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In Mexico, citizens resist “policy of abandonment”

Editor’s note: This is the longer, uncut version of the article that appears in the December-January print issue of Grassroots Press.

Neil Harvey

Violence, corruption, impunity. These are words that are commonly used to describe the social crisis in Mexico today. An excellent example is the recent article by Philip Caputo in “The Atlantic,” in which the author combines personal observation with testimonies of Mexican human rights workers, journalists and writers.  (Philip Caputo, “The Fall of Mexico,” The Atlantic, December 2009. Available at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200912/mexico-drugs)

The daily news makes the situation seem hopeless and even inevitable, leading to the continued reliance on military force as the only way to combat organized crime. However, two issues need to be discussed if more progressive solutions are to be found. The first is to explain the reasons for the violence in the first place; the second is to recognize and support grassroots efforts to defend civil, political and social rights.

Explanations for the violence in Mexico need to look beyond the armed confrontations between military troops and drug traffickers.  The deeper problem is the existence of a highly unequal society in which the political elites remain divorced from the reality facing the majority of citizens. Despite the shift from a virtual one-party state to multiparty elections, the daily problems of poverty and corruption persist. The long struggle for democratic reforms, which can be traced at least to the student movement of 1968, did create more channels for participation and expression in opposition to the long ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). However, the gradual erosion of the PRI’s power and the election of the presidential candidates of the National Action Party (PAN) in 2000 and 2006 have occurred without significant improvements in the protection of human rights or in addressing poverty and social exclusion. Even the democratization of the electoral system suffered a regression in the controversial 2006 elections when many instances of fraud raised questions regarding the legitimacy of PAN candidate Felipe Calderon’s claim to the presidency.  The lack of certainty about the results also led to an ongoing protest movement organized by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, then candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

Many Mexicans remain skeptical about the ability or willingness of government institutions to uphold basic rights. In this vein, Luis Alfonso Herrera, a sociology professor at El Colegio de Chihuahua and the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez, describes government action in that city as “a policy of abandonment,” and helps to provide a broader context for explaining the ongoing violence. (Luis Alfonso Herrera, Desgobierno, violencia  y politica de abandono en el norte de Mexico. UACJ, 2008).

According to Herrera, societies today are everywhere marked by a high degree of abandonment and this is particularly evident in cities like Juarez where transnational assembly plants expanded rapidly, but without the accompanying infrastructure and public services necessary for social well-being. A policy of abandonment refers to everything that a government fails to do, particularly with regard to ensuring social welfare and public security. It is also reflected in a notable lack of the government’s ability to uphold citizens’ rights and a resulting political vacuum that is filled by private actors ranging from private corporations to drug cartels. Consequently, there is a very large population of people condemned to lives of poverty and exclusion. Herrera explains how, in such a situation, disputes are increasingly “resolved” by violence, which becomes naturalized and appears as a “normal” aspect of everyday life. Normalization becomes the most difficult enemy as it instills a sense of inevitability that makes collective action appear futile. If we look at three sets of rights – civil, political and social – we can appreciate the problems identified in Herrera’s analysis of the “policy of abandonment.”

The first set of rights, civil rights, pertain to the person and protect individuals from arbitrary arrest and denial of basic liberties. They are also the rights that are most obviously violated when protections are lacking or, as in the case of the judicial authorities in Mexico, unwilling to investigate such violations. Recent examples include the attacks on journalists and human rights workers. One such case is that of Emilio Gutierrez Soto, a reporter for El Diario de Nuevo Casas Grandes. Following threats against his life and an attack on his home, Gutierrez fled with his son to the US in June 2008 where he is seeking political asylum. Speaking at the Las Cruces campus of NMSU in late September, Gutierrez argued that Calderon has sought to impose his illegitimate government, born of fraudulent elections in 2006, by deploying thousands of soldiers to apparently combat violent drug trafficking.  As a reporter, Gutierrez documented the violations of human rights by military personnel in Chihuahua, leading to a series of death threats against him and the failure of the state and national human rights commissions to intervene in his defense. The long history of impunity and secrecy around the military has protected it from having to account for its actions, including the threats against Gutierrez. Politically, this means that the military has no intention of returning to the barracks or handing back its new powers, regardless of which party wins elections at local, state and national levels. (See: Emilio Gutierrez Soto, “Illegitimacy, the criminal power of the Mexican state,” Mother Jones, July 7, 2009. Available at http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/07/).

Similarly, human rights defenders continue to be attacked for their work on behalf of the victims of abuses committed by government. In September, Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson was forced to flee Ciudad Juarez and move to El Paso following a series of threats on his life. De la Rosa is an investigator for the human rights commission of the state of Chihuahua. A month later, Paz Rodriguez Ortiz, director of the Civil Association for Human Rights in Nuevo Casas Grandes, was killed. His “crime” was to have supported relatives of those kidnapped in Nuevo Casas Grandes and nearby locations such as Puerto Palomas. In the southern state of Chiapas, an escalation of harassment and media attacks on human rights workers, culminated with armed assault on September 18 by a local paramilitary group on members of the Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Human Rights Center, two of whom were severely injured.

Such incidents are part of a broader pattern in which the abandonment of human rights workers only encourages impunity. For example, a report issued by the UN High Commission for Human Rights in October lists 128 attacks against human rights defenders in the period between January 2006 and August 2009, including ten cases which resulted in murder (Emilio Godoy, “Mexico: Human Rights Defenders Under Attack, UN Warns,” Interpress Service News Agency, October 14, 2009. Available at http://www.ipsnews.net). Although Mexican government created a National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH) in 1989, this body has failed to satisfy demands for greater justice in numerous cases, a point consistently made by relatives of the hundreds of women who have been kidnapped and killed in Ciudad Juarez and other cities. The Commission’s ineffectual president was replaced in November by a close ally, suggesting continuity rather than change in how the CNDH responds to the ever-increasing number of claims.

Abandonment and violence have also reached the professors and students at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez (UACJ) where in the past two years three professors and one student have been killed and two other female students have been disappeared. The president and department heads of UACJ are calling on the federal attorney general to carry out a thorough investigation and are supporting their demands with work stoppages every two hours and demonstrations on campus. UACJ has also been calling for alternatives to militarization, such as the implementation of new social programs to help rebuild the social fabric of the city.

The exercise of political rights is also compromised by the lack of trust in all political parties. In mid-term congressional elections in July 2009, around two million voters annulled their ballots. This was the result of a well organized act of protest against the parties, who are seen as corrupt and unresponsive. At the same time, the July elections witnessed a significant defeat from candidates of an increasingly discredited PAN, as well as a drop in seats for an internally divided PRD. The main gains were made by the PRI, which won a majority of seats in the current Congress. The PRI is positioning itself to regain the presidency in 2012 and has already used its legislative majority to approve a budget that gives states governors much greater say in the spending of federal monies. This maneuver will likely benefit the PRI in several gubernatorial elections in 2010 as existing governors use federal budget allocations to help their chosen successors retain the party’s control and prepare the ground for its presidential bid in 2012.

Finally, the protection of social rights to employment and a living wage have been eroded not only by the pro-business policies enshrined in NAFTA, but also by the government’s willingness to use force to close down public corporations and, in the process, weaken independent labor unions. In November, Calderon decided to close the publicly-owned electricity corporation Luz y Fuerza del Centro, sending police to occupy the company’s Mexico City offices, and dismissing more than 40,000 workers, most of whom belong to the Mexican Electricians’ Union (SME). Citing costly inefficiencies for his decision, Calderon also sought to appear as a president in control of the county’s rapidly deteriorating economy. However, the main impact has been to open up a conflict with the electricians’ union and its supporters who have engaged in several street protests and a national strike. The policy of abandonment, expressed in the mass dismissals and disregard for constitutional protections, is once again met with protests and a further reduction in the credibility of the current administration.

The violence in Mexico is a reflection not only of the drug wars, but also a consequence of a longer and more widespread policy of abandonment in which basic rights are violated with impunity.  Journalists, human rights workers, women, professors, students, trade unionists, voters and ordinary citizens have petitioned, marched, demonstrated and organized for an end to impunity. In doing so, they have become the most active voices in replacing abandonment and violence with social solidarity and democratic rights.

Neil Harvey is a professor in the Department of Government and Director of the Center for Latin American and Border Studies at New Mexico State University.

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