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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| UNhelpful: The United Nations States the Obvious, Misses the Point |
| 2011-04-03 |
| By Chris Covert A United Nations human rights group has issued a preliminary report on disappearances in Mexico and the news isn't good. Amongst the more than 30 recommendations included in the reports of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances is the one that got most of the attention from the Mexican press: ordering the Mexican Army back to the barracks. Inside the report with content compiled from three lawyers, Ms. Jasminka Dzumhur of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mr. Ariel Dulitzky of Argentina and Mr. Osman El Hajjé of Lebanon, the central issue of focus is "enforced disappearances", also known as kidnapping. The statistics quoted in the article are seemingly startling. The group has compiled a list of 412 kidnappings since 1980, when the Mexican Dirty War was still going hot, of which 238 remain unresolved. The report also quoted a compiled statistic by Mexican human rights organizations which claim 3,000 individuals have disappeared, while official reports of kidnappings have gone from four in 2006 to 77 in 2010. It is worth noting that often statistics provided by NGOs on matters such as disappearances and other social calamities are extrapolated numbers, which are essentially guesses weakly based on actual data compiled by the NGO. Mexican NGOs, as with NGOs the world over rely on a sympathetic press to take dictation on the provided facts. Mexican conservatives, represented by Partido Accion Nacional, could easily use the starting point of 2006 to show that the war on cartels is their war and in no way represents the Dirty War conducted from 1966 to 1988 by three Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) presidents. But the Mexican left is desperate to attach a nexus between the PAN and the PRI and is the sole reason why the statistics on the Dirty War, now decades ended, is even mentioned in the report. Using 2006 as a new reference point is deliberate for the UN group. Mexican President Felipe Calderon has taken to using the Mexican Army to fight the cartels in his declaration in 2006. The use of the Mexican military in dealing with the drug trade has enraged large portions of the Mexican left. Amongst those is the founder and leader of Mexico's mainstream leftist political organization, Partido Revolucion Democratica, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Lopez Obrador has stated were his party, namely himself, to gain the presidency of the republic, his first order of business would be to return the Mexican Army back to the barracks. Lopez Obrador has stated repeatedly his focus is providing income supports for Mexico's poor by shifting resources from using the military to fight the cartel. Politically such a move could prove problematic for any PRD president. A Mexican president is still required by the Mexican Constitution to conduct his office with constraints by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. As such, a PRD presidency would likely leave the shifting of resources up to the legislature. None of those constraints mean the president can't redeploy the army then use the savings for additional income supports for the poor. In Mexico a strong nexus exists between non government organizatons such as the UN and local human right organizations. The Mexican National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) has scored two recent public relations victories against the Mexican Army (SEDENA), the last being September, 2010 north of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, when a group of five soldiers were charged with murder of two civilians in a pursuit and shooting. A previous shooting by a detachment of the Mexican Army in April, 2010 led to a disastrous and public embarrassment for SEDENA. To read the Rantburg report on the October shooting in Nuevo leon click here. Ironically, one of the outcomes of those embarrassments is a subtle change of tactics by the Mexican Army. Soldiers in the field appear to have permission to fire on any vehicle or suspect if they clearly spot a weapon. The bad guys know this and is why they will open up on the Mexican Army despite the likelihood the shooters will not survive the army counterfire. Another of the contradictions in a land rife with social and political contradictions is that the Mexican Army has been instrumental at least in northern states in dealing effectively with kidnapping. Very few days go by where a Mexican Army does not effect the release of kidnapping victims. Those rescues could not have taken place with an army in the barracks. Although news reports do not speculate on it, many of the murders where the dead are dumped are likely kidnapping victims whose family could not pay up. But for the agenda of the Mexican left, a return to the barracks of the Mexican Army would be a disaster for the fight against the drug cartels. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #4 Thanks to everyone for the kind words. |
| Posted by: badanov 2011-04-03 21:45 |
| #3 as usual. Good job, Chris |
| Posted by: Frank G 2011-04-03 20:34 |
| #2 Indeed. |
| Posted by: lotp 2011-04-03 20:22 |
| #1 Chris: once again, nice job. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2011-04-03 10:20 |