Author: Aisha Noor
January 1, 2025
HRRC Exclusive
On December 27, 2024, Mexican police found 12 unidentified individuals buried in clandestine graves in Chihuahua, the northern border state that has been notoriously associated with violence related to organized crime. The others discovered buried in 11 shallow graves in the town of Ascension, 180 kilometers west of Ciudad Juarez, were exhumed by the forensic team that has been conducting investigations in the area since December 18. The finding sheds light on some appalling human rights abuses connected to Mexico’s current drug cartel problems and human smuggling, along with the government’s failure to protect those who are most in need.
The bones were buried at a deserted place in the state of Chihuahua that has now turned into a center for smuggling drugs and trafficking of people. The latter has not been confirmed by local authorities as to whether the bones belong to a reported disappeared person or migrant; however, all of them have been sent to the respective state forensic laboratory for identification purposes and additional investigation of the circumstances of the death. The case is one of many incidents of murders and enforced disappearances in Mexico. The country has received a lot of criticism from human rights activists over its inability to address the ever-increasing cases of organized crimes and human rights violations.
International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Abuse
The discovery of mass graves raises serious concerns under International Humanitarian Law (IHL) as well as human rights law. The right to life has been violated as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) article 3 and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) article 6. Proposed in both documents is that everybody has the inalienable right to live, and no one should be deprived of life unlawfully.
The other issue that requires attention is the ban on torture and inhuman treatment as provided under the ICCPR Article 7. The identities of the victims have not been established, and no thorough postmortem examination has been conducted to establish if they were subjected to torture—in addition, they could be victims of enforced disappearance and torture and other human rights abuses, practices that are rampant in areas dominated by organized criminal gangs. Mexico cannot regulate violent non-state actors, and therefore, experience an increase in such violations, thus reducing the citizens’ confidence in state actors in charge of the protection of humanity.
This work also extends to the Geneva Conventions' indispensable rules in armed conflicts and the protection of public populations, which can be relevant in this regard if the action of states is lipid in the violence. Even though the conflicts in Chihuahua are associated with the actions of drug cartels and organized crime, cases are described when the security forces were involved in the participants or were incompetent to protect civilians in such scenarios. This is especially alarming given its location – close to the border with the United States; a country that is increasingly becoming the main entry and transit point for narcotics and migrants respectively.
Social Justice: Enforced Disappearance and the State’s Failure to Protect
Mexico has been experiencing an enforced disappearance crisis for several years now; more than 120,000 people are reported missing across the country. Chihuahua, through which drugs and human beings are smuggled, contains over 3,900 ‘disappeared’ since 1952. Most of these disappearances are in connection to the mafia, yet the state lacks the capacity or, sometimes, the political will to conduct thorough investigations of these cases.
Enforced disappearance of individuals, which also encompasses the violation of international human rights law especially the Convention Against Enforced Disappearances, is rife in Chihuahua. Suppressed along with their relatives by the authorities who pay no attention to their cases, families of the disappeared have to rely on themselves and form people’s volunteer squads. These groups often spend time in the desert area away from any governmental assistance to look for bodies and their kin. However, these are matters carried out by concerned citizens and, as much as they are appreciated, they point to the fact that the state has failed to provide basic protection and sufficient response to the needs of the families of the disappeared.
On the same note, there are worrying impunity levels that enable such vices to persist without check. While countries cannot condone extrajudicial killings, torture or disappearances – and this is banned under both national and international laws – the identified human rights violators, whether including criminal organizations or security forces, rarely come to justice. This culture of impunity not only aggravates the human rights problem but also sustains a cycle of violence in which more and more innocent people particularly in Iraq are being killed.
Civil Society Organizations & International Actors
This is the situation in Mexico and it demands cooperation from the world. The organizations that focus on the issues of human rights should put pressure on the Mexican authorities – the United Nations Human Rights Council is already pressuring the government, which hopefully will respond to its obligations under the international treaties in the sphere of human rights protection and investigate the cases. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) should also continue following this matter closely and offer logistical support in forensic work to ensure that identification is conducted correctly and the cause of death is studied exhaustively.
In addition, the Mexican government needs to act urgently to prosecute offenders of human rights violations. This has to involve not only the current investigation of an alleged mass grave, but also other matters such as the challenge of enforced disappearances, additional relations to law enforcement practice, and the foundation of independent bodies to look into cases of extrajudicial killings and torture. That families are left to organize the search themselves indicates the absence of state responsibility, illustrated by the woeful and wanton need for an efficient and accountability-based system of justice.
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