Protest Graffitti - Oaxaca City - Sept. 2010

Across Mexico today, celebrations to mark the 100 year anniversary of the start of the Mexican Revolution. Amongst other things, the revolution was considered a victory for the country’s rural poor, who won land rights away from the wealthy elite.

While Mexico today is preoccupied with with the bloody Drug War in the country’s north, small farmers are facing a new fight over land rights in the south.

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[Chants from Oaxaca City march for Copala]

Women march through the streets of Oaxaca City to call attention to the situation in the farming village of San Juan Copala.

Most of these women fled the town this summer during a violent paramilitary offensive that killed about 20 residents.

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A tip from an escaped slave reportedly led to the rescue of more than 100 people from a banana plantation in Tapachula, Chiapas this weekend. Most of the former captives are Central American nationals. At least 5 are Mexican citizens. Dozens , including the informant, are under the age of 18. Federal agents  arrested 8 people in the operation, including plantation overseers and administrative staff.

The plantation is located in a region near the border with Guatemala, along a route often used by migrants headed towards the United States. Undocumented transmigration through Mexico has grown increasingly dangerous in the past few years as organized crime has consolidated control over the most heavily trafficked routes. This has led to an explosion in migrant kidnappings for ransom or forced labor.

One of this year’s most extreme examples of the dangers the undocumented face in Mexican territory is the massacre of 72 migrants in the northern state of Tamaulipas; a crime attributed to the Zetas drug cartel.

The picturesque town of Ciudad Mier used to be a choice day trip destination along the Texas/Mexico border. Today it’s a ghost town. The state governor of Tamaulipas says at least 100 families have fled the town after members of the Zetas cartel warned the population to leave or face death. Ciudad Mier has a population of just over 6,000 residents.

Many from Ciudad Mier have fled to nearby Ciudad Miguel Alemán, where city officials have set up what is apparently Mexico’s first temporary shelter for civilians fleeing Drug War violence. The building, which in the past has acted as a hurricane shelter, is reportedly now housing around 300 people. Authorities on the Texas side of the border have not made public any plans or intentions to provide emergency shelter to the displaced.

The exodus comes on the heels of a major shootout in Matamoros last Friday which killed the acting boss of the Gulf Cartel. The Zetas were formerly the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel, but have spent much of this year at war with their former employers. Some security analysts warn the kingpin’s death will spark a harder and stronger push by the Zetas to consolidate control over territory in northeastern Mexico.

Gun store in Eagle Pass, Texas just blocks from border

It’s no secret many of the firearms used by Mexican drug trafficking organizations are purchased in the US. The Department of Justice launched “Project Gunrunner” in 2005 to crack down on weapons smuggling to Mexico. At the forefront of the effort is the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – or ATF.

The 138-page report released Tuesday by the Department of Justice Inspector General has found that “significant weaknesses in ATF’s implementation of Project Gunrunner undermine its effectiveness.”  These weaknesses include a low level of intelligence sharing between the ATF and other US and Mexican law enforcement agencies, an emphasis on investigating small-time “straw purchasers” over large trafficking networks, and the bureau’s failure to expand its gun tracing program in Mexico.

The report also found that the lack of reporting requirements for rifle sales has hindered investigations.

The Justice Department made 15 specific recommendations to the ATF for improving Project Gunrunner. Among them, strengthening the crime gun tracing initiative that is supposedly the cornerstone of the operation.

A Mexican judge has sentenced Monterrey-based community radio activist, Dr. Hector Camero, to 2 years in prison for using the airwaves without a license. Many in Mexico’s small community radio world had hoped that the charges against the physician would be thrown out due to multiple irregularities in the case.

In the Wednesday ruling, the judge also imposed a fine of 15,000 pesos – more than US$1000 – and stripped Dr. Camero of his civil and political rights. The doctor is a key member of the “Tierra y Libertad” low power FM station based in the low-income but tightly-knit community of the same name. It’s located on the outskirts of the northern industrial city of Monterrey and is home to many factory workers.

Tierra y Libertad first applied for a radio license in 2002 and began broadcasting without a permit later that year.  In 2008, broadcast equipment was confiscated in an aggressive raid involving more than 100 police. Through the help of the Mexico chapter of the World Association of Community Broadcasters – or AMARC – the station finally secured a license last year.

Licensed community radio stations are extremely rare in Mexico. All licensed LPFMs here started out broadcasting without government permission.

According to AMARC Mexico, Dr. Camero’s case is the first of a community radio programmer receiving a prison sentence specifically for broadcasting without a license. The community radio association is calling on the Mexican government to establish criteria for the legal operation of LPFMs in line with international standards.