Commissioners deliver final report of the dirty war to Sheinbaum

Jessica Xantomila and Jared Laureles

La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, September 29, 2024, p. 6

Commissioners Abel Barrera, David Fernández Dávalos and Carlos Pérez Ricart, three of the four members of the Historical Clarification Mechanism (MEH) of the Commission for the Truth about the dirty wardelivered their final report to the team of President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum It was the State (1965-1990) about the disappearances and forced detentions, torture, massacres and other serious human rights violations perpetrated during those years.

The above, in order that the new administration can create a mechanism to monitor the investigations, and before mistreatment and censorship that has been given to this report by the Undersecretary of Human Rights of the Ministry of the Interior, headed by Arturo Medina, stated Barrera, director of the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center.

In an interview, two days before the Truth Commission’s mandate ends –on September 30–, he denounced that the official report prepared by Medina’s team, with the work of the five mechanisms (historical clarification, justice, search, memory and repair), it only dedicates 19 pages to the research of this MEH group, which is six volumes and 5 thousand pages.

The undersecretary has decided to censor our report. It is a mistreatment of the victims, a contempt for their entire struggle, trajectory, because it is a way to cut short every movement that we document and that by unilateral decision of the undersecretary determined to rescue 19 pages.

The only issue that Medina, who chairs the Truth Commission, recovered is that of serious human rights violations against peasant, indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities in the framework of the counterinsurgency, Barrera explained.

Thus, he said, he left out what was investigated about violations against marginalized and criminalized people; against political-partisan dissidents, urban-popular movements; sex-gender and religious dissidents, journalists and refugees, among others.

The investigation, presented in August, lasted 3 years and showed that the toll of repression was at least 8,594 victims of detention and forced disappearance, torture, extrajudicial execution, massacres and other violence, including sexual violence. Barrera highlighted that they interviewed more than a thousand victims, family members and survivors.

For this reason, he indicated that the report It was the State (1965-1990)which was prepared with Fernández Dávalos and Pérez Ricart – apart from the investigation by Commissioner Eugenia Allier – was also delivered to the Office of Parties of the Presidency. To record our compliance with the presidential decreehe emphasized.

The founder of the Tlachinollan Center stressed the importance of also addressing the recommendations of the document, for a public recognition by the authority that these serious violations have been committed, and a commitment to investigate and punish those responsible.