Human
Rights and the Dirty War in Mexico
by
Kate Doyle
Twenty-five years ago, during the worst years of Mexico's dirty
war, a new consciousness began to dawn in the United States about
human rights.
The U.S. government was in turmoil. The scandals leading to the
impeachment and resignation of Richard M. Nixon, the fall of Saigon,
and revelations about CIA operations in countries such as Cuba,
Chile and the Congo prompted the U.S. Congress to seek ways to
incorporate human rights into the conduct of American foreign
policy.
Beginning in 1973 and through the 1970s, lawmakers used foreign
aid bills to push the government to consider human rights in countries
receiving U.S. security or economic assistance. By 1977, these
efforts resulted in the first formal "Human Rights Report"
published by the State Department, and the creation of a new office
of human rights and humanitarian affairs.
The reports did not have much effect in Mexico. According to
Lawrence Sternfield, who as chief of the CIA station in Mexico
in 1977 was in the best position to know, "There was absolutely
no mention of human rights while I was there. Not one word was
spoken about it with my counterparts. It wasn't something that
we broached or they broached. The relationship we had with the
DFS [the Dirección Federal de Seguridad, Mexico's
domestic intelligence service] was about pure intelligence gathering."
"After all," Sternfield continued during a phone interview,
"this was the height of the Cold War, and our efforts were
focused against the Soviet target. Not that we weren't aware that
the Mexicans were doing bad things when they picked up people.
But we didn't raise that with them."
Today in Mexico, researchers are digging through newly-released
archives of the dirty war, and finding fresh evidence that government
agents abducted, tortured and murdered hundreds of Mexicans during
the sexenios of Luis Echeverría and José
López Portillo. Declassified U.S. records are also providing
new details about the scope of the crisis.
But despite emerging revelations about Mexico's official involvement
in brutal human rights crimes, declassified and public documents
show that in the 1970s U.S. citizens knew little about what was
unfolding just south of their border.
A Policy is Born
American interest in human rights policy emerged after the Second
World War, when that conflict's terrible toll prompted an international
call for the promotion of the rights and liberties of all citizens.
Cold War security interests relegated human rights to a unenforceable
symbol during the 1950s and 60s, but the foreign policy scandals
of the Nixon and Ford administrations compelled Congress to act.
Reports of CIA assassination programs in Vietnam, the use of torture
by agents trained by U.S. police advisors in Latin America and
Southeast Asia, and the American role in the overthrow of Chile's
President Allende fed a growing sense of outrage about the conduct
of U.S. foreign policy in the early 1970s.
In the face of mounting evidence of dirty tricks and brutal policies,
lawmakers rebelled against their President. Through a series of
increasingly tough measures, Congress ordered the White House
and the Department of State to slow or slash aid to countries
responsible for human rights abuses. In 1976, Congress passed
an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act requiring the Secretary
of State to publish an annual human rights report.
As Congress and the executive branch wrestled over human rights
in the United States, Mexico was experiencing a period of unprecedented
violence. According to the report on the "disappeared"
released in late 2001 by the National Commission on Human Rights,
abductions of Mexicans by government agents were at an all-time
high, with over 350 documented cases between 1974-1978. (Note
1) Amnesty International, the only international human rights
group closely following developments in Mexico at the time, reported
extensively on allegations of torture, including the use by Mexican
police forces of "systematic beatings, near drowning and
electric shocks." (Note 2)
1974 was the first year that the U.S. embassy in Mexico was required
by Washington to report on the human rights situation. Congress
had inserted Section 32 to the Foreign Assistance Act in 1973,
calling on President Nixon to deny U.S. economic and security
assistance to nations that interned or imprisoned citizens for
political purposes. On April 19, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Joseph
John Jova sent a reply to a query from the State Department that
minimized the government's involvement in violations, while providing
thinly-veiled justification for illegal tactics used by the government
in its crackdown on armed opposition.
Jova's cable equivocated on the question of political prisoners
in Mexico, claiming that the government did not detain citizens
for political reasons, "except when faced with active, armed
opposition that potentially threatens the security of the state."
Expression of political beliefs that were contrary to Mexican
government positions were, wrote Jova, "usually tolerated
within limits…or at worse, discouraged through mild pressures."
The ambassador continued: "Where GOM [Government of Mexico]
remains uncompromising (and indeed may have stiffened its attitude
in recent months) is in respect to those persons who have taken
up arms against the state. The GOM argues (and, we think, with
some justification,) that such persons, whatever their professed
motivation, have committed felonies (murder, kidnapping, armed
robbery, etc.) and are therefore sought, apprehended and punished
not for their beliefs but for their concrete acts.
"It is in dealing with the perpetrators of such acts that
GOM appears frequently to overstep legally prescribed procedures.
There are recurrent reports of 'suspects' whose only connection
with anti-governmental activity may be blood relationship with
wanted guerrillas; of civilians detained extra-constitutionally
by military authorities…; and of prisoners tortured in detention.
Lately, there have been indications also that GOM has murdered
some prisoners after extracting all information they have to give…
"Important point in Embassy's opinion, however," wrote
the ambassador, "is that GOM in these instances appears to
be responding - however heavy-handedly - to legitimate and serious
provocation by armed opponents who seek its overthrow and who
in last several years have come to constitute a genuine threat
to public order in several parts of the country."
Not only was the Mexican crackdown understandable, the United
States had no intention of pressing Echeverría about it.
At the request of the State Department, the First Secretary of
the U.S. embassy T. Frank Crigler met later that year with a representative
of the Foreign Relations Secretariate (Secretaría de
Relaciones Exteriores - SRE) to discuss "U.S. interests
in the current human rights situation."
When SRE official Jorge Palacios Treviño asked if the
U.S. sought a statement from the government about human rights
in Mexico, Crigler hastened to reassure him "that there was
no intention on our part whatever to meddle in Mexico's internal
affairs, but that we simply wished to cooperate and consult with
the Mexican government on means by which other nations might be
encouraged to pay attention to human rights values."
That, of course, was the crux of the matter. Declassified U.S.
documents from 1968-78 show clearly that the United States knew
the Mexican government was committing grave human rights violations
- they also show that the U.S. was uninterested in publicizing
that fact, either to the Mexican government or to the U.S. Congress.
But popular pressure on the U.S. government grew between Nixon's
resignation in 1974 and the election of Jimmy Carter in November
1976.
In February 1976, Henry Kissinger's State Department cabled all
overseas posts alerting them to congressional interest in human
rights and requesting a report that could be used by the administration
in coming deliberations about U.S. aid programs. Calling the promotion
of human rights "a principal goal of U.S. foreign policy,"
the cable reminded embassies of the "considerable public
and media attention to human rights questions in U.S. foreign
affairs."
Political officer John Hamilton drafted a straightforward reply
on March 24, 1976, describing a "pattern of human rights
violations" in several areas, including torture - characterized
as a common tactic during police interrogations - and arbitrary
arrest and detention. Hamilton warned that Mexico took an especially
hard-line against people it suspected of involvement in armed
opposition: "We believe the Government has little qualms
in acting to destroy opponents who use terrorism as a tactic."
And what did the unclassified report that resulted from Hamilton's
review look like? It is a two-page document, sanitized to the
point of meaninglessness. There is one reference to the Echeverría
administration's response to armed groups: "The Mexican Government
refuses to accede to terrorist demands and strong enforcement
action appears to have thinned terrorist ranks." The word
"torture" does not appear.
Not a key issue
The first country team to occupy the U.S. embassy after the election
of Jimmy Carter as president also wrote blunt and honest cables
to Washington about Mexico's human rights problems, but strongly
cautioned against making their findings known.
"While Embassy cannot prove it, it is believed that Mexican
security officials have dealt with terrorists in the past by murdering
them instead of bringing them to trial," wrote the political
section in September 1977. The cable warned, however, that "Public
release would be harmful to the future course of U.S.-Mexican
relations. … While we should monitor human rights performance
in Mexico, especially through contacts with influential groups,
the Embassy should not enter into actual investigation of human
rights violations. Such an investigative effort would be counterproductive,
interpreted as intervention in the internal affairs of Mexico,
and therefore politically impossible."
Concerns about damaging relations with Mexico were combined with
the relative low priority of human rights - even during the Carter
administration - in comparison to other, more pressing matters.
Ambassador Patrick J. Lucey arrived at the embassy in 1977. Lucey
was a political appointee, and a strong advocate of Carter's foreign
policies, including his stance on human rights. Reached by telephone
and e-mail at his home in Wisconsin, the ambassador did not remember
human rights being a central issue during his tenure. He recalled,
"[We] did not think of the López Portillo regime as
the dark days. Instead, we looked back to 1968 when all of the
students were killed just before the Mexico City Olympics. Those
were the really dark days and when I was there we were still arguing
with the Mexican government about just how many were killed."
According to Lucey, the issues that occupied him and his staff
the most were trade, migration, oil and drugs. Their policy agenda
was not invented in the embassy - it was based on signals coming
out of Washington.
In late 1978, the White House conducted a sweeping review of
U.S.-Mexican relations at the request of President Carter. One
annex from the classified Presidential Review Memorandum dealt
exclusively with human rights. In it, the National Security Council
acknowledged grave abuses by the Mexican forces, naming the paramilitary
group "White Brigade" as responsible for many of the
worst abuses.
"In its drive to eradicate terrorists the White Brigade
and other security force elements have sometimes ignored the human
rights of the suspects and Mexican judicial procedures… security
forces have tortured and executed suspects and are responsible
for the disappearances of as many as 200-300 persons over the
last decade."
But in discussing possible U.S. policy approaches, the White
House agreed with its embassy in Mexico - that to try and speak
forcefully to the Mexican government about abuses would likely
backfire. "It would be ill-advised and counter-productive
for us to take Mexico to task publicly for its domestic violations
of human rights. We will continue to use quiet diplomacy…"
The earliest human rights reports, as a result, were aimed less
at truly informing the American people about the situation in
Mexico than they were to present an acceptable public face to
the problem. U.S. citizens would not comprehend the scope of Mexico's
use of repressive tactics for many years to come.
In the United States, it took a generation for human rights to
truly enter the culture of foreign policy practice. Today, the
State Department's annual report is one of the most comprehensive
and detailed accounts of human rights in Mexico produced by any
institution.
Embracing human rights also cost a generation in Mexico. Only
now, three decades later, is Mexico beginning to come to grips
with the fact that the government was responsible for torturing
and murdering its own people. It remains to be seen whether the
country is ready to act on that realization.
Note: The following documents are in PDF
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Documents
Document 1
April 19, 1974
FAA Section 32-Political Prisoners
U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Secret cable
Prompted by provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of
1973 - which required American diplomatic posts to report to Washington
on political prisoners held in their countries - the U.S. embassy
in Mexico sends the State Department a short analysis of the human
rights situation there. Although the report comes during the darkest
days of Mexico's dirty war, the embassy remains positive about
the Mexican Government's approach to human rights. "Embassy
believes it can be said that … within meaning of Section
32 of the FAA, Mexico does not practice internment or imprisonment
of citizens for political purposes except when faced with active,
armed opposition that potentially threatens security of state,
and that there is no consistent pattern of violation of right
to be free of arbitrary arrest."
Source: Released to National Security Archive
under the Freedom of Information Act
FOIA No. 13024
Document 2
September 7, 1974
(1) Human Rights; (2) Cuba and the OAS; (3) Law of the Seas
U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Unclassified airgram
A few months after the U.S. embassy in Mexico sends its first
report on human rights to the State Department, T. Frank Crigler,
the First Secretary of the American mission, discusses the new
U.S. government interest in human rights worldwide the Deputy
Director of International Organization Affairs from the Mexican
Foreign Relations Secretariat, Jorge Palacios Treviño.
Crigler takes great pains to avoid the impression that the U.S.
intends to pressure Mexico in any way on the issue. "I insisted
that … we simply wished to cooperate and consult with the
Mexican Government on means by which other nations might be encouraged
to pay greater attention to human rights values."
Source: Released to National Security Archive
under the Freedom of Information Act
FOIA No. 13024
Document 3
February 16, 1975
Human Rights in Mexico
U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Limited Official Use airgram
As congressional pressure builds on the executive branch to incorporate
human rights concerns into U.S. foreign policy, the U.S. embassy
in Mexico provides its second report on human rights. As in its
analysis a year earlier, the embassy states that Mexico's human
rights practices, while not ideal, could be worse. "[W]e
would not place Mexico in the category of 'countries which are
relatively exemplary in their concern for human rights' without
some qualification. Neither, however, does Mexico fall into the
group of nations where 'the possibility emerges of a pattern of
human rights violations.'" Constitutional guarantees and
what the embassy calls "a set of internalized political attitudes
and beliefs" protects the average citizen from excessive
government repression, according to the cable. Most of what violations
exist occur during government "efforts to combat terrorist
violence."
Source: Released to National Security Archive
under the Freedom of Information Act
FOIA No. 13024
Document 4
Circa August 1975
Mexico: Highlights
White House, Limited Official Use paper
Despite the growing interest in human rights in Washington, attention
to the issue among policy-making circles still lagged far behind
traditional U.S. objectives in the bilateral relationship: namely,
ensuring political and economic stability in Mexico. Though this
White House document alludes to armed guerrillas in Mexico - then
being met by ferocious counterinsurgency operations from the Echeverría
government - they appear relevant only insofar as they might affect
the country's economic outlook. "Several kidnappings of prominent
Mexicans and a U.S. diplomat within the last year and the intense
publicity surrounding the activities of a guerrilla group have
highlighted the issue of control of terrorism, but it does not
present a threat to Mexico's reputation for stability and a favorable
investment climate."
Source: Gerald R. Ford Library, Richard Parsons
Files
Box 22, "Drug Abuse, Mexico--Aug-Oct 1975"
Document 5 [Click here
for a transcription of this document]
February 25, 1976
Human Rights: 1976 Reporting Requirement
State Department, Unclassified telegram
Responding to existing and pending congressional legislation,
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger instructs all diplomatic posts
to prepare thorough reports on human rights. Stating that a "principal
goal of U.S. policy is to promote increased observance of internationally
recognized human rights in all countries," Kissinger explains
current and likely future reporting requirements. "In defining
'a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized
human rights' all versions [of legislation] single out primary
congressional interest in torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment, and prolonged detention without charges."
Source: Released to National Security Archive
under the Freedom of Information Act
FOIA No. 13024
Document 6
March 24, 1976
Human Rights in Mexico
U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Confidential airgram
In response to Kissinger's instructions, the U.S. embassy sends
an evaluation of the Mexican situation that admits a "pattern"
of human rights abuses of the kind identified as significant by
the U.S. Congress. "Torture and other similar violations
of human rights frequently occur immediately after arrest during
police interrogation, before the individual is consigned, permitted
attorney's counsel, or, in the case of an alien, consular access."
Nevertheless, the embassy denies that Mexico qualifies as a country
where a "consistent pattern of gross violations occur."
Once again, the embassy draws on cultural arguments - this time
to explain why some abuses may be unavoidable. "Many of the
human rights violations which occur in Mexico are the result of
pervasive cultural and legal attitudes typical of lesser developed
countries and which will be overcome only as the country gradually
modernizes."
Source: Released to National Security Archive
under the Freedom of Information Act
FOIA No. 13024
Document 7
March 26, 1976
Human Rights Report
State Department, Unclassified memorandum
In contrast to the assessment of human rights in Mexico provided
by the U.S. embassy two days before, the corresponding State Department
report includes no mention of torture, political detention or
violations committed during counter-terror tactics. In the category
of the "Integrity of the Person" - under which violations
including torture and forced detention are classified - the document
only notes that the "official attitude of the GOM [Government
of Mexico] does not condone human rights violations, and denies
that human rights are ever seriously violated by the GOM."
Source: Released to National Security Archive
under the Freedom of Information Act
FOIA No. 13024
Document 8
March 1977
Human Rights Reports
United State Congress, report
[extract]
For the most part, the State Department's first official human
rights report on Mexico under the Foreign Assistance Act's updated
guidelines echoes the sanitized language from the 1976 document.
"Mexico has a long tradition of civic freedom and is a haven
for victims of abuse and exiles from other countries. However,
arbitrary arrests and detentions occasionally occur of political
oppositionists accused of illegal activities. Charges are normally
not brought and detainees are released after questioning."
Source: U.S. Department of State. Human Rights
Reports: Submitted to the Subcommittee on Foreign Assistance of
the Committee on Foreign Relations. United States Senate.
Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1977.
Document 9
September 2, 1977
Human Rights Evaluation Report-- Mexico
U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Confidential cable
An, internal evaluation of human rights by the U.S. embassy in
Mexico provides a sober assessment of the situation. "Mexico's
most consistent pattern of violations with respect to integrity
of the person has occurred in the period immediately following
arrest, where psychological and physical abuse is not uncommon,
especially during interrogation. … While embassy cannot prove
it, it is believed that Mexican security officials have dealt
with terrorists in the past by murdering them instead of bringing
them to trial." The embassy insists, however, that its analysis
remain classified. "Our understanding is that neither the
whole assessment nor any portion of it would be made public. Public
release would be harmful to the future course of U.S.-Mexican
relations."
Source: Released to National Security Archive
under the Freedom of Information Act
FOIA No. 13025
Document 10
February 3, 1978
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
United States Congress, report
[extract]
The second official State Department human rights report under
the new guidelines provides more details than its 1977 document,
and defends the López Portillo administration as having
improved Mexico's human rights situation. "It is widely believed
that suspected terrorists have occasionally been killed instead
of being brought to trial, and there are occasional reports in
the press of suspicious disappearances," states the report.
"But there is no conclusive evidence of such human rights
violations."
Source: U.S. Department of State. Country Reports
on Human Rights Practices: Report submitted to the Committee on
International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, and Committee
on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate. Washington, D.C.: GPO,
1978.
Document 11
November 21, 1978
Review of US Policies Toward Mexico
National Security Council, Confidential Presidential Review Memorandum
[extract]
A classified evaluation by President Carter's NSC of Mexican
human rights again proves a marked contrast to the public report
released just ten months prior. The document praises Mexico's
support for international human rights initiatives but calls its
domestic observance "complex and contradictory, with sizeable
credibility gaps between Mexico's professed policy and the actual
record." According to the memorandum, the López Portillo
administration has adopted a "hard line" to deal with
suspected subversives, and uses an elite unit of police and military
forces as its "principal anti-terrorist instrument. …
Human rights groups and opposition political parties have claimed
that the security forces have tortured and executed suspects and
are responsible for the disappearances of as many as 200-300 persons
over the last decade." While claiming that repressive tactics
are used primarily against dangerous armed opposition groups,
the document also points out that "extra-legal actions by
the security forces have also affected agrarian, labor, and student
strike leaders."
Source: Jeffrey T. Richelson, editor. Presidential
Directives on National Security from Truman to Clinton. Digital
National Security Archive: 1994.
Notes
1. Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos
Mexico: Informe Especial Sobre las Quejas en Materia de Desapariciones
Forzadas Ocurridas en la Decada de los 70 y Principios de los
80, see Anexo I, "Gráficas," no. 10. <http://www.cndh.org.mx/Principal/document/informe/index.html>
2. See for example, Amnesty's annual report for
1974-75, pp. 74-75.
