From: matus [matus@snet.net] Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 9:56 PM To: matus@snet.net Subject: MFD List - Mexico acknowledges role in 'disappearances' (In baby steps the formerly despotic government of Mexico is taking responsibility for its actions. For decades political activists speaking out against the corrupt government of Mexico would end up disappearing forever. Family members formed groups trying to gain public attention to these crimes. Recently the Mexican government acknowledged that it was involved in silencing, torturing, and executing political offenders. A government moving from a despotic one not responsible for its own actions to one that acknowledges the rights of its people and can be punished for violating those rights is a significant step in the direction of freedom in the world. Hopefully the family members will find closure in the punishing of the people responsible for these terrible actions. - Mike) Mexico acknowledges role in 'disappearances' ---------- Washington Post Ending decades of stonewalling, the Mexican government has acknowledged that officials from 37 government agencies were involved in a campaign of disappearances, torture and executions of leftists in the 1970s and 1980s. (11/28/01) http://www.free-market.net/rd/565295563.html Mexico Acknowledges Role in Disappearances Report Says 74 Officials Involved in Abuses By Kevin Sullivan Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, November 28, 2001; Page A28 MEXICO CITY, Nov. 27 -- Ending decades of stonewalling, the Mexican government acknowledged today that at least 74 officials from 37 government agencies were involved in a campaign of disappearances, torture and executions of leftists in the 1970s and 1980s. "We are changing the way power is exercised in Mexico," President Vicente Fox said at a news conference, standing with the attorney general, the head of the military and the interior minister. Soldiers, police officers and security agents working for their institutions under previous governments were said in the report by the National Human Rights Commission to be implicated in the crimes. "We are not chasing the ghosts of our past," Fox said. "We are showing that it is wrong to believe that the law should be abandoned to benefit the country. We are shining a light on parts of our past that are still covered in darkness." The report was a landmark for Mexico, whose government officials have consistently denied and covered up the fact that soldiers and police waged a dirty war that resulted in the illegal detention, torture and execution of hundreds of anti-government activists. Fox took office last December vowing to account for abuses that occurred during 71 years of unbroken rule under the Institutional Revolutionary Party that preceded his election. As he formally accepted the report today, he ordered appointment of a special prosecutor to look into the cases and prosecute offenders whenever the law permits. "There is not a national security reason that justifies forced disappearances of people," said the rights commission president, Jose Luis Soberanes, handing the report to Fox in a two-foot stack of volumes. "There is no state interest that can be above human rights." The commission's report was not made public, and no government official was publicly identified as having been involved in disappearances. But in a lengthy presentation to Fox, Soberanes said six police and security agencies at the federal level, 25 at the state level and six at the local level were involved. In an interview Monday, Fox said, "nobody will be beyond prosecution" in the cases, even former presidents or other high-ranking government officials who might be implicated. But some activists said they will believe Fox's political will only when they see government officials charged, tried and punished. "We have always known that these people were taken by the government," said Hilda Navarrete, a human rights activist in rural Guerrero state, where 332 of the 532 cases investigated by the commission took place. "We have heard rumors that they left their bodies in caves or threw them into the sea, and we want to know what really happened. I want clarity and I want prosecutions. There will be no justice until that happens." Another doubter was Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, whose 21-year-old son Jesus disappeared in 1975 after being last seen in government custody. After reading the report's section dealing with her son's case, she said the commission had done nothing but compile information she turned over to the government years ago. "It doesn't offer anything new," Ibarra said. "What kind of a report is it if it doesn't have the names of those responsible or the whereabouts of the disappeared? It's useless." The section of the report dealing with Jesus Piedra Ibarra does identify seven state police officers in the northern state of Nuevo Leon who arrested him on April 18, 1975. A copy of the report said that the seven officers grabbed Piedra, a medical student and member of a radical communist group, beat him with fists and gun butts, forced him into a car and took him to a ranch where he was tortured. It said the officer who oversaw the torture was promoted for his efforts. The report said that two months later, Piedra was being held in Military Camp No. 1, the military's headquarters in Mexico City, where the defense secretary's office is located, "recovering from savage torture." The report said he was eventually moved to a series of "secret prisons." The last reported, but unconfirmed, sighting of Piedra was at a Mexico City prison in 1984. The report does not say if or how Piedra died. © 2001 The Washington Post Company For comments about articles or other topics please visit the MFDList forum at www.delphi.com\MFDList www.matus1976.com