Autor/Autorin
The spiral of violence and inadequate prosecution has serious consequences for the rule of law, summarised James Cavallaro, President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) on 2 March 2016 on the occasion of the presentation of the Commission’s findings on the human rights situation in Mexico. [1] In January 2017, the Instituto Belisario Domínguez, which is affiliated with the Mexican Senate, spoke of a „true epidemic of violence at national level“ [2].
The CIDH report analyses the findings of the commission, whose delegation of experts carried out a series of field trips through several Mexican states in 2015. Human rights violations through kidnappings, executions and torture were at the centre of the investigation, but the commission also focused on the situation of the indigenous population, particularly indigenous women and girls. It also focussed on the work opportunities of journalists and human rights activists as well as access to the justice system for victims of human rights violations.
In particular, the systematic failure to prosecute human rights violations committed by the army or police and the impunity of the perpetrators caused the commission a great deal of concern. It did not give the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto (PRI, Partido Revolucionario Institucional, Institutional Revolutionary Party) a good report card: The human rights situation in Mexico remains catastrophic. Violence is widespread throughout the country, but especially where the police and military clash with organised crime and drug cartels [3] .
The practice of ‚enforced disappearances‘ of unpopular people is still widespread. By September 2015, 26,798 people had gone missing in Mexico. The authorities made hardly any efforts to find the victims, which is why these ‚kidnappings‘ usually go unpunished. A special public prosecutor’s office (Fiscalía Especializada) set up in October 2015 to deal with cases of ‚disappeared‘ persons has so far done little to change this. [4]
According to the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research (HIIK), which now describes the conflict as an „internal war“, in 2011 around 85,000 members of the army and federal police faced around 300,000 paramilitaries from the drug cartels equipped with state-of-the-art weapons. The killing of priests, judges and journalists has increased significantly [5] .
As the military, federal police and regional police units often collaborate with the cartels, corruption is widespread among law enforcement agencies and the judiciary and crimes are very rarely solved, the population no longer has any trust in the state. According to the CIDH report, members of the federal police and armed forces are often involved in the crimes or at least tolerate them. Relatives of the disappeared are often threatened when they search for the missing themselves: According to the report, the mother of a missing person stated that she had been threatened that her tongue would be cut out and she would find her other three sons dead on her doorstep if she did not give up the search for her missing son.“ [6]
Due to their frequency, cases like this hardly attract any national media attention.
Meanwhile, the case of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural University in Iguala in the state of Guerrero, who „disappeared“ and were murdered on the night of 26-27 September 2014, received widespread international publicity. The international commission of experts of the CIDH, which had been called in by relatives after Mexican investigative authorities had tried to conceal the course of events, play it down to a local dispute between drug gangs and file the case away, had to learn just how closely organised crime, politics and security forces work together. In its final report, however, the commission speaks of „broad and perfect coordination“: the 43 students were jointly attacked and abducted by members of the local drug cartel and local police units. An army unit stationed on site observed the events without intervening, and federal police officers who were also present did not come to the aid of the students, some of whom were injured. Instead, they supported the local police forces who were working with the criminals. According to an official report by the Mexican authorities, the students were arrested by the municipal police, handed over to a criminal gang and their bodies were finally burned in a rubbish dump.
The CIDH experts rejected this theory as untenable. In their investigations, the members of the expert commission were massively obstructed by state and political authorities, especially with regard to command responsibility and clarifying the role of the federal police and army. [7]
The Ayotzinapa case was a thorn in the side of the government, which wanted to close the case as quickly as possible. In this context, they also denounced the fact that the government had repeatedly offered them monetary payments. They reject this indignantly: „If the government wants to make amends, it must tell us where our children are and what happened to them.“ [8] Due to the extensive collaboration of the army, federal and local police with the cartels and barely concealed corruption, investigations are usually prevented. Relatives of a disappeared person told Amnesty International (AI) that employees of the public prosecutor’s office had refused to investigate in certain areas of the state. They could not go there, they were afraid.
„The incessant wave of cases of people ‚disappearing‘ that is sweeping Chihuahua and the complete negligence in the investigation of the disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa are evidence of the Mexican government’s complete disregard for human rights and human dignity,“ said AI expert Erika Guevara-Rosas. „Tragically,“ Guevara-Rosas continues, „so many people ‚disappear‘ throughout Mexico that this is almost considered part of everyday life. In the few cases where investigations are actually carried out, it is usually a mere formality to keep up appearances […].“ [9]
Nevertheless, CIDH spokesperson Cavallero also saw positive approaches. He recognised some constitutional changes since 2011, such as the establishment of a separate public prosecutor’s office (Fiscalía Especializada) for the search for „disappeared“ persons. He also emphasised a decision by the Supreme Court to limit the military’s sphere of influence; the court ruling restricts the army’s judicial jurisdiction in cases in which the armed forces themselves have committed human rights violations.
On 10 December 2015, President Enrique Peña Nieto submitted a bill to Congress to combat the practice of „enforced disappearances“ in light of the high and rising number of missing persons. According to Amnesty International, however, key points of this draft are incompatible with international standards. The human rights organisation is calling for fundamental improvements by the Mexican Congress „so that the law is an effective tool for ensuring truth, justice and reparation for the victims and that cases of enforced disappearance can be prevented in the future.“ [10]
A study conducted for the first time by Amnesty International (AI) revealed that women are increasingly being arbitrarily detained in the drug war. 72 per cent of the representative sample of women surveyed stated that they had been sexually abused during their arrest or in the hours afterwards. According to AI, sexual abuse is routinely used as a method of interrogating women [11] , and torture and other ill-treatment by federal police and local investigative authorities are common. The authorities deny the extent of the problem and little effort is being made to put a stop to this practice. Although President Nieto submitted a draft law against torture (Ley Generale de Tortura) to Congress, not least in response to the case of the 43 students, it has yet to be implemented and impunity remains the rule for the time being [12] .
The case of Miriam López is an example of the violation of the most basic human rights by the Mexican military and the inaction of the judiciary. In February 2011, the mother of four children was „kidnapped, raped, tortured and held captive for a week by soldiers in order to extort a false confession from her about her involvement in drug trafficking. As in most cases, no trial was held despite the perpetrators being identified. Miriam López was only granted police protection and psychotherapeutic treatment.“ [13]
The high-ranking UN representative and special rapporteur Michel Forst visited the country in January 2017. During his eight-day trip through several federal states, including the heavily affected states of Chihuahua, Guerrero and Oaxaca, Forst met with representatives of the authorities and around 800 activists, almost 60 per cent of whom were women. At the end of his excursion, he drew attention to the fact that human rights activists and journalists are systematically threatened by violence in Mexico. This was particularly true when it came to women or members of indigenous communities. [14] At the end of his trip, the UN Special Rapporteur summarised that the number of people murdered and disappeared was only „the tip of the iceberg.“ [15]
Mexico is a multi-ethnic country with around 120 million inhabitants. At least 20 million people live in the metropolitan region of Mexico City. The mestizo group, descendants of Europeans and members of the indigenous peoples, make up the majority of the Mexican population at around 80 per cent. Around 10 to 15 per cent of Mexico’s population, depending on the definition of ethnicity, belong to the minority of over 60 indigenous ethnic groups with different dialects and languages. This ethnic diversity still finds cultural and religious expression today. A white ethnic minority, mainly of Spanish origin, makes up around nine per cent of the population; the proportion of descendants of African slaves is low.
The vast majority of the indigenous population lives on the margins of Mexican society, sometimes in extreme poverty. The strong social divide is reflected in large differences in income, education and healthcare. The proportion of illiterate people in the total population nationwide is around 10 per cent, while almost half of the indigenous population is unable to read and write despite compulsory education. Although efforts on the part of the government to promote indigenous universities are recognisable, the indigenous minority still has only a small share of higher education.
The OECD described Mexico as one of the countries with the greatest income disparities in the world. According to information from the Mexican Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMLEV), the top 10 per cent of income recipients earn 39 per cent of total income, while the bottom 10 per cent of society have to make do with just under 1.4 per cent of total income.
Ethnicity is closely linked to social status and income situation. For example, 75 per cent of Mexicans living in extreme poverty belong to an indigenous group. This social and economic disparity is also reflected in the health and education indicators [16] .
Ten years of the drug war have also had an impact on the national healthcare system. Members of the lower social classes were particularly affected by a persistent lack of medical care. The organisation Médecins Sans Frontières provided free medical aid, particularly in the northern states close to the US border. In the border regions where the drug conflict is escalating the most, the organisation provided staff, medical equipment and medicines and cared for victims of sexual violence after medical care collapsed due to the ongoing fighting. The relatives of the students from Iguala also received psychological support from the organisation’s doctors [17] .
He „was 46 years old when he assumed the presidency and 80 years old when it was wrestled from his hands.“ [18] The presidency of General Porfirio Díaz (1830-1915), who had already distinguished himself on the side of the conservatives during the Mexican Civil War, lasted from 1876 to 1880 and from 1884 to 1911.[ 19] The general established a constitutional dictatorship characterised by despotism – also referred to by Mexicans as the ‚Porfiriat‘ – which ushered in a Mexican version of the ‚industrial revolution‘ under the guiding principles of ordo y progreso (order and progress). The rapid expansion of railways and industry was accompanied by a scientific and technical orientation and a European focus, with the centralisation of state power and the overcoming of the fragmentation of the country after independence and the subsequent civil war being key elements. With the position that only a modernised and united Mexico had anything to offer against the expansionist ambitions of the USA, he was able to win over the upper classes to his regime, which de jure at least maintained the appearance of a separation of powers on the surface, but de facto brought together all strands of the legislative, judicial and executive powers in the hands of the general behind the façade. Díaz’s conservative presidential dictatorship, which clung to monarchical elements, was able to rely on the Catholic Church as well as the military, even though he neither reversed the secularisations that had also been carried out in Mexico at the beginning of the century nor the anti-clerical legislation that had characterised the reform phase before his presidency. He did, however, defuse important anti-clerical laws. Of extraordinary importance, however, was the fact that he was able to win over numerous caciques (indigenous leaders) and thus drive forward the centralisation of power.
Rapid modernisation and industrialisation came at a price. The general population did not benefit from the expropriation of monasteries and churches in terms of social land reform: at the turn of the 20th century, almost 11,000 large landowners shared half of Mexico’s territory. Some haciendas were larger than some European states, while 70,000 communities had to make do with around one per cent of the arable land. [20] Large parts of the industrial plants were soon owned by foreign investors, particularly US investors, and in the cities, especially Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, the industrial proletariat grew without any social security. The peones, agricultural labourers mostly of indigenous descent who had previously had their land taken from them, led a similarly degrading existence. They worked on the haciendas for the lowest wages under degrading conditions, were often forced to buy food from their landlords at greatly inflated prices and thus often fell into debt bondage, which was usually hereditary. A system of modern slavery emerged, which found its worst expression in the south – in Yucatan and Chiapas – in the course of the extraction of tropical precious woods and found impressive literary depiction in the „Mahogany Cycle“ by the writer Bruno Traven [21] .
Strikes, uprisings and social protests by the almost lawless industrial and predominantly indigenous agricultural labourers took place throughout the Porfiriat. Late Porfirian Mexico was ultimately characterised by a social ferment, without which the dynamics of the second great revolution of the 20th century alongside the Russian one cannot be understood.
The starting point was an economic crisis, which also affected the USA from 1907 onwards, but in Mexico grew into a national crisis that shook the basis of the Porfiriat’s rule and ultimately caused it to collapse. When Díaz – now 80 years old – sought to be confirmed in office in 1910, the general crisis initially intensified tensions between the various interest groups of the agrarian oligarchs and the industrial elite. In view of the weakening of central power as a result of this elite conflict, it quickly escalated into a revolution which, due to the aforementioned social ferment, was soon able to unite a huge mass of the landless and the industrial proletariat behind it.
Historians generally divide the subsequent revolutionary process into two phases. The first comprises the military conflict in the decade between 1910 and 1920, in which different groups with sometimes strongly divergent interests fought against the centralised power. However, the advocates of fundamental social and land reform around Emiliano Zapata and Francisco (Pancho) Villa were decisive for further developments, as was a movement that primarily sought to democratise society and the economy and was ultimately able to assert itself in the constitution of a federal presidential democracy created in 1917, which is essentially still valid today. [22]
A second phase up to 1940 was characterised by political and economic transformation. The agrarian revolutionary dynamic was slowed down and channelled: Comprehensive land reform failed to materialise and has not been implemented to this day; the indigenous majority of the population remains marginalised on a social, economic, political and cultural level.
The Mexican Revolution is judged differently in historical research. A perspective from which the revolution appears merely as a conflict between the factions of the oligarchic elites at the end of the Porfirian dictatorship overlooks the fact that the dynamics of the revolution always had its roots in the social and economic marginalisation of the peasant and proletarian sections of the population. Was it a bourgeois revolution to end the dictatorship and establish a presidential democracy? In any case, the blood toll was paid by those landless and largely disenfranchised groups whose hopes the revolution has left unfulfilled to this day. From the perspective of the social movements, one can follow the Mexican historian Adolfo Gilly, who speaks of a revolución interrumpida, an aborted revolution: for the groups that had to settle the disputes, the revolution was „like a cake without sugar“ [23] .
Reforms in Mexico encountered a number of difficulties for a long time. For 71 years, from its foundation in 1929 to 2000, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) provided all presidents, all governors until 1989 and the majority of congressmen until 1997. Since 2012, Peña Nieto, a representative of the PRI, has once again held the office of president.
While the constitution of 1917 already defined a relatively strong position for the president, the dominant position of one party for more than 70 years resulted in forms of super-constitutional interplay between the hegemonic party and presidential system of government, which partially overrode the separation of powers enshrined in the constitution. The executive in particular was able to establish an extremely strong position in this constellation for decades. The population groups relevant to the social revolution were organised in associations close to the government. The PRI, which certainly had authoritarian tendencies, liked to stylise itself in official discourse as an umbrella under which the various actors lived together as a ‚revolutionary family‘. The myth of the revolution did indeed have an integrative effect in multi-ethnic Mexican society for a long time, and as an identity-forming force this myth continues to the present day, [24] although more recent research into the history of the Mexican revolution has shown ways of taking an extremely ambivalent view [25] .
In fact, in the course of a democratisation process that began in the 1990s, the superconstitutional entanglements between the PRI and the presidential government were gradually pushed back. This also means that the executive is gradually being subjected to judicial and parliamentary control, although overall, not least against the backdrop of the drug war, the constitution and constitutional reality are still far apart and significant steps still need to be taken to disentangle the informal, over-constitutional power structures of the hegemonic PRI party.
It should be noted that the measures initiated by the government to date have not led to any significant improvement in the human rights situation. This is partly due to a lack of financial and human resources in the responsible institutions, but also to widespread corruption, the often far-reaching involvement of government agencies in human rights violations and a high degree of indolence and inactivity. There is also an obvious lack of political will at the highest level to sustainably improve the human rights situation. There is no other way to understand a decision by the Supreme Court in May 2015 [26] that the country is not bound by judgements of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. This decision is contrary to international law.
The drug war that began in 2006 under President Felipe Calderón and has been continued by President Enrique Peña Nieto since 2012 has failed. The cartels still exist in the eleventh year of the war, and those murdered and abducted are mainly from the lower social class, with the majority of them being of indigenous descent. After ten years of war against the drug mafia, the country finds itself in a vicious circle of corruption, money laundering, organised crime and impunity for even the most serious crimes and human rights violations. The spiral of violence is accelerating, social differences in Mexican society are widening and the rule of law has been undermined. The drug war, which began in 2006 under President Felipe Calderón and has been continued by President Enrique Peña Nieto since 2012, has failed. The result of the conflict, which has now lasted for over a decade, is a comprehensive undermining of the rule of law in the course of an accelerating spiral of violence, while fundamental human rights are losing their validity or are no longer enforceable.
[1] Doc. 44/15 31 diciembre 2015, accessed on 17 March 2017 at http://www.oas.org/es/cidh/informes/pdfs/Mexico2016-es.pdf; the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Spanish abbreviation: CIDH) was founded in 1959. It monitors the human rights situation in the member states and reports on it in country-specific reports.
[ 2] „[…] una verdadera epidemia de violencia a nivel nacional […]“, Instituto Belisario Domínguez (Senado de la República), Dirección General de Investigación Estratégica, Temas estratégicos 39, January 2017, at: http://www.bibliodigitalibd.senado.gob.mx/bitstream/handle/123456789/3344/Reporte39_SeguridadInterior_DistDigital.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y, accessed on 17 March 2017.
[ 3] CIDH report, ibid.
[4] Amnesty International (AI), Section of the Federal Republic of Germany, Amnesty Report 2016: Mexico; at: https://www.amnesty.de/jahresbericht/2016/mexiko, accessed on 17 March 2017.
[ 5] HIIK, Conflict Barometer 2016 , Heidelberg 2017, p. 12.
[ 6] According to the CIDH report, members of the federal police and armed forces are often involved in the crimes or at least tolerate them. CIDH report as note 1, the quote ibid.
[ 7] Amnesty International report of 14 January 2016: https://www.amnesty.de/2016/1/14/mexiko-tausende-menschen-verschwunden, accessed on 17 March 2017.
[ 8] Pool of the Nuevas Agencias de América Latina of 11.04.2016, German version: Bruch zwischen CIDH-Expert*innenkommission und mexikanischer Regierung, cited in: https://www.npla.de/poonal/bruch-zwischen-cidh-expertinnenkommission-und-mexikanischer-regierung/, accessed on 18.03.2017; see also: amerika21: Nachrichten und Analsyen aus Lateinamerika , 01.04.2016: https://amerika21.de/2016/03/149077/giei-ermittlungen-beenden: „On Wednesday, the parents, together with human rights organisations, requested the extension of the mandate of the Commission of Experts at the CIDH. It is their task, not that of the Mexican government, to review this“; queried on 18 March 2017. AI has documented numerous other similar cases. Cf. AI report of 14 January 2016, see note 9.
[ 9] Ibid.
[ 10] https://www.amnesty.de/2016/1/14/mexiko-tausende-menschen-verschwunden, accessed on 20 March 2017.
[ 11] AI report of 28 June 2016: Mexico: „Sexual violence routinely used as torture to secure ‚confessions‘ from women“, at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/06/mexico-sexual-violence-routinely-used-as-torture-to-secure-confessions-from-women/, accessed on 17.03.2017.
[12] AI, Section of the Federal Republic of Germany, Amnesty Report 2016: Mexico: „The government was unable to provide information on relevant charges or judgements at federal level.“
[13] https://www.amnesty.de/2013/3/5/mexiko-keine-verbesserung-der-menschenrechtslage.
[14] https://amerika21.de/2017/01/168848/un-menschenrechte-mexiko.
[15] https://amerika21.de/2017/01/168848/un-menschenrechte-mexiko, retrieved on 26/03/2017.
[16] The above data: https://data.oecd.org/mexico.htm; cf. also: https://amerika21.de/2015/07/124028/extreme-ungleichheit-mexiko; https://amerika21.de/2015/04/119263/kinderarmut-mexiko, accessed on 30/03/2017.
[ 17] https://www.aerzte-ohne-grenzen.de/unsere-arbeit/einsatzlaender/mexiko, accessed on 08/04/2017.
[ 18] Klaus-Jörg Ruhl, Laura Ibarra García, A Brief History of Mexico. From early times to the present . 2nd ed. Munich 2007, p. 257 (first edition Munich 2000).
[ 19] On Porfirio Díaz see Ramiro Reyna Hinojosa, El hombre, el militar, el presidente. 2 vols. Nueva Léon 2009, Paul H. Garner, Porfirio Díaz, Harlow 2001.
[ 20] The figures in Ruhl, García, Kleine Geschichte , for the context see ibid, especially pp. 161ff.
[ 21] Bruno Traven, The Caoba Cycle.
[ 22] A first overview in Ruhl, García, Kleine Geschichte , especially pp. 167ff., for further reading (selection): John Womack, Zapata and the Mexican Revolution . New York 1969; Hans-Werner Tobler, Die Mexikanische Revolution: Gesellschaftlicher Wandel und politischer Umbruch; 1876-1940 . Frankfurt/M. 1984; Ders, „Mexiko auf dem Weg ins 20. Jahrhundert. The Revolution and its Consequences“, in: Dietrich Briesenmeister, Klaus Zimmermann (eds.), Mexico Today. Politics, Economy, Culture . Frankfurt/M. 1996.
[ 23] Adolfo Gilly, La revolución interrumpida . Mexico D.F. 1994.
[ 24] Raina Zimmering (ed.), Der Revolutionsmythos in Mexiko . Würzburg 2005.
[ 25] Cf. for example the contributions in: Barbara Schröter (ed.), Das politische System Mexikos . Wiesbaden 2015.
[ 26] Cf. https://www.amnesty.de/jahresbericht/2016/mexiko#amnestyinternationalbericht.