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An enforced disappearance is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person with the support or acquiescence of a state followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate or whereabouts with the intent of placing the victim outside the protection of the law. Often, forced disappearance implies murder whereby a victim is abducted, may be illegally detained, and is often tortured during interrogation, ultimately killed, and the body disposed of secretly. The party committing the murder has plausible deniability as there is no evidence of the victim's death.
Los Zetas is a Mexican criminal syndicate and terrorist organization, known as one of the most dangerous of Mexico's drug cartels. They are known for engaging in brutally violent "shock and awe" tactics such as beheadings, torture, and indiscriminate murder. While primarily concerned with drug trafficking, the organization also runs profitable sex and gun rackets. Los Zetas also operate through protection rackets, assassinations, extortion, kidnappings and other illegal activities. The organization is based in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, directly across the border from Laredo, Texas. The origins of Los Zetas date back to the late 1990s, when commandos of the Mexican Army deserted their ranks and began working as the enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel. In February 2010, Los Zetas broke away and formed their own criminal organization, rivalling the Gulf Cartel.
Human Rights in Mexico refers to moral principles or norms that describe certain standards of human behaviour in Mexico, and are regularly protected as legal rights in municipal and international law. The problems include torture, extrajudicial killings and summary executions, police repression, sexual murder, and, more recently, news reporter assassinations.
Crime is one of the most urgent concerns facing Mexico, as Mexican drug trafficking rings play a major role in the flow of cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, heroin, and marijuana transiting between Latin America and the United States. Drug trafficking has led to corruption, which has had a deleterious effect on Mexico's Federal Representative Republic. Drug trafficking and organized crime have been a major source of violent crime. Drug cartels and gangs have also branched out to conduct alternative illegal activities for profit, including sex trafficking in Mexico. Some of the most increasingly violent states in Mexico in 2020 included Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Michoacán, Jalisco, and Querétaro. Some of the world's most violent cities are reportedly within the state of Guanajuato with extortion from criminal groups now being commonplace. The state of Zacatecas is said to be valuable to multiple organized crime groups for drug trafficking, specifically methamphetamine to the United States. As of 2021, Michoacán is experiencing increased instances of extortion and kidnapping due to a growing presence and escalation in the armed conflicts between CJNG and Cárteles Unidos on regions bordering the neighboring state of Jalisco. CJNG is also currently battling the Los Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel in the North Mexican region of Sonora.
The Mexican drug war is an ongoing asymmetric low-intensity conflict between the Mexican government and various drug trafficking syndicates. When the Mexican military intervened in 2006, the government's main objective was to reduce drug-related violence. The Mexican government has asserted that their primary focus is dismantling the cartels and preventing drug trafficking. The conflict has been described as the Mexican theater of the global war on drugs, as led by the United States federal government.
In the Philippines, amparo and habeas data are prerogative writs to supplement the inefficacy of the writ of habeas corpus. Amparo means 'protection,' while habeas data is 'access to information.' Both writs were conceived to solve the extensive Philippine extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances since 1999.
Extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances in the Philippines are illegal executions – unlawful or felonious killings – and forced disappearances in the Philippines. These are forms of extrajudicial punishment, and include extrajudicial executions, summary executions, arbitrary arrest and detentions, and failed prosecutions due to political activities of leading political, trade union members, dissident or social figures, left-wing political parties, non-governmental organizations, political journalists, outspoken clergy, anti-mining activists, agricultural reform activists, members of organizations that are alleged as allied or legal fronts of the communist movement or claimed supporters of the NPA and its political wing, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Other frequent targets are ancestral land rights defenders, Indigenous rights activists, environmentalists, and human rights workers.
The Mérida Initiative, also called Plan Mexico, is a security cooperation agreement among the United States, the government of Mexico, and the countries of Central America. With the declared aim of combating the threats of drug trafficking, transnational organized crime and money laundering, assistance between the countries includes training, equipment and intelligence.
Edgar Valdez Villarreal, also known as La Barbie, is a Mexican-American former drug lord and high-ranking lieutenant of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel. Valdez is serving a 49-year prison sentence at USP Coleman II in Florida.
Los Negros was a criminal organization that was once the armed wing of the Sinaloa Cartel and after a switch of alliances, became the armed wing of the Sinaloa splinter gang, the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel. In 2010 it went independent and had been contesting the control of the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel. It was then the criminal paramilitary unit of Édgar Valdez Villarreal in Mexico. Valdez was arrested on August 30, 2010, near Mexico City. Los Negros was led by Valdez at the time they merged with the Sinaloa Cartel.
The timeline of some of the most relevant events in the Mexican drug war is set out below. Although violence between drug cartels had been occurring for three decades, the Mexican government held a generally passive stance regarding cartel violence through the 1980s and early 2000s.
Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, commonly referred to by his alias Z-40, is a Mexican former drug lord and leader of the criminal organization known as Los Zetas. Considered a violent, resentful and dangerous criminal, he was one of Mexico's most-wanted drug lords until his arrest in July 2013.
The 2010 San Fernando massacre, also known as the first massacre of San Fernando, was the mass murder of 72 undocumented immigrants by the Los Zetas drug cartel in the village of El Huizachal in the municipality of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico. The 72 killed—58 men and 14 women—were mainly from Central and South America, and they were shot in the back of the head and then piled up together. The bodies were found inside a ranch on 24 August 2010 by the Mexican military after they engaged in an armed confrontation with members of a drug cartel. They received information of the place after one of the three survivors survived a shot to the neck and face, faked his death, and then fled to a military checkpoint to seek help. Investigators later mentioned that the massacre was a result of the immigrants' refusal to work for Los Zetas, or to provide money for their release.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel or CJNG, formerly known as Los Mata Zetas, is a Mexican organized crime syndicate based in Jalisco which is headed by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, one of the world's most-wanted drug lords. The cartel has been characterized by its aggressive use of extreme violence and its public relations campaigns. Although the CJNG is particularly known for diversifying into various types of criminal rackets, drug trafficking remains its most profitable activity. The cartel has also been noted for cannibalizing some of its victims, sometimes during the training of new sicarios or cartel members, as well as using drones and rocket-propelled grenades to attack its enemies.
The 2012 Nuevo Laredo massacres were a series of mass murder attacks between the allied Sinaloa Cartel and Gulf Cartel against Los Zetas in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, across the U.S.-Mexico border from Laredo, Texas. The drug-violence in Nuevo Laredo began back in 2003, when the city was controlled by the Gulf Cartel. Most media reports that write about the Mexican Drug War, however, point to 2006 as the start of the drug war. That year is a convenient historical marker because that's when Felipe Calderón took office and carried out an aggressive approach against the cartels. But authors like Ioan Grillo and Sylvia Longmire note that Mexico's drug war actually began at the end of Vicente Fox's administration in 2004, when the first major battle took place in Nuevo Laredo between the Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas, who at that time worked as the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel.
The Cadereyta Jiménez massacre occurred on the Fed 40 on 12–13 May 2012. Mexican officials stated that 49 people were decapitated and mutilated by members of Los Zetas drug cartel and dumped by a roadside near the city of Cadereyta Jiménez in northern Mexico. The Blog del Narco, a blog that documents events and people of the Mexican Drug War anonymously, reported that the actual (unofficial) death toll may be more than 68 people. The bodies were found in the town of San Juan in the municipality of Cadereyta Jiménez, Nuevo León at about 4 a.m. on a non-toll highway leading to Reynosa, Tamaulipas. The forty-three men and six women killed had their heads, feet, and hands cut off, making their identification difficult. Those killed also bore signs of torture and were stuffed in plastic bags. The arrested suspects have indicated that the victims were Gulf Cartel members, but the Mexican authorities have not ruled out the possibility that they were U.S.-bound migrants. Four days before this incident, 18 people were found decapitated and dismembered near Mexico's second largest city, Guadalajara.
In 2011 and 2012, during the Mexican drug war, hundreds of people were killed in massacres by rival drug cartels who were fighting for power and territory. These organized-crime syndicates were grappling for control over the drug corridors to the United States, the drug markets in local cities, extortion rackets, and human smuggling. Massacres occurred in the states of Veracruz, Sinaloa, Jalisco, Tamaulipas and Nuevo León.
Disappearance of Zane Plemmons, a Mexican-American photojournalist who does freelance work for the Sinaloa newspaper El Debate, occurred on 21 May 2012 in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico after covering a shootout.
The Philippine drug war, known as the War on Drugs, is the intensified anti-drug campaign of the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, who served office from June 30, 2016, to June 30, 2022. The campaign reduced drug proliferation in the country, but has been marred by extrajudicial killings allegedly perpetrated by the police and unknown assailants. An estimated 7,742 civilians have been killed in "anti-drug operations" carried out by the government and its supporters between 2016 and 2021.
On 9 April, 2022, 18 year-old law student Debanhi Susana EscobarBazaldúa disappeared from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Thirteen days later on April 22, her remains were found in a cistern, in a motel in General Escobedo, a municipality of Monterrey metropolitan area. The body had visible signs of violence.
References
- 1 2 3 4 "At cartel extermination site; Mexico nears 100k missing". AP NEWS. February 28, 2022. Retrieved March 3, 2022.
- 1 2 3 "Searching for the missing: challenges for Mexico's search commissioner". Mexico News Daily. December 3, 2020. Retrieved March 3, 2022.
- 1 2 "Mexico's official list of missing people passes 100,000, with few cases ever solved". NPR.org. May 18, 2022. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
- ↑ "Official leading search for thousands of missing people in Mexico resigns". Al Jazeera. August 24, 2023. Retrieved August 31, 2023.
- ↑ "45 bodies found in clandestine grave sites in Mexico". NBC News. May 12, 2019. Retrieved March 3, 2022.
- ↑ "World Report 2019: Rights Trends in Mexico". Human Rights Watch. December 20, 2018. Retrieved March 3, 2022.
- ↑ Diaz, Lizbeth (March 28, 2022). "Mexican armed forces knew about attack on 43 students, report says". Reuters. Retrieved March 30, 2022.
- ↑ "World Report 2019: Rights Trends in Mexico". Human Rights Watch. December 20, 2018. Retrieved March 3, 2022.
- ↑ Reuters Editorial (2008-07-08). "Mexico looks for 'dirty war' graves on army base". Reuters . Retrieved 2016-10-29.
{{cite web}}:|author=has generic name (help) - ↑ Ribando Seelke, Clare; Martin, Rachel L. (October 21, 2020). "Human Rights Challenges in Mexico: Addressing Enforced Disappearances" (PDF). FAS Project on Government Secrecy. Congressional Research Service. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ↑ War on Drugs. The Global Commission on Drug Policy. 2011. p. 24. Archived from the original on January 9, 2016. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
- ↑ Baum, Writer Dan. "Legalize All Drugs? The 'Risks Are Tremendous' Without Defining The Problem". NPR.org. Archived from the original on January 15, 2018. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
- ↑ "Collaborating with organized crime in the search for disappeared persons? Formalizing a humanitarian alternative for Mexico". International Review of the Red Cross. December 1, 2021. Retrieved March 3, 2022.
- ↑ "Cartel 'extermination' site shows Mexico's insufficient pace to find 100,000 missing". NBC News. March 1, 2022. Retrieved March 3, 2022.
- ↑ "National Search Commission reported that half of the missing persons in Mexico are from Nuevo León". infobae. April 24, 2022. Retrieved August 15, 2022.