translated from Spanish: Sedena recognizes 47 cases of collateral damage due to military abuse

So far in the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, at least 47 people and families have been collateral victims of cases of inappropriate use of force, abuse of authority or negligence by members of the Mexican Army. The balance of these cases has been at least ten people killed and ten injured, in addition to material affectations.
Although these are facts that constitute possible federal crimes – some of them serious – the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) acknowledged that it has not internally sanctioned its elements or filed complaints against those involved with the Attorney General’s Office (FGR).  This under the argument that it does not touch him. Instead, it has paid victims millions in compensation through the signing of secret agreements.
The official information of the Sedena obtained by Political Animal through transparency requests, it shows that in the first half of 2021 alone, eight cases of collateral victims were registered due to actions by elements of the armed forces, including the death of at least two people in Tamaulipas and Chiapas.

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It should be noted that the Defense does not specify the exact number of victims in any case so a matter that classifies as “death”, could even have one or more people involved.
The other cases registered this year correspond to that of an injured person in Tamaulipas, four cases of ill-treatment and abuse of authority in Guerrero, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and Mexico City, and two more cases of material damage caused by their elements in Chiapas and San Luis Potosí. Of none provided further details.

These eight cases of collateral affectations are added to another 39 that the National Defense recognizes in the first two years of the current federal administration, of which 28 are from 2019 and 11 more to 2020.
Of the 47 cases accumulated to date, there are ten that correspond to people who lost their lives after being injured by members of the Mexican Army. There are another dozen cases with at least the same number of victims where people were injured but did not die. To these are added six cases of medical negligence by the military health services, five cases of ill-treatment and abuse of authority, among others.
These collateral affectations have occurred in 17 states of the country. Tamaulipas is the state that concentrates the most cases with seven, followed by Sonora and Mexico City with four cases respectively. Then Jalisco, Baja California, Nuevo León, Michoacán, Zacatecas, Tabasco, and San Luis Potosí are located, each with two incidents with elements of the armed forces respectively.
Finally, an incident was recorded in the following entities: Hidalgo, Chihuahua, Guerrero, Guanajuato Sinaloa, Chiapas and Guerrero.
A decade of abuse
The abuses of force and acts of negligence that elements of the Mexican Army have incurred when participating in public security actions and the fight against crime are not exclusive to this six-year term. For just over a decade, dozens of such cases have been recorded, many of which have not been publicly known.
In response to another request for transparency, the National Defense reported that there are 195 cases of collateral affectations registered from 2010 to date, including 54 cases of homicide with – at least – the same number of victims.
The cases recognized by the National Defense are distributed as follows: ten cases occurred in 2010; 13 cases occurred in 2011; eight cases in 2012; 14 cases in 2013; 22 cases in 2014; 15 in 2015; 16 in 2016; 22 in 2017; 28 in 2018; 28 more in 2019; 11 cases in 2020; and the eight registered in the first half of 2021.

The details of these cases and the precise dates and locations are not known since Sedena does not report them in its annual activity reports, nor are they mentioned in the work reports that Presidents Felipe Calderón, Enrique Peña Nieto and Andrés Manuel López Obrador send annually to Congress.
But what independent investigators have identified over the last decade is that the Mexican Army has repeatedly engaged in excessive use of force when carrying out different operations related to public security issues, which in many cases lead to confrontations.
For example, researchers Javier Treviño, Laura Atuesta, Raúl Bejarano and Sara Velázquez constructed from the available official data a lethality index with which I obtainedThey have been given indicators that allow them to presume that, in fact, there is an excessive use of force.
“Let’s put this in perspective. In the Vietnam War there were four people injured for every person killed.  In the operations of the Mexican Army, the opposite is true: there are many more people killed than injured or detained,” the researchers conclude.
The Secret Arrangements
In June 2010, Sedena created its so-called Citizen Liaison Unit (UNIVIC) with the objective, among other things, of “attending in a timely and effective manner to civilians who are affected by the participation of military personnel in operations against drug trafficking and organized crime.”
And this unit was empowered to propose actions to be adopted in the resolution of conflicts. Among these actions is the signing of specific agreements with the victims in which the Army agrees to provide various types of assistance, in addition to financial compensation (compensation).
According to the information provided by Sedena, UNIVIC has taken over the 47 cases registered in the current six-year term and in 43 of them it has already signed the corresponding agreements with the victims. However, the amount of support that has been granted remains confidential information.
“The information is reserved for a period of five years by virtue of the fact that its disclosure puts at risk the life and physical integrity of the people who received compensation due to the facts to which reference is made,” said the response provided by the military agency.
Military authorities who knew of this type of procedure – and who ask for reservation with their identity – said that the compensation granted in the most serious cases amounts to several million pesos and that the aforementioned agreements include clauses of secrecy or confidentiality so that the information is not disclosed by the victims.
Experts consulted by Political Animal for this note they had already advanced that this type of parallel mechanisms are in violation of the provisions established in the General Law on Victims. Lawyer Reyna Velasco said, for example, that the payment of compensation does not in itself represent a comprehensive reparation of the damage, but that other types of coverage and services are required.
According to the aforementioned law, the Executive Commission for Attention to Victims (CEAV) is the institution empowered to provide the comprehensive care required by victims of human rights violations or crimes at the federal level. But according to Sedena itself, less than half of all cases (only 94 of the 195) were reported to the commission.
Read more: Even without reform, Sedena already controls bases, direction and recruitment of the National Guard
What about sanctions?
Finally, the National Defense was asked to know what actions have been implemented against the elements involved in all these cases of abuse and neglect. But Sedena’s response is that it is not up to her to take legal action or file complaints.
To the specific question of how many elements have been sanctioned by the institution for these facts, Sedena said that “it does not have the requested information because the investigations involving civilian personnel are referred to the agent of the Public Ministry of the Federation, so there is no follow-up of them.”
And in follow-up to that response, he was questioned, then, how many of his elements have been denounced before the Public Prosecutor’s Office for their probable responsibility in these events; Sedena replied plain and simple that “it does not have that information,” and recommended asking the Attorney General’s Office (FGR).
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Original source in Spanish

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