'Purge Anti-Semites from Mexican Govt Before U.S. Military Aid,' FoBW tells Congress

please fwd.
April 14, 2008

Contact: Robert Jereski
Congressional Liaison
Friends of Brad Will
http://www.friendsofbradwill.org

'Purge Anti-Semites from Mexican Government Before Giving U.S. Military Aid,' Friends of Brad Will Tells Congress

Denouncing the appointments of members of El Yunque, an ultra-right anti-semitic movement, to the highest levels of the Mexican government, Friends of Brad Will has told key Democratic Party leaders to reject the Bush military aid package called the Merida Initiative. Friends of Brad Will is a non-government organization advocating for accountability for the murder of U.S. journalist Brad Will, who was killed by Mexican government paramilitaries in October, 2006. Members of the group have spoken with the powerful Democrat Chairs of the Congressional Subcommittees on Foreign Operations and on Western Hemispheric Affairs, warning that President Bush's proposed Merida Initiative would arm a Mexican Administration that has recently appointed members of El Yunque, who advocate discrimination against women, homosexuals, and Jews, to top posts. Friends of Brad Will noted the initiative would risk the democratic advances made by Mexico since the ending of one-party rule.

Luis Paredes Moctezuma, the former mayor of Puebla who claims to have spent three decades in the secret group El Yunque, declared to the Dallas Morning News in June 2007, that "El Yunque is more dangerous than the narcos." Hundreds of Yunque members are now in the bureaucracy, and they control four state governments, he warned.

An investigative piece by journalist and feminist activist Irene Ortiz in the January/February 2008 issue of the NACLA entitled Building the City of God: Mexico's Ultra-Right Yunque, detailed the history of the secretive organization dedicated to 'eternal combat (with) the forces of Judaism, Masonry and Communism'. Açlvaro Delgado, who published a book on El Yunque in 2003, used the group's written internal communications and the testimonies of members and deserters, to expose its determination to "create the City of God in accordance with the Gospels".

Friends of Brad Will have joined the United Steel Workers, Witness for Peace, WESPAC and others, in opposing the Merida Initiative, dubbed "Plan Mexico" after Plan Colombia, the $7 billion military 'drug war' package which failed to reduce exports of coca from the strife-ridden South American nation. The Initiative would cost $1.1 billion over two years, with the overwhelming majority of money to be spent on providing U.S. military equipment and training, including helicopters and surveillance equipment, to Mexican President Calderon. Many observers, such as Global Exchange, have recognized the initiative is destined to fail, given the "drug cartel's penetration into seemingly every facet of the Mexican police, military, and judicial system". The last major counter-narcotics training program of Mexican military units by U.S. Special Forces resulted in the entire Mexican force - known as the Zetas - defecting to work for the narcos, taking with them state-of-the-art tactics and methods.

"The Congress should look long and hard at the nature of Calderon's government," urged Robert Jereski, Congressional Liaison for Friends of Brad Will. "The Mexican President has partnered with El Yunque , an extremist anti-semitic and virulently homophobic and anti-woman's rights Catholic fundamentalist organization, appointing its members to some of the highest positions of power in the Mexican government."

Among the “first-level” cabinet officials are Mexican President Calderón’s own private secretary César Nava Vázquez, the head of the National Water Commission, José Luis Luege, and the head of the National Institute of Migration, Cecilia Romero. Manuel Espino, the outgoing president of Calderon's Party, the PAN, is a member of the Yunque, as are three state governors (all PANistas), Juan Manuel Oliva, in Guanajuato; Emilio González Márquez, in Jalisco, and Marco Antonio Adame, in Morelos.

"The Merida Initiative threatens to empower an ultra-right-wing government out of step with American values," declared Jereski. "The creed of El Yunque would be considered deeply offensive to most Americans (as it is to most Mexicans)."

The Congress will be deliberating on the Merida Initiative in the following weeks.
-end-