ARMY ROLE IN MEXICO RIGHTS ABUSE ALLEGED

Disappearances are increasing in Mexico as a result of intensified military
efforts against drug-trafficking, according to a leading campaigner for the
disappeared currently visiting Ireland.

Mrs Rosario Ibarra (71), whose son went missing in 1975 after being
kidnapped by police, says that at least 100 people have disappeared
recently "under the cloud" of drugs policing. These are in addition to 500
cases on the books of Comite Eureka, a solidarity group which she founded
over 20 years ago for the parents of the disappeared.

"On the pretext of looking into narcotics-trafficking, the army is now
detaining many, many people on the northern and southern borders near
Guatemala and the United States. They kidnap them and take them to military
prisons, and if they find something they want they release them, and if not
they disappear.

"If they are guilty of something they judge them but don't disappear them,"
she said.

"It is against every law. There is not any law in all the world which gives
permission to disappear a person. But they do this in Chile, in Argentina,
in Mexico."

Many of the disappeared, including Mrs Ibarra's son, Jesus Piedra, were
taken to secret prisons located in military bases. She said she had not
given up hope that her son was alive, adding that Comite Eureka has found
148 people alive in clandestine jails.

One of 300 human rights defenders honoured at a ceremony in Paris last week
to mark the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, Mrs Ibarra
was the first female candidate for the Mexican presidency and a senator for
the Democratic Revolutionary Party between 1994 and 1997.

She said claims that the political and economic situation in Mexico was
improving were "a lie", blaming the former president, Mr Carlos Salinas,
now living in Dublin, for widening the gap between rich and poor.

"He said he was trying to put Mexico in the First World. But he was the
only one living like the First World while the rest of the people starved.
And now he is living in the First World."

Every four minutes, she said, a child died of malnutrition in Mexico. Some
12 million people are unable to afford basic clothing and 14 million are
illiterate.

Mrs Ibarra also criticised the UN Human Rights Commission for being
reluctant to challenge Mexico over documented abuses. A commission
investigation into disappearances announced last August had yet to begin,
she said.

"It's a crime like the crime first committed by the government of Mexico to
let so much time pass."

Of the Mexican government, she said: "We want them to open the secret
prisons and release our children. We want for them to give back with an
embrace all of the light that they have robbed from us. This is our dream
for the last 20 years."

Checked-by: Pat Dolan