Did you know Calderon's government has criminalized social protest?

Just heard about it a short time ago. It's discussed in this article, starting around 1/4th way down the page:

Unlinked acts?

With its sixty million poor people — more than half of whom live in extreme poverty — Mexico has recently vaunted two unusual records: the richest man in the world — the telecommunications magnate, Carlos Slim<17> – and the largest confiscation of cash in the history of humanity, $205 million dollars packed into canvas bags in a quiet villa in an exclusive Mexico City neighborhood. <18>

This being the state of things, social control becomes a strategic priority: the country is like a pressure cooker, ready to explode anywhere and at any moment. This explains why the Mexican government is negotiating a “Plan Mexico” with the United States equivalent to the “Plan Columbia” that has so devastated the South American country. With the pretext of combating drug production, organized crime and terrorism, what “Plan Mexico” is really about is eliminating all political opposition south of the Rio Grande. <19>

Equally worrying is the Agreement for Prosperity and Security in North America (ASPAN) that the American government has been promoting since the World Trade Center attacks. Signed on March 23rd, 2005 in Waco, Texas by the then-Presidents George Bush, Vicente Fox and Paul Martin and reaffirmed on August 21st, 2007 in Montebello, Canada, by Harper, Calderon and Bush, the agreement seeks primarily to strengthen US security and secondly trade, economy and the energy sector along the lines laid out by NAFTA.<20>

“ASPAN,” Carlos Fazio writes, “is part of the trend towards the militarization and transnationalization of the ‘war on drugs’, manufactured and imposed by the United States all over the continent, to which the ‘war on terrorism’ is now added as part of the same counterinsurgency package. Such a tendency contributes to the reinforcement and re-legitimation of the domestic role of the armed forces and the militarized police corps similar to the one played during the Southern Cone dictatorships, which provoked condemnation and their loss of prestige because of the dramatic effects on human rights”.<21>

ASPAN, then, is a sort of militarized NAFTA planned by Washington and the North American Competitiveness Council (CCAN), a business organization made up of Mexico, America and Canada�s principal businessmen. One of its objectives is to repeal the Mexican non-intervention law, opening the door to the participation of Mexican troops in imperial wars and, especially, the direct intervention of the American army in the internal affairs of the country, just like in Columbia.<22>

For his part, Felipe Calderon’s government is already making significant steps in this direction. In March, the Senate approved an “Anti-Terrorism Law” that criminalizes social protest and makes it possible for social activists to be accused as terrorists.

~~~~~~

Along the exact same lines of the model imposed by the United States, the National Defense Department (Sedena) and the Public Safety Department (SSP) assert that civil justice cannot try soldiers who commit human rights violations and other crimes while acting as federal police.

http://mexfiles.wordpress.com/category/evil-doers/death-squads/

and yeap, they are building up the military just in case.