Aims & Wishes to Ask for from the Mexican Government This New Year Arturo Alcalde Justiniani - La Jornada
go to original December 28, 2015

Here is a kind of catalog of good intentions that we should ask for the year that is about to begin:

Marijuana Depenalization: For example, support the release of tens of thousands of Mexicans absurdly imprisoned for the simple consumption or possession of marijuana. There are a quarter of a million prisoners in the overcrowded prisons of our country; most of these inmates are accused of drug crimes and 60 percent of those for offenses related to marijuana. One only needs to look at this reality to confirm that they are mainly poor young people who had no proper legal defense, nor the money for bail or to corrupt the authorities to let them go free. Each prisoner or detainee generates a deep wound in his family, the abandonment of children, new cycles of crime and various forms of exploitation, all to the detriment of society itself.

Ayotzinapa: It is essential that justice be done and the fate of the 43 Ayotzinapa students finally be clarified. It is not possible to explain to the entire world how a government, with all its resources, is unable to provide a credible explanation of these events, another demonstration of the widespread violation of the most basic human rights.

Minimum Wage: There is no excuse to continue keeping in our country a daily minimum wage of misery, which has been shown to be one of the lowest in the world, the product of a deliberate policy of the government and employers, thus ensuring the appropriation of much of the efforts of the workers. This grotesque daily minimum wage, which was recently increased, with great fanfare, by just three pesos [US$.18 per day], has had disastrous effects on the national economy by restricting the domestic market. This year, we must act and fight to overcome the delaying tactics to recover [a decent wage].

Gubernatorial Elections: 2016 will be a year for the election of 12 governorships and local elections in 13 states [out of 31 states and the Federal District, Mexico City], and the machinery is already operating to manipulate and control the vote by providing jobs, contracts and gifts. The poorest communities, which ironically would benefit the most from a regime change, are key; their degree of need and prostration are the raw material for control. Overcoming vote buying is essential to suppressing the authoritarian and corrupt regime that oppresses us.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico — on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx

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