Abstract
In this chapter, I examine the relationship between electoral competition in the 1990s and the (un)rule of law for political killings in Mexico and other democratizing nations. Electoral competition in Mexico in the 1990s between the PRI and the PRD occurred across multiple municipalities within different states in the 1989–2000 period but PRD leaders and members were not all killed equally in every municipality or in every state. To demonstrate it was the degree and level of threat posed by the PRD as a political party (not the rural origins of its members per se) which explains the targeting of perredistas for political assassination in the municipalities where they were killed, I begin the chapter with an analysis of quantitative data on Mexican municipalities.
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Notes
- 1.
Data is from Eisenstadt (2004). The variables used include population (natural log) from official census data in 1990, 1995, and 2000, and author projections using the standard growth curve for intervening years in the early 1990s. The natural log of the population was taken to transform the variable into a range more consistent with other variables. The variable “welfare” measured the percentage of households in each municipality earning fewer than two minimum wages, taken from the National Population Council and National Water Commission’s (CONAPO) marginalization index. The variable “election won” is a ratio of the PRD’s vote to those officially obtained by the PRI. As Eisenstadt (2004:299) notes, “this is more informative than comparing the election winner (the PRI in over 80% of the races during the study) and first runner-up, because as a rule the PAN and the PRD did not contest elections won by other parties beside the PRI (and the overwhelming pattern of two-party competition meant that, for example, where the PAN won, there would be no real PRD organization to challenge them in any case).” It is assumed that the level of threat posed by the PRD explains the party’s targeting, understanding the ratio of PRD vote to those officially obtained by the PRI vote as a proxy for the degree of threat posed by the PRD (variable “election won”). Other variables tested included a measure of all agrarian conflicts in the municipality and a measure of whether the electoral court overturned a complaint of fraud submitted by a political party. This latter was measured by two indicators: the number of parties submitting electoral court complaints during the days after each election and the total number of complaints submitted (2004:305).
- 2.
Although Oaxaca remained under PRI gubernatorial control, the PAN made significant inroads in urban areas in 2000 and the pro-PRD Committee in the Isthmus (COCEI) continued to control the Juchitán area. Furthermore, the PRI governor José Murat Casab was courteous toward President Fox and willing to cooperate on some issues (Grayson 2001:38).
- 3.
Specifically, this participation included lending his ranch to hide bodies of those killed by the police as the following quote reveals. The context of del Valle’s quote is the following: after having his own 12-year-old son detained and tortured for the alleged murder of a police commander, the rancher became upset with the police and del Valle told the Chiapas State Attorney General (appointed in 1997 by then PRI governor): “Your greatest error was moving the dead bodies...Look, I am going to tell you something that you already know or that you don’t want to understand or else I just don’t know about these matters. Werclain (the federal chief of the Security Police) is a person who has his hand on the pulse of this place but at the cost of killing pure Indians (de matar puros indígenas). As you say, if we are going to kill people, then we are going to kill people. Why did you permit Nicolás Ruíz to kill Indians? Then we have a problem like that at Acteal... I don’t want more dead bodies because they will cause more problems for me... I did a good deed for the society of Chiapas (by hiding the bodies) because now nobody dares kidnap anyone around here. [Attorney General: So, all the dead men on your ranch were kidnappers and son-of-bitches... Why did they decide to bury them on your ranch?] Because the police asked me the favor–‘Hey, could you take these bodies for us’... There is no justice anymore. Here on the coast, one has to take justice into their own hands and then comes along a federal commander of the Security Police and asks us to participate in this type of operation.” [So the federal commander was completely informed of the matter?] “Completely.” Later on the tape, del Valle admits to killing the brother of one of the men who would bring the dead bodies to his ranch for the government security forces (La Jornada 11/3/01).
- 4.
The comparative cases included in this chapter are those in which the legal opposition was not armed nor did they engage in violent acts against security officials. This is unlike the case of the 2007 Bas Congo event in which some members of the opposition party did engage in violent acts; thereby killing ten police officers and soldiers and two civilians. Human Rights Watch (2007:9–10) concluded that the death toll then escalated with the Congolese police force employing excessive violence and killing 104 persons. I did not include these cases because, as noted in Chap. 2, this book examines a type of violence that is generally associated with a nonviolent, legal process; that is to say, with voting, the exercise of political rights of peaceful association and with alternation in power.
- 5.
At the same time, the 2007 electoral system was not agreed upon by all parties as fair as many of the left-wing opposition parties withdrew their commissioners from the polling states and the counting centers (U.S. Department of State 2008, Albania).
- 6.
Also, in Zanzibar, the police violently quelled the opposition also employed ruling party thugs to beat and abuse citizens in January 2001, when the Tanzanian government security forces violently suppressed political demonstrations that had been called to protest irregularities in the national elections of October 2000. At least 35 people were killed, and over 600 injured without the prosecution of those responsible for the killings as security forces – primarily the police, aided by the coastguard and the army – opened fire and assaulted thousands of unarmed demonstrators and others. In the following days, the security forces, joined by ruling party officials and militia, went on a rampage, indiscriminately arresting, beating, and sexually abusing island residents (Human Rights Watch 2002a, b).
- 7.
There are also some examples of the independence of the judiciary from ruling-party control. The chair of the University of Zimbabwe’s politics and administration department and ruling-party supporter noted that the judiciary acted independent of ruling-party control when it exonerated MDC opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai of a plot to assassinate Mugabe (IRIN 2008). Nevertheless, opposition parties are excluded from the Electoral Commission (Human Rights Watch 2008a, b:6).
- 8.
In Portugal, it was the AFM (Armed Forces Movement) which was the liberalizing force within the military who deposed Caetano provided an institutional framework and timetable for the creation of a new political system within a year of the coup (Maxwell 1986:118).
- 9.
Future comparative research that could link the emergence of innovations in accountable governance (O’Donnell 2006; Smulovitz and Peruzotti 2006) to the non-violent resolution of political disputes would be a welcome contribution toward understanding the question of how and when civil society can make a difference in terms of holding state actors publicly accountable.
- 10.
In the early months of the transition to the Zedillo sexenio (December 1994–February 1995), the factors for a diminution of anti-PRD violence were being implemented, at least at the elite level. The EZLN uprising in January 1994 had the effect of stimulating a change of attitude by the top PRI leadership toward the legitimacy of the PRD. This change in attitude in the early months of the Zedillo presidency led to the official recognition of the PRD by PRI elites, and to negotiations for a liberalizing electoral pact in early 1994 between Zedillo and opposition leaders which promised to diminish political violence. Yet, this potential opposition-PRI pact fell through when opposition parties disagreed with the government over certain features of the new electoral rules, particularly over penalties for running coalition candidates (Prud’homme 1998).
- 11.
Impunity for political killing can also cause a significant erosion of the social rights of the families of the victims as evident in the inter-generational effects of these political killings. In addition to the approximately 550–600 women who suddenly found themselves entirely economically responsible for the household, there are some 700 children under the age of ten left who lost a parent in these murders. This means that some 1,300 persons (women, children, and some elderly relatives) have been left to fend for themselves in an increasing difficult economic environment. For example, the wife of 41-year-old PRD Puebla homicide victim Juan Sombrerero Nolasco (CNDH 1994) was left to support three children aged 3, 8, and 10 without the carpenter’s salary that her husband had earned. After having to sell the house to pay the debt from the funeral costs, Doña Catalina had to take the children to live with the paternal grandfather of her husband (Crónica Puebla 1997:55). She has to wash and iron clothes for other people, to sell clothes, and to sell chalupas in front of her brother’s store 4 days a week. Despite the severity of the crime, Doña Catalina did not have money to pay for the trips back-and-forth to the city that would be necessary to pursue prosecution of the crime. Ultimately, apprehension orders against the murders were actually carried out after the intervention of the CNDH.
The deterioration in the social rights of the surviving children is often quite drastic. Young boys are often required to become full-time laborers. Miguel, at age 14, had to leave school after his father PRD member Miguel Beningo Regino was killed. When he started working, his small size impeded him from picking up heavy feed bags. His mother would accompany him to help him with the harvest work after finishing her daily job as a maid. Miguel at 18 is now the primary income source for his four brothers and sisters. At the time of the interview, there was only a single can of corn for the family of six to eat (Crónica Puebla 1997:69). Twenty-three-year-old widow Lorena was left alone with three children to raise, all under the age of 10, when her husband perredista Ismael Mena was shot to death in Guerrero in 1995. She returned with her children to live with her parents after his death because her in-laws ran her out of their house when Ismael died. She has not told her children anything about their father’s death “because they are little. I don’t want my children to have a sorrowful heart (no quiero que mis hijos vayan con mal corazón). I prefer that they not know anything. The oldest boy does know that his father died but the young ones do not. I tell them that he is out, working (Crónica Puebla 1997:141).”
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Schatz, S. (2011). Impunity for Political Killing in a Comparative Perspective. In: Murder and Politics in Mexico. Studies of Organized Crime, vol 10. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8068-7_7
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