Reforma: Sergio Aguayo*
Translated by Rachel Alexander
The Ayotzinapa case is burying international complicity with the violation of human rights in Mexico. This is one meaning of the clash between the Enrique Peña Nieto government and the international community.
Secretary of Government Relations Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong said, with the finality of one used to handling power, that he "is not going to renew" the mandate of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (IGIE). The president of the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights [CIDH], James Cavallero, fired back, in an exclusive interview with J. Jesus Esquivel of Proceso where he said that to "extend or expand" the permanence of IGIE "is the decision of the Commission" and not the Mexican government.
To clarify whether the bodies of the student teachers were burned in a garbage dump in Cocula, the IGIE and federal government agreed to create a commission of six "fire experts." Last week, our authorities decided to publish the findings without seeking the consent of the IGIE. The breakup became public. It was a break sought by the regime.
Covered by the Attorney General's office, the fire expert Ricardo Damián Torres came out to read a a brief text in which the most explosive claim was that "at least 17 people" were indeed "burned at the location." He never said they were students and weakened his own text by saying these were "initial results" and that to "establish the hypothesis" that "43 bodies were burned" there would require a "large-scale probe" to be done in the following weeks. A weak text because it lacks the support of the complete investigation and the backing of the five remaining fire experts.
This event confirmed the Enrique Peña Nieto government has already decided to run out the IGIE, whose presence they see as uncomfortable, irritating and noxious for the regime. It is actually a toughening against those, in and outside of Mexico, who maintain there is a "general crisis" of human rights in Mexico. Carlos Loret de Mola agrees with this interpretation and puts forth a plausible hypothesis in his April 5 column for El Universal: In Los Pinos [The Pines, presidential residence and offices], they have opted for harshness to placate the core vote they need to win elections in 2018.
For human rights, we are regressing to the time of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz [president, 1964-70], with one difference. Díaz Ordaz was able to close the doors to international missions. Right now, Los Pinos has the will, but lacks the strength to rebuild the wall. And this is evident in the reaction of the CIDH, which sponsors the GIEI. Proceso's Washington correspondant asked the President of the Commission: "Is the situation of human rights in Mexico so serious?" and the defender responded with a resounding "yes, yes and yes."
With these three syllables, an era ended. Starting in 1927, Washington and Mexico have had an informal agreement for mutual protection. In 1927, the U.S. ambassador looked the other way when Miguel Agustín Pro was shot by a firing squad [Jesuit priest executed without trail in 1927 by government of Plutarco Calles on false charges of attempting to assassinate former President Álvaro Obregón]. In 1976, another ambassador justified the repression of insurgents in an internal cable. It's understood other countries joined in.
In 1988, Fidel Castro legitimized the electoral fraud committed by Carlos Salinas de Gortari against Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, a member of a dynasty that had played with the Cuban Revolution. And in 2006, the European Union sent observers who legitimized electoral fraud committed by Felipe Calderón to get to Los Pinos.
A consequence of the end of this epoch is the neglect of victims, which is ethically unacceptable. To avoid it, mediations now absent must be activated. I think, above all, about the Nordic countries with their long tradition in favor of peace and the National Commission of Human Rights [CNDH] whose silence at this time is counterproductive.
Those who are committed to stop the bleeding and accompany those who suffer should request the amicable intervention of the Nordic countries and pressure the CNDH to make its weight felt and to pull at that giant institutional fabric that was once presumed in international forums to be "the world's largest non-jurisdictional protection system." It's a great big, obese and rich bureaucracy which is lacking in demonstrating grandeur. This would be demonstrated by mediating the polarization and setting the welfare of victims as a priority. That is what's truly important.
Maura Álvarez Roldán contributed.
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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