Yesterday, the Mexican Supreme Court absolved Enrique Peña Nieto, governor of the State of Mexico and likely PRI presidential candidate in 2012, and Eduardo Medino Mora, the present attorney general and former director of public security, of any responsibility for the events of May 2006, in which a protest devolved into a mass riot, with abductions of police officers and mass arrests of demonstrators and accusations of sexual assault on the part of the police. With different arguments and varying degrees of certainty, ten of the eleven justices declined to hold the two most important officials implicated in the episode guilty. Today, the court will decide if other mid-level officials are to be held guilty.
I have not followed the case as closely as I probably should have, but I think a couple of points warrant mentioning: first, there clearly was criminal behavior on both sides. This wasn't merely a bunch of police abusing disenfranchised protesters, and the radicals in San Salvador Atenco certainly provoked the police. But as Carlos Loret pointed out earlier this week, there has been a persistent failure to hold any of the police responsible for their criminally overzealous response, not just the big fish, but at every level. As a result of the rioting, there were 200 protesters arrested, and only 21 police officers. There are thirteen protestors serving prison sentence, compared to zero police officers. There were 26 complaints of sexual assault, which led to the formal investigation of one police officer, who remains outside of prison. Today's decision is an opportunity to address that.
One other comment: Loret obliquely mentions that PAN lawyers were working to implicate PRI officials, presumably Peña Nieto among them, in order to knock off a few prominent adversaries on the other side. That seems like a short-sighted tactic, reminiscent of the desafuero fiasco with AMLO a few years ago. First of all, although this is much lower-profile case than the desafuero, the PAN won't be able to hide its involvement, and it would come off badly as well if judicial penalties look like political hatchet jobs carried out on its behalf. Second, when there are scandals, every party suffers to a degree. The reaction for many Mexicans would be, "It was a PRI official who was guilty this time, but it could just as easily be a panista next. They're all dirty." I'm not saying the parties should wash each others' hands, but nor should they be actively working through a nominally independent judiciary to carry out political dirty work.
3 comments:
I dunno. As in Oaxaca, there's almost always a way to say, "well, neither side is blameless..." which quickly becomes an excuse for inaction. What happened in Atenco was despicable. I don't know enough about degrees of responsibility under Mexican law to judge what should happen to EPN and Medina Mora, but the length of the sentences handed down against the protesters is crazy, and the disproportion between the vigor of the investigations against the police and the protesters is unacceptable. Moreover, you don't have to be Johnny Libertarianism to believe that the state has a special responsibility to not, you know, sexually assault its citizens. Mexico is messy, protesters get out of hand, AMLO's no martyr, y un largo etc., but the outrage over Atenco seems pretty justified.
I hadn't read El Uni yet when I commented, but I think Rocha and Carbonell muster the proper degree of anger.
Weirdly, the day Atenco happened was one of the only times I've ever happened to tune in to Democracy Now on the radio. They were covering the story heavily, but due to the source I figured it was a minor story getting blown out of proportion. Democracy Now 1, Skeptical Moderate 0.
I dont mean to understate the outrages, although I guess I kind of did. Nor do I mean to excuse inaction. Clearly the sexual abuse and the overall lack of discipline is a gigantic fiasco and a perfect example of why Mexicans don't believe in their government. I tend to think that the stiff sentences imposed on the protesters is less of a scandal than the impunity for the police. The three guys having 112 years seems very excessive, but the fact that a handful of protesters were given jail time does not offend me as much as the lack of accountability for the police.
In general, people tend to equate this and even get more angry about this than News Divine, which I think was much more of an outright case of unprovoked abuse.
As far as Medina Mora and Peña, I don't really have an opinion as to whether they should be criminally culpable, but I don't think as Carbonell alludes to it would be out of line for Medina Mora to resign (or to already have resigned). It won't happen, but it would seem to be fair.
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