Mexican militarization: overwhelming numbers

Members of the Mexican Federal Police in riot gear redeploy after guarding the National Palace during a small protest last month. (photo by Jordan Green)

By Peter A. Geniesse

It was a sunny, tranquil day in the zócolo. Tourists, vendors, peasants and politicians were milling about one of the world’s largest city plazas. If the stones could speak, they’d tell of Cortez and of the ruins of what had been the grandest set of temples and palaces of the Aztec Empire back in the 16th century.

Mass was underway in the massive Metropolitan Cathedral, started in the 1520s. Visitors were in awe of the Templo Mayor ruins nearby, the sacred Aztec site destroyed by the Spaniards. Over at the National Palace, it was government business as usual.

Suddenly, the murmur of the noonday crowds on Feb. 18 was interrupted by the cacophonic sounds of a group of “protesters” as they entered Mexico City’s Plaza de la Constitución. All eyes in the square flitted from the marchers, who waved political banners, to a squadron of federal police in riot gear prepared to squelch the demonstration.

There was no confrontation. The marchers moved through the square without incident and onto a side street. But the federal police, nearly 100 of them, with helmets and facemasks, wielding fiberglass shields and batons, were ready for battle.

Such is the nervous nature of a nation which sometimes seems on the brink of chaos. Mexico has become increasingly militarized, but unlike the bloody confrontations with political protesters of the not-too-distant past, the response now is to overwhelm the potential foes with numbers, rather than brute force.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City noted that often in the past Mexican militia used excessive force in quelling demonstrations. The tactic now is to have a commanding police presence. Sometimes, he added, there are more police than protesters.

Mexican citizens – as well as the world at large – recall the brutal, repressive responses by the military to demonstrations in the capital and throughout the country. There still are lingering scars from the crackdown of the teachers’ strike in Oaxaca in 2006. And nearly everyone remembers the brutal response to the Zapatista standoff in Chiapas in 1994 over NAFTA.

There’s a huge challenge to keeping the peace today, especially along the frontier with the United States. It’s the war on drugs, and in the past year or so 7,000 people, including about 500 police, army and public officials, have been murdered by the three competing drug cartels.

Mexican President Felipe Calderón in February committed 45,000 troops to combat the scourge. The border cities have a heavy military presence, and that has caused concern among the populace, who both fear the cartel violence and are upset by the armed-camp image. Thousands recently took to the streets to protest the situation on the border.

The United States, too, is concerned by Mexico’s fragile governance as well as its own security on the border and beyond. This has led to what’s called the Mérida Initiative, a $1.4 billion, multi-year plan aimed to combat the drug wars through training and equipment, including helicopters and surveillance planes.

This drastic measure is not without its critics who see it as another threat to Mexican sovereignty by its First World neighbor to the north.

Peter A. Geniesse is a journalist in Neenah, Wis.

U.S. and Mexico: interdependent and unequal

A village in southern Oaxaca (photo by Jordan Green)

By Irene Godinez

The United States and Mexico have a complicated, yet intrinsically dependent relationship with each other. Nowhere else on the planet does a “third world country” border a world “superpower.” Another distinctive component is that nowhere else on the globe does a nation exist where the disparities between excessive wealth vs. extreme poverty are more visible than in Mexico. These two facts create extreme tension and further strain the already dysfunctional relationship between the two nations.

To say that historically these countries have always been at odds is a gross understatement. The United States and Mexico experienced significant hardships, causing a faulty foundation in their relationship that continues to perpetuate a severely unequal and unstable relationship that cripples millions of innocent citizens on either side of the border.

During a recent journey to Mexico to witness the roots of migration, a delegation of mostly North Carolinians learned by speaking to Mexican workers how gravely the North American Free Trade Act, or NAFTA, has affected their lives. While NAFTA was promoted as a panacea to Mexico’s malaise – specifically economically – hardly any of the promises made to Mexican workers have materialized. While there is enough blame to go around, the US government is seen by Mexican workers as most culpable considering the tremendous influence it has over the Mexican government. NAFTA bankrupted the vast majority of small farmers in Mexico – most of whom have looked northward for survival, even knowing that they could lose their lives in the journey.

Many Mexican workers with whom we spoke asked why the US government doesn’t allow them to enter the United States legally to work. After all, they are no longer able to work their lands or work in their communities because of US-Mexico policies. While we can’t deny the complicity of the Mexican government in robbing millions of Mexican workers the most basic survival opportunities, the United States must use its influence over Mexico to allow its citizens the opportunity to prosper at home.

Mexico continues to experience extreme disparities, with the majority of its citizenry living in poverty and where jobs continue to deplete at alarming rates, for Mexican workers the only option to “make it” is migrating north. It is disturbing to see these two nations continue to use each other for economic gains for a few corporate giants at the expense of workers on both sides of the border.

The reality of these nations is that the United States cannot survive without the labor of its immigrant – mostly Mexican – workforce, and Mexico cannot sustain itself without the remittances of these workers. Unfortunately, neither government has come forward to change or create policies that could benefit its workers because in the end corporations and capital have taken precedence over just and human treatment of workers.

Irene Godinez is advocacy director for El Pueblo in Raleigh, NC.

NAFTA has forced many of Mexico's poor to emigrate

Vendors in one of Oaxaca City's markets report that they struggle to cover living expenses with family income. (photo by Jordan Green)

By Gail Phares

NAFTA, an agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, went into effect in 1994. We were told that NAFTA would decrease poverty, increase employment and reduce immigration. The opposite has occurred.

NAFTA policies combined with the Mexican government’s declining support to small and middle-level farmers, has thrown the farming sector into crisis. In the past 15 years, more than 2 million corn farmers have been bankrupted and forced to leave their families and communities. Emigrating north to the United States, many have come to the North Carolina.

NAFTA has resulted in the loss of millions of jobs, wage stagnation, and poor treatment of workers. For many, the only possible solution is migration to the United States. Currently there is no way for most poor Mexicans to legally emigrate to the United States. Once they arrive in the United States there are very limited rights for undocumented workers.

We believe that it is in the United States’ best interest to support economic development in Mexico to decrease poverty, increase employment and thus reduce the need to emigrate to the United States.

We urge President Obama and the US Congress to move towards the renegotiation of CAFTA and NAFTA as soon as possible and pass humane and just immigration laws.

Gail Phares is a founder of Witness for Peace. She lives in Raleigh, NC.

More about the delegation

The delegates stayed with families in Cieneguilla, an indigenous village in Oaxaca that has sent many of its members to Durham and other North Carolina cities and towns. Delegates also met migrants from Guatemala, whose journey through Mexico subjects them to the risks of kidnapping, rape and extortion on route to vaguely conceived destinations in the United States.

Rounding out these encounters, delegates also met with priests working with indigenous communities and migrants, with labor leaders and a human rights lawyer.

Those who took part in the delegation came away considering themselves a “beloved community” in the mold of the US civil rights movement for freedom. Many expressed an acute sense of shame at the way undocumented Latino immigrants are treated in the United States and concluded that trade policies work to the disadvantage of both the Mexican poor and American workers. On the final day of the trip, delegates pledged that upon their return to the United States, they would use public presentations, the media and political lobbying to bring about more humane immigration policies and fairer trade pacts.

Jordan Green is the news editor at YES! Weekly in Greensboro, NC.

Bienvenidos

Members of Witness For Peace's "Roots of Migration" returned from Mexico to their homes in North Carolina and other states on Friday.

Among them labor organizers, clergy, journalists, policy analysts, documentary filmmakers and a lawyer, the delegates spent 10 days in Mexico City, Oaxaca City and the indigenous village of Cieneguilla in the state of Oaxaca learning about immigration and trade.

Many of them work directly with immigrants, and drew connections between what's taking place in the United States with the places visited in Mexico, particularly in Cieneguilla, a village that sends many of its members to North Carolina to work in restaurants, construction and agriculture.

Please visit this blog often for reports on various aspects of the delegation, updates about presentations, and ongoing policy analysis about immigration, trade and militarism in Mexico.