Translated by Leslie Castillo Navia
Astonishment recharges itself with the desire to know, understand and explain. A lack of astonishment opens the way to the shaping of our recent history: from one killing to another, one act of deceitful theft of the public coffers to another theft of even greater impact, and from one presidential lie to another. It is what has us on a slide without brakes, free falling.
An optimist would say: not everything is bad. Maybe that is true: not everything. However, I declare myself incompetent to know what percentage is bad and what percentage is good. But I recognize that what ought to worry us--as society, as political parties, as organized civil society, media, academics, and the international community in regards to Mexico's path--is the lack of astonishment over what happens in front of our noses, from plagiarism [of Peña Nieto] to extrajudicial executions by the Federal Police (PF) in Tanhuato, Michoacán.
For months, we have been aware of the Federal Police's inability to make rational, proportional use of force in its combat against organized crime. Are we astonished that the Federal Police torture, shoot people in the backs and burn the bodies of suspected delinquents? No. The reality is that our capacity for astonishment with regards to what our Federal Police are doing does not go there.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) professionally documented the Federal Police's barbarity [in Tanhuato]. They warned that, at certain times, more than one police officer's actions were more like a death squad - whose contempt for due process and rule of law is absolute - than a federal police force that knows the limits of the use of force and knows that torture is not part of their legal powers.
To feed your astonishment, here are some facts about the actions of the Federal Police in Tanhuato, courtesy of the NHRC:
- It was proven that the Federal Police lied about what had happened in Tanhuato;
- They arbitrarily executed 22 civilians (shooting 13 of them in their backs);
- During the confrontation, 42 civilians and one federal police officer died;
- They tortured two detainees;
- They burned the body of one offender to a crisp;
- They executed an alleged delinquent with four thousand shots from a helicopter.
In my idleness, I wanted to read the official version or response of the federal government to the NHRC. With astonishment (and I mean it) I noticed that the official response that was read days prior by Renato Sales, head of the National Secuity Council, was neither on the Federal Police's website, nor was it on the Secretariat of Government Relations' website. That is the importance of the lack of astonishment, accountability, and social pressure to ensure justice.
At the end of writing this text, the other incident which also did not deserve the least amount of astonishment in the national press had arrived: the graves in Telencingo, Morelos, where 117 corpses were uncovered, some of girls and others with signs of torture. Tragedy upon tragedy, that is the way we are shaping our history.
Without aastonishment we won't get anywhere, and we will be ensuring the steady deterioration of our own surroundings. If we continue assuming that what we are told is reality - what some communicate to us and others relegate to the inside pages - we will be (as we are now) mere spectators of our misfortune. Spanish original
This is Part II of a two-part article.
See Part I.
*Dario Ramírez was, until recently, the Mexico director of Article 19, an international organization which defends freedom of expression and information. He studied International Relations at the Iberoamericana University and has a Masters in International Law from the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of numerous articles on freedom of expression, access to information, media and human rights and he teaches journalism. He worked in the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees United Nations (UNHCR) in Latin America and Africa. @Dariormrs