Americas MexicoBlog

Plan Mexico: Uphill battle will continue against failed model

2008-06-30T19:09:00.000-07:00

On June 26, after months of intense manoeuvering in Washington, the U.S. Senate passed the final version of the “Merida Initiative” and the President subsequently signed it into law.

The date will be remembered as a turning point in the U.S.-Mexico relationship, not just because it increases U.S. aid to Mexico ten-fold but because it militarizes the bilateral relationship just when sensitive issues had a chance to be worked out through political and diplomatic channels. Given the security paradigm of Plan Mexico—to the exclusion of other aspects of the bilateral relationship--, the State Department will take a backseat following presentation of a report that attests to Mexico’s efforts to obey its own laws, and the Pentagon will take the reins.

The human rights conditions that were first added by Congress and then mostly withdrawn when the Mexican government rejected them, sent up a smokescreen that prevented real analysis and debate on what is popularly known as Plan Mexico. That ultimately futile discussion also sidelined the voices of organizations that urged Congress to oppose the measure: the ten-million strong AFL-CIO and its 1.7 million-person Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, non-governmental organizations including CIP Americas Policy Program and Global Exchange, religious organizations including Witness for Peace, Tikkun and the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, and grassroots activist organizations including the Latin American Solidarity Coalition, Alliance for Democracy, CISPES and Friends of Brad Will.

Much has been made of the $73.5 million appropriated for institutional reform of the justice and penal systems. This compares to $112 million allocated for 2008 under the original Bush proposal. But as I stated in the Primer on Plan Mexico, even this section raises serious questions of efficacy and appropriateness. Mexico doesn’t need U.S. training to increase “rule of law” so much as it needs political will and pressure from Mexican civil society. If Mexican grassroots leaders who have traditionally exercised this pressure feel threatened by repercussions from empowered security forces, instead of progress we will see regression.

Mexican legislators and jurists have a point in noting that the U.S. government has few credentials to establish it as the sole arbitrator of reform in Mexico. Laws are different and the United States faces serious problems with its own justice and penal systems, especially in the area of drug enforcement where racial discrimination and police extortion and brutality continue to be common. If the Plan had included an extension of sharing “best practices” between police forces based on actual experiences, this section might make sense. As it is, it imposes U.S. equipment and notions with no proven track record.

Part of the strategy for approving Plan Mexico was to portray it as merely a bilateral counter-narcotics plan. This was never the case. The Plan betrays its much more ambitious aims. Note the words of John Negroponte to the OAS General Assembly: “With full funding, the Merida Initiative will provide substantial support over several years to train and equip Mexican and Central American law enforcement. We are committed to this initiative because no country in the hemisphere can be safe from organized crime, gangs, and narco-terrorism unless we are all safe.”

The use of the phrase “narco-terrorism” is not surprising but it constitutes a bad omen for Mexico. When drug trafficking is considered synonymous with terrorism, it opens the door to suspension of civil liberties, pulls the country into the Bush counterterrorism strategy, and obscures the real nature and roots of the problem. Negroponte’s remarks also reflect the removal of the security locus from the national to the regional realm, where the United States calls the shots. In this context, fears of violation of national sovereignty are not exaggerated.

While accusing the opposition of being insensitive to drug-related violence, proponents of Plan Mexico paved the way for an aid package that will likely increase violence and bring it closer to home as the drug war extends to opposition targets like it did under Plan Colombia. It will also fail, just as other applications of the drug war model have failed.

I would like to be wrong on this, but the signs are already there—human rights violations have increased precipitously since President Calderon launched the militarization of Mexican society in response to the violence of the drug cartels. The Merida Initiative applauds this strategy and explicitly aims to reinforce and broaden security measures. It adds U.S. espionage equipment and firepower while providing no significant funding or role for civil society measures or protection of civil liberties. Violence fought with violence has led to nearly double the drug-related deaths this year alone and multiple attacks on grassroots leaders, unarmed civilians, Zapatista communities and women by security forces.

The media focused all of its attention on the counter-narcotics “shared responsibility” aspect of the plan. Most reporters apparently never bothered to read the entire plan and eagerly accepted the spoon-fed connection between the violence on the border they had been covering and the ostensibly benevolent response of the U.S. government embodied in Plan Mexico.

Since its passage, they have reacted with mixed messages and contradictions. The New York Times titled its May 28 article “U.S. Includes Rights Language in Mexico Anti-Drug Aid” as if the final military/police aid package were a major advance for human rights. The Washington Post noted just the opposite, sub-titling its article “U.S. Lawmakers responded to Counterparts’ Objections” and stating that “The U.S. Senate approved the aid--known as the Merida Initiative--late Thursday after stripping conditions that Mexican officials said would have infringed on their sovereignty, particularly on the issue of human rights.” The Mexican press nearly unanimously agreed that Mexico had “won” the conditions battle, with headlines like “Mexico Beats Back U.S. Congress” (El Universal, the largest daily). The El Universal article went on to quote Mexico’s ambassador to the United States Arturo Sarukhan stating, “There is no type of explicit restriction or limitation on the transference of resources and military equipment.” (We’ll talk more about the controversial conditions in this blog tomorrow).

The task we have before is to monitor impact and stop the plan in the next appropriations round. Not condition it, not tweak it, but end it. There are many constructive ways in which an aid package to Mexico could be designed that would increase security and long-term development and human security. Many people were working on drafting legislation that responds to these needs from a civilian point of view until the process was so tragically detoured by Plan Mexico.

It will be an uphill battle to defeat later stages of Plan Mexico. The plan has no clear benchmarks for evaluation. In the case of Plan Colombia, even though studies demonstrate its failure in decreasing the production and flow of illegal drugs it continues to be funded. In both Mexico and Colombia, support has to do with creating a strong U.S. military presence in these countries—a misguided strategy for increasing U.S. influence in the context of Latin America’s widespread rejection of the Bush national security strategy and free trade agreements. Also, defense companies and information technology companies that benefit handsomely from the allocations will lobby heavily.

Moreover, at the recent meeting of Plan Puebla-Panama (PPP)—supposedly a “development and integration project”--President Calderon praised the Merida Initiative and announced he will work to “build mechanisms that broaden the aid to Central American and Caribbean nations…” Backed up by Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe, Calderon’s inclusion of Plan Mexico and the security agenda as the first point in his statement on the renewed PPP made it clear that the rightwing governments in the hemisphere have every intention of “securitizing” the hemispheric agenda, applying military models to public security problems with the generous help of U.S. taxpayer dollars. This path follows the evolution of NAFTA into a “White House-led” regional security plan under the Security and Prosperity Partnership. In its wake, the root problems facing Mexico—increased drug use, poverty, the fall of real wages, loss of rural livelihoods and emigration, corruption and erosion of the rule of law—have been pushed aside.

For more information:
Resource Page on Plan Mexico: http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5118

Security vs. Prosperity?

2008-06-19T21:50:00.000-07:00

It’s difficult to hold a discussion on NAFTA’s Security and Prosperity and Partnership (SPP) because everyone has a different point of entry to the subject. Add to the perspective problem, the fact that there is no document to analyze, no comprehensive set of rules and guidelines to critique. The result is a lack of coherent public policy focus that in itself reveals a lot about what’s wrong with the SPP.

Last week the University of the Americas in Puebla held a two-day conference called “Critical Perspectives on SPP: Comparisons Between Canada and Mexico.” The organizers have to be commended for taking on an issue that’s not in the news but has huge ramifications for both countries. And they did it by welcoming rather than avoiding the diversity of viewpoints.

That makes it a little hard to sum up the event or come up with conclusions. Here are a few reflections.

1. There is a conflict between the security and prosperity agendas within the SPP. This observation was echoed by most of the Mexican presenters. Alejandro Estevil of the Foreign Ministry emphasized the need for Mexico to move the focus of SPP from the security agenda to a prosperity agenda aimed at Mexico’s development needs and addressing social issues including immigration. Jose Luis Valdes noted an even stronger contradiction between the security and prosperity agenda, saying the former has been aimed at “unification of the security scheme based on the U.S. model” which has strained the Canada-Mexico relationship. Mexico’s lack of a national security plan has made it easy to impose the U.S. regional plan. Both Canada and Mexico have felt the contradiction in border measures that inhibit trade, and immigration dealt with as a security rather than integration issue. Valdes also pointed out that the central economic issues for Mexico—poverty and inequality—aren’t even on the “prosperity” agenda.

Strategies for dealing with this problem vary. The Foreign Ministry believes that accepting the U.S. security agenda will aid chances to push a stronger prosperity agenda in the future. Others believe that the way to gain attention to social issues is to include them in a broader definition of “human security.” Although there was considerable criticism of the limited nature of both security and prosperity paradigms, there was little sense of the way out.

2. Washington’s influence has hampered Canada and Mexico’s abilities to defend national interests in the SPP and to create a stronger alliance. Canada’s Ambassador Guillermo Rishchynski described North America as a sandwich, with Canada and Mexico as the bread and “the problem is the filling.” U.S. power and particularly its power to set the agenda in the SPP has clearly diminished the possibilities of an effective Canada-Mexico alliance or defense of issues central to those two countries.

3. The Bush government has set the security agenda while mostly U.S.-based transnational corporations lead the prosperity agenda. Whether related to the U.S. counter-terrorism agenda or the recent Merida Initiative, the Bush administration has defined the security focus in the SPP. On the economic side, the North American Competitiveness Council of the SPP has controlled the process from a business rather than public policy perspective.

Civil society’s role in all this has been first as a watchdog, trying to determine what is happening in the process and how it will affect the populations of the three countries. Groups have also tried to affect the trinational agenda, forming their own networks and setting their own agendas, with a special emphasis on the need to integrate immigration reform into the process.

For more information see our articles:

Dissecting the North American Summit Joint Statement: Bush's Last Stand
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5178

Time to Renegotiate NAFTA, Not Expand It
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5175

No Rest For the Working Poor

2008-06-10T05:58:00.000-07:00

Globalization continues to break down its own myths, especially in developing countries.

In Mexico, the promise of more jobs withered shortly after NAFTA went into effect, when it became clear that displacement outpaced job generation. Now, its twin promise--that globalization would create better jobs and improve standards of living--has finally committed public suicide as well.

Ford and General Motors changes in their operations in Mexico. Ford announced a major investment in Mexico of over $2 billion dollars this week. Alongside the self-congratulatory remarks of industry representatives and government officials, was an interesting tidbit of information. According to an AP report, at the Ford plant to be expanded in Cuautitlan--on the outskirts of Mexico City where the cost of living has been going up sharply-- workers' wages would be cut in half from their current level of $4.50 an hour. Mexican union leaders stated that this was necessary to compete with China.

The same week, General Motors announced a $1.3 billion dollar investment in its Coahuila, Mexico plant and the creation some 875 jobs (note the low job-to-investment ratio). It also announced the eventual closure of plants in Janesville, Wisconsin and Morraine, Ohio. The Mexican press noted that the company first hinted at the closure of its plant in Toluca, which elicited an immediate promise from the union leadership to accept wage reductions. It soon after announced it will remain open but cut back on operations and lay off some of the workers. Although the new contract terms were unavailable at the time of this writing, the trend is written on the wall.

The companies justified further gouging into the fragile economy of working families by pointing the finger at global competition. As long as China offers wages of as little as $2.00 an hour, Mexico has no choice but to follow suit if it wants to attract investment.

The only legal floor to this race to the bottom is Mexico's minimum wage of about $5 per day. And the same week, the Mexican government made it clear it has no plans for relief in that area. In classic patriarchal style, Sec. of Labor Javier Lozano explained that raising the minimum wage would trigger "a salaries-prices race and it would be an illusion for workers, it would be deceiving them, since while they might think they have more money to purchase goods, these (prices) would keep going up."

The problem is that prices are already going up--the price of the basic food staple, the tortilla went up from 5 pesos at the end of 2006 to 12 pesos in some parts of Mexico today. That alone places Mexico in the growing camp of nations threatened by the global food crisis, where even full-time workers find it difficult to assure a basic diet.

In a June 9 speech at the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Lozano expounded on the perils of granting living wages to the working poor: "the legitimate aspiration of higher wages for workers should come about through increases in productivity and not artificial measures such as generalized price controls or emergency wage hikes." As Sec. of Labor, you'd think that Mr. Lozano might have seen just one of the dozens of studies that show that Mexican manufacturing has experienced a marked increase in productivity accompanied by a fall in real wages. But the use of the word "artificial" belies his conviction that anything outside the dictums of the neoliberal market is "unnatural". So whatever reality serves up that contradicts these dictums continues to be treated as an inconvenient anomaly or ignored completely.

Funny that raising substandard workers' salaries is presented as the villain in the crusade to control prices for the good of all, whereas other causes--such as monopoly market control--receive no mention whatsoever. Funny, but not in a laughable way. Mexican workers are being urged to resist their lower instincts of wanting to eat regularly and provide a future for their families, and to have faith in the same macroeconomic policies that have failed them for years. That's a tough order in a society where the cost of basic items rose 47% between December of 2006 and May of 2008 while wages went up a little over 4%.

Human Rights Report Released Amid Growing Violence in Chiapas

2008-06-03T10:56:00.000-07:00

The International Civil Commission for the Observation of Human Rights delivered its Report on Human Rights at a press conference in San Cristobal de la Casas, Chiapas Sunday then presented the report in the Zapatista “Good Government Boards” that govern on a rotating basis in five regions. The report is the result of an intense fact-finding mission carried out from January 30 to February 20 of this year by a volunteer group of 50 people, including this writer, and the sixth visit of the Commission since it began its work following the Acteal massacre on Dec. 22, 1997.

The 484-page report documents serious human rights violations in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, and San Salvador Atenco in the State of Mexico. After conducting 275 interviews with over six hundred people--including victims of human rights violations, government officials and human rights groups--the Commission ratifies its conclusion that “the human rights situation in Mexico is extremely critical.” Moreover, it states, the pattern of violation and the lack of response from state and federal governments or the justice system constitutes “an authentic state policy.”

The report calls on the government to conform to international human rights agreements and actively prosecute violators that form part of the government and official security forces. In press conferences in Mexico City and Chiapas, human rights groups praised the report as a major contribution toward ending impunity. However, in its return visit, the Commission noted with concern that since the time of the report, not only has little progress been made on documented cases (with the exception of the release of some political prisoners in Chiapas and Oaxaca), new cases have been reported in Chiapas and Oaxaca.

The five of us charged with presenting the report throughout the state have received documentation regarding military incursions, harassment from paramilitary groups, and arbitrary detentions in Zapatista base communities. Conflicts over land continue to be a common theme throughout the state, as legal structures to recognize post-insurrection occupations have been insufficient in granting clear rights and protections to Zapatista communities and competing groups have spearheaded offensives to gain control of Zapatista territory.

Members of the group also met with Governor Juan Sabines, who announced that the state would purchase the land where the Morelia Caracol is located to defuse a conflict there. The Commission requested a review of the case of 16 political prisoners and visited two prisons where prisoner organizations have staged sit-ins and hunger strikes to protest torture, human rights violations and to call for a review of their cases.

While on the road between indigenous communities, we witnessed the heavy military presence as we passed truckloads of soldiers deployed in the area north of San Cristobal. The report mentions “A major strategy of the current government has been to reinforce the role of the Army in persecuting crimes of drug-trafficking, arms-running and border control. In Chiapas, these reasons have been used to justify its continued and disproportional presence at a time when the armed insurgency has long ceased to be a justification.” In some places, this has led to concrete violations of human rights and in others a source of harassment and intimidation.

To read the report and press releases of the Commission, go to http://cciodh.pangea.org.

For the conclusions in English, see http://cciodh.pangea.org/?q=es/node/207

People from all over the world have signed on to the conclusions to emphasize the urgency of the situation and call on the government to respond to the recommendations for prevention, investigations, prosecution and reparations to victims.

To sign on to the conclusions, http://cciodh.pangea.org/firma_conclusiones_6_cciodh.htm
To contact the commission, cciodh@pangea.org
photo: SIPAZ

Jesus Leon Wins Goldman Prize

2008-05-26T06:13:00.000-07:00

It's rare that we get a chance to celebrate in this line of work. It seems we spend most of our time warning of new threats or documenting the devastation of a system that converts human lives and the vast diversity of nature into business ventures for the few.

But April 15 was a time to celebrate. Jesus Leon Santos, our nominee for the Goldman Environmental Prize, became the 2008 prizewinner for the North America region. In a moving ceremony held at the San Francisco Opera House, Jesus received the prize with his characteristic humility and dedication. Thousands of activists, philanthropists and students listened as he spoke out strongly about the displacement of Mexican maize farmers following NAFTA, the threat of genetically modified corn imports, and the importance of restoring and preserving traditional farming methods.

Environmentalists have sometimes had a hard time viewing agriculture as an area for environmental activism. Agricultural activity is usually found on the other side of the fence--as a force that works against the environment, through the use of agrochemicals, depletion of water, deforestation. But Jesus's project in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca is a perfect example of how that can change.

The Americas Policy Program has been following CEDICAM in its project to “build a future” in a homeland where erosion strips away the soil and out-migration strips away the farmers. As global warming, pollution, desertification, erosion and changes in land-use threaten our food supply, small farmers are coming to be viewed not just as victims, which they often are, but also as our possible salvation. And it’s no wonder that indigenous farmers, like Jesus, lead the move to sustainable farming. Find out more about how, watch this video also:

The People's Summit - Parallel to SPP Meeting in New Orleans

2008-04-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

Check out the response to the "three amigos" meeting next week in New Orleans. Behind closed doors they will make decisions about the future of North America, while the people's summit will take place both April 21st and 22nd, where there will be workshops in the morning and afternoon on Tuesday the 22nd. The three hour workshops will speak to the ways in which free trade and security policy affect everyday people, especially in relation to increased militarism, privatization, forced immigration and migration, and abuse of the environment.

For more information on the people's summit, check: www.summitneworleans.org

Background on the Security and Prosperity Partnership:
Extending NAFTA's Reach
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4497

April 17 is International Day of Peasant's Struggle

2008-04-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

60 actions for Via Campesina's International Day of Peasant's Strugglee

International Peasant’s Struggle Day was established after the massacre of 19 landless peasants belonging to the Landless Movement (MST) in Brazil on April 17, 1996 during the second conference of La Via Campesina in Tlaxcala Mexico.

For more information on specific events today, see their site at http://www.viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=502&Itemid=33

This video, also available in Spanish, does a good job of documenting the history of Via Campesina, a truly global organization:

Damnation in Patagonia

2008-04-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

The New York Times writes a surprisingly damning editorial on plans for a series of major hydroelectric dams in Patagonia today. The editorial goes beyond criticizing the damming of "one of the wildest and most beautiful places on earth" in defense of the Chilean Patagonia region. It also asserts that these giant hydroelectric plants, promoted and defended by the international development banks, should have become a thing of the past by now.

"Building large-scale hydroelectric dams is an old-world way of obtaining energy. It is too late in the environmental life of this planet to accept such ecologically destructive energy solutions or the model of unfettered growth they are meant to fuel. "

Hear, hear. Americas Policy Program partner on issues of biodiversity and sustainable development, the International Rivers Network (http://internationalrivers.org/), is working with local groups to develop an international campaign to save the Patagonia . The hydroelectric project is funded by two private companies--the Italian energy conglomerate Enel and the Chilean wood products firm Matte. It would dam two rivers, the Baker and the Pascua. These rivers run through 14 protected areas and provide habitat for endangered species like the huemul deer. The proposed dams would flood over 10,000 acres of farmland and forests, irreparably destroying the landscape, flora and fauna of a unique region of the planet. Watch for a report on the Patagonia project and how to get involved, soon to be posted on the Americas site. You might also want to check out our series "Re-mapping Latin America's Future."

Patagonia isn't the only place threatened by huge and destructive dam projects and happily it isn't the only place where local people have united with international networks to reject them.

Here in Mexico, indigenous and campesino communities of the southern state of Guerrero have been opposing the construction of the La Parota dam for years. This white elephant has been the darling of successive administrations, financiers and businesses salivating over construction contracts.

But the communities' resistance has so far prevented construction of the over $1 billion-dollar project. Designed to provide energy to Acapulco and local industries, the La Parota dam has been held up by a federal injunction and a constitutional challenge filed by the communities and public-interest lawyers. If built, it would flood 17,000 hectares including communities and archeological sites, and displace 25,000 farmers and their families.

National and regional networks have formed throughout Latin America to oppose damming our rivers and flooding out forests and small farmers. For more information, check out MAPDER and REDLAR.

Anti-Free Trade Agreement Summit in Mexico City

2008-03-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

April 4-6 the "Segundo Encuentro Continental en contra de los TLC" (2nd Continental Summit Against Free Trade Agreements) will be held in Mexico City. Details about the event can be found at www.encuentrocontinental.org or segundoencuentrocontinental@gmail.com.

Delegations of youth, workers, unions and other representatives from Mexico, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and other countries will attend.

Working groups include:

- FTAs and the countryside
- FTAs and sovereignty, war and peace
- FTAs and immigration
- FTAs, energy and public services

There will be a press conference on April 1 to announce the events as well. Let us know if youll be attending and maybe we can meet there.

2008-03-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

In case it passed you by, World Water Day was March 22nd. However, there's never a bad day to appreciate water and do something to improve our use of it.

Here are some important water facts to help you appreciate this resource:

A single tree will give off 265 liters (70 gallons) of water per day in evaporation.
An acre of corn will give off 15,000 litres (4,000 gallons) of water per day in evaporation.
A small drip from a faucet can waste as much as 75 litres of water a day.
Of all the water on the earth (about 326 million cubic miles), humans can used only about three tenths of a percent of this water. Such usable water is found in groundwater aquifers, rivers, and freshwater lakes.
The United States uses about 346,000 million gallons of fresh water every day.
The United States uses nearly 80% of its water for irrigation and thermoelectric power.
The average person in the United States uses anywhere from 80-100 gallons of water per day. Flushing the toilet actually takes up the largest amount of this water.
More than 2 billion people on earth do not have a safe supply of water.

Bottled water can be up to 1000 times more expensive than tap water and it may not be as safe.
Today, at least 400 million people live in regions with severe water shortages.

Consider the plastic (aka oil!) and transportation costs used in bottled water, also. You can reduce your environmental impact by being more conscious about your water consumption. So... How to avoid the ever-present evil of bottled water?
Some tips:

Drink tap water if you can. If you can't, get a filter for your tap water that makes it safe to drink. (Britta, PUR, Aqua-Pur are some examples. Here is a site that compares them for you: http://www.waterfiltercomparisons.net/WaterFilter_Comparison.cfm)
Ask for a glass of water at restaurants instead of buying it. They will almost always give it to you.
Carry water with you in a reusable bottle (look into New Wave, Kleen Kanteen, or SIGG) instead of having to buy it on the road.

Happy (?) International Women's Day

2008-03-08T14:02:00.000-08:00

In the United States, recognizing International Women's Day would imply recognizing a long history of workers' struggle that official history books have done their best to repress--like the tragic fire in the Triangle Shirt factory and courageous marches of seamstresses and other women workers. So it's just not done. But here in Mexico City, in certain circles people greet you with a hearty "Congratulations!" on March 8 (if you're a woman) and events and articles take stock of women's gains and losses over the past year.

That's what happened today at a ten-year anniversary conference of Enlace. Enlace describes itself as "a strategic alliance of low-wage worker organizations in Mexio and the U.S. engaged in campaigns for economic and social justice." Through a network of allied organizations on both sides of the order, they do training sessions on labor rights and organization, alliances and strategizing.

On the panel for International Women's Day, Bertha Lujan, a longtime labor activist in Mexico City and currently Secretary of Labor for the "legitimate government" of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, outlined the accomplishments of Mexican women in representation in unions, the legislature and other leadership positions. Although there have been real gains, the rightwing government of President Felipe Calderón and the National Action Party (the PAN, by its Spanish intials) poses a threat to those gains. She went on to mention the major challenges in four actions: encouraging affirmative action programs to mandate percentages of women in leadership positions, increasing the visibility of women leaders, offering training programs for women leaders and activists and developing policies for gender equity and publicizing them.

After the panel a professional theater group called "Costureras de sueños" of "Seamstresses of Dreams" presented a play called the "Maquila Monologues" (A great play on the "Vagina Monologues"). It began with a steamy dance number parodying the sexy ads that major brands like GAP, Tommy and Levi's use to sell their clothes on the U.S. market.

In the next act, the four actresses transformed from models to factory workers (see above picture). In expertly choreographed movements against a factual narrative, they portrayed conditions within the factories where the clothes are made: the pressure of production quotas, tyrannical floor bosses, pulmonary diseases and other sicknesses, weekly wages of less than $50 for 12-hour days, black lists for workers who protest or attempt to organize, toxic substances, and sexual harassment.

The play is based on extensive interviews with women workers, especially in Tehuacan, Puebla--the "jeans capital of the world" where young, often indigenous women are trapped by poverty and necessity into working in sub-human conditions that deny them their basic rights and dignity. Through the deft combination of personal testimonies and professional staging, the troupe conveyed the reality in offshore plants. Globalization for these women workers is summed up in the line: "The world is as large as the rage I feel."

Women workers in one factory in Tehuacan, Vaqueros Navarra, finally overcame harassment and intimidation to vote in favor of an independent union with the "Sept. 19 Seamstresses Union" last November 23rd. When they came back to work after an unpaid holiday, they were told that the factory had been closed permanently. This is a common tactic of plants that can move freely in search of a cheap, submissive labor force. Labor battles for basic rights too often end in joblessness, indeer a system where the contractors act with impunity. Women workers who dare to speak up are punished for their bravery.

International Women's Day cannot be a celebration until conditions like those described above become merely a reminder of a dark past. Women workers need broad and active solidarity from global justice activists and consumers to make that happen. Think about the real story behind the jeans you put on this morning, and the lives of the women who stitched the fashionable label on the pocket.

This year, as every year, International Women's Day is an opportunity to celebrate the courage of the women who fought for their rights and those who continue to do so, while at the same time recognizing that we have a long way to go. We can only get there together, making the cause of the women who suffer the brunt of the inequities of this system into our own.

To read more and find out more about what you can do, see:

Maquila Solidarity Network www.maquilasolidarity.org

Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras www.coalitionforjustice.net

Frente Auténtico de Trabajo http://www.fatmexico.org/

To contact the women of the Maquila Monologues for a possible showing, email Inti Barrios at xindeku@yahoo.com.

You can view a clip of the play (in Spanish) at http://videos.eluniversal.com.mx/paginas/videosdet2491.html.

Related article from the Americas Policy Program:

Mexico City Seamstresses Remember: Two Decades of Aftershocks from Mexico's 1985 Earthquake at http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2875

NAFTA Conference in DC -Today

2008-03-04T09:21:00.000-08:00

Today kicks off the Linking Agriculture, Development and Migration: A Critical Look at NAFTA Past, Present and Future conference at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC. Laura is presenting and you'll be able to contact her for interviews if you would like to talk to her about her presentation on NAFTA and Migration and other issues.

Topics include: The links between NAFTA, Development and Migration, Impacts of NAFTA on food, agricultural production and small and medium producers, A positive U.S. agenda on trade, agriculture and migration, and How is NAFTA being expanded (the SPP)?

Related Americas Policy Program Articles:

Fourteen Years of NAFTA and the Tortilla Crisis
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4879

Standing Up to NAFTA
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4830

NAFTA Free Trade Myths Lead to Farm Failure in Mexico
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4794

Defeat Plan Mexico

2008-03-04T09:16:00.000-08:00

Defeat Plan Mexico is now a group on Facebook.
Much concern about U.S. military assistance to Mexico has arisen surrounding the Merida Initiative, widely known as Plan Mexico. Find out more about this plan and how you can urge your congressional representatives to speak out against human rights violations in Mexico that go unpunished.
Listen to an informative talk by Laura Carlsen here to learn more about it:
http://www.radio4all.net/pub/files/knash@igc.org/123-1-20080302-planmexicontl.mp3
Anyone can become a member of Facebook and search the group to become a member and receive updates, or stay tuned to this blog.

Related Americas Policy Program Articles:

Plan Mexico and the Billion-Dollar Drug Deal
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4611
Plan Mexico
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4684
Friends of Brad Will Plan Mexico site (has a great video)
http://www.friendsofbradwill.org/category/plan-mexico/

If you are interested in a speaking engagement on the topic to educate the public, contact us (202) 536-2649 or americas@ciponline.org and we can arrange phone interviews and personal appearances.

Mexico vs. Wal-Mart

2008-02-27T07:01:00.000-08:00

Wal-Mart is getting maddeningly hard to avoid in Mexico City. Owners of popular chains like Vips, Suburbia, Superama, Bodega Aurrera and Sam's Club, they are weakening the competition and workers rights throughout the country.
At a meeting of the Frente Nacional Contra Wal-Mart (Mexican Front Against Wal-Mart, link below) some of the following statistics about Wal-Mart in Mexico were discussed:
• There are currently 1,030 establishments in Mexico (of a total of about 8,000 worldwide), and they are promising to open a new one each day in 2008.
• 200,000 workers, making it Mexico's biggest single employer. Around 30,000 of those employees are UNPAID. (18,000 grocery baggers and 12,000 parking lot attendants). Seems incredible but I have spoken with baggers and parking lot attendants, who actually have to pay Wal-Mart part of their tips to keep their jobs!
• Fundación Wal-Mart, the group's philanthropic arm, gives away approximately .07% of the value of its sales in Mexico. Wal-Mart's U.S. foundation gives away approximately 2% of their profits.
• Wal-Mart has set up stores in delicate areas such as Teotihuacan, Amecameca, Cuernavaca and Acapulco, where it cut down 1000 trees for a new location in 2003.

The Mexican Front Against Wal-Mart has a meeting with the Mexican House of Representatives April 8-9 to put forth their arguments about Wal-Mart's tax evasion, environmental destruction and devastating effects on local business and workers.
The first meeting of Latin American countries against Wal-Mart is scheduled for Oct. 12 in Mexico City.

Americas Policy Program related article:
Wal-Mart Faces Accusations of Anti-union Practices in Argentina
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4733

Sources for Mexico's anti-Wal-Mart campaign information:
Frente Nacional Contra Wal-Mart A.C.
www.geocities.com/frentenacionalac

Tianguis-Si-Wal-Mart-No
http://wal-mart-no.blogspot.com/

Video from "A Day Without Wal-Mart" Dec. 2, 2007

Posted by Katie Kohlstedt

Human Rights Situation in Mexico "Extremely Critical"

2008-02-19T17:13:00.000-08:00

Today the International Civil Commission on Human Rights presented its conclusions, following an intense fact-finding mission in parts of Mexico. The document was a harsh indictment of President Felipe Calderón's government and state and local governments for what the Commission calls the "extremely critical" situation of human rights in Mexico.

The Commission's work bears close examination because it is based not on rhetoric or officially arranged tours, but more than 280 carefully documented interviews with a wide range of victims, their family members, grassroots organizations, human rights groups and government officials. This often heart-breaking reservoir of material forms the basis for its preliminary conclusions and recommendations and the more detailed report that will follow.

I was commissioned as a member of the delegation and assisted with interviews in the Lacandon Jungle in Chiapas, in Oaxaca City and in Mexico City. While the report (available in Spanish at http://cciodh.pangea.org/, English coming up soon) is strong stuff, it can´t compare to the experience of actually listening to individuals who have been beaten and terrorized--like the men and women rounded up during the police crackdown in Oaxaca on November 25, 2006, or Zapatista sympathizers hounded by paramilitary groups. Nor can the words on the page convey the power of the tears on the cheek of a daughter whose father has been imprisoned, killed or disappeared.

I came back deeply dismayed. Although I had been at least somewhat prepared for what we´d find, the impact of the personal contact and the sheer number of violations reported provided a grimmer perspective than I´d expected.

Over the course of three weeks, the Commission examined the situation in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Mexico. This visit was the sixth since the Commission was founded following the massacre of indigenous people in Acteal, Chiapas on December 22, 1997. Although it was intended to follow-up on previous investigations, the delegates heard scores of testimonies regarding new cases from 2007.

The testimonies of human rights violations were charged with fear, grief and indignation. It rapidly became clear that despite the government´s claims that the crisis is over in Oaxaca and that the conflict in Chiapas has been resolved, not only are both states embroiled in endemic violence, but the violence follows patterns that involve the active participation or at the least the complicity of governments and police forces. This pattern of human rights abuses, the Commission concludes, constitutes a conscious government policy. Practices such as arbitrary arrests of members of social movements are often justified by inventing false evidence for crimes of robbery, sexual aggression or even murder. The logic is to "criminalize members of social movements, thereby also avoiding that they be categorized as political prisoners."

The Commission's investigation and preliminary conclusions provide a wealth of information for analyzing what's really happening on the ground in Mexico. The more active role of the military, increased paramilitary activity and selective violence by police forces combine to create environments where the violation of human rights is commonplace. After the violations have occured they are compounded by a justice system that fails to punish the guilty, especiallywhen on the side of the state, and confuses impunity with keeping the peace.

We´ll talk more about the human rights situation in Mexico and the findings of the VI Commission in later blogs, and in articles on the webpage http://www.americaspolicy.org/. The work of the 51 Commission members deserves a broad airing and the situation they report should be widely known. Mexico is at a critical point at which it can continue down this road of stomping out dissidence and refusing to recognize injustices of the past, or it can reverse the present course and institute firm practices and institutions for the respect of human rights as a top priority.

Here's a video from the commission's interview of political prisoner Flavio Sosa:

Welcome to Americas MexicoBlog!

2008-02-13T09:02:00.000-08:00

Dear Americas Readers,

Welcome to our very first MexicoBlog!

As many of you already know, the Americas Policy Program (formerly of the IRC and now a fiscally sponsored program of the Center for International Policy) has its offices in Mexico City. We´ve been following Mexican politics, U.S. policy, and U.S.-Mexico relations for over twenty years and decided it was time to give it its own space in our program.

A lot is going on here that seldom gets attention in the mainstream U.S. or Mexican media. We feel our program has a unique ability to provide crossborder information and analysis, due to our long experience in both U.S. and Mexican policy analysis, our network of qualified analysts and contacts, and our bilingual website at www.americaspolicy.org

Rarely have so many issues converged to pose such urgent challenges to the binational relationship. We´ll be looking at the demands of hundreds of thousands of Mexican farmers and their supporters to renegotiate the NAFTA agricultural chapter, the relationship between NAFTA and immigration, the nefarious Plan Mexico, NAFTA´s impact after fifteen years, human rights violations, and indigenous autonomy.

Here you´ll find updates on the social movements that continue to give voice to the millions of Mexicans who did NOT vote to continue the neoliberal project of the Calderón government, including grassroots resistance to plans to privatize the state-owned oil and electricity companies and calls for national development that put poverty alleviation and human rights before the fortunes of transnational corporations and foreign investors.

And that's just for starters.

What this blog is not: this blog is not a space for us to pontificate. It´s a space to share. That´s where you all come in. Please use the comments section liberally. Tell us what you think--your questions, responses, interesting links, new ideas.

Dialogue is the perfect antidote to the wall-like mentality of U.S. policy toward Mexico that has done so much damage to the binational relationship over the past years. We´re excited about this new cyber-space and look forward to hearing from you soon.