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[Translation of an op-ed from La Jornada of Mexico City for March 1. See original here and the article by Felipe Calderón here.]

By Víctor M. Quintana S.

He will probably think that after reading his article published in Latin American Policy Journal they, like his entourage in Mexico, will say “Very well, Mr. President.” But what is certain is that only the indulgent professors, poorly informed concerning our beloved border, will swallow what Calderón claims about the success of his strategy against violence in Juárez.

In his article, “Todos Somos Juárez:  An Innovative Strategy to Tackle Violence and Crime,” Calderón relates that the strategy he put in place had three main components: sending in the army and the federal police; supporting local and state authorities in enforcing the law; and operating the Todos Somos Juárez program in order to reconstruct the battered social structure of the border. (more…)

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for July 24. See original here.]

by Israel Rodríguez

The production of gold in Mexico, dominated by foreign companies, most of them Canadian, has increased by 100 percent in the current administration, increasing from 43.7 tons in 2007, the first year of the Felipe Calderón administration, to 87 tons in 2011. The Canadian company Goldcorp Inc. became the largest producer of gold in Mexico, according to preliminary reports from the Cámara Minera Mexicana (Camimex).

The uncertain environment of the global economy, with low interest rates, a weakened US dollar and the currency war, kept gold in the state of shelter for large investments, which also hastened the opening of new mining operations and sparked investment in exploration for the metal.

The price of an ounce of gold rose from around 700 dollars in 2007 to 1,851 dollars in July, 2012, which translates to an increase of 164 percent. (more…)

The youth vote could change the election results

[Translation of an article from Página/12 of Buenos Aires, Argentina, for May 31, by writers from La Jornada of Mexico City. See original here.]

by Alonso Urrutia and Claudia Herrera

With a potential that could equal 30 percent of the electorate (if those up to 29 years of age are included), the uprising of the young in the midst of the electoral campaign could reverse the trends. The participation of the young is not only a criticism of Enrique Peña Nieto, the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) candidate, favored to win, but what he represents: corruption and impunity. Thus warns Enrique Cuna, a researcher for the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) who conducted a study financed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on youth participation in elections . (more…)

Four journalist killed in the state in the week preceding UN Press Freedom Day

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for May 4. See original here.]

by Luz María Rivera

Boca del Río, Veracruz, May 3 – The lifeless bodies of photojournalists Gabriel Huge, Guillermo Luna Varela and Esteban Rodríguez Rodríguez were discovered on Friday morning in the La Zamorana channel, which belongs to the Las Vegas II housing development north of this city, together with that of Irasema Becerra, a secretary at another newspaper and the girlfriend of one of the men. All the bodies had been dismembered and showed signs of torture. (more…)

(("No to reform of Article 24. Yes to the secular state." -- La Jornada photo by Francisco Olvera))

Constitutional reform seen as threat to secular state

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for March 29.  See original here.]

by Andrea Becerril and Víctor Ballinas

In a closed chamber yesterday, with empty galleries so no protesters could slip in, the PRI-PAN [Partido Revolucionario Institucional, Partido Acción Nacional] majority of the Senate had to work  hard to do it but finally attained the required vote and approved reforms to Article 24 of the constitution.

The change consists of adding to the concept of freedom of religion, already addressed in that provision of the document, the “freedom of conscience and ethical convictions.” (more…)

Despite constitution, Calderón requested US involvement

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for March 16. See original here, related article here and cable in question, as released by Wikileaks, here.]

by Roberto González Amador

Mexico is on the verge of becoming an importer of petroleum. Production of crude oil in the country is declining rapidly. “Despite some optimistic GOM [government of Mexico] forecasts, there are no realistic options for reversing this decline in the short to medium term.” This from a February, 2010, report to the State Department by Carlos Pascual, United States ambassador to Mexico.

In the cable, the diplomat reports that at the request of the administration of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa the United States government has become “quietly” involved in areas related to the domestic energy sector. (more…)

((La Jornada photo by Sanjuana Martinez))

What is common practice in US violates Mexican labor laws

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for February 5. See original here.]

By Sanjuana Martínez

It is 6:30 in the morning and workers are arriving at the corner of Gómez Morín and Roberto Garza Sada Streets. It is a place known for hiring temporary workers. There are bricklayers, drywall workers, plasterers, tile setters… Most of them are contracted by the day to work on construction projects for mansions in the city of San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León.

Don Gregorio Saldaña, 68 years old, is sitting on a wheelbarrow. He is wearing a baseball cap that hides his gray hair. His hands are covered with calluses and they look like stone, a result of working as a bricklayer, which has also given him hernias from carrying heavy loads. He has been unemployed for two months but a few days ago “an engineer” finally hired him for one of his projects . “We are hired by the day. It is slow. Sometimes you don’t know if they are going to pay you or not but what else can we do? That’s what we live on,” he says. (more…)

((La Jornada photo by Jesús Villaseca))

Many leave food distribution event empty handed and still hungry after traveling miles

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for January 19. See original here. Over the weekend of January 14 and 15, several news sources reported that some 50 members of indigenous Rarámuri communities in the Sierra Tarahumara, or Sierra Madre Occidental, in the northern state of Chihuahua, had committed suicide during the month of December as a result of extreme hunger brought on by the serious drought, which has resulted in the failures of staple food crops like corn and beans.]

By Arturo García Hernández

Creel, Chihuahua, January 18 – Nobody has to starve to death to prove that there is a food emergency in the Sierra Tarahumara. The serious part is that it happens every year and no basic solutions are offered. The worst is that there is always somebody trying to take advantage politically. At least that is what was seen today in the Rarámuri community of San Ignacio de Arareko, adjoining Creel, where Governor César Duarte held the first distribution of food to ease the situation after the scandal brought on by the spreading of the rumor on Twitter and Facebook that there had been mass suicides because of the hunger. (more…)

‘Nothing to celebrate’

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for December 29. See original here. With considerable power vested in the executive branch, politics in Mexico is often described as cyclical, with six-year cycles, or sexenios, corresponding to the six-year terms for which presidents are elected.]

By Fernando Camacho Servín

As assassinations and disappearances of activists continued, the year that is about to end may have been the worst in this sexenio in terms of human rights, which positions the country “in a serious democratic deficit” and with an exponential increase in the number of victims of violence, warned members of organizations that defend individual rights, as they assessed 2011.

Gloria Ramírez, president of the Academia Mexicana de Derechos Humanos, declared, “This has been the worst year of the sexenio because the serious conditions that we have been through are getting worse. There are still assassinations, femicides and forced disappearances. It has been a brutal year and there is nothing to celebrate.” (more…)

Only one communal leader survives

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for December 22. See original here.]

By Blanche Petrich

The minutes of the last meeting that federal and state authorities of Michoacán held in Morelia last November 28 with community leaders from Ostula in an attempt to curb the criminal activities of armed groups that ravage the coastal region bear at the bottom the wavering signatures of Trinidad de la Cruz Crisóstomo and Santos Leyva, the aging leaders, in their 70s, of the Nahua indigenous movement who for decades kept alive the desire to recover the lands on the edge of the town of Aquila that had been taken from them.

Santos Leyva was president of the commons. His son, Pedro Leyva, had been an outstanding leader in recent years and had carried the struggle to other venues of resistance, like the Congreso Nacional Indígena and the Movimiento por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad. He was assassinated on October 6. He was victim number 27 of the unrelenting process of extermination suffered by that people, who had decided three years earlier to establish a new settlement, which they named Xayacalan, “Place of the Masks,” after their ritual dance of the Xayakates. (more…)

((José - Diario Tiempo photo))

[Translation of an Agence France Presse article as published in Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for November 25. See original here and related article here.]

Tapachula, Mexico – Lying on a bed in a shelter for the undocumented, Honduran José Paz is recuperating from the amputation of his right foot, which occurred when he was pushed by a policeman and fell under the wheels of the “Train of Death,” which at the same time cut off his American dream.

“It is very painful when you remember how things happened. That federal policeman pushed me and I fell under the train, the wheel cut off my foot. This happened and now, today, I don’t want to go to the United States for that damned American dream. That is what fucked me up,” he told AFP in an angry tone.

José is one of the tens of thousands who every year board, on the run, the so-called “Train of Death” or “La Bestia,” a long, slow freight train on an uncertain schedule which, starting in Arriaga, Chiapas, in southern Mexico, takes a northern route toward Oaxaca and Veracruz with its load of corn, cement and undocumented migrants. (more…)

((José Francisco Blake))

Second interior minister dies in suspicious plane crash

[Translation of an article from El Faro of San Salvador, El Salvador, for November 14. See original here.]

By Blanche Petrich

Important pieces of the puzzle that is Mexico these days have again fallen into place. Faced with a new calamity – a helicopter crashed on a hillside, the bodies of eight officials and military officers amid the twisted metal – the figure of President Felipe Calderón is weakened even more. In a period of three years, mourning has befallen his cabinet on two occasions. First a secretary of the interior, Juan Camilo Mouriño, dies in a plane crash (September 21, 2008) [sic. -- it was in fact on November 4, 2008] and now José Francisco Blake, his successor, dies in another airplane accident, last November 11.

But can lightning strike twice in the same place? Science and common sense would say that the probability is minimal. But nevertheless…

In fact we can speak of three bolts of lightning, three air “accidents” that kill three cabinet members in a period of only six years and leave strategic national security ministries leaderless during the past two Partido Acción Nacional administrations, if we include the helicopter crash in which José Ramón Huerta, the public security minister in the previous administration of Vicente Fox (September 21, 2005), died. (more…)