López narrates how her 19-year-old daughter, Jahaira Guadalupe Vaena López, was abducted in Tlacolula, Oaxaca. She describes her efforts to get the authorities to investigate the crime, how she was warned not to press the matter, how informants told her that her daughter was murdered in a turf battle between fractured drug gangs. Just days before leaving for the United States with the Caravan for Peace, she faced one of the assassins who had been apprehended and listened as he described in detail how her daughter was raped and beheaded.

Margarita has joined some 50 grieving family members to accompany caravan leader Javier Sicilia on a trip across the United States. Sicilia, a poet who lost his son to drug war violence in March of 2011, catalyzed a movement of victims and Mexican citizens fed up with the bloodshed that has claimed more than 60,000 lives and left tens of thousands more disappeared since former President Felipe Calderon launched the drug war five years ago.

Mexico’s Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity decided to organize the U.S. caravan after taking two caravans from Mexico City–one north to Ciudad Juarez on the U.S. border, and one south to the border with Guatemala. Both drew out victims of the drug war and registered their cases to provide support for family members seeking justice and solace.

The decision to take their pain across the border came after discussion with the San Francisco-based group Global Exchange. Soon a coalition came together that included Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, the Latin American Working Group, the RFK Center, the Washington Office on Latin America, our CIP Americas Program, the Drug Policy Alliance, and the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, among the key players. The coalition later expanded to include the NAACP, and local organizations in each of the cities along the route.

A binational meeting in June defined five demands of the U.S. caravan: to open public debate on humane alternatives to drug prohibition, to ban the import of assault weapons and crack down on illegal gun smuggling over the border, to combat money-laundering with full investigation and strict enforcement, to suspend all aid to the Mexican armed forces and end the war on drugs abroad, and to halt the militarization of the border and criminalization of migrants.

I joined the caravan on the final east coast leg of its 6,000-mile trip. I had heard most of the stories before in Mexico, having accompanied the northern caravan and numerous marches and meetings.

I was curious to see the impact on people in the United States. As the women in the room told their stories, each one struck like a cold blade in the heart. Although women are a minority of the war’s deaths, attacks on women usually include brutal sexual violence, and women make up the majority of those actively seeking justice and an end to the war.

Along the route, caravan members like these women have become confident and eloquent spokespersons to end the drug war. They speak from the heart and appeal to the heart. Their empowerment as leaders is one of the most important achievements of the caravan. Another is the sympathy and outrage their testimonies evoke.

And it’s not a one-way street. Caravan members also listened to the stories of U.S. citizens. Like Kimberly Armstrong in Baltimore, whose 16-year-old son was shot and killed by a 14-year-old in endemic drug violence. Or Carole Eady, who struggled her way out of the stigma and life disruption of imprisonment for a drug offense in New York City.

The threads begin to come together. In her brilliant book The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander notes that in Washington, D.C., the caravan’s last stop, it’s estimated that three out of four black men can expect to serve time in prison. She calls this mass incarceration of black people a new racial caste, the latest Jim Crow system of social control, where young black men and women are jailed, stigmatized, and in many cases disenfranchised for life by discriminatory drug laws.

Based on the shared sorrow of losing loved ones to jail, violence, death, or disappearance, Mexicans and Americas found they fight the same unjust system of social control of the poor and people of color. The drug war generates profits for the defense industry and siphons public funds into perpetuating itself. It rips apart families and communities, north and south of the border. The bogus attempt to eliminate rather than regulate something in great demand creates a multibillion-dollar black market run by groups that become more violent as they are selectively attacked. It pits security forces against the public, providing them with the tools to violate human rights and life with impunity. It erodes democracy and the rule of law it purports to uphold.

Whether it’s through imposing a military/police state in Mexico or shunting youth into the margins of society, the drug war machine runs on the human lives it destroys.

A binational peace movement?

The caravan’s call to end the drug war resonated in city after city. But has the caravan forged a binational movement for peace?

Not yet. As the Mexican caravaners go back home, their U.S. hosts return to daily life. Many will simply guard the memory of Mexico’s pain and begin to read the news a little differently.

But others will act. The Peace Caravan has already achieved something remarkable. It brought together groups in U.S. cities that scarcely knew each other before. Some community organizers in the scores of cities from San Diego to the nation’s capital plan to continue the dialogue with the Mexican movement and among themselves.

In New York City, the Latino and African-American communities plan a meeting to discuss the impact of mass arrests and detention. In Baltimore, the movement to block construction of yet another multimillion-dollar prison in one of the nation’s most economically devastated cities is making common cause with movements for drug policy reform, racial justice, and youth rights.

In Texas, faith-based organizations advocating stricter enforcement of gun laws are intensifying their campaign against gun show sales and arms smuggling after seeing close up the human cost of the flow of guns to Mexico. In Arizona, human rights organizations working against the militarization of the border and the death and detention of migrants came face-to-face with activists protesting Mexico’s militarized drug war in a cross-border reflection. In Washington, members of Congress received caravan lobbyists whose power to convince came not from money or influence, but from human empathy and reason.

The way many U.S. citizens understand the drug war has changed through meeting the Mexicans who bear the brunt of it. While U.S. politicians and media portray it as a necessary fight against the threat that organized crime supposedly poses to national security in both countries, the victims spoke of the violence that resulted from the war on drugs itself. Audiences and congressional representatives were surprised to learn that many of the victims on the caravan accused not gangs but the U.S.-funded Mexican police and military for the murder or disappearance of their loved ones.

Organizers now face the question of how the moral victory can lead to a political one. On the drug policy front, U.S. society seems to be moving toward a tipping point despite push-back from law enforcement and private prison interests that make big money off incarceration, as well as from politicians who convert insecurity into “law and order” votes. A recent poll shows Colorado could legalize marijuana in the November elections after a similar measure narrowly lost in California. The award-winning film The House I Live In presents a stunning indictment of the domestic drug war through the words of its enforcers, its participants, and its victims.

But the federal government continues to be on the wrong side of the trend. Some hope that President Obama, if he is reelected, could make bolder moves toward reorienting a policy that imprisons so many mostly African-American youths and costs the nation $51 billion a year, according to the DPA. I’m inclined to agree with a LEAP editorial that warns the reform movement to watch the actions, not the rhetoric, of the Obama administration. It will take a stronger push from constituents to get the administration to take on the interests that benefit from sustaining America’s longest war.

Moral victories plant seeds that are often slow to bear fruit. Evaluating the experience on the last morning in a church hall, exhausted caravan members saw a mix of catharsis and consciousness-raising that gave them strength. Lopez noted that the “the tragedy I’m living through can be useful to a lot of people.” Melchor Flores, whose son was arrested in January of 2009 in Monterrey and never seen again, stated that the caravan had “touched consciences”.

He added, “Wherever my son is, he should be satisfied because he knew I wouldn’t let him down.”

Teresa Carmona, a tiny, white-haired woman whose son Joaquin was murdered in Mexico City, has become a powerful voice before the public and the media. She believes the caravan met its goal.

“We brought the faces of our beloved children, parents, and relatives all the way here, and so we legitimated this pain and this reality.”

In the nation that first invented the drug war and exported it to their country with deadly results, the Mexican bereaved have left a mark in the hearts of thousands of men and women. Sometimes it takes tragedy to make change. The cumulative histories recounted in the peace caravan represent a tragedy of mammoth proportions.

That should be more than enough to act on.

AUTHOR: Laura Carlsen
URL: www.cipamericas.org and http://americasmexico.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: lecarlsen [at] gmail.com

IS NEO-NAZISM ‘GANG ACTIVITY’ OR A POLITICAL MOVEMENT?

In a recent article, THE GUARDIAN noted that the Greek political party represented in parliament is more like a criminal organization than a party. This is the sort of hollow analysis that some writers engaged in about Italy’s Fascist Party and of Germany’s Nazi party before they took power, given that Nazis and Fascists had paramilitary operations that were the core of their political movement. The mere presence of paramilitary organization does not necessarily mean that the sponsoring political party is any less political.

Such analysis underestimates the mass appeal of neo-Fascism and neo-Nazism not just in Greece in 2012, but throughout the West. I have written as much in an article where I suggested that the return of Fascism/Nazism are possible against a global political economy that engenders capital concentration and downward social mobility, and against the background of a Western clash with Islam at a time that the world’s economic center will be shifting from West (EU and US) to East (China, India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia). In short, the downward social mobility of the middle class make it feel suffocated and without any prospects for its own and their children’s future.

It entirely possible that pluralistic society generally tolerant of disparate groups of people may remain vibrant, but more likely is the dilution of such a societal model. Greece is not exactly a good example of what may follow in the West, but it is a manifestation of how the combination of political, economic and cultural developments in the West as well as domestic developments and historical traditions account for the rise of neo-Naziism.

HISTORICAL PRECEDENT FOR NEO-NAZISM IN GREECE
When I published a short book entitled Authoritarianism in Greece (New York, 1983), about the pro-Nazi John Metaxas dictatorship of 1936-40, more than a decade had passed since the military junta (1967-1974) that modeled itself after the 1930s dictatorship. In fact, when I published that book, both the dictatorships in Portugal and Spain were gone, replaced by Socialist parties were as strong as in Greece, so I never imagined a resurgence of neo-Nazi or neo-Fascist parties in the early 21st century.

Just as in the case of the Great Depression that weakened democracy in many countries and eliminated it in others, similarly, the current deep economic contraction is causing similar sociopolitical conditions of polarization, sweeping the middle class and segments of the working class to its camp. And this is not about isolated incidents of anti-Islam neo-Nazi groups in every country from Norway to Greece, but about a genuine grassroots political movement with momentum to carry it into the mainstream.

‘GOLDEN DAWN’ AND MAINSTREAM SOCIETY
In June 2012, a new political party (Chrysi Augi) Golden Dawn was elected to office representing roughly half a million voters, a party that openly proclaims to follow a neo-Nazi/neo-fascist ideology. Founded in 1980 as a movement, it registered as a political party in 1993 when Greece experienced a wave of Balkan, Eastern European, as well as some African and Asian emigrants coming in as cheap day laborers in construction and farms, household workers caring for the elderly, or street vendors.

Although the neo-Nazi movement was and remains essentially a street-gang organization whose target is street fights and property destruction against any progressive organization, either it is extraordinarily superficial analysis or deliberate distortion to dismiss it as ‘just another criminal organization’. While the neo-Nazi gangs have been well known to the police for many years, while their members have been in prison for criminal activity, police almost always turn a blind eye and often collaborate with the neo-Nazis because ideologically the police are in agreement and also because neo-Nazi targets are either aliens or progressives that the police oppose and their superiors want crushed.

Moreover, the two mainstream political parties, PASOK, once center-left-now neo-liberal, and New Democracy, the conservative party now in power, have turned a blind eye to neo-Nazis along with the judicial system because Golden Dawn gangs’ violent activity instills fear in many people wanting to support the progressive and leftists from staging demonstrations and protests. Neo-Nazis are just another tool for sociopolitical conformity, but also a counterweight to the rising leftist popularity.Clearly, the leftists are using the neo-Nazi rising popularity to mobilize voter support. However, this raises the question of a growing gap in centrist parties and growing political polarization that actually helps the right even more than it does the left, for the latter has always been part of the institutional mainstream.

Interestingly, the ruling parties, PASOK and New Democracy, along with the mainstream media, insist that there is no difference between neo-Nazi gangs beating up foreigners, destroying their property and terrorizing them so they can create a ‘pure Hellenic society’ (a vague and meaningless concept), on the one hand, and leftist workers demonstrating because their wages have been cut sharply or they have lost their jobs. In short, the neo-Nazis are the ideal cover for the ruling parties representing the EU that wants continuance with the austerity measures intended to hasten downward social mobility.

The Golden Dawn party received 5% of the vote in local Athens elections, mostly from urban neighborhoods with large population of immigrants. In June 2012, the neo-Nazis managed to have 18 members of parliament, of the total 300 elected from seven different parties. The most recent public opinion polls indicate that 22% of the voters trust the neo-Nazi leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos who has been in prison for extreme political activity resulting in beatings and explosives possession.

IDEOLOGY
What is the ideological orientation of the neo-Nazis? There is no coherent ideology, but a string of incoherent ideas based on history and tradition, and underlying prejudices. Strong support of nationalism and Orthodox faith, which means adamant opposition to Islam and Judaism is at the core of Golden Dawn’s ideas. Of course, it is difficult for any of the Golden Dawn officials to articulate their own beliefs, because they lack not just the educational level, but the capacity for rational thought. In fact, just as NAZI and Fascist ideologies were rooted in the irrational, thought and action, so is neo-Nazism.

Another neo-Nazi belief rests in conspiracy theories, namely, that the world operates as a result of conspiracies caused mostly by Zionists, backed by Americans who want to control the world. Xenophobia to the extreme degree means that Greek neo-Nazis have no qualms about using force to eliminate foreigners they see as ‘polluting’ the purity that is Greece, a nebulous concept they link to classical, Byzantine, as well as modern from the era of Independence in the 1820s.

Adamant opposition to gypsies, Communists, varieties of leftists, Liberals, traditional conservatives, feminists, social progressives advocating human rights, and intellectuals who advocate peace, social justice and human equality. While the neo-Nazis use symbols such as Hitler’s photograph and the swastika, and writings from the German Nazi era, they are against modern Germany, for they want to return to the 1930s, instead of moving forward with corporate-directed globalization. Finally, like classical Fascism and Nazism, neo-Nazism dismisses dialogue of differing ideas and believes in action rooted on violence.

NEO-NAZI POPULAR BASE
Who are the supporters of the neo-Nazis? Financing comes from wealthy individuals, as does media support, given that at least one media organization is led by a tycoon who became wealthy transporting contraband items. That financing comes from wealthy individuals is not a surprise, nor is it a surprise that many lower middle class people pushed down to working class living standards are turning to neo-Naziism. It is true that there are also some workers who believe that the reason for the economic hardships, crime, neighborhood deterioration, and all societal evils must be attributed to foreigners. If foreigners, the same foreigners who work the fields, construct buildings, work as domestic servants, and do other menial jobs for wages far less than Greeks earn, if these foreigners were to return to their countries, Greece would become Switzerland.

NEO-NAZIS and MUSLIMS
Given that roughly ten percent of the population in Greece is from another country, most of them as ‘economic emigrants’, primarily using Greece to cross over to Italy and beyond, the neo-Nazis have used this issue to scapegoat these people no differently than European Catholics scapegoated the Jews during the Black Death, or the Germans blamed the Jews and Communists for all the calamities of their country in the interwar era. Of course, we must keep in mind, the the cultural foundations as much for Nazism in the 1930s and for neo-Nazism in the 21st century already existed in society, just below the surface of ‘democratic civility’. The Western World’s distorted political economy and the anti-Islam political-cultural campaign of the last two decades has actually provided the pretext for the rise of neo-Nazis.

Entry point for many Muslims, most recently Syrian refugees, is Turkey. Those wishing to cross over into Greece pay anywhere from a few hundred euros to several thousands. Once they reach Greece, their goal is to make it into the West, but many are unable to do so, forced to work for 10-30 per day in the worst possible jobs that very few Greeks would take. Greek slumlords rent filthy cramped apartments to legal and illegal foreign nationals, mostly from Pakistan. As many as 30 may live in an apartment intended for two people, while the landlord charges between 100 and 180 per month per person. Not that the situation is dissimilar in many Western countries, but it is important to remember that the legal and illegal aliens are exploited not only by the employers who may or may not pay them the low wages, but from the landlord as well, without any legal recourse. Yet, it is precisely these people, mostly Muslims, that neo-Nazi Gold Dawn, including its elected officials target for beatings, some resulting in the occasional murder.

Amnesty International as well as other organizations have repeatedly warned about abuses of human rights, police brutality, xenophobia and racism in Greece. However, the result is a rise in racist tendencies, as the economy deteriorates and people that would never even consider supporting a disreputable neo-Nazi party are now strong advocates; a situation not much different that Germany in the early 1930s under the Weimar Republic. Otherwise respectable middle class people want blood, preferably foreign blood, though it is these same people who use cheap foreign labor in their homes, farms and workplace. Hence the prevalence of the irrational in human nature when the institutions precipitate major shifts in peoples’ lives. Which brings me to the role of the IMF, EU and the banks in the rise of neo-Nazism.

NEO-NAZISM AND GERMANY
Germany, which has been behind austerity more than any other nation or entity in the West and which has benefited to the tune of an estimated 30 to 60 billion euros, has been strongly condemnatory of Golden Dawn. Considering that many analysts regard austerity as a form of dictatorship and a catalyst to diluting democracy, the fear on the part of many Germans is that their policies may be contributing to the rise of neo-Nazism in Greece and perhaps elsewhere. Germany may try to control neo-Nazi activity in its own soil to contain anti-Western responses throughout the Muslim World, but the monetary, fiscal, trade, labor and social policies it is imposing on the rest of EU are strengthening neo-Nazism.

CONCLUSIONS
In some respects, it is useful to view historical epochs as a mirror, and not to assume that the future is a line of upward progress, leaving the past behind without a trace. It is useful to reflect on what accounts for the dominant irrational tendencies in human and institutional behavior, even when such behavior leads to destruction of others, and by extension to ourselves. When I ask people why they support neo-Nazi movements, they almost always reply that they have no choice, as though it is their religion. Given that the mainstream political parties, moderate right, center and left have worn each other out to such a degree that a third force emerges to fill a gap that people believe will be their salvation, the messiah solution is to be expected not in the main, but in the extremes. Civil society has never had messiah solutions, for it is difficult enough trying to keep it civil, respectful of all people’s basic human rights, and of social justice. The final lesson here to the faithful of neo-Nazism is that today’s abuser may become tomorrow’s victim; for neo-Nazi violence knows no boundaries.

AUTHOR: Jon Kofas
URL: http://jonkofas.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: jonkofas [at] yahoo.com

The BDS movement is overpowering the pro-Israel lobby in South Africa, Howard Sackstein said in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz yesterday. Sackstein has worked for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the largest pro-Israel lobby organization in the US.

South African BDS activists are “professionals”
In the interview, Sackstein warned the pro-Israel groups in South Africa that they’re up against “professionals.” He also claimed the the BDS campaign is “spearheaded”  by Muhammed Desai of BDS South Africa and Zackie Achmat of Open Shuhada Street:

According to Howard Sackstein, whether pro-Israel groups can get back up on their feet depends on how rapidly they realize that they’re up against “professionals”…

“One point I would make finally is that the BDS campaign, spearheaded by Muhammed Desai and Zachie Achmat, is very well run and seems to be well-funded.”

The above comments have since been removed by Haaretz from the online version of the article, with no editorial note or correction issued.

In an email to me, Desai responded to Sackstein’s observation: “It is ridiculous (or deliberately deceptive) to claim that the boycott of Israel movement in South Africa is spearheaded by two individuals. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) with over two million workers, the South African Communist Party with more than 150,000 members, the South African Students Congress – South Africa’s largest student formation, the South African Council of Churches and others are actually at the forefront.”

He continued: “In fact, this very week COSATU, an official alliance partner of the ANC, reaffirmed its commitment to the BDS campaign at its national congress and has undertaken to ensure that this is advanced at the upcoming ANC National Conference in Mangaung. The ANC National Conference is the supreme ruling and controlling body of the ANC that determines ANC policy and ultimately the government policy for the next five years.”

Ministers have backing of the ruling ANC
In comments also removed from the online version, Sackstein criticized the actions of two South African government ministers in relation to correct labeling of Israeli settlement products and advice against travelling to Israel:

Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies announced that he was to issue an official notice “to require traders in South Africa not to incorrectly label products that originate from the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) as products of Israel”.

Third, Deputy International Relations Minister Ebrahim “Ibie” Ebrahim said that Pretoria discouraged all South Africans from visiting Israel. He said: “Because of the treatment and policies of Israel towards the Palestinian people, we strongly discourage South Africans from going there.”

Sackstein is convinced that the most influential body in the ANC, the national executive council:

“…discussed Israel, Palestine etc. and decided that they would have a common front on the issue and that certain steps needed to be taken.”

In other words, said Sackstein, Davies and Ebrahim were not acting of their own accord, but effectively carrying out ANC policy.

These comments too were censored by Haaretz.

Sackstein claims that “much of the ANC’s latest emphasis on anti-Israel action is the result of trying to win Muslim votes in the Western Cape.” However, Desai refutes this claim in his email: “Its not the ANC pandering to the Western Cape. But the Western Cape together with other stakeholders such as the churches, unions, students and others that are insisting that our ruling party (and indeed our government) take the side of the oppressed, of the Palestinians by supporting the BDS campaign. Its merely the ANC listening and adhering to a position that the vast majority of its constituencies hold.”

Indeed, Palestine solidarity activists in South Africa have mobilized substantial support for the oppressed Palestinian people.
BDS South Africa books impressive results
At the end of Augst, the student council of the prestigious University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg unanimously adopted a full acadmic and cultural boycott of Israel. Tebogo Thotela, president of the Wits Student Representative Council, explains the reasons for the decision in a video published by BDS South Africa (seen at the top of this post).

In 2011, the University of Johannesburg severed its ties with Israel’s Ben-Gurion University, following a campaign backed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and over 400 South African academics. In a recent BDS news roundup, EI’s Nora Barrows-Friedman summed up the recent BDS victories in South Africa:

The Student Representative Council at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa unanimously adopted a full academic and cultural boycott of Israel on 29 August.

This comes on the heels of increasing support of the Palestinian-led BDS movement in South Africa, including the recent moves by government officials to have Israeli settlement products correctly labeled to let consumers know they originate from settlement colonies in the occupied West Bank; and a proclamation by a government minister to discourage South Africans from traveling to Israel because of its human rights record.

Posted on the website for BDS South Africa, the Wits’ student council’s resolution says that it will “not participate in any form of cultural or academic collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions and will not provide support to Israeli cultural or academic institutions.”

AUTHOR: Adri Nieuwhof
URL: http://www.samora.org
E-MAIL: a.nieuwhof [at] samora.org

Africa

Jerry Rawlings and Ghana are different.

Ghana, once a West African basket case, is one of the continent’s most successful states. Its economy has grown by a robust 5 percent per year over the past twenty-five years. Poverty has dropped in half. Many more people go to school. Investment and exports have soared.  And the country has become a vibrant democracy, with competitive elections, a vocal press, and stronger governance. The country is far from perfect, but it is one of Africa’s strongest countries politically, economically, and institutionally.

What changed?

Jerry Rawlings. Although he came to power in a coup–one of a long line of leaders who had done so (Ghana had eight heads of state between 1966 and 1981)–Rawlings transformed the country during his nineteen years in power, reforming almost every aspect of how the state operates.

Although best known for his economic reforms, the steps Rawlings took to make the state more socially inclusive and more institutionally robust may be his most important legacies. Embracing an ideology focused on improving the quality of life for all Ghanaians, Rawlings reversed a history of widening ethnic tensions and narrow self-interested government. He actively promoted national integration; decentralized government; and extended public services to the less developed north. And by introducing a democratic constitution and fair elections, and then stepping down after winning the mandated limit of two presidential terms—at the age of only fifty-four—he established institutions that enabled his achievements to outlast him.

Since 1992, Ghana has had five successful multiparty elections, two changes in government through the ballot box, and one transition of power to a vice president upon the death of the head of state. The country’s civil society, media, and NGOs are all flourishing. Although imperfect in some important ways (election campaigns are too confrontational, and ethnicity still matter too much to politics), Ghana has arguably the most institutionalized political system of any country in sub-Saharan Africa outside South Africa (whose history is unique).

The contrast with other leaders who built successful growth models could not be greater. Côte d’Ivoire’s charismatic first president, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, built the continent’s most successful economy in the 1960s and 1970s, but left the country unprepared for his demise. He stayed in office to the very end; his country has been mired in conflict between its southern and northern halves ever since. Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda led Malawi to almost two decades of rapid growth, but age paralyzed his administration in his later years, and no successor was strong enough to maintain the momentum he started; the country struggled in the years afterwards.

In more recent years, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Uganda have all enjoyed extended periods of economic growth, but depended too much on the vision of one man. Uganda long ago lost momentum economically, and is becoming more authoritarian and less dynamic by the year. Ethiopia will now be tested by the death of its brilliant but autocratic leader of two decades, Meles Zenawi, who has left the scene without a clear and transparent system of succession in place. Rwanda’s success remains dependent on its own brilliant but autocratic leader, Paul Kagame.

How much do the leaders of these countries endanger their achievements in the economic sphere by their failures to institutionalize the politics of their respective countries? What are the chances that their successors will destabilize their countries fighting over the spoils that greater prosperity has brought?

Institutionalizing politics does not necessarily mean introducing Western-style democracy, but it does mean establishing clear, robust rules on how major decisions are determined and how succession takes place. Any regime that depends on one person is unlikely to survive much past that person’s passing.

This is a problem across Africa (and many developing countries elsewhere). Despite their competitive elections, no one can say that Nigeria, the DRC, or Uganda has a robust democracy. Autocratic regimes such as Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Angola rarely have clear rules on succession or strong enough political parties to outlast their founders (as China and Vietnam do).

Why was Jerry Rawlings different? What spurs leaders to build institutions that are bigger than they are (and thus can overrule and outlast them)? What does it take for a leader to put their country before themselves such that they have a better recognition of when is the appropriate time to step down? What can be done to encourage other leaders across Africa to behave more like Jerry Rawlings?

These are extremely important questions for the future of countries across the developing world, yet they are rarely if ever asked.

What do you think? Why was Jerry Rawlings different?  I will provide some possible answers in a later post.

AUTHOR: Seth Kaplan
URL: http://www.fragilestates.org
E-MAIL: seth [at] sethkaplan.org

The caravan description reads:

“Led by the poet, Javier Sicilia, the caravan will meet with members of US society through dialogue and peaceful action, carrying proposals to shut off the flow of illegal arms to Mexico, supporting humane and health-oriented alternatives to the prohibition of drugs and demanding effective, non-violent security policies. It will also seek a humane immigration policy.“

The CIP Americas Program–along with some 100 partner organizations of migrants, churches, unions, students, NGOs and community members in the cities along the route–is helping to organize caravan events and give voice to the victims of the drug war. We will be accompanying the caravan on part of its long journey through the country and providing daily blogs, articles and interviews as events unfold.

A handful of U.S. companies that produce weapons and defense and intelligence equipment are raking in taxpayer dollars in government contracts for the drug war, while in Mexico more than 70,000 people have died since the war was launched in December 2006.

Today the face of the U.S. government in Mexico is the face of war. This face is reflected in the vast expansion of joint security operations and direct intervention in Mexico´s counter-narcotics planning and operations. Instead of schools and hospitals, our tax dollars support military helicopters and espionage systems.

The relationship between the two nations has degenerated into a seemingly endless war on drugs, The war is commanded from the north, where enforcing prohibition is considered more important than human lives, and fought in the south, where the long arm of enforcement has left 70,000 dead in the past six years.

Despite tragically negative results, the U.S. government has dismissed calls from citizens in both countries to end the war on drugs and the misguided Merida Initiative that supports it. Instead, we continue on a path that throws U.S. youth behind the bars of lucrative private prisons and feeds defense companies by perpetuating violent conflict in Mexico.

Family members of the thousands murdered, disappeared, attacked and displaced in Mexico’s drug war and their supporters will present a very different, human, face of binational relations. They will meet with families in the United States that have suffered senseless incarceration and violence as a result of criminalizing drugs, rather than supporting communities and individuals to manage the health and social threats posed by consumption and addiction.

Find out what organizations are planning in your community. You are needed to help out with organization of events and logistics for the peace caravan. Please plan to attend the events. Learn first-hand the human costs of the drug war and find out how to make change from your own community on up to the national and international levels.

Here is the caravan schedule. For more information on events in your community, see the caravan website. To volunteer for upcoming caravan events, please write us at: info@cipamericas.org

SCHEDULE:

San Diego, CA – Aug 12 SUN
Los Angeles, CA – Aug 13- Aug 14 MON/TUES
Phoenix, AZ – Aug 15 WED
Tucson, AZ – Aug 16 THURS
Las Cruces, NM – Aug 17 FRI
Albuquerque/Santa Fe, NM – Aug 18 SAT
Santa Fe, NM – Aug 19 SUN
El Paso, TX – Aug 21 TUES
Laredo, TX- Aug 22, WED
Harlingen/Brownsville, TX – Aug 23 THURS
McAllen/San Antonio, TX – Aug 24 FRI
Austin, TX – Aug 25 SAT
Houston, TX – Aug 26 SUN
New Orleans, LA – Aug 27 MON
Montgomery, AL – Aug 29 WED
Atlanta, GA – Aug 30 – 31 THURS/FRI
(Travel Night to Chicago, IL & Rest Day – Sept 2 SUN)
Chicago, IL – Sep 3-4 MON/TUES
Cleveland, OH -Sept 5 WED
New York, NY – Sept 6-7 THURS/FRI
Baltimore, MD – Sept 8-9 SAT/ SUN
Washington, D.C. – Sept 10-12 MON-WED – FINAL CITY

For More Information:

• Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity web site: http://www.caravanforpeace.org/caravan
• Global Exchange,  Co-Organizer of the Peace Caravan http://www.globalexchange.org/mexico/caravan
• Invitation to join the Peace Caravan here.
• Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity’s website (Spanish)
• Sign up to volunteer with the caravan by using this registration form.

Some English-language press on the Caravan so far:

Democracy Now! “Javier Sicilia Brings Peace Caravan to the U.S.to Condemn Deadly Drug War” Aug. 16.  http://www.democracynow.org/2012/8/16/mexican_poet_activist_javier_sicilia_brings.  Also see: “Mexican Poet Javier Sicilia Condemns U.S. Role in We¡idening Drug Violence” May 11. http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/11/stop_the_drug_war_mexican_poet

“Cross-country tour to point out the failure of the war on drugs”, Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 12, 2012.  http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0812-lopez-moms-20120812,0,6855876.column?page=1

“Mothers share their anguish at losses to Mexico’s violence”, Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 15, 2012. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0815-lopez-mexicomoms-20120814,0,218429.column

The Nation: Can the Caravan of Peace End the War on Drugs?

Los Angeles Times: Mexican activist, poet brings Caravan for Peace to U.S.

AFP: Drug war ‘peace caravan’ woos Hollywood

KPFA 94.1-FM in Berkeley: Victims of US/Mexico Drug War Lead Caravan for Peace

Contacts for Organizing:

1) Kirsten Moller: San Diego, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Jackson, Atlanta, Charlotte
kirsten@globalexchange.org, 415 255 7295

2) Louise Levayer: Tucson, El Paso, Brownsville/Harlingen/McAllen, San Antonio, Austin, Houston
louise.levayer@gmail.com, (415) 575 5531

3) Chelsea Brown: Albuquerque, Santa Fe, New York City, Baltimore
Chelsea.avril.brown@gmail.com, (415) 575 5531

4) Liz Sanchez: Cleveland, Phoenix, Montgomery, Chicago
lizsanchez0916@gmail.com, (415) 575 553

AUTHOR: Laura Carlsen
URL: www.cipamericas.org and http://americasmexico.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: lecarlsen [at] gmail.com

Jan Myrdal

The alleged ban by the government on world-renowned Swedish writer Jan Myrdal to visit India is shocking. The official version is that Myrdal is a Maoist supporter and he had indulged in anti-state activity and that is the reason a ban on his future visit is being contemplated.

The 85 year old writer denied this allegation saying he is not so stupid, and has called the move against him as anti-Indian. The extreme left see this as India’s attempt to toe the US line that has imposed a stringent regulations on Myrdal to enter America.

Jan Myrdal is son of Nobel Laureates Gunnar Myrdal of ‘Asian Drama’ fame. Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi very often used to quote the books of Gunnar Myrdal, specially his famous observations on corruption in India. Jan’s mother Alva Myrdal was Sweden’s Ambassador to India from 1955 to 1961. The Indian government had felicitated the couple with the Jawaharlal Nehru International Understanding Award.

Jan Myrdal has authored several books that include ‘Report from a Chinese village’, ‘China: The Revolution Continued’, ‘Confessions of a Disloyal European’ and ‘India Waits.’ The last one is based on his tour of Andhra Pradesh in the early 1980s, where he mentions that a Marxian-inspired peoples’ movement, emanating from rural India, parallel to the Chinese Communist revolution is awaiting in India.

His book “Red Star over India” has been widely received in India. This book has now reached its second English language edition and is being published in Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu. In Europe it has been translated to German, Italian, Norwegian and Swedish. It is available as an e-book and on the net.

The Sweden-based author was in India in January-February, 2012 for the promotion of his book “Red Star over India” and had visited Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ludhiana and Delhi and shared his views with writers, democrats, students and journalists.

The Home Ministry however has found that Myrdal had attended pro-Naxal conventions and allegedly expressed support to the CPI (Maoist) ideology of armed struggle against the state, a charge vehemently denied by the author.

Myrdal has reportedly rebutted the allegation saying he was on a one month conference visa to re launch his book “Red Star Over India – Impressions, Reflexions and Discussions when the Wretched of the Earth are Rising.” The government was well informed about his movements and his speeches are in public domain either printed or is available on the net.

The author said he did not do anything stupid like giving political “advice” to the Indian friends and the decision to ban him from entering in the country was an anti-Indian act. He requested the official to withdraw the decision if it’s already been taken.

It is well known that Jan Myrdal is a follower of MoaSaTung’s ideology. In India the CPI (Moaist) are inspired by his writings. He has visited India several times and has extensively toured the country. He knows the Indian reality at the grassroots. But, then that’s it, there are so many foreign intellectual, too may have similar understanding. What does it really mean?

There are certain questions that seek answers? Will the ban on Myrdal solve the Maoist problem in India? Will his visit intensify the Maoist struggle in the country? Can’t his visit be converted as an exercise in exchange of ideas and the government has benefit from his advice? In fact after ‘India Waits,’ Indira Gandhi has asked him to come and discuss the issue of left rebellion with her but the ‘mother India’ met an untimely death.

Now the ‘Sons of India’ who are killing its own people, under operation ‘Green Hunt’ think they can solve the problem by doing so and anyone who opposes such brutal designs has to be kept off.

It is in this connection that a person of the stature of Jan Myrdal is being ban from visiting the country. This is a clear indication how much Indian has changed in its character and ideology over a period of time.

The Indian government that is giving red carpet welcome, to MNCs and big bourgeoisie to indiscriminately loot the most valuable riches of the country and is being intolerant towards those who are opposing them with genuine democratic and progressive views.

The Indian government is inviting international big corporate like Enron, Dow Chemicals, POSCO, Monsanto, Vedanta and Areva and so many others. It is hugely supporting Jindal, Mittal, Esssar, Tata and Ambani that are colluding with these MNCs and serving them.

On the other hand the Adivasis who are fighting a life and death struggle to preserve the most valuable lands, forests, hills, waters, minerals and all kinds of other natural resources in the vast areas of the country from their exploitation are being hunted down under the operation ‘Green Hunt’. It shows how far Indian state that rest on the word ‘socialism’ enshrined in our constitution is moving away from its own code of commandments.

It is not new for the ruling classes of this country to deal with artistes, writers, journalists, film producers and directors in such a manner. There are several writers and democrats who have been implicated in countless conspiracy cases in our country.

On July 1, 2010 a Delhi based journalist Hem Chandra Pandey was shot dead in a fake encounter by the Andhra Pradesh police. Artiste Jeeten Marandi was sentenced to death by a court of law but later the judgment was withdrawn due to popular pressure. Well-known writer Arundhati Roy was sentenced to jail for supporting the cause of the Kashmir people.

Recently the Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee got Professor Abhishek Mahapatra arrested with the ire that he drew a cartoon on her. The Jadavpur University students, who questioned this, were harassed in the name of being Maoists.

The stand taken by the Indian government to stop Jan Myrdal from coming to our country is shameful indeed. All democrats, writers, artistes, students, journalists and people from all walks of life should condemn such tyrannical decision. The need is to build a broad and strong solidarity movement that would make the government revoke its proposal to ban Jan Myrdal from visiting to India.

AUTHOR: Mujtaba Syed
URL: http://mujtabas-musings.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: syedalimujtaba [at] yahoo.com

“We are the children of the ideals you couldn’t kill.”

A young woman carried the hand-lettered sign as she marched with tens of thousands of people in Mexico City last July 22. Twenty-something, with long black hair and jeans, her message captures the spirit and sense of history of Mexico’s new movement for real democracy. At the same time, it reveals the resentment that especially youth feel about the presidential elections and a new government that for them representsan era of manipulation and repression.

Weeks after Mexico’s presidential elections, thousands of people have turned out to protest the declared winner, Enrique Peña Nieto, and the imminent return to power of the party that ruled Mexico for more than seven decades. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which is slated to take office December 1, now faces increasing accusations of fraud, a legal demand to declare the elections invalid, and a youth movement that refuses to go away.

#IAm132

“Mexico, Without the PRI”, “Electoral Institute, You Coward—Correct the Elections!” and “Mexico Voted and Peña Didn’t Win!”–men and women chanted these slogans through downtown avenues in the latest demonstration, vowing that the politician best known for his hair-do and ties to old-style Mexican politics would never take office. Most of the marchers are university-age, but contingents of workers, neighborhood associations, and citizens of all ages take part.

Many support the opposition candidate and second-place finisher, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. But the media spin that the entire movement is a contrivance of a poor loser falls flat when confronted with the actual messages and motives of the movement.

Mexico is seeing the birth of a movement for real democracy. It is led by a generation that wants to break through the cynicism of a nation accustomed to corruption and authoritarian rule. Its members challenge not just the election results, but the very definition of democracy.

The movement called “#IAm132” that arose in protest to Peña Nieto at a local university centers on the principle that democracy can’t be bought. Young people with no adult memory of living under the PRI have looked at their nation’s history and decided they don’t want to go back there.

The “#IAm132” movement–with the hashtag in its name marking its generational identity–has a broad platform that includes: democratization of the media to guarantee the right to information and freedom of expression; “secular, free, scientific, pluricultural, democratic, humanist, popular, critical, quality education”; change in the neoliberal economic model with less emphasis on the market and more state involvement; transformation of the security and justice model and withdrawal of the army from public security; participative democracy and autonomy; and health as a human right.

PRI’s Rocky Road Back to Power

Few people predicted Mexico’s post-electoral protests or the rapid rise of the youth-led movement against Peña Nieto. The PRI learned from its loss to Vicente Fox in 2000 and the convulsive post-electoral protests of 2006, when conservative candidate Felipe Calderon was declared the winner with the slimmest of margins and widespread accusations of fraud. It set out to avoid both scenarios, grooming its candidate years earlier to position him as the image of the “new PRI.”

The effort reportedly included secret deals with the major television stations for favorable coverage in the media dating back to 2009. Both the Mexican magazine Proceso and later The Guardian reported on these contracts, although the PRI denied the charges.

It also included rebuilding the political machine that served the party during its 71 years of uninterrupted rule over the country. That political machine suffered a debilitating blow with the election of Vicente Fox of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) in 2000. The PRI not only lost the helm of a nation it had confidently controlled for years, it also lost its majority in the legislature and several state governorships to boot. It was a dramatic and ignominious fall from power, and the age of  “the dinosaurs”—as the PRI political elite is called—appeared to be over for good.

But at least one insider and numerous analysts claim that the PAN agreed to leave the PRI political machine in place in return for support for its reform proposals in the legislature and the continued dominance of a small and powerful economic elite. The PRI was able to rebuild without fear of criminal charges for past acts of corruption and repression among its ranks.

The 2012 elections proved that the machine has been well oiled and employs many of the same tactics used to guarantee electoral wins in the past. But the goal of building a solid margin of victory to assure legitimacy backfired due to citizen and some media monitoring of blatant abuses

A coalition of progressive parties filed a legal challenge on July 12 to declare the presidential election invalid due to violations of articles of the Mexican constitution that call for free and fair voting. The demand specifically cites exceeding campaign spending limits as the cause. The legal limit is set at the unlikely figure of $336,112,084.16 pesos—about $25.4 million dollars. The coalition says it has proof that the PRI-Green Party spent five times the allowed limit.

In the most potentially damaging aspect of the allegations, Lopez Obrador accused the PRI of laundering money through off-the-books campaign spending. The opposition has demanded an investigation into the possible use of public funds in PRI-governed areas and money from illicit sources, including organized crime. The use of pre-paid bankcards is a common form of money laundering. The PRI issued thousands of these cards from a bank called MONEX to voters in a presumed vote-buying operation. (One protest sign noted acidly, “Mexico’s elections were so clean, even the money was laundered”).

The legal challenge also cites evidence of buying off pollsters to create an impression that the election was in the bag. Many polling companies confidently reported double-digit leads for Peña Nieto,with up to an 18-point lead. The final count showed just over 6 points, with Peña Nieto at 38.21 percent, Lopez Obrador at 31.59 percent, and conservative candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota at 25.41 percent. Whether the discrepancy resulted from faulty methodology or giving the client what he wants has become the subject of daily conversation in Mexico.

US-Mexico Drug War Alliance

President Obama called Peña Nieto to congratulate him on his victory even before Mexican electoral authorities had declared the victory. The White house issued a readout of Obama’s call to Peña Nieto, heralding a continued partnership in “democracy, economic prosperity and security.”

The Obama administration’s rush to affirm support for the embattled candidate is not a sign of enthusiasm for the return of the PRI. The U.S. government clearly would have preferred another conservative government in Mexico. The National Action Party swung the door wide open to greater U.S. involvement in the country. Agencies including the DEA, ATF, CIA, and FBI as well as“retired” military personnel now participate in and operate Mexico’s disastrous internal security policies. Felipe Calderon’s war on drugs proved the perfect vehicle for breaking down resistance to U.S.  intervention and making huge inroads in its regional security plan, which includes integrating Mexico into its “regional security perimeter.”

But the Obama administration was eager to put the elections behindto get center-left candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador off the political stage as soon as possible. Lopez Obrador openly called for ending the drug warand “adopting a different strategy” during his final campaign speech.

Ignoring the post-electoral conflicts already brewing south of the border, the White House congratulated the candidate and the Mexican people for having “demonstrated their commitment to democratic values through a free, fair, and transparent election process.”But well before Lopez Obrador filed the legal challenge, evidence of vote buying had surfaced and the “Iam132” movement and others were expressing accusations of fraud.

When asked by a reporter on July 9 if the State Department still maintained that the elections were “transparent,” spokesperson Patrick Ventrell dodged the question, stating only that “we welcome the electoral authority’s announcement of the final results, and obviously we look forward to working with President-elect Mr. Pena Nieto.”

The administration accepted Peña Nieto when polls showed a significant lead and hurriedly arranged meetings with its soon-to-be new ally well before the elections. The Pentagon-driven Mexico policy requires a willing partner in the drug war. Mexican army troops are now stationed in strategic locations throughout the country, ostensibly to stop the flow of illegal drugs and capture drug kingpins. They have repeatedly acted to repress human rights defenders and subdue communities protesting the loss of natural resource control or army presence. The armed forces act as a form of social control, while army officials have been accused of being in cahoots with organized crime in several cases.

Continuing the drug war is at the top of the U.S. binational agenda. Congress has sustained it through consistent funding of the Merida Initiative since the Bush plan passed in 2008. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee just recommended four more years and a billion more U.S. taxpayer dollars, despite the fact that the joint strategy has resulted in 60,000 fatalities in Mexico and no measurable decrease in the flow of illicit drugs to the U.S.

Pena Nieto stated, “Without a doubt, I am committed to having an intense, close relationship of effective collaboration measured by results,” alleviating fears that the former nationalist party would distance itself from the new military/police alliance with its powerful neighbor. He has announced the appointment of a former chief of Colombia National Police, General Oscar Naranjo, as his top security adviser before the elections. Naranjo is a key player in Colombian security policy and very close to the U.S. security establishment.

There are four months until the inauguration. Mexico’s long lame-duck period will be rife with protests. The IAm132 movement joined with other grassroots organizations in mid-July to lay out a series of mobilizations tied to the date the electoral authorities must ratify electoral results (September 6), inauguration (December 1), and beyond.

In questioning the role of media monopolies, publicity and public image, vote buying, campaign spending, and political operators, Mexico’s new movement is raising serious questions about electoral democracy. The questions don’t only apply to Mexico–a nation emerging from and perhaps returning to authoritarian government. They also have much relevance to the United States as it heads toward presidential elections in November.

Photos: Clayton Conn, Alfredo Acedo

AUTHOR: Laura Carlsen
URL: www.cipamericas.org and http://americasmexico.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: lecarlsen [at] gmail.com

Participants march to the site of the assassination of Andrés Francisco Miguel, to erect a memorial. Photo by Waqib Kej.

June 18 marked the second mobilization under the banner “We Are All Barillas” in the department of Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Hundreds of community members, indigenous leaders and supporters from throughout the region traveled seven hours outside of the department’s capital to declare that the community of Santa Cruz Barillas would not be intimidated.

Only one month earlier, Barillas had been under a state of martial law. The municipality of mostly Maya Q’anjob’al people in Northwestern Guatemala has been a site of social conflict since 2010, when the government issued a license to Hidro Santa Cruz, subsidiary of Spanish-owned company Hidralia Energy, to build the Cambalam hydroelectric dam. The project was authorized despite the municipality’s decision — made on June 23, 2007 — not to allow the exploitation of natural resources by foreign companies. Then, on May 1 of this year, community leader Andrés Francisco Miguel was assassinated and two others were injured in an attack allegedly carried out by two agents of the company. Barillas quickly became a national example of the government’s new “iron fist” policy when the president declared martial law in Barillas, asserting that the community had seized military weapons in response to the assassinations. Martial law suspended constitutional rights in Barillas, including freedom of assembly. The state issued 29 arrest warrants for community leaders and detained 17, sending 12 of them to a high-security prison in Guatemala City without a trial.

“Today there was an organized concentration of people affected by the state of martial law,” says Nelton Rivera of the organization Waqib Kej. “First we gathered in the main square, and then we accompanied the Committee of Victims in Barillas to the place where Andrés was killed.”

The Q’anjob’al people of Barillas, who suffered some of the worst state violence during Guatemala’s internal conflict, are once again resisting militarization. But today there is no armed insurgency to justify the repression, only a mass movement that is challenging the development model being imposed by the government and multinational corporations.

In the department of Huehuetenango, and in the Western Highlands generally, communities have put up resistance to the kind of resource extraction that has been taking place throughout the country. Faced with over 400 mining exploration and extraction licenses authorized by the state  between 2000 and 2004, and a national energy transformation plan that includes the construction of more than 47 hydroelectric dams, indigenous peoples have relied on a process called the consulta comunitaria de buena fe, or good faith community referendum, and their right to self-determination to maintain control of their territories and natural resources.

Women march in Santa Cruz Barillas one week after the implementation of martial law. Their banner reads: “Our Struggles Are Peaceful, Our Consultas Are Democratic: Mr. President, We are not criminals or terrorists. We are all Barillas.” Photo by the Independent Media Center-Guatemala.

La consulta comunitaria

Backed by international law — International Labor Organization’s Convention 169, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Inter-American Democratic Charter  — as well as Guatemalan national and municipal law, communities have used their right to the consulta to indicate to the state and to the private sector that mining extraction and hydroelectric dams will not be permitted on their lands. Carried out through local organizing committees, and often with the celebratory spirit of a “civic party,” the consultas are public gatherings where men, women and children vote with the raising of the hand on the projects proposed in their particular municipality. In most cases, the municipal government issues an ordinance banning the activity and the legality of this ordinance then enters into conflict with the licenses authorized and promoted by the state.

In Guatemala, around 61 consultas comunitarias have been carried out since 2005, 28 of them in Huehuetenango. In 2008, Huehuetenango led the way by beginning to declare entire linguistic regions as Mining Free Zones, including the Huista, Chuj, Akateco, Mam and Q’anjob’al regions. While legal in nature, the declarations are also political tools on which to base the communities’ organized resistance to these territorial threats. After the victory of the consulta is achieved, it must be defended and enforced. They are the beginning, not the end of the fight.

When all else fails, work for autonomy

To many, the onslaught of resource extraction licenses in Guatemala represents the largest systemic threat to Guatemala’s indigenous peoples since the counterinsurgency of the 1980s. Faced with this, and the state’s blind eye, communities are looking inward.

“Communities are posing autonomy from the state … They are posing another way of administering local power,” explains Rivera. “The state has not responded to the word of indigenous peoples, but to a colonial power structure, by only guaranteeing the interests of national and multinational companies. Communities are understanding that if the state doesn’t work, they have to pose another alternative.”

The consulta itself, beyond a movement strategy, is an exercise in this kind of autonomy. It is an assertion of self-determination and the rights of indigenous people that is so fundamental to Guatemala’s anti-extraction movement. Self-determination is so central to this process, in fact, that when a bill was proposed in Congress to regulate the consultas comunitarias on a national level, the Consejo de los Pueblos del Occidente, or Western Peoples’ Council, opposed such regulation. (To read a full English version of the Western Peoples’ Council’s declaration on Barillas, click here.) For many, the consulta represents a revival of ancestral forms of decision-making, of participatory democracy and of identity as indigenous peoples.

Other forms of self-governance are emerging or taking on new life as part of this process as well. Many municipalities are reviving community authority structures, such as the Indigenous Mayoral Councils, or implementing their own justice systems. In some cases communities are promoting  alternative forms of economy, based in sustainable agriculture, to counter the extraction-based development model. Regional assembly bodies and councils have emerged, and in May of 2008 the Western Peoples’ Council was created; all of these spaces attempt to prioritize local leadership over political parties and large NGOs.

According to Rivera, a defensa del teritorio, or territorial defense, will rely heavily on the movement’s ability to create networks and connect these processes regionally and internationally, while continuing to defend the legitimacy of the consultas comunitarias through national and international legal strategies.

Alternative media and minimizing repression

The case of Barillas and its 18-day state of martial law are pivotal for Guatemala. With a military government that took power just a few months prior, a controversial head of state whose role as a military general during the internal conflict has implicated him in accusations of war crimes and genocide, and a new “iron fist” national policy, for many, Barillas was a test of how the government would respond to social conflict in rural areas. The use of force and militarization was at best a glimpse of what’s to come, or, at worst, just the beginning.

President Otto Perez Molina speaks to troops in Santa Cruz Barillas during martial law. Photo via Plaza Publica Archive.

Given President Otto Perez Molina’s links to the counterinsurgency campaign of the 1980s, many have compared the events in Barillas to the wartime repression of the past. Guatemala’s 36-year internal conflict led to the killing of over 200,000 civilians and the forced disappearance of over 40,000. The relative isolation of rural communities from urban centers enabled extreme violence in Guatemala’s countryside to go on largely unnoticed.

But new tools and a new dynamic have changed the playing field in a way that the case of Barillas has made apparent. The Cold War has given way to a War on Drugs, in which social movement actors are often criminalized or accused of being narcos, making organizing particularly difficult in regions with high levels of drug trafficking. As everyday people working for change in the past were painted as communists, the Guatemalan government has painted community leaders in Barillas as members of terrorist groups and drug cartels. However, this criminalization to justify militarized repression was countered by a new generation of media activists using blogs, internet radio broadcasting and an online campaign called We Are All Barillas to denounce what has been taking place in the highlands of Huehuetenango. According to Rivera:

Alternative media played a very important role in the case of Santa Cruz Barillas. The government mounted a massive media campaign about organized crime and drug trafficking … It was the alternative media that was able to penetrate social networks and spread information different from what the mass media was publishing. They were able to establish two versions of what took place, the official version of the state and the alternative version, which came from the people … Not all mass media, but some began publishing the information and questioning the martial law because of internet pressure. The state was forced to explain why they didn’t suspend the martial law, but their arguments had no basis. So we saw that the communities and alternative media were able to force the government to break the estado de sitio just days after its renewal.

“Speaking of the former military men of this government being linked to past repression, so is the mass media,” explains Filiberto Celada of the Independent Media Center – Guatemala:

They’re the same ones who didn’t publish anything about the massacres. There are things that, for the media, simply aren’t happening, don’t exist. In that sense, alternative media is breaking through the silence and sending information abroad … The amazing thing about the We Are All Barillas campaign was the level of coordination between small groups of people.

In 18 days the martial law was lifted largely due to national and international pressure. The movement in Barillas and throughout the country has maintained its resolve as a peaceful and democratic movement. The challenges it faces now with a new administration and increasing militarization of the region will be met with more coordinated media strategies, autonomous organizing and a strengthening of regional unity between peoples.

First published at Waging Non Violence.

Written by guest author Beth Geglia

Forwarded by:

AUTHOR: Cyril Mychalejko
URL: http://upsidedownworld.org
E-MAIL: cmychalejko [at] gmail.com

UNPFII logo

Feminist researcher Bina D’Costa and I were recently discussing a range of obstacles faced by the Jumma [1] women’s movement as well as all indigenous women’s movement today. D’Costa observed that one of the challenges that confront women’s political activism and rights based movements is to forge meaningful alliances and re-build linkages with indigenous human rights and women’s groups that the latter could also embrace as their own. Although in recent years a lot of mainstream Bengali women’s rights activists have spoken out about violence against indigenous women, there are still some communities, like the tea plantation workers and Saotal and Khasi women, whose issues have only been very sparsely addressed. And this is reflected in a lot of the national and international reporting on women’s rights.

The other side of this is of course how the indigenous leadership, including women leaders, has persistently failed to include women’s voices in high level forums. This year, despite the increasing number of cases of violence against women and girls in the indigenous areas in Dinajpur and in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, there were no indigenous women representing at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). Also, of course the debate is much larger than the Forum itself. It is just a symptom of the crisis in the women’s movement, a crisis that plagues all nationalist or even issue-based movements. It reminds me about how some men, demonstrating for their own democratic rights at Tahrir Square during the ‘Arab Spring’, had swooped on women journalists and sexually assaulted them, about how, questions about race and gender marginalization continue to be raised at present in America’s Occupy Wall Street movement.

Kalpana, a feminist activist had recognized the sexual/gendered politics within her own community much earlier, as Meghna Guhathakurta observes in her article ‘Kalpana’s lasting contribution’ (New Age, June 12, 2008). Guhathakurta writes, “…in most nationalist or ethnic movements the gender question becomes a subtext to the larger ‘national’ one.”

In a similar vein, D’Costa in her recent book Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes in South Asia (Routledge, 2011) notes that “structural factors and strategic choices have shaped the outcomes of particular policies followed by women’s movements within the country.” Perhaps this is also true of the Jumma women’s movement.

Kalpana was ‘vanished’ 16 years ago on this day, a day before the national parliamentary elections. Her brother Kalicharan recognized the military officer Lieutenant Ferdous Kaiser Khan of Kojoichari Army camp who, accompanied by 7-8 others in plainclothes, came to their house at 1:30 in the morning, blindfolded her and her brothers, and took them away. Her brothers returned. Kalpana is still ‘missing’. Despite overwhelming evidence against the Army officers, numerous calls for justice from national and international human rights activists, and several layers of ‘investigations’, there has been no development.

Kalpana was the general secretary of the Hill Women’s Federation, a student at the Baghaichari Kachalang College. Friends who knew her talked about her outspoken protest against army occupation in the CHT. After her death, the discovery of her diary and letters exchanged with comrades of the movement revealed her single-minded determination to fight against Bengali colonialism through militarization. Sixteen years after her disappearance Raja Devasish Roy speaks to New Age about meeting her, about her life and the investigation of the case and the effect of her struggle, in life and ‘disappearance’, on the Jumma women’s movement of today.

Raja Devasish Roy is the chief of the Chakma Administrative Circle, an official body, and the traditional raja of the Chakma community. He’s also an expert member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) for 2011-13. Barrister Devasish Roy is an advocate at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh.

HSA: In her life and in her disappearance, Kalpana Chakma has become an icon of the Jumma feminist movement. Her fights were not just against military oppression, but also the discrimination within the greater Jumma movement led by men. What do you think were the strongest areas in her struggle?

RDR: Three things, among others: (a) her deep insights into internal and externally-originated gender-based and other discrimination (b) her conviction, despite the odds, to struggle against the denial of the right of self-determination and against gender-based discrimination at the same time and (c) her moral courage to speak out and act based on those beliefs and convictions.

HSA: Please tell New Age readers a little about your interactions with her.

I met her only once, and briefly, at the house of the headman of her village in New Lalyaghona, which I was visiting, along with my (now late) wife and family, some months before her disappearance. She had joined the local people in welcoming our entourage and being hospitable to the guests.

HSA: How do you think her ideology and struggles are relevant to the Jumma women’s movement today?

Her courageous stand is a source of inspiration to Jumma women today to not give up the struggle, and to stay focused on the goal of ending discrimination against women, within their own society and overall, and of struggling for self-determination against racist and discriminatory forces.

HSA: I feel that the strength of the Jumma women is not the same as it was before the 1997 CHT ‘Peace’ Accord. This is reflected in the fact that the prevalence of sexual violence against Jumma women has grown, but there seems to be little in the way of retribution. Is it because of a crisis within the Jumma women’s movement or is it something else? What are your thoughts on this?

RDR: The Bangladeshi state is yet to learn to deal in context-specific ways with the pervasive discrimination practiced against Jummas and other indigenous peoples in general, and against Jumma women in particular. In combating sexual violence against indigenous women, there is a need for context-specific measures on prevention, deterrence, punishment and rehabilitation through legislative, judicial, executive and programmatic acts. Awareness-raising of communities is also essential. The aforesaid measures need to be informed by enquiry, assessment, analysis. The primary responsibility lies with the state. However, civil society as a whole shares this burden too. Jumma society as a whole has done little in this regard. Before the 1997 CHT Accord, women’s groups, such as the Hill Women’s Federation, had its own distinct identity, and relative autonomy, from regional political groups. This is no longer the case, both with regard to women’s organizations and those of students and youth. The Hill Women’s Federation – of which Kalpana was an office-bearer – in the case of both the Jana Samhati Samiti (JSS) and the United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF) are now little more than passive adjuncts to the aforesaid parties. Some of the women’s groups that are not affiliated with any political party have done admirable work. However, their work is limited to the urban centres, partly a result of insufficient support from national and regional political parties and human rights groups.

HSA: What do you think human rights activists generally and the Jumma women activists should do to put national and international pressure on the Government to solve the case of Kalpana Chakma’s disappearance? As a lawyer, what do you think are the legal loopholes and how can they be overcome?

RDR: The Bangladeshi state has not learnt to take effective measures against its errant security personnel when they have violated human rights, particularly if the matter concerns incidents in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Legally, there are no impediments to take punitive measures, as there is no limitation for such crimes, and security forces are not legally exempt from prosecution in such cases. If Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s assassination can be pursued decades after the event, so should it be in the case of crimes against others from humbler origins and acuter situations of disadvantage. And it can be so.

However, we cannot overlook the fact that the law is prevented from taking its own course on account of the lack of political support to end this culture of impunity, where members of the security forces and others are implicated. The intervention of the Supreme Court may be sought. The jurisdiction of the international human rights mechanisms can also be invoked, combined with media and other campaigns within and outside Bangladesh. I feel that a combined approach is necessary.

In the long run, I am confident that justice will prevail. For Kalpana, for Sagori, for Sujata, Alpana, Bishakha and countless others. We cannot and should not give up.

[1] The hill people identify themselves as ‘Jummas’ collectively, which refer to their use of shifting cultivation (Jhum cultivation).

AUTHOR: Hana Shams Ahmed
URL: http://hanashams.wordpress.com
E-MAIL: hana.shams.ahmed [at] gmail.com

This isn’t a math quiz. To put the question in non-numerical terms: where are women in the global economic crisis?

The movement of the 99 percent that began in the United States made visible the human beings who suffer the brutal inequality and injustice of an economic system that, in crisis, requires them to sacrifice even more. The mainstream emphasis on deficits and big banks relegated the human impact of the crisis to the feature pages or, worse, the obituaries. Women, who in many ways receive the brunt of the crisis, remain even more invisible. Economists and politicians scrambling to save the financial system leave out women as a group in their equations, except to rely implicitly on their unpaid work and the bonus economies receive from gender discrimination.

Yet women, especially poor women, perform economic miracles every day to ensure family survival. Their contributions go unregistered, and they themselves usually have little concept of the social role of their work. Economics has been mystified to shut out citizen participation and gender coded to exclude women. Ironically, the message that ‘there is no alternative’ is being actively enforced during a crisis that clearly demonstrates that there has to be an alternative.

The answer to the question “where are women in the global crisis?” is, of course, “everywhere.” The problem is making that omnipresence visible, organized, and active. The challenge is assuring that the road to economic recovery isn’t built on redoubling gender discrimination and the exploitation of women’s labor.

Last April, some two thousand women from 140 countries met in Istanbul to discuss not just where we are in the global crisis, but how to transform how we see and how we wield economic power.

For those of us who have witnessed the vicissitudes of the feminist movement over the past 30 years, the most astounding and profoundly important achievement of the conference, organized by the Association of Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), emerged the moment you walked in the door of the sprawling center on the strait of the Golden Horn. The women milling about the registration tables represented every region of the world. A broad diversity of religions and cultures was proudly affirmed in their dress. Differents age groups, colors, cultures, classes and beliefs came together at the Istanbul conference. The base of representation has broadened for a movement that might not always call itself “feminist,” but defines itself by fighting for women’s rights and equality in a world of multiple threats.

Lydia Alpizar, a Costa Rican feminist who directs AWID, explained that now more than ever women need tools to integrate economic issues into their many movements for human, economic and social rights across the globe. The women’s rights agenda has become so broad and so urgent that there’s a tendency to become entrenched in single issues, which presents the risk of missing the links and failing to grasp the broader meaning of what’s happening at a critical moment in history, she noted.

Unity in Diversity

Amid the diversity in Istanbul, women came together with a surprising level of agreement on key premises. First, economic inequality is the sign of our times, and as economic inequality grows, women face even deeper inequality in a system designed to discriminate. The use of women’s unpaid labor in what some feminist analysts call the “care economy” intensifies with inequality and is exploited to extremes under austerity measures.

There is also agreement, as expressed in the first plenary session by Turkish researcher Ipek Ilkkaracan, that this labor cannot—and should not—be commoditized. That is, the tasks of caring for others that women do every day can’t be entirely incorporated into the labor market and to do so would in many ways dehumanize what is essentially a labor of love. Women’s care work is one of the few spaces left that is organized along principles of solidarity, community, and bonds between people, rather than profit. The basics of the solution, she told the audience, will have to be some combination of creating more social recognition and organization of these tasks and moving forward on stalled efforts to get men to share domestic work.

Gita Sen, a pioneer in the field of gender and development, pointed out that women are the victims of inequality in a global crisis that does not affect everyone equally across the board. She noted that when we talk about improving conditions for indigenous people and other pressing social needs, we’re told there is no money, but there’s always money for bailing out the rich.

“We need to move to the needs of the 99 percent,” she told the crowd. “The welfare state is being hollowed out to continue with business as usual in the financial world, while the crisis is used as a means of blackmailing states and increasing the control of corporations.”

Sen expressed the most important consensus among the women activists who came to learn about the global economic context that constrains and defines their work: There can be no gender equality within the current economic development model.

She stated the problem in a rhetorical question: “Who wants a larger share of a poisoned pie?”

Life and Death Issues

Some speakers talked about development alternatives and others, like Lolita Chavez Ixcaquic, Quiché indigenous leader of Guatemala, talked about “alternatives to development.” All agreed that the equation that macroeconomic growth means greater general well-being has been thoroughly exposed as false.

“How do we say yes to life? In many ways: our community comes together around our meaning and existence and its close connection with nature – the sun, land and everything that gives us energy. We are told that we have to have the latest model of Blackberry, and that’s a kind of slavery. We identify what are our real needs are so we don’t reverse what we are doing. We are told we’re undeveloped, but are we? We don’t want American development or the American dream.”

Chavez and other especially indigenous participants spoke of a battle between life and death, where women are often on the front lines. Among many feminists and women activists, “Mother Earth” is far from being a new-age moniker. Rather, it is a central precept in the struggle for basic values representing the need to reconnect human society with the environment in a mutually beneficial relationship. Many workshops examined climate change and battles over land use and territories that have become a major focus of women’s organization, as the crisis initiates a new level of degradation and depredation.

Srilatha Batiwala, an Indian academic and activist, explained some of the connections between gender and resource control. “Gender and social power structures uphold differential control over material resources, as well as intangible resources, knowledge resources and human resources. These are maintained through the ideologies of inequality, social rules and norms, institutions and structures and more and more, violence or the threat of violence.”

Women from Mexico, Central America, Nepal, Colombia, the Middle East, and other places testified to the increasing use of violence against them, especially in the context of land and resource grabs, increasing militarization, and selective attacks on women human rights defenders, including those who defend the earth in indigenous territories and beyond.

More Questions

As usual, the conference raised more questions than answers. Women’s participation in the formal labor force seemed to get short shrift, leaving major challenges regarding union organization in a hostile economic environment and a heavily male-dominated environment.

The big challenges will have to be worked out in the daily practice of on-the-ground organizing. How do we go about humanizing the economic model, when scarcity is driving it toward more fragmentation, militarism, and aggressiveness? How can we build on concepts like the Andean indigenous “Buen Vivir” (Good living) and women’s defense of human relations and Mother Earth, to create real development alternatives? How can we make gender equality and justice an integral part of a larger agenda to transform the economic system?

Most difficult of all, how do we make our alternatives politically viable?

Many speakers noted that the main enemies of women’s rights have shape-shifted in recent years. Economist Susan George noted that today “financial markets tell governments what to do” and for that reason “the women’s movement has to join more coalitions, speak to people we don’t usually speak to—unions, education workers, faith, and environmental groups.”

“No single group can win by itself, ” she concluded.

No one left the Istanbul conference with clear marching orders or a road map. Women organizers left with tools to understand the economic environment they struggle in. We left with a greater understanding of the links between us– from region to region, from sector to sector, from woman to woman.

And everyone left with a renewed commitment to figure it out, step by step, empowering women in their daily lives toward solutions that respect women’s rights and build new paths toward strong and just communities, a healthy planet, and a happy future for our children.

AUTHOR: Laura Carlsen
URL: www.cipamericas.org and http://americasmexico.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: lecarlsen [at] gmail.com