Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission finds that 5,397 are reported missing across the country since President Felipe Calderón launched his war on the narco cartels in 2006.
Some 115,000 Mexicans fled their homes last year because of drug-related crime, and the total number of people displaced by drug violence in Mexico since 2007 has reached about 230,000.
In violence-torn Ciudad Juárez, the mayor has appointed a new security czar—Lt. Col. Julian Leyzaola Perez, a veteran of counterinsurgency operations in Mexico’s south, who is viewed ominously by human rights groups.
The US ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, has resigned following embarrassing revelations about US-Mexican relations, starting with WikiLeaks’ publication of diplomatic cables from the US embassy.
Mexican social organizations and human rights groups carried out actions in at least eight states, to demand that the authorities end the murders of women and categorize femicide as a special crime.
On International Women’s Day, many human rights defenders were absent from Ciudad Juárez, following a wave of violence in which leaders have been assassinated and forced into exile.
Barack Obama expressed “nothing but admiration for President Calderón” and his “war on drugs” at a joint press conference in Washington, DC during the Mexican president’s visit.
Mexico has requested “detailed information” from the US on an operation which reportedly allowed some 2,000 firearms to enter Mexico illegally in an effort to trace the activities of gun smugglers.
Activists have identified 10 “zones of extermination” in Ciudad Juárez, where “youthcide” is carried out with impunity—despite warnings from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
Upon receiving word that the bodies of her missing family members had been found, hunger-striking activist Marisela Reyes Salazar called on President Calderón to end this “stupid dirty war.”
Mexican federal police announced the capture of “El Papirrin,” leader of “La Resistencia”—an alliance of cartels formed to resist the drive by Los Zetas to dominate Mexico’s narco networks.
President Felipe Calderón’s militarization of the struggle against drug trafficking is “a war from above” largely for the benefit of US interests, according to a letter by Subcommander Marcos.
