Ahern urged to push Mexico human rights agenda

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern was urged yesterday to press the president of Mexico on his government’s human rights record during his visit.

Ahead of Mr Ahern’s departure for a four-day State visit to Mexico today ), Amnesty International said the Taoiseach must raise human rights issues in his meetings with President Vincente Fox.

Although the Taoiseach’s visit is predominantly focused on business and trade links between the two countries, Amnesty International’s Irish section believe Mr Ahern should avail of the opportunity to outline human rights concerns to the administration.

Elected to the presidency for the centre-right National Action Party (PAN) in 2000, President Fox came to power on a commitment to reform as well as improving the country’s abysmal human rights record.

Under the previous government, abuses were endemic, including torture, disappearances and the harassment of indigenous communities.

According to Amnesty development manager Jim Loughran, as a European Union leader and as Irish companies are investing in Mexico, it is incumbent upon the Taoiseach to highlight human rights cases.

“The line he should be pursuing is that economic development should not be at the expense of human rights. Foreign policy and defending human rights isn’t just about the activities of the Department of Foreign Affairs,” he said.

Amnesty has been involved in highlighting a number of cases in Mexico and want the Taoiseach to raise the issue of the assassination of Digna Ochoa, a human rights lawyer who represented a number of high profile defendants.

Despite being found tied to a chair with bullet wounds to her body, the authorities are now suggesting she committed suicide and there is no evidence of any perpetrators being brought to justice, Mr Loughran said.

The murder of Ms Ochoa was seen as a test case of Mr Fox’s intention to tackle abuses as it occurred just months after the president came to power, he said.

Last year, Amnesty issued an alert on behalf of another Mexican human rights lawyer who spoke in Dublin on human rights issues. Death threats were issued to Arturo Requezems Galnaro.

The plight of indigenous Indians whose lands are being taken away for development should also be queried, Mr Loughran said.

“We would feel the real change initiated by the president to date is largely cosmetic. In the first years we have seen these two benchmark cases, but based on that, the new government has failed to deliver real protection for human rights. Mexico has the biggest human rights bureaucracy in the world but it all adds up to a fat zero,” he said.