Dear Global Justice Readers,


A large increase in military aid to Mexico is included in the 2009 Supplemental funding bill currently being debated in the U.S. Congress. This boost to the package of weapons and training locked in by Bush-era Mérida Initiative (Plan Mexico) funding is a disturbing signal that the Obama Administration is following the ill-conceived path forged under Bush's presidency-prioritizing military approaches to social and economic issues. Rising U.S. military involvement in Mexico has been widely opposed by Mexican human rights groups. The latest funds were allocated as part of a broad "supplemental" budget package that skirts debate and minimizes public scrutiny.

Please tell your Congressional Representatives that you oppose further militarization of our Mexico policy. The new Administration needs to move beyond knee-jerk military responses to complex social issues. We recommend this background analysis by Laura Carlsen.

At the same time that the U.S. is boosting military aid, human rights conditions in Mexico are in decline. The atmosphere of crisis generated by widespread violence related to narco-trafficking has provided the Army and police forces a fresh pretext for ignoring human rights and defending impunity for well-connected criminals and abusers.

Examples of unpunished crimes are many. In Oaxaca City more than two-dozen activists were gunned down by paramilitaries organized by state police during an uprising in 2006. The government has neither investigated nor held accountable those responsible. Even in the case of Bradley Will-the one foreigner killed-the authorities, have invented preposterous theories to shield allies and persecute opponents.

2006 was a turning point for Mexico. In May that year, weeks before the uprising in Oaxaca and months prior to the presidential election, police brutally attacked demonstrators in San Salvador Atenco in Mexico State. Federal, state, and local police arrested and tortured hundreds of demonstrators and raped or abused 26 women. No one involved in planning and carrying out the attacks and rapes has been charged, yet 12 demonstrators are still imprisoned on sentences ranging up to 112 years!


Please join the campaign to free these twelve political prisoners.

source: Global Exchange

as always, just passing it on

Obama/Clinton to visit Mexico

Dear Readers,
US-Mexico relations are at a tense and defining moment. During Felípe Calderón's first two years as president, drug war violence has reached an all time high. Meanwhile, the effects of the U.S. financial and economic crisis are spilling over our southern border - with job loss and the devastation of family incomes and savings hitting Mexicans, just as they have in United States.
At the same time, disputes over NAFTA provisions have gone public, and some panicky voices in the U.S. national security establishment have even suggested that the overall disintegration of Mexico is so serious that the Mexican state itself is in danger of "catastrophic failure." This sense of crisis - whether manufactured or real - has reduced the focus on traditional, bi-lateral concerns like immigration policy.
On March 25th and 26th, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Monterrey, Mexico to lay the groundwork for an April 16th and 17th trip by President Barack Obama to Mexico City where he will meet with Mexico's president, Felípe Calderón. Additional preparatory visits by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder add to the sense that the new U.S. Administration is giving Mexico top priority.
As these official visits take place we will be intensifying our coverage of Mexico -- both on this list serve and our website. If you would like to receive Mexico-specific news on a regular basis, sign up here.
Linked to this message please find:
1. An excellent piece by our colleague Laura Carlsen, who lays out a case for skepticism regarding claims that Mexican cartels are orchestrating widespread violence on the U.S. side of the border;
2. A review of David Bacon's Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants by Ted Lewis recently published in Z Magazine;
3. A backgrounder on Mexico's appearance before the United Nations Human Rights Commission; and
4. An article from The Associated Press covering recent disputes over NAFTA trucking provisions that will be a front and center topic of bi-lateral conversations.
Sincerely,
Global Exchange


Source Global Exchange

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The Right to Stay Home: Alternatives to Mass Displacement and Forced Migration in North America

Dear Global Justice Readers,

Many people's spirits were lifted by the inauguration of President Obama this week. Now comes the challenging work of making the promised change real.
This week we are releasing our new report, The Right to Stay Home: Alternatives to Mass Displacement and Forced Migration in North America, online. We hope our readers use this report as a tool to help focus attention on the urgent need to make Mexico, Immigration, and NAFTA reform front and center priorities of the new administration.

The report focuses on the powerful economic forces that drive migration from Mexico to the United States. It brings together the voices of a range of progressive economists, anthropologists, law professors, journalists, and leaders of social organizations on both sides of the border who analyze the complexities of the migration dynamic and propose strategies to mitigate them.

The report's contributors include: Jeff Faux, Armando Bartra, David Bacon, Gustavo Esteva, Laura Carlsen, Bill Hing, Amy Shannon, Oscar Chacon, Maria Dolores París, John Gibler, Berta Lujan, Dan Labotz and Ted Lewis.

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The topic of Mexico will be unavoidable for President Obama. Even prior to his inauguration he met with Felipe Calderon -- the weak and ever more isolated president of Mexico. At the conclusion of that meeting, Obama called for a "NAFTA upgrade." We hope that means our new president is sending the signal that -- as he promised in his campaign -- NAFTA is no longer sacrosanct and that real change may come to our diplomacy with Mexico. We offer our report as a tool in the fight to make sure that happens.

During the last year more than five thousand Mexicans have died in a drug war that has no end in sight. Meanwhile, Mexican government revenues that depend heavily on income from oil sales are dropping sharply as both current prices and overall reserves decline. The value of the Mexican Peso has dropped nearly 30 percent since last September and unemployment is rising rapidly as Mexico faces a magnified version of the deep recession sweeping the United States. Large-scale migration to the United States that has provided an escape valve for Mexican social volatility over the last quarter century is an increasingly difficult option during the sharp contraction of the U.S. workforce underway today.

The sense of crisis is real, but the path of growing military support for Calderon's government that Bush pursued via the "Merida Initiative" (Plan Mexico) is not a viable or acceptable path for Obama to take. In this light, recent comments by departing Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, were chilling. He raised the possibility of a security "surge" on the United States' side of the border should escalating drug war violence in Mexico move north. His comments came on the heels of a United States Joint Forces Command study that compared Mexico to Pakistan as one of two "large and important states" with potential for "rapid and sudden collapse."

2009 is a pivotal year for both Mexico and the United States. We urge you to read and make use of our report today and to stay tuned for further developments.

Best,
The Mexico Team


source: Global Exchange

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