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Federal police opened fire on protesters in Oaxaca Oaxaca

by Kristin Bricker, Upside Down World
Translated from English by Germain Rebellion Leyens and reviewed by Elisa Viteri

Doctors removed a bullet from the leg
Gilardo Mota Figueroa.

is reported that Mexico's Federal Police radio journalist shot Gilardo Mota Figueroa while covering a demonstration on Tuesday (15 February) against the visit of President Felipe Calderón to the city of Oaxaca. Mota Figueroa told the Chronicle of Oaxaca that an agent Federal Police, during his confrontation with the teachers union in Oaxaca, opened fire on the crowd to about six feet away. One bullet hit the leg of Mota Figueroa. Between 2 and 4 bullets were left embedded in an armored SUV that authorities had left parked on the street.

During the protest, the Federal Police also fired at point-blank tear gas against demonstrators, seriously wounding at least two people. According to the union of teachers, high school teacher James Raymond Servando Sanchez was hospitalized with a lung injury due to impact of a tear gas grenade in the chest. Another grenade this time supposedly fired by State Police hit protesters face Coache, fractured his skull and caused brain trauma. In addition, two journalists filed a complaint with the State Attorney's Office for physical damage and its equipment, caused by tear gas grenades that hit during the protest.

This
Humvee received several bullets during the demonstration.

To be considered "non-lethal weapons, tear gas grenades to be fired air or the ground. Tear gas grenades manufactured by Combined Tactical Systems Inc., which produces the grenade launchers used on Tuesday by the Federal Police, they carry a warning label that says: "Danger: Do not fire directly at person (s). Can cause serious injury or death. "

Federal Police is well aware that a direct hit from a tear gas grenade can be lethal. In 2006, during a joint operation between the State and Federal Police in San Salvador Atenco, a tear gas grenade killed Behumea Alexis, a 23 year old protester at him in the head. As a result of "unlawful use" of their weapons during the operation in Atenco, the National Human Rights Commission of the Mexican government (NHRC) recommended that the Federal Preventive Police (PFP), now the Federal Police and State Police should be trained in the "proper use" of their weapons. The head of the PFP rejected the recommendation of the NHRC and five years later, the Federal Police continues to fire tear gas against demonstrators' heads.

Federal Police fired tear gas canisters directly into

protesters.

Maureen Meyers, of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), argues that the violent police response to demonstrations Tuesday "underscores the lack of any real mechanism for accountability within the Federal Police" . Notes that the Federal Police ranks third in number of complaints against government agencies in relation to human rights, with 595 complaints filed with the NHRC in 2010. "An increasing number of reports of abuses by the Federal Police," says Meyers. On October 29, 2010, the Federal Police shot in the stomach with live ammunition a protester while painting graffiti at the 11 th "March Against Death" in Ciudad Juárez.

More funds for the Merida Initiative

The day before the Federal Police opened fire on protesters and the press in Oaxaca, U.S. President Barack Obama unveiled the draft budget for 2012. These estimates include U.S. $ 291.5 million for the Mérida Initiative programs in Mexico.

Police fired directly against this
protester with an unidentified projectile,
which fractured his skull.

The Ministry of Public Security in Mexico (SSP), by the Federal Police, is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the financing of the Merida Initiative. Through the Merida Initiative, the Federal Police received equipment, training (by the U.S. and Colombian police officers and private contractors), and even Black Hawk helicopters. While Obama's budget for 2012 reduced funding for the Merida Initiative Mexico some 250 million dollars compared with the previous year, increases starting INCLE (acronym in English of the International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement) at $ 500,000. INCLE financing is financing the bulk of, if not all, support for the Federal Police. Some

Merida Initiative funds are intended to reduce corruption within the Federal Police. Such support, said Meyers, "focuses more on trust control centers and polygraph tests. That obviously has nothing to do with this generalized model of abuse. "

Coache has

fractured skull and cerebral trauma as a result of a gas cartridge
you hit
in the head.

Meyers notes that there are three mechanisms of accountability that, in theory, would ensure that the support of the Merida Initiative does not fall into the hands of human rights violators, as the agents of the Federal Police open fire on protesters unarmed. The first is the Leahy Amendment, which prohibits any aid allocated outside the U.S. to "any unit of the security forces of a foreign country, when given the case that Secretary of State has credible evidence that such unit has committed gross violations of human rights" and not punish offenders. The U.S. embassy abusers crawls human rights individually in a database, but Meyers noted that the strength of the database depends on the amount of information you record in it the U.S. embassy. Kent Patterson, Americas Program, has criticized the implementation of the Leahy Amendment from the U.S.: "Mexico, like Colombia, sidesteps the issue by selecting for training only a few individuals of the affected units, rather than train all units. "

The other two mechanisms of accountability that apply to U.S. aid to Mexico for the war on drugs are related to the Merida Initiative itself. Only fifteen percent of the Merida Initiative aid is conditional on Mexico to improve accountability and transparency in the Federal Police and the Armed Forces. Additionally, in order to receive funds conditioned, Mexico must show that investigates and prosecutes those soldiers and federal police against whom there has been a credible allegation of human rights violations. "To our knowledge, in the latter case we have not really seen any case in which federal officers implicated in abuses have been effectively investigated and prosecuted," says Meyers.

Despite the flagrant impunity for violators of human rights belonging to the forces safety, conditions of human rights have not significantly affected Mérida in the flow of aid to the war against drugs in Mexico. U.S. Congress symbolically retained some of the funds, but so far the human rights conditions have delayed the arrival of money from the Merida Initiative for much longer than it takes the normal bureaucratic process, while spending the other 85% of funds untied.

© 2011 Upside Down World