Page 63 - Empowerment and Protection - Stories of Human Security

government to demonstrate that the frontline ight against crime was working. Any fatal victim of a violent episode was presented and 'counted' as a fallen criminal. Even students and children killed by crossire or by mistake by army or navy oficials were accused of being criminals. When there was public uproar, the government justiied its actions by saying that the ight against crime had some necessary 'collateral damage'.
Responsibility for the current situation must in part be borne by the international community, who supported Calderón and his frontline strategy at the beginning of his term. For example, there was a very public and direct support from the U.S. government with the Mérida Initiative, through which the Mexican government obtained inancial and military resources.a
THe HuMan RiGHTS acTiviST antonio cerezo
antonio cerezo founded comité cerezo in august 2001, an nGo that protects human rights activists, after he and his brothers alejandro
and Héctor were illegally detained, tortured, and conined in maximum-security federal prisons.
The lack of human rights and insecurity
Politically motivated illegal detentions, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances persist.
Also, there have been some legislative changes
that criminalise social protests and the authorities are starting to abuse the term 'terrorism'. Now, everyone that protests is a potential terrorist. It
is quite obvious that these reforms are further limiting our rights.
a The Merida Initiative was set up as a partnership between the United States and Mexico governments to ight organised crime and associated violence: www.state.gov/j/inl/merida/
”All this was bound
to happen because army and navy personnel are not trained to carry out public security duties, let alone human security strategies.”
In the alleged interest of guaranteeing security,
we have witnessed a limitation of our rights. We are witnessing the creation of states of emergency outside the rule of law. This discourse led to a
war dynamic in the country where the objective
of war was not to investigate and prosecute 'the enemy', but to eliminate it. Calderón justiied all the violence and deaths – over 100,000 – by saying that he was ighting a war against crime and that every victim was a criminal.
Apart from the abuses committed by government oficials, there is also a debate on whether private actors can be held responsible for violating human rights. In Comité Cerezo we say that only the state can be held responsible for human rights abuses, while private actors commit crimes, they violate the law. One of our main concerns is that the state is not only committing abuses, but it is not even enforcing the law.
Concerning drug traficking, it is true that the state has to do something to tackle this crime; but its strategy must conform to human rights norms and avoid torture and other illegal procedures. Sadly, the government sees human rights as an obstacle to guaranteeing security. This explains the increase in human rights abuses.
The objective of the state should be to guarantee security and the rule of law; but it could be argued that the state has only focused on going after the criminals (drug trafickers, kidnappers, etc.), while ignoring the rampant corruption and impunity of its own agents and institutions.
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