Government Rights Agency Asks Mexican Army to Avoid 'Imprecise or Ambiguous' Orders SunHerald
go to original July 8, 2015

On June 3, 2014, 22 people were killed in the small town of Tlatlaya, State of Mexico. (AFP)

The Mexican government's human rights agency has said it is urging the army not to use ambiguous terms in orders, after activists revealed the army had essentially issued a directive to troops to kill suspected criminals.

The National Human Rights Commission said it made a formal request to the Defense Department asking that it review and correct the orders it issues to avoid "imprecise or ambiguous" language.

Last week, activists for the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez human rights center released a copy of military orders issued to an army squad that killed 22 suspects in June 2014. Investigations later found most of the victims were shot to death after surrendering or while unarmed.

The soldiers' orders directed them to "abatir" criminals, a word almost universally understood in Mexico as meaning "kill." Other points in the somewhat contradictory, three-page orders also directed soldiers to respect human rights.

Federal officials later claimed that "abatir" can mean other things, such as knock down or humiliate. But even the army and police forces have used it uniformly in past press statements to mean "kill."



The rights center that uncovered the military document said it was important that the investigation be extended, to determine how far up the chain of command responsibility for the killings went.

The army defended the orders, but it has had a conflicting attitude about the shootings since the start. It opened a criminal investigation the same day the shooting occurred, June 30, 2014, but it also issued a news release at the same time saying all 22 dead had been killed during a fierce gunbattle that began when the suspects fired on soldiers.

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