Human rights report: Mexico security forces behind disappearances of people

A woman holds part of a banner showing pictures of missing persons in the National March for Dignity on the day Mexicans celebrate el Dia de La Madre or Mother's Day, in Mexico City, Thursday, May 10, 2012. Mothers and other relatives of persons gone missing in the fight against drug cartels and organized crime are demanding that authorities locate their loved ones. / AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini

MEXICO CITY A new Human Rights Watch report calls Mexico's anti-drug offensive "disastrous" and cites 249 cases of disappearances, about 149 of which include evidence of being carried out by the military or law enforcement.

The report says the forced disappearances follow a pattern of security forces detaining people without warrants at checkpoints, homes, workplaces or in public. When families ask about their relatives, security forces deny the detentions or instruct them to look elsewhere.

"Virtually none of the victims have been found or those responsible brought to justice, exacerbating the suffering of families of the disappeared," Human Rights Watch said in a press release.

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The report released Wednesday accuses former President Felipe Calderon of ignoring the problem, calling it "the most severe crisis of enforced disappearances in Latin America in decades."

Mexico's Interior Department oversees domestic security and it declined to make an immediate comment about the report.

[Charley Burford]

I've long felt that making drugs legal and taking the profit out of the drug business would be the best way to stop the violence and corruption. The problem of drug abuse will always exist and it must be dealt with with education as social and medical problem. Both Mexico and the US should legalize drugs. On the other hand, under the circumstances that exist in Mexico with the violence and corruption surrounding the lucrative illegal drug trade, the problem threatens the political stability of Mexico. Therefore, it should be fought as a war as if the survival of the country is at stake, because it is. I've long felt that a two or three pronged intelligence system should be formed, with each one being separate and independent. Cartel members need to be identified by one prong, the second and third prongs of intelligence need to be used to verify the data submitted by the first. Then, once people are redundantly identified as being cartel members or allies, the military takes them out. The redundant intelligence is to avoid acting on false leads and to avoid mistakes. There will be collateral damage at times, but this is war--if you play with the bad boys, you put yourself at risk.

[Donnie_G]

This would be the Mexican version of a Fast and Furious scandal, and you can bet that somehow, some way, President Obama will feel compelled to apologize for those disappearances. All it would take is for one machete with "made in America" stamped on it to turn up at the mass gravesite that the Mexican authorities will stumble upon eventually. Wait for it!