The Government’s Approach to Human Rights Violations
During the last twenty years, successive Mexican presidents have revamped and reorganized everything from the electoral system to the economy to the tax code, amending or jettisoning outdated laws and facilitating the country’s increasing insertion into the global economy. Human rights and the administration of justice have also been the explicit subject of many reforms. Yet human rights violations remain widespread and serious in Mexico. In part, this seeming paradox can be explained by the government’s consistent failure to ensure that laws designed to protect human rights are enforced and that human rights violators are prosecuted. The problem also stems from a justice system that, in practice, does not adequately reject and penalize the use of evidence obtained through human rights violations. And in part, Mexico’s continuing human rights problems can be attributed to the government’s preference for rhetoric designed to mollify domestic and international critics over action that would resolve specific human rights problems.
To bolster their case that Mexico assiduously protects human rights, authorities adduce a series of legal reforms and newly established institutions designed to protect human rights. The logical conclusion, as the Foreign Ministry argued in May 1997, is that, “Mexico has advanced in its fight against torture. Errors of the past have been corrected, and the path has been adjusted when it became evident that the strategies that were followed did not lead to the sought-after result.”1 In 1998 a new foreign minister joined the Mexican cabinet and immediately distinguished herself from her predecessor by demonstrating greater openness to dialogue with certain human rights entities. Nonetheless, the Foreign Ministry continued to insist that great strides had been made in protecting human rights. “During recent years, Mexico has made a great effort to strengthen the protection and enforceability of human rights,” the ministry affirmed after the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a report in September 1998 on human rights problems in Mexico. “This has been done through multiple reforms of domestic legislation and the creation or restructuring of the national institutions responsible for [human rights]. At the same time, intense efforts to combat and eradicate impunity have been undertaken.”2
One way that authorities make this argument is by citing misleading statistics suggesting that serious abuses, like torture, are properly investigated and that theirauthors are successfully prosecuted.3 In May 1997 the Foreign Ministry cited CNDH figures to conclude, “It is very clear that there is no impunity in Mexico for acts of torture, because of the 105 National Human Rights Commission recommendations that proved that torture had taken place, seventy-two have been totally fulfilled and thirty-two are partially completed.”4
The truth is that CNDH recommendations—findings in a specific case and the measures it deems necessary to resolve the problems encountered—are often counted as fulfilled without anyone actually being held accountable for abuses, since the recommendations frequently only call on prosecutors to open an investigation, not bring violators to justice. In fact, the CNDH cases from Tamaulipas and Oaxaca analyzed in this report demonstrate this very point. At the same time, CNDH statistics on torture are partial at best, since the entity does not tabulate torture cases documented by state human rights commissions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
Indeed, the government’s November 1996 report to the U.N. Committee against Torture briefly notes that of 1,022 recommendations issued by the CNDH from its inception in 1990 to the end of 1996, 105 proved that torture had taken place.5 Only eight people were ever convicted of torture, however, and three of them were later acquitted.6 In 1997, the Office of the Federal Attorney General informed the U.N. special rapporteur on torture that results from the 1990s were actually slightly worse, consisting of only four confirmed convictions.7 In June1998, the attorney general’s office told Human Rights Watch that six people were serving sentences for torture.8
At the same time, authorities argue that great strides have been made in protecting human rights by citing the reform or creation of human rights-related laws and institutions, as did the Foreign Ministry in response to the 1998 report issued by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. This misleading argument on the part of government officials falsely equates the existence of laws and institutions with the effective application of those laws and the adequate functioning of those institutions. Although their existence is clearly positive, it is not enough to bring Mexico into line with its international human rights obligations. As described in this report’s chapter on these obligations, Mexico must ensure that its human rights-related laws and institutions are effective.
The Government’s Response to Human Rights Criticism
Mexican human rights groups, international organizations, other governments, and intergovernmental organizations have all strongly criticized Mexico’s human rights practices. Depending on the source, timing, and topic of the criticism, the official response has varied—from hostile rejection to measured promise to study the problems identified.
When Rosario Green took the helm at the Foreign Ministry in January 1998, the ministry moved away from the knee-jerk rejection of all foreign comment on Mexican human rights problems that had characterized the tenure of her predecessor. While the swift and unequivocal dismissal of foreign comment still took place in some cases, as when U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson expressed concern about Chiapas in June 1998, a more measured response was given in other instances, including in reaction to the Inter-American Commission’s 1998 Mexico study, which was greeted with a commitment to carefully analyze the report and its recommendations. The rejection of Robinson came amid intense political debate in Mexico over the government’s handling of incidents in Chiapas and so may have been determined by its potential impact on the domestic political equation.9
The issue of human rights in Chiapas remained one of the most sensitive to government officials. Perhaps in response to the growing influence of human rights groups, Mexican officials strongly criticized local human rights organizations andtried to divide Mexican groups from their international counterparts. In July, for instance, President Zedillo lashed out at Mexican human rights groups in Chiapas, criticizing those who urged international human rights defenders to visit the state. He suggested that encouraging such visits was at odds with promoting respect for the constitution and the rule of law.10
The government also announced new restrictions on foreign human rights monitors conducting research in Mexico. In May 1998 the Ministry of Government developed new requirements for human rights visas, including a thirty-day waiting period, a ten-day maximum stay, and a maximum of ten people for any human rights delegation; the new rules provide for facilitated extension of visas in emergencies and for extending the trip beyond ten days in exceptional circumstances.
People soliciting visas must provide a “work plan,” which, in practice, has led government officials to request details of all people to be interviewed and all communities to be visited. To receive a visa, the applicant must also submit a copy of the organization’s articles of incorporation and must demonstrate that the group has either consultative status with the United Nations or has been in existence for at least five years. The decision on who will and will not receive a visa is now made by a centralized office in the Ministry of Government, not in each consulate, as before. The visa requirements are currently issued by the ministry, and they are not established by any law.
Although the Ministry of Government announced that the new rules would eliminate the arbitrary decision-making on visas that had been criticized by human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, the new process is no less arbitrary. Members of human rights organizations who have applied for visas since the new requirements came into effect have reported confusing and contradictory responses from Mexican consular officials. Several delegations have reported having visa requests denied. During 1998, the Mexican government expelled numerous foreign observers for Chiapas without providing them even minimal due process.
To its credit, during 1998 Mexico recognized the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It also announced in August 1998 that it would invite the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions to visit Mexico. During 1996 and 1997, the government permitted human rights investigative teams from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Committee against Torture to visit Mexico.
Even though the government has touted such visits as proof of its openness to human rights scrutiny, it has not acted on their recommendations. In fact, the Mexican government has expressly rejected findings of the Inter-American Commission on several Mexican cases, most notably that of Brig. Gen. Francisco Gallardo, who has languished in military prison since 1993 in retaliation for his call for greater respect for human rights within the Mexican army. Mexican military authorities charged the general with corruption and destruction of army property, court-martialed him, and sentenced him on March 11, 1998, to fourteen years and eight months in prison after the Inter-American Commission recommended his immediate release in 1996.11 Similarly, the government failed to implement the commission’s recommendations on the Ejido Morelia case, in which three men were detained and executed by soldiers in Chiapas state in 1994, the Manríquez case, analyzed in this report, and the Aguas Blancas case, in which police massacred seventeen people in Guerrero state in 1995.
The National Human Rights Commission
The CNDH has often been the subject of criticism, but it has unquestionably played an important role in promoting human rights in Mexico. The institution is most often criticized for its organic links to the executive branch of government; because its mandate restricts it from working on labor- or election-related human rights issues; and because its findings, published in the form of recommendations containing case details, are not obligatory. Indeed, the president of the CNDH is named by Mexico’s president, and the institution’s budget is entirely provided by the executive branch.12 At this writing, it appears likely that the CNDH will be granted greater autonomy from the executive branch with respect to both its funding and the appointment of its president.
The CNDH’s recommendations are not binding on those who receive them, and it has not developed any effective way to shame authorities into seeing that justice is done in cases it documents. There is no penalty, except political, if a government official fails to follow recommendations made by the commission. Relatively few CNDH cases, however, receive the political attention that would lead to the stigmatization of these officials. The CNDH does not publicize details on who, if anyone, went to jail because of a human rights violation documented bythe institution. In fact, the commission does not even track such information, so there is no true measure of how the CNDH ultimately influences the justice system when it comes to human rights violations. Statistics produced by the CNDH—on the number of judicial investigations begun, the number of officials indicted, and the number of recommendations fulfilled by authorities—provide a glimpse of part of the judicial process but do not help analyze impunity in Mexico.
The commission was founded at a time when Mexico’s human rights record was coming under greater international scrutiny than ever before, as the country prepared to begin negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and privatization of state-owned enterprises attracted international investment on an unprecedented scale. Indeed, the CNDH may very well have been conceived to feign an interest in human rights protection on the part of the government. However, the work of the commission on specific cases and issues shows that it has become much more than an adornment. Although it is not as consistent as it could be, in 1998 alone, the CNDH has released hard-hitting reports on torture and “disappearances” committed by the army and strongly criticized government actions against alleged supporters of the leftist Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN). In less visible cases, too, CNDH recommendations, although not binding, have led to positive developments.
The commission has the authority to compel officials to provide all relevant documents in the cases it examines, so its recommendations often contain important details—from police, the military, and prosecutors—that are not available elsewhere. The CNDH sends its own medical staff to examine victims or carry out exhumations, providing important first-hand human rights documentation. The commission also produces invaluable resource material, such as the 1998 Manual For Human Rights Documentation, published in book and compact disc format, which lists all relevant Mexican and international human rights standards, presented by type of violation.
The National Human Rights Program
On December 21, 1998, the federal government announced the creation of the National Program for the Promotion and Strengthening of Human Rights, an initiative developed jointly by the Ministry of Government, the Foreign Ministry, the Office of the Federal Attorney General, and other government agencies. The initiative was touted as an effort to achieve eight overall goals, including the consolidation of a culture of respect for human rights and of the institutional entities responsible for protecting them, the design of mechanisms to identifypositive and negative aspects of Mexican human rights policy, and the dissemination of information about human rights.13
The program is positive insofar as it will provide much-needed attention to human rights issues in Mexico. Indeed, the program may aid in the promotion of human rights to the extent that it identifies weaknesses in the government’s human rights policies, collects detailed information on cases of human rights violations, reviews Mexican reservations to human rights treaties, and provides human rights education for the public and government employees. In order for the program to be successful, however, authorities will have to develop and implement human rights policies that they have so far failed to produce.
For the most part, the solutions proposed by the program are too vague to permit an analysis of whether or not significant change in Mexican human rights policy will be forthcoming. The program does not appear to establish a well-defined agenda on human rights. It does not provide a diagnosis of the human rights violations that will be the subject of the program—how serious and widespread they are, why they take place, and why prior attempts to resolve them have failed. For the program to succeed, it must have a clearly defined sense of the problem before attempting to resolve it; given that federal authorities have tended to minimize the seriousness of human rights violations in Mexico, it is not clear that such a sense exists or, if it does, that it accurately reflects the true nature of human rights violations in the country. In this regard, detailed consultations with Mexican governmental and nongovernmental human rights organizations would have been valuable but did not take place.
In announcing the initiative, Government Minister Francisco Labastida noted that the government had been working on the program for some four months prior to its launch.14 Rather than signal the beginning of a process to diagnose Mexico’s human rights problems and establish a strategy to address them, however, the program announces human rights initiatives that will be undertaken, such as anational campaign against violence, torture, and impunity. Several key human rights issues are not mentioned, including the military justice system and labor rights. The Ministry of Labor was not even among the ministries involved in developing the program, and it took on no commitments under the initiative. The absence of the Ministry of Labor is a serious oversight, given its strong positions against labor rights taken in the context of NAFTA.15
The program notes that its initiatives will be undertaken in coordination with the National Human Rights Commission, provides for periodic review of its success, and solicits input from human rights organizations. It is not clear when or how often such review will take place or the role that nongovernmental human rights groups will play.
1 Foreign Ministry, press release 142, May 9, 1997. Translation by Human Rights Watch.
2 Foreign Ministry, press release, September 28, 1998. Translation by Human Rights Watch.
3 Human Rights Watch recognizes that punishment for human rights violations can include sanctions in addition to prosecution, such as the levying of fines, suspension, or termination of employment. Given the seriousness of the crime of torture, however, the violation should be punished by prosecution in addition to any other administrative penalties applied.
4 Foreign Ministry, press release 142, May 9, 1997. Translation by Human Rights Watch.
5 United Nations, “Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 19 of the Convention” (New York: United Nations Publications, November 27, 1996), CAT/C/34/Add.2, p. 16. The number of officials guilty of torture was likely to be much higher because in Mexico, torture is often carried out by more than one official at a time.
7 United Nations, “Question of the Human Rights of All People Submitted to Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, in Particular: Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,” (New York: United Nations Publications, January 14, 1998), E/CN.4/1998/38/Add.2, para. 56.
8 Human Rights Watch interview, Eduardo López Figueroa, director, Internal Affairs Bureau of the Office of the Federal Attorney General, Mexico City, June 12, 1998.
9 The Foreign Ministry later invited Mary Robinson to visit Mexico. At this writing, neither the timing nor the agenda for the trip has been announced.
10 Presidency of Mexico, “Versión Estenográfica de las palabras del presidente Ernesto Zedillo, durante la evaluación del Programa Estatal de Alfabetización, que encabezó en la Escuela Secundaria Técnica No. 42, de este municipio,” Simojovel, Chiapas, July 1, 1998.
11 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, “Report No. 43/96, Case 11.430,” in Organization of American States, Annual Report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 1996 (Washington, DC: Organization of American States, 1997), p. 513.
12 Human Rights Watch interview, Mireille Roccatti, president of the CNDH, Mexico City, June 5, 1998.
13 “Programa Nacional de Promoción y Fortalecimiento de los Derechos Humanos,” document sent to Human Rights Watch by Mexico’s Foreign Ministry on December 23, 1998, p. 4. The ministries and agencies listed in the program as having taken on human rights commitments are the Ministry of Government, the Mexican Social Security Institute, the Institute of Social Security of Government Employees, the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of the Navy, the Ministry of Public Education, the Ministry of Health, and the Office of the Federal Attorney General.
14 Foreign Ministry, “Transcripción de las palabras del Licenciado Francisco Labastida Ochoa, Secretario de Gobernación, durante la presentación del Programa Nacional de Promoción y Fortalecimiento de los Derechos Humanos, celebrada en el Salón de Consejos de la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores,” December 21, 1998.
15 See, for example, Human Rights Watch, “Your Job or Your Rights: Continued Sex Discrimination in Mexico’s Maquiladora Sector,” A Human Rights Watch Report, Vol. 10, No. 1(B), December 1998, pp. 36-41. In response to a case filed under the NAFTA labor side agreement, for instance, the Mexican Labor Ministry has argued that forced pregnancy testing of female job applicants in export-processing zones (maquiladoras) does not constitute sex discrimination.