Human rights in Mexico

Report by the Social Justice Committee to the Canadian government, presented to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade consultations on human rights 26 Feb 2002

THE POLITICAL TRANSITION:

During the year 2001–2, Mexican non–governmental human rights organizations waited with guarded optimism to see if the Fox administration had the political will and capacity to make good its election and inaugural promises heralding a new era of respect for human rights in Mexico. Foreign and international human rights organizations showed a similar readiness to grant what could be called a period of grace to the Fox government. For this reason, the Social Justice Committee received and responded to a very limited number of urgent actions during the past year. This report will not, therefore, follow the pattern of previous reports, which were closely based on the day–to–work of the Canada/Mexico/Central America Urgent Action Network, but will rather give an over-view of the human rights situation during the past year from the perspective of the Network.

In retrospect, it can be said that the very first steps taken by President Fox give a very important indication of the strengths, and more tellingly, the weaknesses of his approach to human rights. In the first place, the appointment of well–known and highly respected human rights defender, Mariclaire Acosta to a position within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was a welcome sign that the new administration hoped to bring about an improvement in Mexico's deplorable human rights record. However, the fact that Sra. Acosta's portfolio is located within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rather than, as might have been expected, within the Ministry of the Interior, suggested that the government was at least as interested in its international image as in the effective promotion of human rights within the country. The rationale of this location within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was based on the need for Mexico to comply with its international human rights obligations; its effect was to give a "cosmetic" approach to human rights policy. (In fact, the Fox government has been criticized by Mexican non–governmental human rights organizations precisely because of its ad–hoc image–conscious approach to human rights. These organizations have pointed out that in the government's five–year National Development Plan there is no mention of human rights.) Secondly, the designation of an army officer, General Rafael Macedo de la Concha to the very important cabinet post of Federal Attorney General was an indication that the new leaf that the new government was supposedly turning over (with regard to human rights) was not exactly brand new. Former Military Attorney General, Macedo de la Concha came to his new civilian post with a proven record of failing to punish military perpetrators of human rights violations.

POSITIVE CHANGES DURING 2001:

During the course of the past year, there have indeed been some positive changes with regard to respect for human rights in Mexico. The government has shown a new openness to international human rights observers and a greater readiness to cooperate with international human rights institutions. A number of important international human rights conventions and protocols have been ratified. There has been partial compliance with some of the recommendations of the Inter–American Human Rights Commission, including a part of the recommendations pertaining to the highly–publicized case of prisoner of conscience General José Francisco Gallardo.

The Ministry of the Interior has initiated a discussion "table" with human rights organizations and has begun a media campaign to promote the work of human rights defenders. Within the Ministry of the Interior a new office is being set up, the mandate of which will be both to ensure an ongoing communication with human rights organizations and to coordinate the government's efforts to fulfill its international obligations with respect to human rights.

A Special Investigator has been appointed to examine the human rights abuses associated with the "dirty war" of the nineteen-seventies – the targets of which were social activists and persons suspected of sympathizing with the armed guerrilla movements. It is regrettable that this investigator will function within the ambit of the Office of the Federal Attorney General. Human rights analysts believe that, in view of the alleged responsibility of the army in the perpetration of many of these cases of disappearance, torture, and other human rights abuses, the fact that the Special Investigator is working within an institution headed by a former military officer could have a restricting effect on his investigations.

It is encouraging to note that the programme of technical cooperation between the office of the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights and the Mexican government is now beginning its second phase. However, human rights organizations have suggested that, very valuable as it may be, the technical cooperation programme can provide only a part of the solution to Mexico's human rights problems. They have expressed concern that the government may use its commitment to the cooperation programme as an excuse for neglecting to take other important initiatives to safeguard and promote human rights.

VIOLATIONS OF CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS DURING 2001:

Very regrettably, the advances outlined above have been completely overshadowed by the persistence of human rights abuses of the very same kinds as those that took place in previous years under previous governments – abuses regarding which the Mexico has received repeated requests and exhortations from international human rights institutions and organizations. They include torture, disappearance, and arbitrary arrest.

The assassination of Digna Ochoa was particularly shocking because of the tragic loss of a dedicated human rights defender and also because it revealed the shallowness of the government's commitment to respect for human rights and the work of human rights defenders. (It cannot be forgotten that it was only following the national and international response to Digna's death that the government was galvanized into setting up the new human rights mechanisms in the Ministry of the Interior as well as into releasing prisoners of conscience Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera from jail.) Nor was the assassination of Digna Ochoa an isolated case. During the year 2001, Mexican human rights organizations documented no less than seventeen cases of attacks upon, or threats against, human rights defenders, including the assassination of Donasiano González Lorenzo, a Mixteco member of the Coordinating Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Ayutla de los Libres in the state of Guerrero.

From year to year, the Mexican government is enjoined by the international human rights community to take immediate steps to ensure respect for the human rights of the indigenous peoples of Mexico as well as to promote and protect the work of human rights defenders. Nevertheless, members of indigenous communities (especially in the states of Chiapas, Guerrero, and Oaxaca) continue to be harassed by the Mexican army, to be illegally arrested –and at times tortured – by federal and state police forces, and to be targets of paramilitary violence. Although, during the past year, some paramilitary group leaders and members have been punished for their acts of criminal violence (very regrettably, others among them have actually been released from prison), there has been no sustained effort on the part of the federal and state governments to disband and disarm these groups.

The fact that the victims of human rights abuses are so often social activists or members of indigenous communities struggling for their collective rights is an indication of the systematic nature of very many cases of violations of civil and political rights in Mexico. These human rights violations are not only the result of institutional weaknesses or of the presence of corrupt, ill-trained and sometimes brutal public servants. All too often, these violations serve the interests of particular social and political groups within the society. Furthermore, by reason of its failure to punish the perpetrators, the state is in effect a tacit accomplice to such groups.

As stated above, at the end of the year 2001, two well–known Mexican prisoners of conscience, one of whom has been honoured with international awards for his environmental advocacy, were released from prison. The case of Rodolfo Montiel and Teodora Cabrera and the other members of the Campesino Ecologists of the Sierra de Petatlán and Coyuca de Catalán is in many ways illustrative of the pattern of human rights violations in Mexico. Montiel and Cabrera were victims of illegal arrest and torture at the hands of the Mexican army, human rights crimes which took place with the collusion of personnel from the civilian Ministry of Justice (Ministerio Público) and that were ratified by the justice system. (The two men were sentenced to very long prison sentences on the basis of the confessions that they signed following their torture and interrogation by the army)

The human rights abuses perpetrated against Montiel and Cabrera did indeed serve particular interests: the interests of the persons and businesses directly or indirectly involved in the excessive and illegal logging that the Campesino Ecologists were protesting. It is important to note that Montiel and Cabrera were released from prison through a presidential pardon on humanitarian grounds (in view of their ill–health) The federal government did not recognize their innocence or acknowledge that they had been tortured by Mexican army personnel – despite the fact that the (governmental) National Human Rights Commission had made just such an acknowledgement and published an official recommendation in reaction to the legal irregularities in their case.

It is frequently overlooked that Montiel and Cabrera are only two (albeit very distinguished) members of an organization that has been systematically repressed. In the few short years since the organization was founded in 1998, four of its members have been killed (one died during the military operation in which Montiel and Cabrera were arrested). As of the end of the year 2001, three Campesino Ecologists were still in jail serving sentences based on trumped–up charges, and seven were facing outstanding arrest warrants. Furthermore, even following the highly– publicized release of Montiel and Cabrera, the communities in which members of the organization reside were still being subjected to periodic incursions and harassment by the Mexican army.

In brief, Montiel and Cabrera have received no material compensation for the torture inflicted upon them (despite its very serious repercussions on their health). Their torturers have gone unpunished. Other members of their organization are still being persecuted. Residents of their home communities continue to be harassed. Thus, the very serious human rights violations of which the Campesino Ecologists are the victims have been largely unrecognized and unpunished by the competent authorities.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS:

Despite the visit to Ciudad Juarez of the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Extra–judicial Executions, the horrifying situation of the unsolved murders of hundreds of young women, most of whom were employed in the maquila factories, persists. Matters have been made even more complicated and disturbing by the fact that two bus drivers who have confessed to some of the murders have alleged that their confessions were obtained under torture. Following these allegations, the lawyer who was defending them was killed by police gunfire (in what the police claim was a case of mistaken identify), and there have been attempts to intimidate journalists who have been publicizing their case.

At the end of her very recent visit to Mexico, the Inter–American Human Rights Commission's Special Rapporteur for Women's Rights commented that she had not previously encountered so dramatic a situation; she had heard firsthand accounts of other terrible situations of violence against women (but those had taken place) in areas where there were armed conflicts. In this context, it is important to remember that the families of the victims, as well as members of human rights organizations that are supporting these families, have been subjected to harassment by those whose job it should be to help them. The Rapporteur herself commented on the "totally discriminatory attitude on the part of the legal authorities" and on the fact that local women's organizations and human rights organizations have expressed their fear of the State Attorney General and their mistrust of the authorities.

It is difficult not to draw the conclusion that a federal government with a stronger commitment to the defence and promotion of women's human rights would have made more effective efforts to draw this series of cases into the federal legal jurisdiction and to take every possible step to bring this horrific situation to an end.

INDIGENOUS RIGHTS:

The Mexican Congress' rejection of the so–called COCOPA proposal, and its passage of a law on indigenous rights that has been overwhelmingly opposed by indigenous organizations (as well as by the state legislatures in the states with the largest indigenous populations) is a clear indication, if one were needed, that Mexico is no closer to achieving full recognition of the rights of its indigenous peoples.

Congressional acceptance of the COCOPA proposal for the constitutional reforms that would put into effect the San Andres Accord on Indigenous Rights and Culture is, of course, not a magic formula. However, many indigenous and human rights organizations believe that it would be an essential step in enabling Mexico’s indigenous peoples to strengthen their local community and municipal structures, to re–affirm their cultures through control of their own educational systems and their own media, to have a political voice at the state and national levels (and in municipalities in which they are in a minority), and thus to have a new relationship to the Mexican state.

In the opinion of many analysts, it is economic considerations which underlie Congress' rejection of the COCOPA proposal, as well as President Fox's lukewarm defence of the proposal after he had sent it to Congress and his subsequent approval of the drastically–weakened bill that was finally passed by Congress. It has been noted that the San Andres Accords, like ILO Covenant 169, give indigenous peoples the right to control their lands and territories (subject to certain restrictions such as national rights to subsoil resources). To the extent that the new congressional law does not recognize the rights of indigenous peoples to the collective ownership and control of their territories, reducing their status to residents of communities, it represents a serious regression from Covenant 169 – a covenant that has been signed and ratified by Mexico.

A statement by the Business Coordinating Council's Study Centre (Centro de Estudios Fiscales y Legislativos del Consejo Coordinador Empresarial) would appear to support the above analysis. The Centre recommends that indigenous peoples not be granted self-determination or autonomy, with their own territories and governments, because of the risk that they might practice "some type of socialism, cooperativism, or disguised tyranny." In the opinion of the Centre, if indigenous communities were given self–determination they would put their own interest before national interests; this would mean obstacles for tourism, mining, and the building of infrastructure such as airports, sea–ports, hydro and thermo electric plants, energy distribution networks, etc. The Centre is particularly worried by the prospect of possible changes to the 1992 reforms to Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution (those reforms which have paved the way for the privatizing of collectively–owned land and have made it possible for private business interests to have a much larger role in the use and ownership of land in Mexico.)

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RIGHTS:

It is estimated that over half of the population of Mexico is poor and that nearly a quarter of the population suffers from extreme poverty. Despite these figures, budget cuts during 2001 were mainly concentrated in the area of social spending. At this time, Mexico spends a lower percentage on health than any other OECD country or several of its Latin American neighbours. Some proposed economic measures, such as applying the GST to food and medicines and raising electricity rates, threaten to cause increased hardship for the poor and the less well–to–do. The government's emphasis on the export sector and on mega–projects needing large–scale foreign investment, to the detriment of campesino agriculture and smaller business sectors producing for the local market, appears likely to cause more poverty and to increase the disparity between rich and poor, regardless of whether or not it results in growth at the macro–economic level. Under these circumstances, it can be said that the government's policies are not leading to the progressive realization of the economic and social of rights of Mexicans that is called for by the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.

There is, moreover, reason to believe that proposed meg–projects such as the Plan Puebla Panama constitute an actual or potential threat to economic and social rights. There has been no meaningful participation by communities in the design of these projects, and often it is even difficult for local people to obtain detailed information about them. Moreover, the Plan Puebla Panama's explicit references to the centralization of social services and employment opportunities, and thereby of population centres, gives credence to the thesis (held by a many of its critics) that the PPP and other such projects are a means by which the land and its very valuable resource potential are to be taken away from campesino communities and put at the disposition of large business interests.

Human rights groups have expressed concern that local resistance to development mega–projects may be met with violations of civil and political rights – in the form of such authoritarian responses on the part of the state as forced evictions or expropriations without adequate compensation. (The allegedly accidental death, under extremely suspicious circumstances, of the legal advisor to an indigenous organization that is contesting an infra–structure project related to the PPP may be an indication of the danger of even graver human rights violations from more sinister sources.)