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.

An editor in the Mexican city of Veracruz has become the latest in a long list of journalists murdered in this hemisphere’s most dangerous country for media workers.

Armed men broke into the home of columnist and editor Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco early Monday morning and killed him along with his wife and 21 year old son, Misael, who had recently started performing photography work. Another son, named Miguel like his father, is a staff photographer at the same newspaper but lives in a separate residence.

While more reporters die violent deaths in Mexico than in any other country in the Americas, it’s not common that they are killed inside their homes with other family members. According to Notiver, the newspaper he co-edited, Miguel Angel Lopez Velsco lived two blocks from a police station.

Two other Mexican reporters have been murdered in recent weeks. Pablo Ruelas Barraza was shot dead June 13th while resisting an apparent kidnapping attempt in the state of Sonora. Some regional coverage of the crime indicated that Ruelas Barraza had spent some time in prison and stated he was  unemployed at the time of his murder.

Noel López Olguín was found in a shallow grave in the state of Veracruz. He had been kidnapped in March.

Another newspaper reporter, Marco Antonio López Ortíz, has been missing since unidentified men kidnapped him earlier this month in the state of Guerrero.

Mexico has reached a double digit death toll for journalists for the second consecutive year. Not only has 2010 surpassed 2009 in reporter murders, but Mexico has tied with Pakistan for the dubious title of world’s deadliest country for journalists.

Different press freedom organizations register different death tolls. Switzerland’s Press Emblem Campaign documents 14, France’s Reporters Without Borders registers 7, 8, and 11 depending on the post, and the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists lists only 3.

Comparing notes with the laudable documentation conducted by Mexico’s Center for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET), it seems the figure published by the Press Emblem Campaign is the most accurate. However, I switched out one of the deaths listed by PEC for another.

Continue Reading

Oaxaca City is home to some very talented graffiti artists. One day, I hope to go through the years of photos I’ve been taking of the city’s walls, but for now, here’s the short Centennial Edition of street art depicting heroes of the Mexican Revolution that began in November of 1910. There’s more out there, but I just happened to have a camera on me when passing these.

The image to the right is of the Oaxacan-born revolutionary journalist and anarchist Ricardo Flores Magón. He is often referred to as one of the intellectual founders of the Mexican Revolution. He was chief editor of the newspaper Regeneración and his strident stance in opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz (another native of Oaxaca) led to multiple arrests in Mexico and exile in the United States.

Exile did not treat Flores Magón well. The US administration at the time was close to the Mexican dictator and found ways to make sure the revolutionary journalist spent years in prison there as well. His overt anarchism in later life also attracted negative attention from the authorities – as it did for his close friend Emma Goldman. In 1918, he was arrested and sentenced to 20 years for violating sections of the World War I-era Espionage Act.

Ricardo Flores Magón died a political prisoner in Leavenworth Penitentiary on November 21, 1922. His remains were later repatriated to Mexico, where they were buried in the Rotunda of Illustrious Persons…an honor the anti-authoritarian may have actually opposed were he given a choice.

Continue Reading

The Magdalena River in southern Mexico City

Home to over 21 million people, Mexico City is the largest urban area in the Western Hemisphere. While its smog is world famous, its haphazard expansion has led to another environmental issue; it’s water system can’t cope. We sent Earth Beat correspondent Shannon Young to the city to look into the issues behind its those water problems.

[dewplayer:http://www.southnotes.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/EarthBeat_MexicoCityWater.mp3]

Live stand up next to river: “I’m standing along a stretch of the Magdalena River that comes through Mexico City proper. And at this point, it is a grey/green/brown mass of relatively viscous liquid. And there’s a small cascade here. It consists of a concrete block with broken tree branches and lots of garbage. I see a bottle of bleach, a rusty can of spray paint, lots of shredded tatters of plastic bags, some broken styrofoam plates, pieces of clothes…and it’s all really stinky.” (fade under river tone)

The Rio Magdalena is the only river considered to have any life within the limits of Mexico City. It originates in a forested area in the mountains west of the city, but is a putrid mess by the time it reaches the city’s southern edge.

Nearly all of the other rivers that used to exist in the city have since become vehicles for transporting sewage out of the metropolitan area.

Continue Reading