THE appeal of the human- rights watchdog Karapatan for President Duterte to end the bloody antidrugs war and stop using the military in the campaign has found merit among Mexican experts.
As early as August 2016, Karapatan Secretary-General Cristina Palabay asked President Duterte to end the killings, since the very same elements suspected of committing extrajudicial killings during the past two administrations have apparently been clothed with blanket authority to kill.
“The killings are either done as punishment in the name of Duterte’s campaign against drugs or are perpetrated to silence those who might turn witness and expose details of the illegal-drugs manufacture and trade. Either way, the drug-related killings in poor communities have become too rampant,” Palabay said.
“Enlisting the Armed Forces in the antidrugs campaign is even more alarming, given its propensity to use the campaign for counterinsurgency purposes. The use of the military, vigilante groups and armed formations in so-called wars against drugs is a concept that has been peddled by the US government in countries such as Mexico and Colombia through the Merida Initiative,” she ad
Writing for InSightCrime, a web site that focuses on public-security issues in Latin America, on February 15 Deborah Bonello said Mexico’s 10-year antidrug war, that has resulted in 100,000 deaths, showed which a myriad of human-rights abuses and an overall increase in violence happened when the military was tapped to eradicate drug traffic and eliminate crime gangs.
“After a decade of a militarized drug war, there is still no adequate public data or evaluation of the military’s role in the campaign against organized crime. Neither is there solid evidence available to explain why the Federal Police and the gendarmerie, a new militarized police force created by President Enrique Peña Nieto, are insufficient tools for fighting organized crime without support from the armed forces,” Bonello said.
From the beginning, there was never any justification for dispatching the country’s military in the drug war. When then-President Felipe Calderón took power at the end of 2006, after a controversial election, the nation was enjoying “historic lows” in homicides. One of Calderón’s first actions in office was to send thousands of soldiers to his home state of Michoacán, which remains one of the most violent in the country.
“It was after the start of the permanent operations of the military that a real epidemic of violence occurred at a national level, rising to 27,000 homicides in 2011,” Bonello said, quoting the report prepared by the Belisario Dominguez Institute.
“Between 2007 and 2011 the level of homicides tripled [from 9,000 to 27,000], and the homicide rate went from 8.1 to 23.7 homicides per 100,000.”
Bonello added: “The ‘drastic rise’ in violence that has taken place since the start of the military campaign is proof that Mexico needs a more controlled approach to the use of the military for public security, they argue, as well as a systematic evaluation of its activities. But the new proposals to regulate the military fall short of these goals, the report concludes.”