutierrez

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Summit of Heads of State and Government (including the heads of State from Mexico, Central America and Colombia) which took place in Villahermosa, Tabasco. The leaders present reaffirmed the objectives of the Plan Puebla Panamá which was subsequently renamed the “Mesoamerican Project.” The final declaration makes repeated reference to the fight against organized crime and adherence to the Merida Initiative, which is financed by the United States.

Police and military operations: Principle cases- On April 27, at least 500 police agents violently entered the community of Cruztón, municipality of Venustiano Carranza. - On May 19 and 20 a military incursion aided by the Federal Investigation Agency took place in the community of San Jerónimo Tulijá (within the official municipality of Chilón and the autonomous municipality of Ricardo Flores Magón). - On May 22 armed forces carried out a patrol of 11 communities in Venustiano Carranza where there is a presence of the Emiliano Zapata Campesino Organization-Carranza Region (OCEZ-RC).- On May 23, in various communities located in the municipality of Tila (Northern Zone), several military check points were installed. The same day, circling aircraft were noted and an incursion took place in Carrizal y Río Florida (municipality of Ocosingo). - On May 27 the Federal Attorney General for Environmental Protection reported that, with asístanse from the Federal Police, the Federal Attorney General, and the Mexican Navy, they evicted two campesino groups that had settled on 35 hectares in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in an irregular manner. - On May 29 the National Front of Struggle for Socialism (FNLS) reported the presence of circling helicopter gunships over communities belonging to the Emiliano Zapata Campesino Organization (OCEZ).- On June 4 military and police incursions reportedly took place in the vicinity of the Zapatista caracol La Garrucha as well as in the zapatista communities of Hermenegildo Galeana y San Alejandro. - On July 17 military personnel circled the community of 28 de Junio, in the municipality of Venustiano Carranza, where they remained for three days. They claimed they were looking for fields planted with drugs ; however, they appeared to be looking for members of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR).- On July 23 the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center reported that state police had assaulted campesinos from the community of Cruztón in the municipality of Venustiano Carranza, as well as observers belonging to the Other Campaign.

Chiapas: other points of tensionVarious parts of the state continue to experience alarming situations. In the Highlands in May, the autonomous zapatista council of Magdalena de la Paz and the Good Government Council (JBG) of Oventic denounced an attempt to seize a portion of their territory. In Huitepec threats of the dismantling of the Zaptista ecological reserve located in the area remain. In June a group

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connected to the municipal government attempted to plant trees in the reserve. In July residents of Section III Las Palmas, as well as those in Huitepec, confirmed that the municipal government of San Cristóbal was trying to compel them to back a forced dismantling of the reserve.In the Selva Zone due to a dispute over water and electricity in May, members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and zapatistas confronted each other in the community of Morelia, the seat of another Zapatista Caracol, in the official municipality of Altamirano, resulting in at least 10 wounded.Another point of contention continues to be the high price of electricity. In April, members of the Peoples United in Defense of Electrical Energy (PUDEE) from several municipalities of the Northern Zone of Chiapas continued to denounce the fact that the government has required people to show proof that they have paid their electricity bill in order to receive government services. In July more than one thousand indigenous people participated in a march in Ocosingo demanding that the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) implement just prices for electricity, the cancellation of all debts and an end to the cutting of electrical service.With regard to the organizational process initiated in various prisons in March and April of this year (see previous SIPAZ report), in early June the zapatista prisoners, Ángel Concepción Pérez Gutiérrez and his father Francisco Pérez Vázquez, were released after 12 years in a prison in Tacotalpa, Tabasco. In late July, three members of the inmate organization “La Voz de Los Llanos,” were released from the State Center for the Social Reinsertion of Sentenced Prisoners (CERSS) n.5 near San Cristóbal de las Casas; as well as three other prisoners from the inmate organization “La Voz de El Amate” who were being held in the CERSS n.14Dialogue between the EPR and the government: large media coverage, few resultsIn late April, the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR, an armed group with origins in the guerilla movements that arose in southern Mexico some 40 years ago) called upon various Mexican public figures to form a mediation group that would permit them to enter into an indirect dialogue with the federal government in order to obtain proof of life in the cases of two of their members, Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sánchez, both disappeared in Oaxaca in May of last year. The aforementioned public figures agreed to participate in the mediation process given that the EPR agreed to accept certain conditions set by the mediation commission, including the immediate suspension of all armed activities Negotiations seemed improbable when the federal government added their own conditions to the dialogue: a direct meeting with the EPR (in which the mediators would take on a “witness” role in the negotiations); a public declaration on the part of the EPR to definitively suspend all “radical activities” that include sabotage and violence; and an agreement that the dialogue would not be exclusively tied to the disappeared members of the EPR, but would include negotiations in regards to a decisive end to the armed struggle.The writer Carlos Montemayor and the anthropologist Gilberto López y Rivas, both put forward by the EPR to participate in the mediation, pointed out that in order for the proposed talks to achieve success it was imperative

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that the Secretary of the Interior understand “that when a guerrilla force opens a political negotiation, they are not proposing their own capitulation.” They also rejected the notion of being “convidados de piedra” which means “invited to play a silent role” at the negotiating table as “witnesses.” Through a communiqué, the EPR warned that there would be no “dialogue or negotiation which would signify an unconditional surrender, much less one that would imply a giving up of armed struggle in order to incorporate into the institutional life.”The federal government finally agreed to hold meetings with the mediation commission on May 13 and 20. According to Montemayor, when “the members of the commission made proposals in greater depth, for the first time, on the political and procedural aspects of the issue,” the press maintained “an unexpected silence” after all of the media attention that the event had attracted. Part of the difficulty and distinctions between the federal government and the mediation commission is that the commission felt that they needed to put together the legal requirements necessary to typify the forced disappearance of persons, an aspect that would put another series of responsibilities in front of the State. In an article published in the Mexican daily La Jornada, Montemayor emphasized the fact that the “protracted sequence of frustrating and ineffective lawsuits could suggest, in the context of international legislation, the shaping of one of the principle aspects that typify the crime of forced disappearance of persons,” according to the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons, which the Mexican government signed onto in 2001.After the initial dialogue process, investigations have continued, surrounded by rumors and speculation as to the participation or lack thereof on the part of officials of the Attorney General’s Office in Oaxaca as well as the army without having come to any conclusions as of yet. In a new communiqué circulated in June, the EPR warned the federal government that “the time is short” for them to produce the proof of life of their members and pointed out that “there are [indeed] forced disappearances” in Mexico and, according to the organization, there exist at least 75 current cases.

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FOCUS:The Merida Initiative in MexicoA new phase of the drug warsThe “war on drugs” is by no means a new phenomenon in Mexico however, since the controversial election of Felipe Calderón to the presidency in 2006, the issue has taken on a much higher profile. During the previous administration, under Vicente Fox, some 9,000 people were killed in drug-related violence and the rates have only risen since Calderón took office i. President Calderón has taken it upon himself to engage in a major campaign in an attempt to crush the drug cartels in Mexico. As of December 2007 he, along with the Mexican Congress, had approved $2.6 billion and 30,000 troops to support this new campaignii. Calderón has also asked for support from the US government in the form of the so called Merida Initiative. The plan itself was born of talks between Calderón and Bush that began in November, 2006 in Washington. After another meeting in Mérida, Yucatán, Calderón presented a proposal for US cooperation with Mexico in the fight against drug trafficking in May, 2007, from which the name Merida Initiative was conceived ofiii.While the Merida Initiative is a relatively new proposition, it has its roots in a much longer trajectory of economic and security policies between the US and Mexico. The initiative appears to be closely linked to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), which according to the official website is “…a White House-led initiative among the United States and the two nations it borders – Canada and Mexico – to increase security and to enhance prosperity among the three countries through greater cooperation,”iv. The SPP has been formed through a series of private talks held between the three heads of state along with representatives of major corporations from the three participating countries. In June, 2008 the Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy in Mexico, Leslie Bassett, made the connection between the two policies clearer as she proposed that the Merida Initiative be integrated into the SPP. Through this connection with the SPP, the plan also has ties with much older policies including the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA. Thomas Shannon, Sub-Secretary of Western Hemisphere Affairs for the US State Department, made this association apparent when he stated, “…as we have worked through the Security and Prosperity Partnership to improve our commercial and trading relationship, we have also worked to improve our security cooperation. To a certain extent, we're armoring NAFTA." The Merida Initiative, armoring NAFTA?The initiative was originally proposed to the US Congress in October 2007 as a $1.4 billion counter-narcotics package and was tagged to the Iraq supplemental funding bill as an appropriations amendment in order to expedite its passage though the US Congress for the 2008 fiscal yearv. It contains no provisions for cash payouts and in fact has no text regarding the spending plan for the bill however there has been speculation that the funding will go towards the training of law enforcement and military forces as well as a significant amount of hardware, which may include various types of aircraft and telephonic monitoring equipment for Mexico and Central Americavi.

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As pointed out by Laura Carlsen, director of the Americas Policy Program at the Center for International Policy, “The war on drugs model has always had this as an unspoken objective: to strengthen the executive power…”vii and this fits neatly within the agenda of the Bush administration which has fought for the accumulation of powers within the executive branch for the past eight years. Many members of the US Congress were frustrated with the Bush administration upon receiving the initiative as they felt there had been a serious lack of consultation with them on the initiative’s contents. Because the plan is not a treaty or formal agreement between the two countries, it has not been subject to approval by the Mexican Congress. iii

This left the Mexican Congress and civil society with little or no recourse on the initiative.Despite the fact that the funding in the Merida Initiative is aimed at Mexican entities, the vast majority of the funding will most likely go to US military contractors such as Blackwater, KBR and Halliburton.viii In effect all of the funding will remain in the US under a plan that takes advantage of the violent drug trafficking issue in Mexico to create economic benefits for US companies. However, US government agents, such as those from the US Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, could also be deployed in Mexico under the auspices of training the Mexican security forces and tracking the flow of arms from the US to Mexico (through Operation Gunrunner). These facets of the initiative implicate an issue of sovereignty in Mexico, especially when viewed against the backdrop of historic US/Mexico relations. The appropriations bill eventually passed in the US Congress on June 26, 2008 though the budget was slimmed down and the majority of the human rights conditions were abandoned. The final version includes $400 million in anti-narcotics training, judicial reform and hardware for Mexico and another $65 million slated for Central America, Haiti and the Dominican Republic for the 2008 fiscal year.ix

Militarization and the impact on human rightsIt is important to note as well, that the Merida Initiative was originally called Plan Mexico. However this name congers up memories of a similar plan that was implemented through a bilateral anti-narcotics initiative between the US and Colombia in 2000 known as Plan Colombia. In reality there are many similarities between the two plans especially in terms of the funding provided by the US to enhance public security forces. In eight years of Plan Colombia, the US has spent some $6 billion, 76% of which has gone towards military operations and equipment.vii

Despite all of the funding and support that Plan Colombia has boasted over the past eight years, little has changed on the ground in Colombia in regards to drug trafficking. Studies show that the number of coca fields in the country have remained constant or increased.vii Human rights violations continue to be a major issue as well, including the displacement of entire communities and numerous civilian deaths as a result of the intense militarization supported by the US.vii In addition, the Center for International Policy has estimated that some 35% of the funding in Plan Colombia for 2007 went toward “non-drug missions,” and it is speculated that much of that funding actually goes toward counter-insurgency missions.x While the Merida Initiative does seem to imply a “Colombianization” of Mexico and Central America, it appears that politicians within both the Bush and

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Calderón administrations decided to change the name of the plan giving it a public relations polish.Perhaps one of the most alarming issues with respect to the Merida Initiative is the lack of binding human rights conditions associated with it. In the original plan, there were minimal conditions tacked on to the bill that were severely cut and very nearly dropped all together. The conditions that do remain are weak at best. Those conditions, which apply to a mere 15% of the entire funding package, were included in the final bill voted into law at the end of June 2008 and provide for the establishment of a commission to receive and investigate complaints on misconduct on the part of the police or military entities; a periodic consultation between the Mexican government and human rights NGOs; the implementation of civil trials in cases of violations by member of the military; and a ban on the use of testimony acquired under torture.ix In reality these conditions have no teeth as illustrated in the case of testimony acquired under torture. This condition does not say anything about the actual use of torture but rather the restriction of the use of testimony acquired under torture. These requirements, soft as they are, may still be a challenge for the Mexican government and public security forces. The not so distant past of Mexico is riddled with atrocities such as the “Dirty War” of the 1970’s, which according to a former general of the Mexican Army, José Francisco Gallardo in an interview with the Mexican daily La Jornada in June 2008 (a major proponent of human rights within the military as well), has never really ebbed as indicated by the rising rates in grave human rights violations throughout the country including torture and arbitrary detentions. The US State Department itself has also cited corruption, kidnapping, extortion and impunity within the Mexican police forces in its latest human rights report on the country.9 And the violence in the country has not abated even with the increased financing for the war on drugs in Mexico. If anything it has increased. Radio Fórmula in Mexico reported that in June of 2008 alone, some 468 civilians were killed in Mexico due to drug related violence in comparison with the 509 civilians who were killed in Iraq during the same period.xi Equally troubling are the implications that increased support for the military could have on social protest. In a report released in September of 2004 by the Center for International Policy, this preoccupation was highlighted, stating, "Too often in Latin America, when armies have focused on an internal enemy, the definition of enemies has included political opponents of the regime in power, even those working within the political system such as activists, independent journalists, labor organizers, or opposition political-party leaders."xii While the military model in the fight against drug trafficking has long proven inefficient and has even been shown to increase violence and concentrate executive powers,xiii the bulk of the financing laid out in the Merida Initiative will in fact go to the Mexican military and police forces. In 2008 alone, Calderón increased spending to improve security forces in combating drug trafficking to some $4 billion.ii Even the current Republican candidate for the US presidency, John MaCain, has stated in the past that “There is no evidence that the U.S. military's involvement in the war on drugs has reduced the flow of narcotics into the country.” Already the Mexican military is involved in major anti-drug trafficking operations in eleven statesxiv

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including Guerrero, Michoacán, Tamaulipas and most recently in Chihuahuaxv. The Mexican military is also performing operations that would normally fall under the jurisdiction of law enforcement agencies, creating a situation ripe for human rights violations due to the fact that military personnel are trained for war scenarios, in which the object is to kill an enemy, not to maintain public order, as demonstrated in a study published by the Centro Prodh based in Mexico City.xiii Public opinion polls administered in states where the military has carried out these operations have shown that support for such intervention has weakened.i In addition, many soldiers have deserted the army in favor of higher paid positions within the drug cartels themselves,i demonstrating a troubling link between the military and drug traffickers. The military fortification that the Merida Initiative will provide is likely to lead to an increase in the number of human rights violations. The Mexican National Commission on Human Rights has called for the military’s withdrawal in combating drug trafficking.i The military has a long history of human rights violations and since the beginning of its involvement in the drug wars, the violations have not ceased as there have been reports including, but not limited to, fatal shootings, rape and kidnappings as described in the 2007 Mexico Human Rights Report of the US State Department.xvi The army has traditionally preferred to prosecuted these cases in military tribunals leaving the victims little recourse.xvi There are also claims that these violations are founded in the training received by members of the military in the US or the Canal Zone of Panama.i The Merida Initiative, judicial reform and the criminalization of social protestReforms to the judicial system in Mexico also play a large role in the funding provided by the Merida Initiative. The initiative stipulates that a percentage of the funds will go towards training and equipment to strengthen judicial reforms which amount to a harmonization of the Mexican judicial system with that of the US. Many of these changes have already taken place in a constitutional reform that was approved by the Mexican Congress on February 26, 2008. These reforms can be summarized as “establishing the presumption of innocence, allowing for oral trials, imposing limits on pre-trial detention, suppressing evidence obtained through coercion, improving access to legal counsel, and enhancing the police’s investigative capabilities.”xvii While many of these reforms appear beneficial, there are others that are of great concern to human rights defenders in Mexico. These other reforms include a revised definition of organized crime to include “an organization made up of three or more people to commit crimes in a permanent or repeated manner;” an administrative detention (arraigo) of 40 days with the option to extend the detention for a total of 80 days before charges have been made; and a compulsory detention that “is mandated for certain specific crimes such as organized crime… and serious crimes that the law determines are against the security of the nation, the free development of the entity and the public health.”xviii All three of these reforms can easily be applied to social activists and organizations creating an environment for the criminalization of social protest. The new powers that these reforms confer on law enforcement

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agencies and prosecutors creates an ample margin for human rights violations especially in the case of arraigo in which police will have suspects at their disposal and may engage in torture to obtain information as has been previously documented in Mexico.xix

There has been great resistance on the part of Mexican politicians, judges and civil society with regard to US involvement in Mexican judicial affairs.vii

Many see the situation as an infringement on Mexican sovereignty. Miguel Sarre, a professor at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), points out that the real issue lies within the Mexican judicial system itself stating, “These realities and concerns illustrate the fact that the crucial problem is the willingness and ability to combat impunity, more than the lack of helicopters, planes and other sophisticated equipment.”XX

The horizon of the Merida InitiativeThe future of the Merida Initiative looks to be long and perhaps arduous. While the original plan is composed of three years of funding, recently, Senator Patrick Leahy (Democrat from Vermont) stated that he believes that should the initiative show results, it will become a “multi-year commitment.” This implies that regardless of who wins the US presidential elections coming up in November, 2008, the incoming president will quite possibly be tied to Bush’s security legislation for years to come. The future for the fight against the Merida Initiative by the civil societies of both the US and Mexico becomes bleaker in light of Democratic nominee Barak Obama’s comments that the plan does not provide sufficient investment in combating drug trafficking. In fact the US Congress is currently considering an extra $400 - $470 million to be approved for the 2009 fiscal year under the initiative.xx It is obvious that the US is mandating and looking to continue a cycle of economic benefits for the private military sector in the US through this so-called bi-lateral initiative. With that in mind it is important to remember the words of former US Secretary of State under Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles, who while attending the inauguration of Mexican president Adolfo Lopez Mateos in December 1958 stated, “The United States of America does not have friends; it has interests.”

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SIPAZ ACTIVITIESMid-April to end of July 2008

INTERNATIONAL PRESENCE AND ACCOMPANIMENT PUBLIC RELATIONSAt the end of July, SIPAZ met with Second Secretary of the Political Section of the US Embassy, to discuss the Merida Initiative.CHIAPASHighlands (Altos)- SIPAZ visited Acteal and other communities of the municipality of Chenalhó, in April, May June and July.- In June and July SIPAZ visited the Zapatista Community Ecological Reserve, located near San Cristóbal de Las Casas occupying the same stretch of land as the Protected Natural Area Huitepec-Los Alcanfores subsequently created by the Chiapas state government. According to reports, the local population wasn’t consulted on the creation of the state reserve and was threatened with eviction.Selva- In May SIPAZ participated to an observation mission to San Jerónimo Tulijá (within the official municipality of Chilón and the autonomous municipality of Ricardo Flores Magon), a day after a military operation took place in the community. - At the beginning and end of July, SIPAZ conducted interviews with various counterparts and social organizations in Ocosingo.Center- In May and July, SIPAZ interviewed members of the OCEZ-Carranza Region who denounced the military incursions and harassment their communities had recently experienced.- In July, SIPAZ participated in an observation mission to Cruzton, municipality of Venustiano Carranza, after the community denounced aggressions on the part of the state police against community members, international observers and members of the Other Campaign.Detainees

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- At the end of April, SIPAZ accompanied a family member to visit Angel Concepción Perez Gutierrez and his father Francisco Perez Vazquez, both declaring themselves Zapatistas prisoners, after they were moved from a prison in Tabasco to one in Yajalón, Chiapas. SIPAZ members were present when the detainees arrived and interviewed them the following day.- On June 26, SIPAZ visited six detainees in the prison of San Cristobal de las Casas (State Center for the Social Reinsertion of Sentenced Prisoners, CERSS, n.5), all of them members of an organization of inmates “Voz de los Llanos”, adherent to the Other Campaign. On June 28, SIPAZ also interviewed eight other detainees in the prison of Cintalapa (State Center for the Social Reinsertion of Sentenced Prisoners, CERSS, n.14) belonging to another organization of inmates “ Voz del Amate”, also adherent to the Other Campaign.

i Roderic Ai Camp, “Role of Military to Military Cooperation and the Implications and Potentials Risks to Civil-Military Relations,” Testimony to Congressional Policy Forum 9 May 2008: 3, (31 Jul. 2008)ii Ray Walser, “Mexico, Drug Cartels, and the Merida Initiative: A Fight We Cannot Afford to Lose,” The Heritage Foundation, [Washington], 23 Jul. 2008, (11 Aug. 2008)iii Carl Meacham, “The Merida Initiative: Guns, Drugs and Friends,” A Report to Members of the Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate 21 Dec. 2007: 5, (31 Jul. 2008)iv United States, Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, SPP Myth and Facts (Washington: 2008), (31 Jul. 2008)v Jennifer Johnson, “The Forgotten Border: Migration & Human Rights at Mexico’s Southern Border” Latin American Working Group, January 2008, (31 Jul. 2008)vi United States, US Congress, Merida Initiative to Combat Illicit Narcotics and Reduce Organized Crime Authorization Act of 2008, Title I, Sec. 113, (31 Jul. 2008)vii Laura Carlsen, “A Primer on Plan Mexico,” Center for International Policy: Americas Policy Program, 5 May. 2008, (31 Jul. 2008)viii United States, Department of State, PSC - NAS Policy Advisor, Mexico City, Mexico, 25 Jun. 2008, (31 Jul. 2008)ix United States, US Congress, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008, Chapter 4, Subchapter C, Sec. 1406, (31 Jul. 2008)x “How much U.S. security aid is not counter-drug? Perhaps 35%,” Center for International Policy: Plan Colombia and Beyond, 9 Jul. 2008, (31 Jul. 2008)xi Fórmula de la Tarde, Radio Fórmula, Mexico, 1 Jul. 2008, (31 Jul. 2008)xii “Blurring the Lines: Trends in U.S. military programs with Latin America,” Center for International Policy, September 2004, (31 Jul. 2008)xiii “Military Abuses in Mexico,” Prodh Briefing, Centro Prodh, 14 Jul. 2008, (31 Jul. 2008)xiv United States, US State Department, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: Mexico, Sec. III Country Actions Against Drugs in 2007, March 2008, (31 Jul. 2008)xv Eric Olson, “Six Key Issues in United States-Mexico Security Cooperation,” Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Mexico Institute: Security Initiative, May 2008: 7, (31 Jul. 2008)xvi United States, US State Department, Mexico: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 11 Mar. 2008, (31 Jul. 2008)xvii Andrew Selee, “Overview of the Merida Initiative,” Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, May 2008: 3, (31 Jul. 2008)xviii Mexico, Secretaría de Gobernación, Decreto por el que se reforman y adicionan diversas disposiciones de la Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos de Mexicanos, 18 Jun. 2008xix Miguel Sarre, “Mexico’s judicial reform and long-term challenges,” Presented at the Policy Forum: U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation and the Merida Initiative, conveyed by the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. Capitol Building, Washington, D. C., 9 May. 2008: 3, (31 Jul. 2008)xx “Repeat Offense! Congreso Plans to Double Merida Funding!” Witness for Peace, 25 Jul. 2008, (31 Jul. 2008)

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- Between July 24 and July 26, SIPAZ participated to the First Meeting of Human Rights Defenders and Family Members of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of Conscience organized by the Human Rights Center Agustin Pro Juarez, in Mexico City. The goal of the meeting was to create a space for analysis and reflection in designing new strategies against the criminalization of social protest as well as to support the work of human rights defenders working with political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. OAXACAFrom May 5 to May 12, SIPAZ accompanied members of the Encuentro de Jóvenes en el Movimiento Social Oaxaqueño during their visit to various communities in the isthmus region of Oaxaca. The tour, known as “Path of the Jaguar; For the Regeneration of Our Memory and for the Defence of our Territory”, visited: Jalapa del Marqués, Juchitán, San Blas Atempa, Zanatepec y Benito Juárez Chimalapas. SIPAZ members also had various meeting with counterpart organizations in Oaxaca City.GUERREROFrom June 18 to June 21, SIPAZ conducted a visit to the state of Guerrero to follow-up on its previous observation mission carried out in March 2008, which saw the participation of 11 members of non-governmental organizations from 6 different countries. In Ayutla de los Libres, SIPAZ visited the local office of the Human Rights Center of the Mountain Tlachinollan, spoke with members of the Organization of the Me’phaa People (OPIM) and visited 5 members of the same organization currently under detention. In Chilpancingo, the team interviewed the president of the State Commission for the Defence of Human Rights as well as the state government Secretary General. SIPAZ members also participated in the forum “Guerrero: Where Poverty is Punished and Protest is Criminalized”, organized by Tlachinollan, as part of its 14th anniversary celebration.PEACE PROMOTIONPEACE EDUCATION- On May 29-30, SIPAZ presented a lecture at the symposium “Interculturalilty: Market and War, Solidarity and Peace” organized by the Intercultural Mayan Seminary (Seminario Intercultural Mayense, SIM), in San Cristobal de Las Casas.- In May, SIPAZ facilitated 3 courses in “Conflict Transformation and Human Rights” which make up part of a degree program at the SIM.NETWORKING- SIPAZ participated in the monthly meetings of the Chiapas Peace Network (Red por la Paz), a space for action and reflection made up of 16 organizations seeking to support peace processes and reconciliation in Chiapas.- In mid-april, SIPAZ participated in a series of meetings of the International Directorate of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) that took place in San José, Costa Rica.

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SIPAZ participated in a meeting organized by the Service for Peace and Justice (SERPAJ - Costa Rica) titled "Challenges for Reconciliation in the World Today” that also touched on other sub-topics such as the environment, ecumenism, migrations and militarization.- On May 13, SIPAZ participated in the meeting of the Mexican Network of Peace-Builders in Mexico City. - In mid-July, SIPAZ presented a lecture titled: “Peace Processes and Unresolved Conflicts in Chiapas” at the “Geo-politics and Geo-economics: Chiapas within the World Global Context” meeting, that took place in San Cristobal de Las Casas and which saw the participation of activists and social organizations from Mexico and Central America.INFORMATION- SIPAZ received individual visits and delegations (including students and journalists) to inform them on the current situation in Chiapas and the work conducted by SIPAZ.- During the entire month of April, a member of SIPAZ conducted a speaking tour in the United States, speaking on the current situation in Mexico and the work of SIPAZ (in Illinois and California).

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