Jim Finnel
Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex News Moderator
Mexico City - Mexican military officers involved in the anti-drug effort have engaged in torture, killings of civilians and arbitrary arrests, the country's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) said Friday.
CNDH president Jose Luis Soberanes presented a report on eight cases in the states of Tamaulipas, Sonora, Michoacan and Sinaloa, in which seven civilians were killed including a 17-year-old boy.
'In all cases these are tragic and regrettable events,' Soberanes said. 'They could have been avoided with more opportune information, with a better training of military personnel and with an adequate exercise and supervision of command.'
He acknowledged that 'the temporary presence and participation' of military personnel in public security tasks is necessary in the face of the advance and violence of organized crime. But it must be subjected to certain directives to prevent abuse, he said.
The Commission - a state organ that is autonomous from the government - has received 634 complaints of abuse by the military since December 2006, when broad police-military operations were launched by the government of President Felipe Calderon to combat organized crime.
Human rights activists have repeatedly warned of the risks of using military officers for police tasks.
However, the government has insisted that corruption and insufficient training in police forces makes them unfit for such efforts for the time being.
One of the cases that the CNDH dealt with happened on July 7, 2007 in Sonoyta, in the state of Sonora, on the border to the United States.
One Mexican was waiting with others for human traffickers set to help them across the border, he said, when he was insulted and tortured by military officers who accused him of waiting to take drugs into the United States.
'Where is the marijuana? If it does not show up we are going to beat you up and kill you,' one of the soldiers told him, according to the CNDH report.
The man said the soldiers kicked him, shot next to his head, hit him, blindfolded him and forced him to drink a liquid that tasted like alcohol through a tube they put into his mouth.
The torture lasted four hours, the man who filed the complaint said. He added that it included soldiers sticking splinters of wood into his finger- and toe-nails, before leaving him for dead in the desert. Someone found him and took him to hospital.
Over 30,000 military officers are currently combatting organized crime in Mexico. Over 2,000 people have been killed so far this year in drug gang violence, most of them in alleged vendettas between cartels. Some 100 police officers are among the dead.
On Thursday, nine civilians with no apparent ties to illegal activity were shot dead by a gang of about 50 people in an auto repair shop in the city of Culiacan, in the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa. The attackers later killed three police officers in the same city.
Another police officer was killed by organized crime in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, also Thursday.
News Hawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Monsters and Critics
Copyright: 2008 Monsters and Critics
Contact: Monsters and Critics Support - Home Page
Website: Mexico's Human Rights Commission denounces military abuse
CNDH president Jose Luis Soberanes presented a report on eight cases in the states of Tamaulipas, Sonora, Michoacan and Sinaloa, in which seven civilians were killed including a 17-year-old boy.
'In all cases these are tragic and regrettable events,' Soberanes said. 'They could have been avoided with more opportune information, with a better training of military personnel and with an adequate exercise and supervision of command.'
He acknowledged that 'the temporary presence and participation' of military personnel in public security tasks is necessary in the face of the advance and violence of organized crime. But it must be subjected to certain directives to prevent abuse, he said.
The Commission - a state organ that is autonomous from the government - has received 634 complaints of abuse by the military since December 2006, when broad police-military operations were launched by the government of President Felipe Calderon to combat organized crime.
Human rights activists have repeatedly warned of the risks of using military officers for police tasks.
However, the government has insisted that corruption and insufficient training in police forces makes them unfit for such efforts for the time being.
One of the cases that the CNDH dealt with happened on July 7, 2007 in Sonoyta, in the state of Sonora, on the border to the United States.
One Mexican was waiting with others for human traffickers set to help them across the border, he said, when he was insulted and tortured by military officers who accused him of waiting to take drugs into the United States.
'Where is the marijuana? If it does not show up we are going to beat you up and kill you,' one of the soldiers told him, according to the CNDH report.
The man said the soldiers kicked him, shot next to his head, hit him, blindfolded him and forced him to drink a liquid that tasted like alcohol through a tube they put into his mouth.
The torture lasted four hours, the man who filed the complaint said. He added that it included soldiers sticking splinters of wood into his finger- and toe-nails, before leaving him for dead in the desert. Someone found him and took him to hospital.
Over 30,000 military officers are currently combatting organized crime in Mexico. Over 2,000 people have been killed so far this year in drug gang violence, most of them in alleged vendettas between cartels. Some 100 police officers are among the dead.
On Thursday, nine civilians with no apparent ties to illegal activity were shot dead by a gang of about 50 people in an auto repair shop in the city of Culiacan, in the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa. The attackers later killed three police officers in the same city.
Another police officer was killed by organized crime in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, also Thursday.
News Hawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Monsters and Critics
Copyright: 2008 Monsters and Critics
Contact: Monsters and Critics Support - Home Page
Website: Mexico's Human Rights Commission denounces military abuse
