A Drug War Informer in No Man’s Land…NYTimes

This long piece in the NYTimes is worth a look. Keep in mind that the DEA is famous for not protecting informants but merely using them. During the time period that the former informant portrayed here was police chief in Zapopan, Guadalajara, it was well-known to be a town sheltering many high-level traffickers. I’m particularly interested in the phone call Mr Lopez receives from an aging and sick General Rebollo Gutierrez recently. I have probably missed it, but I have not seen anything in the press about him being released from prison and transferred to a military hospital with his rank restored.  In fact, I talked to a person recently who claims to have met and talked to the general in prison. Here is a long piece from 1995 about the arrest of El Guero Palma…

The figure of 60,000 dead seems to be the official number, despite the fact that the toll surpassed that easily more than one year ago and that people are still being killed in many places in Mexico… The weekend in Chihuahua state was especially violent, though spread out in rural areas.   molly

U.S. role at a crossroads in Mexico’s intelligence war on the cartels…Washington Post

I recommend careful reading of this article by Dana Priest of the Washington Post…  A few paragraphs are highlighted. There is also an excellent graphic at the link showing the very small number of Mexican military and police killed since 2006…the number is significant, but not when compared to the 100,000+ civilians killed and the 25,000+ disappeared.

After reading this article, I’m struck by this sub-headline below: Violence deepened ties

I think we should ask: “Did the violence deepen tie (between Mexican and US security forces) OR did the deepened ties increase the violence??

The article confirms many of the operations revealed by the Wikileaks files on Mexico and covered in detail by Narco News Bulletin. The article also describes some detail about the long-standing and extremely close relationship between Mexican security forces (especially CISEN) and the CIA dating back to the 1980s. The information on US drones being used in Mexican security operations is especially interesting and troubling…I highlighted the paragraphs on the lack of effects on the supply and price of heroin, cocaine and other drugs in the US, despite the extremely high number of Mexican deaths. The main thing missing from the article is any hint that there is no information to be able to determine that the dead are indeed cartel criminals. But, we can’t have everything.
Read the article… comments welcome.  molly

 

CSUN journalism professor José Luis Benavides interviews Charles Bowden

Cal State Northridge, journalism professor, José Luis Benavides, interviews journalist and author Charles Bowden, April 22, 2013.

Over the last twenty years Bowden has authored several books on the violence occurring on the border between the United States and Mexico, focusing on Ciudad Juárez. Benavides and Bowden discuss the factors that led to his decision to start writing about the atrocities that Mexico’s powerful and, well-connected, elite carry out against the poor citizens of the country. At the forefront of his decision were the local street photographers that he encountered during a murder story he was investigating in Juárez in 1995. Bowden continues to tell the true story of why such an overwhelming amount of violence exists in Juárez.

After writing a piece about the exceptional work of the Juárez photographers, he discusses the origins of his friendship and collaborative working relationship with Juárez photographer, Julián Cardona. Bowden and Cardona have collaborated on several books. In “Juárez: Laboratory of our Future” Bowden shares how “American generated poverty in factories owned by American companies that pay slave wages,” are not enough for Mexican citizens, working in maquiladoras (foreign owned factories along the US/Mex. border), to survive. The book “Exodus/Éxodo” documents the emigration of Mexican citizens.

Father Alejandro Solalinde–El Alberque showing…Austin May 8

Free Screening of the documentary El Albergue followed by

Q & A with Father Alejandro Solalinde, Mexico’s 2012 National Human Rights Award recipient

 When: Wednesday, May 8, from 7 – 9 p.m.

 Where: Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center

(600 River St, Austin TX 78701, Tel: (512) 974-3772)

MAY 1, 2013 – AUSTIN, TX. Father Alejandro Solalinde, a Mexican Priest and winner of Mexico’s 2012 National Human Right’s Award is leading an “Interfaith Caravan of Hope for Immigration Reform Beyond Borders.” The aim of the caravan is to address the violence and injustices that migrants face on their trek from Latin America into the United States. With violence in Mexico and deportations from the US at a record high, migrants are especially vulnerable and facing a humanitarian crisis which calls for immediate action. The caravan departs from San Diego on April 29 and arrives in Washington D.C. on May 31. The caravan includes priests, pastors, and relatives of Central Americans who have been kidnapped, murdered or disappeared while traveling through Mexico on their way to the United States.

 Austin Tan Cerca, Cine las Americas, The Texas Observer, Mexicanos en Exilio and the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center are honored to host the caravan on its stop in Austin, Texas, on May 8th at 7 p.m.  at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center for a film screening of EL ALBERGUE a documentary about Hermanos en el Camino,a shelter for migrants in Oaxaca, Mexico run by Father Solalinde. Following the screening there will be a Q & A with Solalinde and members of the Caravan. Donations are accepted and will be used to cover costs of hosting; the remaining funds will be donated to the caravan. Donations can be made to the nonprofit Austin Tan Cerca and are tax deductible.

 

Presented by the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center, in collaboration with Mexicanos en Exilio, Cine Las Americas, Austin Tan Cerca and The Texas Observer

Contact: Alejandra Spector (915) 204-6511 mexenex@gmail.com

Alejandra Spector

Mexicanos en el exilio

Twitter: @mexenex

ABOUT THE FILM

 El albergue

A film by Alejandra Islas

2012, Mexico, Documentary

86 min. Digital, Color

Along the railroad tracks in Ixtepec Oaxaca, Father Alejandro Solalinde founded and built a shelter in 2007 to provide refuge to Central American migrants who ride on top of the trains on their way to the United States. Solalinde’s struggle intersects with the changing lives of dozens of women and men, who compelled by hope for a better life, wait for the moment when they will embark on their perilous journeys north.

En español:

Frente a las vías del tren, el sacerdote Alejandro Solalinde funda y construye un albergue en Ixtepec, Oaxaca, para dar refugio y alivio espiritual a migrantes centroamericanos. La lucha de Solalinde se entrecruza con las cambiantes vidas de mujeres y hombres, que movidos por la fe y la necesidad de trabajo digno, aguardan el momento de desafiar los peligros de su viaje al norte.

Sponsors: Austin Tan Cerca, Cine Las Americas, Mexicanos en Exilio, and the Texas Observer

Special Thanks: Austin Food Recovery Network

45 murder victims in Juarez in April

The Fiscalia and El Diario report this morning that a total of 45 people were murdered in Juarez in April. There is no breakdown by age or gender reported here.

At least two people were murdered on April 30, though I did not see these in El Diario. I got the information from the Fiscalia communiques that I receive via email. I will assume these are included in the total, but I am not certain of that. The Fiscal paints it in a positive light—even though the past two months have shown an increase, the numbers are still far below what they were in 2008-2012. Below are the cumulative figures for 2013 that I have. molly
JUAREZ HOMICIDES 2013
TOTAL WOMEN
January 30 1 Diario reported 25, but my count was 30  

 
February 29 5 Diario reported 25, 2 of them women; but there were 4 bodies found in narcofosas, 1 male and 3 female
March 45 2
April
TOTAL		 45
149

at least 6 people victims of homicide since Saturday night in Juarez…2 injured are state police

At least 6 people have been murdered in Juarez since last night.  At about 10 pm last night, a group of armed men stormed into a children’s’ party on Salvador Dali street in the Parajes del Sol neighborhood. Three men at the party were killed and another was injured. As of this afternoon when the Fiscalia reported the incident, the men have not been identified. Early morning yesterday, 2 young men were shot to death in the village of El Papalote in the Valle de Juarez. The news account says the victims (aged 18 and 19) were dragged out of a house and shot. Yesterday afternoon at about 3:00 pm, two ministerial police were attacked at a gasoline station on the west side of the city. The police (a man and woman) were reported to be injured while a woman working at the gasoline station was murdered. El Diario also reports that the leader of a gang of extortionists known as “El Miguelito” who was wounded about 11 days ago has died in the hospital. molly

Alfredo Corchado to speak at UTEP Centennial Lecture, May 9 2013

“Midnight in Mexico – A Reporter’s Journey Through A Country’s Descent into Darkness”
Alfredo Corchado

Mexico Bureau Chief

Dallas Morning News

Thursday, May 9, 2013, 5 p.m.

Undergraduate Learning Center, Room 126, UTEP Campus

Our Centennial offers not only an occasion to celebrate our distinguished history, but also a window through which we can begin contemplating our bright future as the first national research university with a 21st century student demographic. The Centennial Lecture Series invites noteworthy speakers to the UTEP campus to share their perspectives on a broad range of contemporary issues that are likely to impact our society, culture, and lives in the years ahead. We invite you to join us in exploring important and timely topics and in expanding our thinking about how they may help shape UTEP’s next 100 years.

Upcoming Lectures

Alfredo Corchado, “Midnight in Mexico – A Reporter’s Journey Through A Country’s Descent into Darkness”
Mexico Bureau Chief, Dallas Morning News
May 9, 2013

In 2014, The University of Texas at El Paso will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding in 1914 as the Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy. Our Centennial offers not only an occasion to celebrate our distinguished history, but also a window through which we can begin contemplating our bright future as the first national research university with a 21st century student demographic. The Centennial Lecture Series invites noteworthy speakers to the UTEP campus to share their perspectives on a broad range of contemporary issues that are likely to impact our society, culture, and lives in the years ahead. We invite you to join us in exploring important and timely topics and in expanding our thinking about how they may help shape UTEP’s next 100 years. 

President Diana Natalicio

The College of Liberal Arts
and
The Sam Donaldson Center for Communication Studies

cordially invite you to attend a UTEP Centennial Lecture
“Midnight in Mexico – A Reporter’s Journey
Through A Country’s Descent into Darkness”
Alfredo Corchado
Mexico Bureau Chief
Dallas Morning News

Thursday, May 9, 2013, 5 p.m.
Undergraduate Learning Center, Room 126, UTEP Campus

Reception to follow presentation



Alfredo Corchado, Mexico bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News, is a noted expert on immigration, drug violence, and foreign policy between the U.S. and Mexico. He has reported on everything from the disappearance of women in Juarez to the exodus of Mexico’s middle class to the United States. Over the years Mr. Corchado has exposed government corruption and the reach of Mexican drug traffickers into U.S. communities. He has described the perils that journalists face and the disturbing result: an increasingly silent Mexican press. Born in Durango, Mexico, Mr. Corchado grew up in California and Texas, working alongside his parents, who were members of the United Farm Workers, the union led by Cesar Chavez. Mr. Corchado’s father was a Bracero, part of a generation of Mexican workers who helped transform the United States and Mexico. As a reporter for U.S. newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, he has written about the plight of immigrants and their perilous journey to the United States. As a result of his reporting on the drug violence, Mr. Corchado has received numerous death threats that have forced him to leave Mexico for periods of time. He is a 1984 graduate of El Paso Community College and a 1987 graduate of The University of Texas at El Paso. Mr. Corchado has reported from Mexico, the United States and Cuba and has lived on both sides of the border, in El Paso, Washington D.C., Philadelphia and Cambridge. He currently resides in Mexico City, but calls the border home. A 2009 Nieman Fellow at Harvard and a 2010 Rockefeller Fellow and Woodrow Wilson Scholar, Corchado won the Maria Moors Cabot award from Columbia Journalism School in 2007 for extraordinary bravery and enterprise. In 2010 he was awarded Colby College’s Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism.

Navy troops remain in charge of security in Veracruz

With this comment from a person who sent me this story:  ” As far as I remember, Mando Único was meant to have ended in late 2011…!!! Amazing that this is not taken as a sign that Duarte does not have control of his state.”

I would add as a general comment, in all of the areas that have been under military rule (martial law, invasion, police takeovers, etc.) the violence explodes. After the first few months of 2008 had passed in Juarez and the military was brought in to “control the violence” people very quickly realized that the military were the perpetrators of much of the violence. And the levels of killings went up and up thru the first quarter of 2011… The violence did not even begin to recede in Juarez until the military and federal police began to be withdrawn from the city in late 2011.  Is there anyone in Mexico who believes that the military and federal police do anything other than kill?

 

494,000 Juarez residents live in poverty or extreme poverty

A study from the Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF) has found that Juarez now has nearly 500,000 residents living in poverty or extreme poverty.

The figures from the study show 432,000 poor and 62,000 extremely poor. This represents at least 37 percent of the population of the city who are unable to meet their basic needs. The poorest sector of the city is the southwest (el surponiente). These figures are based on the population of the city estimated at 1,335,000. Cesar Fuentes, the economist who conducted the study, said that since 2000, the levels of people living in poverty in the city have increased.
For a long time, Ciudad Juarez was not considered a zone of poverty due to the high levels of employment, even though most of the jobs in the city pay very low wages. The majority of the workers are in factory production lines and they earn only 700 to 800 pesos per week (between $57 and $66).

Violence in Michoacan, Guerrero, Juarez…

I have been less than systematic in reporting deaths from homicide in Ciudad Juarez and I also find myself relying on (and doubting) these new reports from the Mexican government. Several people I trust who live in Mexico have responded to me privately that they believe the government is purposefully under-reporting homicide numbers.  So, the evidence we have from the press is sporadic and partial, as are my efforts to find this evidence and share it with the list.  I was away from the computer most of the day yesterday as I sat for hours in a waiting room at the ICE Detention Center in El Paso, waiting to testify about the violence in Juarez and in Mexico generally as background information in an asylum case.

During the course of the day, I received several reports from list members about confrontations with large numbers of deaths. The first report was from Guerrero where shootings in several different places left 7 people dead.

Bloody morning in Guerrero… From Proceso Online…5 people were killed in the capital of Chipancingo despite (or because of?) the fact that some 3000 federal agents had been sent to the city to keep order during a demonstration by members of the Movimiento Popular de Guerrero. Also, in Acapulco, another two people were killed. 

When I got home last night, I saw an article in El Diario (from El Universal) of confrontations in Michoacan that left at least 17 people dead. The Guardian also reported these killings, contrasting the events with the government’s announcement of a 14% decrease in killings since the same period last year (Dec-March)…  

And in Juarez yesterday there were 2 separate killings reported and today, two men were shot in an electrical shop and another person injured.