The US Consulate in Matamoros has issued a warning to US citizens to use caution when travelling in Veracruz and recommends only traveling during the day. The same bulletin reiterated long-standing advice that U.S. citizens “defer non-essential travel to the state of Tamaulipas”.

Highways in the states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, and San Luis Potosi have become notoriously dangerous, with criminals taking advantage of the cover of night to hold up passenger buses and private vehicles.

The main highways in northern Veracruz are connected to the port city of Tampico, just across the state line in Tamaulipas. The most dangerous roads in Tamaulipas lead to the border bridges with South Texas.

The bodies of ten murder victims were dumped in the Veracruz town of Tampico Alto this morning. Like the multi-homicide targeting the buses, the specific motive for the violence is unclear, but the perpetrators are assumed to be associated with organized crime operating in the region.

As has been the case with Tamaulipas, much of the violence in Veracruz is occurring under a mantle of fear-induced silence. The press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders this week named Veracruz one of the ten deadliest regions in the world for journalists.

Also this week, 900 police officers in the port city of Veracruz and its nearby suburb of Boca del Rio were dismissed and replaced by soldiers in what authorities describe as an anti-corruption measure.

Papers with names of the murdered and disappeared on a wall in Oaxaca City

Much of the news of Mexico’s Drug War focuses on the shootouts, massacres and abductions which have killed tens of thousands of people in the north. Violence in the south takes on a different form and generally receives less attention.

Download audio file (20110919sy.mp3)

The southern states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Chiapas share certain characteristics. They are Mexico’s poorest states, are rich in natural resources, have large indigenous populations and long traditions of social movements.

In parts of southern Mexico, the legacy of the decades-long Dirty War against political dissidents has dovetailed with the climate of violence and impunity of the ongoing Drug War.

MICAELA CABAÑAS: “Desde hace mas de 40 años que tenemos en esta lucha…(fade under, reporter interprets)

Such is the case of Micaela Cabañas, who joined the caravan in her home state of Guerrero. Her father, the iconic guerrilla leader and rural teacher, Lucio Cabañas, died during an army siege in the mid ’70s. Her mother and aunt, Isabel and Reyna Anaya, were assassinated just over two months ago while leaving a church. Just hours after the crime, Micaela Cabañas received a death threat from the cell phone that had been stolen from her murdered mother.

MICAELA CABAÑAS (voiceover): “We have to continue the struggle. We have to continue planting seeds – seeds that send down firm roots steeped in education and culture – to continue on this path towards the light.”

A historic grievance in this corner of Mexico has been indigenous control over ancestral territory. Conflicts over land can take many forms; from outright paramilitary displacement campaigns sponsored by powerful regional land bosses…to rifts within a community over religion or politics. Exploitation of inter-communal divisions are sometimes fueled by outside forces.

One of the deadliest recent rural conflicts in Oaxaca occurred last year in the town of San Juan Copala. Armed men forced supporters of

Caravan event in the main plaza of Oaxaca City

a local self-governance model to flee the town after a 10 month long siege. The displaced say their aggressors received resources from what was then the state’s ruling party to keep the town under siege and crush the indigenous autonomy project.

Macario Garcia Merino spoke to the caravan during one of its stops in Oaxaca.

MACARIO GARCIA MERINO (voiceover):“It’s not just the situation in San Juan Copala and it’s not specific to the state of Oaxaca. We’ve come to realize that this situation, this war of extermination, is throughout the entire country. This is why we need all need to band together and walk together to find justice.”

San Juan Copala, like other areas experiencing forced displacements, is believed to contain significant mineral wealth.

(SPEECH/AMBI – Monte Alban ceremony)

The issue of conflict and indigenous control over their mineral-rich lands was acknowledged specifically during a ceremony for caravan participants at the Monte Alban archaeological site.

Amada Puentes, whose son has been missing since he was taken from the streets of Monterrey by policemen more than 2 years ago, said the ceremony for peace had a profound impact.

Banner with written messages next to caravan bus

AMADA PUENTES: “Cuando iniciamos la caravana, yo todavía traía en mi corazón deseos de venganza, ya no tanto de justicia, de venganza. En esta ceremonia creanme que me cambió la manera de pensar “(fade under, reporter interprets)

Puentes says even at the start of the caravan her heart yearned for revenge; not so much for justice any more, but revenge. But she says the ceremony at Monte Alban changed her way of thinking.

PUENTES (voiceover):“I now feel calmer than at the start of this journey. And I know now that it was worth it because I felt connected and I could see that I’m not alone. Even with all the people at the start of this trip, I felt isolated. After such an amazing moment [in the ceremony], my way of thinking and feeling changed. Even though I continue to cry on the inside, I now feel strong. I feel accompanied. And I feel hopeful that I’ll find my son soon.”

From Oaxaca, the caravan continued on to Chiapas, where a delegation met with the indigenous pacifist community Las Abejas and the leadership of a Zapatista base community.

The caravan also focused attention on the relatively under-covered dangers faced by undocumented migrants and their advocates in southern Mexico.

Sunday night, the bus loads of drug war victims, human rights activists, observers and journalists received a welcome by thousands ofpeople in Xalapa, the state capital of Veracruz – a city which has recently begun to experience the shoot outs and spike in missing persons cases that have plagued the north.

(Julian LeBaron tape – fade under, reporter interprets)

In Xalapa’s main plaza, Julian LeBaron, a home builder who has lost a brother and a brother in law to the violence in his home state of Chihuahua, told the crowds of people who have lost loved ones that the house that is best protected isn’t the one with the most police guarding it, but rather the one with the most organized residents.

(Julian LeBaron continues, reporter interprets)

LeBaron said that while he is a victim of crime, members of the the movement need to stop viewing themselves as victims and become the agents of the change they want to see.

 (This report was produced for the September 19, 2011 broadcast of Free Speech Radio News. The audio is downloadable here.)

Earlier this summer, Sicilia led a caravan through northern Mexico to bring attention to the on-the-ground situation in the states hardest hit by “narco-killings”. The southbound caravan will visit Mexico’s poorest states, which are home to large indigenous populations and significant expanses of natural wealth.

The drug war in southern Mexico takes on a different form from the large-scale shoot outs and massacres that have made civilian life difficult in the northern states. The shared border with Guatemala has become a hot spot for the shipment of drugs stored in Central America. Years ago, organized criminals muscled into the smuggling, trafficking and kidnapping of migrants who cross Mexico without visas on their way to the border with the United States.

The caravan is likely to focus public attention on the more hidden aspects of violence and impunity in the southern states; the displacement of indigenous communities, land grabs in resource-rich areas, rural para-militarism and politically-motivated attacks targeted at indigenous autonomy and social movements.

The caravan passed through Morelos today and will visit Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Tabasco, Veracruz and Puebla over the coming days before returning to Mexico City on September 19th.

The "Brothers on the Road" shelter in Ciudad Ixtepec, Oaxaca

[Transcript and audio of a report produced for The World]

ANCHOR: Many undocumented migrants from Central America travel through Mexico on their way to the United States. It’s a perilous journey. The migrants face lots of dangers, from exposure to the elements to murder. And now Mexico’s drug cartels have gotten involved. They control the smuggling routes for profit and they often kidnap the migrants and force them into work. About the only protection migrants can count on is that offered by shelters. The shelters offer services such as free meals and a safe place to sleep, but these shelters themselves have become targets. Shannon Young reports.

REPORTER: A recent incident in the southern Mexican city of Tenosique illustrates just how brazen criminals have become in targeting migrant shelters. A staffer at the “La 72″ shelter received an anonymous tip that the shelter would be the target of a mass kidnapping. And indeed, in the early hours of July 6th, men pulled up to the shelter in three vehicles and tried to force their way in. Migrants fled over the back wall.

The incident occured shortly after the shelter’s coordinator, Friar Tomas González and other religious figures, had met with the top United Nations human rights official – precisely to speak about the dangers facing migrants and those who defend them.

(Friar González speaks, reporter interprets)

Friar González says in addition to providing food and water, the shelters also document human rights violations suffered by migrants. That

invites intimidation or retribution from those who abuse the migrants, which González says includes both immigration authorities and organized criminals.

“La 72″ in Tenosique isn’t the only shelter that’s been targeted. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission recently documented threats or security breeches at five other facilities. Among them is the “Casa Belén” shelter in the northern city of Saltillo, which was granted a protection order last year from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Casa Belén coordinator, Father Pedro Pantoja says the government has stood idly by as the attacks have intensified.

PEDRO PANTOJA (voiceover): “Organized criminals have come inside our migrant shelter. Despite the protection order, there were no police patrol cars outside. We see that not only as incompetence, but disdain. The authorities couldn’t care less about the disaster, the cruelty to which these people are subjected. They are completely invisible as victims. Even more invisible are those who victimize. And in all of this, there’s not only silence, but also zero action and a total lack of respect for the lives of these people.”

Two European volunteers had to abandon the Saltillo shelter last month after an act of intimidation by men who identified themselves as members of the Zetas cartel. A shelter in the border city of Nuevo Laredo closed its doors in late June citing threats and a lack of security guarantees.

The rails where migrants wait to catch a freight train

(Roll Solalinde tape – reporter interprets)

Father Alejandro Solalinde – who runs a shelter in Ciudad Ixtepec, Oaxaca – says profit is the motive behind many of the attacks against the shelters. He says the drug cartels would love to see the shelters disappear because they hinder the criminals’ ability to make money by controlling the migrant routes. The most notorious hallmark of this cartel expansion is the mass kidnapping of migrants.

Mexico’s Human Rights Commission says more than 20 thousand migrants are kidnapped each year in Mexico, generating upwards of 50 million dollars in ransom revenues. Father Solalinde has himself received multiple threats, but seems unfazed in his work.

(roll Solalinde tape, reporter interprets)

He says despite the dangers, his life is in God’s hands. He adds that’s he’s well aware that he can be killed at any moment, but that the work will go on with or without him because it’s part of God’s plan – a plan he’s willing to carry out whatever the consequence.

In a country where dozens of human rights activists have been killed over the last five years, it takes a special kind of conviction to continue the dangerous work of protecting migrants, one of the most vulnerable – and transitory – groups in Mexico.

Migrants riding a cargo train in Mexico (credit: Hermanos en el Camino shelter)

Armed men kidnapped what witness say were at least 60 migrants who were travelling on top if a cargo train through southern Mexico. The incident occurred Friday just before the train rolled into the station at Medias Aguas, Veracruz.

Migrants who escaped the kidnapping attempt told staff at the Brothers on the Road migrant shelter that the conductor stopped the train in an area where armed men were waiting with three Suburban style vehicles. The armed men ordered the migrants to get off of the train and get into the vehicles. Many ran into the surrounding countryside and hid. They eventually made their way back to the shelter in Oaxaca to report the incident.

A statement issued Sunday by the Brothers on the Road shelter said it was the first case of a mass kidnapping they’ve registered in months. The shelter also documented a mass kidnapping in December near the town of Chahuites, Oaxaca. Alejandro Solalinde, the priest who founded the shelter organized a caravan in January to call attention to the dangers migrants face on their trek through Mexico.

Organized crime groups who control the flow of drug through Mexico started kidnapping migrants for ransom a few years ago. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission estimates at least 20 thousand migrants are kidnapped within Mexico each year.

State police turned over the migrants to immigration authorities who are processing deportation orders.

Thousands of undocumented migrants enter Mexico every week in an attempt to reach the United States, often travelling in dangerous and denigrating conditions. Allegations of corrupt officials are common along the migrant trail. In recent years, organized criminals have muscled into migration routes – setting up smuggling rings, kidnapping for ransom, and trafficking victims into prostitution and forced labor.

Had the migrants discovered yesterday made it all the way to the United States, the smuggling ring would have been owed more than 3.5 million dollars in fees.

Around 30 Mexican human rights defenders and dozens of Central American migrants planned to board the train known as “The Beast” in the town of Arriaga, Chiapas as part of a caravan to call public attention to the dangers migrants face in southern Mexico. Their destination is Chahuites – a town located across the Oaxaca state line – which has become the scene of a number of crimes targeting migrants who use the train system to move north.

Download audio file (MigrantCaravan20110107sy.mp3)

A group kidnapping of more than 40 migrants last month once again put Chahuites in the national spotlight. Migrants arriving at a migrant shelter in Ixtepec, Oaxaca reported that in the early hours of December 16th, they encountered two groups of armed men along the way.

This man, who made it to the Ixtepec shelter the day after the attack, described the incident in video testimony:

WITNESS: “The train left Arriaga around 8pm. Shortly afterwards, we passed a bridge where immigration agents had set up a check point. Almost everyone scattered. Immigration grabbed some while others escaped and were able to get back on the train. Later, about 20 minutes before reaching a town, the train stopped. I saw how about a dozen guys came running out from a stable. I thought they were coyotes coming to look for customers. But no, they were thieves. They started shooting, people started crying and screaming. Another guy got hit with a machete.

More than 40 people remain missing from the December 16th incident. The armed men who attacked the train are suspected to have ties to the Zetas drug cartel, a criminal organization that has turned kidnapping into a multi-million dollar industry.

Father Alejandro Solalinde, a Catholic priest who runs the migrant shelter in Ixtepec, helped to organize today’s caravan.

(Father Solalinde speaks, reporter translates)

He says the caravan aims not only to make visible the dangers and risks migrants face along the way, but also to encourage the citizenry to seek ways to reverse the situation. The priest says he wants to see the area’s migration route transform from a “humanitarian tragedy” zone to a place of peace and respect for migrants’ rights.

Among the members of the caravan en route to Chahuites is Elvira Arellano – who has continued her immigration rights activism in Mexico after her high-profile deportation from the United States a few years ago.

At deadline the train, which was scheduled to leave Arriage this morning, had not arrived. Caravan members said they would continue to Chahuites on foot.

Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission – or CNDH – documented more than 200 group kidnappings of migrants in 2010 with an average of 50 migrants kidnapped each day. The riskiest routes are in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Tamaulipas.

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.

[dewplayer:http://www.southnotes.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/twtw_MexRevCen.mp3]

[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.

[Efendia López speaking in Triqui]

Efendia López is one of those who left.

MULT-I protest camp in the Zocalo

She says men, women and children were shot to death. Others were wounded, gang-raped, or received death threats. Like Lopez, many of the displaced have settled in Oaxaca’s state capitol.

They set up a protest camp in the main square of Oaxaca City, desperate for help.

Reina Martínez speaks for the group.

[Reina Martínez speaking in Spanish]

Martínez accuses the state government of being behind the armed groups that have been working in San Juan Copala.

She says the government is exploiting local political differences as part of a deadly divide-and-conquer strategy.

San Juan Copala is home to fertile farm land…but it also has valuable forests…and studies suggest, under all of it, valuable minerals.

San Juan Copala isn’t the only town in Oaxaca where farmers are facing a bleak future.

Opposition to the Paso de la Reina dam

[Juan Gómez speaking in Spanish]

Juan Gómez is with a group fighting a planned hydroelectric dam on the Rio Verde. The project would flood thousands of acres of agricultural land.

Gómez says they’ve tried to convince the federal government to cancel the project, but their campaign hasn’t worked.

Local control of communal farmland was one of the big changes after the Mexican Revolution. It was protected in the country’s Constitution…until 1992, and NAFTA.

Allowing private sale and ownership of farmland was one of the requirements of Mexico signing onto the North American Free Trade Agreement. That, and an end to some subsidies for farmers who made a living off the land.

Almost two decades later, those reforms are one of the reasons behind a big change in Mexican rural society. Millions of farmers have moved to cities – and to the United States – in search of a living.

[José Rodríguez speaking in Spanish]

Environmental consultant Jose Rodríguez says Mexican farmers used to have a guaranteed price for crops like beans

Zapata on a bike on a wall on Avenida Juárez, Oaxaca - 2010

and corn. He says cheap corn from the United States meant price cuts in Mexico…devastating the rural economy.

[sfx of Oaxaca City protest]

That, and the violent fights over valuable resources under all that land has left Efendia Lopez and others at the Oaxaca City protest camp with an uncertain future.

[López speaking in Triqui]

López says she left everything behind…her home…her animals. She says they didn’t do anything to deserve this.

Rural discontent helped fuel the Mexican Revolution that began 100 years ago today. There may be discontent again…but with Mexico now an increasingly urban country, rural life, and those who cling to it, are being left behind.

[NOTE: This report was produced for November 20, 2010 edition of the CBC's "The World This Weekend". All rights reserved by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.]

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.

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.