Tag Archives: #Mexico

Right to Truth Day sparks reflection on human rights in Argentina, El Salvador and the United States

A headline and a photo in the Buenos Aires newspaper Página 12 caught my eye today. Together with a photo of Saint Óscar Romero was this phrase: “Justice and snakes only bite bare feet.” *

The writer, Alejandro Slokar, is a judge in Argentina’s federal court for appeals of criminal cases (Cámara Federal de Casación Penal). Here, he is writing about the International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and the Dignity of Victims—or more simply, the Right to Truth Day, marked now every March 24.

March 24 is not only the date when we recall the martyrdom of San Salvador’s archbishop, the human rights defender Óscar Romero in 1980. It’s also when Argentineans recall the 1976 military coup that ushered in a “dirty war” against the popular movements of the impoverished—those with bare feet—along with trade unionists, journalists, writers, artists and human rights defenders. As many as 30,000 people were killed or disappeared over the next five years.

In El Salvador, about 80,000 people were killed or disappeared between 1979 and the end of the civil war in 1992.  In both countries, as elsewhere across Latin America, movements to find the “historical truth.” 

In recent weeks, families of people who disappeared during Mexico’s long “war on drugs” have drawn attention to a half-hectare farm in Teuchitlán, about 60 km west of Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco. The farm had been used to recruit new traffickers, but also to execute those who refused the cartel’s orders. State and federal authorities had known about the site since last September but did nothing to secure it or to identify human remains and other items found on the land. Predictably, state and federal authorities point fingers of blame at each other.

About 120,000 people have gone missing in Mexico since 2006 when then-President Felipe Calderón launched a military-led offensive against the drug cartels in an attempt to curb their violent turf wars. Instead, the violence became worse. And Calderón’s security chief, Genaro García Luna, was convicted in October in a U.S. court for his deep ties to the Sinaloa cartel. 

Among the disappeared (still) are 43 students from a training school for rural teachers in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, taken in 2014.

The “right to truth” cannot only be about historical cases. It must be the demand now in the case of the young men taken by the Trump regime and dumped into El Salvador’s infamous Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT). Certainly, some of the 238 Venezuelans may be criminals who were members of the “Tren de Aragua” gang but, as stories leak out, it’s clear that some of those deported were never accused, much less tried or convicted, of any crime. 

TIME magazine published a stunning photo essay about the deportations. The photojournalist, Philip Holsinger, included this description of one of his encounters: “One young man sobbed when a guard pushed him to the floor. He said, ‘I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber.’ I believed him. But maybe it’s only because he didn’t look like what I had expected—he wasn’t a tattooed monster.”

Drop Site News reported that another deportee was a Venezuelan professional soccer player and youth soccer coach with no criminal record. “The family only discovered that their loved one, Jerce Reyes Barrios, had been sent to El Salvador when they saw him in viral videos posted by the Trump administration, in which it celebrated what it said was the mass deportation of violent members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.”

The LGBTQIA+ Advocate magazine shared reporting on PBS by Rachel Maddow about a gay makeup artist who was among the deported prisoners—forcibly removed from the United States without a court hearing or deportation order.

Those stories, combined with reports of detentions of visa holders and other visitors, and harassment of legal residents and citizens, suggest that what happened in Argentina and El Salvador has begun in the United States. Can paramilitary death squads be far behind?

Writing of historical events and of the present-day right-wing populist regimes of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador and Javier Milei in Argentina, Slokar’s article argued that such abuses derive from the “neocolonial models”—European feudalism—applied in throughout the Americas. “While those responsible die in their beds without sanction, the consequences are almost infinite, farce and tragedy at the same time, and expressed in the inhumane neoliberal experiment that laughs at the Constitution, bitcoin, extractivism and punitive demagoguery that converge in the present.”

* The quote is variously attributed to both Óscar Romero and to the Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano. It may be that Galeano was quoting Romero, but I cannot find the original source: just partial citations.

With a dizzying array of executive orders, Trump attacks the vulnerable

The White House, February 1982, just after the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. (Jim Hodgson photo)

by Jim Hodgson

“American inauguration day was a grim business, like someone slamming a baseball bat into the concept of human decency all day long until it was bleeding and paper-thin,” wrote Heather Mallick today in the Toronto Star.
In a blizzard of speeches, insults and executive orders, Donald Trump erased anything positive about the legacy of the interregnum president, Joe Biden. “Que sigue la continuidad” (follow the continuity) is the inept slogan of a local politician in the village in Chiapas where family responsibilities have placed me for a few months, but it could well have been the title of Trump’s work plan for the day.
I started keeping a list. Eventually, my journalist brain took over. I had to make choices and prioritize. 
The one specific action that I expected with dread came in the evening: revocation of Biden’s announcement six days earlier that some of the cruel U.S. sanctions levelled against Cuba would be eased. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel responded on social media late on Monday, calling Trump’s decision to revoke Biden’s measures an “act of mockery and abuse.”
Here’s my list, drawn partly from Associated Press and the Toronto Star, with additional sources as noted below. At the end, a treat: an eloquent plea for mercy spoken in Trump’s presence by Washington’s Episcopal bishop, the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde.


Trump suspends U.S. foreign aid for 90 days pending reviews
Because this blog is broadly about issues related to development, let me start here: Trump temporarily suspended all U.S. foreign assistance programs for 90 days pending reviews to determine whether they are aligned with his policy goals. (From other statements, it’s pretty clear he is going after support for women’s sexual and reproductive health.) It was not immediately clear how much assistance can be affected by the order. Funding for many programs has already been appropriated by Congress and must be spent. And there are contracts that must be honoured.

Mexico is not alone in feeling nervous over Trump’s designation of cartels and gangs as “terrorist organizations.” Right: La Jornada reports that the deportations have already begun in Ciudad Juárez and Matamoros.


Trump declares a border emergency
As he had promised, Trump declared a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border, suspending refugee resettlement and ending automatic citizenship for anyone born in the U.S. La Jornada reported that he suspended the U.S. government’s CBP One app that asylum-seekers waiting in Mexico use to make appointments for their claim to be heard by officials on the U.S. side of the border.
Trump acknowledged an imminent legal challenge to overturning birthright citizenship, which has been enshrined in the U.S. Constitution since 1868. He said automatic citizenship was “just ridiculous” and that he believes he was on “good (legal) ground” to change it.
Rainbow Railroad newsletter, Jan. 21: Trump signed an executive order that suspended the U.S. Refugee Admission Program, halting the processing of LGBTQI+ refugees already approved for resettlement, and leaving vulnerable and displaced queer and trans individuals stranded in dangerous and precarious conditions.


Use of wartime power act to deport gang members
Trump raised the possibility of using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (last used during World War II to detain Japanese people) to deport gang members who are deemed members of a foreign terrorist organization. His executive order paves the way for criminal organizations such as MS-13 to be named “foreign terrorist organizations.” His government will also return “millions of foreign criminals” to their places of origin. 

Late Tuesday, Trump ordered that all U.S. government staff working on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes be put on immediate paid administrative leave, and called for an end to the “dangerous, demeaning and immoral” programs.


Ending protection from discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation
Trump rescinded a 2021 order (Title IX) that the Education Department used to protect against discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
A couple of paragraphs from the Rolling Stone’s excellent coverage:
Earlier in the day, Trump declared in his inaugural address: “As of today It will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.” 
Trump intends to sign an executive order that prohibits federal recognition of transgender Americans. The anticipated order, leaked to the right-leaning Free Press, will reportedly bar government issued identification like passports from listing anything other than a person’s birth gender, remove transgender individuals from protection of laws barring sex-discrimination, end funding for transition surgeries for federal prisoners, and purport to protect the First Amendment and other rights of those who flout “preferred pronouns” or refuse to recognize the reality of transgender individuals. 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and their respective ministers are preparing responses to whatever comes from Trump after Feb. 1 with regard to tariffs. Both leaders are trying to ease tension about their borders with the United States. Trump may go after China with tariffs that day too.


In addition to a federal hiring freeze, other measures include:

  • Pardons and commutations that Trump said would cover about 1,500 people criminally charged in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021
  • Halting 78 Biden-era executive actions
  • A regulatory freeze preventing bureaucrats from issuing regulations until the Trump administration has full control of the government
  • A freeze on all federal hiring except for military and a few other essential areas
  • A requirement that federal workers return to full-time in-person work
  • A directive to every department and agency to address the cost of living crisis
  • Withdrawal from the Paris climate treaty as Los Angeles burns [Canada’s environment minister Steven Guilbeault called the move “deplorable”]
  • Withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO)
  • A government order restoring freedom of speech and preventing censorship of free speech
  • Ending the “weaponization of government against the political adversaries of the previous administration”

Episcopal bishop asks Trump ‘to have mercy’ on LGBTQ+ communities and immigrants
video
Washington’s Episcopal bishop, the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde:
“Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you, and as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwara, and temples.
I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and our God, for the good of all people, the good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen.”

A day later, Trump called the bishop a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater,” “ungracious,” “nasty” and “not compelling or smart.”

After grief, the resistance begins

by Jim Hodgson

I feel some relief this morning by two newsletters from U.S. activists that arrived in my email.

One is from “Stop The Coup 2025,” a campaign to fight Project 2025 (the Republicans’ plan for the next Trump administration). It has a toolkit for community organizers that includes a section, “Spotlight on Risk Preparedness/Criminalization/Underground Survival Tips.” It discusses the importance of organizations and individuals taking steps now to prepare and assess their vulnerability to Project 2025’s agenda and learning from LGBTQIA+ activists in other places who have been forced to live and organize under the radar due to state-sanctioned criminalization.

Here’s a bit more information about Project 2025:

Project 2025 has a radical anti-democracy, anti-diversity, anti-gender agenda to:

  • systematically dismantle the federal government – a soft coup
  • give the next Republican president new “supreme powers” – an autocracy
  • use Executive Orders to “legally” reverse many of our civil rights
  • use the military to help clamp down on domestic dissent
  • criminalize & erase gender & LGBTQIA+ identity from government protection
  • reverse racial equality, attack diversity, and reverse environmental gains
  • replace secular education with Christian theocracy and a pro-life agenda
  • recruit and train 20,000 conservatives for government jobs 
  • Use “Schedule F” to remove 50,000 civil servants 
  • Require government “Loyalty Pledges” to an extremist right-wing agenda 
  • Reverse historic US defense policy of deterrence to offense 
  • Require US foreign policy, USAID to align with pro-life agenda 
  • LAUNCH THEIR 180-DAY ADMINISTRATION TAKEOVER ON January 20, 2025

The other newsletter that brought hope to my inbox today came from Codepink, the U.S. network of feminist peace activists. I’ve worked with them in the past to counter the harm caused by U.S. sanctions in Venezuela, Cuba and elsewhere, and some of my colleagues have worked with them for peace in the Korean peninsula and the Middle East. Part of the message today:

We don’t want to waste your time with platitudes about how everything will be okay or even talk about the breakdown of the election. We think it’s more useful to go off what we know for certain now: Donald Trump is going to be president in January. 

But, a majority of Americans oppose U.S. support for Israel, and don’t want their tax dollars funding weapons that murder innocent people and destroy the earth. A greater majority of Americans oppose the U.S. starting new wars. It’s okay to feel deflated and discouraged, but don’t forget that the people are on our side – all we have to do is reach them.  

We will continue to do what we have always done: educate by exposing horrific violence carried out by those in power, activate a movement for peace, and cultivate local communities that represent the world we want to live in. Solidarity is our best friend. Finding new and creative ways to scratch at power is our path forward.

Political signs of the times at a rest stop near Junction, Texas.

Last time, and this time: concern for rights of refugees

Back in 2016, I was in Antofagasta, Chile, when I learned that Donald Trump had defeated Hillary Clinton and won the U.S. election. The news was unexpected, just like now. 

I was in Chile’s far north to meet and show solidarity with Chilean Methodists who were working with migrants who had come from Colombia and other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, including Haiti. 

Indeed, a great deal of my personal and professional life has been devoted to work with refugees and other people who are forced to flee their homelands because of various political, economic and environmental causes. 

Caravans of migrants from many countries continue to cross Chiapas on their way north, holding out hope that they might score a formal U.S. refugee application before January 20 when Trump, who promises mass deportations, will take power. (Images: La Jornada, Mexico). 

Now I am in north-western Chiapas, having crossed in recent weeks several of the “red states” where support for Trump is strong.

In the wake of the election, pundits point out that Trump weaponized ‘fake news.’ He played to machismo and racists and to people who haven’t a clue what being Trans even means. That he won over a smart, articulate, experienced woman of colour after being convicted of crimes and successfully sued for sexual assault is an indictment of U.S. democracy.

Some, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, point as well to the Democratic Party establishment which again defended the status quo. “It should come as no surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”

As ever, don’t expect the Democratic Party to save us. Now is the time for grassroots action.

For Natasha Lennard, writing in The Intercept, the answer is radical action from the grassroots: 

“Far-right policies and parties tend to win the day when so-called centrists take up conservative platforms to purportedly capture disaffected white voters and thus keep the far-right at bay; the upshot is treating conservative nationalism as the fulcrum of all politics. This is what the Harris campaign did, particularly when it came to immigration. At best, as with Britain’s currently ruling Labour Party, the Tories might have lost, but right-wing politics have been reconfigured as the normalized center.”