Skip to main content

President Vicente Fox should instruct state officials to cooperate with investigations into past human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a letter sent to Fox today. Substantive progress is urgently needed if Mexico is to carry out the human rights agenda articulated in Fox's recent state of the union address.

"President Fox continues to say the right things when it comes to human rights," said José Miguel Vivanco, Executive Director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch. "But his words need to be matched by concrete actions."

In his September 1 address to Mexico's Congress, President Fox reiterated his commitment to the principal initiatives of his human rights agenda: the Special Prosecutor's Office, which was set up to investigate human rights violations against government opponents, and a collaboration with the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, which is expected to assess Mexico's human rights problems and lay the groundwork for a national human rights program.

"Today both of these initiatives are facing difficulties," Human Rights Watch's letter said.

A recent Human Rights Watch report, Justice in Jeopardy, showed how the Special Prosecutor's Office has been seriously undermined by a lack of resources, limited access to declassified documents and a lack of cooperation by the military. In addition, the Special Prosecutor's Office faces legal hurdles that could drastically limit its ability to prosecute cases.

The collaborative effort with the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner, meanwhile, has been undermined by the National Human Rights Commission, which has refused to participate in the process. The Commission's resistance has met with almost complete silence from the Fox administration.

Concrete steps will need to be taken once the assessment is complete to ensure that its findings are widely disseminated and discussed within Mexico, and that its recommendations are incorporated into a comprehensive and effective national human rights program.

"The success or failure of the Special Prosecutor's Office and the collaborative effort with the United Nations will largely determine your government's human rights record," the letter to President Fox asserted. To ensure success of the president's human rights agenda, Fox should make it "emphatically clear to the institutions of the state, and the public at large, that these two initiatives are central to your human rights agenda, and that this agenda is a top priority of your presidency."

Human Rights Watch urged Fox to issue a presidential directive instructing all state functionaries to respond promptly and thoroughly to requests for information from the Special Prosecutor's Office. Such a directive is essential to ensuring that the military does a better job of providing information to the special prosecutor.

Other steps needed to shore up the work of the Special Prosecutor's Office include:

  • improving access to declassified documents by indexing the archives and ensuring that they are not managed by officials with potential links to the people under investigation;
  • convening a commission of distinguished jurists to examine the legal issues that may impede prosecution and develop a consensus of how best to overcome them; and
  • providing the office with additional personnel, as well as with funding to cover essential equipment and training.

"The Fox administration has laid the groundwork for unprecedented progress on human rights in Mexico," said Vivanco. "It would be a terrible disappointment if it now squanders this opportunity by failing to follow through on its own initiatives."

Your tax deductible gift can help stop human rights violations and save lives around the world.

Region / Country