Lat/Am Daily » Human Rights

Wild-eyed theory of the week

Peter Krupa — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:07:13 +0000

This just had to be transcripted. From North Carolina Representative Sue Myrick:

Here we are with a pourous border, not really paying attention to who’s coming over, what’s happening with Iran and Hugo Chávez and Venezuela. We know that there are people going to Venezuela, learning Spanish, and then coming up through Mexico with fake documents, trying to cross the border. If they’re stopped they say, I’m Mexican. You know. Or Spanish. The point is, a border agent who really knows the difference in their language can tell that they aren’t Mexican, and so it’s very difficult if those agents aren’t really trained in linguistics to know that. And they get across.

Ah yes, the ol’ learn-Spanish-in-Venezuela-then-pretend-you’re-Mexican-or-Spanish trick. Really a shame the US public education system can’t get the next generation of border guards past the Me gusta el pollo stage.

How long, O Lord, until North Carolina sloughs off into the Atlantic?

NAFTA and Mexican maize

Peter Krupa — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:56:41 +0000

The Nation has a long, wonky, wonderful article on Mexican maize cultivation, the effects of NAFTA, and the dangers of genetically-modified seeds. Author Peter Canby backs up his excellent writing with piles and piles of meticulous research. Not to be missed. [link, via SM] (Image from Joel Penner.)

Betancourt’s tin ear

Peter Krupa — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 01:56:38 +0000

What is wrong with Ingrid Betancourt? The most charitable explanation is that she is absolutely terrible at public relations. Her first act upon being rescued from six years in FARC captivity last year was to leave her faithful, long-suffering husband. Then she moved to France – her other nationality – and now she’s asking the Colombian government – the government that mounted a hugely complicated, daring operation to rescue her – for US$6.8mn in damages for the kidnapping ordeal.

There are plenty of people who would be within their rights to demand monetary compensation from the Colombian military, but Betancourt? And really, is this the best she’s got?

A smart person and a good politician would have been able to leverage her kidnapping experience into a few speaking engagements, a visiting professorship, several seats on the boards of NGOs, and a profitable book about a humbling journey that made one spiritually stronger, etc.

And then, who knows? Public office? A UN Rapporteurship? A lobbying position?

But when Betancourt stepped off that helicopter and onto the public stage, she spontaneously combusted, and she’s been burning ever since. La Silla Vacia tries to argue that this latest tone-deaf move is part of her history of chasing after money. But as I just noted, there are all sorts of ways Betancourt could have turned her ordeal into money had she been so inclined. Sell the movie rights, for Christ’s sake.

Only someone who feels both completely indifferent to the opinions of average people and totally entitled to special treatment from authority could do something this boneheaded. This isn’t Betancourt the almost-martyr presidential candidate, Colombia’s angel of suffering before FARC brutality and the gaze of all the world.

This is Betancourt the aristocrat, and it makes one think that maybe the gringos were right.

(Original image courtesy Fabio Gismondi, via Wikimedia Commons.)

Farinas ends hunger strike

Peter Krupa — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:32:19 +0000

Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas ended his hunger strike yesterday after 134 days. Farinas decided to end his strike after the Cuban government said it would release political prisoners rounded up in the “Black Spring” crackdown of 2003. Get well soon. [link]

Ranchers sentenced in murder of nun

Peter Krupa — Tue, 04 May 2010 03:32:18 +0000

Two Brazilian ranchers were sentenced to 30 years in prison apiece for ordering the killing of an environmentalist nun: “Prosecutors said the pair offered to pay a gunman $25,000 to kill the 73-year-old [Dorothy] Stang because she had prevented them from stealing a piece of land that the government had granted to a group of poor farmers.” [link]

Log in the eye

Peter Krupa — Tue, 04 May 2010 03:23:47 +0000

Central American immigrants move north through Mexico via freight trains.

While Mexicans are justifiably outraged over a new law in Arizona that criminalizes illegal immigrants, this might be a good time to recall that they themselves aren’t too great at treating unwanted guests with decency and respect. Amnesty International recently released a hair-raising report on the gauntlet of rape, theft, and abuse that immigrants from Central America have to endure in Mexico on their way to the US of A. Here’s one incident from the 48-page report:

On 1 March 2008, a Salvadoran couple, Marta and Juan (not their real names), were passing near the INM post at Huixtla on the Tapachula-Arriaga road, Chiapas state. Three uniformed municipal policemen stopped them and stole their money. Then, three armed men arrived and took Marta away. One of the policemen told her husband to disappear, but he scoured the area looking for his wife until the following day, when he made his way to the shelter run by Father Solalinde in Ciudad Ixtepec, Oaxaca state. He filed a complaint with the PGJE in Tapachula. Father Solalinde told Amnesty International that later, when Marta was located in El Salvador, she confirmed that the armed men had blindfolded her and forced her to walk for a day before repeatedly raping her. After five days in captivity, Marta woke alone. Traumatized, she made her own way back to El Salvador, reluctant to pursue a criminal complaint against the perpetrators. The Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants raised the case with the Mexican government which offered to provide Marta with a visa to file a complaint, but she refused to return to Mexico. To Amnesty International’s knowledge, no further efforts were made to identify the perpetrators.

It’s estimated that six out of 10 migrant women passing through Mexico are sexually abused. Many other migrants are kidnapped or killed by criminal gangs, often with the complicity of the local police and municipal authorities. And pretty much none of the perpetrators are ever brought to justice: Illegal immigrants are afraid to go to the authorities because they themselves are breaking the law, making them sitting ducks for criminals.

Which, by the way, will be one of the nastier side-effects of the Arizona law.

This is not to say that two wrongs make a right, but that maybe Mexican civil society (which sounds like it does great work on this issue, by the way) could use the Arizona controversy as a teachable moment to whip up a little empathy and understanding for the plight of the migrant on Mexican soil.

(Original image courtesy wetape)

‘The Torture Coloney’

Peter Krupa — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 03:27:31 +0000

For your Wednesday evening reading pleasure, a very long, very strange article on Colonia Dignidad, a German colony founded in Chile by a child molester/Nazi named Paul Schaefer. In addition to being the personification of the evil cult leader, Schaefer – who died last week in prison – got into evil politics as well, torturing people on behalf of Pinochet.

The whole thing’s too weird and creepy to excerpt. Just print it out.

(H/T BoingBoing.)

Anywhere but there

Peter Krupa — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 06:33:51 +0000

They did it. Arizona – a state for old people and unemployed real estate brokers – now has the most fascist immigration laws in the country. I try not to write about happenings in the United States in this space, but since Lat/Am Daily criticizes so many other countries in the Americas for their human rights violations, I’ll make an exception for this travesty.

From the New York Times:

The law, which proponents and critics alike said was the broadest and strictest immigration measure in generations, would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and give the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.

Let’s see, where was I the last time I was required to carry documents proving my non-illegal status? Oh, that’s right, I was in Cuba. Then again, no one’s ever accused the US right wingers of being consistent.

Enjoy your police state.

Another Google product still in beta

Peter Krupa — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 03:21:42 +0000

Google appears to be rather proud of its new-found freedom of expression spine. It just released a snazzy new product mapping out the countries in the world whose governments have requested information be removed from one of the company’s products (Blogger, YouTube, etc.).

Unfortunately, in order for numbers to be useful, you need some sort of baseline, and Google’s map doesn’t give us one. Maybe if you combine it with data on the number of people in each country who use the internet?

For example, Argentina has a population of about 40 million, only 28% of whom are connected to the internet. Google in Argentina has received 42 requests to remove information from one of its products, which breaks down to about 0.38 complaints per 100,000 internet users.

Though the raw numbers make it look worse, Brazil is about the same as Argentina, with 0.40 complaints per 100,000 internet users. But Germany beats everyone, with 3.1 removal requests per 100,000 users.

In the end, I’m not really clear on what Google’s trying to tell us. That Germany has greater internet restrictions than Cuba? Or that Brazil’s government is the only one in the world that gives enough of a damn about Google to file legal challenges against it?

The power of interactive mappy-thingies for promoting human rights causes is indeed great, but this is where the engineers should have maybe consulted with a social scientist.

Women prisoners trafficked for prostitution

Peter Krupa — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 02:03:58 +0000

Guards, legal personnel, secretaries, and prisoners all allegedly participated in a prostitution ring in the Mexico City penal system that trafficked women prisoners from the female prisons to the male prisons for the enjoyment of “padrino” – or wealthy – prisoners there. [link]