HUMAN-RIGHTS OFFICIAL: MEXICAN SOLDIERS PART OF DRUG VIOLENCE

EL PASO -- A Mexican human-rights investigator who has criticized the
army's involvement in trying to control the violence in the state of
Chihuahua charged on Tuesday that soldiers are behind some of the violence.

Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson, a Chihuahua State Human Rights
Commission ombudsman, said he has investigated 170 cases in which
Mexican soldiers extorted, kidnapped, tortured, beat or killed
innocent people.

He said none has been prosecuted by the Mexican government.

Joint Operation Chihuahua spokes man Enrique Torres denied the
allegations and said the military is willing to work with authorities
in "serious investigations" into allegations of wrong doing by
soldiers if there is a formal complaint.

The operation is made up of about 7,000 soldiers and federal police
officers deployed to Juarez in response to a drug cartel war that has
killed more than 1,700 people this year.

In previous statements, Mexican military officials have also said
criminals have been known to wear phony uniforms and pose as soldiers.

But in a news conference Tuesday, Hickerson said there is evidence
that ties soldiers to many crimes.

Hickerson along with El Paso County Attorney Jose R. Rodriguez and
lawyer Carlos Spector said the Mexican government should be held
responsible for the prosecution of soldiers who commit crimes.

Also at the news conference were several members of the Border Network
for Human Rights, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and other
nonprofit groups.

Complaints about human-rights violations are investigated by the
Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission.

If a complaint has been confirmed, it is sent to the Mexican attorney
general's office, then passed to the Military Justice in Juarez and
finally sent to the Military Justice in Mazatlan, said Hickerson, a
labor lawyer who earlier this year criticized the Mexican army at a
forum at the University of Texas at El Paso.

The Military Justice in Mazatlan, Hickerson said, finishes the
investigation and takes the case before a judge for
prosecution.

"In the 170 cases that we have submitted, the prosecutors in Mazatlan
have not put any of them before a judge," Hickerson said. "The judge
hasn't found any soldier guilty."

In one case, he said, a soldier killed a man in the village of San
Agustin, which is across the border from Fabens, in May 2008. The
people in the town held the gunman captive, but soldiers released
their fellow soldier, he said.

Another soldier shot and killed a man while his colleagues held his
wife and son captive, Hickerson said. After the soldier killed the
husband, he approached the wife who was carrying her son and shot and
killed the boy, he said.

Most recent allegations state that soldiers tortured three men for
five days in September. On the fifth day, they released two, and the
third man was never found, he said.

Hickerson, who has worked for the commission for 4a years and has been
an advocate for human rights for 37 years, said he was in the
beginning stages of looking into the allegations when his supervisor
ordered him to stop the investigation. He said the demand by his
supervisor might stem from threats made to the commission for its
investigation into military abuse.

Hickerson said he, his family and friends have been threatened several
times.

One man dressed in plainclothes threatened his life Sept. 4, he said.
He said the man made a gun hand gesture and told him, "Bajale o te
matamos," meaning to stop his investigations or they would kill him.

Torres, the spokesman for Joint Operation Chihuahua, said, "There is
no situation where there is information that military personnel made
those threats."

In another incident, Hickerson said, a group of men held two of his
friends captive on two occasions in August.

"I'm afraid that my family is afraid," Hickerson said. "My family is
scared."