RIGHTS-MEXICO: Amnesty Int’l Reports Rise in ‘Disappearances’

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, May 7 1998 (IPS) - Amnesty International’s latest report, released Thursday, introduced a new source of friction into the tense relations between human rights groups and the Mexican government by reporting a rise in “disappearances.”

The report, released in London, says abductions and disappearances are part of counter-insurgent and drug enforcement operations staged by the army and police in Mexico.

The issue, which Mexican governments have played down over the past three decades, came up when around 100 Italian observers visiting the southern state of Chiapas were kept out of areas where the army had reportedly detained indigneous people, who were never heard of again.

In its annual report, Amnesty included a special section titled “Mexico: Disappearances, a Black Hole in the Protection of Human Rights”, which points to a significant increase in cases of disappearances in the past four years.

In October 1997, members of Amnesty exchanged harsh words with President Ernesto Zedillo over a supposed meeting that according to the international rights watchdog never took place. The president denied that he had scheduled a meeting with the group, and claimed that Amnesty was simply seeking to cause a scandal with its protests.

Human rights organisations and groups representing family members of disappeared persons in Mexico said they hoped the new report would help clarify both recent and old cases of disappearances, and push the government to reflect on the low- intensity war being waged against the Zapatista guerrillas in Chiapas.

Since a December massacre of 45 indigenous people in the poverty-stricken state of Chiapas, Mexico has become the object of close international scrutiny, which has included visits by human rights observers who have met with indigenous people in Chiapas as well as representatives of local non-governmental organisations.

Authorities claim they are open to analysis, but warn that they will not allow “political meddling” by foreigners or “revolutionary tourism.”

The government has expelled, on charges of meddling in internal affairs, around 20 foreign nationals from Chiapas since January, including a priest who worked in the area for 30 years.

As on previous occasions when Amnesty, Human Rights Watch or the International Human Rights Federation have expressed concern over Mexico’s human rights record, government spokespersons described the new report as “exaggerated,” although they promised it would be taken into consideration.

Amnesty denounced that impunity was the norm in Mexico, not only in cases of disappearances, but of torture as well. The impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators – especially the military – is a horrifying complement to the rise in the atrocious practice of disappearances, says the report.

Arbitrary detentions, torture and disappearances, the victims of which are mainly members of peasant organisations, indigenous people, students and teachers, have increased since 1994, when the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) emerged in Chiapas, says Amnesty.

In order to curb such practices, Amnesty recommends that the Mexican government guarantee that impunity will be uprooted and that it pass laws to crack down on the phenomenon.

The Latin American Federation of Disappeared, a group created in Costa Rica in 1981, denounced late last year that Mexican security forces had disappeared some 400 people from 1995 to 1997, although several cases had already been clarified.

Agniezka Raczynska, Amnesty’s representative in Mexico, said earlier this year that 90 men and women were in prison or had been disappeared for political motives.

The Mexican Commission for the Defence and Promotion of Human Rights says more than 40 reports of disappearances were documented in 1997 alone, nearly all of them involving peasant leaders, teachers and students detained in counter-insurgent operations.

The known rebel groups active in Mexico are the EZLN, whose peace talks with the government have been suspended since 1996, and the Popular Revolutionary Army, which has not carried out any military operations since 1997.

Independent studies report at least 10 more groups, which reportedly have ties with political and armed movements active in the late 1960s.

The Eureka Committee, founded in 1977 by family members of people who disappeared in the 1960s and 1970s, says the list of disappeared people in Mexico totals more than 500 people today.