Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) issued precautionary measures to the Mexican State for the proper safeguarding of the remains and personal belongings of disappeared persons, as well as to guarantee access to information, participation and protection of the relatives and representatives of the disappeared persons at the Izaguirre ranch, located in Teuchitlán, Jalisco.
The CED also expressed particular concern about the repeated accusations it has received regarding the existence of a risk of irreparable damage to the skeletal remains and evidence located at the Izaguirre ranch. The relatives and representatives of the disappeared allege that they have difficulty accessing information about the search and investigation processes, as well as taking part in them.
“The Committee is concerned that the people who make up the search teams for missing persons who discovered the Izaguirre ranch face threats, intimidation and reprisals for their search efforts, despite the protective measures granted to them by the State, including precautionary measures issued by the National Human Rights Commission.”
Mexico responded, categorically denying the accusations of the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances. “The Mexican government rejects the statements of members of the committee regarding the alleged practice of enforced disappearance by the State… The Mexican government does not consent to, allow, or order the disappearance of people as part of a State policy… The committee frames this procedure within an exchange process that Mexico has maintained since 2014, so the Mexican State will analyze the request once received, to share the actions and programs implemented at the national level to address and combat the phenomenon of disappearances in Mexico.”
The United Nations CED issued precautionary measures, but Mexico rejected them. That, in short, is the reality of what has happened between the UN offices and the federal government of Mexico. But on the ground, something else was seen.
What society saw was that the search teams found what was clearly a training center for hitmen, for the torture of members of other cartels, for the imprisonment and torture of kidnapping victims, and, finally, for the extermination and disappearance of people.
With the announcement that there were elements, such as ovens, for the extermination of people, the matter became an international issue. Mexico’s reputation was at stake.
The federal government then operated a multi-pronged strategy. First, it sought to blame the Jalisco government and its prosecutor’s office for negligence and cover-up. But when they realized that the federal prosecutor’s office had been notified, Prosecutor Gertz stepped in to call an unsuccessful visit to the site, after offering improbable explanations about what had happened at the Izaguirre ranch. Then, the federal secretary of public security assured that there had been no “extermination” at the site, but rather signs of a cartel. Subsequently, the government “cleaned” the site of all evidence of what had happened there, leaving the land vacant. Finally, the relatives point out that this clean-up was intended to erase everything that had happened there, especially wanting to erase from the historical memory the notion that it was a place of “extermination”, evoking memories of the German extermination camps during the Second World War.
The federal government initially treated the relatives of the disappeared with the same contempt they received from the López Obrador government. But in the face of national and international criticism, the federal government presented a bill on disappearances. In the face of their clumsiness, they had to withdraw their proposal and call the relatives to a round table to agree on a new bill.
The federal government may not have enforced disappearances as a public policy, but, as we have seen, it has done nothing so far to stop them, and it is neglecting to recover skeletal remains, contributing to the cover-up of painful events such as the one at the Izaguirre ranch. Furthermore, it has treated the relatives with disdain. That attitude makes the federal government an accomplice in the crime of forced disappearances in Mexico.
@rpascoep
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