After student disappearances, Mexico city tries to turn page

AP: The previous elected mayor is in jail, and the new one wants to "turn the page" on the ugliest chapter in the history of this southern Mexican city.

Fifteen months ago, when 43 rural college students disappeared at the hands of local police and cartel thugs, Iguala became the symbol of Mexico's narco-brutality. Now, federal police are in charge of security, the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party controls city hall — and Mayor Esteban Albarran Mendoza wants to move forward. Read more.

Parents of missing students end Mexico City protest camp

Washington Post: Parents of 43 students who disappeared in southern Mexico at the hands of police and a drug gang have lifted a protest camp in the capital.

They call it a show of faith in a new investigation after victims’ relatives, international experts and human rights advocates cast doubt on a previous probe. Read more.

Serving as a bloodhound to find your own son’s grave in Guerrero

El Daily Post (Originally in Spanish on Animal Political): Back in the ’70s, when he was younger, Guadalupe Contreras learned the profession he still practices today — tomb-building, grave-digging and the manufacturing and installation of headstones.

But starting about a year ago, Guadalupe has taken a day off from his graveside pursuits to become something else — related, but very different.

Every Sunday, Don Lupe, as his friends refer to him, grabs a machete, a hammer and a hat and goes out to the hills around Iguala to look for graves.

He’s not looking for the kinds of graves he normally works with — with headstones, crosses or the name of the deceased. The kind he’s hunting for are usually found in clandestine growing fields, in gaps in the terrain, in brushy areas or abandoned sites. They’re graves, in other words, where many of the disappeared victims of organized crime are buried. Read more.

Possible Army Involvement in Disappearances of 7 in Mexico, Secretariat Says

Latin American Herald Tribune: Officials have found signs that soldiers may have played a role in the disappearance of seven people in Zacatecas, a state in north-central Mexico, earlier this month, the Defense Secretariat said.

“With regard to the events related to the disappearance of seven people on July 7, 2015, in Calera, Zacatecas, indications have been found of the likely involvement of military personnel,” the secretariat said in a statement. Read more. 

Commission: Mexico has 'serious problem' with disappearances

AP:  Mexico has a "serious problem" with disappearances and lacks a comprehensive national list of the missing to effectively deal with the problem, according to a report the country's National Human Rights Commission will present Monday to the U.N.

Commission chairman Luis Raul Gonzalez Perez will ask the United Nations Committee On Enforced Disappearances in Geneva to make several recommendations to Mexico's government on the issue, said the document, which The Associated Press was allowed to see. Read more.

More Femicide Victims Identified from Border Graveyard

Frontera NorteSur: The parents of Esmeralda Castillo Rincon recently heard sad news about their long-disappeared daughter. The 14-year-old had been missing from her Ciudad Juarez home since 2009, and the parents had waged a long campaign demanding her safe return.

On January 16, however, the Chihuahua state prosecutor's office (FGECH) notified Jose Luis Castillo and his wife, Martha Rincon, that Esmeralda's remains were among those of other female murder victims recovered from the Navajo Arroyo in the Juarez Valley bordering the United States in 2012 and 2013.

Fueling drug gangs' impunity, unidentified corpses pile up in Mexico

Reuters: In Mexico's blood-soaked northern state of Sinaloa, a simple gravestone adorned with pink, blue and yellow plastic flowers marks the tomb of 42-year-old assistant carpenter Carlos Montano.

But Montano is alive and well in the city of Tijuana, hundreds of miles away near the U.S. border, the victim of different enemies: incompetence and indifference in a land where authorities have failed to identify thousands of people killed in grisly gangland violence.  Read more. 

New state law obliges business to pay salaries of missing people

Mexico News Daily: Mexican businesses have an obligation to support the families of employees who are among those who have disappeared, largely due to the drug war violence that began in 2006. That’s the gist of a new law in the state of Coahuila, but it has its detractors.

Many businesses are not happy with the prospect of having to continue paying salaries on behalf of employees who are no longer working, and at the same time pay someone else to do it. Read more. 

In Mexico, activist mother of missing man is slain

Los Angeles Times 
By Tracy Wilkinson
May 20, 2014

For 2 1/2 years, Sandra Luz Hernandez, like so many Mexican mothers, searched for her missing son.

Her activism grew steadily over time. She hung posters of her son and others who had disappeared. She led marches through her hometown of Culiacan, in the infamous drug cartel state of Sinaloa. She staged sit-ins outside the governor's office to demand justice. She scoured morgues and clandestine mass graves.

Last week, friends and colleagues say, her activism got her killed. Gunmen leaped from an SUV, put on masks and shot Hernandez dead in broad daylight on a Culiacan street. 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 Kidnappings Top 105,000 In 2012, But Few Reported

Huffington Post
October 3, 2013

The most frequently cited statistic to illustrate the extent of Mexico’s problem with organized crime is the 70,000 people killed since ex-President Felipe Calderón launched his frontal assault on the country’s drug cartels. Here comes a new one.

Mexico saw 105,628 kidnappings last year, according to a survey by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, a government agency. The statistics didn’t show much faith in law enforcement to address the problem -- only 1,317 cases were reported to police.  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: Hope grows for the missing

GlobalPost
Dudley Althaus
March 5, 2013 06:01

SALTILLO, Mexico — Burly as a linebacker, Rogelio Elizondo remained dry-eyed as he described scouring websites devoted to Mexico's gangland savagery, hoping to somehow recognize his long-missing son amid photos of fresh victims or decayed remains pulled from clandestine graves.

“You get accustomed to it,” he said.

It’s a task to which he's turned after other options faded for finding the 23-year-old engineering student, also named Rogelio, who disappeared nearly two years ago on a trip near the South Texas border. “You start to assimilate it, little by little.”

Then, asked how the fruitless search has affected himself, his wife and two daughters, 49-year-old's stoicism evaporated in a blink, sobs surging from deep in his chest, tears flowing down cheeks. Read more. 

Mexico counts 26,121 missing during Calderon era

The LA Times 
By Cecilia Sanchez, Daniel Hernandez and Richard Fausset
February 26, 2013

Mexico City - The number of people who went missing in Mexico during the six years of former President Felipe Calderon’s administration stands at 26,121, government officials said Tuesday, a figure that would rank among the worst episodes of "disappearances" in Latin American history.

The official statistic, which includes people reported missing between December 2006 and November 2012, was released at a news conference by Lia Limon, the subsecretary for legal affairs and human rights under new President Enrique Peña Nieto, who took office Dec. 1.

Her announcement came days after Human Rights Watch issued a scathing report that blamed Mexican security forces for many disappearances during the government’s crackdown on domestic drug cartels, which began in earnest in December 2006. The report also blamed the Calderon government for failing to adequately investigate the disappearances.  Read more. 

Mexico's 'Crisis Of Disappearance': Families Seek Answers

NPR by Carrie Kahn

February 21, 2013

Maximina Hernandez says she begged her 23-year old son, Dionicio, to give up his job as a police officer in a suburb of Monterrey. Rival drug cartels have been battling in the northern Mexican city for years.

But he told her being a police officer was in his blood, a family tradition. He was detailed to guard the town's mayor.

In May 2007, on his way to work, two men wearing police uniforms stopped Dionicio on a busy street, pulled him from his car and drove him away. That same day, the mayor's other two bodyguards were also abducted. Witnesses say the kidnappers wore uniforms of an elite anti-drug police unit. The three men haven't been seen since.  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.

Former Mexico Diplomat Returns Diploma to Harvard to Protest Calderón's Presence

Proceso: Editors
Translated by Mexico Voices Blog 

Mexico City - Former Ambassador Héctor Vasconcelos returned his degree in Political Science to Harvard University after the institution did not withdraw its invitation to Felipe Calderón.

In a brief letter sent to Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust, the former Consul in Boston and Ambassador to Norway, Denmark and Iceland, stated that Harvard had taught him that its graduates must keep their word.

"Now I must send my diploma back to Harvard. I do this with great sadness, because it is easily the most worthy document that I have had in my life," says the letter from the son of José Vasconcelos, former president of the UNAM [National Autonomous University of Mexico].

On January 15, Vasconcelos wrote a letter to David T. Ellwood, Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, which states that if Calderón remains welcome to begin a scholarship for study at that institution, [Vasconcelos] will find himself in the "painful situation" of returning his academic degree.

Calderon's Indifference for the 'Desaparecidos'

Proceso, Translated by Borderland Beat, November 11, 2012

Among the answers and actions that Calderon still owes are the painful complaints about disappeared persons. Mutilated families, especially mothers, have searched for their children among threats by organized crime and the garbage dump that is (Mexico's) system of justice. Because it was all in vain, they took refuge in the inflexible laws of their love, which do not allow them to abandon their struggle merely because government officials change.

Mexico, D.F. (Proceso).-- With stiff bodies under the layer of blankets, the women try in vain to drive away the cold that has settled in their bones. Another day begins in front of the Ministry of the Interior (Secretaria de Gobernacion), sleeping on a platform right on the pavement, in a tent that they covered with photographs of their children and dozens of other "desaparecidos" (disappeared persons.) The noise of the horns from the cars that pass right beside them force them to use up precious energy to make themselves heard.

It's 9:00 a.m. on the fourth day of their hunger strike. Margarita Lopez, Malu Garcia and Julia Alonso are refusing to eat until the government does what it has failed to do throughout this six-year term. Read more. 

Chihuahua campaign begins to find 118 missing Juárez women

By Lorena Figueroa \ El Paso Times
November 04, 2012

JUAREZ -- Chihuahua authorities last week launched a statewide campaign to locate 118 women from Juárez who have disappeared since 1995.

The campaign offers an $8,000 reward to anyone whose information helps find the women, dead or alive, said officials with the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office.

Silvia Nájera, spokeswoman for the state's Special Prosecution Office for Crimes Against Women, said the strategy attempts to get the public involved in solving some of these cases.

Since the early 1990s, hundreds of women, mostly teenage girls -- some as young as 13 -- from poor and middle-class families, have disappeared in Juárez. Many have been found dead.

Nájera said that the special prosecution office lists 118 cases involving women who disappeared from 1995 to the present. The agency was established in 1995.

"This doesn't mean that we won't be taking any leads on older cases. If we receive information, we will investigate," she said.

The campaign began Tuesday with the publication in various print media outlets in Juárez of the photographs and biographies of six women who were reported missing between 1995 and 1998. Read more. 

Searching for Mexico's drug war 'disappeared'

BBC By Tom Bateman

With thousands of people missing after six years of murderous violence linked to Mexico's drugs cartels, families say they want more done to find their loved ones.

It was a warm night in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and heavily armed troops were patrolling the streets, at the height of the war on drug cartels here.

Victor Baca, 21, had just dropped his girlfriend at her home and was buying a hot dog with two friends at a fast food stand.

Suddenly, and apparently without reason, troops approached the three young men, arrested them and drove them away.

That was three years ago - and the last time Mr Baca's family ever saw him.

"We think that part of the reason the military gave him a hard time was because he wasn't identified," says his father Gerardo Baca, explaining that his son may have forgotten his ID before going out that night.

"We didn't know they were arrested until the next day, when one of his arrested friends was sent to the state police," he added.

"We have no idea of the whereabouts of my son." Read more.