Senate Study Finds Use of Mexican Army Against Drug Cartels Wasn't Necessary Paris Martinez - Animal Politico | |
go to original February 28, 2017 |
The Child Soldiers Of Mexico's Drug Gangs (Journeyman Pictures)
Ten years after the current strategy to fight organized crime began, with the Armed Forces’ active participation in confrontations against drug traffickers, official data available reveals that it "did not reduce violence in the country", rather "the opposite happened: this strategy detonated a subsequent wave of violence," a Senate study concluded.
Worse still, this study determined that in 2007, when this strategy popularly known as the "drug war" was launched, violence in Mexico "was at a historic low level", so, in fact, "there was no security crisis that justified the simultaneous deployment of operations with the Armed Forces."
Prepared by the Directorate General of Strategic Research of the Belisario Domínguez Institute (the Senate’s center for legislative studies), the document called "Internal security: elements for debate” emphasizes that "to date, no official diagnosis has been made public justifying this change in national policy" related to public security, decided in 2007 and endorsed to date.
Information published by the Secretariat of National Defense on December 2016 indicates that, at present, 52,000 soldiers are involved in the anti-narcotics operations begun ten years ago. However, according to the Senate study, so far there is no official information "that allows a thorough evaluation of the performance and results of military operations.”
What can be verified, as determined by the General Directorate of Strategic Research of the Belisario Domínguez Institute, is that the involvement of the Armed Forces in the fight against organized crime generated a deterioration not only of public security but also of " the relationship of coexistence between the Army and Mexican society."
After analyzing the homicide records of the National Institute of Geography and Statistics, the Senate's center for legislative studies found that before the start of the war against drugs, Mexico experienced an annual rate of 9,000 murders, which rose to 27,000 after this military confrontation strategy was launched.
Allegations of human rights violations committed by members of the Armed Forces, also registered an exponential growth.
Read the rest at Mexico Voices | Spanish original
Translated by Ruby Izar-Shea
Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico - on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx
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