Criminal Association Charges Dropped; Chiapas Government Paid Bail on Remaining Minor Charges

Jose Manuel "Don Chema" Hernandez Martinez, Rocelio de la Cruz Gonzáles, and José Manuel de la Torre Hernández, all leaders of the Emiliano Zapata Peasant Organzation (OCEZ) have been released from prison, according to a source close to the case.  The men were reportedly released last night and transported to their community in Venustiano Carranza county, Chiapas.

Document Arguing Narco-Peasant Link Reportedly Leads to Arrests, House Searches, Spying, Harassment, and Military Occupation

On November 10, Reforma's Martin Morita published an article claiming that a leaked government report linked the Chiapas-based Emiliano Zapata Peasant Organization - Carranza Region (OCEZ) to criminal organizations that move drugs, weapons, and migrants through the state.  His article claims that the intelligence report establishes a "relationship" between Los Zetas (the Gulf cartel's armed wing) and the OCEZ.  Likewise, Morita writes that the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), the People's Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARP), and the Insurgent People's Revolutionary Army (ERPI) are "connected" to "subversive armed cells" in Chiapas that are "receiving support from organized crime groups such as Los Zetas, the Gulf cartel's armed wing, and the Sinaloa Cartel, headed by Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, in order to obtain firearms."

Chiapas Government Commits Over a Million Pesos, Land to OCEZ Despite Claims that the Peasant Organization is a Drug Trafficking Front Group

On September 30, the Chiapas state government kidnapped peasant leader José Manuel "Don Chema" Hernández Martínez from his community, 28 de junio, which is located in Carranza county, Chiapas.  Even though the government was acting on arrest warrants that date back as far as 1999, police disguised themselves as government electricians and threw Don Chema into a truck without showing the warrants.  The incident lead to the death of two members of Don Chema's organization, the Emiliano Zapata Peasant Organization - Carranza Region (OCEZ).

The Chiapas state government has officially charged Don Chema with crimes related to a 2003 land occupation.  The OCEZ peacefully occupies Chiapas estates that legally belong to massive local landowners and pressures the government to deed the land to its peasant members. The government has charged Don Chema with: criminal association, aggravated plundering, and damages. They are all state-level crimes.  Two other OCEZ leaders have also been arrested.  Their lawyer says that in addition to the three detainees, there are still eleven outstanding warrants for other OCEZ members, all related to the same case.

Despite the official record on the three men's arrests (that is, that all charges against them relate to land occupations), rumors have circulated in the media that the OCEZ is a front group for cartels who traffic migrants, guns, and drugs through Chiapas.  The media reports accuse the detainees of being members of or collaborating with the armed wings of two different transnational drug trafficking organizations.   

Innocent Bystander Lizbeth Marin Garcia Was Shot While Sitting in a Friend's Living Room

By Julio Manuel L. Guzman, El Universal

Matamoros, Tamaulipas.  A bullet allegedly shot by members of the Mexican military took the life of a US citizen as she rested in the living room of a house located in a downtown neighborhood in Matamoros.

However, current putsch regime is facing expulsion for its failures

Nearly five months after the ruling aristocracy of Honduras used that nation’s military to oust the president of the country, Manuel Zelaya, from power and send him into exile, a “de facto” government, headed by a former leader of the Honduran Congress, Roberto Micheletti, remains firmly entrenched in power — with national elections only weeks away.

Any pretense that the upcoming elections will be free and fair can only be supported by an equal pretense that the current “de facto” government is somehow a legitimate alternative to the democratically elected and now deposed Zelaya administration.

Judge Can Make History Right by Keeping Pleadings in Ex-DEA agent Richard Horn’s Lawsuit on the Books

Former DEA agent Richard Horn, with the help of his attorney, former federal prosecutor Brian Leighton, recently brought the mighty CIA to its knees.

For some 15 years, Horn waged a legal battle in federal court against a former CIA official whom Horn alleged had illegally eavesdropped on him as part of a CIA- and State Department-backed effort to thwart DEA’s anti-narcotics mission in Burma in the early 1990s.

By Brenda Norrell

TUCSON -- Racism in America did not disappear when Barack Obama became president. Native American homelands are still targeted by corporations and some tribal governments, targeting the land for coal mining, power plants, oil drilling and toxic dumps.

Government Allows Misleading and False Information to Spread in the Corporate Media

On October 24, Chiapan state police arrested Rocelio de la Cruz Gonzalez and Jose Manuel de la Torre Hernandez, both leaders of the Emiliano Zapata Peasant Organization (OCEZ).  Narco News' Fernando Leon reports that the men say police tortured them during interrogation.  De la Torre Hernandez said in a statement: "Multiple times they put a nylon bag over my head, suffocating me, so that I would answer affirmatively to a list of questions.  [The questions included] if our organization OCEZ has weapons and a relationship with the church and with former and current Carranza mayors.  They also shot mineral water up my nose until I passed out."  De la Torre told his lawyer that police made him sign papers without reading them during the torture session.  Police tortured him until he passed out, then they woke him up to sign papers while he was still groggy.

On October 25, a contact sent this reporter an email with the subject "Official Communique."  The email was written in the style of a government press release, but it contained no media contact information nor was it signed by a government agency.  The contact believed the email was the government's official press release regarding the de la Torre Hernandez and de la Cruz Gonzalez arrests.  The contact had received the email from a local reporter who also seemed to believe the email was the government's official press release.  However, this "Official Communique" did not appear on the Chiapas state government's "Public Relations Institute" website, where all official state government press releases are posted, nor did it appear on the Chiapas State Attorney General's Office website, where press releases regarding arrests are posted. 

The "Official Communique's" absence from the websites where all official government communiques are posted is particularly noteworthy due to the wild claims made in the "communique." 

By Brenda Norrell

Photo of Hopi imprisoned at Alcatraz

KYKOTSMOVI, Ariz. -- Hopi gathered at the 'Water is Life' conference in Kykotsmovi on Friday, Nov. 6, 2009, to protect their aquifer and waters from mining and contamination from Peabody Coal on Black Mesa. It is also a time to remember the 19 Hopi imprisoned at Alcatraz who refused to allow their children to be indoctrinated in US colonial boarding schools.

Ex-Workers from Luz y Fuerza del Centro Tried to Enter the Pachuca Station and Hung Red and Black Banners in the Nuevo Necaxa, Puebla, Hydroelectric Plant

Wire Reports
El Universal

Ex-workers from defunct Luz y Fuerza del Centro power company intensified their actions in simultantaneous protests outside the company's buildings in two states.

In Hidalgo, the protesters created a protest encampment (plantón) outside the Juandho division in the Tetepango municipality, where the majority of the residents are ex-Luz y Fuerza workers.  Meanwhile, in Tula and Pachuca, they burned banners, flags, and sticks. The situation remains tense, and they are expected to be forcibly removed.

Ending litigation, filed by former DEA agent Richard Horn, will cost taxpayers a pretty penny

Former DEA agent Richard Horn, and his attorney, former federal prosecutor Brian Leighton, have struck a deal to end a long-running legal case in which Horn accused former CIA and State Department officials of spying on him and sabotaging his anti-narcotics mission in Burma — now known as Myanmar.

By Brenda Norrell

Photo: Angie Ramon, Tohono O'odham, views the crosses in memory of the migrants who died crossing the Sonoran Desert, at the Dia de los Muertos on Oct. 31, 2009, in San Xavier, Tohono O'odham land. Ramon remembered her son Bennett Patricio, Jr., who was run over and killed by the US Border Patrol. Based on the evidence, Ramon said her son walked upon US Border Patrol agents invovled in drug smuggling in the desert at 3 a.m. and was intentionally murdered. She took the case to Ninth Circuit federal court, but found no justice. Photo Brenda Norrell.

Profiteering from misery: Alaskan Natives' private migrant prison for profit is disturbing trend in violation of the traditional teachings of Native Americans

By Brenda Norrell

Photo: Outdoor migrant detention center on Tohono O'odham land, where temperatures can reach 116 degrees in summer, known as 'The Cage." Photo by Ofelia Rivas.

TUCSON -- Native Americans say the disturbing trend of profiteering from foul and abusive private migrant prisons by American Indian Nations violates traditional teachings to honor the sacredness of life and all humanity.
The San Xavier District of the Tohono O'odham Nation has planned a migrant prison in secret for years. Recently, outcry from neighbors at Sahuarita, Ariz., halted the plan. However, a second site selected in secret is east of Three Points, Ariz. and has not been made public.

Recent DOJ pleadings in state-secrets case appear to rely on fabrications

U.S. government attorneys seem to have made another major blunder in the closely watched state-secrets privilege case involving former DEA agent Richard Horn.

Government lawyers who are seeking to advance national security claims in Horn’s case have already been accused of committing a fraud on the court. In addition, Paul E. Forster, a former agent with the State Department Inspector General’s Office (OIG) is now prepared to testify in the case that his superiors whitewashed an investigative report that substantiated Horn’s charges against CIA and State Department employees.

By Brenda Norrell

SKY CITY, Acoma Pueblo, N.M. -- Where were the news reporters during the 7th Southwest Uranium Forum? Only two people identified themselves as news reporters at the gathering, a correspondent for Washington Post and another from the Four Corners Free Press.

Where was the American Indian media? Where were the Native American newspapers and radio stations?

Recently, Associated Press and the Arizona Republic were quick to attack environmentalists by rewriting the press releases of politicians and corporations. But where were their reporters when Indigenous Peoples gathered to tell their stories of how uranium mining, and the radioactive waste strewn and left behind, caused the deaths of their children, parents, brothers and sisters?