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Joined: Aug 05, 2008 Posts: 12761 Location: PARADISE (San Diego)
Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:03 pm Post subject: Vigilantes on rise in Mexico
Vigilantes on rise in Mexico
By George W. Grayson
October 8, 2009
Criticism is surging against the heavy reliance on the armed forces to combat the Tijuana Cartel and other venal Mexican drug organizations. The assignment of the military to undertake law-enforcement duties has sparked charges of human rights violations even as citizen self-defense groups are springing to life. Former Foreign Secretary Jorge Castañeda, a board member of Human Rights Watch, has urged the U.S. State Department to withhold 15 percent of Mérida Initiative funding in light of mistreatment. In a letter to The Washington Post in August, he argued that:
“Human rights abuses are a major obstacle to Mexico's efforts to strengthen public security and contain drug-related violence. By abusing civilians, Mexican soldiers have contributed to the climate of lawlessness and violence in which drug cartels have thrived. These abuses also deter the public cooperation essential to curbing trafficking.”
While no one can justify the trampling of citizens' rights, what the erstwhile cabinet member and his like-minded confreres forget is that in the absence of a reliable, clean, professional civilian police there is something much worse than mobilizing soldiers, sailors and marines against wrongdoers — namely, the rise of vigilantism.
Of course, egregious abuses have occurred. On June 1, 2007, soldiers at a checkpoint in the Sierra Mountains of Sinaloa fired more than a dozen rounds into an automobile, killing three children and two unarmed women. In the aftermath of the bloodbath, the Defense Ministry, which has established a human rights' office, arrested three officers and 16 soldiers. Still, on March 26, 2008, soldiers killed five more civilians whose car failed to stop at a guard post in Badiraguato, Sinaloa.
Castañeda and his confreres seek to have allegations of human rights abuses heard by civilian courts. They argued that of the 500 suspected human rights violations presented to the Army between January 1, 2006, and December 31, 2008, only 174 investigations were initiated, just eleven suspects were apprehended and no sentences were handed down. Military tribunals hear most criminal cases against soldiers and they often treat them as disciplinary matters rather than crimes.
No one would be happier than President Felipe Calderón if he could transfer pursuit of criminal syndicates from the army and navy to civilian police. Yet despite the mid-year reorganization of the federal police, Mexico lacks a credible, effective law-enforcement capability.
In the absence of trustworthy cops, citizens are taking the law into their own hands. The self-styled Juárez Citizen Command (CCJ) has sprung to life in the violence-plagued city across from El Paso. In an e-mail to the media, this shadowy band claimed to be funded by local businessmen outraged by kidnappings, murder, and extortion in the sprawling metropolis of 1.4 million people. The CCJ may have been responsible for the killing six men in their 20s and 30s in October 2008; a sign left behind read: “Message for all the rats. This will continue.”
Reuters news service reported that another group, “Businessmen United, The Death Squad,” aired a YouTube video threatening to hunt down mafiosi in Ciudad JuÁrez. At least two other vigilante-style bands have dispatched statements to the media: one in the northern state of Sonora, the other in the Pacific state of Guerrero.
The execution of Benjamin Le Baron, an anti-cartel activist in Galeana, Chihuahua, prompted his law-abiding Mormon community to move toward taking up arms and forming its own self-defense force.
Cabbies in Mexico City's sprawling Magdalena Contreras borough have suffered multiple assaults and robberies at the hands of thugs believed to be protected by the police. When local authorities failed to nab the culprits, the taxistas acted. They seized the presumed leader of the assailants, “El Perro,” and bludgeoned him to death.
On August 14, two leaders of the informal “Taxi Drivers' Pact,” were arrested with El Perro's cadaver in the back seat of their Ford Aerostar.
The outcome of their case is pending.
Thus far only a dozen or so vigilante organizations have emerged. However, Defense Secretary Guillermo GalvÁn must make good on his pledge to accentuate the importance of human rights to the armed forces.
Meanwhile, critics of the military must remember that removing troops from the streets — in the absence of competent police — will lead more crime victims to take the law into their own hands. And that is a big step toward anarchy — with potentially hair-raising consequences for San Diego, Yuma, Nogales and other U.S. cities near the border.
Grayson is the Class of 1938 Professor of Government at the College of William & Mary and a senior associate at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. His next book, “Mexico: Narco-Violence and a Failed State?” will be published this month.
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