By: Ben Leather *

(Article originally published by Espolea A.C. on drogas-en-movimiento.org on 24 February 2014. You can also view it in PDF.)

With North America consistently the world's most cocaine-hungry region, it is no surprise that Mexico, with its 3,145 kilometre US border and easy access from South America, has played host to more front-line battles of the 'war on drugs' than most nations. Comparatively, Mexicans take few drugs. But geography deemed that failed policies to tackle the narcotics trade out of sight of its Western consumers would inevitably unfold on Mexican soil, with disdain for human rights.

I have just left Mexico after five years working for Peace Brigades International (PBI), an NGO working to prevent attacks against human rights defenders threatened because of their work. And with the militarisation of public security in 2006 – in which then President Calderón sent 50,000 under-prepared soldiers to do battle with already fragmenting drug cartels in a context of corruption and impunity – Mexican human rights defenders have plenty of work to do: 50,000 soldiers became more than 50,000 deaths related to the drugs war; fragmentation became proliferation; rights became abuses.

It is a privilege to work for PBI because you accompany brave local activists. But alongside them, you see first-hand what the theatre of the 'war on drugs' means for normal Mexicans.

I accompanied Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre in Guerrero: a state already suffering centuries of marginalisation before Calderón's US-backed strategy triggered more violence there than all but one other Mexican state (Chihuahua). I remember the army trucks in the towns, roadside checkpoints and the muffled accounts of military abuses.

I remember the day that they shot Bonfilio Rubio Villegas, a local indigenous man whose crime was to be sat on a bus, travelling to the USA, to work his way out of poverty. The bus was leaving a military checkpoint when soldiers opened fire indiscriminately. Tlachinollan took on the case and their lawyers later received death threats. The Mexican Supreme Court has since ruled that the case cannot continue in military tribunals and ruled for declining competence in favour of ordinary tribunals. However, none of the soldiers sent to fight the war on drugs have yet been punished for the extra-judicial killing of a poor indigenous man on his way to find work.

The fundamentals of the anti-drugs strategy changed little whilst I was in Mexico. There were always hooded troops with machine guns, though gradually marines replaced the state police who replaced the federal police who replaced the army who replaced the municipales (and so on). In 2012 political power in Mexico shifted back to the PRI, party that had ruled for 71 years until the year 2000. Incoming President Enrique Peña Nieto promised a new approach to tackle organised crime. But whilst he struggles to articulate what this approach might look like, the abuses continue.

PBI responded to increasing requests for help by opening a Northern Mexico team last year. There they accompany the Paso del Norte Human Rights Centre in Ciudad Juárez and the Fray Juan de Larios Centre in Saltillo, among others trying to overcome the conflict's social devastation. They support families of some of the 26,000-plus people who have disappeared since 2006. In an article I wrote in December, I showed that the change of Government has not altered this desperate reality with people still disappearing and very few being found, dead or alive.

Nationwide, activists have proven that many of the disappeared were last seen in the hands of security forces sent to tackle drug trafficking. People debate the extent to which Mexican authorities are collaborating with, tolerating or simply failing to deal with the criminal gangs alleged to have disappeared the rest. But with PBI I saw the inadequate response families have faced. Last year I interviewed María Favela. Witnesses saw state police officers arrest her son Adrián in Ciudad Juárez in 2012. The authorities claim they know nothing. Adrián remains disappeared.

In December, the Mexican Institute for Human Rights and Democracy (IMDHD) used official statistics to demonstrate that in Enrique Peña Nieto's first year in power numbers of murders and kidnappings had actually increased. IMDHD analyst and civil society veteran Edgar Cortez concluded that in human rights Peña Nieto has 'talked a lot, but done very little'.

The security strategy remains unchanged and its future unclear, with drug war news dominated by the emergence of diverse armed autodefensa groups: some allegedly sponsored by authorities, others by cartels. None, however, should be confused – as some might wish – with legitimate and successful community police forces.

But the real news is that there is no news, with critics arguing that the clearest Peña Nieto strategy has been to silence coverage of organised crime and push alternative political and economic issues into the media. In spite of the increase in crime signalled by the IMDHD and the opacity of the Government's response, the drop in public discourse on the drugs war is eerily palpable.

The Council of Hemispheric Affairs says that the Government 'has worked to tightly regulate official information, subdue independent media coverage, and disorient international perception of drug-related violence'. As an official policy, journalists are silenced by the intimidation, harassment and murders which make Mexico one of the most dangerous countries in the Americas for reporters.

Journalists are not the only threatened group who could contribute to a human rights-based debate on security policy: PBI has witnessed continued threats and attacks against human rights defenders, amidst an increasing intolerance of public protest. The silence from Peña Nieto regarding implementation of the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists is deafening. Valuable efforts by the Mechanism's operative staff will be undermined until the President and Interior Minister Osorio Chong guarantee a response to civil society's concerns.

Mexico needs a clear alternative security strategy with a human rights focus if the nation is to recover from years of being on the front line of a doomed international drugs battle. The voices of journalists and human rights defenders are vital to that discussion, so the international community must insist that Enrique Peña Nieto protect them.

* Independent consultant in human rights and international advocacy. He was PBI Mexico's Advocacy Coordinator until December 2013. He continues to collaborate with the project, as well as working with the International Service for Human Rights in Geneva. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of these organisations.