Ten Years of Militarized Drug Policies in Mexico: More Violence and Human Rights Violations Daniel Joloy - openDemocracy
go to original May 8, 2017

It's ten years since Mexico launched its war on drugs. What impact has it had on the country's cartels?
(TRT World)

Mexico decided over ten years ago to militarize their drug policies and rely on the armed forces to conduct counter-narcotic operations and other public safety tasks. The so-called “war on drugs” has taken since then a very real dimension in the country.

Shortly after taking power in December 2006, President Felipe Calderon ordered a military offensive against the country’s drug cartels that eventually involved tens of thousands of troops undertaking tasks that should normally be performed by civilian forces. In only a matter of days, more than 30.000 soldiers were deployed in different cities around the country. This number has grown to over 96,000 soldiers carrying out public security tasks. Keeping drugs away from Mexico’s children has been a central justification.

In addition, police corporations all across the country have adopted military techniques, training and equipment for the conduct of their daily activities, including counter-narcotic operations. Former or active military commanders are also in command of police corporations at different states or municipalities.

Since then, violence has spiralled and insecurity remains a source of intense concern. According to available information, more than 150.000 people have been killed since 2006, reaching an average of 51 people violently killed every day. However, it is not clear how many of these are directly related to organised crime and operations conducted by security forces. Moreover, since President Peña Nieto took office four years ago, the administration stopped informing how many of these deaths were committed by the armed forces, and it remains a classified information.

Yet, despite a heavy reliance on the armed forces and criminal law to stop the use of drugs and drug trafficking, neither of these has decreased over the years. Actually, the age of first consumption keeps decreasing, reaching now children as young as 11 years old. In addition, the associated risks and harms of using drugs have risen with a corresponding increase in human rights violations.

According to the National Commission on Human Rights, complaints of human rights violations against the armed forces rose more than 900% during the first three years of the “war on drugs” alone. Arbitrary detentions, torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions are only part of the abuses that have been documented across the country.

Torture and other ill-treatment have for decades played a central role in policing and public security operations by military and police forces across Mexico. Victims of torture and other ill-treatment are often forced to “confess” to being part of a drug cartel or involved in other crimes such as kidnapping or drug trafficking. At times, security forces torture detainees and plant evidence on them in order to obtain information about drug cartels or make them incriminate other detainees.

Torture and other ill-treatment are the second most commonly reported human rights violations before the National Human Rights Commission, only after arbitrary detentions. Reports of torture have shown a sustained increase since 2006. The Federal Attorney General’s office informed me that the number of complaints about torture filed at a federal level more than doubled between 2013 and 2014, from 1,165 to 2,403.

Women in detention are at particular risk of torture and other ill-treatment. The vast majority of women detained in federal prisons are first time offenders, mostly imprisoned for drug-related crimes. Women are perceived as the weakest link in the trafficking chain by the authorities, seen as an easy target for arrest as drug cartels often recruit women from marginalised backgrounds to carry out the lowest and most dangerous tasks.

In a survey conducted by Amnesty International with 100 women in detention, 72 were reported to have been subjected to some form of sexual violence during arrest, including, in many cases, the use of rape as torture. Out of all the women who reported the involvement of the army or the navy in their arrest, 80% reported being raped.

Read the rest at openDemocracy

Related: Mexico Drug War: Peña Nieto's 79,344 Deaths (Mexico Voices)

Related: The United States and Mexico Can Work Together to Reduce Drug-Related Violence Through Improved Rule of Law and Stronger Gun Laws (ENEWSPF)

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