Pubdate: Tue, 30 Mar 2010
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2010 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.wsj.com/
Author: Nicholas Casey
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Mexico

KILLINGS TAKE DRUG WAR TO MEXICO ELITE

Student Deaths at Prestigious School Lead Wealthy to Criticize 
Military Tactics; Victims 'Were the Hope for Our Future'

MEXICO CITY-When shooting broke out between army soldiers and drug 
traffickers at Mexico's most prestigious university on March 19, two 
people were left dead and an entire campus was in shock. The bodies, 
authorities said, belonged to two hit men.

Then came another shock: Javier Arredondo and Jorge Antonio Mercado 
weren't assassins, but two graduate students caught in the crossfire 
at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education. The 
Attorney General's office said the original account was wrong, and 
blamed the army for the misinformation. The army hasn't commented on 
the account. The killings have brought the country's bloody drug war 
close to home for Mexico's middle and upper class, which have 
remained at a distance from the daily turf battles between rival 
cartels. Now the elites are joining poorer Mexicans in questioning 
the use of lethal military force to fight drug cartels in their 
cities, and whether the army could be killing more innocent victims 
than it claims.

The deaths have ignited a storm in Mexico. Monterrey Tech's rector 
said the army had attempted a cover-up to avoid the embarrassment of 
having killed innocent civilians. Students began protests while 
newspapers fired off angry editorials calling the event a "student massacre."

The shootings were the second high-profile incident from Mexico's 
drugs war in as many weeks. Earlier this month, three people related 
to the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez were gunned down. Officials 
said on Monday they had arrested a suspect in the killings of 
consulate employee Lesley Enriquez and her husband, Arthur Redelfs, 
both Americans.

A similar scenario to the Monterrey Tech shootings occurred in 
February in Ciudad Juarez after 15 teenaged students were slaughtered 
by hit men at a party. President Felipe Calderon at first described 
the incident as a "settling of accounts" between gangs, suggesting 
the teens were members of a drug cartel. He was later forced to 
backtrack when it became apparent the teens were targeted by mistake.

In the case of the Monterrey Tech shootings, authorities changed 
their original stance that the two were criminals only when the 
mother of one of the victims identified the body and the university's 
Rector Rafael Rangel Sostmann called the press to set the record 
straight. "Who can Mexicans trust? How many deaths of innocents are 
necessary to change the direction of our authorities and make them 
more effective?" asked Claudia Flores, a childhood friend of Mr. 
Arredondo. The military has rejected claims of wrongdoing in the 
Monterrey deaths, which are under investigation by the government. 
Last week, Gen. Guillermo Moreno Serrano, the army's regional 
commander, told the Reforma daily: "We aren't assassins." On Monday, 
a military spokeswoman declined further comment pending the 
government's inquiry on the incident. Monterrey, a wealthy industrial 
city near the U.S. border, is the home of much of the country's 
English-speaking business elite. Monterrey Tech-Mexico's Harvard or 
MIT-is the training ground of this country's ruling class, many of 
whom graduate into jobs at the nation's biggest companies, many of 
which are also based in Monterrey.

Carlos Gabuardi, an international corporate lawyer who teaches in the 
university's law department and has a son attending the school, wrote 
in his blog that the deaths were "absurd and unjustified" and 
described Monterrey as his "beloved city made sick by the violence" 
of the drug war. "I hope this can become a turning point for how 
things happen in Mexico," he said in an interview.

Authorities say they're still trying to reconstruct the series of 
events on March 19. Shortly after midnight, military men were chasing 
suspected drug traffickers who fled to the grounds of the university, 
where a firefight erupted, authorities have said. Around that time, 
Messrs. Arredondo and Mercado were exiting a campus building after 
work, likely heading back to their residences.

It is unclear whose weapons killed the men. According to the 
university, Mr. Mercado's injuries appeared to have been caused by a 
grenade. Grenades aren't typically used by the military in 
confrontations but are often used by drug cartels. Mr. Arredondo 
appears to have died of bullet wounds. Since President Calderon took 
office in late 2006, more than 18,000 people have been killed in 
drug-related violence. The government says some 90% of victims are 
cartel members killed by rival drug gangs, and that the rest of the 
victims are mostly police and army officials. It says very few 
innocent civilians have been killed.

Many of these killings have occurred in poor and lawless corners of 
Mexico, where witnesses have less leverage to speak out, say 
human-rights advocates. "The usual practice is to call everybody who 
ends up getting killed in shootouts with security forces 'gang 
members.' Most of them are. Some of them are not," says Jose Miguel 
Vivanco, who directs investigations in Latin America for advocacy 
group Human Rights Watch.

Mr. Vivanco points to the Monterrey Tech incident as further evidence 
of the lack of accountability in Mexico's army.Victims of military 
abuse have few avenues to ensure their cases are fairly heard, 
because human rights complaints are handled by military tribunals 
with little incentive to convict, says Jose Miguel Vivanco, who 
directs investigations in Latin America for advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

After a request by Mr. Vivanco's office, the military provided only 
one successful conviction in a human-rights case in these tribunals. 
Military officials didn't respond to a written request on this case, 
or other convictions.

"The war is conducted with virtual carte blanche," said Mr. Vivanco. 
"We're talking about an army that's not accountable for its actions." 
The two families in Monterrey remain in grief, seeking answers for 
what occurred. Mr. Arredondo's cousin says he talked to his deceased 
cousin a week and a half before the incident. Mr. Arredondo was going 
to graduate in May, with a doctorate at age 24, recalls his cousin, 
Juan Carlos Arredondo, who is acting a spokesman for the family. 
"With all this killing in the drug war, it was these kinds of people 
we needed most-they were the hope for our future." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake