Aumentan violaciones a derechos humanos en MX(1)

Un grupo de padres de familia pide se esclarezca el paradero de 43 estudiantes de Ayotzinapa, Guerrero. 

El comedor de la Parroquia de San Gerardo, en el estado mexicano de Guerrero, está convertido en un memorial del espanto. Largas filas de fotografías cubren las paredes del galerón. Son decenas de rostros de personas ausentes, desaparecidas, raptadas y extraídas de su vida sin dejar rastro.

La mayoría son personas del norte del estado, el más pobre de México y uno de los más asolados por la violencia. La base de datos del comité de búsqueda suma a 350 personas desaparecidas y cada semana se suman más.

En el último año, esta parroquia de Iguala ha sido refugio, cada martes, de familias que han perdido el miedo a denunciar y a buscar a sus desaparecidos en el cementerio clandestino que se descubrió en los cerros que rodean a esta ciudad a partir de la desaparición de 43 estudiantes de la escuela de magisterio rural de Ayotzinapa, el 26 de septiembre de 2014.

Aquella noche, los estudiantes fueron atacados por la policía municipal de Iguala y -según se sabe ahora por la ardua investigación de un grupo de expertos designados por la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos-  hubo una acción concertada entre distintas fuerzas del Estado, incluidos militares y federales, que duró varias horas y tuvo al menos nueve escenarios.

Los agentes municipales ejecutaron a cinco civiles, entre ellos dos estudiantes; uno más fue torturado y su cuerpo apareció horas después junto a un basurero. Se llevaron detenidos a otros 43 normalistas, como se llaman en México a los estudiantes de magisterio, que en su mayoría cursaban el primer año.

Al cumplirse el primer aniversario del ataque, este sábado 26,  solo se ha localizado a uno hecho cenizas y dentro de una bolsa de plástico, mientras estos días se investiga el probable hallazgo de un segundo.

De los demás, no hay rastros.

El ataque a los normalistas destapó el albañal de la alianza entre políticos locales y grupos criminales y revivió el dolor de los 30.000 desaparecidos que, según las organizaciones de derechos humanos, dejó la estrategia militar de seguridad instauró el expresidente Felipe Calderón en enero de 2007 y visibilizó el Movimiento por la Paz, encabezado por el poeta Javier Sicilia.

El priísta Enrique Peña Nieto, en la Presidencia  desde diciembre de 2012, mantuvo la política de seguridad militar, pero sus efectos se hicieron invisibles por una estrategia mediática que concentró sus esfuerzos en promover reformas constitucionales para abrir los sectores de energía y telecomunicaciones a la industria privada.

Solo en el primer año, su gobierno invirtió cerca de 500 millones de dólares en publicidad oficial, según un estudio conjunto del Centro de Análisis e Investigación Fundar y del Artículo 19.

Pero  la violencia se mantuvo y según una investigación del diario El Universal, publicada en esta semana previa al aniversario del ataque a los normalistas, en 2014 las fiscalías del país reportaron más de 5,000 personas desaparecidas. Es decir, 14 cada día.

También destacan casos como el de norteño estado de Nuevo León, donde se han localizado 31,000 restos humanos entre 2011 y 2015, que han llevado a la identificación de 30 personas.

“La diferencia es que ahora las violaciones a los derechos humanos se están dirigiendo también contra defensores de derechos humanos y al movimiento social organizado”, dijo el activista Héctor Cerezo, quien ha documentado las desapariciones forzadas de defensores y líderes sociales durante los últimos cuatro años.

Durante el mandato de Peña Nieto, “hemos documentado 81 defensores que han sido víctimas de desaparición forzada; en el de Calderón documentamos 55. En total son 133 defensores, de 2006 a la fecha, que está documentado que el Estado se los llevó”, detalló.

“Quizá parece poco en un universo de miles de desaparecidos, pero indica un incremento en las estrategias de control social por parte del Estado mexicano”, planteó el activista.

Lea Represión, Página 2

Aumentan violaciones a derechos humanos en MX(2)

La foto muestra a los hermanos Alberto y Karla Nayelli, ambos mexicanos desaparecidos. 

Represión, Página 2

El informe “Defender los Derechos Humanos en México: la represión política, una práctica generalizada”, presentado el 27 de agosto por el Comité Cerezo México y la Campaña Nacional Contra la Desaparición Forzada, documenta 860 violaciones de derechos humanos contra activistas y luchadores sociales entre junio de 2014 y mayo de 2015.

El registro de violaciones incluye colectivos –47 organizaciones de la sociedad civil y 35 comunidades—y un aumento de detenciones arbitrarias, que casi se duplicó.

Entre ellas, se cuentan las derivadas de una protesta de jornaleros agrícolas en el norteño estado de Baja California, que trabajan en condiciones de esclavitud, y las movilizaciones de maestros durante el proceso electoral de junio en el sureño estado de Oaxaca y en el suroccidental Guerrero, en las que dos manifestantes fueron asesinados.

Para Cerezo, la desaparición de los normalistas de Ayotzinapa se enmarca en esta estrategia de control social.

“No se explicaría la brutalidad, la dimensión de la agresión y que el gobierno haya asumido tanto costo político solamente por un asunto de drogas. Es una desaparición ‘ejemplificante’ para el movimiento de derechos humanos y el movimiento social”, insistió.

En todo caso, el brutal ataque a los estudiantes ha puesto en evidencia la gravedad de la crisis de derechos humanos en México.

Investigaciones periodísticas documentaron este año al menos 80 ejecuciones extrajudiciales cometidas por el ejército y la Policía Federal en tres supuestos combates con grupos del crimen organizado, en los estados de México y Michoacán.

En Iguala, las brigadas de civiles que salieron a buscar a sus familiares en los cerros localizaron 104 cuerpos en fosas clandestinas, aunque solo nueve han sido identificados.

“No es solo Ayotzinapa, así está todo el país” dijo  una de las brigadistas, Graciela Pérez, quien busca a su hija desaparecida hace tres años en una zona del sur de Tamaulipas (a 750 kilómetros al norte de Iguala), donde ella sola documentó la ubicación de 50 fosas clandestinas entre enero y febrero de este año.

La crisis forzó una visita de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH), solicitada por organizaciones de derechos humanos, que se realizará del 28 de septiembre al 2 de octubre.

Además, en el Congreso legislativo están en espera de discusión cuatro iniciativas para una Ley General de Desaparición Forzada, que permita tipificar el delito.

“La desaparición forzada de un grupo grande de personas, integrantes de un movimiento social, es la primera en su tipo en el México contemporáneo”, dice el informe del Comité Cerezo, en referencia a la desaparición de los estudiantes.

Los padres de los normalistas desaparecidos en Iguala iniciaron este miércoles 23 un ayuno de 43 horas, un día antes de ser recibidos por el presidente, mientras que para el sábado 26 está convocada una mega marcha en la capital mexicana, en demanda de que aparezcan y se esclarezca el caso.

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Labels encourage local farming in Argentina(1)

A family displays its farming products at the Bondpland Solidarity Economy Market in Buenos Aires. 

It’s pouring rain in the capital of Argentina, but customers haven’t stayed away from the Bonpland Solidarity Economy Market, where family farmers sell their produce. The government has now decided to give them a label to identify and strengthen this important segment of the economy: small farmers.

Norma Araujo, her husband and son are late getting to the market in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo Hollywood because the heavy rains made it difficult to navigate the dirt roads to their farm, in the municipality of Florencio Varela, 38 km from the capital.

They quickly set up their fruit and vegetable stand as the first customers reach the old warehouse, which was closed down as a market during the severe economic crisis that broke out in late 2001. Today, 25 stands offer products sold by social, indigenous and peasant organizations, which are produced without slave labor and under the rules of fair trade.

“Our vegetables are completely natural. They are grown without toxic agrochemicals,” Araujo said. She is a member of the Florencio Varela Family Farmers Cooperative, which also sells chicken, eggs, suckling pig and rabbit.

Across from Araujo’s stand, Analía Alvarado sells honey, homemade jams, cheese, seeds with nutritional properties, natural juices, olive oil, whole grain bread, organic yerba mate – a traditional caffeinated herbal brew – and dairy products.

 “The idea is to give small farmers a chance, and here we have people from all around the country, who wouldn’t otherwise have the possibility of selling their goods,” Alvarado said.

The ministry of agriculture, livestock and fishing took another step in that direction with the creation in July of the “Produced by Family Farms” label, “to enhance the visibility of, inform and raise awareness about the significant contribution that family farms make to food security and sovereignty.”

According to the ministry, there are 120,000 family farms in this country of 43 million people, and the sector is “the main supplier of food for the Argentine population, providing approximately 70 percent of the daily diet.”

“A label identifying products grown on family farms not only makes the sector more visible but foments a dialogue between consumers and farmers who have a presence in the countryside across the entire nation, generating territorial sovereignty,” said Raimundo Laugero, director of programs and projects in the ministry’s family agriculture secretariat.

In the category of family farmers the government includes peasants, small farmers, smallholders, indigenous communities, small-scale fisher families, landless rural workers, sharecroppers, craftspeople, and urban and periurban producers.

 Laugero said the label will not only identify products as coming from the family agriculture sector, but will “guarantee health controls, chemical-free and non-industrial production, and production characterized by diversity, unlike monoculture farming.

“When we’re talking about a product from family agriculture, the symbolic value is that they are produced through artisanal processes and with work by the family, and one fundamental aspect is that behind the product are the faces of people who live in the countryside,” he said. Agriculture is one of the pillars of the economy of this South American nation, accounting for 13 percent of GDP, 55.8 percent of exports and 35.6 percent of direct and indirect employment.

Read Local Labels, Page 2.

Labels encourage local farming in Argentina(2)

A local farmer displays his fruits and vegetables in his shop at the Bonpland Solidarity Market in Buenos Aires. 

Local Labels, Page 2.

María José Otero, a pharmacist, has come a long way to the market on her bicycle, but she doesn’t mind. For her family she wants “the healthiest and most natural diet possible, free of chemicals.”

She also shops here because of “a social question” – she wants to benefit those “who produce natural food without so much industrialization, while avoiding the middlemen who drive up food prices.

“Besides, I’m really interested in the impact caused by the act of consuming something with awareness,” she added. “That means taking care of the environment where you work, respecting animals. It’s not the same thing to consume eggs from animals that walk about and eat naturally as from animals that are cruelly treated and packed into warehouses, fed in horrible ways.”

Otero said the new label was “great.” “There’s a lot of deception in this also, from people who say they’re selling organic products or products made with a social conscience, and it’s a lie. This label gives you a guarantee,” she said.

“This will especially help the public become aware of what it means to help small farmers. So they can realize that what they pay and what they consume really goes to them, and for the people who do the work to really get paid what they are due,” Alvarado said.

Laugero also stressed that a significant aspect of the new label is that it is linked to “participatory guarantee systems for agroecological products.”

He pointed out that normally when farmers apply for a label recognizing their products, they need to turn to a company that carries out the certification process, while the concept “agroecological” has other components.

He mentioned six pilot projects in Argentina, of participatory guarantee systems – basically locally focused quality assurance systems – for agroecological products, which involve organized farmers and consumers, and which the state will now support as well.

“With the label, they’re going to do much better, because they’ll have a more massive reach, and more people will be included,” he said.

At the Bonpland market, Claudia Giorgi, a member of the La Asamblearia cooperative, which works as part of a network with other social organizations, is preparing shipments to another province which will use the same transportation to send products back, to cut costs.

Giorgi makes papaya preserves. But she also sells products from other cooperatives like natural cosmetics, lavender soap, medicinal herbs, pesticide-free tea, mustard and different kinds of flour.

 “What is produced in each social organization is traded for products from other groups, at each organization’s cost, which is the producers’ costs plus what is spent on logistics,” she explained.

She said she didn’t have any information yet about the new label, but believes that it will be a good thing if it proves to be “functional” and if it differs from labels that “are profit-making schemes” and “have a cost.”

The resolution creating the new label states that one of the aims is to “promote new channels of marketing and sales points.”

Laugero noted that besides accounting for 20 percent of agricultural GDP, family farming represents 95 percent of goat production, 22 percent of cattle production, 30 percent of sheep production, 33 percent of honey production, 25 percent of fruit production, 60 percent of fresh vegetables, and 15 percent of grains.

“But that doesn’t always translate into profits,” he said. “We need to work hard on those aspects so that income also ends up in the hands of family farmers.”

In her case, Araujo puts the emphasis on solving even more simple problems, such as finding transportation for her vegetables to the market, even when it rains. “They should fix our dirt roads,” she said, clarifying that small farmers themselves have offered to participate in the task.

Two Chilean women bring solar tech to village(1)

Liliana and Luisa Teran are the two Chilean women who trained in India to install solar panels.

Liliana and Luisa Terán, two indigenous women from northern Chile who travelled to India for training in installing solar panels, have not only changed their own future but that of Caspana, their remote village nestled in a stunning valley in the Atacama desert.

“It was hard for people to accept what we learned in India,” Liliana Terán said. “At first they rejected it, because we’re women. But they gradually got excited about it, and now they respect us.”

Her cousin, Luisa, said that before they travelled to Asia, there were more than 200 people interested in solar energy in the village. But when they found out that it was Liliana and Luisa who would install and maintain the solar panels and batteries, the list of people plunged to 30.

“In this village there is a council of elders that makes the decisions. It’s a group which I will never belong to,” said Luisa, with a sigh that reflected that her decision to never join them guarantees her freedom.

Luisa, 43, practices sports and is a single mother of an adopted daughter. She has a small farm and is a craftswoman, making replicas of rock paintings. After graduating from secondary school in Calama, the capital of the municipality, 85 km from her village, she took several courses, including a few in pedagogy.

Liliana, 45, is a married mother of four and a grandmother of four. She works on her family farm and cleans the village shelter. She also completed secondary school and has taken courses on tourism because she believes it is an activity complementary to agriculture that will help stanch the exodus of people from the village.

But these soft-spoken indigenous women with skin weathered from the desert sun and a life of sacrifice are in charge of giving Caspana at least part of the energy autonomy that the village needs in order to survive.

Caspana – meaning “children of the hollow” in the Kunza tongue, which disappeared in the late 19th century – is located 3,300 meters above sea level in the El Alto Loa valley. It officially has 400 inhabitants, although only 150 of them are here all week, while the others return on the weekends, Luisa explained.

They belong to the Atacameño people, also known as Atacama, Kunza or Apatama, who today live in northern Chile and northwest Argentina.

“Every year, around 10 families leave Caspana, mainly so their children can study or so that young people can get jobs,” she said.

Up to 2013, the village only had one electric generator that gave each household two and a half hours of power in the evening. When the generator broke down, a frequent occurrence, the village went dark.

Today the generator is only a back-up system for the 127 houses that have an autonomous supply of three hours a day of electricity, thanks to the solar panels installed by the two cousins.

Each home has a 12 volt solar panel, a 12 volt battery, a four amp LED lamp, and an eight amp control box.

The equipment was donated in March 2013 by the Italian company Enel Green Power. It was also responsible, along with the National Women’s Service (SERNAM) and the Energy Ministry’s regional office, for the training received by the two women at the Barefoot College in India.

On its website, the Barefoot College describes itself as “a non-governmental organization that has been providing basic services and solutions to problems in rural communities for more than 40 years, with the objective of making them self-sufficient and sustainable.”

So far, 700 women from 49 countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America – as well as thousands of women from India – have taken the course to become “Barefoot solar engineers”. 

They are responsible for the installation, repair and maintenance of solar panels in their villages for a minimum of five years. Another task they assume is to open a rural electronics workshop, where they keep the spare parts they need and make repairs, and which operates as a mini power plant with a potential of 320 watts per hour.

Read Solar Panels, Page 2.

Two Chilean women bring solar tech to village(2)

Villagers at Caspana, Chile, celebrate the festivities of the Candelaria. 

Solar Panels, Page 2.

In March 2012 the two cousins travelled to the village of Tilonia in the northwest Indian state of Rajasthan, where the Barefoot College is located.

They did not go alone. Travelling with them were Elena Achú and Elvira Urrelo, who belong to the Quechua indigenous community, and Nicolasa Yufla, an Aymara Indian. They all live in other villages of the Atacama desert, in the northern Chilean region of Antofagasta.

“We saw an ad that said they were looking for women between the ages of 35 and 40 to receive training in India. I was really interested, but when they told me it was for six months, I hesitated. That was a long time to be away from my family!” Luisa said.

Encouraged by her sister, who took care of her daughter, she decided to undertake the journey, but without telling anyone what she was going to do.

The conditions they found in Tilonia were not what they had been led to expect, they said. They slept on thin mattresses on hard wooden beds, the bedrooms were full of bugs, they couldn’t heat water to wash themselves, and the food was completely different from what they were used to.

“I knew what I was getting into, but it took me three months anyway to adapt, mainly to the food and the intense heat,” she said.

She remembered, laughing, that she had stomach problems much of the time. “It was too much fried food,” she said. “I lost a lot of weight because for the entire six months I basically only ate rice.”

Looking at Liliana, she burst into laughter, saying “She also only ate rice, but she put on weight!”

Liliana said that when she got back to Chile her family welcomed her with an ‘asado’ (barbecue), ‘empanadas’ (meat and vegetable patties or pies) and ‘sopaipillas’ (fried pockets of dough).

“But I only wanted to sit down and eat ‘cazuela’ (traditional stew made with meat, potatoes and pumpkin) and steak,” she said.

On their return, they both began to implement what they had learned. Charging a small sum of 45 dollars, they installed the solar panel kit in homes in the village, which are made of stone with mud roofs.

The community now pays them some 75 dollars each a month for every other month maintenance of the 127 panels that they have installed in the village.

“We take this seriously,” said Luisa. “For example, we asked Enel not to just give us the most basic materials, but to provide us with everything necessary for proper installation.”

“Some of the batteries were bad, more than 10 of them, and we asked them to change them. But they said no, that that was the extent of their involvement in this,” she said. The company made them sign a document stating that their working agreement was completed.

“So now there are over 40 homes waiting for solar power,” she added. “We wanted to increase the capacity of the batteries, so the panels could be used to power a refrigerator, for example. But the most urgent thing now is to install panels in the 40 homes that still need them.”

But, she said, there are people in this village who cannot afford to buy a solar kit, which means they will have to be donated.

Despite the challenges, they say they are happy, that they now know they play an important role in the village. And they say that despite the difficulties, and the extreme poverty they saw in India, they would do it again.

“I’m really satisfied and content, people appreciate us, they appreciate what we do,” said Liliana.

“Many of the elders had to see the first panel installed before they were convinced that this worked, that it can help us and that it was worth it. And today you can see the results: there’s a waiting list,” she added.

Luisa believes that she and her cousin have helped changed the way people see women in Caspana, because the “patriarchs” of the council of elders themselves have admitted that few men would have dared to travel so far to learn something to help the community. “We helped somewhat to boost respect for women,” she said.

And after seeing their work, the local government of Calama, the municipality of which Caspana forms a part, responded to their request for support in installing solar panels to provide public lighting, and now the basic public services, such as the health post, have solar energy.

“When I’m painting, sometimes a neighbor comes to sit with me. And after a while, they ask me about our trip. And I relive it, I tell them all about it. I know this experience will stay with me for the rest of my life,” said Luisa.