In fact, Soberanes said that the AI report was a “refrito”, a refry or rehash. And, in fact, Soberanes was correct. Not only was there nothing really new, but it is well known and on top of that it does not address the real problems in this whole matter.
Human rights abuse is but a symptom of a much larger Mexican problem and a much more difficult problem to resolve. But we have to go to the roots of the problem to understand it. The key words are impunity and endemic corruption of a systematic nature.
Before getting in to the meat here, let us recognize that México, shortly after the beginning of the Calderón administration, undertook and passed a sweeping judicial reform that is turning our judicial system upside down. This required constitutional amendments that also required nation wide ratification. All of this was to address such fundamental things such as the presumption of innocence, the right of cross-examining witnesses, and that trials are open to the public. And it will probably take another 4 years to fully implement these changes. Such as completely retraining prosecutors and defense lawyers who don’t even know the concept of cross-examination, mush less presenting their case in public.
As for human rights, it should be mentioned that México has signed on to the UN international anti torturing treaty. But, in fact, the enforcement of this internally is spotty to say the least.
But getting to basics, remember that the Republic of México, as defined, is party oriented, as opposed to a “people oriented” republic as found in most of the Western world. Constitutionally, no one can run for elected office as an independent, reaffirmed by our Supreme Court only a few years ago. In addition, 30% of the Senate and 40% of the House seats in México are given out as “proportional” appointments. Each party submits a list for their appointees before the election. After the election, say a party has received 25% of the popular vote. Then that party is given the number of that percentage of the proportional seats from their submitted list. And so on for each party in both House and Senate. And, of course, these proportional appointees have absolutely no duty to the voting public. It was the party that put them into power.
Add this to the fact that there is no reelection for elected officials in México. One term and that’s it. For the politician who wants to have a career in politics, he looks not to the voters, but his party to continue his career.
Now consider this; elected officials are by law immune from prosecution of any type while in office. In other words, official systematized impunity. A noteworthy case involving a high union official in the Mexican PEMEX scandal was indicted in the case and an arrest warrant was issued. He fled México and in the meantime it was established that he also was a member of the House of Representatives. Therefore he was impugn. And he, to this day, is still impugn because his party keeps him high on the proportional lists for one office after another. And the law cannot touch him.
And we can have officials ordering and participating in human rights issues that are untouchable. Like one governor who is regarded as the fair headed nominee for his parties’ choice for the next presidential election. He oversaw a grand official rape and pillage event that happened a couple of years ago in a village near México City. Impugn. Or another governor who set up a false arrest and an organized rape of a famous author who exposed a pedophilia ring in his state which was operating with state officials turning their heads. The gang rape was foiled thankfully, but no official was even investigated because of official impunity.
These are noteworthy cases presented to illustrate the deeper problem of rooting out corruption that is spawned by our very basic political system. This not only involves human rights issues but also a much broader vista of endemic corruption. It is built into the system. But the bottom line is that human rights issues remain unresolved and not prosecuted along with “confessions” gained by torture accepted for these reasons. And Mexicans complain about Guantanimo?
Rectifying these problems is far from easy. Because it is the party driven politicians themselves that must change the system. And offhand, it seems to be an impossibility.
The United States has milder systemic problems in its legislatures involving ethics issues and financial accountability. And they are having problems in trying to resolve these issues also. México’s problems are much bigger and are much more difficult to resolve. But in the US, at least some of the corrupted go to jail.
But this is nothing for México to accept in the long run. México has to solve these problems if it is to fully join the “civilized” world. And it up to México, alone, to do this. No outside “help” will work.
The how to remains.
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Richard N. Baldwin T., a HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com) contributing columnist, lives in Tlalnepantla, Edo de México. E-mail at: [email protected]