四 川 铁 FourRiverIron

The American government is turning Mexico into a police state

  Remember the American government is financing much of Mexico's "drug war". And as a result of that Mexico is turning into a police state that resembles the American police state.

Source

Mexican Panel Finds Law Enforcement Violations in Drug War

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: August 12, 2011

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican soldiers and police officers regularly burst into homes, plant evidence and take people’s possessions, the National Human Rights Commission said Friday, adding that the violations have increased as Mexico’s war against drug gangs has grown more intense.

The actions by the security forces drew renewed attention this week when police officers searching for an accused leader of a drug gang stormed into the home of a gentle poet, breaking windows and doors and emptying closets and drawers.

The government’s human rights commission said that to justify an illegal entry the security forces sometimes planted evidence or cited vague justifications, like having received an anonymous tip or having spotted a person who looked “unusually nervous.”

“Illegal searches have become a common practice in many parts of the country, and they reveal a systematic pattern,” the commission said in a report released on Friday. It said that the security forces “burst into a home looking for illicit objects, they threaten, injure and detain the occupants, they take valuables or money, they alter evidence.”

The poet, Efraín Bartolomé, said that in a predawn raid on Thursday the police ransacked his house in Mexico City and took a watch, a memory stick and cellphones. The police said they were searching for the suspected leader of a brutal drug gang called the Hand With Eyes, who was reported to have confessed to more than 600 murders. He was eventually captured in a nearby neighborhood.

The raid on Mr. Bartolomé’s home drew a rare, immediate apology from city officials, who said that cellphone signals had indicated the suspect was in the area of the home.

But that kind of quick apology is not the rule, the commission noted.

“Authorities use force against the victims, to make them confess to possessing illegal articles,” the commission said in the report, adding that the security forces sometimes threatened people “if they complain about what happened.” Despite such threats, the human rights agency said that the number of complaints about illicit searches increased to 946 in 2008 from 234 in 2006, when President Felipe Calderón began the offensive against drug cartels.

The number of complaints dipped slightly in 2009 to 947 and 826 in 2010, but it increased again to 422 in the first five months of 2011, a pace that would yield more than 1,000 such complaints by the end of this year.

In some cases, the commission said, the authorities pressured or forced people to “voluntarily” agree to searches of their homes.

The commission noted that changes in the law enacted in 2008 made it easier for the police to obtain search warrants, permitting officers to ask judges for them in e-mails or by other electronic means. The commission urged that search warrants be printed out and shown to homeowners.

The human rights group also questioned the army’s use of British-made GT200 bomb detectors, saying that they were of questionable reliability and legality if used without search warrants. The commission also recommended that the police and military establish clear, constitutional rules about searches, obey them and inform the public about their rights during searches.

Source

Deadly Mexican drug war tactics must end: Human Rights Commission

Deborah Dupre , Human Rights Examiner

August 13, 2011

As Mexico's violent rights abuses continue skyrocketing proportional to the partially United States led drug war, its National Human Rights Commission issued a complaint and rare recommendation Friday demanding Mexico end its military police alarming practice of bursting into homes in pre-dawn raids, planting and tampering with evidence, injuring suspects, threatening people if they speak of the abuse, and taking money and other possessions. The drug war has left 40,000 Mexicans dead reported Latin American Herald Friday, while also leaving dozens of human rights workers and reporters dead or disappeared after reporting the related abuses. "Open the door! Open the door, you SOBs!" military police dressed in black, wearing balaclavas yelled as they broke down the door of the home of Efraín Bartolomé, a poet living on south side of Mexico City reported IPS.

Bartolomé, described as gentle and gray-bearded, watched the squad break his windows, doors and empty closets and drawers, renewing human rights defenders' attention this week according to The Washington Post.

Reporting such abuses and atrocities is risky.

"Human rights defenders are in danger, and the organizations are on the alert, reporting incidents, protesting and mobilising," director of the human rights programme at Iberoamerican University, Antonio Ibáñez, told IPS.

Human rights groups report that since 2005, 27 activists have been killed since 2005, 68 reporters have been murdered and at least 13 have disappeared.

Despite fear of threats, injures and disappearances, 3,786 people impacted by military police raids have filed formal complaints between 2006 and May 2011, the Human Rights Commission said.

By reporting violent incidents, "victims become human rights advocates" Catholic bishop Raúl Vera of the diocese of Saltillo in the northern state of Coahuila told Emilio Godoy of IPS.

The bishop, a prominent defender of rights of indigenous people and undocumented Central American migrants passing through Mexico to the United States, said, "We are facing a situation of violence, made possible by the breakdown of the Mexican state."

Dozens of rights defenders have been meeting since Thursday at the "Fourth National Meeting of Human Rights Defenders" under this year's slogan, "The defence of human rights and exercise of journalism: Dangerous work."

Executions, torture, disappearing, detained without charge

State and federal police were so corrupted by drug cartels, President Felipe Calderon militarized the drug war, but rights abuses continue escalating to the point that Friday, the National Human Rights Commission issued the "rare general recommendation" to all Mexican security, military and police agencies.

Mexico’s Rights Commission had reported a year ago that skyrocketing abuse cases included summary executions, torture, suspects disappearing, people detained without any real charges or trial according to and interview by Maureen Cavanaugh of These Days on KPBS News.

"And this – it has become typical. I mean, it’s almost predictable when you have a force that is not subject to the rule of law," Ken Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch had said in June 2010.

The drug war has become even more militarized and brutal since then. It is now noted by the independent rights Commission that security forces are planting evidence to justify illegal entries, citing vague justifications such as receiving an anonymous tip, or spotting individuals who looked “unusually nervous.”

“Illegal searches have become a common practice in many parts of the country, and they reveal a systematic pattern: they (authorities) burst into a home looking for illicit objects, they threaten, injure and detain the occupants, they take valuables or money, they alter evidence,” stated the Commission.

“Authorities use force against the victims, to make them confess to possessing illegal articles ... and threaten them if they complain about what happened,” according to the Commission report.

The Mexican military is using GT200 molecular detectors that the British military quit using due to unreliability noted the panel. The apparatus was designed to detect drugs, weapons and explosives.

“Going into homes based on the results of GT200 , or the seizure of goods or detention of people based on that, should be considered illegal,” the Commission said.

In 2009, complaints decreased slightly to 947 and in 2010, to 826 but, in the fist five months of 2011, rose again to 422. This could mean over 1,000 such complaints this year.

The commission suggested that security agencies establish clear, constitutional rules about searches, obey them and inform people about their rights during searches.

"So I think there’s congressional complicity in this as well."

Roth had noted that just as in the 1980s, when Americans did not want the U.S. government backing the Contras or Salvadoran military abuse, they do not want the U.S. government backing the latest security initiative south of the border, including torture, rape and summary executions.

"We don’t want to be complicit in that kind of abuse," Roth had said, adding that the U.S. State Department and Congress could push back, but have not.

It has recently been revealed that the FBI has been supplying weapons to the drug gangs through its covert operation, Fast and Furious, as reported in July by Dupré:

"In an investigation revealing one of the most damning United States human rights violations in history, one ameliorating Targeted Individuals more daily, a high-level whistleblower's testimony has prompted the Senate Judiciary Committee to deepen its probe into the FBI and other Justice Department agencies allegedly allowing thousands of U.S. weapons to cross the Mexican border, into hands of dangerous members of cartels including Zetas, all part of the U.S. drug- and gun-smuggling operation costing over 35,000 lives.

Roth had told Cavanaugh, "Americans just don’t want to be part of that kind of violent abuse and don’t want their governments funding it."

Source

Mexico Rights Watchdog Worried About Illegal Searches

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s independent National Human Rights Commission on Friday demanded a halt to the “alarming” number of illegal searches of people’s homes by security forces.

A total of 3,786 formal complaints were filed by people affected by the raids between 2006, when President Felipe Calderon took office and militarized the struggle against violent drug cartels, and May 2011, the commission says.

Over that five-year period, the number of cases reported to the rights panel, headed by Raul Plascencia, more than tripled.

The commission on Friday issued a “general recommendation” directed to the federal police, military and law enforcement officials, the Attorney General’s Office and authorities in Mexico’s 32 regional jurisdictions.

Published in the official gazette, it expresses the panel’s “utmost concern” that warrantless searches of homes – in clear violation of Article 16 of the Mexican constitution – have become “common practice” among the security forces.

“In their efforts to fight crime, the military and the different police forces ... frequently resort to illegal searches, which set off a chain of multiple human rights violations,” the commission said.

It added that in most cases “homes are raided in a search for illegal objects, the occupants are threatened, injured and arrested, objects of value and/or money are stolen and evidence is tampered with.”

Authorities often justify their actions by saying that suspects were caught red-handed or that they had responded to an anonymous tip or identified the residence through the use of “instruments such as the GT200 molecular detector,” the panel said.

That apparatus is used to detect drugs, weapons and explosives, the commission said, noting that the British military stopped using a similar device in Iraq and Afghanistan after it was found to be unreliable.

The rights commission called on authorities to eliminate the practice of unconstitutional home raids or intrusions and to modify federal and state laws to improve the legal framework governing property searches.

It also demanded that the Mexican government make it a crime to search a home without a warrant or probable cause and raise awareness among the population about citizens’ right to the inviolability of their residences.

Institutions charged with fighting crime should “adhere to the rule of law and serve as guarantors of legality, due process and respect for the rights of liberty and privacy,” the commission said.

Though non-binding, general recommendations are the most decisive actions the commission can take in cases of human rights violations in Mexico.

The panel’s warning about illegal searches comes in the context of a years-long struggle against heavily armed, well-funded drug cartels, whose turf battles over smuggling routes and clashes with security forces have left more than 40,000 dead during Calderon’s tenure. EFE

Source

Mexican Police Guilty Of Widespread Abuse: Human Rights Commission

By MARK STEVENSON 08/12/11 04:27 PM ET AP

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican police and soldiers regularly burst into homes, plant evidence and take people's possessions, the official National Human Rights Commission complained Friday, and it said the violations have increased as Mexico's war against drug cartels has grown more intense.

The problem drew renewed attention this week when police searching for an alleged drug-gang boss stormed into the home of a gentle, gray-bearded poet, breaking windows and doors and emptying closets and drawers.

In a rare general recommendation to all Mexican security, military and police agencies issued Friday, the governmental commission says security forces sometimes plant evidence to justify an illegal entry, or cite vague justifications such as receiving an anonymous tip or spotting a person who looked "unusually nervous."

"Illegal searches have become a common practice in many parts of the country, and they reveal a systematic pattern: they (authorities) burst into a home looking for illicit objects, they threaten, injure and detain the occupants, they take valuables or money, they alter evidence," the commission said.

A pre-dawn raid Thursday on the Mexico City home of poet Efrain Bartolome drew widespread media attention. He said police ransacked his house and took a watch, a memory stick and cell phones. Police said they were searching for the suspected leader of a brutal drug gang called "The Hand with Eyes" who allegedly confessed to more than 600 murders. He was captured in a nearby neighborhood.

That raid drew a rare, immediate apology from city officials, who said that cell phone signals had indicated the suspect was in the area of Bartolome's home.

But that kind of quick apology is not the rule, the commission noted.

"Authorities use force against the victims, to make them confess to possessing illegal articles ... and threaten them if they complain about what happened," according to the report.

Despite such pressure tactics, the rights agency said the number of complaints about such searches rose from 234 in 2006, when President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against drug cartels, to 393 in 2007 and 964 in 2008.

The number of complaints dipped slightly in 2009 to 947 and 826 in 2010, but rose again to an even greater rate of 422 in the first five months of 2011, a pace that would yield more than 1,000 such complaints this year.

In some cases, the commission said, authorities pressure or force people to "voluntarily" agree to searches of their homes.

The commission noted that legal reforms enacted in 2008 made it easier for police to obtain proper search warrants, by asking judges for them in e-mails or other electronic means, and said such warrants should be printed out and shown to homeowners.

The commission also questioned the army's use of British-made GT200 bomb detectors, saying there were of questionable reliability and legality if used without search warrants.

"Going into homes based on the results of GT200, or the seizure of goods or detention of people based on that, should be considered illegal," it said.

The commission issued a nonbinding recommendation that security agencies should establish clear, constitutional rules about searches, obey them and inform the public about their rights during searches.

Speaking of the raid at his house, Bartolome said, "I hope that this error on the part of authorities will serve to help come up with a decent set of procedures for entering peoples' homes."


This GT200 drug and explosives detectors looks like something you could buy from an ad in the National Enquirer. Sadly it is used extensively by the military and police to search for drugs and explosives. Or perhaps better said to give the police and military a lame excuse to claim they have "probable cause" to search for drugs, explosives and anything else they want to search for.

I have only taken snips from the following articles.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GT200

The GT200 is a fraudulent "remote substance detector" that is claimed by its manufacturer, UK-based Global Technical Ltd, to be able to detect from a distance various substances including explosives and drugs. The GT200 and its many iterations (Sniffex, ADE651, HEDD1) have been sold to a number of countries for a cost of up to £22,000 ($36,000) per unit, but the devices have been criticised as little more than a "divining rod" which lack any scientific explanation for why it should work.

The GT200 consists of three main components—a swivelling antenna mounted via a hinge to a plastic handgrip, into which sensor cards can be inserted. It requires no battery or other power source and is said to be powered solely by the user's static electricity. The device becomes active when the operator starts moving and detects various substances via "DIA/PARA magnetism".

Promotional material issued about the GT200 claims that it can detect a wide variety of items including ammunition, explosives, drugs, gold, ivory, currency, tobacco and "human bodies" at ranges of up to 700 metres (2,300 ft) on the surface, depths of up to 60 metres (200 ft) underground or under 800 metres (2,600 ft) of water, or even from aircraft at an altitude of up to 4 kilometres (2.5 mi).

According to the promotional material, if the device is used correctly, it "can detect substance(s) through walls, (even lead-lined and metal ones), water, (fresh and salted), fresh and frozen food, (fish, fruit, tea, coffee, ice), vacuum flask, containers, petrol and diesel fuel and even buried in the earth" and can detect narcotics for up to two weeks after they have been ingested by a target individual.

The GT200 is "just a new name" for a previous Global Technical product, the MOLE programmable substance detection system. The MOLE was tested in the United States in 2002 by Sandia National Laboratories but was found to perform no better than random chance.

A BBC Newsnight investigation of the GT200 in January 2010 found that the "sensor card" contained merely two sheets of card between which was sandwiched a sheet of paper, white on one side and black on the other, that had been cut off from a larger sheet with a knife or scissors. It contained no electronic components whatsoever.

On February 27th 2011 the British government told BBC Newsnight that it had helped Global Technical sell the GT200 around the world between 2001 and 2004. Royal Engineers sales teams demonstrated the devices at arms fairs and the Uk Department of Trade and Industry helped two companies sell the GT200 and similar products in Mexico and the Philippines.

The device is also widely used in Mexico, where security forces have used it to combat drug traffickers and to search for explosives. The Mexican government has spent over 17 million pesos ($1.3 million) buying GT200s at a cost of 286,000 pesos ($22,000) each.

Source

Mexico Is Warned on Drug Detector

By MARC LACEY

Published: March 15, 2010

MEXICO CITY—The British government has notified Mexico that a handheld device widely used by the Mexican military and police to search for drugs and explosives may be ineffective, British officials said.

Mexico’s National Defense Secretariat has spent more than $10 million to purchase hundreds of the detectors, similar to the “magic wands” in use in Iraq and Afghanistan, for its antidrug fight. Although critics have called them nothing more than divining rods, Mexican defense officials praise the devices as a critical part of their efforts to combat drug traffickers. At the military’s National Drug Museum, one of the devices is on display, with a plaque that describes its success in finding hidden caches of drugs.

Mexican military officials say the black plastic wands, known as the GT 200 and manufactured by the British company Global Technical Ltd., are widely used nationwide at checkpoints to search for contraband inside vehicles as well as to canvass neighborhoods in drug hotspots for drug and weapons stash houses.

As of April 20, 2009, the army had purchased 521 of the GT 200 detectors for just over $20,000 apiece, for a total cost of more than $10 million, according to Mexican government documents. Police agencies across Mexico have made additional purchases, records show.

“We’ve had success with it,” Capt. Jesús Héctor Larios Salazar, an officer with the Mexican Army’s antidrug unit in Culiacán, said recently. “It works with molecules. It functions with the energy of the body.”

But the British government, which is considering legislation to stop exports of the device, notified Mexico and other countries around the world last month that it may not work. That followed reports in The New York Times and on BBC that a similar product used in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ADE 651 manufactured by ATSC Ltd., another British company, was considered ineffective.

“Exports to Mexico have already taken place, and the most urgent task was to warn the Mexican government and military, which we have done,” Katy Reid, a British diplomat in Mexico, said in a statement on Friday. “It is now up to the Mexican authorities to take whatever steps they think appropriate.”

The Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington said it did not use the handheld detectors. And the National Explosive Engineering Sciences Security Center at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, which does testing for the Defense Department, has not found such devices to be effective.

Mexican defense officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. E-mail messages and calls to Global Technical and to Segtec, the Mexican-based importer of the GT 200, were not returned.

Controversy over the GT 200 has played out in recent months in Thailand, where the army has said it will continue to use them even though testing by government scientists found them far less effective than specially trained dogs. “I respect the scientific tests, but at this stage there is no banning order by the government, so the army will continue to use it,” Gen. Anupong Paochinda, the Thai Army chief, told reporters. Human Rights Watch issued a statement in February calling on the Thai government to stop arresting people based on evidence gathered using the GT 200, which it said “performs worse than a roll of the dice.”

Informed that Mexico was using the same unit, the human rights group said Friday: “It’s troubling that Mexico is using this ‘magic wand’ technology given the serious doubts that exist about its reliability. And if people are actually being arrested and charged solely on the basis of its readings, that would be outrageous.”

Promotional materials on the Internet describe the GT 200 as a high-tech unit that enables law enforcement agencies to search large areas quickly. Using special cards provided by the manufacturer, the detector can supposedly detect all types of narcotics and explosives by homing in on their molecules from afar.

The device is so sensitive, the manufacturer says, that it can detect not just stockpiles of illegal drugs but people who have used cocaine or heroin as far back as two weeks before. After the critical reviews in Thailand, Global Technical released a statement on its Web site defending the detector. “We can say that previous tests carried out by independent bodies, and the experience of the large number of users of this product all over the world, confirms that the GT 200 is effective and because of this, we would ask that you treat with caution any reports to the contrary,” the company said.

In Culiacán, a city in Sinaloa State where Mexican drug traffickers have a strong presence, the military showed off the GT 200 in December. Canvassing a residential neighborhood, soldiers walked up and down the street with a GT 200 waiting for the antenna to point toward a suspicious residence. There were no discoveries. But the soldier trained to operate the detector walked by one of the army’s armored vehicles and the antenna swung quickly toward the high-caliber machine gun sticking out the top. He took several steps back and walked by again. The antenna pointed again toward the gun. “See?” he said.

But in November, at a checkpoint on the highway leading from Mexico City to Monterrey, the same device pointed at a Volkswagen containing a man, a woman and a child. Soldiers surrounded the vehicle and a search was conducted for illegal drugs. But all they found was a bottle of Tylenol — evidence, the soldier operating the device said, of how sensitive the GT 200 was.

 


四 川 铁 Home

四 川 铁 Four River Iron