26 July 2001 Edition
Fox fails to deliver in Mexico
BY SOLEDAD GALIANA
A year ago, Mexicans elected a new president, Vicente Fox. During his campaign, Fox committed himself to resolving long-standing economic and human rights issues. He spoke about the rights of the Indigenous people and promised to implement the San Andrés Accords, a peace deal signed by the Mexican government and the Zapatista Army in 1996. He spoke about respect for human rights and he promised that he would improve the economic situation of a country that, though an economic ally of the US and Canada, remains the poor partner in a very prosperous trade treaty.
Fox's election marked the end of an unbroken 71 years of power by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), but one year on, hopes for change are fading.
In one positive development, the Mexican authorities have arrested former Argentinian military officer Ricardo Miguel Cavallo, whose extradition is sought in connection with his role in the tortures and disappearances that took place during the military dictatorships in Argentina.
But in the main, Fox has failed to deliver on his promises, creating only new and empty structures whose function seems to be to add extra bulk to an already oversized Mexican bureaucracy.
Arturo Requesens Galnares is a human right lawyer with ACAT, an organisation working on the human rights field offering legal assistance to victims of torture and the relatives of those disappeared or assassinated by state forces. He came to Ireland recently at the invitation of Amnesty International to present the organisation's report on human rights in Mexico, titled ``Mexico: Human Rights in a Time of Change''. This 25-page document shows how the names of those in government may have changed, but the attitudes of the establishment remain the same.
In the past, PRI governments approached human rights issues as an internal affair. Those in power did not want to recognise the right of international mechanisms or conventions to deal with the human rights situation in Mexico. President Fox promised change, and in his inaugural speech before Congress on 1 December 2000, he stated: ``Mexico will no longer be held as a bad example in matters of human rights. We will protect human rights as never before, respecting them as never before and seeking a culture that repudiates any violation and punishes the guilty.''
But it is a difficult, if not impossible task, to introduce a culture of respect for human rights when the security structures that over decades have violated the rights of citizens remain in place. There has been no police reform in Mexico and the security forces are not held accountable for widespread human rights violations.
A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report for 2001 highlights that deficiencies in the administration of justice are ``a major concern'' in Mexico. ``Prosecutors frequently ignored abuses by police and also directly fabricated evidence, and judicial oversight of their work was seriously inadequate,'' states the HRW document.
``In general, human rights cases are twice as difficult as any other case, because these involve members of the military, the judicial police,'' explains Arturo Requesens. ``You are bringing cases against the same authorities... In some cases, you even find that the prosecutors are related to the perpetrators of the human rights violation.''
One month ago, a Special UN Rapporteur traveled to Mexico to investigate the independence of the judiciary. He concluded that at least 98% of cases taken to the prosecutors do not arrive before the courts.
``The reasons for this are that the prosecutors do not carry out their job as they should,'' says Requesens. ``Sometimes the arrest warrants are not in order, which makes it impossible to follow up with judicial procedures. The administration of justice is one of the big problems in Mexico and though there has been a change of party in central government and the states' governments, there has not been any relevant changes in the administration of justice.''
Human rights lawyers in Mexico also have to contend with a parallel system of justice with its own rules that does not allow for the participation of civil legal advisors - the military judicial system.
The military has always been and still is one of the big powers in Mexico, as in almost all the countries of Latin America. ``Unfortunately,'' says Requesens, ``the army is a very strong power and there are problems with the administration of justice in the military establishment.''
The cases of Victoriana Vázquez and Francisca Santos are a good example of how justice works in Mexico when the perpetrators of human rights violations are members of the military.
Vázquez (50) and Santos (33) left their homes on the morning of 21 April 1999 to go in search of their younger male relatives. Antonio Mendoza Olivero, Victoriana Vázquez's 10-year-old grandson, and Evaristo Albino (27), Francisca Santo's brother in law, had not been seen since going to harvest crops the day before.
As they searched, however, the two women were intercepted by a group of armed soldiers, who threw them to the ground, tied their hands behind their backs and ripped off their skirts. Three soldiers raped Victoriana Vázquez, while others dragged Francisca Santos into a nearby ravine, where she lost consciousness and was also raped.
On 7 May 1999, Victoriana and Francisca learned that soldiers had killed Antonio Mendoza and Evaristo Albino. There has not been any effective investigation into these killings. Both women, both indigenous Mixteco, gave official testimony to the Public Ministry on 8 May 1999.
On 26 May 1999, The Public Ministry turned the case over to the military justice system, thereby breaching international standards and Mexican law, which both state that the competent authority in cases involving human right violations by the security forces is the civil one. According to reports, the military has since closed the case without bringing anyone to justice.
Other human rights violations are carried out by paramilitary groups affiliated to the army, mostly based in the state of Chiapas. After the indigenous Zapatista rising in 1994, the government opted for a dirty war, seeking to paint the conflict as an internal feud between indigenous groups. The government paid and armed groups of indigenous in Chiapas. ``They paid them so they would take arms against other poor indigenous, so the government could present these actions like a confrontation between poor indigenous,'' says Requesens. ``In 1997, 45 indigenous people were massacred in Acteal in the state of Chiapas. These were part of an indigenous group that did not belong to the Zapatista Movement but they were part of the civil society and they were in a small church praying when the paramilitaries killed them. Killing this innocent and unarmed people was a way to provoke the Zapatistas into retaliation. These kind of crimes are still unresolved. There has supposedly been an investigation since 1997 and it is something that still concerns us.''
BY DOUGLAS HAMILTON
At the end of June, a leading Colombian trade unionist, Luis Hernández, vice-president of the public services union SINTRAEMCALI, was invited to Belfast by the recently elected Sinn Féin councillor Eoin O'Broin. He met with Joan O'Connor of Sinn Féin's International Department, with trade unions and the One World Centre, highlighting the horrific nature of workers' struggle in Colombia. Last year alone, 136 trade unionists were assassinated by government-backed paramilitaries, with a further 54 killed this year.
Luis Hernández spoke in detail about his union's ongoing campaign against the neo-liberal policies of the US-backed Colombian government, in particular the privatisation of four key services - electricity supply, telephones, clean water supply and drainage.
Since 1994, SINTRAEMCALI has initiated a series of anti-privatisation campaigns, involving joint action and solidarity between local communities and workers. These campaigns have highlighted the costs of privatisation that would be incurred by local communities in terms of increased misery and impoverishment. Moreover, the depth of corruption involved, in particular the bribing of local councillors to support the privatisation process, was exposed. Peaceful protests were organised which were constantly dispersed by the army and police, who brutally attacked workers.
In 1996, a seven-day strike was called which was finally broken by the government, involving heavy injuries to and imprisonment of strikers. In 1998, the union took by force the main administration building of their employers, and over a 15-day period there were daily confrontations with the police. By stopping food from entering the building and cutting the water supply, the authorities attempted to starve the workers into calling off their actions.
Despite all this, the workers won their campaign and the privatisation process was halted. However, the historic gains made by united workers' action was achieved at huge human cost. During the course of the struggle 13 workers were killed. Collusion between paramilitary death squads and the ``security forces'', life-threatening intimidation, the need for 24-hour bodyguards and the daily movement of activists to safe houses have become routine for Colombian trade unionists - an experience all too familiar for Irish republicans.
This is a time when a similar struggle against the backdoor privatisation of the health and education services is being fought in Ireland. The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and Public/Private Partnerships (PPP) may look mild, but they represent the same process of profit making for business from the provision of basic public services. The Colombian experience acts as a huge source of inspiration.
Luis Hernández explained that, as in Ireland, the Colombian people are fighting a war of national liberation. This is reflected in Plan Colombia which, while presented as a policy to combat drugs, is in fact a strategy to increase US military and political control over Colombia, backed by the undemocratic imposition of US neo-liberalist economic policies.
Irish republicans have much to learn from the principled socialist struggle of Colombian workers. International solidarity between Ireland and Colombia must be intensified.
A year ago, Mexicans elected a new president, Vicente Fox. During his campaign, Fox committed himself to resolving long-standing economic and human rights issues. He spoke about the rights of the Indigenous people and promised to implement the San Andrés Accords, a peace deal signed by the Mexican government and the Zapatista Army in 1996. He spoke about respect for human rights and he promised that he would improve the economic situation of a country that, though an economic ally of the US and Canada, remains the poor partner in a very prosperous trade treaty.
Fox's election marked the end of an unbroken 71 years of power by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), but one year on, hopes for change are fading.
In one positive development, the Mexican authorities have arrested former Argentinian military officer Ricardo Miguel Cavallo, whose extradition is sought in connection with his role in the tortures and disappearances that took place during the military dictatorships in Argentina.
But in the main, Fox has failed to deliver on his promises, creating only new and empty structures whose function seems to be to add extra bulk to an already oversized Mexican bureaucracy.
Arturo Requesens Galnares is a human right lawyer with ACAT, an organisation working on the human rights field offering legal assistance to victims of torture and the relatives of those disappeared or assassinated by state forces. He came to Ireland recently at the invitation of Amnesty International to present the organisation's report on human rights in Mexico, titled ``Mexico: Human Rights in a Time of Change''. This 25-page document shows how the names of those in government may have changed, but the attitudes of the establishment remain the same.
In the past, PRI governments approached human rights issues as an internal affair. Those in power did not want to recognise the right of international mechanisms or conventions to deal with the human rights situation in Mexico. President Fox promised change, and in his inaugural speech before Congress on 1 December 2000, he stated: ``Mexico will no longer be held as a bad example in matters of human rights. We will protect human rights as never before, respecting them as never before and seeking a culture that repudiates any violation and punishes the guilty.''
But it is a difficult, if not impossible task, to introduce a culture of respect for human rights when the security structures that over decades have violated the rights of citizens remain in place. There has been no police reform in Mexico and the security forces are not held accountable for widespread human rights violations.
A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report for 2001 highlights that deficiencies in the administration of justice are ``a major concern'' in Mexico. ``Prosecutors frequently ignored abuses by police and also directly fabricated evidence, and judicial oversight of their work was seriously inadequate,'' states the HRW document.
``In general, human rights cases are twice as difficult as any other case, because these involve members of the military, the judicial police,'' explains Arturo Requesens. ``You are bringing cases against the same authorities... In some cases, you even find that the prosecutors are related to the perpetrators of the human rights violation.''
One month ago, a Special UN Rapporteur traveled to Mexico to investigate the independence of the judiciary. He concluded that at least 98% of cases taken to the prosecutors do not arrive before the courts.
``The reasons for this are that the prosecutors do not carry out their job as they should,'' says Requesens. ``Sometimes the arrest warrants are not in order, which makes it impossible to follow up with judicial procedures. The administration of justice is one of the big problems in Mexico and though there has been a change of party in central government and the states' governments, there has not been any relevant changes in the administration of justice.''
Human rights lawyers in Mexico also have to contend with a parallel system of justice with its own rules that does not allow for the participation of civil legal advisors - the military judicial system.
The military has always been and still is one of the big powers in Mexico, as in almost all the countries of Latin America. ``Unfortunately,'' says Requesens, ``the army is a very strong power and there are problems with the administration of justice in the military establishment.''
The cases of Victoriana Vázquez and Francisca Santos are a good example of how justice works in Mexico when the perpetrators of human rights violations are members of the military.
Vázquez (50) and Santos (33) left their homes on the morning of 21 April 1999 to go in search of their younger male relatives. Antonio Mendoza Olivero, Victoriana Vázquez's 10-year-old grandson, and Evaristo Albino (27), Francisca Santo's brother in law, had not been seen since going to harvest crops the day before.
As they searched, however, the two women were intercepted by a group of armed soldiers, who threw them to the ground, tied their hands behind their backs and ripped off their skirts. Three soldiers raped Victoriana Vázquez, while others dragged Francisca Santos into a nearby ravine, where she lost consciousness and was also raped.
On 7 May 1999, Victoriana and Francisca learned that soldiers had killed Antonio Mendoza and Evaristo Albino. There has not been any effective investigation into these killings. Both women, both indigenous Mixteco, gave official testimony to the Public Ministry on 8 May 1999.
On 26 May 1999, The Public Ministry turned the case over to the military justice system, thereby breaching international standards and Mexican law, which both state that the competent authority in cases involving human right violations by the security forces is the civil one. According to reports, the military has since closed the case without bringing anyone to justice.
Other human rights violations are carried out by paramilitary groups affiliated to the army, mostly based in the state of Chiapas. After the indigenous Zapatista rising in 1994, the government opted for a dirty war, seeking to paint the conflict as an internal feud between indigenous groups. The government paid and armed groups of indigenous in Chiapas. ``They paid them so they would take arms against other poor indigenous, so the government could present these actions like a confrontation between poor indigenous,'' says Requesens. ``In 1997, 45 indigenous people were massacred in Acteal in the state of Chiapas. These were part of an indigenous group that did not belong to the Zapatista Movement but they were part of the civil society and they were in a small church praying when the paramilitaries killed them. Killing this innocent and unarmed people was a way to provoke the Zapatistas into retaliation. These kind of crimes are still unresolved. There has supposedly been an investigation since 1997 and it is something that still concerns us.''
Colombia's unreported killing fields
BY DOUGLAS HAMILTON
At the end of June, a leading Colombian trade unionist, Luis Hernández, vice-president of the public services union SINTRAEMCALI, was invited to Belfast by the recently elected Sinn Féin councillor Eoin O'Broin. He met with Joan O'Connor of Sinn Féin's International Department, with trade unions and the One World Centre, highlighting the horrific nature of workers' struggle in Colombia. Last year alone, 136 trade unionists were assassinated by government-backed paramilitaries, with a further 54 killed this year.
Luis Hernández spoke in detail about his union's ongoing campaign against the neo-liberal policies of the US-backed Colombian government, in particular the privatisation of four key services - electricity supply, telephones, clean water supply and drainage.
Since 1994, SINTRAEMCALI has initiated a series of anti-privatisation campaigns, involving joint action and solidarity between local communities and workers. These campaigns have highlighted the costs of privatisation that would be incurred by local communities in terms of increased misery and impoverishment. Moreover, the depth of corruption involved, in particular the bribing of local councillors to support the privatisation process, was exposed. Peaceful protests were organised which were constantly dispersed by the army and police, who brutally attacked workers.
In 1996, a seven-day strike was called which was finally broken by the government, involving heavy injuries to and imprisonment of strikers. In 1998, the union took by force the main administration building of their employers, and over a 15-day period there were daily confrontations with the police. By stopping food from entering the building and cutting the water supply, the authorities attempted to starve the workers into calling off their actions.
Despite all this, the workers won their campaign and the privatisation process was halted. However, the historic gains made by united workers' action was achieved at huge human cost. During the course of the struggle 13 workers were killed. Collusion between paramilitary death squads and the ``security forces'', life-threatening intimidation, the need for 24-hour bodyguards and the daily movement of activists to safe houses have become routine for Colombian trade unionists - an experience all too familiar for Irish republicans.
This is a time when a similar struggle against the backdoor privatisation of the health and education services is being fought in Ireland. The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and Public/Private Partnerships (PPP) may look mild, but they represent the same process of profit making for business from the provision of basic public services. The Colombian experience acts as a huge source of inspiration.
Luis Hernández explained that, as in Ireland, the Colombian people are fighting a war of national liberation. This is reflected in Plan Colombia which, while presented as a policy to combat drugs, is in fact a strategy to increase US military and political control over Colombia, backed by the undemocratic imposition of US neo-liberalist economic policies.
Irish republicans have much to learn from the principled socialist struggle of Colombian workers. International solidarity between Ireland and Colombia must be intensified.