Mexico City, August 28th 2014 – With a special report regarding the issue of disappearances in Mexico, Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented 249 cases of disappearances which presented the conclusion that on 149 of those cases “evidence strongly suggests they were enforced disappearances — meaning state actors likely participated in the crime”.

The report goes on to illustrate the topic with some cases of disappearance, amongst which the case of the 23-year-old Daniel Cantu, disappeared February 21st 2007 in the northern state of Coahuila, a case documented by the Fray Juan de Larios Diocesan Center for Human Rights, organization that is accompanied by PBI. Daniel worked as an industrial engineer on a mining project near the town of Ramos Arizpe. According to declarations of his mother to CNN, the night before he disappeared he “left his house in Saltillo heading to a hotel in the center of Saltillo for a meeting with his boss, Francisco León”. Daniel mentioned he would go to the mine with his boss and his driver, José Ángel Esparza. “Usually he would be in touch on a daily basis, always. Even more when he was away, his mother recalls, who only after three days realized he had not reached his destination, according to other mine workers. His belongings and his car were still at the hotel.” The three men are missing ever since.

In the border state of Chihuahua, Paso del Norte Human Rights Center, organization specialized on the topics of torture and enforced disappearances, accompanied as well by PBI, is handling the case of Adrián Favela, a Mexican youngster resident in El Paso, Texas, who on October 2nd 2012 was disappeared together with his friend Adriel Ávila in Ciudad Juarez by armed men who identified themselves as members of the judicial police.

Those men entered his family’s house by force and saying that they “were taking him to investigate an alleged crime of kidnapping and human trafficking”. Ever since their families haven’t stopped searching for them.

The cases of Daniel and Adrián are only two examples of an issue that is far broader and still rather unclear.

Current numbers

Only a few days ago, on August 21st 2014, the Assistant Attorney General, Mariana Benítez, stated that in Mexico there are currently 22,322 persons listed as missing. Benítez went on to mention that 12,532 people went missing during the 2006-12 administration of President Felipe Calderon, who declared war on drug traffickers. An additional 9,790 have disappeared since President Enrique Pena Nieto took office on Dec. 1, 2012.

This announcement changes the last official statements by Peña Nieto’s administration which had reported a total of 26,121 persons gone missing during the six years Felipe Calderón was president. This previous announcement had generated some criticism from Amnesty International (AI) who, despite stating that the list “was an important first effort to bring together information from across the country” it “demonstrated the woeful failure of the authorities to apply a clear methodology and procedures to gather reliable nationwide data on reported disappearances”.

Furthermore, on different occasions diverse institutions had come up with different numbers. May this year, the Minister of Interior Osorio Chong declared that the number of disappeared persons was of around 8.000. Said number came as a fierce contrast to the 24,800 persons that Raul Plascencia, the President of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) transmitted to the Senate. A month later, it would be once again Osorio Chong mentioning that the official number would then be of around 16,000 disappeared persons and not 8,000 as he had previously informed. On the other side, Civil Society Organizations, such as the Cerezo Committee estimate that in Mexico there are currently at least 30,000 disappeared persons.

The discrepancy regarding the numbers extends as well to the different states throughout the country. While the CNDH reported that the 3 states with the largest amount of cases are Guanajuato (9,146), Mexico State (2,915) and Michoacan (2,703), the National Public Security System refers instead to the Federal District (6,481), Mexico State (2,982) and Tamaulipas (2,702).

Moreover, according to The Economist “little has been divulged about who the government’s numbers include, where they are from, what method was used, or whether the missing are believed to have been abducted by organised criminals, by police, or by a combination of the two.”

It is understood that the current official number presented by the Assistant Attorney General refer exclusively to persons for which a formal report of disappearance has been presented. Notwithstanding, one must underline that many family members do not report disappearances by lack of confidence vis-a-vis the criminal system or the authorities in charge of investigating. Not to mention that family members have been threatened or victims of assault in order to persuade them not to file a report.

Most vulnerable groups

The issue in Mexico is hard to be understood clearly. During the International Forum on Forced and Involuntary Disappearances in Mexico, organized in Coahuila on June 2013, Roberto Garretón, a Chilean expert on disappearances and Human Rights advocate, mentioned “that what goes on in mexico is different from what has been observed in Latin America, in countries such as Chile where identifying both victims and perpetrators is simpler since it was motivated by State repression against political opposer and patterns were very clear. Here [in Mexico] we do not know who they are and the participation of public servants is not organic”.

Regardless of the broader heterogeneity of the victims, on this year's report, the National Campaign agains Enforced Disappearance underlines 30 cases of alleged enforced disappearance motivated by political reasons, which took place during the first 17 months of Peña Nieto's administration.

In addition, some Mexican organizations explain that the problem is systematic and a way to control political activism, while others consider that the violent context started by Mexico's “war on drugs” is one of the main factors behind the phenomenon of disappearances. On its report of 2013 the National Campaign against Enforced Disappearance stated that “different to what was experienced in our country during the 'Dirty War' when disappearances were commited by political reasons, nowadays these are not only against social leaders, political activists or dissident groups, but instead it extends to ample sectors of the population”.

Likewise, it is understood that some groups are more exposed to disappearances than others, remarkably women victims of human trafficking and migrants crossing Mexico towards the United States. In this regard, on December 2013, the National Migration Institute (INM) recognized having received reports for the disappearance in Mexico of 1,681 migrants from Central America, while organizations of mothers of migrants from Central America estimate that approximately 70,000 migrants are missing.

Even though there is not an official number of disappeared migrants in Mexico, there are cases of kidnappings of migrants by members of the Organized Crime, as was the case documented by Saltillo Migrant House – organization accompanied by PBI since 2014 – of 23 undocumented migrants who were kidnapped while traveling on a train crossing the state of Coahuila. According to HRW, armed men allegedly commanded the train to stop and forced the migrants to hop on trucks parked by the side of the railways. Survivors of the incident filed reports leading to investigative procedures which disaplyed serious irregularities.

An open wound from Mexico's Dirty War

Disappearances in Mexico, and particularly enforced disappearances (inflicted by state actors), have been a recurrent issue in its recent history. During the period of what became known as the 'Dirty War', Mexican government acted violently and decisively against activists, community leaders and alleged members of insurgent groups in several Mexican states. Nowadays, there are still over 700 unresolved cases from this period.

One of the paramount cases from this period is undoubtedly Rosendo Radilla's, who was disappeared in a military checkpoint on August 25th 1974 in the state of Guerrero. This case led to a ruling from the Inter-American Court on Human Rights sentencing that the Mexican government was responsible. Despite the support of an international ruling, 40 years have gone by without information regarding Rosendo's whereabouts. Since 2003, PBI has accompanied his daughter Tita Radilla and the members of the Association of Relatives of the Detained, Disappeared, and Victims of Human Rights Abuses in Mexico (AFADEM) on their pursuit of truth, justice and reparation.

Many of the challenges last from the 'Dirty War' until today.

Impunity and lack of access to justice

Indeed, on May 2013, Ricardo Garcia Cervantes, former Assistant Attorney General for Human Rights, mentioned that “in Mexico there is a serious humanitarian crisis due to the previously unseen violence; institutions are clearly debilitated and lacking all capacities required at the moment, and they may only find the lacking strenght and impulse with the participation of civil society. [...] Mexico is going through a weary and unforeseen institutional moment; I see institutions weakened and in many cases unable to comply with what the Constitution requires from them”.

The difficulties faced by family members express perfectly the problem described by Garcia Cervantes. Too often, families of disappeared persons face obstacles that, besides jeopardizing their own safety, hinder their right of access to justice and truth about what happened to their family members. According to a report of Amnesty International, “[i]n most states, many relatives who have tried to report a disappearance have been prevented, at least initially, from registering a formal criminal complaint of enforced disappearance, illegal deprivation of liberty or kidnapping. An analysis by a national newspaper of the 26,121 reports of missing or disappeared people found that criminal inquiries had never been opened in 40 percent of the cases”.

In addition, HRW, on a report published in 2013, informed that their investigation shows that family member “sought help from authorities when someone was taken against their will or immediately afterwards, a period critical to obtaining information on the fate of victim, preventing murder, and finding those responsible. In each case, however, authorities either did not respond or turned them away.” According to the report, the victims' cell phones and bank accounts are not traced, investigators do not obtain footage from security cameras and it is common for both District Attorney and security forces to wrongfully inform the families that, by law, they ought to wait several days to file a formal report and they even advise them to search for their missing loved ones themselves, what obviously entails a security risk for the family. HRW goes on to mention that “such delays may result in irrecoverable losses of key evidence” which could of helped saving lives and locating perpetrators.

Under this context, many family members assume the responsibility of seeking truth about the fate of their missing family members, a tireless search that exposes them to social stigmatization and to risking their own safety, other than the obvious implication of a considerable investment of time and resources to finance trips and diligences that they must put forth in order to promote advances in the investigations. This has a high cost for the families – usually those who actively search are mothers, wives and sisters – since, in most cases, the person missing tends to be the provider for the family.

Families join efforts

To counter the difficulties that family members of disappeared persons face, these have formed new organizations which gather the demands of the families and together strive to pressure authorities into effectively search and investigate the cases of their loved ones. One of these organizations is United Forces for Our Disappeared in Coahuila (FUUNDEC).

FUUNDEC comes to life in a context were murders and disappearances were part of Coahuila's day to day quotidian. By the end of 2009, families going through the same situation started coming to the Fray Juan de Larios Diocesan Center for Human Right (FJDL). That very year, 14 families searching for 21 disappeared persons decide to put forth their first joint actions, being accompanied and by FJDL.

FUUNDEC initiated a direct dialogue with the government of Coahuila which, with the course of time, has allowed for some important progress to take form in the state. Among those advances one may underline the enactment of the “Law for declaration of absence by disappearance of persons” which, among other features, guarantees the maintenance of the disappeared person's legal personality, the conservation of the person's estate and the protection of the family's right to receive the salary and benefits of the disappeared person. In spite of some limitations to these advances, this dialogue allows for a process of accountability that does nothing but strengthen the institutional framework of public authorities.

The demands of FUUNDEC found echo in other families throughout the country. When, in 2011 FUUNDEC managed to meet with the heads of the Ministry of the Interior and the Attorney General's Office, they invited families from other states. From that meeting originated United Forces for Our Disappeared from Mexico (FUNDEM). The growing importance of this nationwide movement received hefty acknowledgment and support, as with the recently awarded Human Rights Prize Tata Martino.

Bridging the gap: from violence and impunity to justice and peace

The issue of forced and involuntary disappearances that Mexico is facing nowadays constitutes one of the most important humanitarian crisis in Latin America, by far surpassing the number of disappearances that took place during some of the most controversial dictatorships in the continent, as were the ones in Chile and Brazil.

In order to properly respond to this crisis, it is of paramount importance that the Mexican government puts forth a top-down implementation of the recommendations received in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) realized by the members of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations and the recommendations of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID).

Regarding disappearances, some of the commitments that the Mexican government assumed when accepting the recommendations made by the members of the Human Rights Council during the UPR, include:

Mexican authorities have the duty to protect Human Rights Defenders such as those who strive for the respect and protection of the human rights of disappeared persons and their family members. Family members searching for their loved ones often endure both physical and psychological constraints as do members from NGOs who accompany them.

Being so, PBI supports these recommendations and calls upon the Mexican government to recognize the gravity of this issue and to guarantee the creation of a national registry of disappeared persons. Furthermore, PBI considers the effective coordination among federal institutions and between these and the different states to be fundamental. PBI therefore urges the Mexican government to guarantee that this coordination exists in order for investigations to be effective and, moreover, to ensure proper assistance to family members.

The implementation of the above mentioned recommendations, as well as of others that Mexico made the commitment to comply with, will represent remarkable progress for the families who are today searching for the truth regarding the whereabouts of their loved ones. In addition, the implementation of the recommendations received from the international community will exceedingly contribute to put an end to the impunity that has characterized the many cases of disappearance. Finally, when implementing these recommendations, Mexico will comply – in line with what is established in international covenants and treaties – with its duty to provide reparation to the harm and damage inflicted on the thousands of victims and family members who are today seeking justice.

* This article was published to mark the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance