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Mexican officials and organized crime organizations will for the very first time be accused by an international group of committing crimes against humanity, in a new report released Tuesday by the Open Society Initiative.
“Within the framework of international law, extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances and torture represent crimes against humanity and these three crimes have been committed repeatedly since the Mexican government began its war with drug traffickers in December 2006,” human rights activist Jose Antonio Guevara told teleSUR.
Gevara is head of the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights, an NGO which along with other civil society groups have helped to create the new report titled "Undeniable Atrocities: Confronting Crimes against Humanity in Mexico."
The report collects four years of research and demonstrates a pattern of indiscriminate force and impunity which, the authors argue, has become an integral part of the Mexican state's policy.
“Extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances and torture cases are not isolated and they are being investigated one by one... Authorities do not recognize the problem they are facing and remain within the idea that this is part of their battle against drug violence,” Gevara added.
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For the first time the report also focuses on non-state actors, particularly organized crime groups, and is based on figures and information obtained through the Federal Law of Transparency and Access to Public Information.
In 2006, former President Felipe Calderon declared war on drug cartels. Since then, more than 150,000 people have been killed, more than 28,000 have disappeared and at least 8,000 cases of torture have been documented. The policy has been continued by current leader Enrique Peña Nieto.
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Branding the Mexican government's policies as completely and utterly flawed, the report goes on to make recommendations to the Mexican government. Arguably the most important of these is to create a similar institution to the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, which intends to bring an end to widespread impunity in the nation's institutions by investigating, charging and prosecuting serious crimes.
According to Gevara, the Mexican government has the ability to provide concrete solutions to some of the problems caused by the state's war on drugs, although he acknowledged the involvement of the military and local governments in crimes against humanity as a major factor in blocking any path to justice.
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