Mando Único of Morelos: Organization That Most Violates Human Rights

By: José Carlos Moreno | Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

October 8, 2015— Just two days ago in Cuernavaca, the Human Rights Commission of the State of Morelos (CDHEM) stated that the figure of the Mando Único in the state, relentlessly pushed by the state government despite its low popularity- according to a survey during the past two weeks in all the municipalities of Morelos, which yesterday revealed the results indicating that only 1% of respondents approved the continuation of the measure while 99% condemn it, is the body that most violates human rights in the state.

(Valor: Mando Único (Single Command) is the unifying of municipal and state forces.)

This was expressed by the president of the CDHEM, Lucero Ivonne Benítez Villaseñor, who noted that the Mando Único is the protagonist of most complaints filed by citizens to the institution in charge, which are mostly related to the violation of due process, emphasizing arbitrary arrests, torture during detention, and the fabrication of guilt, and even some police members have complained about money quotas imposed on them by their superiors.

The president of the CDHEM delivered a report with all the information to the local congress where it was brought to the Commissioner of Public Security, Jesús Alberto Capella Ibarra, at a conference described by some media as evasive, and even ridiculous at times, because in it the commissioner said that the idea of insecurity in the state is mostly bad “perception” of the citizens, because, according to him, violence has decreased and it takes quite some time for this public perception to be corrected.

However, the numbers contradict the version of the report of Commissioner Capella and exposes another reality: in the first eight months of this year, there have been 17 cases of torture (just over two cases per month), while in 2014, the figure for the same type of violation was 12, or an increase of 30% in a few months.  It also states that from 2014 to date, complaints from citizens accumulate to a total of 450.

It should be recalled that already in the public, some elements of this figure monopoly of authority has shown its procedures with members of the public, including its treatment of students from UAEM (Autonomous University of the State of Morelos) with aiming weapons at them for distributing flyers with political content.  The case of a denunciation of the murder of a young student just over a month ago should also be recalled, a sordid case that exposed the misrepresentation of factual information, concealing and holding it, as well as negligence in the investigation process, according to the same denunciation.

Journalism and its freedom of expression in the state has also suffered by the Mando Único and its repressive measures, since several cases of journalists from the most contested violation reported in the report, arbitrary detention; 146 incidents were reported in 2014 and 93 so far in 2015 of this particular form of human rights violation by the Mando Único, and to top it off, cases of burglary, theft, unlawful exercise of public function, and injuries.

Since it was approved as a proposal during the former administration to the current governor Graco Ramírez, the extent of the Mando Único was questioned, but the PRD member applied it the same, and from January 2013 to date, disapproval has registered and reluctance to approve this figure that is the majority in the state councilors, beginning and openly promoted by Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Municipal President of Cuernavaca by the PRD, who at the time mentioned this: “Unfortunately we are first in crimes.  The Mando Único doesn’t work.  (If it worked) things wouldn’t be as they are in Cuernavaca.  It hurts to know that we are the first in crimes.  I find it an injustice that they are going into the homes of the elderly; I find it an injustice that they are robbing people.”

Other mayors have said that the hoarding of resources (approximately 400 million at the time) granted in order to run the Mando Único, creates an economic vacuum for the municipalities and that this, combined with the same impairment of the organization, is what causes their rejection of it.  Consequently, they have also come to express their fear of reprisals for their position of rejecting the figure, by the aforementioned Security Commissioner, Jesús Alberto Capella Ibarra, because intimidation has existed towards mayors who have not wanted to join the Mando Único.

Source: Morelos 3.0

Categories: Drug War, Mando Unico, mexico, morelos