Mexican Torture Training Raises Questions About U.S. Military/Police Aid

Two videos of a torture-training session with the police force of León, Guanajuato shocked the Mexican public last week and raised serious questions about human rights under the Calderon offensive against organized crime. For readers with strong stomachs, the videos can be found here.

The videos leaked by the local paper El Heraldo de León hit the media just one day after President Bush signed into law a $400 million aid package to support President Felipe Calderon's war on drugs and organized crime. The tapes show graphic images of torture techniques used on victims who city officials claim were volunteers from the police force. In one, a debilitated victim is insulted and dragged through his own vomit. In another, a victim receives shots of mineral water up the nose and has his head forced into a pit of "rats and excrement."

It's old news that torture exists in Mexico. The videos were especially shocking in a society relatively inured to human rights violations for two reasons: they prove without a doubt that torture is not an anomaly in the country, but an institutionalized practice; and they reveal the role of foreign private security companies.

1) The graphic images led to public outcry throughout the country and made it into the international press. Compounding the outrage at the torture scenes, Leon officials responded by defending the training program and refusing to suspend it. As people across the country watched in horror, the mayor and police chief claimed the practices do not violate human rights and are necessary to fight organized crime.

When reminded that torture is prohibited under Mexican law, the officials backtracked and claimed they were teaching specialized police officers to withstand torture techniques rather than dish them out. But it's obvious watching the video that this is a Torture 101 course. Trainers bark orders at police officers on how to humiliate and "break" the victims.

What has many people worried is that the war on drugs launched by Felipe Calderon -- and explicitly endorsed and supported by the U.S. government through aid to the Mexican police and military -- is sending a message to Mexican security forces that "anything goes". These tactics are reprehensible, yet they are being presented as acceptable in the context of a war mentality.

2) The second point of concern is that the video clips show foreign private security companies teaching torture interrogation techniques to Mexican security forces. Kristin Bricker, an investigative report from the online newspaper NarcoNews, uncovered evidence that indicates the trainers are from a Miami-based private security company called "Risks, Incorporated."

The company, incorporated in London, boasts "Psychological torture is the main tactic used in professional interrogations, it works and leaves no physical marks. We do this interrogation technique and others on some courses to show how easy it is to break a hostage and we're being nice!"

The images raise serious questions about the direction of U.S. aid under Plan Mexico (Merida Initiative). The Plan includes an unspecified amount for contracts to U.S. private security companies. As the webpage of Risks Incorporated shows, these kind of courses are the dead opposite of human rights training.

We don't know if other companies carry out similar courses. But private security companies under contract from the State Department and the Dept. of defense have come under heavy fire since the massacre of 17 Iraqi civilians in which Blackwater employees were involved and the lawsuits against security firms for torture in Abu Ghraib. Even Department of Defense officials have complained that they have "quick trigger fingers", "act like cowboys" and "lack accountability". A military intelligence officer referred to them as "essentially mercenary forces"--the term commonly used throughout Latin America to describe U.S. private security forces.

To make matters worse, these firms seem to operating in an international legal void. A CRS report to Congress states "It is possible that some contractors may remain outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, civil or military, for improper conduct in Iraq." This lack of legal accountability extends to their actions elsewhere as well. The UN Mercenaries Working Group has noted the lack of regulation worldwide of these growing forces.

In Mexico, despite legal reforms that no longer allow testimony obtained through torture as evidence, the practice is widespread. When we took testimonies in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Atenco in February as part of the International Civil Commission on Human Rights, I heard many cases of beatings, scaldings and sexual abuse in police custody. These cases, and these victims, remain beneath the radar of the press and public opinion, and were ignored by U.S. legislators quick to please Latino voters.

The Mexican government recognized only 72 cases for the entire period 2001-2006. When torture cases are prosecuted at all, they often wind up being prosecuted as lesser charges. According to its website, the Human Rights Commission has issued only three recommendations regarding torture since 1995. Many victims who have suffered torture at the hands of the authorities are understandably reluctant to report the violations to the same governments whose security forces or agencies were responsible for the incidents.

Mexican human rights groups report that violations have been on the rise in Mexico since the drug war sent over 25,000 soldiers out into the streets and emboldened police forces. In its annual report, the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center notes "a regression in respect and protection of fundamental rights." Since most of the aid from Congress goes to the police and military, with another large chunk for domestic spying operations, it's fairly easy to predict that instead of cleaning up Mexican security forces in their fight against organized crime, we will see the empowerment of impunity.

Women, indigenous peoples and opposition leaders are the most common targets. Since Plan Mexico also funds equipment for tracking Central American migrants in Mexico and further militarizing the Mexican border, it can be assumed that migrants will also be the victims of increased human rights violations.

Some Washington human rights groups have claimed that Plan Mexico will help Mexico reform and eliminate illegal practices such as torture. But the aid package funds the same forces that commit those atrocities with virtual impunity.

The problem for Mexico in reaching a higher level of respect for human rights is a political -- not a legal or economic -- problem. All indications show that the Calderon model of militarized control, supported by the Bush model of counter-terrorism security embodied in Plan Mexico, will only make it worse.

Comments

[mariaq]

I learn much from the movement for justice for a young americano journalist named brad will. This young man murdered in the daytime with the murderers government officials on camera shooting at the americano.

but there is no justice for many murdered and this man's family and friend are fighting against plan mexico because many Mexicans peoples will suffer more power of corrupt government and military/police brutal that are theones doing the narcotrafficking! this mexican peoples know: the drug trafficking only happens with the government forces and the big banks.

message today from the friends to brad will explains how democratic party in the u.s. with fake'activist' human rights associacions worked for plan mexico to pass. corruption and empire in the u.s. too.

real human rights people should stand up with the workers of afl-cio and denounce this militarizacion plan+ really defend the human rights. And where have been our other campaigning intergalactica!? wola should be ashamed and representative engel and serrano too.
they have their website more information.

mq

[PoliticalAnimal]

Well, at least we're still exporting something ...

[NABNYC]

Drug trafficking is a serious problem in Mexico and in the U.S. The organized gangs that run the operations kill without thought. But who do we really think is getting all the money? Not some corrupt police guard at the border, not some dude named Jose living in Tijuana. It's the elite of the world, and the most elite of all live in the U.S.

Does anyone really believe that the U.S. has been engaged in a "war on drugs" for several decades, invading (without much press) many countries throughout the world under that pretense -- for the purpose of stopping little Johnny from lighting up his first joint? The elite in the U.S. could care less if all our kids are addicts. No problema. They just want a cut of the action.

When the U.S. goes into a country, like Columbia or Mexico, what we are really doing is just getting the major drug-running gangs to give us a piece of the action. We're like in the protection racket: give us a piece of the action or we'll blow up the little town where your mom lives.

What the country should do is end this so-called war, bring the money home, guard the borders and ports to try to keep drugs out, invest in rehab and take addiction out of the criminal justice system.

[qofdisks]

We went to Polomas, a tiny Mexican town on the border, for dental work last week. Recently, the U.S. funded drug war has spilled into the streets. What I saw was a town under severe economic stress. The people there were disparate for our business.
Walking back across the border we encountered a car load of little old ladies on the U.S. side. Their husbands had walked across but had left their wives back in the car. They asked us if the town of Polomas was in chaos and if we felt it was dangerous. The town was quiet, too quiet. We felt safe in the middle of the day and the people there were sweet as the day is long.
Normally, the dental/ eye clinics and pharmacy are crowded with Americans seeking health care. Normally bus loads of American elderly are lined up at the dental clinic. Normally, the nice PINK restaurant has a decent lunch rush.
Not now.

The drug war is an excuse to de-stabilize the border so that the arms dealers and mercs can make more money. The border towns and cities on the U.S. side are starting to resemble a police state.
Why does the Bush admin. think that force is always to answer to all our problems?

[Levittown]

All the training and all torture will not solve the drug problem As long as poverty and desire for easy money and the willingness of those with money to feed their needs there is no solution to the drug
problem. Education at an early age may be a start, Too often we find that those preaching against drugs are profiting from the trade.

To solve the immigration problem is just as difficult. Too many illegals over forty years of being ignored for the profit of a few have obscured any rational thinking. Border security is just as complicated. Where to build fences and where best to patrol and what force to use is a never ending debate.

[Mimo29]

Just points out how our tax money is being used to train torture techniques in other countries. I seriously doubt Obregon (the oposing candidate to Calderon who lost by a hair) would have supported such methods. Makes you wonder to what extent the US is still involved in other country's elections.

[jackie4444]

SOA watch video specifics (previous post):

"Hidden in Plain Sight", VHS 71 minutes, Raven's Call Production
SOA Watch
P. O. Box 4566
Washington, DC 20017
202-234-3440
www.soaw.org

[joebiz]

As the post mentioned above, torture in Mexico is old news. Torture is common practice in jails and detention facilities. The torture techniques are known as "calentadas" or "get warmed up" or 'heated-up'. Meaning the sensation of heat on your body feels when you are beaten, shocked, scalded, or abused. Electric shocks, waterboarding, and beatings are not uncommon. Although torture is constitutionally barred, the legal system in Mexico is based on the Napoleonic/Civil Code. The presumption of guilt is on the accused. One is guilty until one proves their innocence (non-guilt). Torture is a good way to make someone admit guilt.

The level of narco-violence has gotten out of hand in certain states of the Mexican republic. In large part because drug trafficking has become so lucrative on both side of the border. Coke heads in the US are indirectly funding most of the violence towards security forces in Mexico.

The new torture techniques are small part of the US taxpayer funded program that seeks to manage narco-terrorism in a country with lower legal standards, less government oversight, and a penchance for institutionalized violence, not to mention a kleptocracy masquarading as government.

It's another way our government manages issues and problems that affect our lifestyle. Throw money at it, use foreign mandarins, manage expectations, control outcomes, and repeat another year.

[seatea1967]

I only wish the Bush administration gave out more $400 aid packages to brutal regimes. It would save us a lot of cabbage.

[choada777]

Yeah, I received my $600 'aid package' last month.

[Veri]

School of Americas.

Why is torture training of Latin American and South American police and military any news to you?

[jackie4444]

School of the Americas. Now WHINSC - Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation.
SOA Watch, the group trying for a decade to shut the operation down, has some great videos showing the torture techniques that the U.S. routinely teaches at SOA/WHINSC in Ft. Benning, Georgia, particularly the one called "Hidden in Plain Sight". Exactly the same techniques Bush has used in Iraq.

[SonnyBono]

Right on the button - Veri and jackie4444 - look at abuses in Latin America and some where in the background is a connection to School of the Americas with people like John Negroponte lurking about aiding the local criminals all in the name of pushing democracy - actually helping the local thugs keep things in line for the corporate interests.

I wonder if Negroponte is as limited in his international travels these days as Henry Kissinger who seems to avoid Europe when he travels around.