«Mexico woke up" by Katka Kincelová. Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.
“A
government on its knees”: this is how Gil Ramos describes
Mexico’s current administration. With an average of nearly 100
homicides per day, 7
journalists killed in 8 months, an epidemic of
disappearances of social activists, students and civilians,
and hundreds of
human right violations, it is difficult to discredit that statement.
In fact, Mexico would perfectly fit with Bunker and Sullivan’s definition of a
“failed state”. Contrary to the “Mexican moment” envisaged by Times
magazine a year ago, Mexicans are living in an increasingly
insecure environment, witnessing an increased level of corruption in government
institutions, and experiencing the “ungovernability” of numerous
municipalities. Thus, far from the democratic dream of progress, citizens in
Mexico are living in a dangerous and still fragile democracy.
Beginning with the
execution of 22 people in Tlatlaya, in the state of Mexico, the past 12 months
have been flooded with cases of human rights violations that have shaken
Mexican society. Leaving aside the fact that those executed belonged to a
criminal organization, the assassination of these unarmed and surrounded
criminals in June 2014 demonstrated that the army was not carrying out its
operations with strict respect for human rights. Despite the Minister of the
Interior's assurances that government would “prosecute
this crime to the very end”, this atrocity, until then the worst
slaughter committed by the armed forces in Peña Nieto’s administration, has proved
to be only a symptom of the disease affecting the Mexican government and
society.
A mere three months
later, Mexico and the world were shocked by the kidnapping and –as we know now –
the execution of 43 students in Ayotzinapa, in the state of Guerrero. On September
26, under orders from the Major of Iguala, dozens of students of a rural
teaching college were attacked, 3 were murdered, and 43 were abducted by the local
police and then handed over to the United Warriors criminal organization. After
DNA fragments of one of the students were identified by independent
investigators, who stated that “no more
usable DNA could be found to identify the rest of the corpses, the
government closed the case and, in January 2015, pronounced the students dead. However,
in a country where there is growing evidence to confirm widespread suspicions
of collusion between criminal groups and the authorities, this official statement
has been rejected by
relatives and large sectors of the population.
Notwithstanding the
political notoriety and judicial impact of these cases, and despite the fact
that 79% of Mexican citizens consider crime to be one of the biggest problems
in Mexico and 57% are dissatisfied with the
direction of the country, the Minister of Finance has recently declared
that “Mexico has a
strong rule of law: a pronouncement that, as activists and
society in general would say, lacks any support under the current circumstances.
The
land of the dead journalists
In addition to the sad
cases previously described, Mexico is one in only
10 countries in the world where journalists have been
murdered in the last nine months. According to Freedom House, civil and
political rights in the country continue to be violated and, far
from diminishing, criminality has increased in certain parts of Mexico. Just
between 2013 and 2014, for instance, the kidnapping
rate in Tamaulipas went up by 22.6%, reaching the mark of 40 kidnappings
per 100,000 inhabitants at the end of that year. What is more, only 57% of the
crimes are reported and – even more worrying – only 3% end up with
a conviction. Thus, contrary to the Minister’s picture of a “lawful Mexico”,
citizens continue to live in a country with many laws, but where impunity
reigns. Two more cases illustrate perfectly the situation.
On August 31t,
Ruben Espinosa and Nadia Vera, a reporter and a social activist, both critical
of the government of the state of Veracruz, were found murdered in Mexico City.
Although some rushed to support the hypothesis of a robbery whilst virtually condemning
as foolish any other line of inquiry, both Espinosa and
Vera had previously blamed the
Governor of Veracruz for anything that might happen to them,
causing a great deal of questioning across society. Just a few days later, Miguel Angel
Jimenez, a social activist who led search parties looking for the
remaining 42 students of Iguala, was found dead in his taxi. Whether or not coincidences,
as with Ayotzinapa and Tlatlaya, these cases not only reflect the
ineffectiveness of the Mexican judicial system, they remind us of the
importance and fragility of democratic values and human rights, including a
free press, freedom of association and – above all – the right to life.
Trapped between
criminal organizations and a colluding State, Mexican society needs to wake up,
become more politically engaged, and demand more accountability and responsiveness
from the State. Marching and protesting against the government is one way by
which society can work to ensure that Tlatlaya or Ayotzinapa do not happen
again.
Change, of course, cannot
occur immediately. And this is why scholars like Centeno say that “some things
can only be solved with punching”, and that rural
militias are the solution to the current violence. To support
this ideology, however, goes against the aim of securing democratic values and
rights. It is thus necessary to understand that democracy is not a dichotomous
notion, but a continuum and evolving process of which Mexico is a perfect
example. Two decades ago, voting was pointless in “Mexico's
perfect dictatorship”. It took several years, lots of money and
many lives to achieve an electoral democracy where voting does change a
government, does change politics, and can change the country.
In less than 10 months from
now, citizens will vote for new governors of Veracruz –the riskiest
place for journalists in Mexico -, and of Oaxaca,
Tamaulipas and Sinaloa – three of the
10 most violent states in the country. If human rights
violations are to be stopped, this democratic exercise might not be the entire
solution, but it is definitely a critical starting point.