On November 28, NAPF President David Krieger sent an open letter to the President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, regarding the terrible situation faced by thousands of indigenous Mexican Tzotzil in the state of Chiapas.
Dr. Krieger wrote, “We respectfully ask you to find an immediate solution in the case of the indigenous chiapanecos and avoid an even greater catastrophe.”
To read the full letter in English, click here.
Vaya aquí para la versión española.
The prestigious international organization, Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), whose mission for more than 30 years has been to defend and protect freedom of the press, informs us of the latest murder of a Mexican journalist.
In the state of Veracruz, on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, Ricardo Monlui Cabrera, reporter and editor of the newspaper El Político of the city of Córdoba, was cowardly murdered on March 19 of this year. Cabrera, who wrote the column “Crisol”, left a restaurant in the company of his wife and 10-year-old son after breakfast. His murderers fired three shots, killing him instantly. His wife and son were injured and taken to a hospital.
Monlui’s death is number 20 in less than six and a half years in that violent state, setting the mark of a murder every four months. He is the second journalist killed in Mexico so far this year, and that figure since 2000 is already over 122, for the macabre average of a reporter killed every 45 days. But the true figures are even more alarming. The independent human rights organization, Article 19, whose name was taken from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of expression, tells us that in the 2014-2015, a journalist was killed in Mexico every 26 days. In addition, the attacks on the media and reporters increased in those two years by 115%, with Mexico City being the site where those attacks were most documented.
This situation is totally unsustainable. Statements that “Mexico is the worst place in the Americas to be a journalist” as the TeleSur information network notes, http://www.telesurtv.net/news/Mexico-el-pais-con-mas-periodistas-asesinados -en-2015-20151222-0023.html indicate nothing but a total disregard for the law by Mexican authorities.
I share this painful reality with the members and friends of NAPF, inviting them to initiate a campaign of protests before the embassy and consulates of Mexico in the US. The United States of America, which for so many years was a true beacon that illuminated many of the darkest moments of 20th century history in its struggle against fascist forces, at this moment seems to withdraw from its position as a democratic champion. But many Americans with true love for Liberty and Justice will not allow that to happen. Latin America looks to its brothers in the North expecting firm and decisive support in the defense of human rights, the environment and sacred freedom of expression.
We will continue to expose situations like this, which unfortunately are also repeated in other places in Latin America. The brave defenders of the environment continue to fall in Latin American countries in greater numbers.
Their voices must also be heard, their sufferings denounced and demand for them the justice they deserve.
* (Update) Upon finishing this brief report comes the news through the Washington Post of the murder today in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, of the journalist Miroslava Breach. Miroslava, 54, was about to get out of the garage of her house with one of her three children. A gunman approached and shot her eight times and ran. She was a reporter for PROCESO magazine in Mexico City and was distinguished for her research articles against corrupt governments and mafias of drug traffickers. This is the third murder of a journalist in the 23 days of the month of March alone.
Ruben D. Arvizu is Director of Latin America for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Director General of Latin America for Jean-Michel Cousteau´s Ocean Futures Society and Ambassador of Global Cities Covenant on Climate.
Click here for the English version.
Con paso seguro, firme, debido a la convicción de su causa, la multitud llena las céntricas calles de la gran metrópoli mexicana que es la capital del país. Sus rostros reflejan dolor, desesperanza, angustia, pero al mismo tiempo resolución en que sus voces sean escuchadas ¡por fin! en sus demandas exigiendo que aparezcan 43 estudiantes para maestros secuestrados hace ya más de 40 días. Muchos son padres y familiares de esos jóvenes que en la noche del 26 de septiembre pasado desaparecieron por una acción policial coordinada y ordenada por la oficina del Alcalde de la ciudad de Iguala, Guerrero. Esta ciudad es la cuna de la bandera mexicana y del Plan de Iguala, que el 24 de febrero de 1824 consolidó la independencia de México. Se localiza a unos 160 kilómetros del famoso puerto turístico de Acapulco y a una distancia similar de la capital de la nación. En una información dada el 8 de noviembre por el Procurador General de la República, Jesus Murillo Karam, se dice que es posible que los estudiantes ya estén muertos, asesinados por los grupos criminales. Que sus cuerpos fueron incinerados y arrojados en bolsas a un río. Pero que a la vez no puede asegurar la identidad de esos restos humanos. La terrible incertidumbre sigue golpeando a las familias de esos jóvenes, y se niegan a aceptar estas declaraciones hasta no tener asegurada la identificación de los restos.
Este es un caso inaudito, sino una secuela de sucesos repetidos por decenios en la historia moderna de México. Durante los últimos veinticinco años el terror y la injusticia ha imperado en el País escalando cada vez más hasta llegar a cifras realmente impresionantes. Desde el sexenio de Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) hasta este segundo año de la administración de Enrique Peña Nieto, más de 100 mil personas han muerto en forma violenta y se cuenta en más de 30 mil los desaparecidos. Esta cifra puede ser mayor pues muchos no hacen la denuncia debido al terror y a la complicidad de las autoridades. Estos números de víctimas son dignas de países con guerras intestinas y hasta internacionales, no de una nación que se precia de ser un régimen democrático y emergente en el ámbito internacional.
Human Rights Watch – HRW (Observatorio de Derechos Humanos) ha dicho que la situación de los derechos humanos en México es crítica. “La regla en México es la impunidad y el caso Iguala es de gravedad extrema, pero es un síntoma de una crisis profunda que arrastra México en materia de derechos humanos”, denunció José Miguel Vivanco, director para las Américas de HRW.
Las protestas no sólo atiborran las amplias avenidas y plazas de la antigua capital azteca; en la mayoría de ciudades y pueblos mexicanos los ciudadanos han salido a expresar su enojo e insatisfacción por la forma como las autoridades municipales, estatales y federales han respondido a estos hechos violentos. En muchas ciudades de otros países, incluyendo Londres, Paris, Berlín, Chicago, Nueva York, Buenos Aires se han escuchado voces de protesta y apoyo, exigiendo que el gobierno mexicano actúe sin más dilaciones ni excusas o pretextos.
La inseguridad en México permea por todas partes a pesar de las campañas orquestadas por costosas relaciones públicas gubernamentales que durante meses han proyectando la imagen del “Momento Mexicano”, el gran salto de México hacia la conquista de los grandes mercados. Promueven un México moderno, activo, amistoso y con las puertas abiertas a las inversiones extranjeras en el campo energético, turístico y de grandes obras portuarias y de comunicaciones.
Tan sólo en el pasado mes de marzo, la revista TIME mostró en su portada internacional al joven presidente mexicano con el encabezado “El Salvador de México. Esto causó controversias y críticas en México y muchas voces acusaron a TIME de haber vendido la portada y el muy favorable artículo que lo acompañó. Nueve meses después, la misma revista en su número de octubre destaca en un encabezado: “La aparente masacre de docenas de estudiantes expone la corrupción en el corazón de México” Un cambio muy drástico en su línea editorial.
Las multitudinarias marchas de los últimos dos meses, por una extraña razón, no han sido reportadas por las grandes cadenas de televisión en Estados Unidos, ABC, CBS y aún FOX, han guardado un ominoso silencio. NBC presentó el 9 de noviembre un brevísimo reportaje de dos minutos que no aclara al espectador la verdadera situación en México. Univisión y TeleMundo han cubierto los acontecimientos con bastante imparcialidad. CNN ha publicado algunos reportajes menores, la excepción han sido The New York Times, Washington Post, The New Yorker, USA Today y un par de notas en Time. La noticia ha sido dada por AP, Reuters y otras agencias informativas. Periódicos europeos como The Guardian, Le Monde, El País, han publicado grandes reportajes. El Parlamento Europeo hizo una declaración sobre el tema de las desapariciones y creciente violencia en México, e hizo ”recomendaciones al gobierno mexicano”. En Alemania se han levantado muchas voces exigiendo al gobierno de Ángela Merkel que revise las condiciones de tratos comerciales con México que se firmarían en diciembre, así como la suspensión de ventas de armamento para México.
Figuras de renombre internacional han unido sus voces de protesta pidiendo una solución inmediata a la desaparición de los jóvenes estudiantes y un alto a la violencia e inseguridad en México, así como el respeto a la libertad de expresión. El asesinato y desaparición de periodistas y defensores de causas sociales y ambientales continúa produciéndose en México como cuenta corriente, haciéndolo un país peligroso para ejercer esas libertades.
En la marcha del 5 de noviembre en la ciudad de México, participó la Premio Nobel de la Paz 1997, Jody Williams quien dijo “la crisis que vive México no es sólo humanitaria, sino política y económica, esto demuestra, de una forma muy dolorosa, toda la corrupción de alcaldes y políticos”. Informó que la organización
Mujeres Premio Nobel de la cual ella es miembro y agrupa a las mujeres laureadas con el Nobel de la Paz, enviarán una carta al Presidente Enrique Peña y a organizaciones internacionales pidiendo la urgente solución a estos problemas.
Entre las muchas consignas que se escuchan en estos ejercicios democráticos de protesta, reproducimos una que refleja los grandes problemas que México ha enfrentado a través de su historia, la apatía e indiferencia secular debido sobre todo a la corrupción galopante y la falta de un sistema eficiente de justicia.
“No tenemos miedo a lo que venga solo tenemos miedo a que la gente siga callada”.
Nosotros, en NAPF, nos unimos a esas protestas y levantamos la voz porque las autoridades mexicanas escuchen el clamor de sus ciudadanos y de muchos otros países que piden una solución pacífica pero real y efectiva a los graves problemas que enfrenta la nación mexicana.
Rubén D. Arvizu es Director para América Latina de Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Embajador del Pacto Global Climático de Ciudades y Director para América Latina de la organziación de Jean-Michel Cousteau Ocean Futures Society. Tweeter @RubenDArvizu
Para mayor información sobre la situación en México, recomendamos la lectura de estos artículos.
http://fusion.net/story/25683/the-call-for-mexicos-president-to-resign-is-growing-louder/
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/crisis-mexico-forty-three-missing-students-spark-revolution
Vaya aqui para la version espanola.
With a firm pace, due to the conviction of their cause, the crowd fills the streets of the great Mexican metropolis, Mexico City that is the capital of the country. Their faces reflect pain, despair, anguish, but at the same time hope that their voices will be heard at last! They are demanding the return of 43 students kidnapped more than 40 days ago. Many are parents and families of these young, soon to be teachers that on the night of September 26, 2014, disappeared by a coordinated and orderly police action taken by the office of the Mayor of the city of Iguala, Guerrero. This city is the cradle of the Mexican flag and the Plan of Iguala, of February 24, 1824, that consolidated the independence of Mexico. It is located about 100 miles from the famous tourist port of Acapulco and a similar distance from the capital of the nation.
In a report read on 8 November, the Attorney General, Jesus Murillo Karam, says that the students may already be dead, killed by criminal groups. Their bodies were cremated and dumped in bags in a river. But at the same time he cannot guarantee the identity of these human remains. The terrible uncertainty is hurting deeply the families of these young people, and they refuse to accept these statements until the Government has secured the identification of the remains.
This is not an unheard of event, but a sequel repeated for decades in the history of modern Mexico. During the last 25 years this kind of terror and injustice has prevailed in the country climbing to impressive numbers. From the time of the presidency of Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) up to the second year of the current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, more than 100,000 people have died violently and those that have disappeared reach more than 30,000.
This figure may be higher because many do not complain due to the terror and the complicity of the authorities. These numbers are worthy of revolutions and even international wars, but not of a nation that prides itself on being a democratic regime emerging into the world arena.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said that the situation of human rights in Mexico is critical. “The rule in Mexico is impunity and Iguala’s case is extremely serious, but it is a symptom of a deeper crisis that drags Mexico in human rights,” complained José Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director at HRW.
Protests not only crowd the wide avenues and squares of the former Aztec capital; in most Mexican cities and towns citizens have come to express their anger and dissatisfaction with the way the municipal, state and federal authorities have responded to the violence and corruption. Insecurity permeates everywhere and everything. All this continues despite the orchestrated governmental PR campaigns that have invested large sums of money for months projecting the image of the Mexican Moment, the leap of Mexico to conquer worldwide markets.
Just last March, the TIME magazine international cover showed the young Mexican president, calling him “The Savior of Mexico”. This caused controversy and criticism in Mexico and many voices accused TIME of having sold the cover and the very favorable article that accompanied it. Nine months later, the same magazine in its October issue highlighted in a headline: “The apparent slaughter of dozens of students exposed corruption in the heart of Mexico”. This is a drastic change in its editorial.
The major television networks in the United States have not reported the massive marches of the past two months. For some strange reason, ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX still have kept an ominous silence. CNN has published some minor stories and the exception has been The New York Times, Washington Post, The New Yorker, USA Today and a couple of notes in Time. AP, Reuters and other news agencies have reported the news. European newspapers including The Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais, published major reports. The European Parliament issued a statement regarding the disappearances and growing violence in Mexico and made “recommendations to the Mexican government”. In Germany, many voices were raised demanding that the government of Angela Merkel review the treaty for business with Mexico to be signed in December and the suspension of arms sales to Mexico.
Internationally renowned figures have joined their voices in protest demanding an immediate answer to the disappearance of the young students and to put an end to violence and insecurity in Mexico, as well as respect for freedom of expression. The murders and disappearances of journalists and advocates for social and environmental causes in Mexico continue to occur every other day, making the country a dangerous place to exercise those freedoms.
During the march of November 5, 2014, in the city of Mexico, Jody Williams, the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, said, “The crisis in Mexico is not only humanitarian but political and economic. It shows in a very painful way, the political corruption”. She reported that the organization, Nobel Women Initiative, created by the women Nobel Laureates of Peace, of which she is a member, would send a letter to President Enrique Peña and international organizations requesting the urgent solution to these problems.
Among the many slogans heard in these democratic protests, one stands out which reflects one of the big problems that Mexico has faced throughout its history, a secular apathy and indifference due mainly to corruption and the lack of an efficient judicial system. “We are not afraid to demonstrate, we only fear that people will continue keeping silent.”
We at NAPF join these protests and raise our voice. We hope the Mexican Government will hear the cries of its citizens and of many other countries calling for a peaceful and effective solution to the serious problems facing the Mexican nation.
Rubén D. Arvizu is Director for Latin America of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Ambassador Global Cities Covenant on Climate and Director to Latin America for Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Futures Society. Tweet @RubenD.Arvizu
For more information on the situation in Mexico, we recommend reading these articles.
http://fusion.net/story/25683/the-call-for-mexicos-president-to-resign-is-growing-louder/
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/crisis-mexico-forty-three-missing-students-spark-revolution
On February 13 and 14, 2014, the government of Mexico will host a conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. The global peace movement must think carefully about how best to use the opportunities offered by the Mexico conference and by other recent breakthroughs in the struggle to eliminate the danger of a catastrophic thermonuclear war.
The urgent need for nuclear disarmament:
Nuclear disarmament has been one of the core aspirations of the international community since the first use of nuclear weapons in 1945. A nuclear war, even a limited one, would have disastrous humanitarian and environmental consequences.
The total explosive power of today’s weapons is equivalent to roughly half a million Hiroshima bombs. To multiply the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by a factor of half a million changes the danger qualitatively. What is threatened today is the complete breakdown of human society.
Although the Cold War has ended, the dangers of nuclear weapons have not been appreciably reduced. Indeed, proliferation and the threat of nuclear terrorism have added new dimensions to the dangers. There is no defense against nuclear terrorism.
There are 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world today, several thousand of them on hair-trigger alert. The phrase “hair trigger alert” means that the person in charge has only 15 minutes to decide whether the warning from the radar system was true of false, and to decide whether or not to launch a counterattack. The danger of accidental nuclear war continues to be high. Technical failures and human failures have many times brought the world close to a catastrophic nuclear war. Those who know the system of “deterrence” best describe it as “an accident waiting to happen”.
A nuclear war would produce radioactive contamination of the kind that we have already experienced in the areas around Chernobyl and Fukushima and in the Marshall Islands, but on an enormously increased scale.
Also, recent studies by atmospheric scientists have shown that the smoke from burning cities produced by even a limited nuclear war would have a devastating effect on global agriculture. The studies show that the smoke would rise to the stratosphere, where it would spread globally and remain for a decade, blocking sunlight, blocking the hydrological cycle and destroying the ozone layer. Because of the devastating effect on global agriculture, darkness from even a small nuclear war could result in an estimated billion deaths from famine. This number corresponds to the fact that today, a billion people are chronically undernourished. If global agriculture were sufficiently damaged by a nuclear war, these vulnerable people might not survive.
A large-scale nuclear war would be an even greater global catastrophe, completely destroying all agriculture for a period of ten years. Such a war would mean that most humans would die from hunger, and many animal and plant species would be threatened with extinction.
Recent breakthroughs:
On on 4-5 March 2013 the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Espen Barth Eide hosted an international Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons. The Conference provided an arena for a fact-based discussion of the humanitarian and developmental consequences of a nuclear weapons detonation. Delegates from 127 countries as well as several UN organisations, the International Red Cross movement, representatives of civil society and other relevant stakeholders participated. Representatives from many nations made strong statements advocating the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. The conference in Mexico in 2014 will be a follow-up to the Oslo Conference.
Recently UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has introduced a 5-point Program for the abolition of nuclear weapons. In this program he mentioned the possibility of a Nuclear Weapons Convention, and urged the Security Council to convene a summit devoted to the nuclear abolition. He also urged all countries to ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty.
Three-quarters of all nations support UN Secretary-General Ban’s proposal for a treaty to outlaw and eliminate nuclear weapons. The 146 nations that have declared their willingness to negotiate a new global disarmament pact include four nuclear weapon states: China, India, Pakistan and North Korea.
On April 2, 2013, a historic victory was won at the United Nations, and the world achieved its first treaty limiting international trade in arms. Work towards the ATT was begun in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, which requires a consensus for the adoption of any measure. Over the years, the consensus requirement has meant that no real progress in arms control measures has been made in Geneva, since a consensus among 193 nations is impossible to achieve.
To get around the blockade, British U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant sent the draft treaty to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and asked him on behalf of Mexico, Australia and a number of others to put the ATT to a swift vote in the General Assembly, and on Tuesday, April 3, it was adopted by a massive majority.
The method used for the adoption of the Arms Trade Treaty suggests that progress on other seemingly intractable issues could be made by the same method, by putting the relevant legislation to a direct vote on the floor of the UN General Assembly, despite the opposition of militarily powerful states.
According to ICAN, 151 nations support a ban on nuclear weapons, while only 22 nations oppose it. Details can be found on the following link: http://www.icanw.org/why-a-ban/positions/ Similarly a Nuclear Weapons Convention might be put to a direct vote on the floor of the UN General Assembly. The following link explores this possibility: http://www.cadmusjournal.org/article/issue-6/arms-trade-treaty-opens-new-possibilities-un.
The key feature of these proposals is that negotiations must not be allowed to be blocked by the nuclear weapons states. Asking them to participate in negotiations would be like asking tobacco companies to participate in laws to ban cigarettes, or like asking narcotics dealers to participate in the drafting of laws to ban narcotics, or, to take a recent example, it would be like inviting big coal companies to participate in a conference aimed at preventing dangerous climate change.
In 2013, the United Nations has established an Open Ended Working Group on Nuclear Disarmament, which consisted both of nations and of individuals. The OEWG met in the spring of 2013 and again in August, to draft a set of proposals to be sent to the UN General Assembly.
On 28 September, 2013, a High Level Meeting of the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly took place. It was devoted to nuclear disarmament. Although the nuclear weapon states attempted to label the new negotiations as “counterproductive”, the overwhelming consensus of the meeting was that nuclear abolition must take place within the next few years, and that the humanitarian and environmental impact of nuclear weapons had to be central to all discussions. The detailed proceedings are available on the following link: http://www.un.org/en/ga/68/meetings/nucleardisarmament/ .
The opportunity presented by the conference in Mexico in February 2014 must not be wasted. We must use it to take concrete steps towards putting legislation for the abolition of nuclear weapons to a direct vote on the floor of the UN General Assembly.