Political Report # 1410 The Government Relies on False "Evidence" Against Migrants

By Melissa del Bosque ProPublica

Laura Peña could see that her 36-year-old client was wasting away. Gaunt and haggard after nearly two months in jail, he ran his fingers through his hair and opened his hands to show her the clumps that were falling out. He was so distraught that his two young children had been taken from him at the border, he could barely speak without weeping. After Carlos requested political asylum, border and immigration agents had accused him of being a member of the notorious MS-13 gang in El Salvador - a criminal not fit to enter the United States. But as Peña looked at him, she saw none of the typical hallmarks of gang membership: the garish MS-13 tattoos or a criminal record back home. He was the sole caregiver for his 7-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter. He'd even brought an official letter from El Salvador's Justice Ministry certifying that he'd never been in jail. Something else about his case bothered her, too: She'd been peppering the government's lawyers with phone calls and emails for weeks and they'd yet to reveal any evidence to back up their accusation. Unlike most attorneys working pro bono to reunite families, Peña was familiar with MS-13, because she'd pursued the deportation of gang members as a trial attorney for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She understood how the system worked, because she'd been a part of it. Her long tumble of curly hair, which makes her look younger than her 37 years, is paired with a forthright-bordering-on-blunt manner of speaking forged from her years as a prosecutor on the front line of the immigration debate. She was empathetic toward the plight of clients like Carlos, whose last name is not being used for his protection. But she was also unwilling to give any of them false hope. If Carlos was a gang member, his chance for asylum was zero.

Political Report # 1375 The Workers’ Party electoral struggle in Brazil

by Cliff Welch LAP Editor

To be anti-PT in Brazil these days, makes one a member of the country’s largest political “party.” The PT is Brazil’s famous Workers’ Party, which was formed by leftists, neighborhood activists and labor union militants in order to renovate democratic politics and escape the stale pull of Brazil’s communist parties as the country’s 21-year-long military dictatorship (1964-1985) came to a tortured end. After many attempts, the PT’s founding light, Luís Ignacio Lula da Silva, served twice as Brazil’s president (2003-2010). His protégé, Dilma Rousseff, was also elected twice for president, becoming Brazil’s first female executive, but her second term ended abruptly in a parliamentary coup d’etat in 2016.             On Sunday, October 7, the size of the anti-PT vote became apparent when more than 49 million citizens marked their ballots for Jair Bolsonaro, a retired army captain and current Rio de Janeiro congressional representative, who is campaigning to be Brazil’s president on the ticket of the Social Liberal Party (PSL). Critics call Bolsonaro a “fascist” due to his expressions of authoritarianism, ultra-nationalism, machismo, and racism. His aggressive rhetoric and meteoric growth in popularity certainly mark him as Brazil’s contribution to the rightward tilt of politics internationally, something of a Brazilian Donald Trump. In this first round of elections, the voters’ top two choices were Bolsonaro, with 46 percent of the vote, and Fernando Haddad, the PT’s candidate, with 29 percent of the vote. The remaining electorate cast their votes for one or another of the remaining 11 candidates. In essence, 70 percent of 107 million electors voted against the PT.             Due to polling, the overall results surprised few. Nevertheless, nearly all earlier polls had shown a rejection rate for Bolsonaro of over 60 percent. Now, a short time before the final election round on October 28, reliable polls show Bolsonaro winning with 58 percent of the vote. Many worry that a country that struggled so hard to overcome military rule is about to vote for military rule. In fact, Bolsonaro rose to rank during the later stages of the dictatorship. His vice presidential running mate is a retired Army general and another general is coordinating the work of some 30 study-groups developing policies for governing the country. Many additional military officials man each of these groups. Military men are capable of respecting the law, but leading officials in Bolsonaro’s camp express their disdain for laws and regulations, like those controlling deforestation and protecting minorities. Just about four years ago, the country passed through a period of reckoning, involving truth commissions at every level - from local institutions to the federal government - analyzing the dictatorship and its crimes on the 50th anniversary of the 1964 coup d’etat. The current resurgence of the military in politics seems in part to be a reaction, as they have stridently rejected any wrong-doing and oppose reparations for violating the human rights of their victims.

Political Report # 1350 Why Is the US Silent About Mexico’s New Internal Security Law?

by Santiago Navarro F. and  Renata Bessi,          Truthout

While Mexican governmental institutions are experiencing a credibility crisis, Mexico’s National Congress approved what is known as the Internal Security Law. According to Article 2 of the text of the law, its objective is “to safeguard the permanence and continuity of governmental order and institutions, as well as national development through the maintenance of constitutional order, the rule of law and democratic governance.” Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto enacted the law, which became effective on December 21, 2017, and has since caused a wave of protests throughout Mexico. Numerous social movements, unions and civil society organizations see the new law as part of a process of militarizing Mexican society, which could worsen violence in the county. In general terms, this law broadens opportunities for the armed forces to act throughout Mexican territory, even legitimizing the use of violence. It allows the armed forces to intervene in matters that concern civil authorities, such as disturbances and protests that are considered violent or acts of resistance. The law also permits the invasion of citizens’ privacy to collect intelligence information and entry into homes without a court order, including during criminal legal system investigations. Anneliese Danaé Echeverria, an attorney and professor who is a union member and legal affairs assistant with Section 22 of the National Organization of Education Workers (CNTE) in the state of Oaxaca, tells Truthout, “The Mexican Constitution established that the army could not intervene in civil matters, they had to resolve any conflicts through the military court system. Civilians have their own courts. But the new law guarantees military intervention in all aspects of civilian life throughout the country. Civil authorities that are already in crisis will have little room to interfere with these interventions, because the military will act immediately, without consultation or requesting a warrant.”

Political Report # 1347 The disappeared of Guatemala: a family’s search for their murdered son

By Nina Lakhani, The Guardian

As the court delivered the damning verdict convicting powerful ex-military officers of crimes against humanity, sexual violence and the forced disappearance of 14-year-old Marco Antonio Molina Theissen, his three older sisters and mother clung to each other and wept. It’s almost 37 years since the schoolboy was bundled into a sack by officers after they had ransacked the family home looking for his sister, Emma Guadalupe, who had managed to escape a military torture chamber. Marco Antonio’s family has never stopped looking for him, but the boy who dreamed of becoming an engineer was disappeared by a military regime that considered children fair game in its quest to crush political dissent. The guilty verdicts handed down in Guatemala City last month satisfied the Molina Theissen family’s pursuit for justice against the former “untouchables” - the high command that ordered the systematic persecution, torture, murder and disappearance of civilians considered enemies of the state. Peacetime efforts to tackle impunity have been impeded by the domination of post-war governments by military strongmen. Now is no exception. In the aftermath of the verdict, as rescue workers searched for victims of the Fuego volcano, politicians with military links attempted to sneak through a reform guaranteeing impunity for officers accused of crimes against humanity. The convictions in Marco Antonio’s case were a victory not just for his family but for thousands of Guatemalans whose lives were destroyed by a US-backed counterinsurgency war masquerading as a legitimate national security policy. “The verdict is in our name but belongs to all the people like us, who were terrorised and bereaved just for thinking differently,” Maria Eugenia Molina Theissen, one of Marco Antonio’s sisters, tells the Guardian.

Political Report # 1314 Green for Blue in the Mexican Security State

By Nicola Chavez Courtright NACLA

On December 19, exactly three months after the earthquake that left over 360 dead in central Mexico, the iconic Arena México in Mexico City was gearing up for its regular Tuesday evening show. According to the event's flyer, however, the night of lucha libre would be punctuated by a special event: an homage to "the Mexican heroes who participated in rescue missions" after the September 19th quake. In a pause between lucha rounds, dozens of uniformed men and women marched into the arena in step with the Zacatecas March, played by the wind section of the National Defense Secretary band. While soldiers posed before the green, white, and red of the Mexican flag waving across huge LED screens, the celebration uplifted the military's role as the genuine heroes of the disaster, sidelining the roles taken on by civilian rescue groups in the quake's aftermath. The act exuded all the grandeur of an army that had just been given sweeping powers to conduct military operations against its own population. More than just a commemoration, the display at Arena México tacitly acknowledged a concerning sign of army encroachment into civilian life. Four days earlier, Mexico had adopted its Ley de Seguridad Interior, or Internal Security Law, which amends the constitution to enable the executive branch to grant certain police responsibilities to Mexican armed forces-a response that has become increasingly normalized since the beginning of Mexico's Drug War in 2006. In 2017, Mexico registered the highest number of homicides since the drug war began. Rather than a panacea, however, the law stands to create new sources of terror for an already-terrorized population caught in the ongoing U.S.-backed drug war ravaging the region.

Political Report # 1308 Argentina's Law on Forests Is Good, But Lacks Enforcement

By Daniel Gutman Inter Press Service

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 18 2018 (IPS) - Never in the parliamentary history of Argentina had something similar happened: one and a half million people in 2007 signed a petition asking the Senate to pass a law to reduce deforestation. The law was quickly approved, and promulgated on Dec. 26 of that year. But 10 years later, it has left a bittersweet taste. Researchers and environmental organisations admit that the law had positive impacts and slowed down the destruction of the country's native forests, caused to a large extent by the expansion of the agricultural frontier. But they warn that deforestation continues in areas where it is banned, and that the national government has shown a strong lack of interest in enforcing the law, reflected in the lack of funds necessary to finance conservation policies.

Abstract, Slavery in Today’s Brazil: Law and Public Policy

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Slavery in Today’s Brazil: Law and Public Policy
by Ricardo Rezoned Figueira and Neide Esterci


The abolition of slavery in 1888 failed to eliminate the repressive and compulsory use of labor in Brazil. When pressure to reduce slave trafficking made African labor scarce, coffee producers in São Paulo recruited European migrants to replace it. Through indebtedness and compulsory work, migrants became captive to the landowners who hired them. As the occupation of the Amazon frontier became state policy in the 1960s, debt bondage was used against the thousands of migrant workers hired to clear the areas for agribusiness projects. Slavery had been prohibited since 1940, and in 1965 the Congress entered into two international agreements on slavery that included debt bondage. With the end of the military government in 1985, the category “slave labor” was incorporated into the regulatory framework for employment practices, and since then it has been broadened to include labor forced by violence, debt bondage, exhausting labor, and degrading working conditions. Tensions around the definition remain, however, and prosecutions under the law and guilty verdicts have so far been few.

Abstract, Slavery in Today’s Brazil: Law and Public Policy

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Slavery in Today’s Brazil: Law and Public Policy
by Ricardo Rezoned Figueira and Neide Esterci


The abolition of slavery in 1888 failed to eliminate the repressive and compulsory use of labor in Brazil. When pressure to reduce slave trafficking made African labor scarce, coffee producers in São Paulo recruited European migrants to replace it. Through indebtedness and compulsory work, migrants became captive to the landowners who hired them. As the occupation of the Amazon frontier became state policy in the 1960s, debt bondage was used against the thousands of migrant workers hired to clear the areas for agribusiness projects. Slavery had been prohibited since 1940, and in 1965 the Congress entered into two international agreements on slavery that included debt bondage. With the end of the military government in 1985, the category “slave labor” was incorporated into the regulatory framework for employment practices, and since then it has been broadened to include labor forced by violence, debt bondage, exhausting labor, and degrading working conditions. Tensions around the definition remain, however, and prosecutions under the law and guilty verdicts have so far been few.

Book Review, Puzzling over Authoritarian Legality

:::::: Book Review ::::::

Puzzling over Authoritarian Legality
by Cliff Welch

Political (In)justice: Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina

Pereira Anthony W. Political (In)justice: Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005.

While many democracies have witnessed dramatic declines in both voter enthusiasm for political participation and the appeal of the state as the unique focus of transformational political projects, many governments around the world have gradually become more authoritarian and closed, aggravating the cynicism of the citizenry. Pereira’s Political (In)justice offers an indirect antidote to these trends by examining the devil itself in the comparative details of the rise and fall of three Latin American authoritarian regimes. While Pereira’s principal concern is the relationship between rulers and ruled, this book examines rulers. The work of Weber anchors its theoretical approach to examining differences and similarities in the ways elites used the law to rule the masses in the dictatorships of Brazil (1964–1985), Chile (1973–1990), and Argentina (1976–1983). By carefully analyzing the paradox of authoritarian legality in the Southern Cone, Pereira’s book offers many historical and political clues for solving the puzzle of institutionalized authoritarianism and what makes governments function and states important enough to fight over.

Political Report # 1172 Kerry's meeting with Brazilian official shows support for illegitimate government

Getty Images By  By Mark Weisbrot, The Hill

On July 25, 43 Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry. The letter began: We write to express our deep concern regarding recent developments in Brazil that we believe threaten that country's democratic institutions. We urge you to exercise the utmost caution in your dealings with Brazil's interim authorities and to refrain from statements or actions that might be interpreted as supportive of the impeachment campaign launched against President Dilma Rousseff. Our government should express strong concern regarding the circumstances surrounding the impeachment process and call for the protection of constitutional democracy and the rule of law in Brazil. On Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) also weighed in, noting, "After suspending Brazil's first female president on dubious grounds, without a mandate to govern the new interim government abolished the ministry of women, racial equality and human rights." He added: "The United States cannot sit silently while the democratic institutions of one of our most important allies are undermined."