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Carlos Fuentes Dies at 83

Roque Planas — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:07:18 GMT

Renowned Mexican author and diplomat Carlos Fuentes died at the age of 83 in a Mexico City hospital, according to local news reports.

The news of the novelist's passing on Tuesday was confirmed by President Felipe Calderón via Twitter.

"I profoundly lament the passing of our beloved and admired Carlos Fuentes, writer and universal Mexican," the Mexican president tweeted. "May he rest in peace."

Lamento profundamente el fallecimiento de nuestro querido y admirado Carlos Fuentes, escritor y mexicano universal. Descanse en paz.

— Felipe Calderón (@FelipeCalderon) May 15, 2012

"Carlos Fuentes was a colossus," said Guatemalan novelist David Unger, who attended a series of the late author's lectures at Columbia University in the 1980s. "Though elegant and epicurean by nature, he championed the immigrant, the downtrodden, the voiceless with passion and decency."

The prolific Fuentes wrote his first novel, "Where the Air is Clear," at age 29, laying the foundation for the flourishing of Latin American literature during the 1960s and 1970s that became known as the "Boom." He wrote to the end, publishing an essay on the change of power in France in the newspaper Reforma the same day he died.

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The son of a career diplomat, Fuentes lived an international life. He was born in Panama city on Dec. 11, 1928 to Mexican parents and spent most of his early life abroad, growing up in Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Washington, D.C., Chile, and Buenos Aires. He later divided his time between homes in Mexico City home and London, where he did most of his writing.

Before joining the ranks of the greatest authors of Latin America's "Boom" generation, Fuentes studied law at the University of Mexico. As a student, he began the lifelong interest in politics that tinged his literary work, joining the Communist Party in the 1950s.

Fuentes resigned from the Party in 1962, but continued to lean left politically, viewing the Cuban Revolution with admiration.

Though the United States once denied his entry to the country under the McCarren-Walter Act for his outspoken views, the erudite writer also admired America and taught classes at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and Brown universities through his life.

The Mexican Revolution—a bloody upheaval that shook Mexico from 1910 to 1920 and paved the way for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, to take power for seven decades—played a prominent role in some of his most important works, including "The Death of Artemio Cruz." The work blasted the PRI for failing to realize the Revolution's lofty, populist goals.

"The Old Gringo," the novel many American readers know him for, tells the story of San Francisco journalist Ambrose Bierce, who disappeared during the Mexican Revolution. The book was later made into a film starring Gregory Peck and Jane Fonda.

While Fuentes criticized Mexico's one-party state, he also worked within it, serving as Ambassador to England. He resigned from the foreign service, however, when the Mexican government massacred an unknown number of students protesters in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City in 1968. (The episode was the subject of the book "The Night of Tlatelolco" by Fuentes' contemporary Elena Poniatowski.)

Fuentes rejoined the foreign service in 1975, accepting a post as ambassador to Paris.

In later life, Fuentes moderated his views on Latin America's political left somewhat, blasting Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez as a "tropical Mussolini." On the other side of the spectrum, Fuentes leveled criticism against the U.S. war on terror and its policies against illegal immigration.

Fuentes was married from 1959 to 1973 to actress Rita Macedo, with whom he had his only surviving daughter.

After the couple divorced, Fuentes married journalist Silvia Lemus and they had two children together. Their son Carlos Fuentes Lemus died from complications associated with hemophilia in 1999, and Natasha Fuentes Lemus died in 2005 after a cardiac arrest.

One of Latin America's foremost writers, Fuentes had often been mentioned as a contender for the Nobel Prize for literature, though he never won the award. He won the Cervantes Award in 1987, one of Spain's highest literary honors.

The news of Fuentes death saddened Chicano novelist Sergio Troncoso, author of "From This Wicked Patch of Dust."

"His work had meaning to me," Tronoso said. "It's a deep loss, any time you lose one of these Latin American masters. These are people who represent our heritage."

Troncoso recalled that Fuentes gave the commencement speech when he graduated from Harvard University in 1983. The Mexican author exhorted the students to cultivate their imaginations and avoid neglecting the life of the mind as they entered the workforce.

The young Troncoso took his advice, traveling to Mexico City on a Fulbright grant the next year, where he poured over Fuentes' work. Troncoso still owns the copy of "The Death of Artemio Cruz" he bought at the Librería Gandhi, the famed Mexico City bookstore in the neighborhood of Coyacán.

"His words were very important to me," Troncoso said. "Something to look up to and try to emulate."

Contains material from the Associated Press.

Bogotá Bomb Blast Leaves 2 Dead

Tue, 15 May 2012 22:49:53 GMT

A bomb intended for a hardline former interior minister killed two of his bodyguards and injured at least 31 people in Bogotá's uptown commercial district Tuesday in an attack that has not been seen in the capital for years.

The former minister, Fernando Londoño, suffered minor shrapnel wounds and was out of danger, authorities said. Video footage showed a stunned Londoño, his face bruised, being led from the wreckage in a dark suit and red tie.

Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro said a pedestrian attached an explosive to a door of Londoño's armored SUV and set it off remotely. He said authorities had video of the attack.

The attacker "walked away disguised" and a wig of long black hair and a hat were found in the area, Petro told reporters.

It was the first fatal bombing in the capital in nearly a decade of an apparently political nature. While officials didn't ascribe blame, some analysts suspected the country's main leftist rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

"We don't know what's behind it," said President Juan Manuel Santos. "But rest assured that the government isn't going to be knocked off track by terrorist acts."

A morning radio host who is an archconservative and a stringent critic of the FARC, the 68-year-old Londoño was interior and justice minister in 2002-2003 under former President Alvaro Uribe.

He hosts a daily radio show called "The Hour of Truth" and firmly opposes peace talks with the FARC, calling the rebels "terrorists" and "murderers." He has also been critical of Santos for allegedly being soft on the rebels, who have stepped up attacks in recent months.

Under Uribe, Colombia's U.S.-backed military dealt major setbacks to the FARC, diminishing its numbers by roughly half to about 9,000 currently. Colombia's capital became progressively safer, the conflict increasingly limited to less populated hinterlands.

The last major bombing in Bogotá was in 2003, when the FARC bombed the exclusive El Nogal social club, killing 36 people. The cocaine trade-funded FARC was also blamed for a pre-dawn bombing outside an office building housing Caracol radio in August 2010, but that blast only injured nine people.

Londoño's driver and a police bodyguard were killed in the attack shortly before midday on Calle 74 a half block from Caracas Avenue. The district is packed with office buildings, stores, restaurants and banks.

Catalina Ballesteros, a 24-year-old student, was in a bus that was badly damaged by the blast. She said she was surprised at the concentrated force.

"After the explosion it was chaos," said Ballesteros, who suffered only cuts. She said she saw one man on the street who had fainted.

Londono was being treated at the Clinica del Country hospital for minor shrapnel wounds in his face and was out of danger, said the hospital's director, Jorge Ospina.

An additional 24 people were treated for injuries at the clinic, eight of whom were released, Ospina said. Six others were treated at a different hospital, El Marly, said police Gen. Rodolfo Palomino.

Ospina said the only person seriously injured in the blast was a 38-year-old passer-by who needed surgery and was in danger of losing his right arm.

Earlier Tuesday, police said they had deactivated a car bomb in the center of the city and said they presumed it was from the FARC. Police said they arrested the person who was driving the car.

It was not known if the incident was related to the apparent attack on Londoño. Santos convened Petro, Colombia's chief prosecutor and its military and police brass for an afternoon security session.

Santos considers himself a progressive and, in addition to a military hard line against the FARC, has sought to return stolen land to peasants and pay reparations to victims of Colombia's long-running civil conflict.

The FARC was blamed by authorities for two bombings in February in provincial Colombia that killed at least 16 people, and military analyst Alfredo Rangel said he suspected it Tuesday's bombing because of Londoño's hard line against the rebels.

Leftist congressman and human rights activist Ivan Cepeda said he feared the attack could trigger others attack, including those targeting the left.

"I see a clear intent to destabilize," Cepeda said, blaming "sectors who don't want peace."

Political scientist Vicente Torrijos of the Universidad del Rosario, supported the theory that the FARC was to blame as it "seeks to show itself to the world as an organization sufficiently strong militarily and no only a weak organization that is only looking to negotiate with the government."

The FARC has been seeking peace talks and last month released what it said were its last "political prisoners," 10 police and soldiers held for as many as 14 years.

In newspaper columns and on the radio, Londoño hasn't just attacked the FARC as standard-bearer of Colombia's right wing.

He also firmly defends Uribe against allegations that the former president was too cozy with backers of illegal far-right militias. Dozens of political allies of both men have been imprisoned on criminal conspiracy convictions for colluding with the militias.

The militia leaders made peace with Uribe's government but most of their top leaders were extradited to the United States, where they are serving prison terms on drug trafficking convictions.

The FARC, meanwhile, suffered serious setbacks under Uribe, who left office in 2010, but continue to inflict casualties on security forces in ambushes and hit-and-run attacks.

It currently holds a French journalist who was accompanying security forces on a drug lab-destroying mission when rebels detained him two weeks ago. The FARC said on Sunday that it intends to free him soon.

Based on reporting by The Associated Press.

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Susana Martínez Blasts Romney on Immig.

Elizabeth Llorente — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:43:34 GMT

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martínez, mentioned on occasion as a possible running mate for presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, is mincing no words in voicing her opinion of his immigration views.

In an interview with Newsweek, Martínez was unusually outspoken on immigration, in particular about Romney's support of enforcement policies that would make undocumented immigrants so miserable that they will opt for self-deportation.

"'Self-deport?' What the heck does that mean?" she was quoted as saying in the story, which described her as snapping her answer. "I have no doubt Hispanics have been alienated during this campaign. But now there's an opportunity for Gov. Romney to have a sincere conversation about what we can do and why."

"Republicans want to be tough and say, 'Illegals, you're gone.' But the answer is a lot more complex than that," Martínez said in the story.

She said she favors comprehensive immigration reform, which generally means tightening enforcement programs like border security and more vigorously going after employers who hire undocumented workers, as well as allowing for a pathway to legalization for certain people who are here unlawfully.

Her softer views on immigration were quite surprising for a governor who's ruffled feathers in Latino communities in New Mexico by, for example, pushing aggressively to keep undocumented immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses.

Martínez's comments about Romney and the GOP rhetoric on immigration actually are not unusual for Republicans. Many high-profile Republicans have said that Romney, and the GOP in general, must back off pointed talk about immigration that can alienate Hispanic voters.

But this is Susana Martínez, whom Romney has mentioned as someone he'd consider for a cabinet post.

In many polls, likely Hispanic voters have said they are turned off by Republicans, including Romney, because of the seemingly hostile manner in which they address immigration – even while these Latinos say immigration is not their priority issue. Political experts say that to win the presidency, a candidate must scoop up at least 40 percent of the Latino vote.

A Fox News Latino poll earlier this year showed that 14 percent of likely Latino voters would choose Romney, compared with nearly 70 percent who said they'd vote for President Obama, even though they disagree with the way he has dealt with immigration.

Martínez also took issue with her party on other matters.

"Sometimes Republicans engage in number-crunching analysis that doesn't always take the neediest into account," Newsweek quoted Martínez, whose disabled sister is on Medicaid, as saying. "We have to factor them in before we start proposing these cuts."

But Martínez didn't hold back on blasting Obama, saying, according to the publication, that he "didn't even have the courage to try" passing comprehensive immigration reform. Republicans, she said in the story, sorely need a comprehensive immigration package of their own to promote, instead of just blaming Obama for inaction.

But offering a Republican version of the DREAM Act is not enough, she said in the story, adding that the Republican alternative must embrace more than just one aspect of the broader, flawed immigration system.

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JLo's Boy Says Romance Spontaneous

Tue, 15 May 2012 20:58:35 GMT

Jennifer Lopez's boyfriend Casper Smart has opened up about their relationship for the first time, saying their romance "just spontaneously happened."

Smart, 25, reluctantly agreed to an interview Monday with E! News at the premiere of Lopez's new comedy, "What To Expect When You're Expecting."

"It was really professional for a very long time before anything even happened. It just really spontaneously happened I guess. The chemistry was there. You can't fight it," he said of his romance with Lopez, 42.

"She's just a beautiful woman. She's just a good person," Casper, a backup dancer for Lopez, gushed. "Like anybody else, we cry the same, we bleed the same, sweat the same. We're all just people."

When asked if "What To Expect When You're Expecting" had put any ideas of babies in his head, Smart demurred on giving an answer.

"I see what you're doing ... I'm not playing your game," Smart said. "I for sure want kids in the future. In the future ... When I'm ready and when the time is right."

On the question of marriage being in the future for the couple, he said, "It is all rumors right now."

"We're not married, we're not engaged. We're just enjoying our life right now," he added.

Read more from The New York Post.

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Abducted or Adopted?

Tue, 15 May 2012 18:38:00 GMT

Guatemalan authorities said that United States officials will not return a girl who was adopted after allegedly being snatched from her Guatemalan mother, because the two countries had not signed the Hague Abduction Convention at the time of the kidnapping.

Foreign Relations Ministry spokeswoman Celeste Alvarado quoted a diplomatic cable from the U.S. State Department as saying the two countries formally ratified the convention on Jan. 1, 2008, after toddler Anyeli Hernández Rodríguez was reported abducted by her biological mother in November 2006.

Alvarado said the U.S. note cites Hague Convention articles indicating it isn't required to return the child if there was no treaty in force at the time.

The girl was adopted by a Missouri couple, and a Guatemalan judge ordered government agencies to petition for her return.

The adoptive parents are Timothy and Jennifer Monahan of Liberty, Missouri. A public relations firm they hired said last year that they "will continue to advocate for the safety and best interests of their legally adopted child."

The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala referred all questions about the court ruling to the State Department.

A leading Guatemalan activist in the case disagreed with the State Department's position, arguing that the U.S. government is obligated under international treaties to return victims of human trafficking or irregular adoptions that have occurred within the past five years.

The girl left the country on Dec. 9, 2008, according to court records, and that date and not her abduction date should be taken into account, said Claudia Hernández, assistant director of the Survivors Foundation, a human rights group that filed the court case for the child's biological mother, Loyda Rodríguez.

"Unfortunately, the case was filed with the girl's original abduction date in 2006 when the U.S. and Guatemala did not have an agreement," Hernández said. "We've been seeking a firm in the United States that would take this to court, and sadly we're losing hope."

"Time is running out; the five-year window is nearly up," Hernandez said.

Hernández's group hasn't alleged the U.S. couple who adopted the girl knew anything about her being kidnapped.

Anyeli Hernandez Rodríguez was born Oct. 1, 2004, the second child of Rodríguez, a housewife, and her bricklayer husband, Dayner Orlando Hernández.

The girl disappeared Nov. 3, 2006, as Rodríguez was distracted while opening the door to their house in a working class suburb, San Miguel Petapa. She turned to see a woman whisk the girl, then 2 years old, away in a taxi.

Rodríguez spent over a year at an adoption agency before being adopted by the U.S. family.

Guatemala's quick adoptions once made this Central American nation of 14 million people a top source of children for the U.S., leading or ranking second only to China with about 4,000 adoptions a year.

But the Guatemalan government suspended adoptions in late 2007 after widespread cases of fraud, including falsified paperwork, fake birth certificates and charges of baby theft — though they still allowed many adoptions already in process to go ahead.

The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, a U.N.-created agency prosecuting organized crime cases in Guatemala, has reviewed more than 3,000 adoptions completed or in process and found nearly 100 grave irregularities.

Guatemalan authorities have prosecuted three people on charges relating to the alleged abduction.

Based on reporting by The Associated Press.

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Gutierrez Joins Depotartion Fight

Tue, 15 May 2012 21:30:14 GMT

As hundreds rallied outside, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL-4) joined Gabino Sánchez inside a Charlotte, N.C. courtroom as the South Carolina man faced deportation.

The fate of Sánchez, 27, will be decided next Tuesday and for Gutierrez it will shine a light on whether the Immigration and Customs Enforcement memorandum giving priority to expelling undocumented criminals "carries any weight."

"Gabino is an example of an immigrant who should not be deported," the congressman told the Efe news agency.

During Sánchez's hearing, the judge and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attorneys agreed to allow Sánchez and his attorney, Marty Rosenbluth, to pursue "cancellation of removal" at a subsequent hearing to be held in February 2013.

Sánchez came to the United States when he was 14. He settled in Ridgeland, South Carolina, worked in gardening and construction and eventually married and had two children.

His troubles began on Nov. 2 when police stopped him for speeding. Because he is undocumented and did not have a driver's license - and also has a history of fines for driving without a license - he was turned over to ICE.

If the new guidelines contained in an ICE memorandum issued last summer are applied, Sánchez, who has no criminal record and is the father of two U.S.-born children, should not be a candidate for deportation.

"Gabino Sánchez has lived and worked and raised a family here for more than a decade and it is not in anyone's interest to have him deported," Congressman Gutierrez said after the hearing. "I do not understand why ICE has not followed President Obama's guidelines and decided to move on from this case to go after someone else, someone who is a threat to his community or a serious criminal. It is a huge waste of taxpayer dollars and ties up the courts and law enforcement."

"While the case should be dropped, I am happy that today's outcome puts Gabino and his family in a safer place," the Congressman continued. "He will be able to work and drive legally while his case is decided and we will keep fighting with ICE and the White House to drop the case in the mean time."

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Ecuador: Cash on a Plane

Tue, 15 May 2012 19:39:25 GMT

When Ecuadoran authorities arrived on the scene of a small plane crash on a rural hillside they expected to find a broken up plane and dead bodies.

What they didn't think they would find was $1.3 million in cold, hard cash.

Gen. Juan Carlos Barragan said officials counted up the cash and also found the remains of two Mexican men and three dogs in the wreckage of the plane that went down at about 8:40 p.m. Sunday. Officials have said the flight was probably part of a money-laundering or drug purchase operation.

The two men were identified as 22-year-old Santiago Alfonso López Monzón and 36-year-old Cruz Alfredo Solis López.

No flight plan had been filed for the plane. It bore a Mexican registration number, but it may have been false because it does not appear in the Mexican registry available to the public.

Based on reporting by The Associated Press.

Photo: Ryan Abel @ Flickr.

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Protect Immigs From Domestic Violence

Gabe Gonzalez — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:17:33 GMT

I have been a community organizer for 20 years, for more than half of that in my local neighborhood. Street organizing they call it. Working at that level you see things, some miraculous, some disturbing. I have seen neighborhood leaders take leaps of faith, engage in acts of courage that would humble the most cynical. I have also seen things that shook me. That made me angry or frightened or sad. Some unforgettable.

I remember a middle aged man, standing in his doorway, pleading with me to help him get gangs out of his neighborhood, shrunken with fear but desperate to protect his family. I remember a mother walking me through her basement apartment. Water six inches deep in places. She showed me the holes where the rats came in, and where her daughter's crib was, and explained that her landlord charged her $800 cash every month for these luxury accommodations.

I remember the fear and the desperation these people experienced, and I remember how it felt when we won those issues, and those leaders could feel safe again.

But when I am really down, I remember Elena.

Elena was a great neighborhood leader. She came to the organization because of our work in schools. She had two little boys attending kindergarten and first grade. They were both in overcrowded classrooms, finding it hard to learn, and Elena wanted to do something about that.

When she found out about the work we were doing it was like a light turned on for her. You could see her quickly grasp the dynamics of power, the importance of community. She already knew how to work hard, and she was fearless. In no time she was helping with planning, fundraising, meeting with powerful people. I had hopes she would join the board, maybe even take the thing over one day.

Then she came to a meeting with a black eye.

Everyone pretended not to see it. Everyone averted their eyes. But you could feel the tension. Elena, true to form, didn't shirk. She ran the meeting well, drove us to conclusions and even led the evaluation, critiquing herself along with others, always striving to do better.

I waited for her after the meeting. Asked her if she was OK. She didn't even bother to pretend. "Do I look OK?" she asked. I offered to help her. "What help can you give me Gabe? I don't have papers remember? He says if I run away he will tell la migra (slang for immigration authorities). I'll be deported and my boys will have to stay here with him."

I didn't know what to do, but promised I would look into it. And she went home. Over the next few weeks, many of the people who had been at that meeting came and talked about what they had seen. Some offered to help her, some to hide her. Some of the men at the meeting offered to, ah, talk to her husband. But always the same response. And then what? She doesn't have papers remember?

You see, this was before the Violence Against Women Act was passed by Congress in 1994 and reauthorized in 2000 and 2005. The law was improved over the years which added protections for some immigrant women in danger of domestic violence. But that law and those improvements didn't exist then for Elena. And so we could not help her. She had to go home.

And now the law is up for renewal AGAIN. But people like Rep. Sandy Adams (R-Fla.), Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), are playing political games with the lives of women like Elena.

You see, for people like these Republicans, immigrant women, if they don't have papers, are not worthy of protection, are not worthy of help. In fact, these women would be put in further danger of abuse under their bill, HR 4970.

The House proposal endangers victims and perpetuates further abuse. It would even allow abusive partners in domestic violence cases to provide input as to whether their victim should qualify for immigration relief. Abusers who could have adjusted the immigration status of their spouse and chose not to as a tool of abuse and fear will be in a position to block the victim's access to this critical remedy for battered immigrants. Informing and allowing alleged abusers to provide input in these cases puts victims at risk of retaliation.

I wonder what Republicans who support HR 4970 would do if they were faced with someone like Elena. Would they display the same kind of courage that she did every day I knew her? Would they be honest about their bigotry, explain how women's lives were being used as political footballs? I doubt it. I think they would hide behind platitudes and false patriotism. I think they would avoid looking at her face, mumble something about rule of law, and retreat to their comfortable, safe, office, or their comfortable, safe, home.

The last time I saw Elena was about six weeks after that meeting. I saw her at school, picking up her boys. I asked her where she had been. It had been weeks since she was at a meeting. She shrugged. "We lived in a car for two days, but I could not do that to my boys anymore, so I went home. My husband doesn't like me going to the meetings anymore." Once again I tried to convince her to get help, explained she had the whole neighborhood in her corner. The answer was still the same. "Y que?" And then? She knew we couldn't protect her from immigration officials. There was no VAWA, there was no safety.

I never saw Elena again. Except when I'm feeling down. Then I see her face clear as day.

In 1994 they wrote VAWA, and in 2012 some leaders in the Senate and the House showed enough courage to make sure VAWA reauthorization protected women like Elena. And, despite all the best efforts of people like Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) to have a vote on her bill, HR 4271, the limited Republican version of VAWA is up for reauthorization right now. I cannot stress enough the importance of passage of Gwen Moore's bill. Please, take a second and contact House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor and demand they allow improvements to their dangerous bill when it reaches the House floor tomorrow. I know I will.

Pro-Immigrant Priest Goes into Hiding

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:27:22 GMT

An outspoken defender of migrants who runs an immigrant shelter in southern Mexico has temporarily left the country due to death threats.

After receiving six threats to his life, Rev. Alejandro Solalinde made the decision to leave the country for two months in consultation with Mexico's District Attorney's office, the National Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, according to Mexican news website Animal Político.

The "Hermanos en el Camino" shelter in Ixtepc, Oaxaca, run by Solalinde said in a statement that the Roman Catholic priest is "protecting his physical safety" until state and federal prosecutors thoroughly investigate the threats.

"I'm not leaving out of fear," Solalinde said, according to Animal Político. "On the contrary, I'm very optimistic about the things we're achieving. If I take a break, it's only out of deference. I'm a missionary and if they hadn't asked me for this time to investigate, I wouldn't have decided to leave the country."

Solalinde says he will return to Mexico in the first days of July.

The most recent threat came on April 15, according to José Donis, who coordinates the shelter.

Solalinde has become widely known in Mexico for publicly denouncing corruption and abuse of mainly Central American migrants who cross into Mexico seeking to reach the United States.

Last year, he took the unusual step of publicly implicating the violent Zetas drug cartel in the kidnapping of migrants. He also criticized corrupt police.

"His comments made candidates and organized crime gangs uncomfortable," Donis said.

Also Monday, a group of experts from the U.N. and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on Mexico to approve a proposed law to defend human rights advocates.

Margaret Sekaggya, the United Nations special investigator for the treatment of human rights defenders, said such activists in Mexico "desperately need the state's effective protection now. "

"They continue to suffer killings, attacks, harassment, threats, stigmatization and other serious human rights violations," she said.

Solalinde says the Hermanos en el Camino shelter will continue to function normally during his absence.

Spanish speakers can listen to RadioRed's interview with Rev. Solalinde in April below.

Contains material by the Associated Press.

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Ecuador: Stop Hiding Our Treasures

Tue, 15 May 2012 18:23:26 GMT

More than 3,000 Ecuadorian archaeological finds, including the most impressive works of the Manteño civilization, are kept in the storerooms of a Washington museum. But now the government in Quito said it wants them removed so people can have a better appreciation of Ecuador's history.

The treasure includes monumental stone steles and "seats of power," stone chairs used by hierarchs of the Manteño culture, which had its era of splendor between the 9th and 14th centuries, roughly parallel to the rise of the Incas in Peru.

In Ecuador only three seats of this kind remain, the Heritage Ministry said.

"This is the largest collection of Manteño culture" in existence, the Cerro de Hojas-Jaboncillo project director Jorge Marcos told Efe.

The items in Washington were originally found at Cerro de Hojas-Jaboncillo, an archaeological site discovered by American explorer Marshall Saville in 1906.

"We were familiar with the scholarly papers about the pieces and we knew that the National Museum of the American Indian had an important Ecuadorian archaeological collection, but we didn't know how much or what its value was," Heritage Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa said in a press conference Monday.

Knowledge of these works was limited to published references and the reports of a handful of Ecuadorian archaeologists who were able to see them including Marcos, who examined them in their original boxes in a New York warehouse in 1971 when he was studying at the University of Illinois.

Last week he saw them again together with Espinosa in the conservation rooms of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington.

"What we found there is of the very finest quality," the minister said, adding that some of the pieces are absolutely unique and of greater value than any in Ecuador.

Cerro de Hojas-Jaboncillo, which covers some 3,500 hectares (8,600 acres), is the country's largest archaeological area. It is located in a humid area along the coast where its pre-Columbian inhabitants excavated subterranean silos and practiced intensive agriculture, according to the experts.

Saville came upon the remains of that culture in the same way that his compatriot Hiram Bingham, a Yale university professor, discovered Machu Picchu in Peru five years later - led by local guides.

Peru was able to get Yale to return the archaeological pieces after a long litigation and a campaign of international pressure.

For now, Ecuador has chosen to cooperate with the U.S. museum, though Espinosa did not rule out that in the future her country might ask for "part of that collection."

Saville took the pieces out of the country legally, Marcos said.

Dodger Stadium & Bryan Stow

Adry Torres — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:19:31 GMT

Baseball has always been one of those sports where passion is shared from generation to generation, parents and grandparents taking children to the ballpark to enjoy a good time.

But just over a year ago, that iconic scenario in Los Angeles came crashing down when a San Francisco Giants fan was beaten to a pulp as he exited the ballpark because of the team he chose to root for.

Bryan Stow, then a 42-years-old, was attacked in the parking lot of Dodgers Stadium by two men in Dodger gear after the season opener.

The beating left Stow in a medically induced coma from the brain damage he suffered.

Today, the 43-year-old is still recuperating at a Northern California clinic because of the violent injuries he received that day.

Tom Girardi, Stow's lawyer, told Fox News Latino that his client is going through a hard time but praised Stow's determination to fight.

"His overall situation is very bad. Going to the bathroom is an issue. Getting him to the bed is an issue. So it's very devastating," Girardi told Fox News Latino. "The bad part of the story is that a lot of times people who are this badly hurt don't have any realization of how badly hurt they are. But I think he does because he has that much intestinal fortitude, you know 'I'm going forward. I'm getting better', so forth."

The Dodgers and Giants met last week for the first time this season with a three-game series.

Fans arriving to Dodger stadium before the first game expressed their concerns about the ugly incident caused by a fanatical few.

Even a year later the Bryan Stow incident has not been forgotten.

Cassandra, a Giants fan from Ventura, California, who was with her boyfriend for Monday night's game, attended the game last March 31 and recalled fans berating and throwing peanuts at her head while she sat and rooted for her favorite team. She said that one Dodgers fan who was on a wheelchair shouted expletive words at her even as she stepped to the side to let him pass. Even with what happened to Stow that day, she still didn't shy from attending a few more Giants-Dodgers games last season.

"I always want to support my team and watch the game, obviously. I definitely stay calm when people yell at me," Cassandra told Fox News Latino. "I don't want to yell back and start a fight or anything. Let them yell at me if they're going to be drunk idiots but I don't retaliate."

Giants reliever Sergio Romo attended games as a kid to cheer on the Dodgers at Dodgers Stadium and remembered fans getting into it at games involving a pair of teams whose rivalry goes back to when they played the Polo Grounds in Harlem and Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn.

The Brawley, California native said fans should be able to attend games without having to be concerned for their own safety.

"The game of baseball is for people to enjoy themselves, so that they can be very happy. It's so that they go to the stadium to see game and have a happy experience. It shouldn't be dangerous. What happened last year doesn't have a place in the game and in life. That's why our franchises have made some adjustments to improve and maintain the peace," Romo told FNL as he sat by his locker.

"You don't expect something like that to happen not only here at a game but in life. There's no place for that in life."

While some fans from the visiting team certainly keep attending the games to pull for the Giants, one follower of the team thought twice about going to the first game between both teams this season.

"Even today I'm meeting friends and I was like you guys will protect me, right? I mean it's a joke at this point but there is still tension. People take it to extreme," said Caroline from nearby Pasadena.

"It's inappropriate. It's just baseball. They don't own the team. They don't have nothing to do with the players. It's just baseball. Just like any other sport. We're just fans, we're not the players. To me its inappropriate and a total waste of time and money when it gets out of control," Caroline said.

Grant, a Dodgers fan from East L.A., said that while the on-going rivalry between the northern and southern teams is good for the game, he cautioned fans from wearing apparel at Dodger Stadium that eventually would make them stand out as fans of the opposition.

"That's messed up," he told Fox News Latino regarding the incident in the parking lot. "Everywhere you go you have your bad apples. They take their thing for real. I wouldn't recommend anyone representing other colors, when they come in and wear anything besides blue."

LAPD Captain Bill Murphy, the commanding officer for the Northeast Area that also includes Dodger Stadium, told Fox News Latino in a phone interview that in the past, prior to the Stow incident, officers made their presence felt at select games including Dodgers-Angels and Dodgers-Giants series and were also placed in select parks at Chavez Ravine, the site of the ballpark and parking lots near Dodger Stadium.

"Last year, in the wake of Bryan Stow, we wanted to make sure that we sort of changed the culture a bit. Fans that were going there to drink excessively and created problems and start fights were not welcomed there," Captain Murphy said.

You could spot police in marked bikes and cars patrolling the stadium aslots as fans made their way in and out during the game that Monday night. Some fans were ejected but there were no serious incidents.

Just 30 miles away from Los Angeles in Anaheim, Fox News Latino spotted fans of the Toronto Blue Jays representing their team wearing caps as well as jerseys of some current and retired players at a game at Angels Stadium.

They walked along and were not hassled by any of the Angels fans.

"We want to send a message that this type of behavior is not going to be tolerated any longer," Murphy said.

Adry Torres, who has covered MLB, NFL, NBA and NCAA basketball games and related events, is a regular contributor to Fox News Latino. He can be reached at elpiloto137@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter: @adrytorresnyc

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Mariachi Singer Still Going at 91

Tue, 15 May 2012 12:44:49 GMT

Mariachi singer Manuel González's performances have been sporadic since he was diagnosed with liver and colon cancer last year, performing just a handful of times since January, but loyal fans can't help but talk of his undeniable legacy.

He is known as the West Valley mariachi singer who can hold a falsetto note for so long that his audience is left looking at their watches.

Surprise, Arizona resident González has performed at El Mirage's Rio Mirage Cafe and Cantina for more than 30 years.

He was there when the restaurant near Grand Avenue and Santa Fe Drive opened in the 1970s and, after being closed for a few years, when it reopened a dozen years ago under new ownership as Rio Mirage.

However, with cancer last year, González's performances have been sporadic.

The icon has become a bright thread in the fabric of the restaurant's experience.

He misses it — the high of performing, engaging with his audience and his own way of preparing for each gig.

"I have a beer, and then maybe a taste of another," said González with a smirk under his thin, dark mustache.

González, who was born in Phoenix, always had a love for music and said he built his first guitar when he was 8.

González's family worked in labor camps from the 1920s to the 1940s. The camps were in Litchfield Park, when some Mexican-Americans moved here in 1917 to work in the cotton fields for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. and others.

Soon he became fond of mariachi and intrigued by other singers' knack for falsetto singing, which he taught himself to do. He loves to perform "Cucurrucucu Paloma," a song regularly requested, which is, in one version, about a grieving man.

Mariachi started in 19th-century Mexico and uses a mix of several instruments and contrasting sounds, such as violins with trumpets and deep guitar plucking set with the sharp, high voice of the singers.

"Music is beautiful. Any song that comes through the world is beautiful," González said.

As an adult and family man, González supported his wife and six children working as a school-bus driver when the family lived in Pomona, Calif. But he moonlighted as a mariachi singer with several groups.

When González moved back to the West Valley, he found daytime work in landscaping, but he played at a number of restaurants, including La Perla, a Mexican institution near downtown Glendale.

When Rio Mirage opened under new ownership, the owner knew that González and Mariachi Del Monte would continue to serve as the house band.

"There was no question," Rio Mirage manager Clarissa Llanes said about keeping the group.

It's apparent González loves what he does and the audience appreciates him, she added.

"You could see the light in his eye. He was definitely in his element," said Anne Brenke, 54, of González's performances.

Brenke, who lives in Sun City, said she misses seeing González at the restaurant. According to Brenke, González knew how to "flirt" with the crowd while he was singing and enjoyed having a good time with his audience.

"Icons are always missed," she said.

Based on reporting by the Associated Press.

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Gay Marriage Shift Energizes Immig. Activists

Tue, 15 May 2012 11:07:54 GMT

President Barack Obama's shift to support gay marriage has highlighted an alliance growing across the country between immigration reform and gay activists, helping dispel what some say is an outdated notion that Hispanics are less tolerant of gays than the general public. Meanwhile conservative Hispanics see the president's endorsement of same-sex marriage as an opportunity to draw Latinos to the Republican Party.

Obama's announcement has energized young Latino voters who have been working side-by-side with gay activists in their push for immigration reform.

"My members are telling me that we need to learn from the gay community," said Dee Dee García Blase, founder of the Phoenix-based Somos Republicans. She is now head of the Tequila Party, which she formed last year with the goal of registering young Hispanics to vote for immigration-friendly candidates like Obama.

"We need to take a lesson from the (lesbian and gay) community with regard to being that loud, squeaky wheel that gets fixed," Blase said. "We need to be more aggressive, and we realize it."

Both the Democratic and Republican parties are focused heavily on winning the Hispanic vote, not just because it holds the key to battleground states but because Latinos make up the fastest-growing minority group. The government projects Hispanics will account for roughly 30 percent of the population by 2050, doubling in size and boosting their political power. Some 600,000 young Hispanics who were born in the U.S. turn 18 each year to enter a widening pool of more than 21 million Hispanic eligible voters.

According to a 2007 religion survey of U.S. Latinos by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, two-thirds of Hispanics said their religious beliefs are an important influence on their political thinking. While more than two-thirds of Hispanics identified themselves as Roman Catholic, 15 percent said they were born-again Protestants. Evangelical Latinos, who cite Biblical teaching for their stance against homosexuality, are twice as likely as those who are Catholic to vote Republican.

But a poll released in April 2011 by the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights advocacy organization, and Social Science Research Solutions, a public opinion research firm, indicated that while 66 percent of those surveyed identified as Roman Catholic, 49 percent favored allowing same-sex marriage and that number climbed to 59 percent in favor of giving gay and lesbian couples the same legal rights as married couples. A surprising 69 percent favored allowing gay or lesbian couples to marry in their church or religious institution and 52 percent did not view homosexuality as a sin, compared to 38 percent who did. Some 69 percent said that good Christians should accept all people as God's creation and not cast judgment, while 60 percent viewed discrimination against gays and lesbians as a sin. Most of those surveyed, 71 percent, were under the age of 50.

While George W. Bush won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, by 2008, 67 percent of the Hispanic vote had swung toward Obama. And that vote was pivotal to his success in states like Colorado, where exit polls show Republican Sen. John McCain would have won if only Caucasians had voted.

For many young Hispanics, both immigrant and U.S.-born, the DREAM Act — the proposed legislation would make students who entered the country without authorization as children eligible for permanent residency and higher education — is a key issue. Obama supports the proposal, while Romney's hard line against the measure, which he has called a handout, has alienated many Hispanic voters. The Pew Hispanic Center found in a December 2011 survey that 91 percent support the legislation.

Juan Rodríguez, who is active in the Florida Immigrant Coalition and an immigrant himself, said the gay rights and immigrant rights movements are "very aligned and becoming more so every year.

The co-president of Blase's Tequila Party, Shara Mora James is gay. And two so-called Dreamers, or leaders in the movement to pass DREAM Act, have recently taken over two emerging gay rights groups, Freedom to Work and Get Equal.

"The immigrant rights movement is grounded on advocating with the most oppressed out of our community, and in many cases, that has been queer undocumented youth," said Rodríguez. "We are figuring out more and more ways of supporting each other because we all grew up being told we needed to live in fear because of the communities we love."

Hispanic leaders and political watchers say they don't expect Obama's announcement to have much impact on the Latino vote, which could be key to victory in battleground states like New Mexico, Florida, Nevada and Colorado.

"No, no, no, no, no. It's not going to affect my vote," said Sister "Molly" María Luisa Muñoz, a Roman Catholic nun in Denver who works with immigrants and the gay and lesbian community. "My mother straightened us out right away," she said. "God made everybody. How we came out? That's God's creation. Nobody should judge."

At Barela's Coffee House in Albuquerque's predominantly Hispanic South Valley, manager Geri Lucero said when the talk turns to politics there, it's almost always about the economy.

"Economics is more important right now because people are struggling with their money," the 57-year-old said, noting that conversation on the day after Obama's announcement revolved around two recent pit bull maulings, not gay marriage.

Will Obama's stance impact her vote? No, she replied.

Despite the increased acceptance of homosexuality and same-sex marriage among Hispanics, one of the most recent polls of registered voters on the issue, from Quinnipiac University in July 2011, shows only 37 percent of Hispanics said they would support a law in their state that would allow same-sex couples to get married, compared with 46 percent overall. But a Pew Research Center survey of Latinos in March 2011 showed 59 percent of Hispanics said homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared to 58 percent of the general population.

Gary Segura, director of Chicano studies at Stanford University, said that even though Hispanics hold more conservative views on family and social issues than the general population, "it's not how Latinos vote. It's about jobs, the economy, education."

The morning after Obama's announcement, discussion on a Spanish-language radio station popular with Cuban-Americans in Miami focused on the president's embrace of same-sex marriage, but most callers seemed more interested in discussing the likely political calculations that went into the decision than in slamming the president for violating their religious principles.

Delsa Bernardo, who co-owns Yiya's Gourmet Cuban Bakery and Café in Miami with her life partner, said Obama's shift has actually re-energized her support for the president. Bernardo said she backed Obama in 2008 but has since become disillusioned with him, mostly over the difficulty she's had in getting business loans from banks that received the bailouts backed by the president.

"It might swing my vote more to him because he's more open on this," she said.

Still, some conservative Hispanics said they will use Obama's endorsement of gay marriage to try to woo more Latinos to the Republican Party.

About 25 conservatives representing 10 southern Nevada churches met Thursday at the Casa Don Juan restaurant in downtown Las Vegas. The group of pastors, Hispanic activists and social conservatives blasted Obama's stance, fretting about the future of the family in the United States.

"He's destroying the fabric of the family," said Juan Sclafani, a Republican pastor at the First Spanish Baptist Church in Las Vegas. "His motivation is to get votes, but he doesn't realize that he is destroying our nation."

Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles in Washington, D.C., said his group expects to use the gay marriage debate to recruit new Hispanic supporters for Romney. They plan to focus on voter registration in Nevada and then branch out to Florida, North Carolina, Colorado and New Mexico.

Colorado's Democratic Party Chairman Rick Palacio, who is both gay and Hispanic, said it was difficult to say how Obama's statements would affect the presidential race in Colorado this year.

"While it may not be the most politically advantageous decision to make, he made the right decision," Palacio said. "I think that's more important than anything else. He's putting the right thing to do ahead of politics."

Written by Jeri Clausing of the Associated Press. Writers Laura Wides-Muñoz in Miami, Christina Silva in Las Vegas and Peter Banda and Catherine Tsai in Denver contributed to this report.

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