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By Chris Covert
Amnesty International Americas division released a statement from its director, Susan Lee which criticized the sentencing of two Mexican military officers in the shooting of a family in 2007, according to Mexican press sources.
In a statement transcribed by APRO, the news agency for the leftist weekly Proceso, Lee said the Sinaloa case was the sole exception. She also said, falsely, that "the military justice system has consistently failed to provide justice to victims of abuse and to hold accountable those responsible."
The charge is false because last year the Secretaria de Defensa Nacional (SEDENA), the agency for the Mexican Army, convicted and sentenced a Mexican Army officer and three riflemen for murder in the shooting deaths of two civilians in a highway encounter in Nuevo Leon state.
Read the Rantburg report on the Nuevo Leon shooting here
That case had been disposed of quickly when it was found in the military investigation that Captain Nunez lied to investigators about the circumstances of the shooting.
As other cases go, SEDENA claims the less than two percent of human rights cases -- totalling 89 cases since 2006, when human rights offices within SEDENA were established -- were found to be prosecutable because the rest, as many as 6,000 cases, were found to be based on false claims. SEDENA also said that the Comision Nacional de Derechas Humanos (CNDH), or National Human Rights Commision had endorsed the cases SEDENA found to be prosecutable
The report goes on to characterize the Mexican military justice system as opaque, which is another false charge in that the Mexican Army has recently opened up military trials to the public. The army does maintain a human rights office which does investigate human right abuses independently of the units in the field.
Lee also stated that, "It is time that the Mexican authorities comply with the decisions of the Court and the Supreme Court of Justice (the Nation) by moving investigations and prosecutions of human rights abuses committed by the armed forces to civilian authorities."
In fact this has already taken place. Last August, the Procuraduria General de Justicia Militar (PGJM) the office which monitors military prosecutions, declared its lack of competence in prosecuting two high profile rapes, enabling the cases' transfer to federal courts for further investigation. The move has been seen as the first of several to take place since last July 12th Mexican Supreme Court decision requiring human rights criminal cases putatively involving the military be prosecuted in civil courts.
To read the Rantburg report on the PGJM decision and circumstances concerning the decision, click here
It is worth noting that those two rape cases are probably insoluble due to civilian courts' sheer incompetence.
Mexican military officials following weeks of publicly and fiercely criticizing the Supreme Court decision, have shown every sign of cooperating with the new regimen.
Indeed Secretaria de Marina (SEMAR) Admiral Mariano Francisco Saynez Mendoza, himself the bane of international as well as Mexican human rights and other leftist groups has stated publicly and on more than one occasion that his agency will abide by the court's decision.
Admiral Saynez Mendoza also said that Mexican Navy will not "tolerate violations of human rights (within the ranks) either by error or lack of professionalism."
Admiral Saynez Mendoza has also said that local human rights groups have long been in the thrall of organized crime, a charge which human rights groups have denied, but have also failed to disprove.
There is little doubt Admiral Saynez Mendoza's remarks mirrors the sentiment of the other armed services senior officials as well as Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinjosa. Both President Calderon and Secretaria de Defensa Nactional (SEDENA) General Guillermo Galvan Galvan were present at the graduation ceremony at the Meixcan Heroica Escuela Naval Miltar Naval Academy in Veracruz last August when he made them.