Mexican President accused of war crimes in cartel crackdown

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
11/28/2011
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Group asks ICC to examine 470 cases.

Mexican activists have now targeted President Felipe Calderon with accusations of war crimes and are petitioning to have him brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Mexican President Felipe Calderon denies that his government has broken international law in pursuing the drug cartels.

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AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS (Catholic Online) - The group of 23 activists have signed a complaint of war crimes against the president and are claiming that his current offensive against the drug cartels is a violation of human rights. Specifically, they are complaining about the treatment of prisoners arrested during the offensive by the army and police.

The group says they're aware of about 470 cases of human rights violations by government officials against suspects.

The activists claim that Calderon has allowed soldiers and police to kidnap, torture, and even kill civilians.

The complaint also targets Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the Sinaloa cartel leader.

Activists are upset that the violence has cost anywhere from 35,000 to 40,000 lives since 2006, and doesn't appear anywhere close to abating.

The activist lawyer, Natazi Sandoval said "the violence in Mexico is bigger than the violence in Afghanistan, the violence in Mexico is bigger than in Colombia. We want the prosecutor to tell us if crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in Mexico, and if the president and other top officials are responsible."

Officials of Calderon's government have flatly denied the accusations. They assert that the government is elected, and democratic and that Mexico has established mechanisms designed to protect human rights. The interior minister said in a statement "the established security policy in no way constitutes an international crime. On the contrary, all its actions are focused on stopping criminal organizations are protecting all citizens."

He continued, "Mexico as never before, as implemented, in a systematic and growing way, a public policy to strengthen the rule of law and promote and respect human rights."

The ICC does have jurisdiction to prosecute individuals in countries whose governments are unwilling or unable to prosecute the people themselves. The organization will now have to investigate the claims, and determine if they are in fact crimes against humanity. The process could take months or even years. However, if the ICC does conclude that crimes against humanity have been committed, then the international court could issue warrants for the arrest of those responsible.

� 2011, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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Keywords: activists, ICC, international criminal Court, human rights, drug cartels, Mexico, violence

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1 - 2 of 2 Comments

ruben beltran
1 year ago
hi . good if this guy go out of the office he is stuped and he going for life time , is going to be good exaple for another people ho want to be president, rigth now there is maybe 10 idiots. because is easy to run for it and then lie to the people thell them everiting .is ok when is all wrong. why u.s.a. don:t do nothing... because boot goverments work together. and also the drugs dealers. and the cartels....they can stop this chit if they want to in 1 year . but they don;t care about the citizens. only care about money and power.thank:s
malcolm kyle
1 year ago
In 2009, NPR analyzed thousands of news releases on the federal attorney general’s website announcing arrests for organized crime, weapons and drug offenses. The information surveyed spanned from the day Calderon assumed the presidency in December 2006. The analysis showed that Nationwide, 44 percent of all cartel defendants are with the Zetas and Gulf cartels. Only 12 percent of the defendants are with the Sinaloa cartel. The numbers contradict the Mexican government, which claims it has arrested twice the percentage of Sinaloa gang members.

“I think you’ve identified an issue of concern, and that is, why is the Sinaloa doing so much better than the others and why is the Sinaloa cartel been the one that has escaped a lot of the prosecutions compared to the other cartel numbers?”
— U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), a former federal prosecutor who sits on the Homeland Security Committee, when asked to review the NPR analysis.

NPR’s analysis is supported by a Mexican law professor and organized crime expert, Edgardo Buscaglia, who has done his own analysis of cartel arrests.

“If you look at the main organized crime group in Mexico, that is, the Sinaloan confederation, it has been left relatively untouched. The Sinaloa has been clearly the winner of all that competition among organized crime groups. And as a result of that, they have gained more economic power, they have been able to corrupt with more frequency and corrupt with more scope. Now you see that Sinaloa is the most powerful criminal group, not just in Mexico, but all over Latin America,”
— Law professor and organized crime expert. Edgardo Buscaglia

“Has the Sinaloa infiltrated the Mexican government? Absolutely. Has the Sinaloa infiltrated the Mexican military? Absolutely.”
— Texas Congressman Michael McCaul

“When the Sinaloan cartel began to be protected by all the apparatus of the government after 2001, it felt the power for the first time in history to occupy plazas that for dozens of years belonged to other cartels. So you saw them take on the Gulf cartel in Nuevo Laredo [in 2005], My hypothesis, after five years of investigation, is that Joaquin Guzman Loera is the best example of corruption in Mexico.”
— Anabel Hernandez, an award-winning investigative reporter who has spent five years researching a book on Guzman.

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