the true intentions of the missing country

Visit the land of the missing

Gloria Leticia Díaz

Invited by the federal government, a working group of the UN will this month in Mexico to investigate the disappearances of the past ... and present. This goes to war dirty war against drug trafficking. Activists in defense of human rights believe that although the term has become popular boost will, even when drug cartels are assigned all cases, they are trying to enforced disappearances, and the ultimate responsibility lies with the State that has been ignored or allowed.

A widespread violence in the war against organized crime and family claim more than 700 disappeared for political reasons in the past decades is what you will find the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) of the UN, which will be in Mexico the second half of March.

At the invitation of President Felipe Calderon, held here WGEID its session No. 93 on Tuesday 15 to Friday 18; then meet with civic organizations, families of missing and officials of the federal and state governments.

The WGEID is made up of independent experts. Its chairman-rapporteur of the South African Jeremy Sarkin and other members are Argentina's Ariel Dulitzky, the Bosnian Jasminka Dzumhur, Lebanese Osman El-Hajjé and French Olivier de Frouville.

Group members will have meetings in the Federal District, Chihuahua, Coahuila and Guerrero, in this state will go to Atoyac, the city where there were about 350 forced disappearances during the seventies and eighties.

In February 2009, during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Human Rights Council and UN-March 2010, members of the Human Rights Committee, representatives of UN member states and Experts urged Mexico to settle accounts with about 700 relatives of missing persons from the dirty war of the seventies and eighties.

EPU In Mexico received more than 83 recommendations. He rejected eight, including reopening the Femospp, because "the Attorney General's Office, by agreement A/317/2006 forwarded to the General Coordination of Research (CGI) of the Office of Special Investigations of the Federal Crimes own PGR all Femospp pending inquiries.

"The CGI has the same powers of the Femospp on investigation and prosecution of crimes, coupled with others, so that the transfer was followed during investigations and left intact the rights of victims "was the response of the Calderon Human Rights Council on June 11, 2009 .

The new war

have accumulated hundreds of disappearances in the country in the fight against organized crime, so the visit is WGEID "relevant and timely," says Javier Hernández Valencia process, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

tour highlights the work of the group of experts from the UN "is not an imposition" and was "loved, desired and requested by the government," Calderon, also points out that by the UN "There is interest in Mexico, but on the other hand there is a degree of willingness of the Mexican government scrutiny."

He minimizes the interest of the UN in the current cases of missing-the-war against narco-clarifying that WGEID agendas and government representatives "are set with nine or 10 months advance. "

"The latest information on enforced disappearances in Mexico has more than nine or 10 months," he says.

"Let's say a visit is obviously relevant," replies Hernández Valencia. It would not make much sense for the working group were to Liechtenstein where there is, in 50 years, no reports of enforced disappearance. In that sense it is a relevant and timely visit.

Refine: "The visit is not something imposed, could one imagine more the idea of \u200b\u200ba solution to say 'come to settle the score in Mexico ', but no. Mexico has asked to come and that does not mean things are good, it means that Mexico, in order, is also willing to engage in a frank dialogue about what is going on this issue with this group of experts. "

The technical secretary of the Network of Civil Human Rights Organizations All Rights for All (Red TDT), Agnieszka Raczynska Tatomir, confirmed in an interview process that the themes of the meetings with the WGEID are "disappearances during the Dirty War. Debt is not resolved despite the initiative of creating the Femospp Fox, did not work for nothing. "

number in 1651, the weekly published an account of forced disappearance of the first 18 months of Calderon's war: 600 persons deprived of liberty, some of them by military force, only in Nuevo Leon, Chihuahua , Baja California, Sinaloa, Guerrero, Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Guanajuato and Tabasco.

In 2010, the testimonies of disappearance in Chihuahua, Estado de Mexico, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Veracruz, Coahuila and Tamaulipas confirmed the seriousness of the problem (Proceso 1747, 1751, 1772, 1777).

Tatomir says

in this magazine that the 70 organizations of the Network DTD, are those of the northern most frequently reported disappearances, "but not yet identified the reason: there is a disappearance in a political context but (...) organized crime. "

activist notes that the common factor is the lack of investigation by the authorities, forcing family members to organize to "share information, identify patterns and demand government protection for their missing and compliance responsibility. When organizations talk about the costs of the government's strategy for combat drug trafficking, we refer inter alia to enforced disappearances. "

Documented cases

Blanca Martínez, director of the Diocesan Centre for Human Rights Fray Juan de Larios, says a process that will give the information of 12 WGEID 118 cases the organization has documented between 2007 and January 2011.

"Just in those 12 cases," says Martinez, "we have elements to assume a direct action of State agents in the time of disappearance ", that is one of the requirements for monitoring WGEID cases.

Blanca Martínez says there is no week that the Center does not receive at least one complaint of forced disappearance, and notes that the 106 cases that do not meet the specifications of the panel "can not be understood only in this context of violence so severe that we are living from Calderon declared war on organized crime. "

Of the 118 cases documented by the Centre, five were committed by the Armed Forces, 16 municipal police officers, two by federal officers, 91 criminal groups and four unknown.

The activist noted that the common pattern of disappearances that occurred in Coahuila is collectively and that the victims are young, one of whom was a minor, low-income and without suspicion of having participated in any illegal .

"Despite this, the authorities planted the suspicion that the victims were involved in organized crime investigations and thus closed intimidate families to look no further, it is part of the media campaign to justify the collateral damage of this war, "he adds.

Felipe Ruiz, director of the Chihuahua Commission in Solidarity and Defense of Human Rights (COSYDDHAC), this weekly says that the first time the organization documented a forced disappearance was 12 years ago. "And there was an impasse, but in the last five years there was a strong boost."

His organization, he says, the WGEID present eight cases, six of which are fully documented the involvement of government agents, even one of them was reported to the Inter- -Human: the young Nitza Paola Espinosa Alvarado, Rocio Alvarado Reyes and Jose Angel Alvarado Herrera, arrested by the military on December 29, 2009 in the municipality of Buenaventura (Proceso 1747).

Ruiz says the problem of enforced disappearance is "very serious" in Chihuahua, but adds that organizations have to document complaints complications.

"comet-like processes are: come, give them support and monitoring and suddenly away, it reflects the great fear out there. We have also had difficulties with the authorities who deny us access to records or documents we postpone deliveries, "he says.

In Baja California the numbers are alarming. Miguel Ángel García Leyva, a lawyer for Esperanza Association Enforced Disappearances and Impunity Process says that in the past eight years has developed a list of 800 names of missing thousand in that state.

Of the total, points, in 100 cases is a responsibility of State agents and that this information will provide the WGEID.

García Leyva added that many other cases "have lost in mysterious attacks of our offices, have taken paper records, electronic memories and even complete computers. "

Counsel, one of the organizers of the creation of the Special Prosecutor for Forced Disappearances of Baja California, warns that a hint to size the disappearances "are the records of missing persons of the PGR: the final report was 6 mil. Must be taken into account, because when people go to report the disappearance of their loved one, the ministerial authorities what they do is report it as missing person. "

State Responsibility

Angeles López, director of the Human Rights Centre Victoria Diez, Guanajuato, believes the disappearances are the result of "a dispute over territory and routes where before there was a control. There has always been drug trafficking, but had not produced social violence is happening today. (...) The state authorities, federal and city have their own agreements, but in the end (...) the state remains responsible for ensuring security. "

Until the end of the year past the Victoria Centre Ten record of 28 Guanajuato was unlawfully deprived of liberty in other entities, as the case of Zacatecas, where "you have located the participation of municipal and federal police" in the disappearance of eight people in December 2010.

"These are not isolated acts," Angeles Lopez process. "The increasing number of disappearances, abductions, illegal deprivation of freedom can only be understood because there is a state policy that allows it to constitutional status to the roots, keep the military justice system, lack of enforcement of the sentence Rosendo Radilla, the discourse that we are at war and this magic wand of the State was organized crime, as if they did not have any liability with impunity. "

Taboada Raymundo Diaz, representative of the Collective Against Torture and Impunity (CCTI), argues that the drug war disappearances in Guerrero are still politically motivated.

And he cites the case of Victor Ayala Tapia, president of the Freedom Front Hermenegildo Galeana, who was taken from his home by six armed men on September 14, 2010, while witnesses said two patrol cars State police were stationed at 100 meters.

In an interview with the weekly, Taboada Díaz added that "after 15 days the state government, through the director of the Ministerial Investigative Police, Fernando Monreal, told the media that Victor had returned Ayala home and his family had asked the authorities not to investigate because they feared for their integrity, which is false. Still missing. "

CCTI activist that Tapia Ayala case has similarities with other cases followed by them, as the Professor Max Mojica, its wife and another relative were arrested in Teloloapan the November 28, 2008 by armed men, allegedly members of organized crime, who then handed them over to police in Acapulco, on 3 December of that year, for a trial for kidnapping ensure they did not commit.

"In the case of Victor knew that before his disappearance was irrigated the rumor that he would be arrested for kidnapping, he went to the house of the person who had been released and, to clarify things. We believe that it was intended to do the same with Professor Max: stop and then make a crime, because that is the mechanical Government to clear the social movements, "says Diaz Taboada.

As past cases, the executive secretary of the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared and Victims of Violations of Human Rights in Mexico (AFADEM), Julio Mata Montiel, highlights the absence of progress in the investigations of approximately 400 cases in which the organization is instrumental in the PGR.

The AFADEM led to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights the case of the disappearance of Rosendo Radilla Pacheco, in August 1974 by the military on a case by which Mexico was sentenced in December 2009, but, to date there is progress.

"There was no follow up on cases, not know where the records, no new measures, the clearest example is that before Calderon's government had to give a progress report on the sentence excavations were made in what was the military headquarters in Atoyac sites had already been made in 2008 and had not found anything. There is also the initiative to reform the military justice system once again left to the army to decide which cases will be investigated and what not, "he said.

Mata Montiel says in an interview that 15 years ago had asked AFADEM WGEID's visit and that it stopped sending information "because there was no dialogue with the victims, never hear back from them." Their expectation is that "minimally be unmasked to the Mexican State, which claims to sign all agreements and international human rights treaties, but here are not met."

who do not trust the WGEID is Senator Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, but will meet with its members as president of the Human Rights Commission of the Senate.

Ibarra de Piedra recalled that "for 18 years, with great effort and the painful burden of missing time Echeverria, went to Geneva and New York to meet with the UN people, were very friendly and attached to protocol, but never helped us, I never even asked whether they knew who my son (Jesus Built), which this year celebrates 36 missing. "

Senator Ibarra, who says that a claim will "calm, without getting angry," the envoys of the UN, says that unlike process of missing the past, "that I have identified by name, surname , place of disappearance and to who took them "in this context of the" war on drugs "there is no way to identify perpetrators.

Legislator by the Labour Party has also accompanied the 38 cases of oil missing in Nuevo León in 2008, and is part of the Mediation Committee in the disappearance of Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Alberto Cruz Sánchez, members of the Army Popular Revolucionario.

"It's very comfortable for Calderón. He washes his hands and took the name of enforced disappearance, which has a connotation legal, non-prescribed, change it, says boost will-a vulgar word, and is attributed to organized crime. Who the fuck is organized crime? Only he knows.

"Furthermore, it is said that Mr. President is responsible for a number of disappearances that have made legal and illegal police forces of this country and the army that took to the streets against the constitutional mandate. Calderon is responsible, because all wrapped in that creaming is organized crime and can not know who they are, "he concluded.

This note was taken of the following site for the network:

http://desaparecidosencoahuila.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/visita-al-pais-de-los-desaparecidos/

not a fucking dog looking for them.

Source: Veronica Espinosa
PROCESS

12 months ago, 40 migrants boarded two trucks that would take the U.S. to find work ... never got to the border. Research indicates that Los Zetas captured, but nobody is insurance or knows exactly where they are now. Not looking "or a fucking dog", says a local MP. Meanwhile, the families of these missing persons have not received any response from the authorities ... just promises of aid that never arrives.

QUERETARO, Qro., March 14 (Process) .- Investigations fruitless, indifference of the authorities and aid pledges that remain on the desktop is the only thing one year after the disappearance of a group of migrants Queretaro. 12 months ago 40 men from communities of Queretaro, Hidalgo and San Luis Potosi boarded two buses bound for the border crossing into the United States. Each migrant

paid between 800 thousand and 3 thousand dollars to one of the seven smugglers in the region, they also asked for another $ 400 per head with the argument that the fee of Los Zetas, and they control the passage to the border.

To raise the money required, migrants are indebted to local moneylenders, who now seek to charge to the families of the disappeared.

"It was a very painful way. We have gone many times to denounce the lack of interest, to ask for support, but we ignored, no response. Families spend two important sentences: the moral, the disappearance of their loved ones, and economic, because they are communities that are held primarily de las remesas”, dice a Proceso el diputado local panista Fernando Rocha Mier.

El legislador es representante del distrito que comprende los municipios de Landa de Matamoros, Arroyo Seco, Pinal de Amoles y San Joaquín, donde muchas localidades sufren los estragos de la marginación, “con familias que literalmente apenas tienen para comer”.

“Parece que sigue habiendo ciudadanos de primera y de segunda. Cuando Diego Fernández de Cevallos desapareció, lo buscaron por todos lados con perros, aviones y helicópteros. Para buscar a estos otros queretanos, ni un pinche perro. No se vale”, señala.

Sin pistas

The disappearance of migrants allegedly occurred between San Luis Potosi and Tamaulipas, as preliminary investigations have been opened in the offices for these two states and the General of the Republic. With this dispersion have complicated the research and the ability to locate the group.

addition there are few families who have insisted on the complaint or in the search. Most are afraid, has been discouraged by the official disdain and has been threatened by one of the smugglers, who are engaging people to pass the United States. None of the traffickers has been arrested.

The PGR does not progress in the investigations not even because it violated the General Population Act or because the main suspicion has fallen on Los Zetas, who, according to reports gathered by the Process, kidnapped migrants because the smugglers did not pay the fee.

On 27 February, the newspaper El Universal published statements by the Mayor of Landa de Matamoros, Gabino Rubio Landa on the alleged cell communication via one of the migrants to tell their families they were being attacked by an armed group who diverted his bus. At the time spent by German City, Tamaulipas.

Oblivion

The April 28, 2010, the Public Ministry of the ordinary courts in Jalpan de Serra, Queretaro, J/193/2010 opened a preliminary investigation into the disappearance of the following persons:

David Martinez, Cristian Martinez, Lorenzo Martínez, José Luis Mendoza Almaraz, Bishop José Almaraz Mendoza, Montes Fidencio Mata, Mata Ismael Montes, Andrés Hernández Gómez, Andrés Gómez Martínez, Manuel Guerrero Villeda, Jacinto González Rodríguez, Ismael García Resendiz, Alfonso Fonseca Amador, Eustaquio Hernandez Gomez, Fidel Barragan Salazar, Martín Huerta Ortega and Jesus Rodriguez Martínez.

also Edgar Gonzalez Pantoja, Evodio Flores Ortiz, Román Castillo Briseño, Abraham Saenz Diaz, Jonava Reséndiz Ávila, Rafael Rodríguez García, José Luis Mendoza Salazar, Ricardo Ramírez Zarazua, Ángel Sánchez Becerril, Jacinto González Rodríguez, Paulino Ramos passable, Red Enedino Uriah Landaverde Cesar Salazar, Juan Carlos González Jiménez, Enrique de la Torre and another person, a minor.

These 33 people are native of Queretaro. In the group of migrants traveling seven other states.

In early May, Governor José Calzada told Queretaro the press that he would contact the leaders of San Luis Potosi, Tamaulipas and Nuevo León to exchange information on the case, but acknowledged that there was no group tracks the destination of migrants. Announced that exchange of information and have not heard anything.

Three months later, on Aug. 27, prosecutors turned over the investigation Jalpan the delegation of the RMP in Querétaro for lack of jurisdiction, the court was required by this weekly to learn about the progress of the investigation. There was no response.

But a source close to the investigation told The process that there are seven smugglers identified as responsible for the transport of group of migrants and that does not seem to interest the authorities in investigating the slope with respect to organized crime, although the smugglers themselves claim to have been blackmailed and forced to hand shares to Los Zetas.

Mayorga Arturo Felipe and Villeda (the son of the latter is listed as missing, then traveling in a bus driver or machetero presumably), Abel Martínez Garay, Ruben Garay Camacho, Bernardo González, Arturo Benitez and Esteban García Perez would be the seven smugglers. According to the same source, still free and engaging in the same activity.

is easy to find these smugglers. All known as daily resort to them, for migration to the United States has existed for generations. Well off also characterized by their economic situation.

relatives without support

"The problem of migration has not been taken into account by the authorities in case until now which are bounded also by organized crime. But few efforts of the authorities, federal, state or city, to do something on migration, "said Rep. Rocha Mier to this weekly.

Except when there are threats. "As this matter publicly denounced the late-April 2010 - received calls that warned me, 'Turn down because we're getting a lot of pressure on the state." I did not know where it came. "

Family members of some of the missing had approached Rocha Mier for help, to investigate the PGR, the state government in the municipalities. "At first we were in contact with the Public Prosecutor, then we brought some groceries and blankets, which do not solve the underlying problem, but in some help."

regrets, however, "there is no progress in investigations or support social projects. He spent almost a year and only in January, the state government approached the families, they say they will put productive projects. To date nothing has not materialized, "complains Rocha, who in informal census up with the affected families had at least 53 children who depend or depended on the missing.

The state ombudsman Adolfo Ortega Osorio been indifferent. The PAN representative is expected to meet a request to meet with him, asking him to require the authorities responsible for research to inform the families.

"I met one last time with the attorney of Justice, Arsenio Duran-in early December. Was to deliver a report on the investigation, still no receipt. "

In early January, a group of relatives of the migrants came to the Secretary of State of Querétaro accompanied by another deputy, J. Junco Belem Márquez. The answer will be sent through the secretary of Political and Social Development, Hugo Cabrera Ruiz, who spoke of the commitment to involve applicants in productive projects.

regard, the Government Secretary, Loyola Roberto Vera, says that process has been maintained contact "regular way" with some affected families, primarily through the government of Landa de Matamoros, for "productive projects (...) for their abilities to generate an honest way to sustain their home."

- Why now? "Asked.

"We've been close to them from the start, first with support designed to locate their relatives. Over the months, and difficulty of the situation of families, it is noted that alternative.

- Have you ever acted against the smugglers?

"We have an ongoing investigation in this regard ... the concern we have is taking steps to prevent compatriots go to look for opportunities outside of Queretaro, generate enough jobs for Queretaro not have to leave to seek opportunities elsewhere. Loyola

admits that he is working on an analysis of the status of each family, "to see what the program that best suits their needs."

While the wheels of bureaucracy begin to move, other migrants queretanos looking for ways to protect, both in its journey from the land to the border crossing in return for the holidays.

late last December formed a caravan of migrants from various entities carrying back and was received by Deputy Nuevo Laredo Rocha Mier. More than 30 trucks made the journeys countrymen.

"I went to visit Queretaro migrants. In December I was in Houston and they told me they were afraid to return to Mexico because the authorities fleece and now organized crime, "says Rocha Mier to process.

asked for this caravan and had the support of the Federal Police, as well as local groups in some localities such as Rio Verde, San Luis Potosi.