51吃瓜

Through its military aid, the US is enabling the continuation of human rights violations in Mexico.

An international jury of independent human rights experts and advocates has found Mexico, the United States and key countries of origin of migrants in transit jointly responsible for widespread human rights violations in Mexico, based on hearings held at New York University in September 2015. The jury has called for the suspension of US military and police aid to Mexico.

The聽verdict of the is based on testimony and documentation regarding the cases of 43 disappeared students from Ayotzinapa, the San Fernando massacre and mass graves of August 2010 and April 2011; the Acteal massacre of December 1997; and the systematic violation of migrants鈥� rights in detention centers and along the migratory route.

The tribunal鈥檚 verdict also draws attention to attacks on journalists and freedom of expression, such as those faced by Anabel Hern谩ndez, who was a key expert witness for the tribunal regarding her investigation of the Ayotzinapa case.

The verdict also highlights the relationship between human rights violations in Mexico and those in the US in the context of racism, femicide and gender violence; the criminalization of youth; mass incarceration; detentions; deportations; and the abuse of force by police and military authorities on both sides of the border. All of this has been reinforced recently by the scapegoating of migrants and refugees in Europe and the US鈥攁nd of Muslims and Arabs in particular鈥攁s inherent dangers to national security.

The hearings in September coincided with the first anniversary of the Ayotzinapa case, Mexican President Enrique Pe帽a Nieto鈥檚 visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, and Pope Francis鈥� trip聽to the US. Witnesses included spokespersons for immigrants鈥� rights organizations, such as the Movement for Justice in El Barrio, the Popular Assembly of Migrant Families or APOFAM, and the Northern Alliance of Ex Braceros. Father Alejandro Solalinde, founding director of Hermanos en el Camino, a migrant shelter, testified on corruption and abuses by Mexican authorities.

Witnesses also included representatives of human rights groups based in Chiapas and Oaxaca, and human rights defenders in the US-Mexico border region of Las Cruces, El Paso and Ciudad J煤arez.

Scale of Violence

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights聽 丑补蝉听聽the 鈥渟taggering鈥� numbers of victims in Mexico (more than 150,000 dead and 26,000 disappeared since 2007), following an official visit there. Hussein underlined that, 鈥淲hile some of the violence can be laid at the door of the country’s powerful and ruthless organized crime groups, many enforced disappearances, acts of torture and extrajudicial killings are alleged to have been carried out by federal, state and municipal authorities, including the police and some segments of the army, either acting in their own interests or in collusion with organized criminal groups.鈥�

The United Nations (UN) official emphasized that the scale of Mexico鈥檚 violence was especially notable, given that it is not a country normally classified with those characterized by armed conflicts such as Colombia or Syria.

The US has recently announced the to Mexico聽through the M茅rida Initiative, which includes $195 million currently appropriated, as part of over $2.5 billion in aid related to the drug war that has flowed since 2008.

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The Leahy Law restricts US aid to regimes and military units deemed responsible for generalized recognized human rights standards. UN monitoring bodies such as the聽聽and on聽, and international human rights organizations such as聽听补苍诲听,聽have expressed similar concerns.

The tribunal noted a large gap between Mexico鈥檚 proactive stance at the UN as a supposed champion of the rights of migrants and Indigenous peoples鈥攖wo of the sectors most gravely affected by the violations documented in the sources cited above鈥攁nd the reality as presented in testimony to the jury.

An increasing cascade of mass human rights crimes in Mexico has intensified concerns within the country and beyond. This includes the Aguas Blancas, Acteal and El Charco massacres in 1995, 1997 and 1998; the San Fernando massacre in 2010; and mass graves in 2011. It also includes several incidents since the Tlatlaya Massacre in June 2014; followed by the disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers鈥� College (Guerrero) in September 2014; and in the first half of 2015, several atrocities between January and May with a total of over 100 victims in Apatzing谩n, Villa Purificaci贸n and Tanhuato.

Two additional incidents along similar lines took place in July in Calera, Zacatecas鈥攕even farmworkers聽 and found dead several days later in a mass grave鈥攁nd in the town of San Miguel Ostula in the municipality of Aquila in Michoac谩n, where a 12-year-old child was killed and several others injured, when military personnel聽 on community residents who had blocked local roads in protest of the arrest the day before of a leader of their Indigenous community police force.

The Drug War

All of these involve significant numbers of civilian victims and varying degrees of direct or indirect participation by federal, state and local police, together with the military as key actors, in contexts related to the country鈥檚 鈥渄rug war.鈥� Several of these cases were presented before the tribunal.

There is a widespread tendency to describe Mexico鈥檚 鈥渄rug war鈥� as a process of 鈥淐olombianization.鈥� Today, Mexico鈥檚 battle against drugs is, in effect, a strategic, territorial and conceptual extension of Colombia鈥檚 in the 1980s and 1990s, through the M茅rida Initiative. This arose within the framework of the national security component of NAFTA known as the. The initiative was originally referred to in US government circles as Plan Mexico, emphasizing its origins as the Mexican version of Plan Colombia

These trends provide a road map leading from the 1997 Acteal massacre in Chiapas, to the San Fernando massacre of migrants in transit in August 2010 and mass graves of April 2011, and most recently to the September 2014 case of the 43 disappeared students of Ayotzinapa. In each of these cases, the direct responsibility of paramilitary and narco-paramilitary forces for such crimes has been combined with decisive dimensions of state complicity.

The sheer number and seriousness of the human rights violations against migrants and other vulnerable sectors, such as the ones above, led the jury to find an overall pattern of state terror and state criminality.

The US, through its massive military and diplomatic aid for the government of Mexico, is enabling the continuation of egregious and systematic human rights violations.

*[A version of this article article first appeared in聽.]

The views expressed in this article are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect 51吃瓜鈥檚 editorial policy.

Photo Credit:聽 / /

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