Crestomatía del programa "Bitácora Mexicana" con Porfirio Muñoz Ledo (18 de Mayo de 2008.
Tema:
Petróleo y subdesarrollo
Invitados:
Dr. John Saxe Fernández
Ing. Rafael Decelis Contreras
Dr. Arturo Huerta González
miércoles, mayo 28, 2008
Mexico: Examining Cartel War Violence Through a Protective Intelligence Lens
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Mexico’s long and violent drug cartel war has recently intensified. The past week witnessed the killings of no fewer than six senior police officials. One of those killed was Edgar Millan Gomez, acting head of the Mexican federal police and the highest-ranking federal cop in Mexico. Millan Gomez was shot to death May 8 just after entering his home in Mexico City.Within the past few days, six suspects have been arrested in connection with his murder. One of the ringleaders is said to be a former federal highway police officer. The suspects appear to have ties to the Sinaloa cartel. In fact, Millan Gomez was responsible for a police operation in January that led to the arrest of Alfredo Beltran Leyva, the cartel’s second-in-command. Mexican police believe Beltran Leyva’s brother Arturo (who is also a significant player in the Sinaloa cartel structure) commissioned the hit.
During the same time period, violence from the cartel war has visited the family of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, the Sinaloa cartel leader who has the distinction of being Mexico’s most-wanted drug kingpin. On May 8, Guzman Loera’s son Edgar Guzman Beltran and two companions were killed by a large-scale ambush as they left a shopping mall in Culiacan, Sinaloa.
In addition to discussing the geopolitical implications of this escalation in the violence, we thought it would be instructive to look at the recent wave of violence through the lens of protective intelligence. Such an effort can allow us not only to see what lessons can be learned from the attacks, but also provide insight on how similar attacks can be avoided in the future, which is the real aim of protective intelligence.
Tactical Details of the Recent Attacks
On the evening of May 1, Roberto Velasco Bravo, director of investigations against organized crime for Mexico’s state public security police (SSP), was gunned down as he returned to his Mexico City home. Two assailants reportedly approached Velasco Bravo as he parked his sport utility vehicle and shot him in the head at close range before fleeing the scene. Although the incident initially was believed to have been a robbery attempt gone bad, the discovery of a .380 caliber handgun fitted with a suppressor near the crime scene suggests the shooting was actually a professionally targeted assassination. Local press also reported that Velasco Bravo died on his day off and that his bodyguard had been ordered to stand down because he was planning to travel outside the city.
On May 2, less than 24 hours after the Velasco Bravo shooting, inspector Jose Aristeo Gomez Martinez, the administrative director of the Federal Preventative Police (PFP), was gunned down in front of his home in the wealthy Coyoacan neighborhood of Mexico City. Gomez Martinez and a woman were talking in front of the house around midnight when two armed men surprised them and reportedly attempted to force Gomez Martinez into the back seat of his own car. Gomez Martinez struggled with the men and was shot in the arm and chest. Mexican authorities say the motive for the Gomez Martinez killing remains murky. However, the circumstances surrounding the case –- he was shot with a suppressed .380 pistol outside of his residence are certainly very similar to the Velasco Bravo and Millan Gomez killings.
In the Millan Gomez attack, alleged members of a murder-for-hire gang shot and killed the federal police chief as he returned to his home in the early hours of the morning. Millan Gomez was reportedly shot eight times at close range by a gunman armed with two handguns one of which was a .380 with a suppressor. The gunman was reportedly waiting inside Millan Gomez’s apartment building. The victim apparently struggled with his assailant and attempted to grab the suppressed weapon from the gunman. During the struggle, the gunman reportedly shot Millan Gomez in the hand once with the suppressed weapon and then several times in the torso with his back-up weapon, which was not suppressed. Millan Gomez’s two-man protection team, who had just dropped him off at the door, heard the nonsuppressed shots and returned to the apartment building to investigate. One member of the protection team was wounded in the chest by the fleeing gunman, but the team was able to wound and apprehend him alive. The interrogation of the gunman and the investigation of the equipment and other items found in his possession led to the recent arrest of the five other suspects allegedly tied to the assassination gang.
Also on May 8, Edgar Guzman Beltran, the son of Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, was killed at 8:50 p.m. local time in Culiacan, Sinaloa state. Guzman Beltran was leaving a local shopping mall with two friends one of whom was Arturo Meza Cazares, the son of Blanca Margarita Cazares Salazar, reputed to be the cartel’s top money launderer when the three were caught in a heavy hail of gunfire. Reports from the scene indicate that the team that attacked Guzman Beltran may have involved as many as 40 gunmen from a rival cartel who opened up on the three men with AK-47 rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Other reports put the number of ambushers at around 20. In any event, even 20 men armed with AKs and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher is a significant force, and something one would expect to see in a war zone such as Iraq or Afghanistan rather than in Mexico.
On May 9, Esteban Robles Espinosa, commander of Mexico City’s investigative police force, was attacked by a group of armed men shortly after he left his house at about 8:30 a.m. Four gunmen traveling in a truck and another in a compact car opened fire on him at an intersection near his home. The attack appears to be a classic vehicular ambush involving a blocking vehicle and an assault team. Robles Espinosa apparently attempted to avoid the attacks and flee the site, but his escape attempt ended when his vehicle struck a tree. Robles Espinosa was shot seven times four times in the throat, once in the neck, and twice in the head. He died shortly after arriving at a hospital. Authorities reportedly found 20 casings from 9mm and .40 caliber cartridges at the scene of the attack. The placement of the shots in this case appears to be uncharacteristically controlled for Mexico, where victims are normally wounded in various parts of their bodies. The concentration of wounds in the head and neck would appear to indicate that at least one of the shooters was an accomplished marksman. The shot placement might also indicate that Robles Espinosa was wearing a protective vest, and the assailants, being aware of the vest, directed their fire toward his head.
Common Themes
The Millan Gomez, Velasco Bravo and Gomez Martinez shootings were all similar in that they involved suppressed .380 handguns and were intended to be clean and discreetly conducted events. They stand in stark contrast to many of the cartel killings in Mexico, which tend to be more like the killings of Beltran Guzman and involve massive firepower and very little precision or discretion. Even though the Millan Gomez killing got messy, and the shooter was caught, it was intended to be a very quiet, surgical hit until Murphy’s law kicked in for the assassin.
It is notable that the killing of the four police officials all occurred in proximity to their homes, and that all four attacks were conducted during an arrival or departure at the home. It has long been common for terrorists and criminal kidnappers or assassins to focus on the home or office of their prospective target, because these are known locations that the potential victim frequently visits with some regularity. Also, homes are often preferable to offices, because they usually have less security, and criminals or terrorists can operate around them more easily and with less chance of being caught. Arrivals and departures are prime times for attacks, because the target is generally easier to locate and quickly acquire when on foot or in a car than when in a building.
Furthermore, the objective of preoperational surveillance is to detect the target’s patterns and vulnerabilities so that an attack can be planned. Historically, one of the most likely times for an attack to occur is when a potential victim is leaving from or returning to a known location. The most predictable move traditionally is the home-to-office move; however, the team that conducted the surveillance on Velasco Bravo, Gomez Martinez and Millan Gomez apparently found them to be predictable in their evening moves and planned the attacks accordingly. Robles Espinosa was attacked during the more-stereotypical morning move. Attacking in the evening could also give the assailants the cover of darkness. The low-key assassination cell behind the Velasco Bravo, Gomez Martinez and Millan Gomez attacks seemed to prefer that kind of cover. It is also possible that in the Guzman Beltran case, the shopping mall was a known place for him to frequent and that he had established a pattern of visiting there in the evening.
All five of the attacks also occurred in close proximity to vehicles. Millan Gomez, Gomez Martinez and Guzman Beltran were attacked while outside their vehicles; Robles Espinosa and Vellasco Bravo were attacked while in theirs, though neither of the men had an armored vehicle.
Protective Intelligence Lessons
A former federal police officer was arrested in connection with the Millan Gomez case, and he was found to have a list of license plates and home addresses; but such information alone is not enough to plan an assassination. Extensive preoperational surveillance is also required. From the careful planning of the Velasco Bravo, Gomez Martinez and Millan Gomez hits, it is apparent that the targets were under surveillance for a prolonged period of time. The fact that Robles Espinosa was hit during his morning move from home to work also tends to indicate that he had an established pattern that had been picked up by surveillance. Even in the Guzman Beltran killing, one does not amass a team of 20 or 40 assassins at the drop of a hat. Clearly, the operation was planned and the target had been watched.
The fact that surveillance was conducted in each of these cases means that the people conducting that surveillance were forced to expose themselves to detection. Furthermore, preoperational surveillance is normally not that sophisticated, since people rarely look for it. This means that had countersurveillance efforts been used these efforts likely would have been detected, especially since countersurveillance efforts often focus on known, predictable locations such as the home and office.
Another important lesson is that bodyguards and armored cars are no guarantee of protection in and of themselves. Assailants can look for and exploit vulnerabilities as they did in the Velasco Bravo and Millan Gomez cases if they are allowed to conduct surveillance at will and are given the opportunity to thoroughly assess the protective security program. Even if there are security measures in place, malefactors may choose to attack in spite of security and, in such a case, will do so with adequate resources to overcome those security measures. If there are protective agents, the attackers will plan to neutralize them first. If there is an armored vehicle, they will find ways to defeat the armor something easily accomplished with the rocket-propelled grenades, LAW rockets and .50 caliber sniper rifles found in the arsenals of Mexican cartels.
Unfortunately, many people believe that the presence of armed bodyguards or armed guards combined with armored vehicles provides absolute security. This macho misconception is not confined to Latin America, but is pervasive there. Frankly, when we consider the size of the assault team employed in the Guzman Beltran hit (even if it consisted of only 20 men) and their armaments, there are very few protective details in the world sufficiently trained and equipped to deal with that level of threat. Executive protection teams and armored cars provide very little protection against dozens of attackers armed with AK rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, especially if the attackers are given free rein to conduct surveillance and plan their attack.
Indeed, many people including police and executive protection personnel either lack or fail to employ good observation skills. These skills are every bit as important as marksmanship if not more but are rarely taught or practiced. Additionally, even if a protection agent observes something unusual, in many cases there is no system in place to record these observations and no efficient way to communicate them or to compare them to the observations of others. There is often no process to investigate such observations in attempt to determine if they are indicators of something untoward.
The real counter to such a threat is heightened security awareness and a robust countersurveillance program, coupled with careful route and schedule analysis. Routes and traveling times must be varied, surveillance must be looked for and those conducting surveillance must not be afforded the opportunity to operate at will and with impunity. Suspicious events must be catalogued and investigated. Emphasis must also be placed on attack recognition and driver training to provide every possibility of spotting a pending attack and avoiding it before it can be successfully launched. Action is always faster than reaction. And even a highly-skilled protection team can be defeated if the attacker gains the tactical element of surprise especially if coupled with overwhelming firepower.
Ideally, those conducting surveillance must be made uncomfortable or even manipulated into revealing their position when it proves advantageous to countersurveillance teams. Dummy motorcade moves are a fine tool to add into the mix, as is the use of safe houses for alternate residences and offices. Any ploy to confuse, deceive or deter potential scouts that ultimately make them tip their hand are valuable tricks of the trade employed by protective intelligence practitioners professionals tasked with the difficult mission of deterring the type of assassinations we have recently seen in Mexico.
PAN is a kinder ruling complex Mexico.
Response to Stratford Intelligence Center of Texas: Part is true, this is only looking the mexican newspapers, is not an intelligence report, important is to say who is moving the drug war? maybe the roads will finish in Fort Benning,that is the Centre of the Zetas-a paramilitar force borne in USA,also the killings of the Muertas de Juarez is going to Fort Bliss and the 4 women killed every day by cancer the roads are going to Fort Detrick, may be you know that Texas A&M (TAMU) is a Bushian University working with Fort Sam Houston to kill mexicans for dozens with animal virus BRUCELLA, see the report SUNSHINE, you must have more intelligence gathering from Mexico, the ultra-right PAN is a kinder ruling complex Mexico.
Mexico: On the Road to a Failed State?By George Friedman
Edgar Millan Gomez was shot dead in his own home in Mexico City on May 8. Millan Gomez was the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in Mexico, responsible for overseeing most of Mexico’s counternarcotics efforts. He orchestrated the January arrest of one of the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, Alfredo Beltran Leyva. (Several Sinaloa members have been arrested in Mexico City since the beginning of the year.) The week before, Roberto Velasco Bravo died when he was shot in the head at close range by two armed men near his home in Mexico City. He was the director of organized criminal investigations in a tactical analysis unit of the federal police. The Mexican government believes the Sinaloa drug cartel ordered the assassinations of Velasco Bravo and Millan Gomez. Combined with the assassination of other federal police officials in Mexico City, we now see a pattern of intensifying warfare in Mexico City.
The fighting also extended to the killing of the son of the Sinaloa cartel leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, who was killed outside a shopping center in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state. Also killed was the son of reputed top Sinaloa money launderer Blanca Margarita Cazares Salazar in an attack carried out by 40 gunmen. According to sources, Los Zetas, the enforcement arm of the rival Gulf cartel, carried out the attack. Reports also indicate a split between Sinaloa and a resurgent Juarez cartel, which also could have been behind the Millan Gomez killing.
Spiraling Violence
Violence along the U.S.-Mexican border has been intensifying for several years, and there have been attacks in Mexico City. But last week was noteworthy not so much for the body count, but for the type of people being killed. Very senior government police officials in Mexico City were killed along with senior Sinaloa cartel operatives in Sinaloa state. In other words, the killings are extending from low-level operatives to higher-ranking ones, and the attacks are reaching into enemy territory, so to speak. Mexican government officials are being killed in Mexico City, Sinaloan operatives in Sinaloa. The conflict is becoming more intense and placing senior officials at risk.
The killings pose a strategic problem for the Mexican government. The bulk of its effective troops are deployed along the U.S. border, attempting to suppress violence and smuggling among the grunts along the border, as well as the well-known smuggling routes elsewhere in the country. The attacks in Mexico raise the question of whether forces should be shifted from these assignments to Mexico City to protect officials and break up the infrastructure of the Sinaloa and other cartels there. The government also faces the secondary task of suppressing violence between cartels. The Sinaloa cartel struck in Mexico City not only to kill troublesome officials and intimidate others, but also to pose a problem for the Mexican government by increasing areas requiring forces, thereby requiring the government to consider splitting its forces thus reducing the government presence along the border. It was a strategically smart move by Sinaloa, but no one has accused the cartels of being stupid.
Mexico now faces a classic problem. Multiple, well-armed organized groups have emerged. They are fighting among themselves while simultaneously fighting the government. The groups are fueled by vast amounts of money earned via drug smuggling to the United States. The amount of money involved estimated at some $40 billion a year is sufficient to increase tension between these criminal groups and give them the resources to conduct wars against each other. It also provides them with resources to bribe and intimidate government officials. The resources they deploy in some ways are superior to the resources the government employs.
Given the amount of money they have, the organized criminal groups can be very effective in bribing government officials at all levels, from squad leaders patrolling the border to high-ranking state and federal officials. Given the resources they have, they can reach out and kill government officials at all levels as well. Government officials are human; and faced with the carrot of bribes and the stick of death, even the most incorruptible is going to be cautious in executing operations against the cartels.
Toward a Failed State?
There comes a moment when the imbalance in resources reverses the relationship between government and cartels. Government officials, seeing the futility of resistance, effectively become tools of the cartels. Since there are multiple cartels, the area of competition ceases to be solely the border towns, shifting to the corridors of power in Mexico City. Government officials begin giving their primary loyalty not to the government but to one of the cartels. The government thus becomes both an arena for competition among the cartels and an instrument used by one cartel against another. That is the prescription for what is called a “failed state” a state that no longer can function as a state. Lebanon in the 1980s is one such example.
There are examples in American history as well. Chicago in the 1920s was overwhelmed by a similar process. Smuggling alcohol created huge pools of money on the U.S. side of the border, controlled by criminals both by definition (bootlegging was illegal) and by inclination (people who engage in one sort of illegality are prepared to be criminals, more broadly understood). The smuggling laws gave these criminals huge amounts of power, which they used to intimidate and effectively absorb the city government. Facing a choice between being killed or being enriched, city officials chose the latter. City government shifted from controlling the criminals to being an arm of criminal power. In the meantime, various criminal gangs competed with each other for power.
Chicago had a failed city government. The resources available to the Chicago gangs were limited, however, and it was not possible for them to carry out the same function in Washington. Ultimately, Washington deployed resources in Chicago and destroyed one of the main gangs. But if Al Capone had been able to carry out the same operation in Washington as he did in Chicago, the United States could have become a failed state.
It is important to point out that we are not speaking here of corruption, which exists in all governments everywhere. Instead, we are talking about a systematic breakdown of the state, in which government is not simply influenced by criminals, but becomes an instrument of criminals either simply an arena for battling among groups or under the control of a particular group. The state no longer can carry out its primary function of imposing peace, and it becomes helpless, or itself a direct perpetrator of crime. Corruption has been seen in Washington some triggered by organized crime, but never state failure.
The Mexican state has not yet failed. If the activities of the last week have become a pattern, however, we must begin thinking about the potential for state failure. The killing of Millan Gomez transmitted a critical message: No one is safe, no matter how high his rank or how well protected, if he works against cartel interests. The killing of El Chapo’s son transmitted the message that no one in the leading cartel is safe from competing gangs, no matter how high his rank or how well protected.
The killing of senior state police officials causes other officials to recalculate their attitudes. The state is no longer seen as a competent protector, and being a state official is seen as a liability potentially a fatal liability unless protection is sought from a cartel, a protection that can be very lucrative indeed for the protector. The killing of senior cartel members intensifies conflict among cartels, making it even more difficult for the government to control the situation and intensifying the movement toward failure.
It is important to remember that Mexico has a tradition of failed governments, particularly in the 19th and early 20th century. In those periods, Mexico City became an arena for struggle among army officers and regional groups straddling the line between criminal and political. The Mexican army became an instrument in this struggle and its control a prize. The one thing missing was the vast amounts of money at stake. So there is a tradition of state failure in Mexico, and there are higher stakes today than before.
The Drug Trade’s High Stakes
To benchmark the amount at stake, assume that the total amount of drug trafficking is $40 billion, a frequently used figure, but hardly an exact one by any means. In 2007, Mexico exported about $210 billion worth of goods to the United States and imported about $136 billion from the United States. If the drug trade is $40 billion dollars, it represents almost 20 percent of all exports to the United States. That in itself is huge, but what makes it more important is that while the $210 billion is divided among many businesses and individuals, the $40 billion is concentrated in the hands of a few, fairly tightly controlled cartels. Sinaloa and Gulf, currently the strongest, have vast resources at their disposal; a substantial part of the economy can be controlled through this money. This creates tremendous instability as other cartels vie for the top spot, with the state lacking the resources to control the situation and having its officials seduced and intimidated by the cartels.
We have seen failed states elsewhere. Colombia in the 1980s failed over the same issue drug money. Lebanon failed in the 1970s and 1980s. The Democratic Republic of the Congo was a failed state.
Mexico’s potential failure is important for three reasons. First, Mexico is a huge country, with a population of more than 100 million. Second, it has a large economy the 14th-largest in the world. And third, it shares an extended border with the world’s only global power, one that has assumed for most of the 20th century that its domination of North America and control of its borders is a foregone conclusion. If Mexico fails, there are serious geopolitical repercussions. This is not simply a criminal matter.
The amount of money accumulated in Mexico derives from smuggling operations in the United States. Drugs go one way, money another. But all the money doesn’t have to return to Mexico or to third-party countries. If Mexico fails, the leading cartels will compete in the United States, and that competition will extend to the source of the money as well. We have already seen cartel violence in the border areas of the United States, but this risk is not limited to that. The same process that we see under way in Mexico could extend to the United States; logic dictates that it would.
The current issue is control of the source of drugs and of the supply chain that delivers drugs to retail customers in the United States. The struggle for control of the source and the supply chain also will involve a struggle for control of markets. The process of intimidation of government and police officials, as well as bribing them, can take place in market towns such as Los Angeles or Chicago, as well as production centers or transshipment points.
Cartel Incentives for U.S. Expansion
That means there are economic incentives for the cartels to extend their operations into the United States. With those incentives comes intercartel competition, and with that competition comes pressure on U.S. local, state and, ultimately, federal government and police functions. Were that to happen, the global implications obviously would be stunning. Imagine an extreme case in which the Mexican scenario is acted out in the United States. The effect on the global system economically and politically would be astounding, since U.S. failure would see the world reshaping itself in startling ways.
Failure for the United States is much harder than for Mexico, however. The United States has a gross domestic product of about $14 trillion, while Mexico’s economy is about $900 billion. The impact of the cartels’ money is vastly greater in Mexico than in the United States, where it would be dwarfed by other pools of money with a powerful interest in maintaining U.S. stability. The idea of a failed American state is therefore far-fetched.
Less far-fetched is the extension of a Mexican failure into the borderlands of the United States. Street-level violence already has crossed the border. But a deeper, more-systemic corruption particularly on the local level could easily extend into the United States, along with paramilitary operations between cartels and between the Mexican government and cartels.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently visited Mexico, and there are potential plans for U.S. aid in support of Mexican government operations. But if the Mexican government became paralyzed and couldn’t carry out these operations, the U.S. government would face a stark and unpleasant choice. It could attempt to protect the United States from the violence defensively by sealing off Mexico or controlling the area north of the border more effectively. Or, as it did in the early 20th century, the United States could adopt a forward defense by sending U.S. troops south of the border to fight the battle in Mexico.
There have been suggestions that the border be sealed. But Mexico is the United States’ third-largest customer, and the United States is Mexico’s largest customer. This was the case well before NAFTA, and has nothing to do with treaties and everything to do with economics and geography. Cutting that trade would have catastrophic effects on both sides of the border, and would guarantee the failure of the Mexican state. It isn’t going to happen.
The Impossibility of Sealing the Border
So long as vast quantities of goods flow across the border, the border cannot be sealed. Immigration might be limited by a wall, but the goods that cross the border do so at roads and bridges, and the sheer amount of goods crossing the border makes careful inspection impossible. The drugs will come across the border embedded in this trade as well as by other routes. So will gunmen from the cartel and anything else needed to take control of Los Angeles’ drug market.
A purely passive defense won’t work unless the economic cost of blockade is absorbed. The choices are a defensive posture to deal with the battle on American soil if it spills over, or an offensive posture to suppress the battle on the other side of the border. Bearing in mind that Mexico is not a small country and that counterinsurgency is not the United States’ strong suit, the latter is a dangerous game. But the first option isn’t likely to work either.
One way to deal with the problem would be ending the artificial price of drugs by legalizing them. This would rapidly lower the price of drugs and vastly reduce the money to be made in smuggling them. Nothing hurt the American cartels more than the repeal of Prohibition, and nothing helped them more than Prohibition itself. Nevertheless, from an objective point of view, drug legalization isn’t going to happen. There is no visible political coalition of substantial size advocating this solution. Therefore, U.S. drug policy will continue to raise the price of drugs artificially, effective interdiction will be impossible, and the Mexican cartels will prosper and make war on each other and on the Mexican state.
We are not yet at the worst-case scenario, and we may never get there. Mexican President Felipe Calderon, perhaps with assistance from the United States, may devise a strategy to immunize his government from intimidation and corruption and take the war home to the cartels. This is a serious possibility that should not be ruled out. Nevertheless, the events of last week raise the serious possibility of a failed state in Mexico. That should not be taken lightly, as it could change far more than Mexico.
6 Charged in Shooting of Officer in Mexico NYTBy JAMES C. McKINLEYP
MEXICO CITY Six people with links to a Sinaloa drug kingpin have been arrested and charged in the killing of the acting federal police chief last week, investigators announced Monday night.
Investigators said the group that carried out the assassination was led by a federal police officer, José Antonio Montes Garfias, 41, who was arrested with several incriminating documents. Among them were lists of cars used by top commanders in the federal police and records of drug shipments in and out of Mexico City’s international airport, said Gerardo Garay Cadena, the coordinator of the antidrug division of the federal police.
The police chief, Edgar Millán Gomez, 41, was shot as he entered his apartment early Thursday morning after a long day coordinating the arrests of several members of the Sinaloa drug cartel, which is overseen by Arturo Beltrán Leyva.
Though the police at first said there were several gunmen, investigators now say a lone gunman, Alejandro Ramírez Báez, was waiting inside Mr. Millán’s home when he entered and switched on the lights, Mr. Garay said.
Mr. Ramírez wore latex gloves and had a gun in each hand, the police said. As the unsuspecting Mr. Millán turned on the lights, the gunman pumped nine rounds into Mr. Millán and wounded his bodyguard, who was behind him, the police said. Though bleeding, the bodyguard wrestled Mr. Ramirez to the ground and arrested him.
The police found a radio on Mr. Ramírez, along with a set of keys to the house. The radio was traced to two brothers, Jorge and Josué Ortega Gallegos, who deal in unlicensed radios; they were also arrested on charges of being part of the conspiracy.
Under pressure from the police, the Gallegos brothers led investigators to a woman who had rented the radio, Juana Virginia González Chicuelar, known as La Vicky. Mr. Garay said investigators believed she was in charge of logistics for the assassination, including procuring radios and vehicles.
She was apprehended with $8,000 in her car, which she said was payment to the Gallegos for nine radios. She also had a list of firearms with prices. Another woman, María Teresa Villanueva Aguirre, was arrested with her.
Ms. González agreed to cooperate with the police and set up a meeting with a man she knew as El Señor, who had provided money to buy the gunman’s radio.
When apprehended at a rendezvous, the man turned out to be the federal officer, Mr. Montes Garfias, who served for years as a federal agent at Mexico City’s airport and then was transferred to Culiacan, in Sinaloa State, where Mr. Beltrán Leyva’s cartel is based.
Mr. Garay said there is evidence the group was also involved in the assassination of the head of the organized crime division, Roberto Velasco Bravo, two weeks ago.
Investigators were tight-lipped about the nature of the evidence linking the federal police officer to the gang of Mr. Beltrán Leyva. “We have information under wraps that they are linked,” Mr. Garay said.
Mexico has been plagued by a wave of drug violence since President Felipe Calderón launched an offensive against drug cartels a year and a half ago. More than 3,000 people have been killed, among them 170 police officers and more than 30 federal agents.
But the assassination of Mr. Millán, who coordinated all of the operations against drug dealers across the country, was the most brazen attack on a high-level official since the campaign started. It shook the country, causing many Mexicans to question whether any official was safe from assassins hired by the drug kingpins.
The Real McCain 2: Over Half a Million Views in 24 Hours!
The Real McCain That the Corporate Media Won't Show You
Video: John McCain's record is something the public wants to discuss, and yet the corporate media is doing nothing to present the truth.
There's no question John McCain is getting a free ride from the mainstream press. But with the power of YouTube and the blogosphere, we can provide an accurate portrayal of the so-called Maverick. We can put the brakes on his free ride!
This is truly spectacular: within 24 hours, The Real McCain 2 has skyrocketed to over half a million views! It's the #1 most viewed video on YouTube right now, and it's getting loads of love on Digg as well. These numbers put us right up there with many cable news shows, as you can see from the ratings. The difference between us and them, however, is that we're spreading our message virally through the web. We're also spreading the truth about John McCain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c
Since we first released The Real McCain a year ago, Brave New Films' REAL McCain series has garnered close to two million views, with over 13,000 comments and tens of thousands more in petition signatures! Clearly, John McCain's record is something the public wants to discuss, and yet the corporate media is doing nothing to present the truth. We feel obliged to continue countering the mainstream media's love of McCain. And so we thought it was high time for a sequel: The Real McCain 2 (the video to the right).
We're doing everything to get the facts out there about McCain. Join us in making a concerted effort to tell the story that corporate media refuses to tell. E-mail this video to all of your friends and family members, news blogs and other local media outlets.
According to Cliff Schecter, author of The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him And Why Independents Shouldn't:
"It is dangerous for a democracy when a presidential candidate can lie with impunity, change positions on a whim, and physically and verbally threaten others and virtually none of it is reported by a besotted media eagerly awaiting the next moment when he might slap their backs in friendship."
The mainstream press may not do their job, but we can surely do ours. It is crucial that we alert the public to the REAL McCain, and it is crucial we act now, before it's too late.
We're doing everything to get the facts out there about McCain. Join us in making a concerted effort to tell the story that corporate media refuses to tell. E-mail this video to all of your friends and family members, news blogs and other local media outlets.
According to Cliff Schecter, author of The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him And Why Independents Shouldn't:
"It is dangerous for a democracy when a presidential candidate can lie with impunity, change positions on a whim, and physically and verbally threaten others and virtually none of it is reported by a besotted media eagerly awaiting the next moment when he might slap their backs in friendship."
The mainstream press may not do their job, but we can surely do ours. It is crucial that we alert the public to the REAL McCain, and it is crucial we act now, before it's too late.
John Cusack: Outsourced Warfare Represents a "Radical, Dangerous, Disgusting Ideology"
An interview with Cusack about his latest film, War Inc., which takes the outsourcing of military operations to the absurd.
Note: A trailer for War, Inc. can be viewed in the video window below.
John Cusack's new film, War, Inc., is set in a fictionalized Iraq. It's a funny film. It might have been tough to watch if it weren't, given the level of destruction that five years of occupation have wrought on the real country.
Cusack, along with co-writers Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser, offer up a dystopian vision of the future of privatized warfare set in "Turaqistan," a presumably oil-rich country that, if it really existed, would surely be somewhere that most Americans couldn't find on a map.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9SFoiYIs_4
The film's humor rests on very real and demonstrably disastrous trends in neoconservative foreign policy of recent years -- a lethal war of choice and profit, the dismantling of states and plundering of their resources, a profound cultural insensitivity, lack of accountability and reckless disregard for easily-predicted consequences -- which are then pushed to the absurd.
In Iraq, journalists are embedded with troops and tour Potemkin villages to demonstrate progress; in Turaqistan, they're given virtual-reality tours of combat without leaving the cozy confines of "Emerald City," War, Inc.'s version of Baghdad's Green Zone. In Iraq, contractors like Halliburton have squeezed billions out of the treasury for substandard work that has left the country's infrastructure decimated; Turaqistan is wholly-managed by the Halliburton-esque Tamerlane corporation, and the tanks that patrol the country's burned-out streets are covered with NASCAR-style logos for everything from Popeye's Chicken to Golden Palace online gambling.
Fans of the underground classic Grosse Pointe Blank will find much that is familiar. Cusack plays a conflicted killer -- this time a lethal assassin -- an extreme kind of corporate fixer -- whom Tamarlane dispatches to far-flung locales whenever someone of influence threatens the company's bottom line. The film has the same kind of sardonic and referential humor, and employs the same over-the-top ultra-violence pushed to comic extremes. Joan Cusack, in a role reminiscent of the one she played in Grosse Pointe Blank, again steals the show with her few minutes of screen time.
With sharp writing and strong performances by Marisa Tomei, Hilary Duff and Ben Kingsley, War, Inc. is provocative and satisfying. But it may have failed in one notable regard. Turaqistan, for all its insanity, is not all that much crazier than the reality of post-invasion Iraq; a week after the film arrived at AlterNet's office, and with mortars raining down in Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone, a Los Angeles-based company announced that it's planning to build a Disney-like skateboard- and theme-park in Baghdad. Never mind that most Iraqi kids have never seen a skateboard -- a spokesperson for the company promised that a shipment of free boards would arrive in Iraq before the park's opening.
AlterNet caught up with John Cusack recently to discuss the inspirations for his film.
Joshua Holland: Tell me a little bit about your new project.
John Cusack: Well, we thought of it as an incendiary political cartoon that would hopefully put America's current imperial adventures in Iraq into a kind of a larger context. And maybe put a different lens on what privatization means; what this plan has been and what it's been like when people try to privatize the very core things it means to be a state. And what it means to spread an ideology like that across the globe.
There are 180,000 contractors in Iraq and about 160,000 troops, right? And if one just takes that trend to its logical conclusion, well that's where "War, Inc." is set. It takes place at a time in the near future when warfare us an entirely corporate affair.
Holland: As a political nerd, it struck me as a highly referential film. I felt like your character, to some extent, was loosely patterned maybe on John Perkins, who wrote Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.
Cusack: You know, that book came out when we were already making the film, I believe. And I know we were writing it when Naomi Klein's groundbreaking piece called "Baghdad Year Zero" came out in Harper's. She's a journalist I've always greatly admired and respected. And then as we were making the movie, she was writing the Shock Doctrine. I remember being aware of it while we were writing it. And I remember talking about it. But you know, this character was also based on [former U.S. Envoy to Iraq] Paul Bremer flying in while Baghdad was still burning and literally ruling by Fiat. Sitting down in Saddam's old palace and banging out 50 or 60 new laws that would allow 100 percent foreign ownership of previously state-owned industry by these outside corporations. And he was running around in those Brooks Brothers suits and the military boots when he did it.
In order to read the complete article HERE.
Get Ready to Spend $6,000 a Year on GasWith prices at $120 a barrel, Americans are feeling the pain.
Two years ago a leading economist published a study provocatively titled: "What would $120 oil mean for the global economy?" Answer: a global recession, if the price stayed there for a year.
Now the future has arrived, with the United States and other nations getting a double whammy from both the mortgage crisis and oil futures hovering at $120 per barrel. If oil prices stay stratospheric, the cost of fueling cars and planes could slash US economic growth up to 2.3 percent and global growth by 3.6 percent, says Robert Wescott, former chief economist of the president's council of economic advisers and author of the $120 oil report.
While many energy-security experts worry about a terrorist attack that suddenly crimps global oil supplies and hammers the US economy, Dr. Wescott and other experts say a terror attack is hardly the only, or even the worst, oil threat the nation now faces. "What we are seeing today is more of a slow-motion, rolling oil crisis rather than a sharp shock, yet ultimately we end up with the same sorts of impacts [as a terror attack]," says Wescott, now president of Keybridge Research, a Washington economic-consulting firm.
Unlike the 1970s, when an oil embargo left Americans waiting in long lines at gasoline stations and paying higher prices, today's oil crisis has been stealthy. Its economic impact has been masked by consumers tapping credit cards and home equity to cover the rising cost of energy and some consumer goods.
"We're having a replay of the 1970s without the Arab oil embargo part, so it's been hard for many people to see," says Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy scholar at the Baker Institute at Rice University in Houston.
Even with US airlines cutting flights and SUV sales now tanking, the effects of expensive oil on the American family could be stark, Wescott's report says.
In 2003, with oil approaching $40 per barrel, the average US family spent about $1,900 (4.8 percent of its income) on natural gas, heating oil, and gasoline. But today at the $120 per barrel level, a family will spend about $6,000 a year or about 15 percent of total annual income, Wescott's report predicts.
Compared with the oil crises of the 1970s, the US paradoxically is in a bit better, yet also worse, position. The good news is the US economy is less energy intensive -- using only about half the energy it did in the 1980s to produce a dollar of economic growth. That should make it more resilient.
But the bad news is that imported oil has risen to about 12 million barrels a day, about 60 percent of the 21 million barrels the US consumes daily. That financial drain at $120 per barrel is jamming the brakes on the US economy and inflating the trade deficit, economists agree. "The question now isn't whether we're going into recession, it's whether there will be a soft landing ... or we have a hard landing," Ms. Jaffe says.
Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight, Lexington, Mass., has done economic projections with oil at even higher prices. While oil at $120 a barrel "makes a mild recession a little deeper," the results of oil at $150 would be much worse with the nation "looking at a fairly serious recession."
But where there is awareness of the problem there is hope. Perhaps nobody knows better what the nation could do -- but mostly has not yet done -- than Amory Lovins. An American energy guru since the gas lines of the 1970s, he has focused like a laser beam on how the nation can save energy. "What we need to do to cut oil consumption is quite clear," says the cofounder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, an energy think tank in Snowmass, Colo. "But attention keeps getting focused on the wrong things -- like subsidies for the oil industry to find more oil. That's the wrong way to go."
Now the future has arrived, with the United States and other nations getting a double whammy from both the mortgage crisis and oil futures hovering at $120 per barrel. If oil prices stay stratospheric, the cost of fueling cars and planes could slash US economic growth up to 2.3 percent and global growth by 3.6 percent, says Robert Wescott, former chief economist of the president's council of economic advisers and author of the $120 oil report.
While many energy-security experts worry about a terrorist attack that suddenly crimps global oil supplies and hammers the US economy, Dr. Wescott and other experts say a terror attack is hardly the only, or even the worst, oil threat the nation now faces. "What we are seeing today is more of a slow-motion, rolling oil crisis rather than a sharp shock, yet ultimately we end up with the same sorts of impacts [as a terror attack]," says Wescott, now president of Keybridge Research, a Washington economic-consulting firm.
Unlike the 1970s, when an oil embargo left Americans waiting in long lines at gasoline stations and paying higher prices, today's oil crisis has been stealthy. Its economic impact has been masked by consumers tapping credit cards and home equity to cover the rising cost of energy and some consumer goods.
"We're having a replay of the 1970s without the Arab oil embargo part, so it's been hard for many people to see," says Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy scholar at the Baker Institute at Rice University in Houston.
Even with US airlines cutting flights and SUV sales now tanking, the effects of expensive oil on the American family could be stark, Wescott's report says.
In 2003, with oil approaching $40 per barrel, the average US family spent about $1,900 (4.8 percent of its income) on natural gas, heating oil, and gasoline. But today at the $120 per barrel level, a family will spend about $6,000 a year or about 15 percent of total annual income, Wescott's report predicts.
Compared with the oil crises of the 1970s, the US paradoxically is in a bit better, yet also worse, position. The good news is the US economy is less energy intensive -- using only about half the energy it did in the 1980s to produce a dollar of economic growth. That should make it more resilient.
But the bad news is that imported oil has risen to about 12 million barrels a day, about 60 percent of the 21 million barrels the US consumes daily. That financial drain at $120 per barrel is jamming the brakes on the US economy and inflating the trade deficit, economists agree. "The question now isn't whether we're going into recession, it's whether there will be a soft landing ... or we have a hard landing," Ms. Jaffe says.
Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight, Lexington, Mass., has done economic projections with oil at even higher prices. While oil at $120 a barrel "makes a mild recession a little deeper," the results of oil at $150 would be much worse with the nation "looking at a fairly serious recession."
But where there is awareness of the problem there is hope. Perhaps nobody knows better what the nation could do -- but mostly has not yet done -- than Amory Lovins. An American energy guru since the gas lines of the 1970s, he has focused like a laser beam on how the nation can save energy. "What we need to do to cut oil consumption is quite clear," says the cofounder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, an energy think tank in Snowmass, Colo. "But attention keeps getting focused on the wrong things -- like subsidies for the oil industry to find more oil. That's the wrong way to go."
In order to read the complete article HERE.
It Isn't Morning in America Anymore -- It's Dusk on Planet Earth
If we want to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed, we've got to cut CO2 emissions.
Even for Americans, constitutionally convinced that there will always be a second act, and a third, and a do-over after that, and, if necessary, a little public repentance and forgiveness and a Brand New Start -- even for us, the world looks a little Terminal right now.It's not just the economy. We've gone through swoons before. It's that gas at $4 a gallon means we're running out, at least of the cheap stuff that built our sprawling society. It's that when we try to turn corn into gas, it sends the price of a loaf of bread shooting upwards and starts food riots on three continents. It's that everything is so inextricably tied together. It's that, all of a sudden, those grim Club of Rome types who, way back in the 1970s, went on and on about the "limits to growth" suddenly seem how best to put it, right.
All of a sudden it isn't morning in America, it's dusk on planet Earth.
There's a number -- a new number -- that makes this point most powerfully. It may now be the most important number on Earth: 350. As in parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
A few weeks ago, our foremost climatologist, NASA's Jim Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several co-authors. The abstract attached to it argued -- and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper -- "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm." Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points -- massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them -- that we'll pass if we don't get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer's insane melt of Arctic ice, may already be behind us.
So it's a tough diagnosis. It's like the doctor telling you that your cholesterol is way too high and, if you don't bring it down right away, you're going to have a stroke. So you take the pill, you swear off the cheese, and, if you're lucky, you get back into the safety zone before the coronary. It's like watching the tachometer edge into the red zone and knowing that you need to take your foot off the gas before you hear that clunk up front.
In this case, though, it's worse than that because we're not taking the pill and we are stomping on the gas -- hard. Instead of slowing down, we're pouring on the coal, quite literally. Two weeks ago came the news that atmospheric carbon dioxide had jumped 2.4 parts per million last year -- two decades ago, it was going up barely half that fast.
And suddenly, the news arrives that the amount of methane, another potent greenhouse gas, accumulating in the atmosphere, has unexpectedly begun to soar as well. Apparently, we've managed to warm the far north enough to start melting huge patches of permafrost and massive quantities of methane trapped beneath it have begun to bubble forth.
And don't forget: China is building more power plants; India is pioneering the $2,500 car, and Americans are converting to TVs the size of windshields which suck juice ever faster.
Here's the thing. Hansen didn't just say that, if we didn't act, there was trouble coming; or, if we didn't yet know what was best for us, we'd certainly be better off below 350 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. His phrase was: "if we wish to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed." A planet with billions of people living near those oh-so-floodable coastlines. A planet with ever more vulnerable forests. (A beetle, encouraged by warmer temperatures, has already managed to kill 10 times more trees than in any previous infestation across the northern reaches of Canada this year. This means far more carbon heading for the atmosphere and apparently dooms Canada's efforts to comply with the Kyoto Protocol, already in doubt because of its decision to start producing oil for the U.S. from Alberta's tar sands.)
We're the ones who kicked the warming off; now, the planet is starting to take over the job. Melt all that Arctic ice, for instance, and suddenly the nice white shield that reflected 80% of incoming solar radiation back into space has turned to blue water that absorbs 80% of the sun's heat. Such feedbacks are beyond history, though not in the sense that Francis Fukuyama had in mind.
To read more HERE.
The Human Rights Crime in GazaA million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world -- we can't sit idly by.
The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world. An entire population is being brutally punished.
This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. The election was unanimously judged to be honest and fair by all international observers.
Israel and the US refused to accept the right of Palestinians to form a unity government with Hamas and Fatah and now, after internal strife, Hamas alone controls Gaza. Forty-one of the 43 victorious Hamas candidates who lived in the West Bank have been imprisoned by Israel, plus an additional 10 who assumed positions in the short-lived coalition cabinet.
Regardless of one's choice in the partisan struggle between Fatah and Hamas within occupied Palestine, we must remember that economic sanctions and restrictions on the supply of water, food, electricity and fuel are causing extreme hardship among the innocent people in Gaza, about one million of whom are refugees.
Israeli bombs and missiles periodically strike the area, causing high casualties among both militants and innocent women and children. Prior to the highly publicised killing of a woman and her four children last week, this pattern had been illustrated by a report from B'Tselem, the leading Israeli human rights organisation, which stated that 106 Palestinians were killed between February 27 and March 3. Fifty-four of them were civilians, and 25 were under 18 years of age.
On a recent trip through the Middle East, I attempted to gain a better understanding of the crisis. One of my visits was to Sderot, a community of about 20,000 in southern Israel that is frequently struck by rockets fired from nearby Gaza. I condemned these attacks as abominable acts of terrorism, since most of the 13 victims during the past seven years have been non-combatants.
Subsequently, I met with leaders of Hamas -- a delegation from Gaza and the top officials in Damascus. I made the same condemnation to them, and urged that they declare a unilateral ceasefire or orchestrate with Israel a mutual agreement to terminate all military action in and around Gaza for an extended period.
They responded that such action by them in the past had not been reciprocated, and they reminded me that Hamas had previously insisted on a ceasefire throughout Palestine, including Gaza and the West Bank, which Israel had refused. Hamas then made a public proposal of a mutual ceasefire restricted to Gaza, which the Israelis also rejected.
There are fervent arguments heard on both sides concerning blame for a lack of peace in the Holy Land. Israel has occupied and colonised the Palestinian West Bank, which is approximately a quarter the size of the nation of Israel as recognised by the international community. Some Israeli religious factions claim a right to the land on both sides of the Jordan river, others that their 205 settlements of some 500,000 people are necessary for "security".
All Arab nations have agreed to recognise Israel fully if it will comply with key United Nations resolutions. Hamas has agreed to accept any negotiated peace settlement between the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, provided it is approved in a referendum of the Palestinian people.
This holds promise of progress, but despite the brief fanfare and positive statements at the peace conference last November in Annapolis, the process has gone backwards. Nine thousand new Israeli housing units have been announced in Palestine; the number of roadblocks within the West Bank has increased; and the stranglehold on Gaza has been tightened.
It is one thing for other leaders to defer to the US in the crucial peace negotiations, but the world must not stand idle while innocent people are treated cruelly. It is time for strong voices in Europe, the US, Israel and elsewhere to speak out and condemn the human rights tragedy that has befallen the Palestinian people.
martes, mayo 27, 2008
Calderón busca ganar el 2009 con su plan alimentario: UGOCP
* Sólo servirá de “piso para la corrupción y especulación”, denunció la central campesina
México, D.F., 26 de mayo (apro).- El secretario general de la Unión General Obrera, Campesina y Popular (UGOCP), Margarito Montes Parra, calificó de “electorero” el programa del presidente Felipe Calderón para enfrentar una eventual crisis de alimentos en el país.El líder de la UGOCP denunció que a Calderón no le interesa la alimentación de la población, sino ganar para su partido, el PAN, los comicios del 2009.Sostuvo que se trata de una estrategia que servirá de “piso para la corrupción de funcionarios y exfuncionario promotores de la especulación”.El domingo el gobierno federal anunció un plan para enfrentar una ulterior alza internacional en los precios de alimentos, programa que generó opiniones encontradas entre diversos sectores, entre ellos el de los productores.Durante la clausura de los trabajos del VII Congreso Nacional de la UGOCP, el dirigente campesino dijo que esas acciones sólo evidencian la ignorancia oficial sobre la realidad del medio rural, sin vislumbrar que con ello se atiza la quiebra del campo. Consideró que el ofrecimiento de la autoridad federal para eliminar aranceles a las importaciones de granos será un fracaso, pues “no creo que encuentre granos en ninguna parte, pero sí será un piso para la corrupción de funcionarios y exfuncionarios”.La medida presidencial de importar más granos, abundó, es perjudicial para el productor nacional, pues ello implica eliminar precios y una mayor especulación.Puso como ejemplo a las trasnacionales “que son dueñas de las cosechas durante los próximos cuatro o cinco años, en tanto que otras grandes empresas compran barcos con más de 35 mil toneladas de fertilizantes para después comercializarlos a altos costos”.De todas las dependencias federales, acusó, la Secretaría de Hacienda “es la más contrabandista del país, pues a través de ella entran leche y carne de manera ilegal”.Margarito Montes dijo que el gobierno de Calderón reedita la política importadora que no se conduele del campo mexicano y en la que hasta los mismos funcionarios hacen coyotaje en el agro nacional. Destacó que “el gobierno está haciendo importaciones de emergencia, pero su política no está acompañada de una reflexión seria sobre el fracaso del campo mexicano, ya que eliminó la producción nacional de semillas y fertilizantes, carece de una reserva nacional de granos, de distritos de riego y además registra baja producción de fertilizantes”.
sondeo
¿Qué provocará Calderón con su plan alimentario?
a) Abasto e impulso al campo
8.37 % 158 votos
b) Corrupción y especulación
91.63 % 1729 votos
Para participar en el sondeo AQUI.
Derechos humanos: otro retroceso
Amerigo IncalcaterraMéxico, D.F., 26 de mayo (apro).- Así como han quedado exhibidas las mentiras del gobierno de Felipe Calderón en materia de empleo, justamente el puntal de su oferta de campaña y de sus transitorias proclamas triunfalistas --que ya dieron paso a su temperamento cada vez más irascible--, otro tema fundamental que observa un acelerado retroceso en el México actual es el de los derechos humanos, que ya ni siquiera forman parte del discurso oficial.Se ha hecho pública ya la despedida de Amerigo Incalcaterra, representante en México de la Oficina del Alto Comisionado de Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos, no en razón de su voluntad de cambiar de domicilio, sino por presiones del gobierno de Calderón, irritado por señalamientos certeros, como los que publica en el semanario Proceso en la edición de esta semana.Por encima del discurso, dice Amerigo, prevalece el déficit y aun la regresión en materia de derechos humanos, como la violación sistemática de los derechos de los migrantes, la discriminación hacia los pueblos indígenas, la violencia en contra de la mujer, la precarización del trabajo, la enorme desigualdad de oportunidades, el uso desproporcionado de la fuerza pública y, añade, situaciones de abierta represión como Oaxaca, Atenco y la mina de Pasta de Conchos.El diplomático italiano de la ONU --quien salió del país el viernes 23 de mayo, después de casi tres años de someter a escrutinio al Estado en el tema de los derechos humanos-- sólo describió lo que otros organismos nacionales e internacionales han documentado ampliamente, como lo hizo por ejemplo Human Rights Watch (HRW), en febrero, y como seguramente lo hará, esta misma semana, Amnistía Internacional en su informe internacional y sobre México. HRW hizo montar en cólera a la Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDH), que encabeza José Luis Soberanes, porque describió lo que es evidente: Su incompetencia, a pesar de contar con el más grande presupuesto en América Latina y de los más grandes del planeta.“Cuando se trata de impulsar medidas para mejorar el pobre historial de violaciones de derechos humanos en México, a través de asegurar un recurso efectivo a las víctimas y de promover reformas estructurales, la actuación de la CNDH ha sido decepcionante”, dijo el director ejecutivo de HRW, José Miguel Vivanco, en la presentación del informe, que acredita que ese organismo constitucional autónomo es “pasivo” se “autolimita” y se aboca sólo a “describir el statu quo”.Y en efecto, son numerosos los casos en los que la CNDH, que es el último eslabón en la cadena de defensa de los derechos humanos, emite recomendaciones que, al final, no sirven para nada, si acaso para exhibir la nula voluntad política de autoridades de todos los niveles en temas fundamentales.Hay cuatro casos que son sintomáticos de la acción de la CNDH, en el mundo de violaciones sistemáticas a lo largo del territorio mexicano y todas tienen que ver con autoridades del Partido Acción nacional (PAN): La primera tiene que ver con el asesinato de la señora Ernestina Ascensión Rosario, la indígena de la sierra de Zongolica, Veracruz, quien murió de una anemia mal cuidada, según dictaminó Calderón y encontró en Soberanes el cómplice para encubrir a soldados que, conforme a testimonios, acometieron sexualmente contra ella y le dieron muerte.Otro caso fue el asesinato del joven Marco Antonio Hernández Galván, asesinado a tiros, en noviembre de 2004, en la capital de Querétaro, presuntamente por Federico Ruiz Lomelín, un junior de la familia concesionaria de la Coca Cola, defendido –debajo del agua-- por Diego Fernández de Cevallos. La CNDH emitió una recomendación por la ineptitud para investigar el caso, pero el asunto sigue en la impunidad.Hay otros dos casos que tienen que ver con la libertad de expresión, sobre los que la CNDH emitió sendas recomendaciones, y el saldo es el mismo: nada. En efecto, el gobernador de Aguascalientes, Luis Reynoso Femat, presionó a una estación de radio para despedir al periodista Rodolfo Franco Ramírez, y su colega de Guanajuato, el también panista Juan Manuel Oliva, acometió contra los directores de los periódicos A.M., de León, y Arnoldo Cuellar, de Correo, de la capital.Recientemente, y así lo informó con oportunidad el semanario Proceso, se registró un hecho ominoso que ratifica la involución de los derechos humanos en México, que se extiende a todos los ámbitos: Juan de Dios Castro Lozano, subprocurador general de la República, identificó como “enemiga del Estado” a Aleida Calleja, vicepresidenta de la Asociación Mundial de Radios Comunitarias (AMARC).Encolerizado, este prócer del panismo por sus supuestas habilidades jurídicas y parlamentarias, nada menos que subprocurador de Derechos Humanos y Atención a Víctimas, lanzó la amenaza contra la mexicana frente a los miembros de una misión internacional de observación que, el 21 de abril, se entrevistaron con él justamente para saber los avances sobre agresiones a profesionales que ejercen la libertad de expresión en México.Castro, quien como consejero jurídico de Vicente Fox diseñó el alegato jurídico del desafuero de Andrés Manuel López Obrador y después retomó la diputación para exponerlo directamente –y luego volvió a la alta burocracia--, sólo actúa como lo hacen otros miembros de la clase política nacional: en la lógica de impunidad.Seguramente ahora que Amnistía Internacional emita su informe sobre las sistemáticas violaciones a los derechos humanos en México, entre ellas las que cometen soldados y cuerpos policiacos en esta simulación sexenal que es el combate a una parte del narcotráfico, habrá de expresarse la irritación de un gobierno de derecha que, en efecto, tiene como doctrina la hipocresía.
Apuntes
Otra mafia que solapa Calderón: Tal como lo documentó el reportero Daniel Lizárraga, en el semanario Proceso, parte de los 150 millones de pesos que gastó el equipo de transición (130 Calderón y 20 para el Estado Mayor Presidencial) se destinaron a pagar una empresa, Consultores en Diseño Político-Legislativo, que realizó un supuesto estudio sobre los diputados y senadores de oposición. La apoderada legal de la compañía que se fundó sólo para recibir ese contrato de parte del responsable administrativo del equipo de transición, Gerardo Ruiz Mateos, se llama Laura Ballesteros Mancilla, militante panista y allegada a Mariana Gómez del Campo, la sobrina de Calderón. Ahora El Universal publicó ayer copia del contrato que firmó el Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional (Cisen), que encabeza Guillermo Valdés Castellanos --consejero de Calderón desde que era presidente del PAN--, con esa misma mujer para espiar a legisladores de oposición, ahora por un millón de pesos. Pero, en realidad, se trata del mismo trabajo por el que cobró tres millones de pesos al equipo de transición. ¿Por qué le compra el Cisen el mismo material que ya había sido pagado por el actual jefe de la Oficina de la Presidencia? Muy sencillo: porque se trata de pagos de facturas en la campaña. ¿Y de quién es, realmente, el negocio? Nada menos que de Arne Ruthen Hagg, coordinador de asesores de Juan Camilo Mouriño… Calderón hizo uso, otra vez, de la cadena nacional para anunciar reparto de dinero, como los 120 pesos en efectivo que se reglará a la gente más pobre de México. ¿Y dónde están los severos críticos del populismo? Pues sí, cobrando lo suyo.
delgado@proceso.com.mx
Por algo el IFE valido su nombramiento interino......NI a "negociar en lo oscurito"
Reforma energética: Prevé PRD eventual contrapropuesta conjunta con el PRI
Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo* Acosta Naranjo se reunirá con Paredes Rangel
México, D.F., 26 de mayo (apro).- Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, presidente interno del PRD, anunció que esta semana se reunirá en privado con la dirigente nacional del PRI, Beatriz Paredes, para discutir el tema de la reforma energética, de lo que, anticipo, podría surgir la posibilidad de presentar una contrapropuesta de reforma conjunta.“Estamos buscando acercamientos con el PRI, particularmente. Me reuniré con Paredes Rangel para tratar el tema energético, para acercar posiciones y para ver su discurso en el Senado. Es un discurso que tiene grandes franjas de consenso con nuestro propio discurso, y si eso es así, tenemos posibilidad de llegar a acuerdos", señaló.Dijo que en la reunión de mañana del Comité Ejecutivo Nacional (CEN) del PRD, tratarán el tema, con el fin de buscar llegar con una postura de consenso a una próxima reunión del Consejo Nacional, probablemente este fin de semana, donde debería ratificarse el plan a seguir en torno al tema.Además, Acosta Naranjo defendió el derecho del PRD a presentar, a través de sus legisladores, una propuesta de reforma energética, luego de las críticas que recibió por haber anunciado, el jueves pasado, que su partido prepararía y presentaría una propuesta con la visión de actores como Andrés Manuel López Obrador y Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, así como con especialistas."Vamos a discutir mañana (en el CEN) el tema energético. Se abalizará si se puede presentar una propuesta unitaria, que tome como base nuestras resoluciones del pasado Consejo Nacional, que nos ordenó abordar el tema energético con cierta orientación”, añadió.En conferencia de prensa, el dirigente perredista anunció que la primera semana de agosto próximo impulsará la realización del Congreso Refundacional del partido, para que los cambios estatutarios que acuerden se apliquen en las elecciones intermedias de 2009.Dijo que se cambió para este martes la reunión del Comité Ejecutivo Nacional (CEN), que se realizaría hoy para nombrar al secretario de Finanzas, secretaría acéfala desde hace dos semanas.“Espero lograr un acuerdo que logre tener el consenso de todos en materia financiera. Me he reunido con José Antonio Rueda, Juan Manuel Ávila, Cintia Masas, Dolores Padierna, Alejandro Rojas Díaz Durán, intentando lograr acuerdos”, sin éxito, señaló. Por ello, el sábado próximo realizarán una nueva reunión del Consejo Nacional, debido a que se cumplen las fechas para informarle al Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE) los cambios en ésta cartera.Otro asunto que discutirán en la reunión del CEN es lo relacionado con la soberanía alimentaria, por lo que mañana se reunirán con dirigentes de organizaciones campesinas.Afirmó: “A pesar de su crisis, el PRD sigue siendo un partido que gobierna a más de 25 millones de mexicanos y tiene presencia en la Cámara de Diputados, por lo que hay que seguir buscando la manera para normalizar la vida política partidaria y resolver el conflicto por medio de acuerdos. Ojalá y hagamos un esfuerzo para lograrlos”.Además, Acosta Naranjo se dijo solidario con la postura sobre el petróleo de López Obrador, aunque privilegió la propuesta de su corriente, Nueva Izquierda, de elaborar una reforma alternativa. “No me parece que presentar una propuesta sea una traición a la patria; eso es lo que debe hacer cualquier partido político que tiene diputados y senadores”, añadió. Pidió a los perredistas evitar descalificaciones e insultos, ya que si “hubiera olimpiadas en lanzamiento de insultos ganarían, algunos, una medalla de oro para el país”.
Reanudan movilizaciones maestros de Oaxaca
Cumple ocho días el plantón magisterial en el zócalo de la ciudad* Por segunda ocasión bloquean aeropuerto y oficinas de gobierno
* Cumple ocho días el plantón magisterial en el zócalo de la ciudad
Oaxaca, Oax., 26 de mayo (apro).- Maestros de la sección 22 del SNTE reanudaron este día la jornada de movilizaciones que comenzaron hace una semana, en demanda de retabulación por zona cara, liberación de presos y emisión de la convocatoria para la renovación de la dirigencia local.Este lunes, los profesores bloquearon por segunda ocasión los accesos al aeropuerto internacional, el centro comercial Plaza del Valle y la Ciudad Administrativa, un conjunto de edificios que concentra las principales oficinas del gobierno estatal.El secretario de Organización del gremio, Ezequiel Rosales Carreño, informó que afiliados a la sección 22 tomaron la caseta de cobro de la autopista México-Oaxaca y otro contingente de maestros sumó ocho días en plantón en el zócalo de la ciudad.Por su parte, el arzobispo José Luis Chávez Botello instó a los maestros a levantar el plantón y emplear nuevas formas de manifestarse para exigir el cumplimiento de sus demandas.También reprobó los convenios transitorios que año con año firman autoridades y profesores, pues argumentó que éstos no resuelven las causas de fondo. Sostuvo que, por el contrario, retardan la solución del conflicto magisterial que ha dañado gravemente la vida y el trabajo de cientos de familias.Según el plan de acción magisterial, de las ocho de la mañana a las tres de la tarde unos 12 mil maestros de la región de la Costa retuvieron ocho camiones recolectores de basura para bloquear el acceso al aeropuerto de OaxacaY otro contingente impidió la apertura de instituciones bancarias y comercios establecidos en Plaza del Valle.Así mismo, unos 5 mil burócratas suspendieron labores una vez que se consumó el bloqueo a la Ciudad Administrativa, en que ubican las oficinas del gobernador Ulises Ruiz y las secretarías general de Gobierno, de Economía, de Administración, Técnica y Asuntos Indígenas, así como las coordinaciones de Planeación para el Desarrollo, Comunicación Social y de Delegaciones de Gobierno.Finalmente, los maestros tomaron la caseta de cobro de Huitzo, en que dieron paso libre a los conductores en la autopista Oaxaca-México.Los maestros solicitan la resolución de sus demandas políticas, sociales, educativas y sindicales para levantar su plantón, sin embargo, la demanda central es la emisión de la convocatoria para el cambio de la dirigencia de la sección 22.
Suspendió labores la mayoría de mineros, evalúa sindicato
Néstor de Buen durante la videoconferencia de Napoleón Gómez Urrutia
* Casi 20 mil trabajadores atienden llamado de Gómez Urrutia: STPS
* Se trató de un “paro parcial”, considera Altos Hornos de México
México, D.F., 26 de mayo (apro).- Sindicato minero, empresarios y autoridades del Trabajo se enfrascaron en una “guerra de declaraciones” sobre la efectividad del paro nacional de 24 horas efectuado este lunes, convocado por el dirigente Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, exiliado en Canadá desde hace un año.Así, la Secretaría del Trabajo (STPS) admitió que unos 19 mil 500 trabajadores suspendieron labores en 58 de las secciones sindicales.El sindicato aseguró que en punto de las siete de la mañana de este lunes, la mayoría de los mineros suspendieron actividades por 24 horas en 135 centros de 22 estados del país.En tanto, Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA) desmintió la versión del sindicato sobre la extensión del paro de labores.Francisco Orduña, vocero empresarial, dijo que sólo 300 trabajadores atendieron el llamado de Gómez Urrutia, por lo que “no fue un paro nacional ni total”.Por su lado, la Cámara Minera de México (Camimex) manifestó su rechazo a los paros de labores y se pronunció en favor de “la estricta aplicación de la ley”. Según la Camimex, “el único objetivo de la amenaza es utilizar a los trabajadores mineros como rehenes para resolver un conflicto interno del sindicato que es ajeno a las empresas”. El sindicato minero exige el reconocimiento oficial a la dirigencia nacional encabezada por Gómez Urrutia, sin embargo, el titular del Trabajo, Javier Lozano Alarcón, rechazó la idea al argumentar que existen al menos ocho quejas de mineros disidentes que se oponen a la reelección del líder autoexiliado en Vancouver.En videoconferencia, Gómez Urrutia hizo un llamado al presidente Felipe Calderón para que resuelva el conflicto que ha creado una creciente inestabilidad en el sector.Advirtió que la convención nacional del sindicato minero analizará la respuesta de las autoridades para tomar la decisión de continuar o no con paros incluso indefinidos.“Si no vemos condiciones, se evaluará continuar el movimiento hasta que se haga justicia”, anunció el líder sindical.Acusó a la Secretaría del Trabajo de coludirse con los empresarios de AHMSA para desacreditar al sindicato minero.Sin embargo, la STPS calificó de “ilegal” el paro y advirtió que no aceptará chantajes ni presiones para el reconocimiento de Gómez Urrutia.En un comunicado, la dependencia informó que un grupo de abogados revisa si la condición de autoexilio del dirigente minero es la adecuada para habilitarlo como secretario general del SNTMMSRM.El 31 de mayo próximo culmina la actual gestión de Gómez Urrutia que comenzó en mayo de 2002.
■ Corrupción, tema ausente del foro
■ ¿Adónde se está yendo el dinero del petróleo?
■ La guerra de la cerveza
■ ¿Adónde se está yendo el dinero del petróleo?
■ La guerra de la cerveza
Por encimita, como si no se quisiera molestar a nadie, se ha tocado el tema de la corrupción en el foro petrolero del Senado, pero será preciso que alguien lo haga. ¿Cómo desligar el tema petrolero del Fobaproa? Hasta el presente año han salido del presupuesto federal 322 mil millones de pesos como subsidio a la banca privada y en los años venideros tendrán que pagarse 700 mil millones más. ¿Cuántas refinerías se hubieran podido construir con esos 322 mil millones? Tal vez cinco, de acuerdo con los costos que dio la secretaria de Energía, Georgina Kessel. México ocupa el lugar número seis entre los diez mayores productores de petróleo crudo, pero no figura ni remotamente entre los países con mayor capacidad de refinación: Estados Unidos, China, Rusia, Japón, India, Corea del Sur, Alemania, Italia, Arabia Saudita y Canadá. Adviértase que países como Japón, India, Corea del Sur, Alemania e Italia no tienen petróleo, pero sí refinerías. Y el petróleo lo compran crudo, lo transforman y revenden convertido en una amplia variedad de petroquímicos. El caso de México ilustra este esquema de modo patético: el petróleo que exportamos a Estados Unidos se lo recompramos en forma de gasolina. En esta página aparecen dos gráficas. Una enlista los 10 mayores productores, con su producción diaria expresada en millones de barrriles y el porcentaje que representan en la producción mundial. Otra informa del río de dinero que ha salido del gobierno federal –en los sexenios de Zedillo, Fox y Calderón– para subsidiar el fraude del Fobaproa.Fobaproa: aquí se va el dinero del petróleo
Carrereados
Aunque no se haya tocado más que superficialmente el tema de la corrupción, es obvio que al gobierno calderonista le urge detener la caída de la producción petrolera y encontrar nuevas reservas, a fin de garantizar el pago de los 700 mil millones de pesos que faltan por cubrir del Fobaproa. Refresquemos la memoria: cuando era presidente del PAN, Calderón dio luz verde al esquema del llamado rescate bancario, no obstante que una asamblea nacional de su partido había acordado los tres no ya famosos: “no al Fobaproa, no a la impunidad, no a convertir en deuda pública la deuda privada de los banqueros”. Pronto olvidó Calderón que había llegado a pedir juicio político contra su hoy aliado, el gobernador del Banco de México, Guillermo Ortiz. Es inconcebible, pero el senador Francisco Labastida, beneficiario del fraude del Pemexgate, aunque haya perdido la elección presidencial es ahora el coordinador del foro petrolero. Labastida también fue, como secretario de Gobernación de Zedillo, el componedor del arreglo en lo oscurito que unió para siempre a los dirigentes panistas y priístas en el Fobaproa.
La guerra de las cervezas
Una sorda lucha financiera tiene lugar a muchos kilómetros de distancia. Incumbe a la principal firma cervecera del país, Modelo, y sus marcas de exportación, Corona, Coronita y Negra Modelo. La compañía belga InBev intenta forzar la compra de la estadunidense Anheuser-Busch y ofrece 46 mil millones de dólares. Anheuser-Busch es dueña de 50 por ciento de las acciones de Modelo.
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