20,000+ Mexico abductions blamed on Former Mexico Pres. Felipe Calderon and all levels of his gov. including Mexican Navy lauded by US, 'overlap between organized crime and authorities,' gov. turned victims over to drug gangs-LA Times

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2/20/13, "Report rebukes Mexico over cases of the missing," LA Times, Tracy Wilkinson

"Security forces have taken part in many kidnappings and disappearances in Mexico, and the government's failure to investigate most cases only compounds the anguish of their families, according to a scathing new human rights report.

The report released Wednesday serves as an indictment of the administration of former President Felipe Calderon, who left office Dec. 1, and poses urgent challenges for his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto.

Against the backdrop of a military-led offensive against powerful drug cartels, an estimated 70,000 people were killed during Calderon's six-year term, according to authorities and media tallies. Thousands more, possibly more than 20,000, disappeared.

The missing represent what U.S.-based Human Rights Watch called a festering unknown that causes enduring anguish for their families. More than a year of research by the group corroborated reporting by The Times and other news organizations, and stacks of complaints filed by families in almost every state of the republic.

Many of the missing were kidnapped by drug gangs, but all state security branches, including the military and federal and local police, are also accused of the "enforced disappearances" of many people, Human Rights Watch said. The Mexican navy, often praised by U.S. officials and others for its effectiveness in fighting drug gangs, also came in for serious criticism. 

Involvement of the police and military highlights one of the key challenges that has historically bedeviled Mexico and now faces Peña Nieto. Efforts to clean up the country's notoriously corrupt police forces have had only limited success. And the military, as the government's main protagonist in the drug war, has been dragged into some of the same human rights abuses and corrupt practices that long corroded the police.

Calderon's government ignored the disappearances, failed to take steps to stop them and often blamed the victims, the report says. "The result was the most severe crisis of enforced disappearances in Latin America in decades," Human Rights Watch said....

Human Rights Watch focused on 249 cases of men and women who have disappeared since 2006. In 149 cases, state security forces participated "directly in the crime, or indirectly through support or acquiescence," it said....

In one case that was examined earlier by The Times, 12 vendors of house paint vanished near a military checkpoint as they traveled to a job in the border city of Piedras Negras, in Coahuila state, in March 2009. In another, eight young men disappeared on a hunting trip in Zacatecas in December 2010.

In both, Human Rights Watch said, authorities subjected families desperately seeking their loved ones to dismissive and at times insulting treatment....

In several particularly chilling examples, the report concludes that authorities kidnapped people and then turned them over to drug gangs or other criminal networks. On May 28, 2011, the report says, 19 men on a construction crew in the Nuevo Leon town of Pesqueria were taken away by municipal police who were believed to have delivered them to a local crime boss.

The report documents the disappearances of at least 20 people who were seen being taken away by large convoys of naval special forces in June and July 2011.

The detentions took place over several states and with such precision that Human Rights Watch investigators believe they must have been part of a coordinated effort approved at high-ranking levels of the navy.

Both Human Rights Watch and the national Human Rights Commission, which also denounced several of the cases, say they have photographs and video of the sweeps. The navy at one point acknowledged detaining some of the people. The whereabouts of all remain unknown. No military personnel have been prosecuted in the cases.

Human Rights Watch said the cases it examined were a small sample, but that "there is no question that there are thousands more."...

A list compiled by the attorney general's office during the Calderon administration that was based on reports filed around the country gave a total of about 20,000 missing people. The list was never released to the public but was made available to The Times last year.

How many of the estimated thousands of missing fell victim to security forces cannot be determined....

"How many of those involved state security agents we don't know because there has been no investigation. However, in a significant proportion, there is a very sinister overlap between organized crime and authorities."

There was no immediate comment from the current or former government. However, in meetings with members of a Human Rights Watch delegation, which presented copies of the report to officials, representatives of the new government said they were working to prevent disappearances and improve search methods, according to participants....

"As positive as that is, none of this can work until the government starts to do what the previous government never did and determines who is responsible and brings them to justice," Steinberg said."



photo of lavish party for Calderon thrown by Obama at the White House, May 20, 2010, paid for by the US taxpayer, reuters. 

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Above, 5/20/10, US Congress applauds Calderon for slamming Arizona law. reuters

"As Mexican President Felipe Calderon ripped Arizona's new law clamping down on illegal immigrants in front of Congress on Thursday, Democrats and White House officials rose to their feet to cheer, including Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano -- two officials who have confessed to not even reading the law. And that isn't sitting well with officials from states along the border.

"It was extremely disappointing to have a foreign head of state on the floor of the U.S. Congress exhibiting willful ignorance" over the new law, Arizona House Speaker Kirk Adams told Fox News.

"But I'll tell you what's even more galling is to have members of the White House staff standing and applauding something that is absolutely wrong," he said. "Arizona's law does not introduce racial profiling. Quite the contrary.""...