Battling for Mexican Municipalities

In the New York Times this morning, Randal Archibold reports on the high toll Mexico’s drug wars are taking on numerous small, often forgotten towns in the country’s north. The violence and suffering, he says, is embodied in a place like Guadalupe Distrito Bravos, a cotton farming town near the Texas border that was once home to some 9000 residents. Today nearly have the population has fled while the one regular police officer who remained on duty late last year, police chief Erika Gándara, 28, disappeared in December. She has not been seen since. The Times:

"Far from big, infamous cities like Ciudad Juárez, one of the most violent places in the Americas, the war with organized crime can batter small towns just as hard, if with less notice.

The cotton towns south of Juárez sit in territory disputed by at least two major drug trafficking groups, according to government and private security reports, leading to deadly power struggles. But the lack of adequately trained police officers, a longstanding crisis that the government has sought to address with little resolution, allows criminal groups to have their way."

According to Daniel Sabet, a visiting professor at Georgetown University who studies policing in Mexico, small towns have become the “strongholds” of Mexican organized crime. At the same time, those local police officers who remain are often charged with unclear authorities. For example, in much of Mexico’s north, state and federal authorities are supposed to lead investigations into “major crimes,” the Times says. The problem, in the opinion of a mayor in another small Northern Mexico town, Práxedis Guerrero: the fact that there are so few “minor crimes” anymore.

With more on the targeting of women in Mexico’s drug wars, El Diario reports on the murder of distinguished Juarez poet Susana Chavez, 36, murdered last Thursday in Juarez’s Colonia Cuauhtémoc. A social activist, Chavez’s work long reflected her struggle against violence, particularly against women, the paper writes. While the El Paso Times had not identified the victim as Susana Chavez when reporting on her murder last week, it did mention the all-too-horrific symbolism engraved on the poet’s murdered body: one sawed off hand.

In the Mexican municipality of Temoac, state of Morelos, the murder of another mayor – the second of 2011. In 2010, at least 13 Mexican mayors were assassinated. And more on the investigation into the disappearance of some 30 Central American migrants in Oaxaca in late December. From EFE: the Attorney General’s office says a Nicaraguan man and a Mexican accomplice were arrested this week in connection to the alleged abductions. No word yet, however, on the whereabouts of the victims.

The Mexican government initially denied reports of the kidnappings and only investigated after the government of El Salvador – along with Honduras and Guatemala – demanded an investigation.

To other stories:

· In Honduras, Tiempo reports on the “escape” of MUCA/FNRP campesino activist Juan Chinchilla from the hands of unidentified captors over the weekend. Chinchilla has yet to make a public statement about his kidnapping but Honduras Culture and Politics has more, emphasizing the fact that Chinchilla has said that he escaped – rather than being in some way liberated by state security officials. RAJ also suggests the Honduran media is already spinning Chinchilla’s abduction away from on-going land struggles in Bajo Aguan – a movement in which Chinchilla has been much involved.

· Also in Honduras, a report from El Heraldo and AFP about new attempts by the Honduran congress to reform Article 5 of the Honduran constitution. Reforming that article, says El Heraldo, would “open the doors” to future consultations about the validity of Honduras’s currently non-amendable “petrified articles." Watchers of the 2009 coup will remember the role such articles played in the events surrounding the ouster of Manuel Zelaya. AFP spins the discussion about the proposed reforms saying it will “open the door to the possibility of presidential reelection in Honduras.” A more accurate analysis, as AFP later writes, would be to say the reforms would “reduce the requirements necessary to hold a plebiscite or referendum,” including allowing voters to decide whether or not the petrified articles (Article 374) – which include but are not limited to presidential re-election – should be scrapped or reformed. If El Heraldo’s reporting is correct, it appears the government of Pepe Lobo, which is backing the reforms of Article 5, has the votes necessary for congressional approval.

· On Venezuela, Newsweek argues Hugo Chavez has toned down his at times bombastic international rhetoric of late. In particular, the magazine says his deepening relationship with Colombia has “made some observers cautiously optimistic that Chávez’s cooperation could push Colombia’s peace process along.” Aldo Civico, quoted on those developments, says Venezuela’s new posture may put new pressure on Colombia’s guerrillas to seek a negotiated peace. Meanwhile, domestically – and keeping an eye on what Chavez will do with special decree powers – Venezuelanalysis reports on more emergency housing measures taken by the president in the wake of devastating flooding last month. The construction of many of the new housing projects, the website reports, will be self-managed by grassroots organizations that make up the “Dweller’s Movement” in Caracas.

· BBC Mundo reports on tensions between PSUV legislators and the opposition in the new National Assembly. Those tensions piqued after OAS Sec. General’s criticisms of Venezuela’s “Enabling Law.” The first Latin America leader who I’ve seen address that law was Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo on CNN Espanol Tuesday. El Universal reports, saying Lugo takes Insulza’s opinion on the matter to be a personal one, not the position of the regional body as a whole. On the matter of Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur – something Lugo has been advocating for some time – the Paraguayan leader with this oft-forgotten message to those who have opposed Venezuela’s entry: “Venezuela is not just Chavez.” Some members of the Venezuelan opposition, El Universal reports, are now petitioning for Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur as well – with the condition that its president abide by the Inter-American Democratic Charter.

· El Nuevo Herald reports that the US will have 30 days to decide whether Alvaro Uribe has immunity or not. The decision will determine whether or not the former president can be forced to testify in a case being brought against the US mining company Drummond for the alleged murder of Colombian peasants.

· At Just the Facts, Adam Isacson, posts an Oct. 2010 video interview with Jesús Emilio Tuberquia, a leader of the San José de Apartadó Peace Community in northwestern Colombia. Uruguayan writer and Americas Program contributor, Raul Zibechi also features the Peace Community in a recent piece at Upside Down World.

· La Silla Vacía previews the major political discussions on tap in Colombia in the coming year.

· The Wall Street Journal reports on the official beginning of the 2011 presidential race in Peru.

· In the LA Times, Peter Kornbluh and Julia Sweig co-author an opinion on the trial of Luis Posada Carriles, arguing the case is remarkable for the cooperation it has entailed between the US and Cuban governments.

· At Foreign Policy, José Cardenas, identifying himself as an adviser to Honduran leaders who advocated for the constitutionality of President Zelaya’s removal in June 2009, is intent on re-arguing that the ouster of the Honduran president was in some way legal.

· And finally, the one year anniversary of the Haitian earthquake. PBS’s Frontline latest hour-long report looks at the last year in the country – its focus heavy on issues of crime, gangs, and the rule of law (or lack thereof). CEPR posts a copy of the full OAS report on the Nov. 28 elections – as well as its own analysis. That analysis is much more critical of the OAS’s recommendations – which include pushing the government’s candidate Jude Celestin out of a second round – than the Washington Post, which today argues the OAS report “offers the least bad way to overcome the flaws of the November elections and prepare the ground for Haitians to unlock international aid, build stronger agencies of government and forge a better future.” The Miami Herald also says dealing with the electoral crisis is job #1 for Haiti. But former Haitian Ambassador to the US Raymond Joseph writes in today’s Wall Street Journal that dealing with the electoral crisis correctly would mean holding a complete re-run of Haiti’s elections – this time “freely and fairly.” His recommendation is four-fold: 1. That Rene Preval step down on Feb. 7, as planned; 2. That a judge from the Supreme Court preside over an interim government to organize new elections, per the Constitution; 3. That the Interim Commission for Recovery move forward with its reconstruction efforts; 4. And that a new and independent electoral commission be formed in concert with civil society to administer new elections.