«Mexico woke up" by Katka Kincelová. Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.
“A government on its knees”: this is how Gil Ramos describes Mexico’s current administration. With an average of nearly 100 homicides per day, 7 journalists killed in 8 months, an epidemic of disappearances of social activists, students and civilians, and hundreds of human right violations, it is difficult to discredit that statement. In fact, Mexico would perfectly fit with Bunker and Sullivan’s definition of a “failed state”. Contrary to the “Mexican moment” envisaged by Times magazine a year ago, Mexicans are living in an increasingly insecure environment, witnessing an increased level of corruption in government institutions, and experiencing the “ungovernability” of numerous municipalities. Thus, far from the democratic dream of progress, citizens in Mexico are living in a dangerous and still fragile democracy.
Beginning with the execution of 22 people in Tlatlaya, in the state of Mexico, the past 12 months have been flooded with cases of human rights violations that have shaken Mexican society. Leaving aside the fact that those executed belonged to a criminal organization, the assassination of these unarmed and surrounded criminals in June 2014 demonstrated that the army was not carrying out its operations with strict respect for human rights. Despite the Minister of the Interior's assurances that government would “prosecute this crime to the very end”, this atrocity, until then the worst slaughter committed by the armed forces in Peña Nieto’s administration, has proved to be only a symptom of the disease affecting the Mexican government and society.
