Drug War and Human Rights: One million 600 thousand people displaced in Mexico

La Jornada: "While the government of Mexico continues not to recognize the existence of forced internal displacement caused by its war strategy against organized crime, it is increasingly difficult to determine the real dimension of the phenomenon and assist victims. So scholars and specialists in the field warned during the last day of activities for the "Day of Training in Internal Displacement", organized by the National Commission on Human Rights.

Sebastian Albuja, representative of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the federal government is responsible for resolving the lack of data and reliable statistics on this subject, but has not done so because that would imply its admitting that there are displaced persons as a result of its public safety strategy, and that would be political suicide.

Laura Rubio, a researcher at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, said the lack of accurate statistics on the number of internal displaced persons makes it difficult to attend to the matter, and makes the phenomenon continually grow worse.

Oscar Torrens, director in Chiapas of the United Nations Program for Development, said that the armed conflict in Chiapas in 1994 generated 25,000 displaced people in that state, who to date have received virtually no attention, although there is a law in the state Congress which would help analyze the issue.

Leticia Calderon, Mora Institute specialist on immigration issues, said to admit the large number of internal displaced persons in the country--it is one million 600 thousand according to the company Parametría--would imply that the government admits its responsibility." Spanish original