Press calls HRW report on forced disappearances "false," while PRI admin. admits, "there's no list"
*Updated Feb. 25*
Guadalajara -
Human Rights Watch, which never misses a chance to bash Mexico for trying to defend itself from powerful drug cartels and criminal gangs, filed another one of its fairy tale reports this week.
A month ago it laid into the Mexican armed forces, without which there might not be a Mexico today. More accurately, as MGR recently pointed out, Mexico might be the Somalia of Latin America, and its capital, perhaps, a sister city to Mogadishu. Human Rights Watch's condemnation of Mexican drug war reveals how little it understands conflict.
Two days ago, amid much fanfare and with ample notice to every press agency anywhere that would accept a copy of its latest term paper, HRW reported on disappearances in Mexico's drug war, which was launched by former president Felipe Calderón Dec. 11, 2006.
That term paper, by the way, earns an "F," because the assignment was to report facts, not practice creative writing techniques (poorly executed ones at that).
Calderón has been and yet remains HRW's prime target. The organization can barely conceal its boiling antipathy for the man whose strategy produced real results, forcing perhaps thousands of narcotics traffickers and fellow travelers to abandon this country and move south into Central American jungles, where they're now regrouping and wreaking havoc for ill-prepared governments.
What no doubt infuriates HRW is that the United Nations at least twice confirmed that fact in 2012, before Calderón left office. Moreover, the leaders of Guatemala and Honduras have said exactly the same thing: Mexico's strategic gains in the drug war have been their losses. The empirical evidence of such is far too much for anyone to dispute. Guatemalan ambassador warns of growing Los Zeta drug cartel presence in his country. So this week HRW up shifted, clutch jumping in the process.
It reported on "forced disappearances" - kidnappings, if you will - during the 74 month old conflict. HRW claims to have documented 249 cases of such, 149 of which it laid squarely at the doorstep of public authority, i.e., military and police forces at all levels (although primarily federal).
But it didn't stop there. The organization quickly added, "We have no doubt there are thousands more cases just like those." HRW didn't have time to "document" the others, apparently.
Business owners, imagine calling a trusted employee into your office, and telling him/her: "I've got solid evidence that $249 is missing from the company cash register. I can prove you took $149 of that money. And I have no doubt that you've stolen thousands more from the company, so you're fired."
That, by rough analogy, is HRW's latest indictment of Mexican security forces (and by extension their former commander-in-chief, Felipe Calderón).
Even if the claim of 149 "forced disappearances" (people presumably later murdered by government troops for no reason) was valid, to many such a toll would seem puny in the overall scheme of things. Nobody knows how many died during the first six years of the drug war (a period contemporaneous with Calderón's tenure in office), but Mexico's most reliable news network - never a friend of the former PAN president - reported in November that it was just under 59,000 people. More recently the new PRI government estimated it was 70,000, but quickly added that "there's no official data" to prove so.
MGR has not examined the lengthy (193 page) HRW report, but Milenio did so, focusing on the 149 cases attributed to military misconduct. It's conclusion? "The document is insupportable, and lacks rigorous methodology."
Mexico's new Institutional Revolutionary Party government accepted the HRW bill of indictment with grave seriousness, no doubt delighted by its brutal character assassination of the former president. Indeed, PRI plunged the knife in even deeper. Yesterday a PRI undersecretary of government, one Lía Limón, said "We have a database, a list, in theory, of 27,000 forced disappearances" from 2006-12.
How does one maintain a database "in theory"? Is there such a thing as a theoretical database, as opposed to a real one? What kind of software does one use to compile and maintain a theoretical database? Oracle, perhaps? Microsoft Access? Or maybe PRI's own proprietary version, written by EPN's loyal minions in Los Pinos.
In any case today the new PRI secretary of government himself, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, was forced to admit, "There's no official list of the disappeared. We have very little data, very little proof."
One politician did establish a federal agency back in October 2011, it should be noted, to compile information on those who have vanished during the drug war. His name is Felipe Calderón Hinojosa.
Feb. 25 - Today the sole Mexican agency which is actually charged with the duty of compiling and maintaining an official government database on drug war disappearances - Províctima (Procuraduría Social de Atención a Víctimas del Delito) - reported that they have files on only 1,708 people, based on reports from family members. Unlike other sources, Províctima is undoubtedly the least politicized. MGR regards the Províctima tally far more authoritative than the questionable databases allegedly relied upon by HRW and some press sources, especially foreign ones.
Feb. 27 - Mexico's drug war disappearances: the "official government list" that proves nothing
Feb. 23 - Mexican officials dispute U.S. press reports on drug war disappearances
Feb. 19 - NY Times figures out, in Mexican drug war, Enrique Peña Nieto = Felipe Calderón Hinojosa
© MGRR 2013. All rights reserved. This article may be cited or briefly quoted with proper attribution or a hyperlink, but not reproduced without permission.
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