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Then came the shift. Families of the disappeared, united by a grassroots victims’ movement and partnered with a local human rights group, collectively demanded that prosecutors begin to take the investigations seriously. Under considerable pressure and media attention, state officials received the families and agreed to work with them in investigating disappearances. At first, both sides were distrustful. However, when prosecutors—motivated by families to investigate and held accountable when they did not—began to genuinely look into the crimes, they gradually began to win back the trust of the victims’ relatives. And families, in turn, began to collaborate more openly with prosecutors. The combination of real efforts by prosecutors and the guiding hand of families gave rise to a new dynamic, which allowed investigations to move forward for the first time in years. Progress in individual investigations, however small, made it possible to believe that these horrific crimes, many of which appeared to implicate state agents, could be solved. A virtuous cycle started to take the place of a vicious one: the more prosecutors investigated, the more they earned the trust of victims’ families, and the more investigations advanced. And the more investigations advanced, the more other victims came forward. For their part, prosecutors took the solid investigative tactics and skills they learned working on one case or another and applied them to the rest of the disappearances on their docket. While progress in the investigations has been limited, and very few of the disappeared have been found, the step of breaking through a climate of disillusionment and distrust is real. Indeed, in a decade of documenting flawed and lackluster investigations of human rights violations in Mexico, the subset of cases in Nuevo León represents one of the first times Human Rights Watch has ever seen proper investigations. In that way, the working process in Nuevo León provides a blueprint for how some of the greatest obstacles to investigating not only disappearances, but all human rights violations in Mexico, can be overcome. This progress, though, is fragile and limited. Only a tiny fraction of disappearances in Nuevo León have received such attention. In addition, even in those investigations in which this unique collaborative method has been applied, families have at times grown disillusioned by the reality that many of their loved ones are still missing, and their fates unknown. Furthermore, because the effort to pair families with prosecutors is an ad hoc arrangement—one fully dependent on the good will of the governor and the state MEXICO’S DISAPPEARED 94
prosecutor’s office—it could easily be eliminated in a political transition, and the good practices and advances lost. “Working Meetings” between Victims’ Families, Human Rights Defenders, and the State Prosecutor’s Office The impetus for government officials, human rights defenders, and victims’ families working together on investigating disappearances was sparked by a visit to Monterrey by the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (Movimiento por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad, hereafter the Movimiento), a grassroots campaign made up of the victims of crimes committed by both security forces and organized crime. The Movimiento organized a “caravan” made up of families of victims that traveled around Mexico in 2011. In each place where the “caravan” stopped, the participants often held public meetings and rallies, where they were joined by local victims and their families. When the “caravan” came to Monterrey on June 7, 2011, approximately 300 people staged a rally outside city hall to demand justice for victims of crimes and human rights violations. In response, Nuevo León’s governor, Rodrigo Medina de la Cruz, told Attorney General Adrián de la Garza to open the doors of the state prosecutor’s office to receive the people who had gathered for the rally. 337 Javier Sicilia and Emilio Álvarez Icaza, two of the leaders of the Movimiento, and Sister Consuelo Morales, who directs a local human rights group called Citizens in Support of Human Rights (Ciudadanos en Apoyo a los Derechos Humanos, CADHAC)—voiced the frustrations of many of those gathered with the lack of investigation into disappearances and other crimes by local authorities. Then, families of the disappeared began to present their cases to the attorney general. Of all of those present, only 11 families were able to present their cases that night. As a result, the attorney general agreed to meet with the other victims’ families during the following month—together with representatives from CADHAC and the Movimiento—and pledged to attend to their cases. 338 337 Human Rights Watch interviews with Consuelo Morales, Monterrey, Nuevo León, June 4, 2012, October 23, 2012; Human Rights Watch interview with Adrián de la Garza, Attorney General, Nuevo León State Prosecutor’s Office, Monterrey, Nuevo León, October 25, 2012. 338 Ibid. 95 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | FEBRUARY 2013
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H U M A N R I G H T S W A T C H MEX
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Copyright © 2013 Human Rights Watc
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A Promising New Approach: the Case
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Executive Summary When Enrique Peñ
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A different approach is possible. H
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egardless of the perpetrator. Furth
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Impact on Victims’ Families Disap
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prosecutors and the guiding hand of
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To the Federal Executive Branch: Re
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• Reform the Military Code of Jus
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were enforced disappearances—mean
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Enforced Disappearances There is st
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name. Instead, they indiscriminatel
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video at the parking lot entrance.
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that Navy personnel participated in
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neighboring states of Nuevo León a
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2009, they arrived in Río Verde, S
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vehicle marked with Federal Police
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they said they had carried out the
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According to two individuals who we
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The family of Iván Baruch Núñez
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Alvarado Reyes, 18, according to Ir
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stopped a train the victims were ri
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government officials have a strong
Page 49 and 50: The wife of Sebastián Pérez (pseu
Page 51 and 52: exchange for a car—a deal he acce
Page 53 and 54: failing to promptly secure the crim
Page 55 and 56: which contradicted the evidence cit
Page 57 and 58: after receiving reports of gunshots
Page 59 and 60: State investigators also misplaced
Page 61 and 62: than detaining them for a full 24 h
Page 63 and 64: pressed for a meeting with the stat
Page 65 and 66: officials provided no explanation a
Page 67 and 68: families and various authorities. 1
Page 69 and 70: when in fact they are the ones who
Page 71 and 72: into a waiting vehicle. 219 The off
Page 73 and 74: Gamez’s mother immediately report
Page 75 and 76: Impact on Families of Disappeared P
Page 77 and 78: involved a man who was disappeared
Page 79 and 80: Domínguez Rolon, 33, a federal pol
Page 81 and 82: It is an exhausting process, as muc
Page 83 and 84: Surviving parents and guardians of
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Page 89 and 90: force them to.” 292 The wife neve
Page 91 and 92: months and no more than six months.
Page 93 and 94: they had received. “Do what you c
Page 95 and 96: needed to obtain a “presumption o
Page 97 and 98: Oropeza, 48, her health declined sw
Page 99: A Promising New Approach: the Case
Page 103 and 104: described a climate of “coldness
Page 105 and 106: Prosecutors and human rights defend
Page 107 and 108: individuals to be detained por flag
Page 109 and 110: other. And—after Arenas’s fathe
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Page 113 and 114: Another challenge in the “working
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Page 117 and 118: Failure to Prosecute Enforced Disap
Page 119 and 120: the same specific methods (electric
Page 121 and 122: Specifically, the Ministry of the I
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Page 127 and 128: Thirdly, the collection of DNA from
Page 129 and 130: office. 416 However, the chart of r
Page 131 and 132: Enforced Disappearances and Mexico
Page 133 and 134: inhuman and degrading manner by the
Page 135 and 136: Human Rights Committee has made cle
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Page 139 and 140: Furthermore, Mexico’s Military Co
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Page 143 and 144: In August 2012, Mexico’s Supreme
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Page 147 and 148: January 23, 2012, military records
Page 149 and 150: Acknowledgments This report was wri
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Finally, Human Rights Watch would l
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Annex 1: CAses of DisAppeArAnCes Do
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Annex 2: Letter from Human Rights W
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Human Rights Watch fully welcomes c
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consistently sought meetings with t
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impunity that we document in our re
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Calderón announced last December 5
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In recent months, the government ha
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