US Border Patrol Causes Migrant Deaths through Policy Enforcement

Por

10 February, 2021

translated by David Milan

Two US organizations, No More Deaths and La Coalición de Derechos Humanos (The Human Rights Coalition), report that the policies and tactics implemented by United States Border Patrol on the border with Mexico have fed a crisis of death and disappearance of migrants who cross through areas extremely inhospitable to life.

These organizations, made up of volunteers who help migrants with food and water among other forms of support, have released a series of three reports through which they seek “to expose and combat those US government policing tactics that cause the crisis of death and mass disappearance [of undocumented migrants] in the borderlands,” according to their official website.

The first document, published in 2016, details the policy that backs up Border Patrol in pushing migrants to the edge of death. It began in 1994 and is called “prevention through deterrence.”

This policy justified the militarization of urban zones along the US-Mexico border. According to the first report, titled Deadly Apprehension Methods: The Consequences of Chase & Scatter in the Wilderness, the objective was to push migrants away from official ports of entry towards geographically more remote and dangerous regions, driving them towards death.

In their investigations, these volunteers explain that “Border Patrol agents chase border crossers through the remote terrain and utilize the landscape as a weapon to slow down, injure, and apprehend them.” They add that “chases lead to heat exhaustion and dehydration, blisters and sprains, injuries due to falls, and drownings.”

The activists have had contact with hundreds of migrants and documented the experiences they have lived through while crossing the border. They conducted a survey which concluded that “tackles, beatings, Tasers, dog attacks, and assault with vehicles were all reportedly employed by the Border Patrol against border crossers during chase.”

Taking the Water from the Fish

In the second report, published in 2018, the organizations detail the practices employed by Border Patrol to reduce subsistence possibilites for migrants they don’t manage to capture. One of these is the destruction of humanitarian aid offerings that the volunteers leave on migrant trails. “In the desert of the Arizona–Mexico borderlands, where thousands of people die of dehydration and heat-related illness, Border Patrol agents are destroying gallons of water intended for border crossers,” states the report. “Border Patrol agents stab, stomp, kick, drain, and confiscate the bottles of water that humanitarian-aid volunteers leave along known migrant routes in the Arizona desert.”

According to the activists, these actions are systemic across the agency, not isolated. The agents “routinely intimidate, harass, and surveil humanitarian-aid volunteers,” calling into question “the Border Patrol’s own claims to be humanitarian.” Interference with aid “is a systemic feature of enforcement practices in the borderlands and a logical extension of the broader strategy of Prevention Through Deterrence,” claims the report.

The organizations state that according to the guidelines of this policy, “anything that makes the journey more dangerous or difficult for border crossers could be considered a reasonable tactic for enforcement, including the vandalization of safe drinking water.”

Since 2012, No More Deaths and other organizations have distributed thousands of gallons of water along the trails of undocumented migrants. Due to the length and difficulty of the journey, “it is physically impossible for anyone attempting to cross the border on foot to carry enough water and food supplies to survive. As a result, thousands of border crossers have died of thirst in the open desert.”

911 Doesn’t Work for Those Crossing the Border

The third part in the series, published in February 2021 and titled Left to Die: Border Patrol, Search and Rescue, and the Crisis of Disappearance, details how 911 response systems receive thousands of calls per year from people making unauthorized crossings into the United States and send them on to Border Patrol.

This agency is the one responsible for responding to emergency calls made through 911. However, the activists report that the majority of migrants who manage to make calls for help receive no aid, because they are presumed to be undocumented. “In 63% of all distress calls that families and advocates referred to Border Patrol, the agency did not conduct any confirmed search or rescue mobilization whatsoever,” states the document.

The report states that Border Patrol in effect has all decision-making power over emergency services for those attempting to cross which is to say, it’s in their hands whether undocumented migrants live or die. “The US Border Patrol is not a search and rescue organization. On the contrary, the agency is a massive, militarized federal police force that dedicates over 99% of its annual budget and over 99% of its personnel to support border enforcement activities.”

The organizations that worked on these three reports included a long series of recommendations directed towards government agencies, above all, border demilitarization and the immediate end of Border Patrol’s role as the only agency to respond to reported emergencies. “We call on government agencies to establish borderlands emergency response systems that are fully separate from immigration enforcement. Such response systems must be timely and well-funded, with a front line of medical responders and trained search and rescue teams who will scan the landscape with an empathetic eye rather than a punitive one,” they recommend in the third report.

They also demand that “the federal government must establish initiative(s) independent from border enforcement to centralize and publicize tracking of migration-related recovered human remains borderwide.”

The organizations’ research showed that Border Patrol maintained an official count of 7,805 remains recovered between 1998 and 2019; however, states the report, “our team estimates that three to ten times as many people may have died or disappeared since the implementation of Prevention through Deterrence.”

Armed Attack Against Inhabitants of Cuatro Venados, Oaxaca

Por

Ñaní Pinto

10 February, 2021

Around 2 P.M. on Wednesday, February 9^th, some twenty people carrying military-grade firearms attacked inhabitants of the community of San Pablo Cuatro Venados once again. This took place specifically in the localities of “El Rebollero,” “Los Arquitos,” and “Rio Minas,” located just 45 minutes from Oaxaca City.

“Campesinos who were grazing their cattle in the area we know as Los Patanares and Loma de Costales were attacked with firearms. The attack was carried out by around twenty people who arrived in two pickup trucks, one white and the other red,” said the victims.

In a communiqué, community members explained that “the trucks arrived from the direction of El Carrizal and Tiracoz of Cuilapam de Guerrero” and that “the armed attack lasted approximately 20 minutes.”

The assailants disappeared into the vegetation of the community. As of 5 P.M., “unknown people continue arriving and entering the vegetation,” explained one community member, who preferred to remain anonymous for security reasons.

In the communiqué, inhabitants of the community announced that they are on “maximum alert.” There are rumors that they could be attacked again, just as they were on May 31^st, 2019, when more than 500 people armed and with heavy machinery demolished their houses and burned their crops. “The most worrying thing is that other people from outside our community continue arriving and are hiding in the brush along the river,” they stated.

Learn more – Atacan y derriban casas de indígenas zapotecos, los acusan de usurpar sus propias tierras and the documentary Cuándo los Coyotes Aúllan

Community members blame the three levels of government for what might happen next. “We hold the three levels of government responsible since more than once we have denounced these attacks. We are Indigenous people of San Pablo Cuatro Venados and the lands that we live on belong to our ancestors.”

The community members explain that part of the interest in the land is the exploitation of gold and silver, as well as the exploitation of the water that springs from their mountains. “We know that at least three mining concessions have been issued in our lands: Title 217598, issued in 2002, located in the Cuatro Venados lot with an area of 132 hectares; Title 227548, issued in 2006, located in the la Soledad lot with an area of 3600 hectares; and the third concession, Title 242665, issued in 2013, covers the municipalities of Cuatro Venados and San Miguel Peras, located in Moisés lot with an area of 1400 hectares,” said the communiqué.

On May 31^st, 2019, a team from Avispa Midia counted twenty-four demolished and burned houses after an attack on the community. The corn, beans, and other grains that were stored for planting were covered with gasoline and set on fire. Clothes, beds, and shoes were scattered about. They broke the only two solar cells the community had for generating energy. They also stole cows, two generators, and a water pump—basically, everything they could.

Read the community’s complete communiqué here (Spanish) ➜

Chiapas: Faced with Aggression, Zapatista Support Bases Suspend Planting

Por

Avispa

5 February, 2021

_{Photo by Anthony Guerra}

On Monday February 1^st, a group of people invaded the land where support bases of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (BAEZLN), belonging to the community of Nuevo San Gregorio, were planting beans and corn. The invasion forced the suspension of planting activities.

The Solidarity Caravan denounced this hostility in a communiqué released on Wednesday February 3rd, where they pointed out that this action is another aggression and part of the counterinsurgency escalation in recent years.

“We consider this action to be an aggression against food autonomy and the right to land. These are the same mechanisms of invasion that have been used since November 2019 by the invading group, and it is one of the reasons for the presence of the Solidarity Caravan,” they detailed in the document. They also drew attention to the fact that the BAEZLN can’t feed their animals and families can’t return to their homes since the aggressors are occupying the road toward the community.

The Solidarity Caravan, made up of organizations, collectives, and individuals who are adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, is carrying out accompaniment and observation in lands that “…are of vital importance for the self-sustainability of the community as they exercise their right to free self-determination as autonomous peoples.”

That’s why the caravan departed on Monday from San Cristóbal de las Casas toward the community of Nuevo San Gregorio, Autonomous Zapatista Rebel Municipality (MAREZ) of Lucio Cabañas, to accompany the BAEZLN in their work in the field. The planting activities have now been suspended due to the invasion.

A communiqué shared by the Ajmaq Network of Resistance and Rebellion pointed out that “The residents of the community of Nuevo San Gregorio, Autonomous Municipality of Lucio Cabañas, identified the following people among the invading group: from the town of San Gregorio Las Casas, Nicolás Pérez Pérez, Sebastián Bolom Ara, Pedro Hernández Gómez, Alejandro Pérez Huet, Nicolás Moshán Huet, and Sebastián Ara Moshán; from Duraznal, Javier Gómez Pérez, Manuela Moshán Huacash, Miguel Gómez Méndez, and Pedro Pérez Pérez; from Rancho Alegre, Felípe Enríquez Gómez; and from San Andrés Puerto Rico, Miguel Moshán Huey, and Manuel Moshán Moshán.”

This attack adds to the violence carried out by armed groups affiliated with the Regional Coffee Growers’ Organization of Ocosingo (ORCAO), who have threatened the Zapatista communities of the Moises Ghandi region, and the Autonomous Zapatista Rebel Municipality of Lucio Cabañas with firearms.

For now, the caravan continues its presence in the region. In addition to documenting counterinsurgency strategies against the BAEZLN, they are also working to protect the physical and emotional wellbeing of the people of the community against possible aggression as well as documenting violence that has occurred where Zapatista girls, boys, and women are the most vulnerable.

Meat and Soy Consumption in Europe and USA Linked to Deforestation in the Amazon

Por

Renata Bessi

20 January, 2021

Translated by David Millan

Cargill and Bunge, two transnational food production and processing companies based in the US and the Netherlands respectively, have been linked with the deforestation of at least 249,000 acres (101,000 hectares) of forest in the Amazon (the largest tropical rainforest in the world) and the Brazilian Cerrado (the largest tropical savanna in the world) since March 2019. The data come from an investigation by the monitoring tool Mighty Earth, which works in partnership with the investigative organization Aidenvironment to trace links between the global soy and beef supply chains and the destruction of Brazilian rainforest.

The study tracked other companies in addition to Cargill and Bunge, including the Brazilian meat company JBS, all of them linked to the supply of meat and soy markets in the US, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and France.

Cargill controls 70% of the import market of Brazilian soy entering the British supermarket supply chain. According to Mighty Earth, 78% of direct soy exports from Brazil to the UK originate from the Cerrado and the Amazon. Direct soy exports from these regions also represent more than 50% of the total volumes of Brazilian soy for France, the Netherlands, and Germany.

In 2018 alone, Brazil exported a total of 7.1 million metric tons of the product to these countries. “This soy is then crushed or refined and sold to meat production companies to feed chickens, cows, and pigs. Supermarkets subsequently sell chicken, pork, milk, and cheese to consumers in ‘own-brand’ products or from well-known meat companies such as Moy Park (in the UK), Le Gaulois and Maitre Coq (in France) or Vion (in the Netherlands),” the organization states in its report.

A portion of cattle production occurs on deforested lands as well. According to the study, “Brazil exported roughly 180,000 tonnes of beef to the European Union and nearly 80,000 tonnes to the United States, according to latest available figures (2017) through companies such as JBS, Marfrig and Minerva.” JBS alone is linked to the deforestation of 105,000 acres (42,500 hectares). “This beef is then sold on by supermarkets as ‘luxury’ Brazilian beef, or processed beef products such as Hertford corned beef (UK)”, states the report.

Deforestation

The numbers from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) show that at least 2.7 million acres (11,000 square kilometers) of tropical rainforest in the Amazon were destroyed between August 2019 and July 2020, the greatest area in over a decade. Mighty Earth tracked a little more than 494,000 acres (2,000 square km), from some of the worst cases of deforestation and logging in the country.

EZLN: A Declaration for Life

Por

Avispa

11 January, 2021

_{Photo by Santiago Navarro F}

Part One: A DECLARATION…

FOR LIFE

January 1st, 2021

TO THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD:

TO PEOPLE FIGHTING IN EUROPE:

BROTHERS, SISTERS AND COMPAÑER@S:

During these previous months, we have established contact between us by various means. We are women, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, transvestites, transsexuals, intersex, queer and more, men, groups, collectives, associations, organizations, social movements, indigenous peoples, neighbourhood associations, communities and a long etcetera that gives us identity.

We are differentiated and separated by lands, skies, mountains, valleys, steppes, jungles, deserts, oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, lagoons, races, cultures, languages, histories, ages, geographies, sexual and non-sexual identities, roots, borders, forms of organization, social classes, purchasing power, social prestige, fame, popularity, followers, likes, coins, educational level, ways of being, tasks, virtues, defects, pros, cons, buts, howevers, rivalries, enmities, conceptions, arguments, counterarguments, debates, disputes, complaints, accusations, contempts, phobias, philias, praises, repudiations, boos, applauses, divinities, demons, dogmas, heresies, likes, dislikes, ways, and a long etcetera that makes us different and, not infrequently, opposites.

Only very few things unite us:

That we make the pains of the earth our own: violence against women; persecution and contempt of those who are different in their affective, emotional, and sexual identity; annihilation of childhood; genocide against the native peoples; racism; militarism; exploitation; dispossession; the destruction of nature.

The understanding that a system is responsible for these pains. The executioner is an exploitative, patriarchal, pyramidal, racist, thievish and criminal system: capitalism.

The knowledge that it is not possible to reform this system, to educate it, to attenuate it, to soften it, to domesticate it, to humanize it.

The commitment to fight, everywhere and at all times – each and everyone on their own terrain – against this system until we destroy it completely. The survival of humanity depends on the destruction of capitalism. We do not surrender, we do not sell out, and we do not give up.

The certainty that the fight for humanity is global. Just as the ongoing destruction does not recognize borders, nationalities, flags, languages, cultures, races; so the fight for humanity is everywhere, all the time.

The conviction that there are many worlds that live and fight within the world. And that any pretence of homogeneity and hegemony threatens the essence of the human being: freedom. The equality of humanity lies in the respect for difference. In its diversity resides its likeness.

The understanding that what allows us to move forward is not the intention to impose our gaze, our steps, companies, paths and destinations. What allows us to move forward is the listening to and the observation of the Other that, distinct and different, has the same vocation of freedom and justice.

Due to these commonalities, and without abandoning our convictions or ceasing to be who we are, we have agreed:

First.- To carry out meetings, dialogues, exchanges of ideas, experiences, analyses and evaluations among those of us who are committed, from different conceptions and from different areas, to the struggle for life. Afterwards, each one will go their own way, or not. Looking and listening to the Other may or may not help us in our steps. But knowing what is different is also part of our struggle and our endeavour, of our humanity.

Second.- That these meetings and activities take place on the five continents. That, regarding the European continent, they take place in the months of July, August, September and October of the year 2021, with the direct participation of a Mexican delegation integrated by the CNI-CIG, the Frente de Pueblos en Defensa del Agua y de la Tierra de Morelos, Puebla y Tlaxcala, and the EZLN. And, at later dates to be specified, we will support according to our possibilities the encounters to be carried out in Asia, Africa, Oceania and America.

Third.- To invite those who share the same concerns and similar struggles, all honest people and all those _belows_ that rebel and resist in the many corners of the world, to join, contribute, support and participate in these meetings and activities; and to sign and make this statement FOR LIFE their own.

From the bridge of dignity that connects the Europe from Below and on the Left with the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

We.

Planet Earth.

January 1, 2021.

List of signatories: enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mxpartoneadeclarationforlife

Peru: Interim Government Resigns after Intense Mobilization and Crackdown

Por

Ángel Huerta

18 November, 2020

Photos by Juan Zapata/Wayka.pe

After the Peruvian congress installed Manuel Merino as president on November 10, thousands of people took to the streets across the country.

Faced with a political class that doesn’t represent the people and a pandemic that hit the South American country hard (despite harsh restrictions imposed by President Martín Vizcarra’s administration), indignation, anger, and uncertainty pushed thousands over the edge. They filled the plazas and avenues for days after what many have called a coup.

In response, the new government was quick in repressing the demonstrators with excessive violence by Peru’s National Police.

Bullets in Response to Protests

On November 14 during a national march against Manuel Merino’s power grab and the majority of Congress, brutal police repression left two dead: Jack Bryan Pintado Sánchez, 22, and Jordan Inti Sotelo Camargo, 24. Both suffered multiple gunshot wounds at the hands of the police.

The Center of Emergency Health Operations, part of Peru’s Ministry of Health, reports that “a total of 107 citizens were seen for injuries suffered during the mobilization. Of these, 73 have been discharged and 34 remain hospitalized.”

The National Coordinator of Human Rights (CNDH) reported that there are missing persons and launched a campaign for residents to report if their family members or friends hadn’t returned from the demonstrations. On a live-updated list, at the time of this article’s publication the CNDH reported four people still missing from a list of more than 60. The organization stated that “we have knowledge of sexual violence against two young women detained in a printshop the night of November 14. The women reported being sexually assaulted and this must be investigated exhaustively. We know that the police have made illegal and arbitrary arrests.”

Human rights organizations formalized a criminal accusation against Manuel Merino as well as the transitional prime minister Ántero Flores-Aráoz, former interim minister Gastón Rodríguez, General Jorge Luis Cayas Medina, the Lima chief of police, Director General of the National Police Orlando Velasco Mujica, and all those responsible for the crimes of homicide, abuse of authority, and grievous bodily harm against the protesters. The organizations filed the charges with Zoraida Ávalos, Peru’s Attorney General.

The document also mentions that prior to swearing in nine new ministers on November 11, Manuel Merino called former Minister of the Interior Cesar Gentile to request that he intensify repression and stamp out the protests.

Among those affected, the document mentions Jack Bryan Pintado Sánchez, Jordan Inti Sotelo Camargo, both now deceased; Luis Alejandro Aguilar Rodríguez, 26; Percy Pérez Shaquiama, 26; Rubén Guevara, 27; Ernesto Benavides Raez; Rene Jenrry Ccaqui Crisostomo; José Manuel Romero Rivas; José Miguel Hidalgo Rodríguez; Roberto Muñoz Torres; Alonso Vhro Ucea; Alfonso Balbuena Bellatín, and others who have not yet been identified.

Coup

In an interview with Avispa Midia, reporter Roxana Loarte from Wayka.pe said, “This coup was brought about by several party factions with not just political but economic interests in laws in the making and links with state institutions like the Constitutional Court. This has been a contest between two state powers, the executive and the legislative; it’s a struggle between right-wing groups. Martín Vizcarra, the president who was removed from office, is being investigated; he is also under investigation by the Attorney General’s office for corruption in positions he held previously in regional government.”

“There are over 60 congresspeople in Parliament, 68 to be exact, under investigation by the Attorney General’s office, not just for corruption but other acts as well. The people are indignant at this landscape of not only corruption but also uncertainty, an institutional crisis and a weakened democracy, and on top of it all, the repercussions of the pandemic,” says Loarte.

On Sunday November 15, Merino resigned as President of the Republic. All members of the Congress’s General Committee stepped down as well. Now, a congressional majority must elect a new Committee from the lists presented by the parties. The Board of Spokespersons convoked a plenary session for 4 p.m. that same day.

After several hours in session, with thousands of people in the streets, the representatives voted on one of the lists proposed to form the new General Committee, headed by Representative Rocío Silva Santisteban, a feminist congresswoman who did not vote for Vizcarra’s removal. However, it did not achieve the 60 votes necessary to be approved, which mean parliamentary groups resumed negotiations in search of a new path.

The head of this new General Committee would automatically assume the functions of President of the Republic until July 2021, by which date power must be transferred to the person elected by the Peruvian people in the presidential elections planned for April.

Meanwhile, Peru is in the middle of one its worst political and social crises, during a pandemic, with thousands of deaths and an economic crisis. Congress is made up of primarily right-wing politicians who refuse to let go of their privileges, and those most affected in this situation are those who were already the most vulnerable.

With a health system at the point of collapse, Peruvians face a bleak outlook even though the victory of having expelled the interim government has filled the streets with hope. The 2021 elections will no doubt reflect these lessons in the face of an indolent and out-of-touch political class.

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