Translated by Ruby Izar-Shea
Ah, those pesky, irritating, human rights. Like annoying mosquitoes flying around the pillow at night. Like a rash that can’t be scratched. Like hives that can’t be healed. Those rights that a high percentage of Mexicans think are used to "defend criminals", "free miscreants", "weaken the rule of law." Those rights trivialized by some because they don’t understand what defending them on their and democracy’s behalf entails. Citizens should demand respect for the rules, but instead they demand a heavy hand even if it violates them. Misunderstanding and minimizing what should be protected for their own sake and for the legitimacy of the government. Today, human rights have a bad reputation in Mexico.
Just look at the reaction to the investigation by the National Commission on Human Rights regarding Tanhuato, where there was an alleged "encounter" between police and criminals. The information revealed was soon disqualified. The evidence criticized. The indefensible that was detailed in hundreds of pages was defended. The excessive use of force by the Federal Police that ended up in the arbitrary execution of 22 civilians. The violation of personal integrity that resulted in two people tortured and one burned alive. A history of inhuman treatment and violations of the law by those who should apply it. A history of the State ignoring rights that led to its founding. The State emerges to protect life, as Joseph Strayer writes in On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State. It arises to prevent the imposition of the law of the jungle, of the one holding the gun, of the one that does whatever he wants.
And there will be some who say those executed were "no angels" and "the police also have human rights" and that those who were shot after surrendering or even being unarmed "deserved it". There will be those who justify the lies told by leaders of the Federal Police about the operation, and the manipulation of seven corpses and seven weapons, and deliberate placement of firearms associated with 16 bodies and "the replacement of the firearm that appears in a photograph related to a corpse, by another that was manipulated and moved from its original position after the death of the victim." Violation after violation of fundamental, foundational, basic rights. Those that alleged criminals also have. Those ignored by the State when it executes instead of apprehending, when it arbitrarily decides that someone is guilty rather than protecting the presumption of innocence, when it kills instead of taking someone to trial, when it lies instead of being accountable.
And when it abuses its strength as it did that day at "Rancho del Sol", where 42 civilians and a policeman were killed. Tanhuato, unfortunately, is part of a modus operandi, a disturbing pattern discovered by Catalina Pérez Correa, Carlos Silva Forne and Rodrigo Gutiérrez Rivas in the article "Fatality rate: Fewer confrontations, more opacity" published in Nexos magazine. It documents there the lethalness, the dead civilians/policemen ratio, of the federal forces and the opacity regarding their behavior [The study found: "the death of more than 10 or 15 civilians for each security agent killed in confrontations suggest that lethal force is being used more than necessary.” In Tanhuato the ratio was 42 to 1].
[So, we have] the excessive and disproportionate use of lethal force. The inertia of institutional learning about the application of force and its use under a logic of war. The disrespect to national and international standards of exceptionality, necessity and proportionality. The State’s open violation of human rights.
Hopefully, those who say that human rights have become alibis and a defense of criminals will remember that argument when the rights they so despise are violated. Hopefully, they’ll remember the famous poem by Martin Niemoller, "First they came for the socialists and I did not speak because I was not a socialist Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak because I was not a Jew... finally they came for me, and there was no one to speak in my name."
Hopefully, those who say that human rights have become alibis and a defense of criminals will remember that argument when the rights they so despise are violated. Hopefully, they’ll remember the famous poem by Martin Niemoller, "First they came for the socialists and I did not speak because I was not a socialist Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak because I was not a Jew... finally they came for me, and there was no one to speak in my name."
So, if Mexicans continue discrediting human rights as annoying mosquitos, the day the bite is from a policeman’s bullet, no one will raise their voice. They will be one of many, without a name or rights. Just another mosquito.
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*Denise Dresser is a Mexican political analyst, writer, and university professor. After completing undergraduate work at The College of Mexico, she earned her Ph.D. in Politics at Princeton University. She is currently a faculty member in the Department of Political Science at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), where she teaches courses such as Comparative Politics, Political Economy and Contemporary Mexican Politics. She has taught at Georgetown University and the University of California. In December 2015, she was decorated as a Knight of the Legion of Honor by the French government. Twitter: @DeniseDresserG