Last week, in a story I briefly mentioned Thursday, the Washington Post examined how, in the absence of an effective legal system, new, so-called “vigilante groups” have begun to emerge, carrying out their own brand of “justice.” As the Post notes its note just a phenomenon isolated to remote villages and the Mexican hinterlands; extra-legal justice has also become common in major Mexican cities like Monterrey and Ciudad Juarez. And, as noted by Frontera List, the Post’s report appears to be the first major English report that discusses a group of Mexican senators, led by Sen. Ricardo Monreal, who believe many of Mexico’s 30,000+ killings could be attributed to private “paramilitary-style…contract killers,” working both for Mexican business elites and cartels themselves. The group of Mexican senators calling for new investigations has gone so far as to label such violence “social cleansing.”
Today, the LA Times moves the discussion of Mexico’s broken justice system south, to President Calderón’s home state of Michoacan. There the paper says that all but one of thirty-five state officials (including mayors, prosecutors, and police chiefs) arrested in a high-profile sweep last year for allegedly taking bribes from cartels, are today free men. Many, in fact, have returned to their old jobs, where they maintain their arrests were little more than election season politics. The LA Times has a more nuanced, institutional analysis of the failure in justice:
“The high-profile collapse underscores fundamental defects in the Mexican criminal justice system, including the country's ministerios publicos, a combination detective and prosecutor. These officials are poorly paid, frequently lack professional training and have been known to throw cases in exchange for bribes or to escape possible retribution.”
John Ackerman, law professor at UNAM and editor of the Mexican Law Review, calls the ministerios publicos the “weak link” in the Mexican justice system. “Even if you have an honest judge,” he says, “you’re not going to be able to convict” if the ministerios do not do their job correctly. Case in point: last year’s thirty-five arrests. After gaining access to the sealed case files coming from those arrests, the LA Times writes that “prosecutors relied on circumstantial evidence that didn't hold up under judicial scrutiny and on three anonymous paid informants whose testimony consisted largely of hearsay.” The largest result of the whole fiasco? Even deeper public skepticism about an already distrusted criminal justice system. More of the details from the specific case files at the LA Times.
And from the Washington Post on Sunday and Monday, two long reports on US guns headed south of the Rio Grande – part of a multi-part investigative series by the Post, dubbed the “The Hidden Life of Guns.” Among other things, Part I of the investigation reveals the names of gun dealers with “the most traces from guns recovered in Mexico over the past two years.” As the paper notes, those numbers do not necessarily indicate “wrongdoing” on the part of sellers but do provide a never-before-seen picture of the origins of many smuggled firearms. However, with respect to guns that end up in Mexico, the tracing process is a difficult one. The Post:
“Of the more than 60,000 guns recovered in Mexico and traced back to the United States, the ATF is able to link only about 25 percent to the dealers who first sold the weapons and the purchasers who bought them. In the United States, on average, 65 to 70 percent of the weapons recovered are successfully traced back to dealers and buyers.”
Part II of the investigation, in today’s paper, more specifically focuses on some of the 60,000 US guns that have been recovered in Mexico. According to the report, eight of the top twelve dealers of Mexican-bound guns are in the state of Texas. Again, the paper’s clear that the identification of such dealers does not necessarily indicate wrongdoing.
Continuing in Mexico:
· McClatchy reports that organized criminal gangs have begun harassing schoolteachers in Juarez, demanding they hand over their holiday bonuses or risk being the target of armed attacks. McClatchy’s Tim Johnson:
“Painted threats scrawled outside numerous public schools demand that teachers hand over their Christmas bonuses or face the possibility of an armed attack on the teachers -- and even the children. To make the point clear, assailants set fire to a federal preschool in the San Antonio district a week ago, leaving the director's office in smoldering ruins.”
The AP reports on a gun battle in the Jalisco city of Tecalitlan which took the lives of at least 11 Friday night. The violence came as residents celebrated a Virgin of Guadalupe festival. In nearby Michoacan, meanwhile, notorious La Familia capo Nazario Moreno Gonzalez (aka “El Chayo, or“El Mas Loco”) was killed by Mexican security forces, the latest in a string of cartel leader arrests and killings. And from BBC Mundo, another report on investigative work being carried out by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), in and around Ciudad Juarez. The group’s present focus: “feminicidios,” or the targeted killing of women in Mexico’s murder city.
· In Venezuela, the AP says President Hugo Chavez announced Friday he will ask allies in the national assembly to approve an “enabling law” for just the fourth time in his presidency. The law would give the president the power to enact new laws by decree – something Chavez says is needed to quickly pass new legislation on housing, land use, and banking in the wake of massive flooding. The request comes less than one month before a new National Assembly is seated (Jan. 5). While chavistas will still wield a majority in the new body, it is doubtful they will able to secure the 2/3 majority necessary to pass future “enabling laws.”
· Also on a busy legislative agenda in Venezuela, more from Global Voices on a new media regulation law which some watchdog groups worry could restrict internet freedoms. The Venezuelan rights group, Espacio Público says the current bill is riddled with “serious technical shortcomings” which constitute a “violation of the human right to freedom of expression” and allows for “selective application.” [The proposed bill can be linked to at the bottom of the Global Voices post]. And Venezuelanalysis reports on the passage of two other laws last week – a new Organic Law of Popular Power and an Organic Law of Popular and Public Planning. Both are part of five “popular power” laws which “aim to transform the state structures of planning and decision making to involve more grassroots organizations.” Communal councils and communes, says Venezuelanalysis, are the principal institutions of popular power in the country.
· In Haiti, the AP reports that, while demonstrations subsided in the capital over the weekend, two of the top three presidential contenders – Mirlande Manigate and Michel Martelly – announced they reject a proposed recount offered by the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP). Only the candidate of the government, Jude Celestin, supports such a move, putting the extension of a temporary calm in jeopardy. Today, the press service reports the CEP responded to the rejections last night by once “inviting feuding candidates to appeal the results of the disputed presidential election” through legal channels. The Council did so by reopening the appeals process until Wednesday, apparently at the request of international diplomats from the United States, France, Canada, Brazil, Germany, Spain, the United Nations, the European Union and the Organization of American States. The statement from the envoys appears to be the new position of the “international community” and, in part, reads:
“The international community encourages the use of all legal avenues to advance a credible electoral process to ensure that the final results fully reflect the will of the Haitian voters.”
In the US, meanwhile, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), head of the committee that oversees aid appropriations, called last week for a halt in aid to Haiti's government and the suspension of visas for officials and their families until the crisis is solved. And, from the Miami Herald, a short recap of Sarah Palin’s visit to the country which seems to have been mostly uneventful. It was also closed off to all media except Fox News.
· What the New York Times labels a “modest deal” was struck at the UN’s Cancun climate talks on Friday. While falling short of “broad changes,” the paper maintains that “the international process for dealing with the issue got a significant vote of confidence.” Getting particular attention is the fact that the Cancún Agreements provide the more than 190 countries participating in the conference another year to decide whether to extend the “frayed” Kyoto Protocol. The deal also “sets up a new fund to help poor countries adapt to climate changes, creates new mechanisms for transfer of clean energy technology, provides compensation for the preservation of tropical forests and strengthens the emissions reductions pledges” made at Copenhagen. At IPS, more on the much discussed REDD+ program for preventing deforestation and regenerating destroyed forests. BBC Mundo with more on what the deal means for Latin America. The Guardian’s John Vidal looks at Evo Morales and Bolivia, the only country to vote against the agreement. And Amy Goodman of Democracy Now with questions for Morales, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, as well as Venezuela’s top negotiator, Claudia Salerno, last week in Cancun.
· The AP on Bolivia’s decision to officially lower the retirement age to 58, “bucking a global trend” of retirement age increases.
· The Financial Times this week with a multi-part report on Latin America’s current economic situation, part of its “International Business Insight” series.
· And finally, from the Wikileaks Latin America file. As Brazilian President Lula da Silva came out in support of Julian Assange and Wikileaks last week, a 2008 cable on Manuel Zelaya (from outgoing US Amb Charles Ford to then-incoming ambassador, Hugo Llorens) has commentators talking. Ford doubles a psycho-analyst calling the then president a “rebellious teenager.” He also makes some evidence-free claims about ties to organized crime and more. Discussion of some of Ford’s claims from RAJ at Honduras Culture and Politics and Charles, posting at the Daily Kos.
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