Doctors from Cuba and Costa Rica Examine Comatose Mexican Student

Latin American Herald Tribune: Two foreign neurologists have examined Aldo Gutierrez, an education student who has been in a coma since he and several classmates were shot in Iguala, a city in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, in September 2014, the Executive Commission for Assisting Victims, or CEAV, said Tuesday.

Calixto Machado, of the Cuban Neurology and Neurosurgery Institute, and Costa Rican neurologist Mauricio Chinchilla examined the comatose student last Friday, the CEAV said. Read more.

Behind Ciudad Juarez’s New Labor Movement

FNS News: In a virtually unprecedented development, labor protest is widening in the maquiladora industry of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. While worker dissatisfaction or protest is nothing new in the foreign-owned border factories that produce goods for export to the United States, previous manifestations of discontent in the generally union-free industry have usually been confined to one company at a time.

But recently, movements for better pay and working conditions- and union representation- have emerged at four different companies-Foxconn, Lexmark, ADC/Commscope and Eaton. Hundreds of workers have participated in street protests, hunger strikes and leafleting. Read more.

Mexico Military Responds to Human Rights Scandals with Helmet Cameras

InSight Crime: Mexico's military is to introduce body cameras for soldiers as part of efforts to rebuild a human rights record tarnished by recent scandals, but experiences elsewhere suggest such measures alone will not be enough to end abuse and impunity.

Mexico's National Defense Secretary (Sedena) has announced a plan to install 2,245 video cameras on the helmets of military personnel, reported Milenio. The initiative stems from recommendations made by the National Human Rights Commission (CDNH) in response to the Tlatlaya massacre in 2014, in which 22 people were allegedly executed by military officers. Read more.

Mexican police accused of shooting demonstrators point-blank in the head

World News Report: Mexican police shot unarmed protesters in the head as they were cowering on the ground, according to a hard-hitting report compiled by Human Rights Watch.

Demonstrators against the government were beaten with metal pipes, dragged to the ground and shot. A 20-year-old pregnant woman, Rosa Isela Orozco Sandoval, said she was punched, kicked and dragged across the ground. One witness told HRW that a policeman put a gun against his head, and only refrained from pulling the trigger when another policeman warned his colleague that locals were filming the confrontation.

A message to Mexico on abuses

mySA: The United States, in the interest of bilateral harmony, has been looking the other way too long when it comes to Mexico’s human rights abuses. That the State Department found it could do so no longer says something about our southern neighbor’s continuing slide into that morass under the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto.

The U.S. is withholding only a fraction — $5 million — of the $195 million in Merida Initiative funding to aid in the fight against vicious drug cartels. This is meant to send a message that the United States will no longer take Mexico’s assurances on human rights at face value. Read more.

U.S. Cuts Off $5 Million in Security Aid to Mexico

WSJ: Signaling disapproval of recent human rights violations in Mexico, the U.S. government is withholding $5 million in funding for the country’s security and judicial system, officials have confirmed.

The money is a small fraction in funding that was to be disbursed by the State Department this year under the eight year old Merida Initiative, through which the U.S. Congress so far has appropriated more than $2.3 billion in aid earmarked to train and equip Mexico’s security forces and to improve its judicial system.

U.S. blocks some anti-drug funds for Mexico over human rights concerns

Washington Post: In a setback for its multibillion-dollar effort to help Mexico fight its drug war, the U.S. State Department has decided that Mexico failed to reach some human rights goals, triggering a cutoff of millions of dollars in aid.

The move, which has not been reported previously, affects a small portion of the annual anti-drug funds given to Mexico. But it is a clear sign of U.S. frustration. It comes as Mexico has been roiled by several cases of alleged abuses by security forces, including the disappearance of 43 students in the southern state of Guerrero last year.

Through the Merida Initiative, a major U.S. program to support Mexico’s battle against its drug cartels, Congress has appropriated $2.3 billion since 2008 for equipment such as helicopters and border sensors as well as training programs for thousands of Mexican officials. Read more.

UN agency says Mexican soldiers tortured 4 crime suspects

World News Report: The United Nations Committee Against Torture has found that Mexican soldiers tortured four men they detained as crime suspects in a northern state in 2009.

A Mexican human rights group, which announced the ruling Friday, said it was the first time the U.N. committee issued a decision on an individual case in Mexico. Read more.

Mexican Judge Orders Release of Four Soldiers Accused of Killing Civilians

Latin American Herald Tribune: A Mexican judge ordered the release of four soldiers accused of killing 22 civilians in Tlatlaya in the central Mexico state on Jun. 30, 2014, court officials told EFE on Monday.

The judge said there was enough evidence to revoke the arrest warrant against the four, issued last November, as the Federal Public Ministry, or MPF, was unable to explain the circumstances during the hearing, which led to the accusations. Read more.

Peña must recognize the human rights crisis: NGOs

Proceso: In response to the federal government’s downgrading of the preliminary report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), civil society organizations demanded that President Enrique Peña Nieto recognize the human rights crisis in the country, and invited him to take into serious consideration the conclusions and recommendations issued by the experts.

In a statement, dozens of organizations expressed regret for "the media’s damage control logic" encouraged by the Peña Government through the Undersecretary for Human Rights of the Ministry of Interior, Roberto Campa. Hours after the IACHR released the first results of its on-site visit, Campos said the report "does not reflect the reality of the country", because it was the product of "meetings and interviews" in six states for five days.

Judge orders release of two women involved in the case Tlatlaya

CNN México (Translation Americas Program):

 

© Photo: provided no incriminating MP for conclusions detained in an operation in the This ... Photo: MP presented no incriminating for conclusions detained in an operation in the State of Mexico where 22 people died

A judge ordered Monday the immediate release of two women who were arrested last June 30 in Tlatlaya, State of Mexico, during a supposed operation  of the federal authorities which killed 22 people, stated a bulletin from the Council of the Federal Judiciary (CJF).

The women, held at the Federal Women's Social Rehabilitation Center in Tepic, Nayarit, were charged with collection of firearms and possession of firearm cartridges for the exclusive use of the Army, Navy and Air Force.

In Mexico's fields, children toil to harvest crops that make it to American tables

LA Times: Alejandrina Castillo swept back her long black hair and reached elbow-deep into the chile pepper plants. She palmed and plucked the fat serranos, dropping handful after tiny handful into a bucket.

 

The container filled rapidly. Alejandrina stopped well before the pepper pile reached the brim.

She was 12, and it was hard for her to lift a full 15-pound load. Read more.

Mexico says evidence proves missing students were burned up

Reuters: "This scientific proof confirms that the remains found at the scene coincide with the evidence of the investigation," Murillo said. "We will continue with the probe until all the guilty have been arrested."Attorney General Jesus Murillo told reporters that one of the students had been identified by experts in Austria from a bone fragment in a bag of ash and bits of burned tire found in a river where drug gang members said they tossed the students remains.

President Enrique Pena Nieto is facing his deepest crisis over his government's handling of the probe. The case laid bare Mexico's deep problem of impunity and corruption and it has overshadowed Pena Nieto's efforts to focus on economic reforms.  Read more. 

Will the International Criminal Court Investigate Mexico's 'Drug War'?

InSightCrime: The violence of Mexico's so-called "war on drugs" has caught the attention of the international community, with calls for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to turn its attention to the country. If they're successful, high-level government officials -- or even leaders of drug trafficking organizations -- may be prosecuted in the Hague. But it's a difficult road ahead.

The ICC's Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) is the body that will decide if there's evidence that the most serious atrocities under international law have taken place in Mexican territory. According to the Rome Statute, drug trafficking isn't within the ICC's jurisdiction, but the way that different actors may either fight or defend the drug trade is -- if, for example, war crimes are committed, or crimes against humanity. Read more. 

22 police held following southern Mexico violence

AP: Authorities in Mexico say 22 local police have been arrested following the deaths of six people in Guerrero state.

Unidentified gunman and numerous officers were involved in several violent incidents that killed six people late Friday and early Saturday in Iguala, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of Mexico City. Read more. 

Mexico, U.S. Examine Use of Force on Border

Hispanic Business: Mexican and U.S. officials met to discuss the use of force by U.S. federal agents on the border in an effort to reduce violent incidents during the apprehension of migrants, the Foreign Relations Secretariat said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske, U.S. Border Patrol officials and U.S. Embassy personnel participated in the meeting, the secretariat said.  Read more. 

Senate approves civil proceedings to prosecute soldiers who took part in 'dirty war'

Original Americas Program Translation 

La Jornada - Mexico

February 6, 2014 

The Senate unanimously approved the withdrawal of the reservation made ​​by the Mexican government to the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons, whereupon the civil courts now may try the military officials involved in the disappearances of persons during the dirty war.

The ruling approved by all parliamentary groups recognized that "the alleged perpetrators of the acts constituting the crime of forced disappearance of persons may be tried only by the competent jurisdictions of ordinary law in each state, excluding any special tribunals, in particular military.

"The acts constituting forced disappearance shall not be considered as committed in the performance of military duties."

"No privileges, immunities or special exemptions will be administered in such proceedings without consideration of the provisions included in the Convention on Diplomatic Relations.”

The ruling emphasizes that this decision by the Mexican government to withdraw its 2002 reservation to the convention" is according to the verdict issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Coidh) on the case Radilla Pacheco (who was disappeared by military in the state of Guerrero during the so-called dirty war) against the United States of Mexico.

It emphasizes that "the ruling decided that the reservation made by Mexico does not meet the first requirement in Article XIX of the Convention, consequently it should be considered invalid. In this sense, it is clear that the application of military jurisdiction in the case, for which the state extended the jurisdiction of military courts to facts that are not strictly related to military discipline or legal interests of the military realm, is contrary the provision included in Article IX of the Treaty of reference, to which Mexico is clearly obligated. "

The ruling states that "considering the acts of enforced disappearance as an inhumane violation the rule of law, as well as the human dignity and human rights of individuals and not delimited to particular regions or political systems, it is an urgent task of the Sate to fight to eradicate it, not as a political, military or religious cause that justifies overlooking the situation.”

 Original Spanish article

Translated by Nidia Bautista

Mexico: Conduct Federal Investigation Into Activists’ Killings

Human Rights Watch 
June 20, 2013

(Washington, D.C.) – Mexico’s federal prosecutors should conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into the killing of three political activists in Guerrero state, including examining allegations against government officials, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should offer robust protection for survivors of the attack and their families.

The victims, all members of an organization that campaigns on behalf of peasant farmers and marginalized communities, were abducted along with five fellow activists on May 30, 2013. The previous day, 11 members of the organization had filed a formal complaint with the Guerrero state prosecutor’s office, expressing the fear that the mayor and the police chief of Iguala municipality might have them killed in retaliation for their activities, according to documents obtained by Human Rights Watch.  Read more. 

Mexico's disappeared

LA Times
Editorial
March 5, 2013

The full human cost of Mexico's bloody drug war during the last six years is only now becoming apparent. Nearly 70,000 people died and more than 26,000 went missing between 2006 and 2012. A scathing new report by Human Rights Watch casts substantial blame for the problem on the country's security forces, which it says have not only been implicated in many of the underlying crimes but have failed to adequately investigate claims by friends and family members of the victims. The result, the report says, is the "most severe crisis of enforced disappearances in Latin America in decades."

Human Rights Watch researchers looked into a few hundred cases and confirmed 149 examples of enforced disappearances by security forces. They described a pattern in which uniformed soldiers or police detain people without arrest orders or probable cause — at their homes, in front of family members, at checkpoints or in public settings. The arrests are almost never officially registered and the arrestees are not turned over to the prosecutor's office, as required by law. When relatives arrive to ask about the detainees, the report said, "they are told that the detentions never took place."

These are familiar allegations. But Human Rights Watch also shows how the authorities fail to follow up or investigate — declining to trace cellphones or obtain footage from security cameras or track the bank transactions of the disappeared.  Read more. 

Mexico: Crisis of Enforced Disappearances

Human Rights Watch 
February 20, 2013

(Mexico City) – Mexico’s security forces have participated in widespread enforced disappearances, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Virtually none of the victims have been found or those responsible brought to justice, exacerbating the suffering of families of the disappeared, Human Rights Watch found.

The 176-page report, “Mexico’s Disappeared: The Enduring Cost of a Crisis Ignored,”documents nearly 250 “disappearances” during the administration of former President Felipe Calderón, from December 2006 to December 2012. In 149 of those cases, Human Rights Watch found compelling evidence of enforced disappearances, involving the participation of state agents.   Read more.