The NarcoSphere -

Honduran President Zelaya earns high marks for governance, U.S. agency scorecard shows

Bill Conroy — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:50:51 -0500

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.

For the critics of the coup d'état, who see it for what it was, a power grab by Honduras’ business-class elite to preserve a corrupt status quo, the pretense is transparent.

But for those who continue to argue that the coup was somehow legitimate, a necessary means to unseat Zelaya — a Hugo Chavez wannabe in their eyes who was pulling Honduras into the clutches of a demonic socialism — the pretense continues, until today, when they will be confronted with hard evidence undercutting their bogus assertions on that front.

The MCC Scorecard

The U.S. taxpayer-funded agency called the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which oversees a multi-billion dollar foreign-aid fund, was established in 2004 under the Bush administration to help spur development in poor nations through programs injected with a strong dose of neo-liberal economic theology.

MCC is currently in the final year of a five-year $215 million aid program for Honduras. The MCC Honduras program is designed to fund agricultural and transportation projects that “will increase the productivity and business skills of farmers and their employees who operate small- and medium-sized farms, and will reduce transportation costs between targeted production centers and national, regional, and global markets,” according to the MCC’s description of the aid compact.

Each year, as part of its assessment of countries participating, or seeking to participate, in its aid programs, MCC issues what it calls country “scorecards” that assess the economic and political conditions in those nations based on a comparison to other nations with similar per-capita incomes [how much each individual in a nation earns annually, on average].

A score above the median (the middle point) in that comparison is considered a passing grade by MCC, for the purposes of assessing performance, while a score below the median is considered a failing grade.

The scorecard is developed from a range of data and reports prepared by a variety of organizations (none of them socialist in leanings), such as the World Bank, Freedom House, UNESCO and the Heritage Foundation.

The results of the scorecard assessment are released annually, but because of the dated nature of the data, the scorecard largely represents a trailing assessment; in other words, the scorecard released this year represents, in large measure, an assessment of a nation’s performance in 2008. The scorecards grade across three major categories, which are defined as “ruling justly,” “economic freedom,” and “investing in people.”

The most recent MCC scorecards, released earlier this month, seemingly were completely overlooked by the mainstream press, particularly the U.S. media outlets who continue to print propaganda promoting the justness of the Honduran coup based on the pretense that Zelaya was a wild-eyed socialist who was leading Honduras to ruin.

And there might be a good reason for the media silence with respect to the scorecard for Honduras.

The most recent scorecard for that Central American nation (the fiscal year 2010 report released on Nov. 9) shows that during the period covered, primarily 2008, when Zelaya was still in power, Honduras received passing grades on every measure of “economic freedom,” save one.

In fact, some of those grades were near the top of the class with respect to similarly situated nations. For example, Honduras in the most recent MCC scorecard, ranked in the the 89th percentile with respect to is regulatory quality and in the 98th percentile in terms of its trade policy

(The trade policy data is more current and does reflect conditions in 2009, including the first six months of the year when Zelaya was in power. Honduras’ score in 2008 for that indicator put it in the 83rd percentile, up from the 65th percentile in 2006 — the year Zelaya took office.)

In addition, under Zelaya, in the measure of how easy it is to start a business, Honduras showed continuous improvement since he took office in 2006 — raising that mark from a failing score in the 49th percentile in 2006 to a well-above passing grade in the 64th percentile in 2008 — and into the 68th percentile in 2009.

The lone “economic freedom” category in which Honduras received a failing grade on the MCC scorecard was in the measure of “fiscal policy,” which essentially is a measure of the nation’s debt performance and is an area in which Honduras has failed to make the grade for years, predating Zelaya’s administration. (Honduras’ decision in December 2007 to join the Venezuela-sponsored Petrocaribe S.A., which offers participating nations the ability to purchase oil under preferential terms, can actually be viewed as a way to address the nation’s “fiscal policy” woes, even though Zelaya opponents point to it as evidence of his dangerous alliance with their perceived Latin American boogeyman, Hugo Chavez.)

Social Justice

Now, Zelaya accomplished the impressive scorecard showing on the “economic freedom” front while also turning in a stellar performance in the area of “investing in people.” In that category, according to the most recent MCC scorecard, Honduras under Zelaya received passing grades across the spectrum, including healthy scores in immunization rates (80th percentile), health expenditures (75th percentile) and girls’ primary education completion (85th percentile).

So it seems Zelaya, to a largely successful degree, found a way to balance free-market economic progress and social investment and appears to have been moving a large swath of the nation in a forward direction when he was abruptly interrupted by a coup backed by that nation’s elites — who apparently were not enamored of the social investment side of Zelaya’s agenda.

That leads us to the third category of assessment in the MCC scorecard, “ruling justly.”

Before we get to that, however, it’s worth noting what MCC has to say with respect to its analysis of the latest scorecard for Honduras.

From an MCC spokesperson, who asked not to be named:

According to MCC’s collection of data from third-party independent sources, Honduras does not perform above the median on the Control of Corruption indicator, MCC’s one hard hurdle.

Honduras does perform above the median in relation to its income level peers in the lower income category on at least half of the indicators in the Ruling Justly and Encouraging Economic Freedom categories and above the median on the indicators in the Investing in People category for fiscal year 2010. The indicators on the fiscal year 2010 scorecards largely reflect the events and conditions of calendar year 2008.

For the record, on the fiscal year 2010 scorecard (released in early November) Honduras scored above the median on five of the six measures in the “economic freedom” category and in all five measures in the “investing in people” category.

With respect to the “ruling justly” category, however, Honduras received a passing grade on only four of the six measures on its recent scorecard. One of those failing grades was in the area of “rule of law,” which “rates countries on the extent to which the public has confidence in and abides by the rules of society; the incidence of violent and non-violent crime; the effectiveness, independence, and predictability of the judiciary; and the enforceability of contracts,” according to MCC.

The “rule of law” indicator has long been a problem for Honduras. The nation has failed to earn a passing grade on that measure dating back to at least 2001, according to MCC reports. So the blame for that shortcoming cannot be placed solely on Zelaya — and, in fact, has more to do with the failure of the nation’s judiciary and law enforcement systems.

The other failing grade, as pointed out by the MCC spokesperson, was in the measure of “control of corruption” — which, according to MCC, is an “index of surveys and expert assessments that rates countries on the frequency of ‘additional payments to get things done’; the effects of corruption on the business environment; ‘grand corruption’ in the political arena; and the tendency of elites to engage in ‘state capture’” — the latter a term essentially equivalent to crony capitalism.

For the sake of context, it is worth pointing out that although Honduras received a failing grade in the “control of corruption” measure on the current scorecard (covering the year 2008), the nation actually made progress in that area between 2006 and 2007 — moving from a failing to a passing score. The fact that the score slid back to failing in 2008 demonstrates the resiliency of the “grand corruption” and “state capture” in Honduras.

And so, the two areas where Zelaya’s administration received failing grades with respect to the rule of law on the most recent MCC scorecard involve precisely the forces that arguably conspired to throw him from office.

The coup was carried out with the complicity of the nation’s judiciary and also represented the ultimate act of “state capture” by the Honduran elites who were behind the putsch.

Honduras’ failure to make the grade in those two measures (“rule of law” and “control of corruption”) can be seen, then, in hindsight, as a red flag pointing to the fact that conditions were primed for a coup in Honduras — and until those areas are addressed going forward, any hope for ensuring real democracy in the nation may be ultimately doomed.

In fact, MCC itself seems to support that premise in a letter delivered to the U.S. Congress this past September announcing the aid agency’s intention to terminate a portion of its funding to Honduras as a direct result of the coup.

From MCC’s Sept. 17 Congressional notification:

On June 13, 2005, MCC signed a $215 million Millennium Challenge Compact (the "Compact") with the Government of Honduras. Funding for the Compact was obligated in full when the Compact entered into force on September 29, 2005.

As set forth in the accompanying report, on June 28, 2009, Honduras's democratically elected leader, President Manuel Zelaya, was removed from office. A de facto government, headed by the former president of congress Roberto Micheletti, is currently in place. This undemocratic transfer of power involved the participation of the civilian institutions of the Honduran government as well as the military….

… On September 9, 2009, MCC's Board of Directors decided to terminate funding for certain projects and activities under the Compact and authorized the Acting Chief Executive Officer of MCC to take the necessary actions to carry out the termination….

MCC has determined that the manner of the removal of President Zelaya on June 28 and the failure to reestablish the democratic order in Honduras are contrary to sound performance on MCC's Ruling Justly criteria. MCC expects that the impact of these events will be most directly observed in three indicators: Political Rights; Civil Liberties; and Voice and Accountability. Data lags will delay the impact of these events from appearing on Honduras's next MCC scorecard, which is due to be released in November 2009. If, however, there is no restoration of democratic and constitutional governance in Honduras, MCC would expect to see declines in these indicators in future years.

MCC's eligibility criteria include a commitment to "just and democratic governance." The pattern of actions taken by Honduras beginning on June 28, 2009, is inconsistent with this commitment and MCC's eligibility criteria.

For the record, under the Zelaya administration, according to the MCC fiscal year 2010 scorecard, Honduras turned in grades well above passing with respect to “political rights,” “civil liberties” and “voice and accountability” — the latter, described by MCC, as “the ability of institutions to protect civil liberties; the extent to which citizens of a country are able to participate in the selection of governments; and the independence of the media.”

So, it seems even MCC, based on evidence submitted by very mainstream, pro-capitalistic sources (Freedom House, the Heritage Foundation, the World Bank, etc.) concludes that Zelaya was better for Honduras (in terms of economic freedom, social justice and democratic rule) than Micheletti and his illegal regime, which pretty much blows apart any credible argument that Zelaya was a wild-eyed radical and reckless leader of his nation who had no respect for the rule of law.

Stripped of that pretense, what do the coup plotters, and their paid lobbyists and media sympathizers, now advance as evidence of the justness of Micheletti’s illegal occupation of the seat of Honduran government, the resulting and continuing corruption of the nation’s democracy and, according to MCC, its degenerative effect on the future of Honduras?

Stay tuned ...

MCC Scorecards for Honduras

• How to Read the Scorecard [link here]

• Scorecard Methodology [link here]

CIA's "Great Pretense" Exposed in State-Secrets Fraud Case

Bill Conroy — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:39:53 -0500

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.

The CIA’s efforts to undermine Horn’s work in Burma in getting that nation’s government to stem the flow of heroin to the United States should come as no surprise to those who are familiar with the “Agency’s” history. It seems the CIA, over the decades, has often found itself in the corner of narco-traffickers and thugs who support the Agency’s covert objectives in areas deemed critical to U.S. special interests – whether that be in Southeast Asia, Central Asia or Latin America.

That’s the big pretense of the drug war practiced as dark art by the CIA.

However, earlier this month, government attorneys representing the interests of the CIA agreed to cut a deal with Horn — which calls for the government to shell out some $3 million to Horn to cement a settlement. In exchange, the CIA hopes to put pressure on the judge in the case to erase from the court record several opinions he rendered that accuse CIA officials of committing a fraud on his court and which also opened the door for sanctions to be sought against the culpable current and former CIA employees.

So, it seems that the CIA has made a calculation in the Horn case that its big pretense cannot long endure if the big truth is allowed to remain in the court record — which is the basis of the rule of law the CIA too often seeks to skirt.

For proof of that statement, we need only look at the CIA-pedigreed officials who are in the scope of the federal judge’s opinions in the Horn case. Among them are former CIA Director George Tenet and recently retired Acting CIA General Counsel John Rizzo.

Both Tenet and Rizzo played key roles as part of the Bush Administration in attempting (with the help of Justice Department attorneys like John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury) to set up a legal framework, marked by deceptive legal reasoning, to justify the CIA’s use of torture (i.e., waterboarding). Both also were part of the Agency’s leadership during the era of “intelligence lapses” that helped pave the way for 9/11 and the ill-fated Iraq War.

And now, as part of the Horn case filed in a Washington D.C. federal court, we find a U.S. District judge, former FISA court member Royce Lamberth, opening the door for sanctions to be brought (as a result of the fraud, or lie, perpetrated on the court) against Tenet and Rizzo — as well as several other current and former CIA officials, among whom is Robert Eatinger, the current Acting Deputy General Counsel for Operations in the CIA’s Office of General Counsel (OGC).

If Lamberth’s judicial opinions in the Horn case are allowed to remain in the court record — to be recalled and cited going forward by other lawyers, judges and academics — then untold damage could be done to the reputation of the CIA and its leadership. Those judicial opinions memorializing the CIA’s fraud on the court also would serve as a permanent reminder of the occasionally dubious credibility of the Agency’s pronouncements invoking national security and the state-secrets privilege.

Judge Lamberth has yet to rule on the proposed Horn settlement, and independently on whether he will vacate his prior opinions in the case — and thereby erase from the court record any hint of the CIA’s alleged duplicity.

So, in order to preserve for the public memory, in the event the court record is subtracted from this nation’s legal memory, Narco News now offers you a glimpse behind the curtain of the big pretense as reflected in the pleadings of a cast of CIA players in the Horn case.

Where It Began

Horn’s civil lawsuit was filed in 1994 against former CIA Chief of Station in Burma Arthur Brown and former State Department Chief of Mission in Burma Franklin Huddle Jr. — who were both stationed in the country, now known as Myanmar, in the early 1990s at the same time Horn served as DEA’s country attaché.

In the litigation, both Brown and Huddle are accused of violating Horn’s constitutional rights by conspiring to plant an eavesdropping bug in his government-leased quarters in Burma. Horn also alleges in the lawsuit that the eavesdropping was part of a larger effort by Brown and Huddle to undermine DEA’s anti-narcotics mission in Burma.

The judge in Horn’s civil case, which is still pending in federal court in Washington, D.C., earlier this year ruled that the CIA had committed a fraud on his court by failing to reveal in a timely manner that Brown is no longer considered a covert operative. In fact, Brown had his official CIA “covert” cover lifted in 2002 — yet the government continued to claim Brown’s covert status was a basis for its state-secrets privilege claim in the Horn case until early 2008.

That false claim resulted in Brown being dismissed as a defendant from the case, per an appeals court ruling in 2007.

It was not until Jan. 31, 2008, when it became clear that Horn’s case would still continue, with Huddle as a defendant, that CIA officials, in the wake of a supposed internal investigation, finally informed Judge Lamberth that Brown’s covert status had been lifted in 2002 (some six years earlier) and that he was no longer covered by the state-secrets privilege assertion.

As a consequence, Judge Lamberth determined, in a series of subsequent opinions, that Brown should be reinstated as a defendant; that the deceit related to Brown’s cover status constituted a fraud on the court; and that Horn’s attorney, Leighton, should be allowed to file a motion seeking sanctions against the current and former CIA officials allegedly responsible for the fraud.

U.S. government attorneys now seek to strike from the court record those rulings by the judge as part of the pending settlement of the Horn case.

From Leighton’s sanctions motion, filed this past June, in the wake of Judge Lamberth's earlier opinion indicating he would consider such a motion:

CIA OGC [Office of General Council] attorneys and/or former attorneys John A. Rizzo, Robert J. Eatinger and A. John Radsan attempted, through their declarations, to cover-up when they had knowledge of the reversal of Brown’s covert status. Former Director Tenet must likewise be sanctioned because it was his declaration that caused this Court to dismiss Brown from the case, and … since it was former Director Tenet who was still the Director [in 2002] at the time Brown’s covert status was substantially changed to non-covert, his obligations to the Court and the Plaintiff [Horn] were magnified. Likewise, Defendant Brown, an Agency official [who retired from the CIA in February 2005] and a Defendant in the case, likewise was required to inform this Court … of the change in his [cover] status. …

In the wake of the court being made aware in early 2008 of the CIA’s failure to reveal the change in Brown’s cover status, several current and former CIA officials filed declarations and/or motions with the court attempting to explain why they should not be held liable for that alleged fraud.

An examination of those court pleadings exposes what appears to be a culture within the CIA that rewards adherence to pretense and successful efforts at passing the buck as opposed to encouraging a commitment to the truth and rule of law.

In the case of then-Acting CIA General Counsel Rizzo’s declaration to the court — prepared by another CIA attorney, yet signed by Rizzo, in March 2008, after an internal CIA investigation into the Brown affair — the blame for CIA’s failure to inform the court in 2002 of Brown’s cover-status change is placed at the feet of the Agency’s National Clandestine Service (which oversees the spook side of the CIA’s operations). Rizzo claims that the NCS failed to coordinate with the CIA’s lawyers when lifting Brown’s cover status and, as a result, those lawyers were not aware of the change and could not communicate it to the court.

From Rizzo’s March 26, 2008, declaration:

In order to avoid this mistake in the future, I have asked the NCS [National Clandestine Service] to take the following corrective action. In all circumstances where an employee’s cover status is relevant to pending legal proceedings, OGC [the CIA’s Office of General Counsel] and the NCS shall coordinate before any cover changes are made. The NCS has agreed to take this corrective action.

So, it appears the NCS, based on Rizzo’s word, is not very good about keeping CIA lawyers, who are charged with asserting state-secrets claims in the courts, up to speed about whether any particular CIA agent is currently covert, or not. If that is true, then how can the word of the CIA ever be trusted in the courts with respect to a claim of state-secrets privilege — unless we believe that Rizzo’s “corrective action” has, absent any verification by an outside party, made the problem go away?

In a motion filed last month in the Horn case, an attorney for Rizzo also argued that the then-Acting General Counsel of the CIA (and chief architect of the legal cover for the Agency’s Bush-era torture policy) would have been too busy in 2002 dealing with 9/11-related matters (such as soliciting Justice Department memos based on flawed legal logic to support CIA torture operations] to concern himself with a mere matter of assuring that the courts were made aware of the truth concerning the lifting of Brown’s cover status.

From the October Rizzo motion:

Mr. Rizzo was extensively involved in the intense activity following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. As Acting General Counsel, it was his responsibility to serve as a legal advisor to Mr. Tenet regarding the Agency’s actions post-9/11. It is unlikely, given this activity, that he would have been personally involved in one particular Bivens action [the Horn legal case] against a CIA employee [Brown] at this time.

In the end, Rizzo, in his March 26, 2008, declaration with the court, puts the blame for the failure of the CIA to inform Judge Lamberth of Brown’s cover-status change at the feet of an unnamed, green CIA attorney. (In fact, Rizzo, for some reason, fails in his declaration to identify by name any CIA officials potentially at fault for failing to inform the court of Brown’s cover-status change.)

And even in the case of the unnamed CIA attorney, Rizzo concedes that the individual (since identified in the court record as Jeffrey Yeates) only became aware of Brown’s cover change in 2005 while working on the Horn case. Yeates failed to inform the court at that time, resulting in a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in the Horn case that was premised on false information about Brown's cover status.

Yeates, in a declaration he filed with the court last month, contends that he does not recall being made aware of Brown’s cover-status change. However, he concedes that a note discovered last year in his files during the CIA’s internal investigation into the Brown affair does seem to indicate he must have had some knowledge of Brown’s cover being lifted.

From Yeates declaration:

If I did know about the changes in Mr. Brown’s status, and did not advise others, my conduct was neither willful nor intentional. At no time did I intentionally withhold the status of Mr. Brown’s cover … from my supervisors, the Department of Justice, the Court or the parties.

Apparently, Rizzo considered Yeates’ explanation as an adequate contrition, given that Yeates was administered what amounts to a professional slap on the wrist as retribution for his faulty memory.

Apartheid in America

Brenda Norrell — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:06:10 -0500

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.

The Four Corners region, homelands of the Navajo, Ute and Apache, and Lakota lands in South Dakota, were selected by the United States as National Sacrifice Zones, where the US poisoned the people, land, water and air, leaving behind strewn radioactive waste, poisoned rivers, cancer alleys and trails of deaths and broken hearts.

At the border, Indigenous Peoples in their homelands are still oppressed, harassed, detained and abused by the US Border Patrol and the Native American tribal governments who have been coopted by Homeland Security. Here, too, on Tohono O'odham land is a cancer alley from copper mining that released radioactive uranium into the groundwater.

There is a rising anger, heard across America in coffeehouses and small town cafes, about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. People of color, including American Indians, Hispanics and Afro-Americans, are still considered "expendables" and targeted in TV commercials, and by recruiters, to enlist and die.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are based on the lies of politicians. These are wars where mercenaries killed without consequence. Torture and secret renditions were carried out in violation of the Geneva Conventions, crimes which Obama must aid in holding Bush and Cheney accountable for.

Splitting the Sky, Mohawk, attempted a citizens arrest of war criminal George Bush in Canada.

Still, in America as American Indians and persons of conscience prepare for a month of actions in November, there is a "shhhh" hush in the US over the continued CIA kidnappings, secret renditions and US-sponsored torture. People of color continue to be recruited and sent to die in a war that, in the end, will only profit US war profiteers and the politicians they bankroll.

Listen to Martin Luther King, when he spoke out against the Vietnam War. Listen to Buffy Sainte Marie tell how she was censored and driven out of the music industry in the US because of her songs during the Vietnam War.

What is happening now is not new, it is what happens when all good men and women become complacent.

The world is watching and it does not like what it sees.

November events, see details at Censored News: http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

TODAY: Protest in Gallup, N.M., to halt new uranium mining in Navajo homelands

Nov. 13 (Friday) Tucson: O'odham Solidarity Event 'Apartheid in America' with Ofelia Rivas, O'odham living on the border, and Ward Churchill. Concert by Resistant Culture. (Live broadcast www.livestream.com/earthcycles )

Nov. 13 -- 15: Santa Barbara AIM: Symposium on Race and Racism, keynote speaker John Trudell

Nov. 14 --15: Tucson: Southwest Weekend to End Torture, with protest at Fort Huachuca to halt US torture training

Nov. 11 -- 23: UK/Ireland: Indigenous Environmental Network: United Kingdom Tar Sands Tour: Bloody oil: the struggle against the Tar Sands

Nov. 23 --27: San Francisco/Alcatraz: AIM West: West Coast Third Annual Conference, speakers and more (Live broadcast: http://www.livestream.com/earthcycles )

Media Campaign Seeks to Link Chiapan Social Organizations to Narcos

Kristin Bricker — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:11:49 -0500

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."

First, the "communique" claims that de la Cruz Gonzalez and de la Torre Hernandez belong to "Los Pelones," which the communique reports is a gang that is "known for its strong activity in trafficking weapons and drugs and is responsible for multiple homicides, including the 2007 murder of state police...in Pueblo Nuevo Solistahuacan."

The "communique" also claims that de la Cruz Gonzalez and de la Torre Hernandez paid the Carranza mayor MX$300,000 in order to purchase weapons. The Carranza mayor, Amín Coutiño Villanueva, is from the President's National Action Party (PAN). The Chiapas governor is from the opposition Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).

The "communique" claims that de la Cruz Gonzalez and de la Torre Hernandez, acting as members of Los Pelones, "also bought and distributed 9mm pistols, for which they paid MX$8,000 per gun, and the social organization [OCEZ] supported them in this." The "communique" also claims that the detained men engaged in "human trafficking as well as migrant extortion. Their lands have served as a collection site for hiding weapons and drugs. The social organization mask has impeded civilian and military authorities' access to the area surrounding the 28 de Junio community [where OCEZ operates]. That is why they had so-called 'international observers': to cover up their criminal activity."

Normally, Narco News wouldn't classify an email of this sort as "news" without verifying the source: it makes wild claims, and no government agency has verified its authenticity. This reporter thought the email was a hoax.

However, local and national corporate media seem to have also received the "Official Communique" email, and they don't seem to think it is a hoax. Articles have appeared in papers across Mexico that quote lines that appear word-for-word in the "Official Communique" email this reporter received. Mexico's national daily El Universal, for example, ran a wire article by the Spanish news agency EFE that credited the quotes from the "Official Communique" to a statement by the Chiapas State Attorney General's Office (the State Attorney General's Office is prominently mentioned in the "communique"). The EFE article's quotes only come from the "Official Communique," the defendants' lawyer, and the OCEZ. No government official confirms or denies the statements. As previously mentioned, the State Attorney General's Office has not posted any information on its website about the arrests of de la Cruz Gonzalez and de la Torre Hernandez.

The "Official Communique's" unorthodox distribution method (unsigned and not posted to a government website) aside, the email contains other inconsistencies and red flags. Narco News spoke with Marcos López Pérez, the lawyer who represents de la Cruz Gonzalez, de la Torre Hernandez, and Jose Manuel Hernandez Martinez, a third OCEZ leader who was arrested one month before the other two men.

Lopez Perez informed Narco News that the arrest warrants for the three OCEZ leaders are all part of the same case: a 2003 land occupation in Chiapas that successfully pressured the Chiapas government to legally turn the land over to peasants who are OCEZ members. That case dossier only covers the 2003 land occupation and alleged crimes related to that takeover; arms trafficking, migrant extortion, human trafficking, and other crimes are mentioned nowhere in the dossier.

Lopez Perez says that he is not aware of any other official investigation against the men that involves those crimes. He assured Narco News that the government has not charged the men with any sort of trafficking; they have only been charged with crimes related to the 2003 land occupation, which are all state-level crimes.

The crimes the "Official Communique" and the corporate media accuse the men of committing are federal crimes. The federal government has made no comment on the arrests, nor do the men have any federal investigations or charges pending, says their lawyer.

However, Lopez Perez does not rule out the possibility that the federal government could initiate an investigation. He says that he has reviewed every paper in the dossier against his clients, and he can't find the papers de la Torre claims he signed under torture. Neither de la Torre nor his lawyer know what the papers say because de la Torre wasn't able to read them before signing. Lopez Perez says it's possible that the papers could appear in a future investigation as part of a case file.

The "Official Communique" smelled like a whisper campaign even before this reporter spoke to the men's lawyer. The "communique" accuses de la Cruz Gonzalez and de la Torre Hernandez of belonging to "Los Pelones," which is a criminal group associated with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera's Sinaloa-based drug trafficking organization. However, when the government reportedly seized a massive weapons stockpile in October, the Chiapas government claimed the weapons belonged to the OCEZ, and the federal government claimed the weapons belong to Loz Zetas. Los Zetas are the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel, and are also reported to work for the Beltran Leyva criminal organization. Both the Gulf cartel and the Beltran Leyvas are reportedly enemies of El Chapo. It is highly unlikely that a small peasant organization would be working for or with the armed factions of opposing drug trafficking organizations.

When the Chiapas government arrested de la Cruz and de la Torre, between 20 and 40 trucks full of state police carried out house-to-house searches of two Carranza County communities that belong to the OCEZ: 28 de Junio and Laguna Verde. Two helicopters participated in the operation. The police ransacked dozens of homes in those communities, terrorizing residents and reportedly beating some. The police were looking for suspects, and they reportedly threatened bodily harm to residents if they didn't tell them "where they were hiding the guns." The police did not find a single piece of contraband in either community. For all of the claims the government makes about the OCEZ's alleged use of the communities to hide drugs and weapons, the government didn't find a single weapon. Its Merida Initiative-style ion scanners and drug dogs didn't find a trace of illegal substances.

Casting further doubt on the "Official Communique's" claims, the Carranza mayor that allegedly received MX$300,000 from the detainees in order to illegally purchase weapons has not been arrested, nor has the government brought any formal charges against him. Of course, the mayor adamantly denies the accusations and reportedly told press that "it's about time the authorities did something about Roselio de la Cruz and Jose Manuel de la Torre."

Reforma Steps In

On November 9, Reforma, a Mexico City-based daily and one of Mexico's largest newspapers, ran an article by Martin Morita that claimed the reporter obtained an "intelligence report" about arms trafficking in Chiapas. The article does not disclose if the report is from the state or federal government. The only person the article quotes is a "high-ranking state government official" who is "participating in the team that's carrying out the investigation" that is outlined in the report.

In the article, the high-ranking state government official mentions a case in which two fragmentation grenades were found wrapped in cloth in a plastic bag in the government agency parking lot in Tuxtla, the Chiapas state capital. The grenades did not explode. In an interview, the state official accuses leaders of the OCEZ and the National Front for Socialist Struggle (FNLS, an unarmed civil society organization with a strong presence in Chiapas) of having "orchestrated that terrorist act." No charges have been filed; currently this baseless anonymous statement is the only accusation linking the two organizations with the grenades.

The Reforma article doesn't limit its accusations to the OCEZ. It says that the intelligence report claims 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" 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." The report claims, "It is confirmed that organizations that call themselves civilian have strong ties to these subversive groups [who are gathering arms] and are trying to carry out violent acts, particularly during the 2010 Bicentennial celebrations."

The Reforma article reprints the following quote from the report:

"It is noted that, based on the detention of people involved in said groups and through testimonies obtained by intelligence networks, there is evidence that establishes a relationship between those groups and people and criminal organizations that are dedicated to drug trafficking, such as the so-called Zetas and the organization led by Joaquin Guzman Loera, aka El Chapo. This complicity stems from the distribution of weapons to subversive groups."

The Reforma article mentions de la Cruz, de la Torre, and Hernandez Martinez: "The three are accused of using the [OCEZ] organization to distribute weapons and drugs." Reforma fails to mention that it is only the press, not the government, that is officially accusing the OCEZ of trafficking arms and drugs.

Reporter Martin Morita filed a similar article on TabascoHOY.com. In that article, he says that Hernandez Martinez "is linked to the seizure of an arms arsenal on October 11." It also claims that "the official investigation points to Hernandez Martinez as the leader of the EPR in Chiapas and of having links to Los Zetas." Again, no charges have been filed against Hernandez Martinez that link him to arms trafficking, Los Zetas, or the EPR. Morita does not specify which "official investigation" he is referring to in the article. However, Hernandez Martinez's lawyer only knows of one official investigation--the one related to the 2003 land takeover--and it does not mention any trafficking allegations.

War on Social Movements

In a letter to Tabasco HOY's editor, the OCEZ writes, "This type of stigmatization in the corporate media doesn't only have negative political consequences for those who suffer [the stigmatization]. Rather, frequently they are orchestrated by government agencies in order to sway public opinion to help justify arbitrary judicial actions."

As the government intelligence report mentions, authorities are growing increasingly concerned about the possibility that armed groups will take action in 2010 to commemorate the bicentennial and centennial of two Mexican revolutions. According the Reforma, the report states that "the groups are trying to carry out actions aimed at destabilizing, through armed struggle, the PRD member Juan Sabines' administration in 2010, in particular during the Bicentennial celebrations."

The government may be trying to preemptively smear social organizations in the media by alleging links to drug trafficking organizations. This may prevent insurgent organizations from enjoying the sort of national and international support that protected the Zapatistas when they staged an uprising in Chiapas in 1994. It may also serve to justify judicial or military actions against civil society, which always seems to get caught in any war's crossfire. The smear campaign even includes a preemptive strike against international human rights observers, who have played a key role in human rights defense in Chiapas since 1994. In accusing human rights observers of preventing the military and police from carrying out their anti-trafficking work, the corporate media places them directly in the drug war's line of fire.

Thanks to the war on drugs, in 2010 Mexico will be more militarized than it was in 1994. The military will be better prepared and better armed than it was in 1994 during the Zapatista uprising. And now, thanks to the media smear campaign against social organizations, it may have more public approval to use its drug war military might against non-drug war targets.

Narco News has warned that the increasing militarization under the guise of the drug war could have negative consequences for insurgent and social organizations. The Merida Initiative's counterpart in Colombia, Plan Colombia, targeted insurgent organizations as a matter of official policy. In Mexico, both the US and the Mexican governments have predicted "links" between insurgent and drug trafficking organizations. In December 2008, Narco News reported:

In an official DEA PowerPoint presentation recently leaked to Narco News correspondent Bill Conroy, the DEA argued that the possibility exists that drug cartels will seek allies in insurgent organizations: “DTOs [Drug Trafficking Organizations] will further reach out to the Mexican military and foreign paramilitary and possible insurgent organizations in order to acquire much needed human and material support to fend off advances by competing Cartels.” Similarly, in a report obtained by the Mexican daily Milenio entitled “The National Defense Department in Combat Against Drug Trafficking,” Mexico's National Defense Department says "a symbiosis between [drug cartels and] armed groups who are hostile to the government is forseeable."

The OCEZ may be a test case, to see how far civil society will allow the government to go in its war on social movements. As Jaime Ramírez Yáñez writes in an editorial in Milenio,"The detention of these two indigenous men [de la Cruz and de la Torre], who are visibly opposed to the government, was carried out with only the alleged testimony of a 'protected witness,' and without the bother of a formal criminal investigation." A protected witness is often a suspect himself, and the government offers leniency or immunity in exchange for testimony against other people.

Using that one protected witness and the media, the government has linked the OCEZ, an unarmed organization, to the armed EPR and nearly every major drug trafficking organization in the country. The media has accused the OCEZ of human trafficking, arms trafficking, migrant extortion, and drug trafficking. It also stigmatized human rights observers who are in OCEZ communities to assure that human rights are respected. In turn, the government has been able to stage one of the largest raids in recent memory on two peasant communities, and no one seemed concerned that the raids produced no contraband. State police continue to occupy the area around Laguna Verde. The state government has been able to hunt down and allegedly torture the OCEZ's leadership. The government has executed three of fourteen warrants stemming from the 2003 OCEZ land takeover, leaving the communities terrified that police will carry out another violent raid at any moment.

Hopi and Resistance: Water is Life

Brenda Norrell — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:25:10 -0500

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.
"John Martini described the prisoner's cells at Alcatraz as 'tiny wooden cells ... worlds removed from the western desert and plains.' Indeed, a description of Alcatraz in 1902, just seven years after the Hopi prisoners were jailed there, suggests that the cells were in poor condition: 'The old cell blocks were `rotten and unsafe; the sanitary condition very dangerous to health. They are dark and damp, and are fire traps of the most approved (sic) kind," according to a history compiled by the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office.
"In a series of letters between H.R. Voth, a Mennonite missionary at Orayvi, and Guruther, the Commanding Officer at Alcatraz, family members at Hopi were extremely worried about the prisoners. There were rumors that some of them had died. In August, Voth wrote to the Guruther that the pictures of the prisoners were 'very much appreciated by relatives and friends/ because rumors had circulated that they were "poorly fed, clothed, worked hard, some had died, etc. were perhaps killed.
"In September, Voth wrote to Lomahongiwma to report on the prisoners' families and the crops. These reports must have caused considerable anguish among the prisoners, especially those who were separated from their families during important ceremonies and planting and harvesting. In addition, two of the prisoners' wives gave birth to children who died while the men were at Alcatraz."

In Memory of the 19 Hopi who resisted and were imprisoned at Alcatraz:
Aqawsi (Kwaa/Eagle)
Heevi'yma (Kookop/Fire)
Kuywisa (Kookop/Fire)
Lomahongiwma (Kookyangw/Spider)
Lomayawma (Is/Coyote)
Lomayestiwa (Kookyangw/Spider)
Masaatiwa (Kuukuts or Tep/Lizard or Greasewood)
Nasingayniwa (Kwaa/Eagle) Patupha(Kookop/Fire)
Piphongva (Masihonan/Grey Badger)
Polingyawma (Kyar/Parrot)
Qotsventiwa (Aawat/Bow)
Qotsyawma (Paa'is/Water Coyote)
Sikyaheptiwa (Piikyas or Patki/Young Corn or Water)
Talangayniwa (Kookop/Fire)
Talasyawma (Masihonan/Grey Badger)
Tawaletstiwa (Tasaphonan/Navajo Badger)
Tuvehoyiwma (Hon/Bear)
Yukiwma (Kookop/Fire)

A Public Forum On Water & Energy
"Water is Life"

Veterans Memorial Center, Kykotsmovi
Agenda
November 6, 2009
8:00 a.m. Registration
9:00 a.m. Welcome & Prayer - Alph Secakuku, Sipaulovi Village
President of H.O.P.I
9:00 a.m. Purpose of the Forum: Ben Nuvamsa, Moderator

Recognition and Honoring of the Late (Former Hopi Tribal Chairman)

Chairman Ferrell Secakuku and the Late
Nat Nutongla (Advocates of the
Preservation of our sacred water)
9:15 a.m. History of Peabody Coal Company Ben Nuvamsa and
on the Black Mesa Mine Vernon Masayesva (former Hopi Tribal
(An Historical Chronicle of Peabody Coal leases Chairman)
from the 1960's to Present Day and the Role
of Hopi Tribal Attorneys).
10:00 a.m. Presentations by Invited Guest Speakers Moderated by Ben Nuvamsa
11:00 a.m. Collaboration with Hopi and Navajo Tribes; Roger Clark (Executive Director - Grand
Alternative Energy Projects; and Impacts of Canyon Trust)
Black Mesa, Mohave and Desert Rock Power
Plants: Showing of "Power Path" A Documentary
12:00 p.m. Lunch Break
Video: "Burning the Future: Coal in
America" - A documentary on open pit
mining and impacts on the environment".
1:00 p.m. - Track A: Black Mesa Environmental Impact Sean Gnant (CM Brewer, LLP)
2:00 p.m. Statement (What it is and its long term impacts
on Hopi)
1:00 p.m. - Track B: Life of Mine Permit Vernon Masayesva, Ben Nuvamsa
2:00 p.m. (What it is and what it means to you)
2:00 p.m. - Track C: Black Mesa Lease Reopener Vernon Masayesva & Ben Nuvamsa
2:30 p.m. (What is this and what it means to you)
2:00 p.m. - Track D: Alternative Energy Resources Shannon Francis
2:30 p.m.
2:30 p.m. Environmental, Cultural & Economic Impacts Open Microphone:
of Mining on Black Mesa & Kayenta Mines Testimony Offered by Forum Participants
(effects of pumping on the Navajo Aquifer
on our life ways, our ceremonies, our
economy).
4:00 p.m. Prayer and Adjournment

'Water is Life' conference information:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/11/hopi-water-forum-water-is-life.html

Electricians Take Over Luz y Fuerza Buildings

Kristin Bricker — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:32:33 -0500

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.

At about six o'clock Thursday morning, electricians protested in Pachuca, Tula, Tulancingo, and Juandho, where they yelled chants against the federal government and burned flags, sticks, and some banners that announced the shutdown of Luz y Fuerza. In Juandho they closed off access to the buildings with pick-up trucks and cars in order to keep out police. The authorities have announced that the ex-workers could be forcibly removed.

In Pachuca, in the Santa Julia substation, about 100 electricians forced open the substation doors. However, they were only able to advance a few meters into the building because Federal Police were on guard inside with billy clubs. [Translator's note: The Federal Police have occupied Luz y Fuerza since thousands of federal troops first entered the power company's buildings in order to fire all of the workers.]

The electricians, led by the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) secretary Luis Espinoza*, hung red and black strike banners as part of the general strike that has been called for November 11.

Municipal police arrived on the scene, and they remain on alert near the substation. According to Luis Espinosa, the ex-workers will remain at the site indefinitely because he insists that looting has begun in the Luz y Fuerza buildings.

"We don't want them to start blaming us. Equipment such as conductors have been stolen, and we aren't going to allow that to continue," he said.

Meanwhile, in Puebla the electricians hung red and black flags in the Nuevo Necaxa hydroelectric plant, where they will hold an assembly to call for a national general strike that is tentatively scheduled for November 11.

Union organizations that support the SME will participate in the assembly. Miguel Angel Montiel, the SME's Undersecretary of the Exterior for the Necaxa division, said that the electricians will "stop at nothing" to reverse the shutdown of Luz y Fuerza.

Regarding the workers who have picked up their severance package in Huauchinango, Miguel Angel Montiel says he doesn't know how many have accepted the government's offer.

"I wouldn't know how many have begun the paperwork to receive their severance package because we know that the SME has filed over 30,000 individual injunctions against the president's executive order to shut down Luz y Fuerza," he explained.

El Universal correspondent Dinorath Mota and Notimex contributed to this report.

Translator's note:
* This may have been an error in the original Spanish article. SME's secretary general is Martin Esparza. Luis Espinosa (alternatively spelled Espinoza in the press) is a former SME secretary general.

Translated by Kristin Bricker

U.S. agrees to settle lawsuit in which CIA officials are accused of misconduct, fraud

Bill Conroy — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:06:29 -0500

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.

The litigation was shrouded under the cloak of national security for years, until this past summer, when the judge in the case ordered the court record unsealed and challenged the government’s state-secrets claims in the wake of discovering that CIA officials seemingly had misled the court.

The proposed settlement filed with the court Nov. 3 is still subject to the approval of federal Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, D.C., where the case has been on the U.S. District Court docket now for some 15 years.

The agreement calls for Horn to receive a lump sum payment of $3 million from Uncle Sam (the taxpayers) in exchange for settling the case against the defendants — former CIA Station Chief Arthur Brown, former State Department Chief of Mission Franklin Huddle Jr. and the U.S. government as intervenor.

In addition, Horn has agreed to not oppose the government's efforts to convince the judge to vacate several pending court orders in the case that could lead to a potentially unpleasant outcome for some current and former CIA officials.

Those judicial ruling order the government to:

• Provide security clearances to attorneys in the case;

• Set up procedures that allow the court to determine the scope, or limits, of the government's claim of state-secrets privilege with respect to evidence;

• And invited Horn to "seek sanctions for alleged misconduct" against CIA officials — who asserted a state-secrets claim to allegedly protect defendant Brown's covert cover and then failed, for some six years, to inform the court that his covert status had been lifted. [And, in fact, a motion seeking those sanctions was filed by Horn’s attorney and is currently pending in the litigation.]

The settlement, which otherwise remains confidential, also will not be "construed as an admission by the Defendants nor the United States ... of any allegation or the validity of any claim asserted" in Horn's lawsuit, according to pleadings filed in court on Nov. 3.

It is likely Judge Lamberth will play ball in this case. However, given the government’s past “fraud” on the court in the Horn litigation, there is a slim possibility that the judge might see justice better served by allowing some of the outstanding motions to carry on — particularly with respect to the potential sanctions “for alleged misconduct.”

And the proposed settlement does seem to keep that door open while allowing Horn to collect his measure of justice as well:

If, however, the Court refuses to vacate any or all of these Orders and Opinions, but enters an order dismissing this civil action … this agreement is binding upon all parties, and the United States is obligated to make the cash payments [to Horn] following the entry of the order dismissing the case with prejudice.

Stay tuned ....

Richard Horn Litigation Settlement Pleadings

• Settlement Agreement

• Motion to Vacate State-Secrets-related Orders

• Motion to Vacate Sanctions Orders

Prior stories on Horn’s case

• U.S. government's effort to derail former DEA agent's lawsuit marked by deceit

• CIA, State Department accused of sanitizing report into alleged misconduct

• Former DEA agent's lawsuit exposes CIA "fraud"

• State secrets claim takes a blow in Horn case

• DEA Agent’s Whistleblower Case Exposes the “War on Drugs” as a “War of Pretense”

The Sanctuary Movement and Manzo

Brenda Norrell — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:45:24 -0500

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.

TUCSON -- In the heart of the barrios of Tucson, there lives and breathes the inexplicable truth that it is possible to do great works with one's life, saving the lives of countless peoples who face torture and death.
Before the Sanctuary Movement's Central American underground railroad, there was the former Manzo Area Council. Indigenous Peoples were among those who found shelter in this country because of the heroic acts of the people in these movements. Following the birth of Manzo, the Rev. John Fife and co-founder James Corbett, the late Quaker rancher who died in 2001, announced the existence of the Central American underground railroad. At a recent dinner honoring Manzo, Fife said the credit for the Sanctuary Movement should go to Manzo, comprised of a small group of women from Tucson's west side. Those include Manzo's Margo Cowan and Lupe Castillo. Fife and the Asylum Program of Arizona, honored Cowan, Cathy Montaño Gamez, Margie Ramirez Atkins and Sister Ann Gabriel Marciacq of the St. Joseph Carondelet order for their work.
Listen to this program, recorded by Amanda Shauger at KXCI Tucson and read more at:
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kxci/arts.artsmain?action=viewArticle&id=1572700&pid=218&sid=14

Read Mother Tongue: Demetria Martinez' award-winning book Mother Tongue is based in part upon Martinez's 1988 trial for conspiracy against the United States government in connection with smuggling Salvadoran refugees into the country, a charge that with others carried a 25 -year prison sentence. A religion reporter at the time, covering the faith-based Sanctuary Movement, Martinez was found not guilty on First Amendment Grounds.

Profiteering from misery: Private prison scams target American Indians

Brenda Norrell — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:43:57 -0500

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.

Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham who puts out water for migrants against the wishes of the Tohono O'odham government, is among those opposing the migrant prison.
"The Tohono O'odham Nation is anxious to take blood money from the Department of Homeland Security. Shamefully, we who were once oppressed are now the willing oppressors," Wilson said.

The residents of Sahuarita and city officials of the City of Green Valley, including the mayor, were opposed to the prison. David Garcia and Wilson, both Tohono O'odham, met officials at the Pima County Board of Supervisors meeting on May 12, 2009 and opposed the prison.

Jose Matus, Yaqui and director of the Indigenous Alliance without Borders/Alianza Indigena sin Fronteras, points out that many of those arrested by the US Border Patrol, and dying in the Sonoran Desert, are Indigenous Peoples from southern Mexico and Central America. They are desperate for food and jobs after being forced off their lands by multi-national corporations. An increasing number of the dead are Mayan women, walking with their children.

Meanwhile in Montana, the private security firm American Police Force is under a state Attorney General's probe, after masquerading as the police force in Hardin, Montana, a town with a long history of racism and attacks on American Indians. American Police Force is linked to Texas-based CorPlan Corrections, which is pitching the private prison to Tohono O'odham and other Indian Nations.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney was indicted in Texas for prison profiteering. Cheney invested in the Vanguard Group, which profits from private prison contractor GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut, which split into GEO and Wackenhut Transportation.)

The Vanguard Group reported $1.24 trillion in assets, in mutual funds, in 2009, with global offices, including offices in Scottsdale, Arizona and Valley Forge, Penn. Vanguard Group is among the top investors in Corrections Corporations of America, CCA, operating private prisons in Arizona and throughout the United States.

Wackenhut Transportation, owned by G4S, currently has a contract to transport detained and arrested migrants in buses at the Arizona border. The buses constantly flow from the border to Tucson. Aso, at the Arizona border, Elbit Systems, the Israeli contractor of the Palestine Apartheid Border, was subcontracted by the border wall profiteer Boeing for spy apparatus on the Arizona border.

In another twist, there's an Israeli/US border prison connection. US based Emerald Corrections was granted a prison contract in Israel. Israel’s government awarded a 22year contract to a consortium of Africa-Israel Investments, Minrav Holdings Ltd and Emerald Correctional Management to finance, design, build and operate the country’s first private prison at Be’er Sheva in 2005. Emerald operates the prison at San Luis, Arizona, on the US/Mexico border and others in Texas.

Private prisons, packed with migrants, were quickly built in Texas and along the Southwest border during the Bush administration. American Indians are imprisoned at a disproportionate rate in prisons and receive longer prison terms than non-Indians, according to the ACLU. While the abuses in private prisons continue, Cheney has not been prosecuted.
Already, Alaskan Natives are in the private prison profiteering business, according to New York Times, citing the abuses today from a filed complaint of a migrant detention center in New York. Mildew, frigid temperatures and hunger were repeated complaints.
"In vivid if flawed English, it described cramped, filthy quarters where dire medical needs were ignored and hungry prisoners were put to work for $1 a day," New York Times reported.
A subsidiary of Ahtna Inc., an Alaska Native regional corporation, Ahtna Technical Services Inc., operates the Varick Street Detention Facility with the help of a Texas subcontractor.

Ben Carnes, Choctaw prison rights activist, was surprised by the news of Native-run prisons. "Wow. I always thought that if the First Nations were in the prison industry, they would manage it as a positive advancement in corrections, instead of just another stinking jail."

After viewing a photo of an outdoor migrant detention center on the Tohono O'odham Nation, often described as "The Cage," Carnes said, "The people cannot keep ignoring how the US imposed tribal council system is operating before they end up in those dog cages!"

Read the article below from the New York Times.

Corrupt prison hustlers linked to Tohono O'odham prison:
(Link to prison hustle in Choctaw and Chickasaw lands)
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/10/corrupt-prison-hustlers-linked-to.html

New York Times: Immigrant Jail Tests U.S. View of Legal Access
By NINA BERNSTEIN
New York Times
Published: November 1, 2009
A startling petition arrived at the New York City Bar Association in October 2008, signed by 100 men, all locked up without criminal charges in the middle of Manhattan.
Daniel I. Miller, a former detainee at the Varick Street center, complained of abuses there. "These people have no rules," he said.
In vivid if flawed English, it described cramped, filthy quarters where dire medical needs were ignored and hungry prisoners were put to work for $1 a day. Read article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/nyregion/02detain.html?_r=1

Indianz.com
http://www.indianz.com/
A subsidiary of Ahtna Inc., an Alaska Native regional corporation, runs an unusual immigrant detention facility in New York City under a $79 million, three-year contract with the federal government.
Ahtna Technical Services Inc. operates the Varick Street Detention Facility with the help of a Texas subcontractor. The jail houses up to 250 adult male aliens who face deportation for various reasons.
The Obama administration cites the jail as a model for the way legal services are provided to detainees. But the New York City Bar Association says detainees are frequently denied counsel and live under harsh conditions.
Ahtna has about 1,200 shareholders.
Relevant Documents:
Contract with Homeland Security for the operation of the Varick Federal Detention Processing Facility

http://www.ice.gov/doclib/foia/contracts/ahtnatechnicalservicesinchsceop07c00019asofp00012.pdf

ACLU: Racial profiling and prison sentences of American Indians

Indian political participation is further diminished by the disproportionate number of tribal members disfranchised for commission of criminal offenses. There is a pattern of racial profiling of Indians by law enforcement officers, the targeting of Indians for prosecution of serious crimes, and the imposition of lengthier prison sentences upon Indian defendants. These injustices result in the higher incarceration of Indians and dilute the overall voting strength of Indian communities. (OCt. 14, 2009)

http://www.nativelegalupdate.com/2009/10/articles/aclu-alleges-widespread-voting-rights-problems-in-native-communities/

US Detention Facilities:
http://www.globaldetentionproject.org/countries/americas/united-states/list-of-detention-sites.html

U.S. government's effort to derail former DEA agent's lawsuit marked by deceit

Bill Conroy — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:42:36 -0500

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.

Now, in a motion filed September 9 with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia, Department of Justice attorneys seem to advance claims in the Horn case that are at odds with the facts. And, interestingly, about three weeks after that seemingly flawed appeals-court motion was filed, the parties to the lawsuit (including the DOJ) reached an “agreement in principle to settle the underly ing litigation,” according to pleadings filed with the court.

That settlement, the pleading state, was supposed to be ironed out by the end of October. However, as of the time of this report, Narco News was unable to confirm whether an agreement has been finalized.

The September 9 motion filed by attorneys from the DOJ’s Civil Division was an effort to convince the appeals court to issue an emergency “stay,” or hold, on the Horn case proceedings pending a review “of the district [lower] court’s order compelling the government to grant [or renew] security clearances to [private] counsel [for Horn and the defendants in the case — a former CIA station chief and a former State Department chief of mission]. …”

Absent the granting or renewing of those security clearances to the attorneys, Horn’s case is essentially, once again, dead in the water. That’s because the process adopted by the judge for separating what can be presented as evidence in the case from what cannot (due to its classified nature) requires that the attorneys be granted security clearances.

In order to advance the argument before the appeals court judges for the stay in the court proceedings, the DOJ attorneys in their motion arguably attempt to paint the judge in Horn’s case (Royce Lamberth) as an incompetent jurist who fails to understand the complexities of national security and Horn as a loose cannon who is harming the country by recklessly releasing national security secrets.

The problem with that effort, however, is that the claims advanced in the government’s September 9 motion to support that dire narrative appear to be fabrications — when those claims are compared with the facts in the court record.

H. Thomas Byron III, who is one of the DOJ attorneys whose name appears on the September 9 pleadings, however, says: “I stand by [the] motion and believe it’s accurate.”

Byron declined to comment beyond that statement.

Twisting the Truth

The judge in Horn’s civil case, which is still pending in federal court in Washington, D.C., earlier this year ruled that the CIA had committed a fraud on his court by failing to reveal in a timely manner that Brown is no longer considered a covert operative. In fact, Brown had his official CIA cover lifted in 2002 — yet the government continued to claim Brown’s covert status was a basis for its state-secrets privilege claim in the Horn case. Judge Lamberth determined that those responsible for the fraud allegedly include several attorneys with the CIA’s Office of General Counsel, and Brown himself.

The judge, clearly upset with a pattern of CIA dishonesty, in July of this year ordered the court pleadings in Horn’s case to be unsealed and made available for public viewing. (The case, until that point, had been cloaked under a “state-secrets privilege” ruling due to alleged “national security” concerns and all of the pleadings filed under seal.)

DOJ attorneys filed the September 9 motion for a stay with the appeals court after Judge Lamberth ruled on September 4 against a similar motion filed in his court by the government. The government’s September 9 motion references Lamberth’s September 4 motion frequently and, seemingly, without great reliance on the truth.

Following are some of the alleged misrepresentations in the DOJ’s September 9 appeals court filing — which is titled “Reply in Support of Emergency Motion of the United States for Stay Pending Appeal.”

The government’s September 9 motion can be found at this link.

Judge Lamberth’s September 4 motion can be found at this link.

• From the government’s September 9 motion before the appeals court:

The district court also refers to Horn's prior unauthorized disclosures to his counsel.

[The motion goes on to quote partially from Judge Lamberth’s Sept. 4 ruling.]

(... "counsel for Horn *** discussed most, if not all, of the classified information Horn knew related to this case.") [Emphasis added.]

... Horn's prior and repeated breaches of security by disclosing classified information to his counsel (and more broadly to the public) do not justify the district court’s disregard of the Executive’s [President’s] well-established procedures for safeguarding that information against further breaches.

From the judge's September 4 ruling (or Memorandum Opinion):

First, for large portions of this litigation counsel for Horn had a security clearance and discussed most, if not all, of the classified information Horn knew related to this case. As to the renewal of Horn's counsel's security clearance, the government cannot demonstrate an injury, since it has once before allowed disclosure of the information it now seeks to "protect."

[Notice that in the government’s September 9 motion, ellipses are inserted in place of the phrase “had a security clearance,” which has the effect of obscuring the meaning of Judge Lamberth’s statement in his September 4 ruling and making it appear that the judge is saying Horn engaged in "unauthorized disclosures."]

• From the government’s September 9 motion before the appeals court:

But that concern results from the district court’s failure to rule on the [state-secrets] privilege…. [Emphasis added.]

[In fact, Judge Lamberth did rule on the state-secrets privilege question.]

From a July 16 Memorandum Opinion [link here] issued by Judge Lamberth:

Upon consideration of the motions, the declarations, the plaintiff’s opposition, the government’s reply, applicable law and the entire record herein, the assertion of the state secrets privilege and proposed protective order will be DENIED without prejudice. [Emphasis added.]

• From the government’s September 9 motion before the appeals court:

The district court [Judge Lamberth] here improperly and unnecessarily seeks to involve private counsel [Horn and the defendants’ attorneys] in assessing the scope of the state secrets privilege. [Emphasis added.]

[In fact, Judge Lamberth seeks to set up very elaborate procedures, involving in-camera and ex-parte filings by government attorneys, for assessing what is or is not national-security sensitive material as part of Horn’s case. Those procedures do not involve granting the power to make that assessment to “private counsel.”]

From a Memorandum Opinion issued by Judge Lamberth on Aug. 26, 2009 [link here]:

It is important to remember that at this juncture, the plaintiff, defendants, and their counsel, only have a need-to-know the classified and/or privileged information already known to them or to their clients for purposes of allowing this lawsuit to proceed. …

Within 40 days of this date, the plaintiff and defendants will be required to file motions with the Court stating (1) information that they intend to use during discovery and/or present at trial, and (2) over which the parties believe the government has improperly classified, asserted the privilege over, or redacted, including specific justifications for their arguments.

… After the Court receives these filings, the government will have an opportunity to respond, and it will be able to respond ex parte [alone with the judge, absent the presence of other parties] if it believes its very responses are privileged and can justify its belief.

• From the government’s September 9 motion before the appeals court:

Horn also makes wild and unsupported assertions of bad faith. [Emphasis added.]

[In fact, it is Judge Lamberth — not Horn — who accused the CIA of acting in bad faith and committing a fraud on the court.]

From a January 14, 2009, Memorandum Opinion issued by Judge Lamberth:

Defendant Brown’s cover was lifted and rolled back in 2002. However, this Court was not informed of the change in Brown’s status until 2008.

Moreover, the attorney “handling” the case within the CIA’s office of general counsel in 2005 was put on actual notice of the change in Brown’s [CIA cover] status in January 2005. Nevertheless, he or she reviewed drafts of appellate pleadings arguing that Brown’s identity was covert and failed to correct the false statement or report it to his or her superiors. The Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Brown, relying on the fact that “nothing about ‘Defendant II’ would be admissible at trial.”

… Because the misrepresentation was material, intentional, involved an officer of the court and was directed at the judicial machinery itself, this Court concludes that the government’s actions constitute a fraud on the court. [Emphasis added.]

The three-judge appeals court panel, after reviewing the DOJ’s September 9 motion, agreed to grant a stay pending appeal, which effectively put a halt to Horn’s litigation, including his attorney’s attempts to depose former State Department agent Forster — since Forster’s planned testimony concerning the whitewashing of the State Department OIG investigative report would likely broach matters requiring the attorneys involved to have security clearances.

However, absent a last-minute change of heart by one or more of the parties to the litigation, a settlement in the Horn case appears imminent, possibly to be announced as soon as this coming week.

And given the U.S. government’ past record of deceit in the Horn litigation (under the guise of protecting state secrets), it doesn't seem far-fetched to consider that the next move to be made by DOJ attorneys overseeing the case might not be motivated purely out of a desire to protect national security or to advance the cause of justice.

Stay tuned ....

Prior stories on Horn’s case

• CIA, State Department accused of sanitizing report into alleged misconduct

• Former DEA agent's lawsuit exposes CIA "fraud"

• State secrets claim takes a blow in Horn case

• DEA Agent’s Whistleblower Case Exposes the “War on Drugs” as a “War of Pretense”