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On Wikileaks, on the Mexican student movement, on freedom of the press

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

by Stella Calloni

Rio de Janeiro, June 21 – The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, said on Thursday that countries should struggle to achieve real freedom of the press, as part of a broader concept, as well as the right of all citizens to freedom of expression, which the powerful media are intent on privatizing with the goal of making profits. In this respect, he pointed hopefully to the rebellion of the university students of Mexico in the face of the power of the media, which he described as at some times dictatorial. (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…)

The perverse nature of certain money

[Translation by Larry Goldsmith of comments from the blog Paquito, el de Cuba for September 4. See original here, diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks here, Miami Herald article mentioned below here, in Spanish, and here in English, and other related articles here.]

It didn’t appear in any pro-government Cuban publication; this time it wasn’t even necessary for State Security to unmask any of its agents: it is a document of none other than the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba — a gift from Wikileaks — that confirms US government financing of “Project B: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual (LGBT)” of the so-called dissidence.

The first thing I want to say is that this revelation hardly makes me happy. When I wrote about the march of nine people by a group of supposedly “independent” activists last June on the Prado, what hurt me was this apparent political manipulation of a cause to which so many of us in Cuba try to contribute our grain of sand — the effort to overcome homophobia and promote the freedom of sexual orientation and gender identity as a human right in our society. (more…)

[Translation of an article from El Expreso of Guayaquil, based on a dispatch by the Spanish news agency Efe, from April 5. See original article here and diplomatic cable in question here.]

Ecuador has declared the US ambassador in Quito, Heather Hodges, persona non grata and has asked her to leave the country in response to a cable signed by her and released by Wikileaks concerning corruption in the Ecuadorian police force.

“We have asked her to leave the country as soon as possible,” Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño said today in a press conference. (more…)

[Translations of two articles from La Jornada of Mexico City for February 14, both by Roberto González Amador, on newly released Wikileaks cables. See original articles here and here and Wikileaks cables here and here. More complete list of recently released cables on Mexico here.]

Felipe Calderón, Beatriz Paredes, Jesús Ortega -- La Jornada photos

Calderón and political parties concealed information on poverty
Diplomatic cable reveals plot to withhold data until after 2009 elections

The panista [Partido Acción Nacional] administration of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and opposition parties reached an agreement in 2009 to withhold figures on the increase of poverty in the country until after the legislative elections of that year, in which the Partido Revolucionario Institucional won the greatest number of seats in Congress, according to a report by the United States embassy in Mexico.

Information on poverty is “politically sensitive” and it is more so during a campaign season. The cable from the United States embassy, supplied to La Jornada by Wikileaks, gives an account of an agreement between the government and the opposition to conceal the data.

The cable cites “semi-independent analysis based on official 2008 figures” to show that poverty increased from 42.6 percent of the total population in 2006, the year Calderón assumed the presidency, to 47.4 percent in 2008. Not mentioned is what happened in 2009, when the economy fell into recession. (more…)

García Padgett nominated as military attaché to embassy

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for February 11. See original here.]

By Arturo Cano

Janet Napolitano can relax. The man who blocked “the plan to carry to the heart of the United States a socialism, a communism, a chavismo disguised as democracy,” the general who kept “narcotrafficking and terrorism” from arriving in US territory, is coming to Mexico.

Miguel Ángel García Padgett, one of the four main perpetrators of the coup d’état that ousted President Manual Zelaya in June, 2009, will be the military attaché to the Honduran embassy in our country.

After his ascendancy to the highest military position in his country was vetoed by United States Ambassador Hugo Llorens, according to a cable released by the Wikileaks web site [here], García Padgett, the commanding general of the Honduran army, will return to the place where he received part of his training, in the Colegio Militar. (more…)

Embassy reported Micheletti took advantage of political crisis to sign lucrative contracts

[Translation of an article from El País of Madrid, Spain, for January 29. See original article here and leaked cables, in English, here, here, here, here, here and here.]

By Francisco Peregil

In the 250,000 Wikileaks documents, the expression “banana republic” appears 51 times. Diplomats from countries like Turkey, Russia, Morocco and Spain (Miguel Ángel Moratinos in March, 2004) made clear to their counterparts from the United States that their countries were not banana republics. And yet in the most recent case of a coup d’état in Latin America, the concept is just below the surface in many telegrams but it does not appear at all.

The cables drafted in the United States embassy in Honduras after the June 28, 2009, coup against President Manuel Zelaya display everything that is usually associated with a country with no reliable institutions and under the shadow of the United States: a politician, Roberto Micheletti, who occupied the presidency in the name of honesty and in his despotism had to be threatened with revocation of his visa before he would surrender his position. Until the last minute, Micheletti, according the the embassy, took advantgage of the crisis the coup d’état had provoked to arrange crooked contracts. (more…)

Academics point out enormous disparity in costs to Mexico and US

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for January 26. See original here.]

By Emir Olivares, Andrea Becerril and Ciro Pérez Silva

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Mexico evoked several different readings among academics and politicians. For the former, it represents a demand by Washington that the federal government not change its strategy against organized crime; senators of the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional), the PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática) and the PT (Partido del Trabajo), meanwhile, consider that the purpose was “damage control” in bilateral relations after Wikileaks revelations in which United States diplomats were critical of the army and government authorities.

Academics and politicians agreed that there are enormous disparities in the countries’ struggle against organized crime: while Mexico has spent more than seven billion dollars during the Calderón administration and has seen more than 35,000 deaths, in addition to the 55,000 military personnel occupied in the struggle, in some places in the United States there are efforts to legalize the use of drugs and the businesses of arms and drug dealing are reporting enormour profits. (more…)