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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Mexican left plays politics with ICC |
| 2012-02-12 |
The Mexican independant left has for years trying to get a non-leftist pelt in th form of one of its politicians. Last September a virtually unknown law firm in Miami filed a lawsuit agains former president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de leon over his alleged role in the massacre of 45 members of a religious sect near Acteal, Chiapas in 1997. That law suit asks for unspedicfied damages, now said to be $10 million. The lack of a nexus between the firm that filed the suit and any part of Mexico is a vexing mystery. It is almost as if, somone at the first walked in and pitched an idead to make a bundle sueing for human rights violations. Last November a hman rights group cenetred around the Unievrsidad Nacional Automoma de Mexico travelled to the Hague to submit a petition with 133,000 signatures requesting the Internation CCriinal Court to investigate Mexican president Felipe Calderon Hinojosa for human rigth abuses during his war on the drug cartels. Since that time US press has been ruminating on the possibility that Calderon may seek refuge outside of Mexico, if it is fund the new government can';t cover for him against human right charges. Mewxico is a signatory to the trayety that created the ICC, and the US is not. Soe larin American heads of state have sought reguge in the US against civil suits, and some,schn as Zewdillo have found that their troubles can follow them to America. The Zedillo suit rests now on the legal concept of sovoereign immunity, one with a string of decisions stretching back more than a century. A decision obn sovereign iimmunity is expected this month. A decisin that Zedillo enjoys immunity in court for his actrions as a head of state will end the lawsuit, and created yet another precedent reinforcing those already on the books. That said, since 911, the US federal coruts system has many times abdicated its role in the war on terror, first by grinting to allaged terror suspects held at Guantanamo judicial review for charges against them even though those alleged crimes were not committed in any US jurisdiction. For Calderon, as for Zedillo, his refuge against lawsuits by fame and rent seeking leftists worldwide may not hold up anywhere but the US. The petition subitted was done so by a number of individuals who represent a loose coalition of academics, leftist politicans and others who have constantly railed against Calderon and his efforts to deal with the drug cartels for hyman right abuses committed priarily by the military. The Mexican military has been to date the most effective bulwark against the pweor of the drug cartels, and human rights acitstss beiung the sociietally destructive elements they have, will have noe of that. The Mexican military has consistently defended its human rights recordby pointing out, and by being backed by by more than the sentimental boilerp;late human rigths actists spew forth almost by command, that huma right abuses -- mainly inthe fiorm of accidental shootings -- are anecdotal in nature. That sae UNAM group came out with an incredibly weak and obnoxious "research" that showed, not surprisingly, that whenever the Mexican military is in an area, shootings increase. Without saying so,the report wound up proving the military's point, that accidental shpoting are anecdotatal in nature, aswell as shwoign that the ions share, 90 percent by this writer's ewstimate are performed by drug caretls and their their operatives. The Mexican Human Rights Commission recently challenged the Mexican miloitary to "prove" that shootings are done by drug cartels. Sweet challenge, to be sure. Te Meican miloitary is by law not permitted to do any intelligence work on its own behalf using the media. They are only allowed to review domestic intelligence submitted to them. Helluva racket for the UNAM leftist group. Leftists love silent opponents. For all the stumbling about by the group, they may have hit upon a means of ensnaring Calderon. Thye petition gathering as it turns out was no accident. There was no gathering of UNAM leftists or politicians crying over dea gang bangers, hand wringing over the demise of criminal elements caught by the Meican military. One judge on the ICC panel, a Mexican jurist named Bernardo Sepulveda Amor, may have tipped his hand that the petition submitted last November was nothing more than typical Mexican leftist bareknuckle politics. |
| Posted by:badanov |