21 January 2011

DF Human Rights Commission calls for Supervía suspension

Semarnat may green-light construction in exchange for more stringent mitigation measures


By BRONSON PETTITT

Mexico Weekly / Jan. 21, 2011

The capital's Supervía has suffered a setback by the Mexico City Human Rights Commission but may be successful on the federal level.

The CDHDF is recommending the capital government suspend construction of the bypass until a public consultation takes place, while the federal Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat indicated Thursday it may green-light construction in exchange for more stringent mitigation measures.

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard reiterated his refusal to suspend construction, but said he would “carefully” review the CDHDF report, El Universal reported.

In its 60-page recommendation issued Thursday, the CDHDF identified six human rights that were violated in the construction of the Supervía: the rights to decent housing, a healthy environment, water, information, citizen participation, and legal security.

The commission made a 10-point recommendation, the first of which orders the city to stop construction until a public discussion is held “to guarantee an extensive and plural participation in which the concerns, opinions and proposals of people affected by the project are heard and considered.”

Other points included:

The capital government should have sufficient evaluations and assessments of the needs for mobility of people and commuters in the southwestern part of the city; using this diagnostic, sustainable transportation methods should be considered, and any subsequent project should have a complete environmental impact study that adheres to capital environmental and human rights laws.

The third recommendation calls for transparency in the first and second points and allow citizens to accessibly and easily request information on such projects.

Capital environmental laws should be modified so that public consultations on environmental impact studies be required.

Middle- and top-level authorities should receive training by the CDHDF on human and environmental rights.

The capital government should issue a press release within 30 days to recognize that Supervía opponents can legitimately protest the Supervía and defend themselves.

The Magdalena Contreras Borough should promote transparency via awareness campaigns and implement the means to allow residents to easily and permanently request public information on services, procedures, applications and programs.

The capital and Magdalena Contreras Borough governments should undertake a diagnostic on the psychological, medical, family and legal needs of residents in this borough who have been affected by the arrival of hundreds of riot police monitoring construction.

Within three months, the capital government should design and implement a program to rebuild the social fabric in the La Malinche neighborhood amid the conflicts created by the Supervía, which includes at least urban improvement to green, cultural and recreational areas.

The Álvaro Obregón Borough should implement an oversight and dissemination mechanism to properly and legally grant public projects or government actions that could affect the rights of residents in this borough.

In its recommendation, the commission also addressed a petition from 22,460 residents who acknowledged mobility problems in the southwestern part of the city and who supported the Supervía. The CDHDF said the arguments lacked a complaint; rather, the arguments underscored the conviction that the government needs to solve transportation problems for those who commute to or from Santa Fe.

Green Light … Maybe

Meanwhile, the federal Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat says it will request from the capital government a series of environmental conditions in exchange for approval to construct the Supervía, Reforma reported Friday.

Semarnat Secretary Juan Rafael Elvira said the secretariat is analyzing environmental recommendations – a resolution of which is due Jan. 26 – which the secretariat will send to the capital government to construct the bypass.

These might include improvements to public transportation in and near the Santa Fe area, a reduction of the number of cars that use the Supervía and replacement of the trees that are removed, Elvira said.

We consider that since the Mexico City Valley has had so many problems of loss of trees, surface area and forests, all of these trees ought to be replanted – not be cut down and replaced by scrawny 10-centimeter trees,” Elvira told Reforma.

If the Supervía includes among its objectives improving mass transportation and discouraging the use of cars, it can be a positive project for the city, Elvira said.

The project, he added, already has the necessary rezoning permits. And since all but three hectares of the construction site are located in non-federal zones, Elvira said the Semarnat does not need to authorize the Environmental Impact Study, presented by the construction company.

This study was criticized by 19 UNAM and Metropolitan Autonomous University professors and researchers last summer. In a 21-point critique, they said that the information prepared by the construction company was superficial, vague, riddled with misinformation, lacked hard data and citations from credible researchers, and ignored or downplayed the extent of impacts on potential pollution and damages to soil, aquifer, flora and fauna in the area.

The study was approved by the capital Environment Secretariat, Reforma reported.

Request for More Information

Also on Thursday, the DF Institute for the Access to Public Information (InfoDF) ordered the capital government to make public the Supervía's master plans, financial information, investment recovery details and a catalogue of items, quantity and unit prices used for the bypass.

Supporting documents to the Supervía's concession titles – where said data are included – are not available on the project's website. A resident in the affected area requested the Chief Clerk's Office the data but only received a portion of them.

The resident filed a complaint, prompting the InfoDF to give the office a five-day deadline to turn over all of the information.

The Chief Clerk's Office reserved all of this information, arguing that the said attachments contained confidential data that could create advantages for third parties and risk the patrimony of the company that is doing the projects,” InfoDF Commissioner Jorge Bustillos told Reforma.

A public version of the required information can be created and released while omitting sensitive information on the concessionaire, Bustillos said.


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14 January 2011

Mexico developing national standards to identify cadavers

Disorganized, uncoordinated institutions cause 3,000 bodies to go unidentified each year

By Bronson Pettitt

Jan. 14, 2011 / Mexico Weekly

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is offering to help Mexico create a national forensic database on unidentified cadavers.

With the corpses of as many as 3,000 people each year going unidentified, ICRC forensic area coordinator Morris Tidball-Binz says Mexico could follow in the footsteps of Colombia, who after years of drug-related violence began a cadaver identification program in 2008, Milenio reported Friday.

The Colombian program uses a single methodology: Photographs of bodies must be taken at the same distance, and unique traits such as teeth, tattoos, scars or wounds must be identified and accurately recorded onto a secure national database.

Such is not the case in Mexico, however. In addition to structural shortcomings – the result of years of meager budgets – state institutions' organization is something of a mosaic, with different methodologies, doctors who are not specialized in forensic science and even an absence of proper record-keeping.

Obstacles of domestic mobility, the high number of immigrants who pass through Mexico and the growing number of unidentified cadavers also complicate efforts to launch a unified system, according to Milenio.

One of the greatest challenges is how to overcome the diversity of procedures, laws and regulations that exist in a country such as this,” Tidball-Binz said. “But the identification of these cadavers is of great importance to put an end to many people's suffering.”

A Mosaic of Procedures

In September 2010, forensic service directors from across the country met for the first time in Mexico City to share their experiences and methodologies with the International Red Cross. The meeting made it obvious what had been ignored for so long: Procedures varied greatly from state to state, Milenio reported.

Worse yet, it was discovered that judicial agencies were uncoordinated. There is no way for the Attorney General's Office in one state, for example that of Morelos, to be aware in a short amount of time that a body was found in neighboring Mexico City that matched the traits of a missing person from the former state.

That's why the idea is that we make sure that all of the forensic services operate with forms and standards to identify bodies, so that everyone can share the information,” Tidball-Binz said.

During the September meeting, experts from the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences of Colombia and the Medical Legal Service of Chile offered some alternatives. The consensus was to implement two relatively simple solutions: create a single manual and set the foundations for a database of forensic information.

The Mexican system would consist of physical features, traits and fingerprints, but an option to include DNA samples was discarded due to its complexity and cost, Milenio wrote.

Rather, the program's success, Tidball-Binz said, will be based on a simpler approach: standardized paperwork distributed to all forensic services.

With basic physical information that can be included on pre-established forms, so many searches can be shortened,” he said. “In Mexico these forms don't exist and authorities don't have anything to compare cadavers. But if there was a form that said, 'male subject, suffered such and such fractures, has these dental features, has this type of tattoo,' the possibility of successfully identifying a body is greater,” he said, Milenio reported.

Additional information:

* Sixty to 70 people are sent to a mass grave in Mexico City each week.

* Amid drug-trafficking-related violence in northern Mexico, mass graves in cities such as Tijuana have run out of space.

* Unidentified bodies have two destinations in Mexico: be buried in municipal cemeteries or mass graves, or be used for research purposes in universities, according to Milenio.

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