A recent uptick in violence against human rights defenders in the state of Chihuahua continues to be met with impunity and silence by the Mexican government. According to BBC Mundo, several activists have had their homes burned and seen their close relatives disappeared in recent weeks.
In a statement released Tuesday, Human Rights Watch says the most recent such attacks include house burnings carried out against human rights defenders María Luisa García Andrade and Sara Salazar on February 15 and 16. Both Garcia Andrade and Salazar work with the rights organization Return our Daughters (Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa). In the case of Salazar, the incident was only the latest in a series of violent acts of intimidation. Just one week prior, two of Salazar's children, Elias and Magdalena Reyes Salazar, as well as Elias's wife, Luisa Ornelas, were abducted. Their whereabouts, says HRW, remains unknown.
García, Salazar, and other staff of the organization Return our Daughters, along with human rights defenders at the Women's Human Rights Center (Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Mujer) in Chihuahua, were granted special protection measures by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in June 2008. But members of both groups tell Human Rights Watch that federal and state authorities have “failed to take adequate steps to provide protection” HRW:
“[T]he Women's Human Rights Center said that repeated requests to reinforce their office windows with bars and install security cameras had not been granted by authorities, and so they paid for the security measures on their own. They said that an emergency telephone number provided by the state government has been out of order since July 2010, when the new governor, César Horacio Duarte Jáquez, began his term.”
José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, comments on the situation:
“Human rights defenders in Chihuahua take on huge risks for themselves and their families by documenting grave abuses. How many more must be threatened, abducted, or killed before the government takes the steps necessary to keep them safe?”
More in the full HRW statement here.
Meanwhile, there are various reports this morning that just one week after an attack on two US ICE agents in San Luis Potosí, the Mexican army claims to have arrested at least six individuals suspected of being involved in the attack. Among those arrested Wednesday was suspected Zeta member Julian Zapata Espinoza — aka “El Piolin.” Mexican military officials claim Zapata Espinoza has already admitted to killing US agent Jaime Zapata – but serious bruises on the face of Zapata and the men with whom he was arrested should quickly call into question the conditions under which that alleged confession was made.
According to the military, the suspect says the Zetas “mistook” the ICE vehicle for one used by a rival gang. The AP reports that Zapata Espinoza had been arrested in 2009 on illegal weapons charges, but “jumped bail and disappeared until soldiers caught him and five other suspects in raids Wednesday on four Zetas safehouses in San Luis Potosi.”
The arrests came on the same day that Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced he will be traveling to Washington to meet with US President Barack Obama and House Leader John Boehner (R-OH) next week. It also follows an interview Calderon gave to Mexico’s El Universal this week in which the Mexican president expressed deep discontent with US officials, including US ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual.
To other stories:
· The AP says at least 46 individuals were arrested in Cuba Wednesday as rights groups marked the anniversary of the death of dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Zapata died after an 83-day hunger strike one year ago. Most of the detained were released shortly after their arrests, although at least one notable dissident, Guillermo Farinas, was reported to have still been in state custody as of late Wednesday afternoon. (Human Rights Watch says Farinas was placed under house arrest Wednesday). President Obama issued a statement condemning the wave of crackdowns, and said he would “join the Cuban people in marking [the] anniversary [of Zapata’s death] by again calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Cuba.” The US State Department released its own statement, saying it too “deplored the continued intimidation and harassment by the Cuban government of activists and their family members, including Zapata’s mother Reina Luisa Tamayo, who are working to promote human rights on the island.”
· The New York Times this morning reports on political meddling by the now former president of the American Chamber of Commerce of Nicaragua, Roger Arteaga Cano. According to the Times, Arteaga Cano “organized secret meetings with opposition party leaders in an effort to oust Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega in an election this year.” Those efforts received what the Times calls “tacit approval” by the US Embassy. The Times:
“The chamber’s activities over the past two years — detailed in interviews with Nicaraguan officials and business executives and in State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks — illuminate the remarkable role the foreign affiliates of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sometimes play in the politics of their host nations. Occasionally, they are at odds with United States policy. But often, the chamber groups are so aligned with it that they appear to act as unofficial instruments to advance the American government’s goals.”
Brookings’ Kevin Casas-Zamora comments on the recent revelations in Nicaragua saying, “It is a really bad idea, and it tends to backfire.” (He also notes that the logo for the American Chamber of Commerce of Nicaragua included the United States flag). “You are simply handing on a platter a rhetorical weapon that someone like Ortega will surely use against you.” On the specifics of the US Embassy’s relationship with Arteaga and the Chamber, via Wikileaks cables:
“[C]ables sent by Mr. Callahan to Washington go a bit further, suggesting that the embassy at least indirectly encouraged groups like the chamber to work to unify the opposition to Mr. Ortega and his party.
“‘We will continue to encourage all pro-democratic groups to work together to advance their common goals, including uniting for 2011,’ said an August 2009 cable, which also mentions Mr. Arteaga and his role as American Chamber president. “It is clear that this message has been understood by some in the political and business community, fostering the above unity efforts.’”
· The AP reports on the trial of Luis Posada Carriles, which appears to have restarted on Tuesday after a week-long pause to deliberate a request for a mistrial.
· Roque Planas, for AS/COA Online, breaks down the referendum process going forward in Ecuador. No official date has yet been set for the vote, although some officials are now suggesting it may be held in May.
· AQ reports on new Wikileaks cables from Colombia which indicate that, in 2008, then Colombian President Alvaro Uribe authorized “clandestine cross-border operations against the FARC in Venezuela, while trying to avoid a repeat of a crisis generated by the capture of FARC official Rodrigo Granda in Caracas in 2003.” According to AQ, the cable “contradicts official statements by Colombian officials” who claimed Mr. Granda was arrested in Colombia. [At the same time, the cables support claims by Venezuela that Mr. Granda was captured in Caracas and then transferred to Colombia.]
· Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota is in Washington DC this week preparing for President Obama’s Brazil visit in mid-March. The Hill meanwhile reports on Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus’s (D-Mont.) trip to Brazil Tuesday to discuss expanding US-Brazil trade and seek a conclusion to Doha round trade negotiations. The US and Brazil remain at loggerheads of those talks. Last week Brazil’s Antonio Patriota said U.S. demands for major developing countries to” make more concessions in global trade talks” were not justifiable. Reuters says Brazil in particular objects to “U.S. demands for more market access to services and nonfarm goods.”
· BBC reports that Lula da Silva is coming under investigation for alleged “misuse of funds” while president. The charge is that the ex-president sent out 10 million letters to older Brazilians promoting “low-interest loans” in 2004. Federal prosecutors say letters were “not in the public interest and benefited a bank which was linked to another corruption scandal.” No comment yet from the former Brazilian president.
· El Faro with the latest report on on-going delays in the implementation of a new access to information law in El Salvador. Again the focus is on foot-dragging by Salvador’s Gana party.
· IPS profiles the growing role of women in grassroots organizing in El Salvador.
· Benjamin Dangl at Upside Down World contrasts the response of the Bolivian government to protests over rising food prices to violent crackdowns in the Middle East, suggesting the Morales government’s model represents something quite novel: the idea of “governing by obeying the people.”
· Joaquin Villalobos with a somewhat different take on the Latin American Left, in El País.
· And on Libya and Latin America. From Anti-War.com, reports that the hacker-activist group “Anonymous” may be planning to take down targets in Venezuela and Nicaragua because of their perceived support for Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi. [Venezuela has not made public statements of support for Gadhafi while Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has]. Libyan state websites were attacked earlier this week by Anonymous members. Nikolas Kozloff at the Huffington Post and Al Giordano at Narco News also have two opinions worth reading – the former criticizes Chavez’s relationship with dictator Gadhafi and the latter is very critical of TeleSur’s Libya coverage, both from the Left.
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