Showing posts with label La Bestia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label La Bestia. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Daily Headlines: August 24, 2016
* Chile: “(Latin America) doesn’t take the issue seriously or dedicate the resources it deserves,” claimed a Chilean AIDS rights activist after the government issued a health alert over 1.2 million faulty Chinese-made condoms distributed via a public health program.
* Latin America: Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is expected to visit six Latin American states this week and sign numerous agreements with countries like Cuba and Bolivia.
* Argentina: Declassified British intelligence documents apparently showed Israel sold weapons to Argentina during the Falklands War in 1982.
* Central America: The presidents of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala pledged to launch a new joint force aimed at curbing drug traffickers and criminal gangs.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Daily Headlines: August 26, 2014
* Caribbean: At least five people died in the Caribbean due to storm conditions caused by Hurricane Cristobal while an estimated 10,000 families in Mexico were affected by Hurricane Marie.
* Cuba: Guatemalan authorities will determine the fate of thirty-six Cuban migrants who traveled on a single raft by sea to Honduras’ Swan Islands.
* Puerto Rico: According to the U.S. the Justice Department sixteen former Puerto Rican police officers pled guilty to “commit robbery and extortion, to manipulate court records in exchange for bribes, and to sell illegal narcotics.”
* Mexico: Mexican officials announced that satellite imagery would be use to monitor freight train lines used by undocumented migrants heading north such as "La Bestia".
Video Source – YouTube user ExcélsiorTV Noticias (“Hurricane Marie has weakened but rain continues” to fall in southern Mexico.)
Online Sources – LAHT; NBC News; Miami Herald; CBS News
Sunday, April 6, 2014
The Weekender – The Beast of the Rails
“The Weekender” is our new feature where every weekend we hope to highlight a short film, movie or documentary pertaining to the Americas.
A group of at least fifteen disabled Hondurans known by the Spanish-language acronym of AMIREDIS have planned to trek through Mexico with the goal of highlighting abuses committed against Central American migrants. The men may use different assistive devices but all of them became disabled while attempting to trek northbound on the dangerous rail journey on a lengthy freight train known simply as La Bestia (“The Beast”).
“My accident was in 2005,” said protester José Luis Hernández to the Animal Politico website. “I had been riding twenty days on the train and hiding from police and gangs trying to assault us. My exhaustion beat me and I fainted. I fell below the train’s wheels and one of my arms, a leg and three fingers on the other arm were cut off,” he mentioned.
The marchers petitioned last month for visas from Mexican migratory authorities in order to travel to Mexico City and attempt to talk with President Enrique Peña Nieto. Furthermore, the AMIREDIS group was scheduled to speak to legislators on Wednesday in Mexico City and voice their concerns regarding how Central American migrants are often the targets of death, extortion and kidnapping from drug gangs and corrupt police.
However, they have yet to receive permission to legally travel through Mexico and have seen their funds dwindle down. As a result, members of the group are strongly considering making their journey on the train that caused their respective serious injuries.
“My leg became amputated after riding on La Bestia and it’s a memory I would prefer not to remember,” said AMIREDIS spokesman Normal Saúl Varela. “But it may be necessary to ride on it again in order to obtain our goal, which is to speak to President Peña Nieto and that he sees with his own eyes the affects of riding that train,” he added.
A 2010 Amnesty International report found that “migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis leaving them with virtually no access to justice, fearing reprisals and deportation if they complain of abuses.” The report cited an incident that reportedly occurred on the La Bestia line when a female migrant was forced off the train by Mexican Federal Police, had her belongings stolen and was forced to walk on foot where she was subsequently raped by an armed gang.
Several documentaries have been made focusing on the perilous trip on La Bestia such as Which Way Home, a film that aired on HBO in 2009. Below the page break is a documentary in Spanish regarding the journey on La Bestia. We begin nearly nine minutes into the film with the harrowing images of teenagers in a Mexican hospital recovering from amputations caused by the beastly rail trip:
A group of at least fifteen disabled Hondurans known by the Spanish-language acronym of AMIREDIS have planned to trek through Mexico with the goal of highlighting abuses committed against Central American migrants. The men may use different assistive devices but all of them became disabled while attempting to trek northbound on the dangerous rail journey on a lengthy freight train known simply as La Bestia (“The Beast”).
“My accident was in 2005,” said protester José Luis Hernández to the Animal Politico website. “I had been riding twenty days on the train and hiding from police and gangs trying to assault us. My exhaustion beat me and I fainted. I fell below the train’s wheels and one of my arms, a leg and three fingers on the other arm were cut off,” he mentioned.
The marchers petitioned last month for visas from Mexican migratory authorities in order to travel to Mexico City and attempt to talk with President Enrique Peña Nieto. Furthermore, the AMIREDIS group was scheduled to speak to legislators on Wednesday in Mexico City and voice their concerns regarding how Central American migrants are often the targets of death, extortion and kidnapping from drug gangs and corrupt police.
However, they have yet to receive permission to legally travel through Mexico and have seen their funds dwindle down. As a result, members of the group are strongly considering making their journey on the train that caused their respective serious injuries.
“My leg became amputated after riding on La Bestia and it’s a memory I would prefer not to remember,” said AMIREDIS spokesman Normal Saúl Varela. “But it may be necessary to ride on it again in order to obtain our goal, which is to speak to President Peña Nieto and that he sees with his own eyes the affects of riding that train,” he added.
A 2010 Amnesty International report found that “migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis leaving them with virtually no access to justice, fearing reprisals and deportation if they complain of abuses.” The report cited an incident that reportedly occurred on the La Bestia line when a female migrant was forced off the train by Mexican Federal Police, had her belongings stolen and was forced to walk on foot where she was subsequently raped by an armed gang.
Several documentaries have been made focusing on the perilous trip on La Bestia such as Which Way Home, a film that aired on HBO in 2009. Below the page break is a documentary in Spanish regarding the journey on La Bestia. We begin nearly nine minutes into the film with the harrowing images of teenagers in a Mexican hospital recovering from amputations caused by the beastly rail trip:
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