Showing posts tagged mexico
futurejournalismproject: Another Mexican Journalist Killed Via the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas: Another journalist was killed in Veracruz, México; his body was found inside of plastic bags in the early morning of Thursday, June 14, in the city of Xalapa, reported the Associated Process and the weekly Proceso. The search started the night before after the journalist was kidnapped while leaving his office, according to Reuters. It is believed that the journalist was probably a victim of organized crime, reported the newspaper El Economista. The killing of journalist Víctor Báez Chino, founder of the news site Reporterospoliciacos.com and police reporter for more than 25 years, makes nine journalists killed since June 2011 in Veracruz, considered by Reporters Without Borders as one of the 10 most dangerous places in the world to practice journalism. According to the news agency EFE, only a few days back, the journalist told the coordinator of Social Communication of Veracruz, Gina Domínguez, that no one could and should live in fear. “Let’s not let them make fear a way of living for us,” said Baéz. At a press conference, Domínguez said the killing of the journalist “insults the journalistic profession and also tries to intimidate society and retract the government’s decision to fight crime,” reported the news outlet InfoBAE.com. Resources that make us sad: A Knight Center map of attacks against against Mexican journalists. Image: Twitter post by On the Media’s Brook Gladstone. View high resolution

futurejournalismproject:

Another Mexican Journalist Killed

Via the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas:

Another journalist was killed in Veracruz, México; his body was found inside of plastic bags in the early morning of Thursday, June 14, in the city of Xalapa, reported the Associated Process and the weekly Proceso. The search started the night before after the journalist was kidnapped while leaving his office, according to Reuters. It is believed that the journalist was probably a victim of organized crime, reported the newspaper El Economista.

The killing of journalist Víctor Báez Chino, founder of the news site Reporterospoliciacos.com and police reporter for more than 25 years, makes nine journalists killed since June 2011 in Veracruz, considered by Reporters Without Borders as one of the 10 most dangerous places in the world to practice journalism.

According to the news agency EFE, only a few days back, the journalist told the coordinator of Social Communication of Veracruz, Gina Domínguez, that no one could and should live in fear. “Let’s not let them make fear a way of living for us,” said Baéz. At a press conference, Domínguez said the killing of the journalist “insults the journalistic profession and also tries to intimidate society and retract the government’s decision to fight crime,” reported the news outlet InfoBAE.com.

Resources that make us sad: A Knight Center map of attacks against against Mexican journalists.

Image: Twitter post by On the Media’s Brook Gladstone.

(Reblogged from futurejournalismproject)
mohandasgandhi: csmonitor: 2010 organized crime killings by Mexican state  (Graphic: Rich Clabaugh/Staff) Part of this week’s cover story: “Mexico drug war casualty: Citizenry suffers post-traumatic stress” I think this is so important to talk about. In many parts of Mexico, nearly every resident has either been a victim of street crime or has an immediate family member who was and a kidnapping is committed every 6 hours. Because Mexico has had a difficult time transitioning out of a 70+ year autocratic rule from the PRI into a democracy, the criminal justice system has become corrupted. The patron-client relationships the PRI maintained, many with drug cartels, fell apart as the party weakened, leading the cartels to try to absorb some of the lost governmental power. Remember when Giuliani was hired in 2002 to advise Mexico City on how to reduce crime? That’s partially because the police are so corrupt, leading 75-90% of all crimes going unreported. Furthermore, if you’re the victim of a crime, you report it, the criminal is successfully caught, and convicted, there’s a 1% chance they’ll be sentenced, leading almost only 1 out of every 1,000 crimes to go without successful formal punishment. Because of the widespread systematic corruption, the violence from drug cartels has been allowed to escalate, especially in intensity. This has helped create an atmosphere of fear, and not necessarily for victims, that the article goes over: But there is a growing sense – especially as violence spreads to new parts of the country like Veracruz – that there is another kind of victim. Most Mexicans are not direct targets – traffickers, public officials, police, journalists. They do not figure into any official violence tallies, but many feel that they are more than mere bystanders. They have been forced to change how they live: how they commute to work, how they travel, what they do in the evenings, how they dress, and how they socialize. Even if they are not directly affected, “people are experiencing terror from this world of death and violence,” says Raúl Villamil Uriarte, a social psychologist and anthropologist at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City. “The nation is suffering post-traumatic stress disorder from all this violence playing out.” President Calderón’s drug war strategy, which unleashed 45,000 military troops to loosen the grip of organized crime in the most-affected municipalities – such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, and more recently Acapulco and here in Veracruz – has had some formidable success. In July, the government boasted that its campaign had taken down 21 of the 37 most-wanted drug traffickers. But violence has exploded. Drug-related homicides surged from 2,826 in 2007 to 15,273 last year, according to government data. And while Mexico’s homicide rate is lower than those of some countries in the region, like El Salvador and Honduras, it is the type of violence that sets this nation apart. It is decapitations and bodies dangling from bridges with warning notes, or the grenade thrown into a plaza in Michoacán’s capital, Morelia, in September 2008. And it is massacres such as that of 13 Juárez high school students and two adults gunned down at a birthday party in January 2010; a car bomb that killed four and wounded more than a dozen in Juárez in July 2010; 72 bullet-riddled bodies of migrants found at a ranch in August 2010; a casino attack in the industrial city of Monterrey in broad daylight last August in which gunmen burst in and set fire to the building, killing 52 people. View high resolution

mohandasgandhi:

csmonitor:

2010 organized crime killings by Mexican state  (Graphic: Rich Clabaugh/Staff)

Part of this week’s cover story: “Mexico drug war casualty: Citizenry suffers post-traumatic stress”

I think this is so important to talk about. In many parts of Mexico, nearly every resident has either been a victim of street crime or has an immediate family member who was and a kidnapping is committed every 6 hours. Because Mexico has had a difficult time transitioning out of a 70+ year autocratic rule from the PRI into a democracy, the criminal justice system has become corrupted. The patron-client relationships the PRI maintained, many with drug cartels, fell apart as the party weakened, leading the cartels to try to absorb some of the lost governmental power.

Remember when Giuliani was hired in 2002 to advise Mexico City on how to reduce crime? That’s partially because the police are so corrupt, leading 75-90% of all crimes going unreported. Furthermore, if you’re the victim of a crime, you report it, the criminal is successfully caught, and convicted, there’s a 1% chance they’ll be sentenced, leading almost only 1 out of every 1,000 crimes to go without successful formal punishment. Because of the widespread systematic corruption, the violence from drug cartels has been allowed to escalate, especially in intensity. This has helped create an atmosphere of fear, and not necessarily for victims, that the article goes over:

But there is a growing sense – especially as violence spreads to new parts of the country like Veracruz – that there is another kind of victim. Most Mexicans are not direct targets – traffickers, public officials, police, journalists. They do not figure into any official violence tallies, but many feel that they are more than mere bystanders. They have been forced to change how they live: how they commute to work, how they travel, what they do in the evenings, how they dress, and how they socialize.

Even if they are not directly affected, “people are experiencing terror from this world of death and violence,” says Raúl Villamil Uriarte, a social psychologist and anthropologist at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City. “The nation is suffering post-traumatic stress disorder from all this violence playing out.”

President Calderón’s drug war strategy, which unleashed 45,000 military troops to loosen the grip of organized crime in the most-affected municipalities – such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, and more recently Acapulco and here in Veracruz – has had some formidable success. In July, the government boasted that its campaign had taken down 21 of the 37 most-wanted drug traffickers.

But violence has exploded. Drug-related homicides surged from 2,826 in 2007 to 15,273 last year, according to government data.

And while Mexico’s homicide rate is lower than those of some countries in the region, like El Salvador and Honduras, it is the type of violence that sets this nation apart. It is decapitations and bodies dangling from bridges with warning notes, or the grenade thrown into a plaza in Michoacán’s capital, Morelia, in September 2008. And it is massacres such as that of 13 Juárez high school students and two adults gunned down at a birthday party in January 2010; a car bomb that killed four and wounded more than a dozen in Juárez in July 2010; 72 bullet-riddled bodies of migrants found at a ranch in August 2010; a casino attack in the industrial city of Monterrey in broad daylight last August in which gunmen burst in and set fire to the building, killing 52 people.

(Reblogged from mohandasgandhi)

Focusing on the Wrong Drug in Mexico and Central America Community

I attended the Yale Globalization Center conference on drug policy organized by President Ernesto Zedillo and Professor Jody Sindelar. The most interesting thing I learned from the panels and participants is that the attention of the U.S. public regarding drugs is focused on debates that don’t matter much for our friends south of the border (i.e., what should we do about marijuana?). Meanwhile cocaine, which has dropped off the public’s radar, is absolutely central to what is occurring in Mexico and Central America.

Mexican gangs grow marijuana and ship it north, no muss no fuss, but to control the cocaine trade they need to look to South American suppliers and the land trade route through which the drug flows. Recently the gangs have established a substantially greater presence — with attendant violence and corruption — in places such as Guatamala, Nicauragua and El Salvador. Whether U.S. policy on marijuana gets tighter, looser or stays the same makes little difference to these Central American countries, but our policies toward cocaine have huge consequences for them.

More generally, the financial import of marijuana to the Mexican gangs seem to be declining. The gangs are diversifying into a range of other criminal and legitimate businesses, making drugs a smaller part of their revenue stream. The U.S. marijuana market is perhaps one sixth of that shrinking slice of the pie. In contrast, despite the increasing diversification of the gangs into non-drug businesses, cocaine remains massively important to them, likely accounting for more revenue than all the other drugs put together. 

(Reblogged from abbyjean)
how-apropos: mexican drug cartel gains/losses sinaloa (the blue one) is the only one on the come up because of their ties/infiltration of police and military

how-apropos:

mexican drug cartel gains/losses

sinaloa (the blue one) is the only one on the come up because of their ties/infiltration of police and military

(Reblogged from mohandasgandhi)
caraobrien: Gun-related Homicides in Municipalities Bordering California versus Other Border States The question: Do more guns cause more violence? The experiment: We exploit a natural experiment induced by the 2004 expiration of the U.S. federal assault weapons ban to examine how the subsequent exogenous increase in gun supply affected violence in Mexico. The expiration relaxed the permissiveness of gun sales in border states such as Texas and Arizona, but not California, which retained a pre-existing state-level ban. The results: Using data from mortality statistics and criminal prosecutions over 2002-2006, we show that homicides, gun-related homicides and gun-related crimes increased differentially in Mexican municipios located closer to Texas and Arizona ports of entry, relative to those nearer California ports. Our estimates suggest that the U.S. policy change caused at least 158 additional deaths each year in the post-2004 period. Gun seizures also increase differentially, and solely for the gun category that includes assault weapons. The results are robust to controls for drug trafficking, policing, unauthorized immigration, and economic conditions in U.S. border ports, as well as drug interdiction efforts, trends by income and education, and military and legal enforcement efforts in Mexican municipios. The conclusion: Our findings suggest that U.S. gun laws have exerted an unanticipated spillover on gun supply in Mexico, and this increase in gun supply has contributed to rising violence south of the border. From a paper presented by Oeindrila Dube at NYU’s Development Seminar, with Arindrajit Dube and Omar Garcia-Ponce. via Aid Watch

caraobrien:

Gun-related Homicides in Municipalities Bordering California versus Other Border States

The question:

Do more guns cause more violence?

The experiment:

We exploit a natural experiment induced by the 2004 expiration of the U.S. federal assault weapons ban to examine how the subsequent exogenous increase in gun supply affected violence in Mexico. The expiration relaxed the permissiveness of gun sales in border states such as Texas and Arizona, but not California, which retained a pre-existing state-level ban.

The results:

Using data from mortality statistics and criminal prosecutions over 2002-2006, we show that homicides, gun-related homicides and gun-related crimes increased differentially in Mexican municipios located closer to Texas and Arizona ports of entry, relative to those nearer California ports.

Our estimates suggest that the U.S. policy change caused at least 158 additional deaths each year in the post-2004 period. Gun seizures also increase differentially, and solely for the gun category that includes assault weapons. The results are robust to controls for drug trafficking, policing, unauthorized immigration, and economic conditions in U.S. border ports, as well as drug interdiction efforts, trends by income and education, and military and legal enforcement efforts in Mexican municipios.

The conclusion:

Our findings suggest that U.S. gun laws have exerted an unanticipated spillover on gun supply in Mexico, and this increase in gun supply has contributed to rising violence south of the border.

From a paper presented by Oeindrila Dube at NYU’s Development Seminar, with Arindrajit Dube and Omar Garcia-Ponce.

via Aid Watch

(Reblogged from caraobrien)
“
This is the worst massacre we have seen in modern times.
Police spokesman Donald Gonzalez said refering to the discovery of decapitated bodies of at least 25 men and two women near Guatemala’s border with Mexico. Police said the killings could be linked to a battle between drug gangs fighting for control of the area. Mexican cartels are increasingly moving into northern Guatemala, an important transit point for drugs smuggled from South America to the US. (Read More)
(Reblogged from newsflick)

How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs - The Guardian

thedailycaveat:

Simply a must-read.

On 10 April 2006, a DC-9 jet landed in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, on the Gulf of Mexico, as the sun was setting. Mexican soldiers, waiting to intercept it, found 128 cases packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100m. But something else – more important and far-reaching – was discovered in the paper trail behind the purchase of the plane by the Sinaloa narco-trafficking cartel.

Since when is $100 million in confiscated cocaine only the preamble? The real story came from tracing the ownership of the plane. That paper trail and a 22-month investigation that followed lead to stunning revelations about one of America’s biggest banks.

Read on.

(Reblogged from pantslessprogressive)

The US West Coast now under a Tsunami WARNING. Getting reports that the sirens are going off on the Oregon Coast.

(Source: pantslessprogressive)

(Reblogged from caraobrien)

foreignaffairsmagazine:

Mexico’s drug war is likely to be on the top of the agenda during this week’s meeting between Presidents Calderón and Obama. For background from the experts, view this video of a recent Foreign Affairs LIVE event. Former Mexican Foreign Secretary Jorge Castañeda and former Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)  Robert Bonner discuss the options and consequences facing Mexican and U.S. officials.

I don’t have time to watch this right now, but it’s relevant to my interests and probably to at least a few of you as well.

(Reblogged from foreignaffairsmagazine)
“
If you are ever going to stop this invasion, and it is an invasion, you have to quit rewarding people for breaking those laws,” said State Senator Russell Pearce, the Senate president, who is leading Arizona’s effort to try to make life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they stop coming, or leave.

New Anti-Immigration Bills in Arizona - NYTimes.com

Here again is yet another national MSM article talking about the fucked up white supremacist bullshit in Arizona that never once mentions where the proposed legislation is coming from—i.e. white supremacist organizations. This language—“invasion”? it is language of white supremacist nativist militias that have been around since the 1800s. invasion of cockroaches. The cockroaches come out at night and sneak in. This article also does not put Pearce in context—being supported economically by and have relationships with blatantly white supremacist organizations like the American Border Report. The interesting thing is that on a national front, these groups and politicians have been careful not to use language like this. To us use “polite” language coached in terms of “anti-terrorism” language that the government uses. Invasion rides that line—where it’s talking to other anti-latino white supremacists—while hiding behind anti-terrorism language. asserting this is an “invasion”—makes sense in the context of “oh, my god, the terrorists could slip right through and then we’ll have another 911!”—but it is a wink towards hate groups. The ones worried about “our way of life” —i.e. our white daughters fucking a spic and giving birth to anchor babies. i.e. our white children speaking spic language. i.e. our clean town covered in dirty cockroaches. i.e. dirty spics grabbing their cocks in front of our good pure ladies. i.e. white men not being in control of everything. I’m suprised at the blatant language he’s using. And I hope that everybody recognizes it for what it is. And sees that in pushing the boundaries like this of what language he’s using—he’s asserting a confidence that *people will support him anyway*. Because they’ve bought the kinder gentler message. 

(via radicallyhottoff)

Yes yes yes. Russell Pearce created Arizona’s brutal Tent City prison as a member of Joe Arapaio’s sheriff’s department. The first bill he introduced in the AZ House a decade ago would have required CPS workers to report suspected undocumented immigrants, even if that person was not being investigated. He has opposed undocumented persons having access to what he calls “public benefits” - things like ambulances, police and fire department protection, etc. He called for the reinstatement of “Operation Wetback,” which deported almost a million undocumented people and US citizens in the early 1950s. This man has been shopping SB 1309 (the bill that denies automatic citizenship to the children of undocumented parents) through multiple committees until he found one that would pass it. He introduced SB 1611, which takes his SB 1070 (yup, he authored that one too) one step further to deny children access to public education if they can’t provide a birth certificate. This man is scary as hell, and it ought to make your hair stand on end that a publication like the New York Times is quoting him as anything but a dangerous, racist demagogue. This isn’t new, and this isn’t Tea Party posturing. Russell Pearce has been treating immigrants in Arizona as a subhuman species to be exterminated for a very long time, and now he and other fully complicit lawmakers have the influence to make it so.

(via thetart)

It’s incredibly expensive to pay for people to crossover, by the way your government is in on this and those politicians make bank from this as well to the tune of $7,000 a head. The more difficult you make it for individuals to cross the border, the more expensive the fee’s. It’s a pseudo- drug war, declare unenforceable laws and watch profits soar. It’s a win-win for conservatives and their constituents.

(via thenoobyorker)

Emphasis on Luis’ comment above is mine. And since we just read Border Games, this was a big point of discussion in class today.

(Reblogged from thenoobyorker)