National: No Cancellations but No More Mining Concessions in Mexico – AMLO

Photo @ Desinformemonos

In a press conference, the president of the republic Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said “that the Federal Government will respect all the mining concessions in the country and the permits will not be revoked.” He announced that during his government no more agreements of this type will be signed, since more than 25% of the national territory has been given over in the past 36 years. He said that since his campaign he had made the commitment that the concessions would not be revoked. AMLO guaranteed however that the communities where mining is carried out will benefit from the taxes paid by the mining companies.

He also mentioned that “it will seek that mining companies, particularly those of Canadian origin, carry out clean exploitation and act as they are obliged to do in their country.” “That the miner is paid well, that they pay the amount of taxes they pay there, and that they do not pollute.”

The statements contradict others issued by AMLO, in the municipality of Minatitlan, state of Colima, in 2014, which were published through the official website of the president through which he said that when the National Regeneration Movement triumphed, the concessions would be thoroughly reviewed for the mining exploitation that had been given to foreign companies. That wasbecause, he said, the riches of Mexico would have to be for the benefit of Mexicans, not foreigners.

Several newspapers also stressed that in February, during the Mexico Mining Forum 2019, the Undersecretary of Mining of the Ministry of Economy reported that “the cancellation of more than five thousand mining concessions in the country is being analyzed.”

Meanwhile, Miguel Mijangos Martínez, spokesman for Mexican Network of Those Affected by Mining (REMA in its Spanish acronym) stated that “the policy of the federal government has very mild nuances. If we see the problem of the extractive model as a whole, mining, water, biodiversity, fracking (hydraulic fracturing), gas … there are no significant changes. In REMA we think that the positions of power were reinforced, because now there are former entrepreneurs in public positions, (and that is) a position of advantage against the communities”, according to La Jornada. It stated that more than teo thousand rural communities in about 50 municipalities of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Puebla, Guerrero, Chihuahua and San Luis Potosi have declared themselves free of mining through legal actions.

Many of these communities continue with their demands for the cancellation of concessions in their territories, among them the Zapotec peoples of the Central Valleys of Oaxaca and the Wixarikas of San Luis Potosi. The latter hope to be able to engage in dialogue with the president on a final judgment given the injunctions that were processed in 2012 against the 78 concessions granted to two Canadian mining companies during the Felipe Calderon administration, which cover 70% of the 140,000 hectares of the protected natural area of Wirikuta.

For more information in Spanish:

Prevén otra ola de despojos de mineras y petroleras en México (La Jornada, 18 de marzo de 2019)

Al triunfo de MORENA, se revisarán las concesiones de explotación minera en México, asegura AMLO (Lopez Obrador, 21 de marzo de 2014)

No se otorgarán nuevas concesiones mineras: AMLO (La Jornada, 18 de marzo de 2019)

Impuestos por extracción minera llegarán a comunidades, asegura AMLO (La Jornada, 20 de marzo de 2019)

Wixárikas esperan diálogo con AMLO para proteger su territorio de mineras (Vanguardia, 19 de marzo de 2019)

Exigen a AMLO la cancelación inmediata y definitiva de las concesiones mineras en Oaxaca (El Proceso, 19 de marzo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas : Frente Popular en Defensa del Soconusco “20 de junio” (FPDS) exige que se decalre el municipio de Acacoyagua “Territorio Libre de Minería” (26 de enero de 2019)

Chiapas: Zoque People’s Assembly against extractivism (September 20, 2018)

Oaxaca: Here we say “Yes to Life, No to Mining” – Magdalena Teitipac is still fighting for its territory (April 7, 2018)

Chiapas: No to Mining Press Conference (September 30, 2017)

 

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Guerrero/National: More Information Published on Role of Army in Ayotzinapa Case

@Cuartoscuro

The National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH in its Spanish acronym) has reported that it has corroborated a link between organized crime and the Mexican government in the forced disappearance of the 43 students of the Normal Rural School of Ayotzinapa in Iguala, Guerrero, on September 26th, 2014. In addition, the Commission has declared that there was “connivance or collusion” between the local, state, and federal governments regarding the follow-up of the case. Additionally, the CNDH has indicated obstacles on the part of the authorities during its investigation that led to a series of recommendations at the end of 2018.

In December, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) in one of his first acts as the new president created by decree the Commission for Truth and Access to Justice in the Ayotzinapa case. On March 11th, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) presented the Technical Support Group (TSG) that will provide technical support to the Mexican authorities to arrive at the truth in the facts. In presenting the new work plan, the president of the IACHR and rapporteur of that agency for Mexico, Esmeralda Arosamena de Troitiño, applauded the position of the new federal authorities, which unlike the previous administration, have opened an impulse that represents “a historic opportunity to break impunity.” During the event, the Undersecretary of the Interior for Human Rights, Alejandro Encinas, remarked that the TSG will technically support all the open criminal investigation lines, which were not followed by the former Attorney General’s Office.

One of the most delicate in this sense is the role that the Mexican Army could have played in the events. On March 12th, a video was published that shows that Julio Cesar Lopez Patolzin, one of the 43 missing student teachers, had been recruited by the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA in its Spanish acronym) to infiltrate the Ayotzinapa School.

Faced with this, civil organizations accompanying the families of the 43 students declared that the video shows that the army “did not deliver or have given all the information it has about the Iguala case and its context (…) to more than four and a half years after the events.”

The second reason for concern, they said, is that it confirmed that SEDENA practices the infiltration of the Ayotzinapa School, which “does not delegitimize in any way the requirement of the relatives of Julio Cesar to know the whereabouts of their son.”

Finally, they stressed that this new material “confirms the urgent need for a thorough investigation into the role of the Armed Forces in this new phase” and that they provide “all information in their possession that is relevant to the full clarification of the whereabouts of the 43 students, as ordered in the presidential decree that instructed to establish effective material, legal and human conditions, to strengthen the human rights of the relatives of the victims of the Ayotzinapa case to the truth and access to justice, signed, among other authorities, by the President of the Republic, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of National Defense and the Secretary of the Navy.”

For more information in Spanish:

CNDH a ONU: “obstáculos y negativas” en caso Iguala (Milenio, 14 de marzo de 2019.)

Proceso y la historia del normalista-soldado infiltrado en Ayotzinapa (Proceso, 14 de marzo de 2019)

CNDH presenta recomendación por violaciones graves en caso Ayotzinapa (Excelsior, 13 de marzo de 2019.)

Normalista de Ayotzinapa desaparecido era infiltrado de la Sedena (VIDEO) (Radio Formula, 13 de marzo de 2019)

Un normalista de Ayotzinapa era militar e informante del Ejército: reporte (ADN Politico, 13 de marzo de 2019.)

Señalan necesidad de esclarecer papel del Ejército en caso Ayotzinapa SIDIDH, 13 de marzo de 2019.)

Abren, formalmente, nueva etapa de investigación por caso Ayotzinapa (La Jornada, 11 de marzo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero/National: Commission for Truth and Access to Justice in Ayotzinapa Case Set Up. Federal Judge Orders Investigation into Possible Responsibility of Attorney General Employees for Irregularities (January 22nd, 2019)

Guerrero/National: Decree Establishes Truth Commission for Ayotzinapa Case

(December 19th, 2018)

Guerrero/National/International: CNDH and IACHR Ayotzinapa Reports  (December 14th, 2018)

Guerrero/National: Ayotzinapa, Four Years On…  (October 1st, 2018)

Guerrero/National: Incoming Government Confirms Creation of Truth Commission for Ayotzinapa Case (Aug. 13th, 12018)

 

Guerrero: Urgent Action “No Dam, No Prisoners”, Demands Release of 16 Indigenous CECOP Members

On March 8th, more than 2,000 people had already demanded “the immediate release of the 16 indigenous members of the Council of Ejidos and Opposition Communities to the Presa la Parota (CECOP), whose crime was to defend their lands and natural assets against the La Parota Dam”, through the Avaaz petition website. This is due to the multiple violations of due process, torture and the arbitrary and illegal circumstances of the arrests, which “demonstrate that there are political and economic interests against the communities that oppose the dam.” They also requested that harassment and arbitrary arrests of the inhabitants of the community of Cacahuatepec, municipality of Acapulco, stop.

In the same case, on March 5th, members of CECOP, the Movement for the Freedom of Political Prisoners of the State of Guerrero (MOLPPEG in its Spanish acronym) and the Montaña Tlachinollan Center for Human Rights held a meeting with the Governor of Guerrero, Hector Astudillo Flores, to follow up on the tables established to review the cases of these same prisoners, as well as to demand the cessation of harassment against the members of CECOP. The MOLPPEG reported that, “it filed a complaint with the State Human Rights Commission (CODDEHUM in its Spanish acronym), to intervene and no longer continue to pressurize the comrades of the communal property of Cacahuatepec, in the municipality of Acapulco, as well as the Zapata Vive collective.” He explained that the State and Ministerial police have been raiding computers to identify comrades who have an arrest warrant.

For his part, the Tlachinollan lawyer, Vidulfo Rosales Sierra, reported that through this meeting he was following up a dialogue path begun in December, with a view to solving the problem of political prisoners in the state, mainly those of CECOP. He stated that the government authorities have said that it will be resolved according to law and that the legal route will be that which is privileged.

A day earlier, Tlachinollan listed 8 reasons why it considers that the 16 CECOP prisoners should be granted freedom:

“• They were arbitrarily detained on January 7th, 2018 in a violent operation where the police murdered three CECOP campesinos.

• On the way to the Prosecutor’s Office they were tortured and given cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment to force them to plead guilty. • During their detention, they were held incommunicado for more than 48 hours, preventing their relatives and lawyers from being interviewed.
• During their solitary confinement, the Public Ministry obtained evidence in an unlawful manner to indict them for homicide.
• The weapons allegedly obtained by the police were obtained from illegal searches carried out at the houses of the CECOP community members.
• The CECOP detainees were not at the scene when the confrontation took place between those who were killed on both sides. They were arrested in the place when they went to the Sunday Assembly of the CECOP.
• There is an onslaught to dismantle the CECOP and the resistance against the La Parota hydroelectric project.
• Gravel workers who irrationally exploit the gravel and sand of the Papagayo River have organized the villagers to confront CECOP.

For more information in Spanish:

Acción Urgente en línea “Ni presa ni presos” (marzo de 2019)

Se reúne ONG con Héctor Astudillo para pedir la libertad de 16 miembros del Cecop (La Jornada de Guerrero, 6 de marzo de 2019)

Denuncian en Guerrero acoso de policías contra opositores a La Parota (LA Jornada, 5 de marzo de 2019)

Se reúne Astudillo con Tlachinollan, Cecop y Molppeg (Quadratin, 5 de marzo de 2019)
8 Razones para la libertad de los presos políticos del CECOP (Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña Tlachinollan, 4 de marzo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: Liberan bajo fianza a dos integrantes de la CECOP (28 de febrero de 2019)

Guerrero/Internacional : Europarlamentarios y organizaciones internacionales expresan su preocupación por criminalización de integrantes de CECOP; marchan en Acapulco a favor de la liberación de sus presos (7 de febrero de 2019)

Guerrero : Siguen exigiendo la libertad de 19 presos detenidos por oponerse a la construcción de la Presa La Parota (1ero de febrero de 2019)

Guerrero: Piden la liberación de 19 presos políticos (10 de enero de 2019)

Guerrero: organizaciones nacionales e internacionales visitan a presos del CECOP y la CRAC-PC (6 de octubre de 2018)

Guerrero: 50 órdenes de aprehensión contra comuneros del CECOP (17 de septiembre de 2018)

National: Map of over 800 Environmental Conflicts Caused by Megaprojects in 12 Years

(@Heinrich Böll Foundation)

On February 27th, the academics Gisela Zaremberg (FLACSO Mexico) and Valeria Guarneros-Meza (De Montfort University), as members of the project “Speaking with Goliath: Participation, Mobilization y Repression Regarding Neo-extractivists and Environmental Conflicts”, presented a map of 879 conflicts that resulted from the implementation of 304 megaprojects, during the administrations of presidents Felipe Calderon Hinojosa (2006-2012) and Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018). The 304 works identified were related to mining, wind, hydroelectric, oil and gas pipeline infrastructure industries.

Their main findings, based on journalistic notes, reveal that the states with the most violent acts associated with mining are Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Zacatecas, Puebla, Coahuila, Sonora, Durango and Michoacan; while oil fields have caused conflicts in Tabasco, Chiapas and Veracruz. Regarding gas pipelines, the sections with the most reported violent events are Puebla-Tlaxcala-Morelos, Sonora-Sinaloa and Chihuahua-Sinaloa. Hydroelectric installations generated violence in Puebla, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Guerrero; and wind projects, in Oaxaca and Yucatan.

Gisela Zaremberg explained that in “absolute terms”, the data analyzed show that mining is the activity that causes the greatest number of conflicts, followed by the extraction of hydrocarbons (oil fields and gas pipelines), hydroelectric projects and finally wind.

The data collected show that, contrary to what is usually thought, the communities that oppose a megaproject resort mainly to “institutionalized” action (such as injunction and law suits). However, those that combine this type of actions with other “non-institutionalized” ones (taking over facilities, public offices or companies, retention of officials) are the communities that seek to negotiate benefits. For their part, government players, in combination with companies, are those that are most frequently mentioned in relation to informal and illegal actions.

The journalistic notes compiled in the database were written by a total of 373 journalists. 18% of them have received threats or attacks. However, it is not possible to establish if the threats had to do with their coverage of socio-environmental conflicts or other matters. The main states where threats or aggressions were reported to communicators in the investigation were Puebla, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Mexico City, Chiapas and Veracruz.

For more information in Spanish:

Minería y energía detonan 879 conflictos en México; los ligan al crimen, empresas y gobiernos (Sin Embargo, 2 de marzo de 2019)

Oaxaca, entre los estados con más violencia por conflictos medioambientales (El Universal, 2 de marzo de 2019)

Más de 800 conflictos socioambientales por megaproyectos mineros y energéticos (Contralínea, 27 de febrero de 2019)

Identifican más de 800 conflictos socioambientales generados por proyectos mineros y energéticos en los últimos 12 años (Fundación Heinrich Böll, 27 de febrero de 2019)

Presentación Powerpoint (FLACSO México, 27 de febrero de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Oaxaca: Verdict of the Popular Community Trial against the Mexican State and the mining companies (January 4th, 2019)

Guerrero/National: 13th Meeting of MAPDER in Cacahuatepec (December 12th, 2018)

National/International: Global Witness Publishes “At What Price? Irresponsible Business and the Murder of Land and Environment Defenders 2017”
(August 6th, 2018)

National: CEMDA 2017 Report Shows Increase in Vulnerability of Environmental Defenders (March 26th, 2018)

 

Guerrero: Gonzalo Molina, Tixtla CRAC PC, Released

@Desinformemonos

On February 28th, after five years, three months and 22 days in prison, the promoter of the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities-Community Police (CRAC-PC in its Spanish acronym) of Tixtla, Gonzalo Molina Gonzalez, was released.

He had been detained on November 6th, 2013, when he was protesting against the arrest of Nestora Salgado, today senator for MORENA and at that time commander of the CRAC-PC in the municipality of Olinala. He was accused of deprivation of liberty, robbery and terrorism with a total of ten criminal charges against him. Since his arrest, he was in Miahuitlan jail, Oaxaca; in the maximum security prison of the Altiplano, in the state of Mexico, and finally in the Social Readaptation Center of Chilpancingo, Guerrero.

“I showed that I am innocent, that there is no crime to investigate, that CRAC is within the legal framework and we will continue to work because that is what 701 law permits”, he said.

“The indigenous peoples, who for more than 500 years have resisted looting and discrimination, have to organize ourselves. Megaprojects of death are promoted, and we will not allow that, because our peoples have a different worldview than the capitalist system”, he added.

For more information in Spanish:

Liberan a Gonzalo Molina, líder de la Policía Comunitaria en Tixtla (La Jornada, 1ero de marzo de 2019)

Guerrero: Dictan auto de libertad a Gonzalo Molina, preso político de la CRAC-PC (Desinformémonos, 28 de febrero de 2019)

Liberan al promotor de la CRAC-PC Gonzalo Molina tras casi 6 años (Quadratin Guerrero, 28 de febrero de 2019)
Gonzalo Molina, preso hace 5 años por supuesto terrorismo, queda libre en Guerrero (Sin Embargo, 28 de febrero de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: 19 aniversario de la CRAC-Policía Comunitaria (11 de noviembre de 2014)

Guerrero: demand for release of political prisoners in observance of the eleventh anniversary of CECOP (September 2nd, 2014)

Guerrero: Police operation provokes confrontations and new arrest of member of CRAC-PC in Tixtla (March 30th, 2014)

Guerrero: Ministerial Police detain Gonzalo Molina, CRAC promoter, in Tixtla (November 14th, 2013)

 

Guerrero: Disappearance of Obtilia Eugenio Manuel and Hilario Cornelio Castro Indigenous Activists and Members of OPIM Reported

Obtilia Eugenio Manuel @ E-Consulta

On February 12th, the leaders Obtilia Eugenio Manuel and Hilario Cornelio Castro, members of the Organization of Me’ Phaa Indigenous Peoples (OPIM in its Spanish acronym), were disappeared.

Activist Ericka Zamora Pardo posted on her Facebook page that they disappeared “at approximately 7:40 am on the Tierra Colorada road stretch – El Ocotito, Guerrero.” Obtilia Eugenio is a member of the Council of Community Authorities of Ayutla and has been receiving death threats for several years.

According to the newspaper Sin Embargo, Obtilia Eugenio denounced threats last November “against her and two members of the Municipal Council of Ayutla, of which she is a member of the Justice Commission.”

Since January 14th, 2005, the defender has precautionary measures by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), as a result of threats and harassment that she has suffered due to her role in the defense of the cases of Ines Fernandez Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantu. The measures were put in place for the first time in September 2007.

For more information in Spanish:

Solalinde denuncia desaparición de dos activistas; una defendió a indígenas abusadas por militares (El Proceso, 13 de febrero de 2019)

La amenazan a ella y a otros integrantes del Concejo Municipal de Ayutla: Obtilia Eugenio (Sur de Acapulco, 19 de noviembre de 2018)

El padre Solalinde denuncia el secuestro de dos activistas indígenas en carretera de Guerrero (Sin Embargo, 13 de febrero de 2019)

Respuesta de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos a la demanda interpuesta por la Comisión lnteramericana de Derechos Humanos y al escrito de solicitudes, argumentos y pruebas presentado por los peticionarios, respecto al Caso 12.580 Inés Fernández Ortega. (COidh, 13 de diciembre de 2009)

INFORME Nº 94/06 (Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, 21 de octubre de 2006)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: Impunity prevails against human-rights defenders (December 18, 2013)

Guerrero: death-threats directed against Obtilia Eugenio Manuel, president of the OPIM (February 26, 2013)

Guerrero: Andrea Eugenio Manuel, indigenous activist and sister to Obtilia, is threatened with death (March 26, 2010)

Guerrero: New Threats against Obtilia Eugenio Manuel, President of the OPIM and Witness in the Inés Fernández Ortega vs. Mexico case (March 17, 2010)

 

 

 

National/Guerrero: Support Plan for Victims of the Dirty War

Photo @ EllosyNosotros

On February 11th, the Plan of Attention and Reparation for the Victims of Political Violence of the Dirty War was announced in the municipality of Atoyac de Alvarez in Guerrero.

The Executive Commission of Attention to Victims (CEAV in its Spanish acronym), relatives and survivors of victims of the “dirty war”, as well as the governor Hector Astudillo Flores, the president of the CEAV, Jaime Rochin del Rincon, presented the strategy of collective reparation that is intended to be implemented.

“The Care and Reparation Plan for the victims of past political violence in Guerrero seeks to give visibility to those who disappeared, give voice to those who were silenced and recover and reconstruct the social fabric of the communities”, according to information from Proceso.

According to the Economist, Jaime Rochin del Rincon, executive commissioner of the CEAV, acknowledged that, “actions such as forced disappearance, torture and arbitrary detention in Guerrero during the period of the Dirty War, followed a State policy of repression and extermination.”

The strategy emerged from the recommendation 26/2001 endorsed by the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH in its Spanisg acronym) addressed to the then president of the republic, Vicente Fox, and as well as the proposals included in the Special Report on the Disappearance of Persons and Clandestine Graves in Mexico of the CNDH, presented in 2017.

Through a statement, the CNDH announced that “in assessing the institutional progress represented by the Plan for Attention and Reparation for the Victims of the “Dirty War”, the CNDH established that the Mexican State has an outstanding debt with the victims of disappearance and their families, which will not be paid while the authorities of the three levels of government fail to comply with their basic and fundamental obligation to guarantee minimum conditions of security for peaceful coexistence between people and to put an end to the environment of violence, impunity and illegality that we face.”

For more information in Spanish:

Presentan en Guerrero plan de atención a víctimas de la guerra sucia (Aristegui Noticias, 11 de febrero de 2019)

La CEAV presenta Plan de Atención y Reparación a las Víctimas de la Violencia Política del Pasado (Proceso, 11 de febrero de 2019)

CNDH EL PLAN DE REPARACIÓN A VÍCTIMAS DE LA “GUERRA SUCIA”, QUE ATIENDE LAS PROPUESTAS DE LA RECOMENDACIÓN 26/2001 Y EL INFORME ESPECIAL SOBRE DESAPARICIÓN DE PERSONAS Y FOSAS CLANDESTINAS DE ESTE ORGANISMO NACIONAL (CNDH, 11 de febrero de 2019)

Recomendación 26/2001 (CNDH, 2001)

INFORME ESPECIAL SOBRE DESAPARICIÓN DE PERSONAS Y FOSAS CLANDESTINAS EN MÉXICO. (CNDH, 2017)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National: INAI Orders SENEDA to Submit Information on Generals Linked to “Dirty War” (June 26, 2018)

International/National: IACHR presents report regarding right to truth which includes the case of the “Dirty War” in Mexico (December 14, 2014)

The Peoples’ Permanent Tribunal condemns Mexican State for crimes against humanity (October 11, 2014)