Frontera NorteSur

A prominent Mexican religious leader and human rights advocate has denounced a wave of criminal attacks against Central American migrants in his nation.

In a phone interview with Frontera NorteSur, Bishop Raul Vera of Saltillo, Coahuila, charged Mexican police officers and National Migration Institute (INM) officials were involved in criminal rings that kidnap migrants en route to the US and, under torture, force victims to disclose relatives’ names and phone numbers in order to collect ransoms ranging from $6,000-$8,000.

If family members cannot pay rescue demands, Bishop Vera said, the kidnappers “force (victims) to sell organs from their bodies.”

A recent report by Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission disclosed that 9,758 migrants were kidnapped in the country during the six-month period from September 2008 to February 2009.

Hosted by the non-profit Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), Bishop Vera was in Washington, D.C. this week as part of a delegation of Mexican religious leaders. The group presented a report on migrant human rights violations in Mexico to the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR).

Periodically, Mexican authorities rescue Central American kidnap victims or detain alleged human traffickers and criminals. This month, Mexican news media outlets reported on the army’s detention of 98 municipal police officers in Tierra Blanca, Veracruz. The officers were initially accused of organized crime, including trafficking and extorting migrants.

Earlier, El Salvador’s counsel in Veracruz called Tierra Blanca “the most conflict-ridden and dangerous point” in Mexico for migrants. Counsel Erving Ortiz Luna said his office had turned over more than 20 complaints of migrant extortion against Mexican authorities since 2009, but was never informed about the outcome of the cases.

Bishop Vera noted that only 11 of the 98 Tierra Blanca cops originally detained were charged with crimes connected to migrants. Involving multiple authorities, the mistreatment and abuse of migrants in Mexico constituted a problem of “structural corruption,” the Catholic leader contended.

Maureen Meyer, Mexico and Central America program associate for WOLA, said the crimes denounced by Bishop Vera underscored the need for Mexico to begin addressing organized crime as a much bigger problem than just drug trafficking. The Mexico-US security relationship should be broadened to tackle the issue of migrant kidnappings, Meyer said. “This is an element that has not been addressed,” she added.

While visiting the US, Bishop Vera’s delegation asked the IACHR to request protection from Mexico’s federal government for Casa del Migrante Posada Belen in Saltillo, a church-run shelter that provides refuge for Central American migrants. The facility has long been the target of aggressors, despite previous promises of protection from the Coahuila state government, said Father Pedro Pantoja, the shelter’s supervisor.

“We are practically on our own against organized crime,” Father Pantoja told Frontera NorteSur. “It is a tense situation now.” According to the Coahuila priest, the shelter is constantly watched by mysterious trucks with tinted windows. Intimidating phone calls and tapped phone lines are other forms of harassment, he said.

Maria Isabel Rivero, IACHR spokeswoman, said “no decision” had been immediately rendered on the church leaders’ request for enhanced protection. Rivero said the IACHR scheduled a press conference last Friday, March 26, at the conclusion of its 138th session, which covered a range of issues in Mexico and other Latin American countries.

According to Father Pantoja, Casa del Migrante Posada Belen has served more than 40,000 migrants, virtually all of them Central Americans, since opening its doors eight years ago.

The migrant rights advocate said a desperate situation exists for both Mexican and Central American migrants. On Mexico’s northern border, especially in the stretch from Baja California to Sonora, migrants deported from the US are staying put in border cities because of their reluctance to return home to a life of poverty, he said. Meanwhile, “reservoirs of people,” Central Americans, are stuck in the Mexican interior terrorized to move on because of reports of kidnappings on the migrant highways leading north.

Father Pantoja urged Mexican leaders to show more political commitment to ending crimes against Central American migrants, and grant migrants access to legal due process. Promoting economic development in impoverished regions is another burning need, he added.

Last week, as the IACHR prepared to hear the complaint on the treatment of migrants in Mexico, the nations’ Chamber of Deputies voted overwhelmingly to reform the federal population law in order to allow foreigners better human rights guarantees, and equal treatment in the event of natural disasters, disease and accidents. The measure also provides for suspensions of up to 30 days, or firings in serious cases, of Interior Ministry (INM) officials caught committing human rights violations.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico