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Posted on
11/20/2008 12:17 AM EST
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The failure of Operation Chihuahua
Part 1 of 2
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Víctor M. Quintana S.
What is happening in the State of Chihuahua, México is a living (or dead) illustration of the failure of the Mexican government in the improvised struggle against organized crime that President Felipe Calderón started at the onset of his term.
Saturday, August 16: just before six o'clock in the evening, three luxury SUVs bearing a dozen gunmen pull up outside a warehouse, where teens and young adults are having a dance-party at Creel, an enclave in the Chihuahua mountains. They are apparently looking for two people to finish off, but they do not know what they look like. They open random fire at close range, taking additional lives. Among the victims is a one-year-old boy who dies in spite of his father's heroic attempt to shield him with his body. The mystery is that there is no sign of the police or the army in Creel before or after the massacre. The only authority to witness the families' outburst of pain is religious.
Jesuit priest Javier Avila is not only the shepherd of his trampled flock, he is also psychologist and even legal counsel. In the absence of anyone else, authorities request by phone that he take pictures of the massacred bodies, while police, public ministries, and experts come out of their hiding places.
Explanations for the absence of law enforcement forces in Creel in these moments fade before suspicions and allegations. Some elements of police allege that their superiors ordered them to leave the area because there were going to be executions there. This has not been confirmed, but what is certain is that at that time neither the military, nor the Preventive Judicial Police, nor the ministry police were in Creel. A highway patrol was the only one at the crime scene.
That day the government did not exist for families at Creel. Their fundamental human right to life, which gives rise to the social contract the state is founded upon, was not fulfilled. A grave violation of human rights was committed by omission, given the ineffectiveness at all levels of government. In total desperation and impotence, Creel locals now warn that justice will be taken into other hands. Lynching is sought as a substitute for the inefficiency, the cowardliness, and the complicity of the authorities.
In their flight, or stupor, state forces find no explanations during the subsequent days. The most they come up with are "interpretations." The prosecuting attorney attributes the massacre to "La Linea," a branch of the Juárez Drug Cartel that dominates the sierra and rural Chihuahua. She also explains the obvious: "It is an act of terrorism to intimidate the population."
The state governor, after dozens of deaths, finally gets the message, and hears the calls made months before, stating "Operation Chihuahua has to be reviewed because it is not yielding results."
He goes further, and states it is necessary to "revise our regime of individual liberties and citizen guarantees." In Congress, the anxiety of the Creel families is used by the supporters of PAN, the (Partido de Acción Nacional party) to call for the heads of the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) officials in charge of security. The federal government is quick to cover the wells, once the children are drowned. They send dozens of soldiers to the mountains to chase after the killers who are surely safe and sound, not in security houses, but entire safe municipalities they have at their disposal.
The shake-up at Creel has not detained the river of blood. In the past few days, the death toll continues to rise, to the point where the population asks, "Why are the governmental forces unable to prevent the slaughter? Is it that they themselves perpetrate it?" The post-Weber state goes from monopolizing legitimate violence to monopolizing extreme inefficiency, or monopolizing all violence.
Víctor M. Quintana is adviser to the Frente Democrático Campesino de Chihuahua, researcher-teacher at Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez and collaborator for the Americas Program www.americaspolicy.org.
Translated for the Américas Policy Program by Trace Dryer.
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