Experts Who Study Body Counts Point to a Mexican Military Out of Control Azam Ahmed and Eric Schmitt - The New York Times
go to original May 27, 2016

Mexico's Interior Secretary Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong recently said that long-term security gains in the country will depend on improving socioeconomic conditions, signaling a possible shift away from the heavy-handed anti-crime strategy the government has pursued for years. (mmspress.com.mx)

In the history of modern war, fighters are much more likely to injure their enemies than kill them.

But in Mexico, the opposite is true.

According to the government’s own figures, Mexico’s armed forces are exceptionally efficient killers — stacking up bodies at extraordinary rates.

The Mexican authorities say the nation’s soldiers are simply better trained and more skilled than the cartels they battle.

But experts who study the issue say Mexico’s kill rate is practically unheard-of, arguing that the numbers reveal something more ominous.

“They are summary executions,” said Paul Chevigny, a retired New York University professor who pioneered the study of lethality among armed forces.

In many forms of combat between armed groups, about four people are injured for each person killed, according to an assessment of wars since the late 1970s by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Sometimes, the number of wounded is even higher.

But the body count in Mexico is reversed. The Mexican Army kills eight enemies for every one it wounds.

For the nation’s elite marine forces, the discrepancy is even more pronounced: The data they provide says they kill roughly 30 combatants for each one they injure.

The statistics, which the government stopped reporting in early 2014, offer a rare, unguarded glimpse into the role the Mexican military has assumed in the war against organized crime. In the last decade, as the nation’s soldiers and marines have been forced onto the front lines, human rights abuses surged.

Read the rest at The New York Times

Related: Mexico Official Signals Shift Away from Militarized Security Strategy (Insight Crime)

Related: New York Times Writes About Mexican Violence — Defends Cartel Gunmen (Breitbart)

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