Monday, October 18, 2010
Something Good Out of Los Pinos?
Calderón, after a lengthy meeting with Senate leaders, promised a bill to alter the military exemption from civilian trials. It's a bit hard to comment on this without knowing the details of the bill, but assuming it exposes military abusers to civilian trials and decreases the impunity, good on the president. Fixing this --both the fuero in particular and the abuses by Mexican security forces in general-- doesn't amount to a comprehensive solution to Mexico's security problems, but it is an unqualified improvement, does remove a potentially significant barrier to long-term public support for confronting organized crime. As such, it's always struck me as shortsighted that Calderón's allies and people in favor of an aggressive crime policy haven't been more ahead of the curve on this issue.
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I agree that Calderon has been myopic on this issue up until now, but it's worth noting that even if he hadn't been, pretty much every country in Latin America has (sadly) had to go through a phase of accumulating well-documented rights violations before the security forces acquiesced to greater oversight by civilian justice institutions. Even when they do, the resentment tends to remain evident, and they often try to place obstacles in the path of specific investigations. Just wait until civilian prosecutors try to get information from the military about specific incidents. This will be a long process.
Unrelated - this article is getting attention:
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/716971.html
What the hell? I have no doubt that there are death squads in Mexico, but if they're really so common should it be that hard for El Uni to offer a modicum of evidence (outside the well covered San Pedro case)? And what's up with the lede? It states that the connecting reed between two attacks on security officials is the use of "paramilitaries," which it then proceeds to...not explain at all. Have I lost all reading comprehension skills, or is this not a bizarre omission for a front page "investigative" piece?
I had the exact reaction to the El Uni piece, really blown up out of nothing. Planning a post later. More later this evening...
re calderón's myopia, yeah good point. I think pols are just so damage-limiting and damage-control oriented that they never go out of their way to address embarrassing things that can be connected to government policy. Also more complicated in that this is happening precisely as Calderón and co are increasing their reliance on the army. Re the difficulty of civilian prosecutors actually working with the military, that's also quite true, or at least I imagine it will be. This won't revolutionize things overnight.
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