Strikes spread in Mexico, thousands of police deployed to capital
Strikes spread in Mexico, thousands of police deployed to capital
By Neil Hardt
6 January 2017
Strikes spread in Mexico, thousands of police deployed to capital
By Neil Hardt
6 January 2017
Police made up to 600 arrests throughout Mexico yesterday as protests continued against President Enrique Pena Nieto’s cut to gas subsidies, known colloquially as the gasolinazo. One police officer was killed during confrontations in an impoverished neighborhood of Mexico City, and the mayor deployed 9,000 police to guard commercial centers throughout the city.
Yesterday also saw indications that localized protests by workers may be developing into a broader strike movement. Fourteen thousand bus, truck and taxi drivers in the oil-producing state of Veracruz announced a statewide strike of indefinite length, with many leaving their trucks, cabs, and buses parked on the street.
Workers in Veracruz, located on the Atlantic coast, joined transportation workers in the city of Guadalajara, less than 100 miles from the Pacific, who also struck yesterday, though initial reports show the strike as only partial. Truck drivers and demonstrators continued to block several key highways and tollbooths linking major inland Mexican cities.
The protest continued as US President-elect Donald Trump threw further doubt into Mexico’s US-export-based manufacturing industry when he tweeted a threat to penalize Toyota for its plans to build an auto plant in Baja California.
In Morelia, 2,000 transportation workers marched demanding the resignation of President Pena Nieto and the revocation of the subsidy cut. El Financiero warned that there are “signs of a total strike of transport” in Michoacan. In Acapulco, Guerrero, taxi drivers are encircling Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) oil trucks, forcing them to stop and taking turns siphoning the gas from their tankers. When a group of soldiers attempted to stop one group of taxi drivers yesterday, the drivers said that if the soldiers intervened they would light the tanker on fire. The soldiers backed down.
The trade unions are stepping in to prevent the demonstrations from coalescing into a nationwide strike. Trade union bureaucrats who announced the recent strikes stated explicitly that they were forced to do so by workers, who in the words of one trade union official, are becoming “violent.”
Castelan Cruvelli, president of the Veracruz transport workers union ASTRAVER, denounced striking workers for threatening scab drivers and appealed to the government for help: “This has not gotten out of control, we are hoping that a government liaison will engage in dialogue with us, as always in a peaceful way.”
Alfredo Dam Ham, leader of the Mexican Transport Workers Alliance (AMOTAC), pledged to the government that the strike would remain peaceful and appealed to drivers to refrain from blocking any roads.
The entire ruling apparatus—including the trade unions, the corporate press, businesses and the capitalist parties—are fearful that the gasolinazo protests have the potential to ignite into a movement of millions of Mexican workers. Last night, police arrested up to 600 people as riots and looting spread throughout the country, including youth as young as 13 years old.
The main national association of gas stations, shop owners and department stores called for the government to send the armed forces to crush demonstrations. The group’s president, Manuel Cardona Zapata, told the television program Despierta yesterday, “We need federal intervention, and if necessary the army, because this situation is out of control.”
According to Cardona, rioters have looted 250 stores in recent days as protests spread throughout Mexico City and the states of Mexico, Michoacan, Hidalgo, Veracruz, Tabasco, Queretaro and Quintana Roo.
Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera, a member of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), said the subsequent police deployment was “to guarantee the free expression of ideas.” Video circulated yesterday, however, showed police looting stores in the State of Mexico.
Though looting has undoubtedly occurred, it is miniscule compared to the Pena Nieto administration’s looting of the oil industry, which was nationalized in 1938 after a major strike by oil workers against British oil corporations. The oil subsidy cut is part of the Mexican ruling class’s efforts to privatize Pemex and to hand the country’s oil resources over to private corporations.
Protesters, led by transportation workers, have continued to block several oil processing centers, creating what Pemex described as a “critical situation” for oil production. Heavily armed riot police confronted demonstrators in at least one location and were able to “liberate” the Pemex facility when the workers peacefully retreated from the barricades after a tense standoff.
Transportation workers and demonstrators also reportedly established a new blockade around a facility near the border city of Mexicali. Elements of the federal and state police, as well as the army, are guarding other key facilities. Pemex also announced that the blockades are causing severe gas shortages in Baja California and Chihuahua.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, ex-candidate for president and leader of the Movement for National Regeneration (Morena), issued a video statement yesterday afternoon and warned of “chaos” caused by demonstrators who he said were following “fascist strategies.” “We want to put order in the chaos,” he said. Lopez Obrador told viewers to put their faith in a legislative resolution to overturn the gas hike, saying, “Congress represents the people.”
Morena and Lopez Obrador are expected to poll well in next year’s presidential elections, with many commentators anticipating a Morena victory. Morena is an ostensibly “left” populist bourgeois party that plays a key role in Mexican politics by directing social opposition back into the safe channels of the Mexican state and away from the class struggle. Morena helped suffocate opposition to the Pena Nieto government’s education reforms, paving the way for the government to cover up its role in murdering 43 student teachers in Guerrero in 2014.
The protests in Mexico have been blacked out by the corporate media in the US, despite the fact that millions of Mexican citizens currently reside north of the border. As of Thursday afternoon, the online front pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, ABC, Fox, and CBS all failed to mention the demonstrations. This is not an oversight. The American ruling class fears that the development of a movement of the working class in Mexico will ignite a parallel struggle by workers of all nationalities in the United States.
JUDICIAL WATCH:
“The greatest criminal threat to the daily lives of American citizens are the Mexican drug cartels.”
Two Mexican Cities Hugging US Border Among the Country’s Most Dangerous: Experts are blaming drug cartel violence and the increased use of guns by criminals for a surge in homicides in the Mexican cities of Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez on the U.S. border.
Two Mexican Cities Hugging US Border Among the Country’s Most Dangerous
By Mark Browne | December 28, 2016 | 1:54 AM EST
Vehicles line up at the Paso del Norte Bridge between Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas. (AP Photo/Ivan Pierre Aguirre, File)
Mexico City (CNSNews.com) – Experts are
blaming drug cartel violence and the
increased use of guns by criminals for a surge
in homicides in the Mexican cities of Tijuana
and Ciudad Juarez on the U.S. border.
Tijuana sits opposite San Diego, while Ciudad Juarez hugs the border with El Paso. The Mexican cities each have more than one million inhabitants.
The 2016 murder rate in Ciudad Juarez is the highest in four years, said Francisco Rivas, director of the citizens’ group Observatorio Nacional Ciudadano which monitors federal crime statistics.
The homicide rate in Tijuana, Rivas said, is the highest seen in a decade.
According to statistics released by the group,
homicide investigations in the state of Chihuahua,
where Ciudad Juarez is located, increased by 80.4
percent in October, compared to the average of the
previous 12 months.
They increased by 14.8 percent in Baja California, home to Tijuana.
Comparable claims have been made by the online publication Animal Politico. Citing federal and local crime statistics, it reported that there were 386 homicides in Ciudad Juarez from January to October of this year, the highest rate seen since 2012.
The publication also said the homicide rate in Tijuana was the highest in a decade, with 671 homicides during the past 10 months – the highest of any city in the country.
In its latest Mexico travel advisory, the State Department cited “an increase in homicide rates from January to July, 2016” in the state of Baja California.
“While most of these homicides appeared to be targeted criminal organization assassinations, turf battles between criminal groups have resulted in violent crime in areas frequented by U.S. citizens,” the advisory said.
It also recommended that Americans “exercise caution in all areas” of Ciudad Juarez.
The majority of homicides investigated nationally in Mexico, 1,195 out of 1,860, were committed with a firearm.
Organized crime is “undoubtedly a factor” in the rising violence, Rivas said, but the high availability of guns has also made previously non-lethal crimes, like robbery, deadly for victims.
The incidence of violence and killings in Mexico has soared since former President Felipe Calderon became the first to expand the use of federal troops to fight organized crime, a decade ago.
Rivas said the strategy has not worked. He compared it to cold remedies that treat symptoms but do not cure the underlying illness.
Rivas also blamed the proximity to the U.S. border for higher levels of violence, saying that organized crime groups vie for power in border areas where they can then control the activities of other criminal groups.
The government needs to combat the huge profits and resources used by organized crime networks to fund their operations, he said.
Last February, a study published by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean found that proximity to the U.S. border was a “key factor” in understanding violence and its relation to organized crime in Mexico.
The study also found a high correlation between the number of uninhabited homes and the homicide rate. In 2010, Ciudad Juarez had the highest percentage of uninhabited homes.
The head of security in the State of Tijuana, Daniel de la Rosa Anaya, blamed the rising homicide rate there on recidivism among convicted criminals who after release from prison, rejoin criminal gangs.
Individuals rising through the ranks of organized crime had set off a “wave of violence,” he was quoted as saying.
This month, the Catholic Multimedia Center declared Mexico the most dangerous place in the world for Catholic priests.
Violence against church personnel and members has increased by 100 percent since President Enrique Peña Nieto took office in 2012, the center said.
An earlier report by the center said 15 priests have been killed since 2012.
As reported earlier, the Mexican online publication Zetatijuana says 78,109 citizens have been murdered during Peña Nieto’s administration, an average of 21,199 homicides annually for the years 2013, 2014 and 2015.
Meanwhile the government’s approach to fighting crime is drawing criticism.
A paper published this month by the Baker Institute at Rice University said most of the security operations undertaken by Mexico to fight organized crime have “increased the level of violence, further exhibited the weakness of the state and angered civil society.”
RAPE, MURDER, SCALPING… THE MEXICANS HAVE ARRIVED!
Sheriff: MS-13 Gang Brings Machetes, Rape, Scalping to Texas
BY BOB PRICE
Members of the hyper-violent MS-13 transnational criminal gang are bringing severe tactics like machete-hacking murders, rape, and scalping to Texas according to the Texas Sheriff’s Association.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2016/11/mexican-gangs-overrun-texas-open-and.html
TEXAS: MEXICO’S SOUTHERN PROVINCE
ANOTHER LA RAZA RAPE of a CHILD
NO ONE TOLD THE MEX RAPIST WE HAVE BORDERS!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2016/11/report-east-texas-child-murdered-by.html
REPORT:
East Texas Child Murdered by Previously Deported Illegal Alien
Law enforcement officials in East Texas are reporting the alleged murderer of 10-year-old Kayla Gomez-Orozco is a previously deported illegal alien from Mexico.
"He has been deported 10 times and voluntarily removed from the U.S. another nine times since 2003."
THE LA RAZA CRIME TIDAL WAVE….. then they go vote Democrat for wider open borders and more welfare!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-la-raza-mexican-crime-tidal-wave-40.html
40% of all Federal Border Crimes are by invading Mexicans!
AT readers don't need further proof that our border security is pathetic. But the case of Mexican illegal alien Tomas Martinez-Maldonado is particularly galling because the failure of the total breakdown of the criminal justice and immigrati...
December 31, 2016
Illegal alien who raped 13 year old girl was deported 10 times
By Rick Moran
AT readers don't need further proof that our border security is pathetic. But the case of Mexican illegal alien Tomas Martinez-Maldonado is particularly galling because the failure of the total breakdown of the criminal justice and immigration enforcement systems which led Martinez-Maldonado to rape a 13 year old girl on a Greyhound bus in Kansas.
Martinez-Maldonado was deported 10 times and voluntarily left the country another 9 times. He was prosecuted for illegal entry several times, serving several months in jail. But somehow, his repeated offenses never made it to the district attorney, who should have had him up on felony immigration charges. In fact, two of his illegal entry cases were dismissed.
Associated Press:
A status hearing in the rape case is scheduled for Jan. 10. Defense attorney Lisa Hamer declined to comment on the charge, but said, "criminal law and immigration definitely intersect and nowadays it should be the responsibility of every criminal defense attorney to know the possible ramifications in the immigration courts."
Nationwide, 52 percent of all federal prosecutions in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 were for entry or re-entry without legal permission and similar immigration violations, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
It's not unusual to see immigrants with multiple entries without legal permission, said David Trevino, a Topeka immigration attorney who has provided legal advice to Martinez-Maldonado's family. Most of Martinez-Maldonado's family lives in Mexico, but he also has family in the United States, and the family is "devastated," Trevino said.
"(President-elect Donald Trump) can build a wall 100 feet high and 50 feet deep, but it is not going to keep family members separated. So if someone is deported and they have family members here ... they will find a way back — whether it is through the air, under a wall, through the coast of the United States," Trevino said.
He declined to comment on Martinez-Maldonado's criminal history and pending charge.
Records obtained by AP show Martinez-Maldonado had eight voluntary removals before his first deportation in 2010, which was followed by another voluntary removal that same year. He was deported five more times between 2011 and 2013.
In 2013, Martinez-Maldonado was charged with entering without legal permission, a misdemeanor, and subsequently deported in early 2014 after serving his sentence. He was deported again a few months later, as well as twice in 2015 — including the last one in October 2015 after he had served his second sentence, the records show.
ICE said in an emailed statement that when it encounters a person who's been deported multiple times or has a significant criminal history and was removed, it routinely presents those cases to the U.S. attorney's office for possible criminal charges.
Cosme Lopez, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Arizona, declined comment on why prosecutors twice dismissed felony re-entry after deportation charges against Martinez-Maldonado in 2013 and 2015 in exchange for guilty pleas on misdemeanor entry charges.
What can realistically be done? Building a wall is only part of the solution. Reforming the criminal justice system so that illegal aliens will be dealt with swiftly and fairly must be part of any immigration enforcement package passed by Congress so that people like Martinez-Maldonado won't slip through the cracks.
It's too late to help a 13 year old girl, brutally assaulted by someone who should never have been here in the first place. But with Republicans in control of Congress and a president willing to do what's necessary to keep illegal aliens out of the country, hopefully, travesties like rape and murder of innocents by illegals will become far less common.
Mexican man charged with raping a 13-
year-old girl on a bus had NINETEEN
deportations and removals
Tomas Martinez-Maldonado, 38, charged with a felony in September 27 attack
He has been deported 10 times and voluntarily removed from the U.S. another nine times since 2003
Martinez-Maldonado had eight voluntary removals before his first deportation in 2010, which was followed by another voluntary removal that same year
He was deported five more times between 2011 and 2013
In 2013 he was charged with entering without legal permission and subsequently deported in early 2014
He was deported again a few months later, as well as twice in 2015, most recently in October 2015
By Associated Press
PUBLISHED: 14:05 EST, 30 December 2016 | UPDATED: 18:19 EST, 30 December 2016
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A Mexican man accused of raping a 13-year-old girl on a Greyhound bus that traveled through Kansas had been deported 10 times and voluntarily removed from the U.S. another nine times since 2003, records obtained by The Associated Press show.
Three U.S. Republican senators — including Kansas' Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts — demanded this month that the Department of Homeland Security provide immigration records for 38-year-old Tomas Martinez-Maldonado, who is charged with a felony in the alleged Sept. 27 attack aboard a bus in Geary County.
He is being held in the Geary County jail in Junction City, which is about 120 miles west of Kansas City.
+1
Tomas Martinez-Maldonado a Mexican national accused of raping a 13-year-old girl on a Greyhound bus that traveled through Kansas had been deported 10 times and voluntarily removed from the U.S. nine times since 2003
U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, from Iowa and chairman of the judiciary committee, co-signed a Dec. 9 letter with Moran and Roberts to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, calling it 'an extremely disturbing case' and questioning how Martinez-Maldonado was able to re-enter and remain in the country.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it has placed a detainer — a request to turn Martinez-Maldonado over to ICE custody before he is released — with Geary County. ICE declined to discuss his specific case beyond its October statement regarding the 10 deportations.
Court filings show Martinez-Maldonado has two misdemeanor convictions for entering without legal permission in cases prosecuted in 2013 and 2015 in U.S. District Court of