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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Kerry Kennedy goes to Guerrero: The Rape of Rosendo Cantu |
| 2011-08-18 |
| This is the third in a series of articles examining the claims of Kerry Kennedy of human rights abuses by the Mexican Military. You can read the last two reports here and here. The latest news on the rape of Valentina Rosendo Cantu is that her case has been "kicked upstairs" to the federal level. See the Rantburg article here By Chris Covert Kerry Kennedy's June article for the Huffington Post mentioned three other cases in Guerrero of human rights abuses which are surprisingly actual human rights abuses. Disappointingly for her and her agenda, the Mexican Army was likely not the perpetrator in any of the crimes briefly recounted. The two rapes of two different Indian women in Guerrero state in 2002 each within a month of the other, are instructive of how human rights agendas are pushed even though the likelihood of resolution is virtually nil. Although both cases have similarities, such as the accusation that Mexican Army personnel committed the rapes, the two cases could not be more different not only in how they took place, but also in how they were processed. The only other similarity between the two cases is that neither victim in these crimes will probably ever see any legal resolution. The Rape of Valentina Rosendo Cantu Valentina Rosendo Cantu is a MeÂ’phaa Indian in the village of Caxitepec in Acatepec municipality in southern Guerrero. On February 16th, 2002 she reported to her husband and to a village leader that she had been raped by soldiers on a nearby footpath. She said that about eight men dressed as Mexican soldiers and armed with rifles and one civilian encountered her at about 1400 hrs as she was taking her wash to a nearby stream. In a separate statement by her sister in law, Rosendo Cantu apparently described one element of the group of men she encountered as having been bound by his arms and was presumably a captive of the group of men. Rosendo Cantu said the group surrounded her and began to question her about "hooded men". She was shown a photograph of an individual and was read aloud the names of 11 individuals and asked if she knew them. She denied she knew anyone. Rosendo Cantu was then struck with a rifle and knocked out briefly. The men then tied her arms. She was then violently stripped of her clothes and raped by four of the men. The report did not make clear if any of the rapists was the civilian. She somehow managed to escape and make it back to her home where she reported the rape. Two days later Rosendo Cantu went to a public clinic in Caxitepec where she was refused medical treatment or examination reportedly because the duty physician was afraid of the army. While it is not described in the IACHR report, it is clear Rosendo Cantu probably told the physician she had been raped by Mexican Army soldiers. On February 26th, Rosendo Catu went to the Central Hospital in Ayutla, which is an eight hour walk, but she was turned back because she was told she had to have an appointment. The next day a physician performed an examination examining only at her stomach. She was told she could not get a more thorough examination because a female doctor was not available. On March 8th, accompanied by her husband, Fidel Bernardino Sierra, and a local representative of a local human rights group Rosendo Cantu filed a rape complaint with the Allende Public Prosecutors service, namely Concepcion Barragan Alonso. On March 15th, Barragan Alonso was informed by the Guerrero state attorney general's office that the state did not have a specialist in gynecology, but ordered her to a general medical examination, which took place on March 19th. The examining physician found two scars on Rosendo Cantu's person, one beneath her right eyelid, characterized as not recent and another on her left knee. Rosendo Cantu's case was eventually referred to the state attorney general who referred it to the military on April 8th. Rosendo Cantu filed a juicio de amparo or writ of amparo, which is an appeal of a process on constitution grounds on the referral decision of April 8th and of a subsequent decision on May 24th to transfer her case from the local Allende Judicual district to the Morelos district. She lost both appeals on August 31st. Rosendo Catu then filed another amparo appeal against that decsion, which was also dismissed on November 12th. On November 29th, Rosendo Cantu asked the Military Prosecution Service of the 35th Military Zone to decline from hearing her case. Her request was turned down. Rosendo Cantu filed an amparo suit against that decision which was dismissed April 29th, 2003 by a Guerreo state judge. On December 11th, 2002, an inspector general with the Mexican National Human Right Commission told the Guerrero state attorney general office for military justice it was closing it case file on Rosendo Cantu on the ground there was no evidence Rosendo Cantu had been attacked by military personnel. Although the report does not state it, the military did investigate Rosendo Cantu's allegation, including examination of the available statements from Rosendo Cantu and hearsay witnesses, statements from 108 military personnel on duty on the date in question, and a line-up of 50 military personnel from Operations Base Rios,which took place outside her home. In a 2004 report on the Mexican Military and indigenous women Amnesty International said that local officials instead of conducting an impartial investigation of allegations of rapes, allow the military to "subvert" victims' demand for redress and complains that the burden of proof is on the victim. The report fails to describe how victims are "subverted". Rape is one crime that always depends on the individual to prove. In the absence of witnesses, tissue sample and medical examinations,both very invasive personal processes are routinely used to conduct rape investigations. Rape is also dissimilar to armed robbery, for example, where a number of potential witnesses can not only identify the perpetrator, but also can attest to the facts; rape is not the same as every other crime; it is deeply personal and personally devastating to the victim as well as socially disastrous crime both to the victim and to any alleged suspect. From the start before the case wended its way to military jurisdiction, SEDENA said that no operations had taken place near the area where the alleged rape took place, and had no reports of soldiers who abandoned their post on that day. The press release also said that criminal gangs in the area will go to lengths to discredit work done by the army in the campaign against drug trafficking. Amnesty International contended falsely in its report that the military justice system had already reached a conclusion. The report was critical that the military which, in the eyes of the Amnesty report writer has already reached a conclusion, was the agency which took over the investigation. The report writer in detailing his sarcastic contention that a conclusion has been reached fail to note that the active narco gangs and leftist groups also wear military uniforms and carry rifles,and that Mexican Army and state police uniforms, badges patches and gear are routinely found in raids of drug traffickers. Inasmuch as the military may have already reached its conclusion an investigation was conducted and concluded without anyone being identified. Somehow in online reports of the incident by leftist and human right organizations say the the eight suspects in the rape of Rosendo Cantu were part of the Mexican 41st Infatry Battalion, subordinate to the 35th Military Zone. No reference to the 41st Infanrty Battalion were made in an element of the IAHCR reprot, but it was referred to in the Ines Fernandez Ortega rape case that took place a month later in another municipality. That charge incidentally was made well after the original statement was taken by Fernandez Ortega. In the Inter-American Court of Human Rights report dated in 2009, the court ordered the Mexican government among other things, to completely investigate the rape case in civilian courts and to provide Rosendo Catu and her eight year old daughter with unspecified monetary compensation. However, if the report by the IACHR report is accurate, and there is little reason to suspect it isn't, the civilian authorities did investigate the case with all the available information before turning it over to the military. With the lineup outside Rosendo Cantu's home of nearly half a rifle company, it is hard to see what more investigative authorities could do even in civilian courts. It is hard to imagine a more painful conclusion for the rape of Rosendo Cantu than to find her attackers have escaped justice by a combination of judicial incompetence and a lack of evidence, but it is even harder to understand how allegations, disproven to the extent of the known facts, can continue to be pressed, irresponsibly in this case, by Kerry Kennedy. |
| Posted by:badanov |