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 Editorials | Issues | April 2007 
Mexico’s Past Remains Unsolved
 David Ovalle - McClatchy Newspapers
| | Former president Vicentee Fox had promised to create a "truth commission" similar to those created in South Africa, El Salvador and Peru after those countries emerged from years of civil war and political repression. But no truth commission ever was convened. |
Human rights advocates say that hopes of a complete investigation into Mexico’s “dirty war” have vanished.
That’s because responsibility for investigating extrajudicial kidnappings and murders dating to the 1960s has been shifted to the Mexican attorney general’s office.
Files detailing the deaths and disappearances of hundreds at the hands of the military and police between the 1960s and the 1980s were moved last month to the attorney general’s custody after the official closing of a special prosecutor’s office, which was set up by President Vicente Fox in 2002.
As authorities make battling escalating drug cartel violence a priority, human rights activists worry that Fox’s successor, President Felipe Calderon, has all but abandoned efforts to prosecute soldiers and officials involved in past crimes.
“We still don’t have a full narrative of what happened in Mexico’s recent past,” said Luisa Perez, an attorney with the Mexico City-based human rights group Centre ProdH. “We doubt that in the sea that is the (attorney general’s office), anything will get done.”
A spokesman for the attorney general’s office, Jose Luis Monjarrez, said that open cases will be doled out to various prosecutors for continued investigation.
Critics doubt that the attorney general’s office will make pursuing open cases a priority.
“As far as we know, no progress has been made,” said Tamara Taraciuk, a researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Mexico needs to find a solution and find a way to prosecute these perpetrators. It’s one of the examples of impunity in Mexico.”
To reach David Ovalle, send email to dovalle@miamiherald.com. |
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