> Drug War Chronicle, Issue #536 -- 5/16/08
> Phillip S. Smith, Editor,http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/psmithhttp://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536
>
> A Publication of Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
> David Borden, Executive Director,http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/borden
> "Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"
>
> New Offer: Clergy Against the War on Drugs Videohttp://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/clergy_against_the_war_on_dru...
>
> Students: Intern at DRCNet to help stop the drug war now!http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/drcnet_internships_to_stop_th...
>
> Enough is Enough: Stop the Deadly SWAT Raids:http://stopthedrugwar.org/raidpetition
>
> Table of Contents:
>
> 1. FEATURE: BATTLING MILITARY IMPUNITY IN MEXICO'S DRUG WAR
> As the US Congress begins to move toward passing a massive
> anti-drug aid package aimed mainly at the Mexican military,
> abuses by soldiers in the drug war there have prompted a serious
> legal challenge.http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/mexico_military_human_rights_...
>
> 2. FEATURE: VANCOUVER'S SAFE INJECTION SITE FIGHTS FOR ITS LIFE
> -- AGAIN
> Time is running out for Vancouver's InSite, the only
> officially-sanctioned safe injection site in North America. The
> Conservative government of Canadian Prime Minister Harper has
> until June 30 to re-authorize the program, which it dislikes,
> and InSite supporters are now engaged in a major campaign to
> ensure its continued existence.http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/vancouver_insite_safe_injecti...
>
> 3. LAW ENFORCEMENT: DEATH OF FLORIDA STUDENT FORCED TO BECOME A
> SNITCH SPARKS PROTESTS IN TALLAHASSEE
> The killing of a Florida State University student who became an
> informer after being busted on drug charges has provoked angry
> protests by her friends and fellow students.http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/rachel_hoffman_informant_protes...
>
> 4. OFFER: NEW CLERGY ANTI-DRUG-WAR VIDEO
> Clergy are speaking out against the war on drugs! Donate $16 or
> more (or whatever you can afford) and we'll send you a copy.http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/clergy_against_the_war_on_dru...
>
> 5. STUDENTS: INTERN AT DRCNET AND HELP STOP THE DRUG WAR!
> Apply for an internship at DRCNet for this fall (or spring), and
> you could spend the semester fighting the good fight!http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/drcnet_internships_to_stop_th...
>
> 6. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
> The evidence goes missing in Galveston, a pill-hungry cop goes
> down in Oklahoma, a pill-peddling cop gets popped in New Jersey,
> and another pill-peddling cop goes to prison in Indiana.http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/police_drug_corruption
>
> 7. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: GOP ATTACKS OBAMA FOR SUGGESTING HE WOULD
> END RAIDS
> The Republican National Committee Wednesday attacked Sen. Barack
> Obama for suggesting he would end DEA raids on medical marijuana
> providers in states where it is legal. Given broad popular
> support for medical marijuana, it is not at all clear that this
> will be a winning issue for the GOP.http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/gop_attacks_obama_over_medica...
>
> 8. PREGNANCY: SOUTH CAROLINA SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS WOMAN'S
> MURDER CONVICTION FOR FETAL DEATH AFTER COCAINE USE
> Regina McKnight was the first woman in South Carolina charged
> with murder for having a stillborn child after using drugs while
> pregnant. Now, after almost a decade behind bars, the state
> Supreme Court has overturned her guilty verdict, saying she had
> poor legal representation and was the victim of shoddy science.http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/regina_mcknight_south_carolin...
>
> 9. LATIN AMERICA: PROHIBITION-RELATED VIOLENCE SURGES IN MEXICO
> More than 100 people, including several top federal police
> commanders, have been killed in surging prohibition-related
> violence in Mexico in recent days as the so-called drug cartels
> strike back hard against police, soldiers, and each other.http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/mexico_prohibition_related_vi...
>
> 10. CANADA: MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION RETAINS MAJORITY SUPPORT,
> POLL FINDS
> Canada's Conservative government wants to crack down on
> marijuana, but it's out of step with the population. According
> to a new poll, 53%% want to legalize it.http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/canada_marijuana_legalization...
>
> 11. EUROPE: DESPITE BRITISH MARIJUANA RECLASSIFICATION, NO JAIL
> FOR LOW-LEVEL SELLERS
> The new tough line on marijuana signaled last week by the
> British government when it reclassified the herb may not be so
> tough after all. The British Sentencing Guidelines Council says
> small-scale sales and cultivation should be punished by
> probation and fines in most cases.http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/british_marijuana_sentencing_...
>
> 12. SOUTHEAST ASIA: VIETNAM PONDERS DRUG DECRIMINALIZATION
> The Vietnamese National Assembly is considering decriminalizing
> drug possession. But with most drug users sent to detox camps
> under administrative regulations instead of criminal charges, it
> might not make much difference in the real world.http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/vietnam_ponders_drug_decrimin...
>
> 13. DEATH PENALTY: MALAYSIA SENTENCES TWO TO HANG FOR MARIJUANA
> TRAFFICKING, IRAN EXECUTES NINE DRUG SELLERS
> Two Thai citizens have been sentenced to death in Malaysia over
> 75 pounds of marijuana, and nine convicted drug sellers go to
> the gallows in Iran.http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/death_penalty_iran_malaysia
>
> 14. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
> Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of
> years past.http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/drug_war_history
>
> (Not subscribed? Visithttp://stopthedrugwar.orgto sign up
> today!)
>
> ================
>
> 1. Feature: Battling Military Impunity in Mexico's Drug Warhttp://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/536/mexico_military_human_rights_...
>
> Lawmakers in the United States this week took the first steps
> toward approving a $1.6 billion dollar, three-year anti-drug
> assistance package for Mexico that is heavily weighted toward
> aid for the Mexican military. The Mexican army needs all the
> help it can get as, with 30,000 troops deployed against violent
> drug traffickers by President Felipe Calderon, it wages war
> against the so-called cartels, say supporters of the package.
>
> But even as the aid package, known as Plan Merida after the
> Mexican city where US and Mexican officials hammered out
> details, was being crafted, the Mexican military was once again
> demonstrating the risks of using soldiers for law enforcement.
> On the evening of March 26, near the town of Santiago de los
> Caballeros in the municipality of Badiriguato in the mountains
> of the state of Sinaloa, a five-man military patrol opened fire
> on a white Hummer driven by a local man back from the US. When
> the smoke cleared, four people in the vehicle were dead, two
> were wounded -- and there was no sign of any weapons.
>
> It was the second time in less than a year that soldiers in
> Badiriguato had opened fire, killing multiple innocent
> civilians. Last June, three school teachers and two of their
> young children were killed
> (http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/490/mexico_drug_war_calderon_iraq)
> when soldiers at a checkpoint perforated their vehicle with
> bullets. That case went away after the military paid their
> families $1,600 each.
>
> Seeing yet another unjustified killing by the military was
> enough for Mercedes Murillo, head of the independent human
> rights organization the Frente Civico Sinaloense (Sinaloa Civic
> Front). The veteran activist saw her brother assassinated in
> September after discussing the June killings on his radio
> program, but that didn't stop her from filing a lawsuit designed
> to end what is in effect impunity for soldiers who commit human
> rights offenses against civilians.
>
> Under Mexican law -- the result of a post-revolutionary
> political settlement designed to keep the military out of
> politics -- members of the military do not face trial in the
> civilian courts, but in special military courts. This fuero
> military, or military privilege, results in soldiers charged
> with human rights abuses being judged by members of their own
> institution, and all too frequently, being absolved of any
> wrongdoing no matter what the facts are.
>
> Now, Murillo and her legal team, acting on behalf of the widow
> of the Hummer driver, have filed suit in Sinaloa district court
> in Mazatlan, challenging the fuero system. She doesn't expect
> immediate success, she said.
>
> "This is the first case presented in Mexico against the actions
> the army has taken," said Murillo. "We know that when we present
> this in Mazatlan, the judges will give us nothing. Then we must
> take it to the Supreme Court of Mexico, and there might be
> people there who will study what we are presenting."
>
> But Murillo isn't counting on the Mexican courts; her vision
> goes beyond that. "I don't think we can win here, but even if
> the Supreme Court says the military can do what it wants, that
> will lay the groundwork for going to the Inter-American Court.
> Military impunity violates international treaties that Mexico
> has signed," she argued.
>
> The Organization of American States' Inter-American Court of
> Human Rights and Inter-American Commission of Human Rights
> (http://www.oas.org/oaspage/humanrights.htm) are autonomous
> institutions charged by the hemispheric organization with
> interpreting and applying the American Treaty on Human Rights
> and ensuring governments' compliance with it. Mexico is a
> signatory to that treaty.
>
> "Using the military for drug enforcement in Mexico is a serious
> problem," agreed Ana Paula Hernandez of the Tllachinollan Human
> Rights Center of the Mountains (http://www.tlachinollan.org) in
> the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. In addition to being one
> of the most impoverished areas of the country, the mountains of
> Guerrero have long been home to poppy and marijuana farmers, as
> well as the occasional leftist guerrilla band over the decades.
> The military has been deployed there for years.
>
> But while most attention these days is focused on the military's
> deployment to fight the cartels in major cities, Hernandez cited
> the military's more traditional drug war role: manual illicit
> crop eradication. "It's an almost impossible and useless task
> since illicit crop cultivation is an issue of survival in the
> mountain region, as in other parts of the country," she said.
> "In these regions, farmers have two options -- either they grow
> illicit crops or they migrate, so of course they will continue
> to find ways to grow illicit crops. It will never end unless the
> social and structural reasons for it are addressed."
>
> But instead, successive Mexican governments have sent in the
> military to root out the poppy and pot fields. At least, that is
> their stated purpose, but Hernandez isn't sure they're serious.
> "This is the excuse for deploying the military in many rural and
> indigenous regions, but in many cases it's more about a
> counterinsurgency strategy than a crop eradication strategy,"
> she said.
>
> The military presence in such regions is "an intimidating and
> threatening" one, said Hernandez. "They set up camp wherever
> they like, often destroying licit crops and harvests in the
> process, stealing the water from the community, entering
> people's homes to take their food, stopping people on the roads
> to interrogate them, and so on. Worse yet, the military has
> become one of the main perpetrators of human rights abuses in
> the region, committing violations as serious as sexual rape for
> example," Hernandez said. "This is something that is very common
> but that is rarely denounced."
>
> Tlachinollan has documented some 80 cases of human rights
> violations carried out by members of the military in the region
> in recent years, including the rape of two women, Valentina
> Rosendo Cantu and Ines Fern�ndez, by soldiers in 2002, said
> Hernandez. But because of the military court system, nobody has
> been punished.
>
> "Justice has not been carried out in a single case," she said.
> "It is very difficult, almost impossible, to obtain justice in
> cases where the military is involved. They remain untouchable to
> a certain degree and without a doubt, absolutely unaccountable
> to society for their actions."
>
> As for Cantu and Fernandez, they have given up on Mexican
> justice and are now seeking redress before the Inter-American
> Human Rights Commission. Their case is pending after a hearing
> last October.
>
> While Mexican citizens and activists struggle to rein in the
> military, some US experts wonder whether involving soldiers in
> drug law enforcement does any good anyway.
> "We don't think it's a problem that can be solved militarily,"
> said Joy Olson, executive director of the Washington Office on
> Latin America (http://www.wola.org). "The use of the military in
> the drug war is not a new thing -- they continually bring in the
> military because the police are either too weak or too corrupt
> to deal with the traffickers -- but the question is whether it
> can deal with the challenge at hand, and we don't think so," she
> said.
>
> But even if the military is unable to stop drug production and
> trafficking, it will continue to be the backstop for
> hard-pressed Mexican politicians unless real reforms take place,
> Olson said. "We need to be talking about significant police
> reform. Until that happens, the military will be used over and
> over again without solving the problem."
>
> Murillo agreed that police reforms were necessary, and vowed
> never to give up the fight for justice. "They killed my brother
> because he criticized the army," she said, "but we are so used
> to the soldiers now that we are not scared. I have nothing to
> lose. My sons and daughters are married, my husband is 82. If
> they kill me, I don't care. That's the only way to work. You
> can't be afraid."
>
> ================
>
> later
> bliss -- C O C O A Powered... (at california dot com)
>
> --
> bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco
>
> "It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
> It is by the beans of cocoa that the thoughts acquire speed,
> the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
> It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
> --from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.