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| Deputy Attorney General for Human Rights, Ricardo Garcia Cervantes Photo: Pablo Ramos García |
La Jornada: Gustavo Castillo García
Translated by Latisha HicksThe creation of the United Search for Disappeared Persons (UBPD) is the beginning of a national system that is already underway and includes the creation of protocols, a national plan of localization, and the construction of a data bank that connects all existing records, including genetic, photographic and fingerprint information, and imprisonment history.
This was stated by the Deputy Attorney General for Human Rights, Ricardo García Cervantes, who said that this is part of the commitments that prosecutors all over the country will assume when it is presented next Friday [to the National Conference of Attorneys General].
Although the creation of the UBPD was announced this past Monday, the PGR [Attorney General's office] is already working on the investigation of 250 cases. Dozens of agents from the Public Ministry [which includes both investigative police and prosecutors], who had the mission to investigate crimes related to these disappearances, have been concentrated, instead, on the search for these people. Some were transferred from the Deputy Attorney General for Specialized Investigation of Organized Crime (SEIDO) to that of Human Rights, said the former lawmaker and member of PAN [National Action Party], in an interview with La Jornada.
"The creation of the UBPD attempts to end the fragmentation of responsibility, so that someone assumes all the responsibility and can also point out with clarity who failed to follow the protocols. This is not so that we become patsies, nor to accuse anyone, but rather to join skills.
"The performance of this system is being carried out on a foundation of protocols established by the International Committee of the Red Cross and will be scrutinized or followed by the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights of the United Nations in Mexico and by both national and international non-governmental organizations."La Jornada: Why create a unit and not a [special] prosecutor?
"Because it is necessary not only to respond to questions related to the inquiries, but also to the needs of family members in other areas.
"Due to the willful misconduct [of authorities], these people spend the majority of their time searching for their loved ones, and for them many of their obligations remain unfulfilled. This generates problems in their lives, with the bank, with paying taxes. This pressure is what we try to respond to in an integrated manner with the design of this unit. However, the fundamental purpose is the victim.
"Part of the problem is this fragmentation of responsibility between Provictima [a current, government-run missing persons program], the Deputy Attorney General for Human Rights of the PGR, the Secretariat of Government Relations [SEGOB] and the National Commission for Human Rights. They all assume a part, but none take total responsibility.
"They all utilize a part of the resources, but don't join one another in order to increase their capacities. The logic of this unity is the joining of forces. We are looking to materialize a national search plan. This is a national problem, and not a question of local or federal levels. We will all have responsibilities and need to comply with protocols."La Jornada: What is the national search plan?
"It's one of the cornerstones of this strategy, in which the three levels of government will be forced to recognize this reality, the human and family suffering and its national character.
"Now no one can disassociate himself from this, and it shouldn't matter whether the majority of these cases are in the hands of federal or local prosecutors. President Enrique Peña Nieto is right to demand a line of coordination and the design of a public policy on missing persons that is comprised of all levels of government, all branches and agencies.
"If we don't coordinate efforts, then there aren't going to be results, because it will help nothing if only two of the three levels of government handle a crime scene well: the chain of custody of objects picked up, of footprints or fingerprints taken, the genetics of the corpse. Or, for example, if some municipality deposited the remains in a common grave, but failed to identify where the specific corpse was buried. If an adequate record was not made, then all the prior work was for nothing.
"The national plan is already designed and organized by prestigious organizations such as the International Red Cross. To begin, it will create a national search system, and a national information bank; therefore, this system is not about twelve prosecutors of the Public Ministry and thirty police agents [initial staff assigned to it].
"What is being done is that those who have an investigation under their responsibility, rather than pursue a wide variety of crimes, focus on the search [for the missing person].
"Also, the agents on the case will have to meet with the families and generate trust, because there are many inquiries in which months have passed, and sometimes years, where no activity has been recorded. In turn, there are truly extraordinary investigations, in the broadest sense, developed by the families.
"It's inconceivable that because of the incapacity of the authorities, there are families that have elaborated and executed a search plan and they have gone in more depth. There are those who have brought their computer systems to the PGR, programs in which they deposit their information, process it, and carry out new search activities, while the authorities have only sent official letters, and I refer to local and federal levels.
"Because of this, in the national plan one of the most important aids for the search is including the families, those who want to incorporate themselves, and for that it is necessary to generate confidence and guarantee that nothing will be overlooked.
"For this reason, protocols of performance have been established that must be complied with, so that nobody could come and disrespect the families with questions that play on their suffering or demonstrate insensitivity and through their attitudes re-victimize the family of a missing person. For this we are working to change the paradigm of Public Ministry agents."La Jornada: And the resources?
"They already exist. They include expenditures for investigation. There will be no shortage of resources or unexplained excesses.
"We are fulfilling the norms of the administration. We are not improvising; protocols are even being made so that in the case of a report [of a missing person] a search can begin immediately, because once 72 hours has passed, it has become history. This work is not a simulation, it's not a fad. This will be brought to the National Conference of Attorney Generals, so that all of us will take on the commitment," concluded García Cervantes.Spanish original