Mexico’s Living Dead

Abstract

In September 2014, I was as a judge for the Hearing on Feminicide and Gender Violences organized by the Permanent People’s Tribunal in Chihuahua, Mexico. Although the levels of social violence and insecurity have touched the lives of everyone, the impact has been most devastating for women. For three days we heard testimonies from victims of feminicide, disappearances and trafficking, structural violence, forced exile, domestic violence, sexual violence, and persecution as human-rights defenders. We heard repeated references to the police’s and military’s long history of violating human rights with impunity, to the complicity of the state authorities with organized crime, to cartel infiltration at all levels of government, to a <i>narco-maquina</i> (narco-machine) currently ruling Mexico. It became exceedingly difficult to determine whether it was agents of the state or organized crime groups that were perpetrating these crimes against humanity.