Blog dedicated to reporting on Mexican drug cartels
on the border line between the US and Mexico
.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Mexico Defends Drug War Before OAS Panel

EFE

A Mexican government delegation on Monday defended “the necessity and the efficacy” of the war on drug trafficking during a hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a body of the Organization of American States.

The under-secretary for Juridical Affairs and Human Rights within Mexico’s interior ministry, Felipe de Jesus Zamora, said that the national strategy against organized crime had been applied “with strict respect for human rights.”

Representatives of 18 NGOs who also appeared before the OAS panel on Monday offered a much different appraisal.

The war on drug cartels launched by newly inaugurated President Felipe Calderon in December 2006 has been counterproductive, given that “violence, the murder rate and citizen insecurity have skyrocketed,” said Carlos Karin Zazueta, with the Citizens in Support of Human Rights organization.

The complaints, along with the well-documented reports of arbitrary arrests, torture and harassment committed by the security forces, were rejected by Zamora, who said that the fight for security is, in itself, “a fight for human rights.”

The Mexican delegation focused its efforts on claiming that the war on drug trafficking was “necessary” to halt the advance of organized crime, and it defended that battle’s effectiveness without discussing specific figures.

Zamora acknowledged that the results of this strategy will not be seen in the short term and when repression is intensified then violence increases “at first,” but he went on to say that “later it falls, and it will fall.”

2 comments:

  1. If Calderon had not drawn a line in the sand, and the cartels had been free to continue to millitarize themselves, then this situation might be worse today. The violence mainly stems from cartel competition, and from betrayels between groups like the zetas and cdg. These human rights people need to figure out that when organized crime is stronger than the government, there are no human rights. The cartels don't give a crap what these outside organizations say, unlike legitimate governments.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Isn't that always the argument though, Anonymous 9:55AM? The killing of innocent people is always necessary when it comes to your so-called legitimate governments, and they don't just kill 'terrorists' or drug traffickers with their stupid wars either.

    And these so-called legitimate governments don't ever seem to attack the causes of drug use, things like poverty and unemployment, and marginalization, do they? Instead, they feed the fat cats Billions upon billions of tax payer dollars as they kill wage wars constantly, and build up gargantuan military and policing apparatuses.

    Your picture of Calderon 'drawing a line in the sand' is comic cartoon stuff. He's merely a stooge for the Mexican business elites and their US/ DF corporate government directors.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated, refer to policy for more information.
Envía fotos, vídeos, notas, enlaces o información
Todo 100% Anónimo;

borderlandbeat@gmail.com