Translated by Alejandro Aceves
Regarding human rights, the Mexican government and their allies in the society have lost their way. They are overwhelmed and react by denying reality or by discrediting critics.
The State has boxed itself into a contradiction. To feel part of the modern universe, they have passed laws, allocated budgets, and made a lot of speeches. They have also filled organization charts with dissimulators, bureaucrats, and some officials committed to the victims who operate under very difficult conditions thanks to bureaucratic obstacles and erratic policies.
Felipe Calderon [President, 2006-2012] hid the problem and left a bleak picture. Enrique Pena Nieto started well. He promised to be on the “side of the victims and their families”, and on the ninth of January 2013, received in Los Pinos [The Pines, presidential residence] a representative group of victims that showed up with their photos, their tears, and their demands. The president sat beside Javier Sicilia [leader of Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity] and thus a General Law of Victims was born, which is now without focus.
Ayotzinapa and other atrocities shattered the spirit of that ninth of January. Given a choice between choosing victims or established order, they opted for the second. Veracruz [where five young people were disappeared in Tierra Blanca in January by state police and killed by criminals, and numerous journalists have been killed] confirms it every day. International criticism multiplied while Mexican civic organizations and some communication media pointed to the human rights crisis. Sometime in 2015 the government of Enrique Pena Nieto and their civic allies swerved and tried to raise a wall similar to the one which existed in authoritarian Mexico.
There are indicators. The Secretary of Foreign Relations disqualified Juan Mendez, UN Special Rapporteur Regarding Torture, replaced independent Miguel Sarre on the UN Committee Against Tortur with a career ambassador, and launched signals of dissatisfaction with the work of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (IGIE) sent by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (CIDH)].
The attitude towards the IGIE shows the swerve in direction. In June 2015, the president praised the work of the IGIE and accepted its recommendations. Shortly after, a dirty war against the IGIE started and, in January 2016, the CIDH was forced come out publicly to express its “full, absolute and unconditional support”. The most revealing thing is that the CIDH asked the Mexican government to come out together in support of the IGIE and was met by silence.
Simultaneously civic organizations that agree with the official position launched a frontal and merciless criticism against Juan Mendez, Emilio Alvarez Icaza [Executive Secretary of the CIDH, a Mexican] and those activists permanently linked with the international community. They took advantage of the absence of a code for human rights defenders. The few documents on this topic (the Declaration of Ethical Commitment of Human Rights Professionals) only urge acting with “truth” and “impartiality”. That’s what is missing from Isabel Miranda de Wallace and Jose Antonio Ortega, among others.
Mrs. Wallace sharpened her machete of adjectives and accused the UN expert, Juan Mendez, of being “banal” and “ignorant” on the issue of torture and of sponsoring a “network of corruption” in which participated, among others, Jose Antonio Guevara of the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights. Unsubstantiated claims seeking to distract or neutralize carefully selected enemies.
On March 15, Jose Antonio Ortega, President of the Citizen Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice, filed a criminal complaint for fraud against the Executive Secretary of the CIDH, Emilio Alvarez Icaza. According to this absurd accusation, for the IGIE he selected a group of incompetent people who only came to confuse [the IGIE members were selected by the multi-national members of the CIDH]. The IGIE presented an erroneous version of the facts regarding Ayotzinapa because the good one is that of the Attorney General’s Office; the IGIE has “lynched the military in the media” [the Secretary of Defense won't allow the IGIE to interview soldiers present the night the Ayotzinapa students were attacked and disappeared]; and the IGIE is composed of “foreign activists” who should be expelled using Article 33 of the Constitution [which prohibits foreigners from political activity in Mexico].
Denial and childish disqualifications will not get the government out of its pit of contradictions nor solve the daily ordeal of the victims of the violence of criminals who are protected, on many occasions, by officials. The State should return to the slogan of the beginnings of the Pena Nieto administration: to be on the “side of the victims and their families”. Its current swerve is absurd, counterproductive, and doomed to failure.
Simultaneously civic organizations that agree with the official position launched a frontal and merciless criticism against Juan Mendez, Emilio Alvarez Icaza [Executive Secretary of the CIDH, a Mexican] and those activists permanently linked with the international community. They took advantage of the absence of a code for human rights defenders. The few documents on this topic (the Declaration of Ethical Commitment of Human Rights Professionals) only urge acting with “truth” and “impartiality”. That’s what is missing from Isabel Miranda de Wallace and Jose Antonio Ortega, among others.
Mrs. Wallace sharpened her machete of adjectives and accused the UN expert, Juan Mendez, of being “banal” and “ignorant” on the issue of torture and of sponsoring a “network of corruption” in which participated, among others, Jose Antonio Guevara of the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights. Unsubstantiated claims seeking to distract or neutralize carefully selected enemies.
On March 15, Jose Antonio Ortega, President of the Citizen Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice, filed a criminal complaint for fraud against the Executive Secretary of the CIDH, Emilio Alvarez Icaza. According to this absurd accusation, for the IGIE he selected a group of incompetent people who only came to confuse [the IGIE members were selected by the multi-national members of the CIDH]. The IGIE presented an erroneous version of the facts regarding Ayotzinapa because the good one is that of the Attorney General’s Office; the IGIE has “lynched the military in the media” [the Secretary of Defense won't allow the IGIE to interview soldiers present the night the Ayotzinapa students were attacked and disappeared]; and the IGIE is composed of “foreign activists” who should be expelled using Article 33 of the Constitution [which prohibits foreigners from political activity in Mexico].
Denial and childish disqualifications will not get the government out of its pit of contradictions nor solve the daily ordeal of the victims of the violence of criminals who are protected, on many occasions, by officials. The State should return to the slogan of the beginnings of the Pena Nieto administration: to be on the “side of the victims and their families”. Its current swerve is absurd, counterproductive, and doomed to failure.
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*Sergio Aguayo is a professor of Political Science at The College of Mexico and a leading political analyst and commentator in Mexico. He is president of Propuesta Cívica and a participant in the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity. Dr. Aguayo obtained his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. His thesis was on the history of Mexican-U.S. government relations in the twentieth century, published as Myths and MisPerceptions: Changing U.S. Elite Visions of Mexico. His latest book is Remolino: El México de la Sociedad Organizada, los Poderes Fácticos y Enrique Peña Nieto [The Mexican Enigma: The Mexico of Organized Society, De Facto Powers and Enrique Peña Nieto]. @sergioaguayo