Just days before July 4 mayoral and gubernatorial elections in Mexico, popular Mexican gubernatorial candidate Rodolfo Torre Cantú was shot and killed with four others Monday morning on his way from the Tamaulipas capital of Ciudad Victoria to a campaign event in Matamoros. According to the New York Times, the killing of Torre – a PRI candidate who had made security his top campaign concern – is “arguably the highest-profile case of political violence since 1994,” when then-presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, was assassinated. Responding to the Monday’s murders, President Felipe Calderón pledged justice. “This was an act not only against a candidate of a political party but against democratic institutions, and it requires a united and firm response from all those who work for democracy,” he told his country in a nationally televised address yesterday.
The Washington Post adds to the reporting, writing that despite the assassination of Mr. Torre – the favorite in Sunday’s race for governor – Sunday’s vote would not be postponed. However, it seems many will likely stay home rather than face potential violence. “I am not going to vote because there is a lot of fear. The tension is very strong,” one Tamaulipas resident tells the paper.
Mexican authorities did not say which drug gang was suspected to be behind the Torre assassination. [The state of Tamaulipas has, however, become a battleground between the Zetas and the Gulf cartel.] But according to the Wall Street Journal, Monday’s murder of a PRI politician marks a “deviation” from prior instances of cartel violence against Mexican politicians. Until yesterday, the paper says, cartels seemed to have been principally targeting parties opposing the PRI.
The murder of Torre and four aides comes after another attack on a Mexican drug rehab clinic in Durango state killed 9 individuals over the weekend. Meanwhile, in Sinaloa, well-known Mexican singer Sergio "El Shaka" Vega was also murdered this weekend when his car pulled up to a toll booth station.
In other stories:
· Colombian police have been tapping the phones of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and Ecuadorean police and military officials since 2008. Bloomberg has news of the story, first broken by Ecuador’s El Universo, which adds that both the outgoing Colombian president Alvaro Uribe and his successor, Juan Manuel Santos, had been briefed about the secret DAS program at least three times. Phone-tapping apparently began after the March 2008 cross-border raid on a FARC camp in Ecuador which killed Raul Reyes. BBC Mundo says Ecuadorean prosecutors will begin an investigation into the matter. The scandal erupts just days after Correa told the AP he’d be more than willing to help mediate the conflict between the FARC and the Colombian government.
· El Faro reports from El Salvador that new – and controversial – anti-gang legislation will be presented this Thursday. Critics say the FMLN-backed bill mirrors a similar anti-gang measure of the conservative ARENA party. The FMLN opposed that measure six years ago. But the party is now admitting its flip-flop, saying yesterday that “If we were wrong in the past, then … we can wholly accept that mistake, but the issue is that now the situation demands great responsibility.” The ARENA’s anti-gang legislation – which made it a crime to simply be a part of a gang – was later struck down by the Supreme Court. More in an El Faro interview with Salvadoran Vice Minister of Public Security, Henry Campos here.
· In Honduras, more on the one year anniversary of the coup. IPS has a good report from Thelma Mejía who says “defacto” military veto power in the country continues to block any possible political or electoral reforms in the country. The story comes after the head of the Honduran Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) said the possibility of ending the military’s role as the transporter of ballot boxes during elections was being considered. Just days later, however, the TSE changed its tune entirely after a meeting with senior military officials. According to IPS, the TSE now it “will seek to ‘expand’ the functions of the military [in the electoral process], including the possibility of allowing members of the armed forces to vote. According to Leticia Salomón, an expert in military affairs, one of the most significant consequences of last year’s coup has been the growing role of the military in the public sphere. The country now has “highly politicised security forces, and in the case of the military, the leadership has become a decision-making body, says Salomón.
· The pro-coup El Heraldo reports on FNRP protests yesterday, saying only about 2000 individuals showed up for marches in the capital commemorating last year’s coup. I haven’t seen figures from the FNRP itself yet but Vos el Soberano does have photos. Pro-coup La Tribuna, meanwhile, reports on FNRP marches in San Pedro Sula where some 3000 resistance members took a bridge for nearly three hours. Meanwhile, the FNRP announced it had collected some 600,000 signatures in favor of holding a constituent assembly. For his part, Mel Zelaya watched events from the DR. In a letter released on the coup’s anniversary, Mr. Zelaya’s harshest words were saved for the United States, which, he now claims, was “behind the coup.” As the AP reports, Zelaya cited what he called the “public support the United States wound up giving to the coup.” And RAJ at Honduras Culture and Politics has a list of recommendations about what the Lobo government could do to start a process of real national dialogue. I recommend reading in-full.
· In Paris, the trial of former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega has begun. He stands trial on charges of money laundering. And here’s the New York Times lead: “The former Panamanian dictator was not allowed to wear his trademark military fatigues and appeared confused about the most basic of biographical information: his age.”
· Rogelio Nunez at Infolatam analyzes how some currents within the indigenous movements of Ecuador and Bolivia are becoming a “new opposition” against their respect left-leaning governments. While in Venezuela, the piece maintains that a “third way,” which includes former chavista figures like Lara governor Henri Falcon and his Partido Patria para Todos, is beginning to bill itself as a new center-left, “de-polarizing” oppositional alternative to the current government.
· Regionally and internationally, the AP reports on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s second stop on his Latin American tour: Cuba. The two governments apparently reached an agreement on battling drug trafficking and helping each other dismantle international smuggling syndicates working between both countries. He travels on to Brazil next, as well as Argentina. And in Paraguay, President Fernando Lugo called on his country’s Congress to approve Venezuela’s entry into MERCOSUR. “Let’s think seriously in terms of the future…this will inevitably benefit both economically and commercially our country [Paraguay],” said Lugo, recommending the conservative legislators get over their obsession with the “name” of Hugo Chavez alone.
· Oliver Stone, Mark Weisbrot, and Tariq Ali respond to Saturday’s New York Times piece by Larry Rohther.
· With a historian’s note, CNN reports on the deterioration of Brazil’s national archives building – new home to a large amount of formerly classified material from the country’s twenty year military dictatorship (1964-1985).
· And opinions. Sarah Stephens on Honduras in the Huffington Post, says US policy is coming up short. She cites last week’s letter from 27 Democratic House members to Sec. of State Hillary Clinton as the basis for a policy a change. Also, CDA’s Linda Garrett responds to arguments being made that Mauricio Funes and the FMLN have done little to “remake” El Salvador after one year in office. It’s too early, Garrett argues, to write off the Funes government. And never one to shy away from controversy, Arizona’s Gov. Jan Brewer now says most illegal immigrants entering her state are being used to smuggle drugs from Mexico. In her own words:
“I believe today, under the circumstances that we're facing, that the majority of the illegal trespassers that are coming into the state of Arizona are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels and they are bringing drugs in.”
Jaime Farrant, policy director for Tucson-based Border Action Network counters, saying “We have no evidence that's the truth. We think most people come in search of jobs or to reunite with their families.”
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