[ad_1]
Mexico City, Mexico – Posters hanging around the capital this week conveyed a clear message: “Judging the authority of the past, the authority of the present and the future will think twice.”
Below these words are photos of the last five presidents who ruled Mexico from 1988 to 2018: Carlos Salinas de Gottari, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, Cente Fox Quesada, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa and Enrique Pena Nieto.
Everyone’s eyes are full of words referring to the major scandals that occurred during his administration. Below is a tag that says #JudgementYesImpunityNo.
The posters were part of Sunday’s campaign for voters to participate in a referendum that asked Mexicans whether they agreed that the country should “clarify the political decisions made by political actors in the past few years to ensure justice and justice”. The rights of potential victims”.
The current president of the country, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador) raised this issue in a formal referendum, which called corruption, human rights violations, impunity, and the rule of law. The collapse was listed as a problem that worsened under his predecessor’s rule.
A poster with photos of Mexico’s first five presidents urged Mexicans to vote “yes” in Sunday’s referendum and conveyed a message that “authorities that judge the past, present, and future will think twice” [Ann Deslandes/Al Jazeera]“In the referendum, AMLO referred to the level of inequality, corruption and violence in Mexico over the past three decades,” Stephanie Brewer, director of Mexico and Immigration Rights at the Latin American Office in Washington, told Al Jazeera.
“These issues have had a devastating impact on a wide range of areas of society, so these topics resonate deeply with most of the public,” she said.
The vote is a fairly general proposal, colloquially called the “pre-trial president”, to determine whether the five men depicted on the poster will one day be tried for crimes against the Mexican people. AMLO has previously stated that he does not approve of prosecuting the former president, but will leave it to the people to decide.
The voting is carried out in accordance with the Mexican Constitution and requires 40% of the population to vote for the result to be considered valid. Even if the majority vote “yes,” the statute of limitations and other legal obstacles may make it difficult to actually prosecute the former president. But activists say it is important to raise this issue.
Corruption costs are high
There is no doubt that Mexico must be held accountable for the violence and corruption of the past 30 years.
Mexico ranks 124 out of 180 countries in the non-profit organization Transparency International 2020 Corruption Perception Index, Its score (31 points out of 100) is lower than the average in Latin America and has fallen by 3 percentage points since 2012.
The organization’s 2020 Global Corruption Barometer found that, in fact, 44% of Mexicans said they believed corruption had increased in the past 12 months, and 34% of public service users reported bribery during the same period.
According to a 2018 report, the secretive nature of corruption makes it difficult to calculate, but its cost is estimated to be 2% to 10% of Mexico’s GDP (PDF) From the Baker Institute of Public Policy at Rice University.
Corruption also brings huge social costs, the most important of which is hindering innovation and opportunities.
“The total economic losses caused by corruption and violence in Mexico are almost incalculable,” Brewer said.
Just this month, an international survey published by The Guardian revealed that public funds previously used to purchase medicines and maintain fire-fighting equipment were used to purchase Pegasus spyware made in Israel It is used by officials of the Penaneto government to monitor journalists who expose government corruption.
The economic impact of violence
In recent years, the country has also experienced record-breaking violence, and impunity has made it more difficult to prosecute crimes. This has also caused economic losses: According to data from the non-profit organization Institute of Economics and Peace, the country’s rising violence caused US$238 billion in damage in 2019. Mexico Peace Index 2020.
For example, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, the term of former President Pena Nieto (successful by the anti-money laundering organization) is considered to be one of the deadliest terms. In 2018, the last year of his tenure, he registered Approximately 35,964 homicides were committed. (INEGI).
This figure translates into the highest rate recorded since INEGI began collecting this information in 1990. Compared with Pena Nieto’s predecessor, Calderon, the number of homicides has increased significantly, and Calderon is the first to continue in the country. The bloody “drug war” that caused casualties.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (right) proposed Sunday’s corruption referendum after the midterm elections in June. AMLO and his wife Beatriz Gutierrez (left) gave two thumbs up after voting in Mexico City on June 6 [File: Alfredo Estrella/AFP]Since AMLO took office, the homicide rate has hardly changed. Mexico registered 34,515 homicides in 2020 and 34,648 in 2019. In addition to the high homicide rate, government data shows that more than 90,000 people are still missing or missing.
“In recent decades, human rights violations have covered many victims, many of which are well-known: forced disappearances and their families, torture survivors, victims of the Holocaust,” Brewer said.
The “Vote Yes” campaign cited some of these events to push voters to vote.
For example, on posters urging people to vote in Sunday’s referendum, Pena Nieto’s face had the word “Ayotzinapa” written on his face, referring to 43 young people missing September 2014. Subsequent government investigations and alleged cover-up of the incident have become a symbol of deep complicity between state officials and armed criminal organizations.
A valuable question
Omar Gonzalez, 33, said he would vote “yes” this Sunday. Gonzalez, a farmer from Guerrero State, said that in November 2018, an armed criminal group invaded and occupied their village, and he and many of his neighbors were forcibly displaced.
“Political corruption is the cause of my displacement,” Gonzalez told Al Jazeera, referring to the well-known agreements between some politicians and organized crime groups that caused the violence and insecurity that his community suffered. become possible.
But how many people like Gonzalez will actually vote on Sunday remains to be seen.
An election poster urging voters to participate in Sunday’s referendum and vote “yes” shows photos of Mexico’s past five presidents. The text in their eyes represents a major scandal that occurred during their time in power. [Ann Deslandes/Al Jazeera]In the recent midterm elections, the voter turnout rate was 52%. In this case, people are more actively encouraged to vote. It is unclear whether a decisive “yes” vote will directly lead to a judicial investigation of the former president.
Regardless of the outcome, Jorge Peniche, an international lawyer and transitional justice expert, told Al Jazeera that the vote may mark a step forward for Mexico, which urgently needs to address human rights violations and economic stagnation.
Together with his colleagues at Justicia Transicional MX, a non-profit organization focused on fighting impunity, Peniche recently challenged the country’s Supreme Court, which authorized Sunday’s balloting to clarify the scope of the referendum issue. And the theme, with the hope that if the public votes “yes”, then specific judicial initiatives will be promoted.
For Peniche, the profound social and economic issues that Mexico continues to face are too important to continue to promote change through laws and other institutions.
He said that, like many other groups fighting for accountability in Mexico, “we are working to fill the vacuum that has not yet been occupied by the state.”
[ad_2]
Source link