Le blogueur “El 5anto” introuvable depuis six jours, nouvelle alerte postélectorale

Le blog El 5antuario a alerté, ce 14 septembre 2012, sur sa propre page de la disparition de son fondateur connu sous le nom de Ruy Salgado ou “El 5anto”.

“La possibilité d’une disparition volontaire le dispute pour l’instant à celle d’un enlèvement, voire pire. Le temps passe et la semaine écoulée alimente légitimement l’inquiétude. Dans l’hypothèse la plus optimiste, Ruy Salgado ne serait pas le seul à avoir choisi le silence temporaire, de plus en plus de journalistes mexicains se portant candidats à l’exil, de leur région ou du pays. L’affaiblissement d’El 5antuario constitue un nouveau revers pour la libre circulation de l’information, déjà malmenée dans le contexte postélectoral. Tous les moyens doivent être engagés pour localiser Ruy Salgado ou du moins lui permettre de reprendre ses activités en toute sécurité”, a déclaré Reporters sans frontières.

Ruy Salgado est introuvable depuis le 8 septembre dernier. Il devait assister, le lendemain, sur la place centrale du Zócalo à Mexico, au discours du candidat de gauche à la présidentielle Andrés Manuel López Obrador annonçant son départ du Parti de la Révolution démocratique (PRD) pour le Mouvement de régénération nationale (MORENA). Les soutiens et contributeurs d’El 5antuario tiendront Ruy Salgado pour “disparu” s’il ne réapparaît pas dans les quarante-huit prochaines heures. Le site fournira alors toutes les informations utiles à une enquête judiciaire.

Très engagé dans la couverture du processus électoral controversé du 1er juillet dernier, El 5antuario s’est fait une spécialité de dénoncer la corruption à l’œuvre au sein des institutions. Certains collaborateurs du site sont eux-mêmes témoins du phénomène, dans le cadre de l’emploi public qu’ils occupent. Par souci de sécurité, les collaborateurs d’El 5antuario sont anonymes : ils utilisent un faux nom, ne se connaissent pas personnellement, et apparaissent dans leur vidéo dissimulés sous un masque de “lucha libre” (catch). Ces précautions n’ont pas empêché Ruy Salgado et son blog de faire l’objet de graves menaces ces derniers mois, comme il l’a lui-même signalé :

Mécanisme bloqué

Le jour même de la disparition de Ruy Salgado, une vingtaine d’ONG engagées dans la défense de la liberté d’expression - parmi lesquelles Article 19 et AMARC (Association mondiale des radiodiffuseurs communautaires) -, ont dénoncé le processus d’élaboration du Mécanisme fédéral de protection des défenseurs des droits de l’homme et des journalistes. Ce mécanisme est imposé par la réforme constitutionnelle fédéralisant les atteintes à la liberté d’informer désormais promulguée.

Les ONG dénoncent un manque de transparence dans la sélection des organisations consultées et demandent à ce que le choix soit soumis à un examen public. D’après elles, le gouvernement n’a rien précisé des critères de recrutement ni des compétences d’organisations appelées à siéger au sein du Conseil consultatif dédié à ce nouveau mécanisme. La coordinatrice exécutive du Mécanisme, Omeheira Lopez Reyna, a refusé d’admettre une erreur de méthodologie mais s’est dite prête, devant Reporters sans frontières, à rouvrir les pourparlers sur la composition du Conseil. Notre organisation soutient l’exigence de transparence manifestée par d’autres.

Source: Reporters Without Borders

Mr. Zedillo - Helguera

ahelguera@jornada.com.mx

Source: La Jornada

U.S. Moves to Grant Former Mexican President Immunity in Suit

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

Published: September 8, 2012

MEXICO CITY — A former Mexican president who is now a scholar at Yale University should be immune from a civil lawsuit brought against him in the United States in connection with a 1997 massacre during his term, the State Department said Friday.

Lawyers for victims of the massacre, who brought the suit last September against the former president, Ernesto Zedillo, said Saturday that if a federal judge concurs, as they generally do, the decision “will prevent us from proceeding with the case against him and presenting proof of his responsibility.”

The State Department said Mr. Zedillo should have immunity because the suit, filed in federal court in Connecticut, concerned actions taken in his official capacity, which generally allow heads of state freedom from the hook of American courts. The filing noted that the Mexican government had asked that immunity be granted.

“The complaint is predicated on former President Zedillo’s actions as president, not private conduct,” Harold Hongju Koh, a State Department legal adviser and a professor at Yale Law School, wrote in a letter accompanying the filing. He said the complaint’s “generalized allegations” did not give the department any reason to rule differently.

The lawsuit, which alleges war crimes and crimes against humanity, has generated speculation in Mexico that it has more to do with settling political scores; Mr. Zedillo is abhorred by some members of his party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, for allowing reforms that contributed to its downfall in 2000.

US: Don’t Recommend Immunity for Mexico Ex-President Ernesto Zedillo

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

Allegations of Responsibility Should Be Evaluated by Courts

The US State Department should not issue a recommendation to grant the former president of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo, immunity in a civil suit, Human Rights Watch said. The State Department is expected to notify a US district court judge in Connecticut on or before September 7, 2012 of its recommendation regarding whether Zedillo, who served from 1994 to 2000, should be granted immunity in a lawsuit alleging his responsibility for a massacre carried out when he was president.

The plaintiffs in the civil suit, brought under the Alien Tort Statute, claim that Zedillo is responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, and other crimes in relation to the killing of 45 unarmed men, women and children in the community of Acteal, Chiapas, on December 22, 1997.

The merits of the plaintiffs’ claims should be evaluated by a judge, rather than pre-emptively thrown out because the defendant was formerly a ranking government official, Human Rights Watch said. Functional immunity of state officials should not be invoked to shield them from accountability for serious crimes committed in violation of international law (considered to be jus cogens norms), such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. In criminal cases the International Court of Justice has recognized immunity in narrow circumstances for high-level incumbents. .

Offering immunity in the circumstances of this case would be inappropriate and set an overly broad precedent contrary to the rights of victims and the evolution of international law. The US is party to several international treaties that impose an obligation to respect, protect, and fulfill the human rights protected in the treaties. Those treaties also guarantee victims of human rights violations a right of access to an effective legal remedy, and to grant immunity in this case would be an arbitrary interference with that right.   

Source: Human Rights Watch

Whooops!

Very late in the Elector Tribunal hearings, there were accusations by the Citizen’s Movement and AMLO camp that State of Mexico funds were transferred illegally to the Peña Nieto campaign (via third parties).  At the time, as Aguachile noted, the evidence was flimsy, and inflammatory accusations that Banco de México President Agustín Carstens was covering up the illegal transfers were seen as preposterous.

As my favorite villain (Auric Goldfinger) once said, “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence.  But thee times is enemy Although Carstens doesn’t seem to have any involvement in any of this, it does appear that Scotiabank did change documents on receipts from the State of Mexico, ostensibly to correct a  routing error.  HOWEVER…

Raúl Murrieta Cummings,  the State of Mexico’s Treasurer, now admits that the state made at least three funds transfers to individuals — supposedly resulting from “bank error.”  Presumably the transfer that got the Citizen’s Movement all hot and bothered was one.

Murrieta when asked about these transfer, said that one was to a “una señora” — which tells us nothing, and seemed to be meant that one shouldn’t look too deeply into the matter.  Coincidence?

Unverified photo of Marcos Gonzaléz Pak

That third admitted “misdirected payment”, has opened the way for “enemy action”… or at least unfriendly questioning of the state Treasurer by the leftist opposition parties.  And, if it doesn’t only call into question the State of Mexico’s financial operations, it , it raises some seriousl questions about the way Scotiabank operates.

On July 26 of this year, the State of Mexico transferred to the Scotiabank account of one Marcos González Pak 50,000,000 pesos (about 4 milllion U.S. dollars).   Marcos Gonzáles is the owner of a small manufacturing firm in Chihuahua which doesn’t seem to do any business, or provide anything to the government of the State of Mexico, and Mr. González refuses to divulge his political affiliations.

Source: The Mex Files

Mexico's Lopez Obrador leaves coalition to form new movement

Tens of thousands of Lopez Obrador's supporters attended a rally at Mexico City's Zocalo square

The defeated candidate in Mexico's presidential election, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has announced he is leaving his left-wing coalition to form a new political youth movement.

Speaking to tens of thousands of his supporters in Mexico City, Mr Lopez Obrador said he would focus on changing Mexico through the new group, Morena.

He said he left on good terms, after losing two presidential elections.

He refused to accept the results of July's poll, saying it was fraudulent.

Analysts say his departure from the main coalition could weaken the left in Mexico.

"This isn't a rupture," Mr Lopez Obrador said at the rally in Zocalo Square.

"I have separated from the parties that form the Progressive Movement, but I must express my deep gratitude to all party leaders and supporters."

Morena, also known as the National Regeneration Movement, has yet to be formally registered as a party.

Civil resistance

Mr Lopez Obrador, who ran in the election for Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), also repeated his insistence that he would not recognise Enrique Pena Nieto as the legitimate president of Mexico.

He called for a campaign of "peaceful civil resistance", but stressed that protests should not turn violent, as this would only "perpetuate the regime".

After a recount of half of the vote, Mr Pena Nieto was declared the winner of July's election, with 38.2% of the vote to 31.6% of his main opponent.

Mr Lopez Obrador rejected the result, accusing Mr Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, of buying votes and favourable media coverage.

But on 31 August, Mexico's Electoral Court rejected his appeal, saying there was no evidence of irregularities in the campaign or the vote.

Addressing his supporters in the capital's main square, Mr Lopez Obrador accused the court's judges of "turning a blind eye" to the irregularities in the election, describing them as "characters without conviction".

Mr Pena Nieto is due to be sworn in on 1 December for a six-year term.

The BBC's Will Grant in Mexico says that the apparently mutual decision to split with the traditional left suggests Mr Lopez Obrador does not have wide support for continuing a long-term fight against the inevitable succession of Mr Pena Nieto to the presidency.

Six years ago, after losing the presidential election by a narrow margin, he led weeks of protests that caused disruption in central areas of the capital.

This time, he says he does not want to disrupt the lives of ordinary citizens.

"We are fighting for ideals," he said. "It is a matter of honour."

Source: BBC

ZÓCALO MAGAZINE DISTRIBUTION BLOCKED

A magazine wholesaler owned by media giant Televisa suspended August delivery of the monthlyZócalo magazine following critical coverage of Televisa’s key role in the July 1 presidential election.

Distribution company Intermex failed to supply copies of issue 150 to more than 160 branches of the Sanborn’s chain of stores, a major magazine retailer. The apparent circulation boycott affected sales of an edition whose cover story focused on the political power of Televisa, the magazine’s editors noted to Reporters Without Borders.

“Failure to distribute is a form of censorship,” the press freedom organization said. “Unfortunately, this is not the first recent case.” During the vote-counting period in July, the organization said, two editions of the weekly Proceso were not distributed to kiosks of the Soriana chain, which had reportedly played a role in alleged electoral fraud on behalf of the Revolutionary Institutional Party – the PRI – whose candidate was declared the winner. Enrique Peña Nieto is scheduled to take office on 1 December.

Reporters Without Borders demanded that the undistributed copies be returned to Zócalo, and that the magazine be compensated for lost sales.

Mexican Diplomat Traded Secrets with Private Intel Firm Stratfor, WikiLeaks Documents Reveal

By Bill Conroy
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
August 9, 2012

Exchange of Sensitive Information Focused on the US/Mexican Operations in the Drug War

US soldiers are operating inside Mexico as part of the drug war and the Mexican government provided critical intelligence to US agents in the now-discredited Fast and Furious gun-running operation, a Mexican diplomat claims in email correspondence with a Texas-based private intelligence firm.

The emails, obtained and made public by the nonprofit media organization WikiLeaks, also disclose details of a secret meeting between US and Mexican officials held in 2010 at Fort Bliss, a US Army installation located near El Paso, Texas. The meeting was part of an effort to create better communications between US undercover operatives in Mexico and the Mexican federal police, the Mexican diplomat reveals.

However, the diplomat expresses concern that the Fort Bliss meeting was infiltrated by the “cartels,” whom he contends have “penetrated both US and Mexican law enforcement.”

The Mexican diplomat is referred to as “MX1” in the some of the emails obtained by WikiLeaks but also identified by name in others.

The description of MX1 in the emails matches the publicly available information on Fernando de la Mora Salcedo, a Mexican foreign service officer who studied law at the University of New Mexico, served in the Mexican Consulate in El Paso, Texas, and is currently stationed in the Mexican Consulate in Phoenix.

US, Mexican Officials Brokering Deals with Drug “Cartels,” WikiLeaks Documents Show

By Bill Conroy
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

August 20, 2012

Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla after his arrest in Mexico City

Revelation Exposed in Email Correspondence Between Private Intelligence Firm and Mexican Diplomat

A high-ranking Sinaloa narco-trafficking organization member’s claim that US officials have struck a deal with the leadership of the Mexican “cartel” appears to be corroborated in large part by the statements of a Mexican diplomat in email correspondence made public recently by the nonprofit media group WikiLeaks.

The Mexican diplomat’s assessment of the US and Mexican strategy in the war on drugs, as revealed by the email trail, paints a picture of a “simulated war” in which the Mexican and US governments are willing to show favor to a dominant narco-trafficking organization in order to minimize the violence and business disruption in the major drug plazas, or markets.

A similar quid-pro-quo arrangement is precisely what indicted narco-trafficker Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, who is slated to stand trial in Chicago this fall, alleges was agreed to by the US government and the leaders of the Sinaloa “Cartel” — the dominate narco-trafficking organization in Mexico. The US government, however, denies that any such arrangement exists.

Mexican soldiers arrested Zambada Niebla in late March 2009 after he met with DEA agents in a posh Mexico City hotel, a meeting arranged by a US government informant who also is a close confident of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia (Zambada Niebla’s father) and Chapo Guzman — both top leaders of the Sinaloa drug organization. The US informant, Mexican attorney Humberto Loya Castro, by the US government’s own admission in court pleadings in the Zambada Niebla criminal case, served as an intermediary between the Sinaloa Cartel leadership and US government agencies seeking to obtain information on rival narco-trafficking organizations.

According to Zambada Niebla, he and the rest of the Sinaloa leadership, through the US informant Loya Castro, negotiated an immunity deal with the US government in which they were guaranteed protection from prosecution in exchange for providing US law enforcers and intelligence agencies with information that could be used to compromise rival Mexican cartels and their operations.

“The United States government considered the arrangements with the Sinaloa Cartel an acceptable price to pay, because the principal objective was the destruction and dismantling of rival cartels by using the assistance of the Sinaloa Cartel — without regard for the fact that tons of illicit drugs continued to be smuggled into Chicago and other parts of the United States and consumption continued virtually unabated,” Zambada Niebla’s attorneys argue in pleadings in his case.

Mexico’s Peña Nieto hires US propaganda firm

Posted by Bill Conroy - July 22, 2012 at 12:18 am

CLSA is same media-spin company used by Honduran coup regime

The de facto president-elect of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto has hired Washington, DC-based public relations firm Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates to help him spread positive propaganda during the transition period prior to his official swearing-in as the majordomo of Mexico on Dec. 1 of this year.

Pena Nieto’s choice of CLSA is interesting in light of current allegations of vote buying and money laundering that have been leveled against him and his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI in its Spanish initials) by the opposition parties in Mexico. 

CLSA is the same US image-building firm that was retained in the fall of 2009 by the Honduran regime led by “de facto” President Roberto Micheletti in the wake of its coup d'état in that Central American nation.

CLSA’s Foreign Agents Registration Act filing with the Department of Justice described its mission in Honduras as promoting Honduran President and Usurper Roberto Micheletti’s dictatorship as a democracy “through the use of media outreach, policy maker contacts and events, and public dissemination of information to government staff of government officials, news media and non-government groups” all with the goal of advancing “the level of communication, awareness and attention about the political situation in Honduras.”

PRI runs amok in Neza… and ?

Antorcha blockade at Chicoloapan (Anima Politica: http://www.animalpolitico.com/2012/09/miembros-de-antorcha-campesina-bloquean-transporte-publico-en-edomex/

According to several different news  sources “rumors” that Movimiento Antorcha Campesina has been attacking businesses and homes in Nezahualcóyotl, just inside the State of Mexico are just that, and are being denied by the state authorities (who claim nothing is happening)-

However, media is starting to report on Antorchista blockades of metro stations (the Mexico City Metro extends into Neza) and on social media, people are saying masked Antorchistas cut telephone lines and were shooting at people.

At least the blockades are confirmed, and various reports on Antorcha websites report on confrontations between their own taxi-driver’s union and members of a PRD-connected bicycle-taxi union which has left at least two people dead.

Movimiento Antorcha Campesina is a PRI “popular sector”, and its militants have been known to resort to violence before.  Nezahualcóyotl has been a PRD stronghold within the State of Mexico, which makes it appear that a fight between two unions (basically over access to prime pick-up locations outside Metro stations) is in reprisal for the local voters’ continual support of the “wrong” party, with the violence said to be targeted at businesses owned by PRD supporters and individual PRD party members, whether connected to the bicycle-taxi union or not.

I know there were many in the “observer community” who expected some kind of trouble following the “problematic” Peña Nieto victory, but most were assuming the left would be blocking streets and annoying commuters and maybe… maybe… breaking a few windows here and there.  They tend to forget that PRI violence against the left in the wake of seriously contested elections has happened before.  Following Carlos Salinas’ “victory” over Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas in 1988, there was a series of assassinations, unexplained auto accidents and and other violent deaths of PRD loyalists which, thankfully, did not escalate (as it easily could have) into … politics by other means (“power comes from the barrel of a gun”, as Mao Zedong put it).

While I have always said that Mexican politics is a blood-sport, and have no illusions that politicians here “play nice”,  I have to add that the major violence hasn’t been coming from the Left… who tend to still bring their  library books  (ok, and maybe their blackberries and cell phone cameras, too) to what could be a gun fight.

Damn well better hope the pen is mightier than the sword (or whatever the cyber variation of that might be).

Source: The Mex Files

The Great Egg Crisis hits Mexico

By William Booth, Published: September 3

Alexandre Meneghini/AP - A city worker sells eggs at government subsidized prices as people line up outside the truck in Mexico City, Aug. 24, 2012. The Mexican government is battling an egg shortage and hoarding that have caused prices to spike in a country.

MEXICO CITY — It is the Great Mexican Egg Crisis, and it will not be over easy, though there will be puns, especially in the Mexican press, which is cracking a lot of jokes.

But seriously: The public here is faced with an extreme shortage of eggs in a country that has the highest-per-capita egg consumption on the planet.

Highest being 22.4 kilograms (about 50 pounds) per person in 2011, or more than 400 eggs a year, depending on the size of the egg, according to Mexico’s National Poultry Industry.

There has been hoarding, price spikes and two-hour lines to buy eggs. Some retail outlets have been forced to limit how many cartons a day a customer can buy.

American hens have been called to the rescue.

An outbreak of AH7N3 avian flu virus is partly responsible. The deadly bird flu was detected in June on poultry farms in the Pacific coast state of Jalisco, and Mexican farmers and the government acted with lethal authority and slaughtered 11 million chickens to prevent its spread.

U.S. workers shot in Mexico may be CIA employees

By William Booth and Greg Miller, Published: August 29

STRINGER/MEXICO/REUTERS - U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Earl Anthony Wayne (L) and Mexico's President Felipe Calderon sit together during an event in Mexico City August 28, 2012. Calderon on Tuesday promised justice for two U.S. agents as new details emerged on how they were allegedly shot at by federal police officers in plain clothes while heading to a Mexican marine base.

TRES MARIAS, MEXICO — Mexican President Felipe Calderon apologized to the United States on Tuesday for an attack last week in which two U.S. government workers were wounded when Mexican federal police fired multiple rounds at their armored U.S. Embassy vehicle.

Speaking at a forum on Mexico’s security situation, Calderon turned to U.S. Ambassador E. Anthony Wayne and promised that the Mexican attorney general would get to the bottom of the case. Calderon also suggested that 12 federal police officers arrested Monday for alleged involvement in the shooting might have ties to criminal organizations.

Calderon’s comments coincided with new indications that the wounded U.S. officials were CIA employees. The agency link was first reported in the Mexican media. U.S. public records suggest that the name reportedly used by one of the shooting victims was a CIA cover identity associated with a post office box in Dunn Loring, Va. The agency declined to comment.

Calderon also did not address those reports Tuesday.

The CIA has expanded its presence in Mexico significantly in recent years as part of a broader U.S. effort to assist the Mexican government’s crackdown on drug cartels. Former senior CIA officials said the agency has shared intelligence with Mexico and helped its elite counter-narcotics teams root out corruption and identify officers with ties to drug lords.

But the former officials said the CIA has been frustrated by delays that can last months before Mexican authorities mount operations based on U.S.-provided intelligence and acknowledged that lingering mistrust makes the agency reluctant to share its most sensitive information even with vetted Mexican units.

Top Mexican officials have long denied or played down links between the CIA and their military.

The two U.S. employees and a Mexican navy captain serving as an interpreter were heading Friday to a navy training camp south of Mexico City when, the U.S. 

Embassy says, they were ambushed.

GlobalNoise October 13

Via: el5antuario.org

Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho: 'I don't scare easily'

Emine Saner

The Guardian, Saturday 1 September 2012

In Mexico we need good journalists. It’s important. I want to be there to see the change
Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

Lydia Cacho is one of Mexico's most fearless journalists. Her investigations have led to attempts on her life, and now she has been forced to flee her country. What next?

In 2005, Lydia Cacho was approached by several police officers. They bundled her into a van and for the 20 hours it took to drive from Cancun in southern Mexico, where she lives, north to the city of Puebla she was, she says, "tortured". Sexual assault was threatened. A gun was pushed into her mouth. A sickening see-saw: "I kept thinking one minute I was going to die, then that I would survive."

When they arrived, a female guard told her she would be raped in jail. In fact, a network of friends, contacts and activists swung into action and she was bailed. Attempts on her life continued, and she has become well known as one of Mexico's bravest journalists. A recent estimate put the number killed there since 2006 at 67. Amid this, Cacho started work on her next book.

This story tells you several things about Cacho and the world she works in: alleged corruption (tapes surfaced that appeared to show her arrest was orchestrated by a man she had written about, alleging he had connections to a paedophile ring), the vulnerability of Mexico's journalists, and that Cacho is not somebody who can be silenced. Her new book, Slavery Inc: the Untold Story of International Sex Trafficking, is about to be published in the UK. Although she has lived with death threats for years, she took the most recent one four weeks ago seriously enough to leave the country.

Mexique : la gauche appelle à manifester contre l'élection de Peña Nieto

Le Monde.fr | 31.08.2012 à 08h08 • Mis à jour le 31.08.2012 à 17h38

Le nouveau président mexicain, Enrique Peña Nieto, à Mexico, lundi 2 juillet. | REUTERS/CLAUDIA DAUT

Le Tribunal fédéral électoral du Mexique a rejeté jeudi 30 août à l'unanimité le recours en invalidation déposé par la gauche contre l'élection d'Enrique Peña Nieto, du Parti révolutionnaire institutionnel (PRI) à l'élection présidentielle du 1^er juillet. Les sept juges du tribunal ont estimé qu'aucune des accusations de la coalition de gauche sur les achats de vote ou les financements irréguliers n'avait été étayée par des preuves.

Les juges ont rejeté la totalité des accusations selon lesquelles l'élection avait été marquée par de multiples violations des principes constitutionnels de l'équité. "Il ne suffit pas de les dénoncer, il faut les prouver", souligne le projet voté par le tribunal. "La demande d'invalidation de l'élection est sans fondement", a déclaré le président du tribunal, Jose Alejandro Luna Ramos, devant une salle bondée après une session de plus de cinq heures. Cette décision de justice ouvre la voie à la dernière étape du processus électoral présidentiel mexicain : la proclamation par la même instance, avant le 6 septembre, des résultats définitifs du scrutin et la désignation officielle du candidat du PRI comme le président élu, appelé à prendre ses fonctions le 1^er décembre, pour la période de 2012 à 2018.

Le candidat de gauche, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, a refusé vendredi de reconnaître la décision du Tribunal électoral. "Les élections n'ont été ni propres ni libres ni régulières, en conséquence, je ne vais pas reconnaître un pouvoir illégitime né de l'achat de votes et d'autres violations graves de la Constitution et des lois", a déclaré devant la presse M. Lopez Obrador.

Rejet des recours contre l'élection du président mexicain

31 août 2012 à 08:08

Des manifestants protestent contre l'élection d'Enrique Peña Nieto devant le Tribunal électoral fédéral, à Mexico, le 30 août 2012. (Photo Edgard Garrido. Reuters)

Enrique Peña Nieto, vainqueur du scrutin organisé le 1er juillet, n'a désormais plus qu'à attendre la proclamation du résultat. Il doit entrer en fonction le 1er décembre, en remplacement de Felipe Calderon.

Le tribunal fédéral électoral du Mexique a rejeté jeudi à l’unanimité le recours en invalidation déposé par la gauche contre l'élection d’Enrique Peña Nieto, du Parti révolutionnaire institutionnel (PRI) à l'élection présidentielle du 1er juillet.

Les sept juges du tribunal ont estimé qu’aucune des accusations de la coalition de gauche sur les achats de vote ou les financements irréguliers n’avaient été étayées par des preuves.

Cette décision de justice ouvre la voie à la dernière étape du processus électoral présidentiel mexicain : la proclamation par la même instance, avant le 6 septembre, des résultats définitifs du scrutin et la désignation officielle du candidat du PRI comme le président élu, appelé à prendre ses fonctions pour six ans le 1er décembre.

Alors que quelque 300 jeunes criant à la «fraude» devant le tribunal protégé par la police, les sept juges ont rejeté la totalité des accusations de la coalition de gauche selon laquelle l'élection avait été marquée par de multiples violations des principes constitutionnels de l'équité. «Il ne suffit pas de les dénoncer, mais il faut les prouver», a souligné le Tribunal.

«Mexico a connu une élection qui ne doit pas être invalidée (...) Il y a eu des élections libres et authentiques», a estimé le juge Salvador Olimpo Nava, en présentant le projet.

Enrique Peña Nieto, un avocat de 46 ans, ancien gouverneur de l’Etat de Mexico, est arrivé en tête de l'élection du 1er juillet avec 38,2% des suffrages contre 31,6% au candidat de la coalition de la gauche, Andre Manuel Lopez Obrador.

(AFP)

Source: Libération

Via: Comparte tu Wifi

Mexico’s Movement for Real Democracy

Posted on: 02/08/2012 by Laura Carlsen

“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.

Mexican court throws out presidential election challenge

Associated Press in Mexico City
guardian.co.uk, Friday 31 August 2012 07.44 BST

Enrique Peña Nieto celebrating in July. His rival Andrés Manuel López Obrador claimed he engaged in vote-buying and campaign spending excesses. Photograph: Daniel Aguilar/Getty Images

Unanimous ruling by electoral tribunal paves way for Enrique Peña Nieto to take reins as PRI party returns to power

Mexico's highest election court has voted to dismiss legal challenges to the results of the 1 July presidential election by the second-placed candidate.

The unanimous ruling by the seven-member electoral tribunal paves the way for the Institutional Revolutionary party to return to power after it lost the presidency for the first time in 71 years in elections in 2000.

The party, known as the PRI, won the presidential vote with a 6.6-point advantage for its candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto. But leftwing rival Andrés Manuel López Obrador challenged the results, alleging Peña Nieto engaged in widespread vote-buying and campaign spending excesses.

Before the vote in their night-time session, all of the justices said they did not think supporters of López Obrador had submitted convincing evidence of the alleged abuses.

"Mexico has a president elected by the people, in the person of Enrique Peña Nieto," said Justice Salvador Nava.

Justice Flavio Galvan dismissed evidence submitted by the leftist coalition regarding alleged abuses by Peña Nieto's campaign as "vague, generic, imprecise". The evidence included gift cards, household goods and even farm animals purportedly given out to voters by the PRI.

Mexican court rejects challenge to result of presidential election

• Associated Press
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 31 August 2012 16.18 BST

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, runner-up in the 1 July ballot, told reporters
he did not recognise the official result of the election. Photograph: Henry Romero/Reuters

Runner-up Andres Manuel López Obrador still refusing to recognise rightwing victory amid allegations of vote-buying

Andres Manuel López Obrador, the leftwing candidate in Mexico's presidential election, has announced that he does not recognise the official results, leading observers to believe he may call for street protests similar to those that paralysed central Mexico City after he lost the vote in 2006.

Lopez Obrador says a federal electoral tribunal which rejected allegations of vote-buying and other campaign violations in favour of Enrique Pena Nieto, the candidate of the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, was illegitimite. Lopez Obrador called a peaceful protest for 9 September.

"I am telling the people of Mexico that I cannot accept the judgment of the electoral tribunal that declared the presidential election valid," Lopez Obrador told a news conference. "The elections were not clean, free and genuine. As a result, I will not recognise an illegitimate power that's emerged as a result of vote-buying and other grave violations of the constitution and the law."

He said he wants protesters to respect the law, and did not call directly for a repeat of the blockades he launched in 2006.

Lopez Obrador attracted hundreds of thousands of people to the streets for campaign rallies, and retains a large and fervent base of support in Mexico City. But Pena Nieto's margin of more than 3 million votes was far wider than the few hundred thousand that cost Lopez Obrador the 2006 presidential elections, and much of the initial outrage at Pena Nieto's win appears to have faded since the 1 July ballot.

Lopez Obrador alleged that Pena Nieto engaged in widespread vote-buying and campaign spending excesses but Mexico's highest election court voted unanimously on Thursday to dismiss his challenges. The judgement handed down by a seven-member tribunal paves the way for the old ruling party PRI to return to power after losing the presidency for the first time in 71 years in the 2000 election.

The PRI said in a statement that the ruling "has ended the contentious and combative phase of the federal electoral process and has fully demonstrated the legitimacy of Enrique Pena Nieto's victory at the ballot box."

Before the vote, the judges questioned the nature of the evidence submitted by Lopez Obrador's supporters. "Mexico has a president elected by the people, in the person of Enrique Pena Nieto," said Justice Salvador Nava.

The judges said some of the evidence was hearsay, or unclear. But Ricardo Monreal, Lopez Obrador's campaign manager, accused the judges of "acting like a gang of ruffians."

Monreal complained that the tribunal wanted his coalition "to supply not just the evidence, but the victims and criminals" as well.

The accusations centered on hundreds and possibly thousands of pre-paid gift cards that shoppers at a Mexican grocery store chain said they were given by Pena Nieto's party before the election.

Source: The Guardian
Via: Comparte tu Wifi

Mexico: Court Rejects Challenge to Overturn Presidential Election

Written by J. Tadeo · Translated by Elizabeth
Translation posted 1 September 2012 3:08 GMT

On August 30, 2012, the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF) of Mexico rejected the petition to overturn the Presidential election of last July 1.
In a public session, the magistrates declared unanimously [es] that the alleged offenses presented by the Progressive Coalition (whose candidate was Andrés Manuel López Obrador) were groundless; therefore, it was unfair to declare the Presidential election null as the people unhappy by the results wanted.
The Magistrate President of the Tribunal, Jesús Alejandro Luna Ramos [es], declared:

A lo largo de mi labor jurisdiccional he tenido la fortuna de resolver innumerables y muy intrincados asuntos, inclusive de tipo similar al de la gravedad que ahora nos ocupa, y en ninguno de ellos he sido influido por otra cuestión que no sea la justicia y el derecho. Por esta vía, he colaborado a la independencia de este Poder Judicial Federal, al que he consagrado mi profesión y mi vida, y seguiré haciéndolo.

[Throughout my judicial career, I have had the fortune to solve countless intricate cases, similar even in gravity to the one that brings us together today, and in none of them I have been influenced by anything other than justice and law. In this way, I have collaborated with the independence of the Federal Judicial Power, to which I have devoted my profession and my life and will keep on doing it.]

Once the ruling was known, the two times Presidential candidate Andrés López Obrador announced that he will not recognize the power that comes from this contested election, which he qualified as illegitimate. He also said that civil disobedience is an “honorable duty against the thieves of hope” and made a call to his followers to reunite at the Zocalo (downtown) in Mexico City next September 9.

Third Mega Protest against Imposition. Guadalajara, Mexico, July 22nd, 2012. Picture by Marte Merlos under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license.

Mexican court throws out election challenge, sparking riots (PHOTOS)

Published: 31 August, 2012, 17:25

Protesters remove barricades during a demonstration outside Mexico's electoral court in Mexico City August 30, 2012 (Reuters / Edgard Garrido)

  Enraged protesters gathered in the capital of Mexico following a court decision to disregard a challenge to Enrique Pena Nieto’s presidency. The newly-elected president was accused of money laundering and buying votes.

­Hundreds of angry activists hurled stones, eggs and bottles at the police and the court building, and shouted slogans calling for a revolution. They brandished banners, saying “we demand this dirty election to be overturned,” and “Pena is not our president.”

The protesters knocked down metal barriers that had been erected around the court and brawled with the riot police who had assembled there.

Presidential election runner-up Andres Manuel Obrador accused Nieto and his Institutional Revolutionary Party of buying five million votes and courting voters with presents of supermarket gift cards, fertilizer, cement and livestock.

The electoral tribunal dismissed the claims on the basis there was not sufficient evidence to overturn the vote.

“After an examination of the evidence, we can confirm that constitutional principles were observed during the election,” tribunal member Salvador Nava said.

The Tribunal’s verdict sparked outrage among opposition activists, with Ricardo Monreal, a campaign coordinator for a leftist coalition, condemning the decision as “the verbal diarrhea of men who are paid millions of pesos and don’t work for the interests of the people.”

“They are fraudsters in the guise of learned men who are going to bury our constitution and become the vilest band of hucksters in the history of our country’s democracy,” Monreal said.

Pena Nieto won the Mexican election on July 1 by roughly 3.3 million votes, rejecting Obrador’s claims of fraud. Nieto’s victory sparked mass protests in Mexico City and calls for a recount.

Nieto will assume the Mexican presidency on December 1. His government has promised greater political transparency, and to modernize the country’s antiquated labor laws in an attempt to revitalize the Mexican economy.

Thousands protest in Mexico's capital

Published on Aug 31, 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish

Thousands of people have been protesting in Mexico's capital against the results of the presidential election. The electoral tribunal has officially accepted Enrique Pena Nieto as the winner of the July Poll after it threw out an appeal by runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Adam Raney reports from Mexico City.

Source: Al Jazeera

Via: Comparte tu Wifi

Controversy in Mexico over changes to and use of Mayan palaces, Aztec pyramids

By Anne-Marie O’Connor, Published: August 28

Annie-Marie O'Connor - "Paul McCartney read our letter and said No!! to Chichen Itza. Thanks Paul — We love you," said a poster created by Mexico City archaeologists protesting the use of pyramids for rock concerts and New Age entertainment spectacles.

MEXICO CITY — Mexicans are taught to revere their pre-Columbian roots. So some archaeologists are outraged by what they view as the government’s failure to safeguard the nation’s Mayan palaces and Aztec pyramids.

A recent decision by the government to erect a glass-and-steel facade on a portion of the historic Fort of Guadalupe in Puebla in time for the Sept. 15 Mexican independence celebrations was the last straw. The archaeologists have occupied Mexico’s prestigious National Museum of Anthropology, telling visitors that taking liberties with federally protected buildings was becoming commonplace.

The late-summer tourists who flock to the Chapultepec Park institution are greeted by banners, petitions and angry anthropologists with megaphones. A barefoot Mayan-speaking researcher in a white tunic blows into a conch shell to announce speeches in the lobby.

The occupying scientists have also declared: Admission is free.

Archaeologists are tweeting about “aggressions against patrimony” and using Facebook to decry tacky tourist development and New Age spectacles that they say will ruin the ruins.

Just when government officials were hoping to make money on the hype over Dec. 21 marking the end of the world, as predicted by the Mayan calendar, archaeologists are threatening to shut down the party even before it has begun.

“Our national monuments are being violated,” said Felipe Echenique March, head of the union that represents the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the government agency charged with protecting historic sites. “Public archaeological sites are deteriorating. We are resisting this destruction.”

'Cash Smugglers Who Posed as Journalists Made Multiple Trips From Honduras'

Monday, 27 August 2012 13:28
Written by  Claire O'Neill McCleskey

The 18 fake Televisa journalists in a Nicaragua courtroom

A group of suspected cash smugglers posing as journalists who were arrested last week reportedly traveled from Honduras to Nicaragua on several occasions since 2010, prompting an investigation into why Honduran and Nicaraguan authorities failed to apprehend the group.

According to a report by El Nuevo Diario, the 18 people arrested in Nicaragua while posing as reporters crossed into Nicaragua from Honduras and traveled down into Costa Rica multiple times since 2010.

The suspects, who posed as employees of Televisa, a Mexican television network, are currently being held in Managua on charges of organized crime and money laundering. Nicaraguan police announced that the final count for the cash seized from the group’s caravan of vehicles is $9.2 million.

During one previous trip, the group reportedly entered Nicaragua through a border crossing in Honduras known as Las Manos, then traveled down the Pan-American Highway to Peñas Blancas, Costa Rica. The border police stationed at Las Manos have been removed from their post while the chief of police in Peñas Blancas has been suspended, El Nuevo Diario reported. Nicaraguan authorities are also looking into possible links between the suspects and other customs or police officials.

A spokesman for the Honduran police told La Tribuna that the caravan repeatedly passed through the country without problem because the suspects took advantage of the “considerations [given] to the press.” In response to this lapse, the director of the national police has created a special commission to investigate how the group escaped detection by Honduran law enforcement.

Insight Crime Analysis

Although officials have yet to report the true identities of most of the suspects, at least one of the suspects isallegedly linked to “Los Charros,” a Mexico-based drug trafficking network. When detained at the border, the group told customs police that they were headed to Managua to report on the trial of Henry Fariñas, the Nicaraguan businessman accused of collaborating with Los Charros and other gangs to traffic drugs from Costa Rica into Nicaragua.

Source: In Sight

US embassy staff shot at by Mexican police

Jo Tuckman in Mexico City
guardian.co.uk, Friday 24 August 2012 23.56 BST

Mexican marines inspect a bullet-riddled armoured US embassy SUV on a road south of Mexico City. Two embassy employees were injured. Photograph: Reuters

Mexican naval officials say embassy vehicle caught up in police chase on road just south of Mexico City

Two US embassy employees were shot at and wounded by Mexican police on Friday after they were caught up in a police chase on the outskirts of the capital, Mexican naval officials said.

The US embassy vehicle was attacked just south of Mexico City, according to a government statement. A confused gun battle began around 8am after the embassy car, on its way to a naval installation with two US officials and a captain from the Mexican navy, was approached by car containing armed men.

"The driver of the diplomatic car manoeuvred to avoid the aggressors and get back onto the main road, at which point the crew of the aggressor vehicle opened fire," the statement said. "Moments later three other vehicles joined the chase and shot at the US embassy vehicle."

Speaking anonymously, a Mexican government security official said federal police had thought the vehicle belonged to a group of suspected kidnappers they were pursuing, and had opened fire on it. "This was all because of a mix-up," the official said.

Mexico police fire on US embassy staff

24 August 2012 Last updated at 23:46

Two people employed at the US embassy in Mexico have been wounded after their car was mistakenly fired on by police south of Mexico City, officials say.

The Mexican Navy said the US personnel were on a main road to the city of Cuernavaca when the shooting happened.

Details are still unclear, but the navy said the US vehicle had been fleeing from gunmen in another car.

The US state department said it was working with Mexican authorities to investigate the incident.

Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the two men were receiving "appropriate medical care and are in stable condition".

"We have no further information to share at this time," she added.

One of the men was said to have been hit in the leg and the other in the stomach and hand. Both were admitted to hospital.

A Mexican marine travelling with the two US employees was slightly injured in the incident, the navy said.

The Mexican public security ministry and marines said in a joint statement: "Today at 08:00 a diplomatic vehicle belonging to the US embassy was hit by multiple bullets from personnel of the federal police in the Tres Marias-Huitzilac highway."

It said the embassy personnel had been heading to a military installation in the town of El Capulin when a carload of gunmen opened fire on them and chased them, along with the Mexican naval officer accompanying them.