Download the full report - Human Rights Watch

or dispatching families to inquire about their whereabouts with security forces. Human
rights defenders from CADHAC confirmed that many of the disappearances they have
registered that have not been included in the “working meetings”—approximately 150
cases in all—reveal many of the same flaws and omissions on the part of prosecutors and
law enforcement officials. These errors continue to undermine efforts to punish those
responsible, find missing persons, and prevent disappearances from occurring. Not
surprisingly, some families whose cases have not been included in the “working meetings”
have perceived this disparity, and are increasingly frustrated by what they perceive to be a
two-tier system, where the cases that receive proper attention are limited to the ones
monitored by human rights defenders and coordinators.
An Alternative Approach: the Case of Coahuila
Nuevo León is one of a handful of states where families of the disappeared and civil
society groups have successfully pressed authorities to develop new strategies to address
the problem of disappearances. In the neighboring state of Coahuila—driven in large part
by a coalition of victims’ families called United Efforts for Our Disappeared (Fuerzas Unidas
por Nuestros Desaparecidos en Coahuila, FUUNDEC)—the state government has taken
steps to develop a plan to search for disappeared persons, investigate their cases, and
assist their families. While this report does not evaluate the efforts in Coahuila with the
same degree of detail as those in Nuevo León—owing in large measure to the fact that the
government’s efforts in the former state are not yet as advanced—distinct strengths and
weaknesses have emerged in Coahuila’s approach.
Coahuila’s governor, Rubén Moreira, has publicly recognized the scope of the problem,
and the state government’s responsibility to address to it, on multiple occasions. In
January 2012, a month after taking office, he acknowledged publicly that more than 1,600
people had disappeared in Coahuila since 2007. 379 In a public event on March 28 of that
year with the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, he recognized
that “authorities from the Mexican government lack a comprehensive policy to confront the
phenomena of enforced disappearances.” 380 And when Human Rights Watch met with a
379 “Estimates of 1,600 Disappeared People in Coahuila” (Estiman que hay mil 600 desaparecidos en Coahuila), Proceso,
January 14, 2012, http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=294920 (accessed February 12, 2013).
380 Coahuila Governor Rubén Moreira, speech at the presentation of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary
Disappearances Report on Mission to Mexico, Saltillo, Coahuila, March 28, 2012.
MEXICO’S DISAPPEARED 108