Sergio Aguayo: Mexico Government Does Nothing to Challenge US Arms Traffic Sergio Aguayo and Paulina Arriaga Carrasco - Reforma
go to original February 19, 2015

Thousands of guns lie on the ground before their destruction in Mexico. (AFP)

The Mexican Attorney General's office has confirmed seizures of firearms and cartridges at Mexico City's International Airport have surged almost 600 percent between 2012 and last year. Listen to the report by Vatican Radio correspondent James Blears.

Five years ago there was a massacre in Ciudad Juárez that leaves useful lessons about victims and about a government that forgets about Mexico and bows down to the United States.

On January 30, 2010 the criminal gang that controlled Juárez sent death squads to kill El Chapo Guzmán’s people in the Villas de Salvárcar neighborhood. They executed fifteen – twelve teenagers – and wounded ten. To justify the deed Felipe Calderón said that the young people "probably" belonged to "youth gangs" associated with "criminal groups." El Chapo’s people and the President were wrong: they were students celebrating a sports achievement.

The massacre was shocking, and the Mexican government was turned upside down in Juárez where it spent seven billion pesos [US$470 million] on rebuilding social fabric and improving security. Violence has been reduced. With the same commitment, the government did as much as possible for the people to forget about the killing and who was responsible. Villas Salvárcar confirms that the government’s attention depends on the degree of cohesion and organization of the victims.

Gustavo de la Rosa has defended human rights in Chihuahua for several decades, and over the phone he outlined to me the indicators of the official indifference to the killing in Villas de Salvárcar. Raúl Plascencia’s National Commission for Human Rights issued a recommendation on the case one year and seven months afterward, without bothering to inform the interested parties, who learned about the document last week!

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Thomas Mosley

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico — on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx

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