The government of Mexican President Felipe Calderón has issued a formal request to the US Congress for a huge increase in military aid to combat narco-gangs. The request came in a recent US-Mexico Inter-Parliamentary Meeting held in Austin, TX, and was revealed to the Mexican daily La Jornada by Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), leader of the House Intelligence Committee. La Jornada called the request a "Plan Colombia" for Mexico, although without an actual US military troop presence. (La Jornada, June 8)

Teachers from the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) clashed with capital police and elite Federal Preventative Police at blockades of the federal Government Ministry and the central offices of the national TV network Televisa in Mexico City May 31. The blockades were called to protest the reform now pending in Mexico's Congress of the State Workers Social Services and Security Institute (ISSSTE). Televisa was chosen as a target because the CNTE says its reportage has mis-represented their cause, and to demand that their statements be given air time. The protesters also demanded the nationalization of Televisa as well a halt to the proposed semi-privatization of the ISSSTE.

Mexican Peasants Resist Land Grab for Hydro Dam

from SIPAZ

Mexico's National Tourism Development Fund (Fonatur) has announced a new mega-complex to be built in the conflicted southern state of Chiapas. Centering around the Classic Maya ruins of Palenque, the complex will include an 8,000-room hotel, theme park and golf course. It will cover 58,490 hectares in the municipalities of Palenque, Catazajá, Chilón, Ocosingo, Salto del Agua and Tumbalá. Slated for completion in 2012, authorites say it will require the relocation of several local communities. (La Jornada, May 27) Meanwhile, the Federal Agency of Investigation (AFI) and Chiapas state police carried out raids of several houses and ranches in Palenque May 28. The raids came following an ambush of a patrol from the Chiapas State Agency of Investigation (AEI) just one block from Palenque's town plaza. The presumed sicarios (hired assassins) opened fire on the agents with AR-15 rifles from two cars, leaving one dead and two wounded. (APRO, May 29)

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) turned in its final report on last year's unrest in Oaxaca May 24, blaming both authorities and protesters for "excesses," and urging the government to investigate its finding that federal police tortured detainees. The independent governmental commission also blamed the government for not intervening to stop the crisis before it escalated to bloodshed. CNDH president José Luis Soberanes said the administration of then-President Vicente Fox had "unjustifiably delayed, for more than a month and a half, in complying with its constitutional duty to help restore order and peace in Oaxaca."

"Agriculture likes immigration bill," reads the May 21 headline in the Columbus Dispatch and other McClatchy newspapers. The new bill would expand and streamline the guest worker program which has been in place since the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. Some 30,000 workers annually come in through the current H-2A program. The streamlined program, dubbed AgJOBS (for Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act of 2007) could be passed as a stand-alone bill or part of the larger immigration legislation. Some of the same politicians who shaped the 1986 act are instrumental in the guest worker provisions of the currrent bill, such as Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA). California's Tri-Valley Herald notes that the state's agbiz interests are lobbying heavily for it. But a timely May 24 story in the New York Times notes how an attempt by farm labor organizers to eliminate the system of graft which greases the H-2A program recently resulted in a grisly assassination in northern Mexico. Further details on the case are provided by the advocacy website LabourStart:

Two months after the detention of a group of young people protesting the visit of President George Bush to the southern Mexican city of Merida, Yucatan state, five remain behind bars, unable to pay bail which has been set at 30,000 pesos ($3,000). The only woman detained, Victoria Texeira, has been denied bail because she is accused of violently attacking a reporter. (La Jornada, May 18)

Fourteen assassinations attributed to narco gangs were carried out May 20 in Mexico City, Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Guerrero, Sinaloa and Oaxaca. Additionally, federal army troops exchanged fire with 20 gunmen with AR-15 automatic rifles, bullet-proof vests and uniforms of the Federal Agency of Investigation (AFI) at a checkpoint on the Apatzingán-El Alcalde road in Michoacán.