Mexico: disappearance of Rosario Ibarra, figure of human rights and missing persons

Mexico: in 2006, Rosario Ibarra, human rights activist and feminist and Andrès Manuel Lopez Obrador, then mayor of the capital Mexico City.

REUTERS - Daniel Aguilar

Text by: Isabelle Le Gonidec

3 mins

It was the Mexican president who announced the death on Saturday of Rosario Ibarra, a tireless activist for human rights in Mexico and in particular for the cause of the disappeared, in memory of his son.  

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“

,” commented the Mexican president.

The emblematic Mexican human rights activist Rosario Ibarra died Saturday at the age of 95 in Monterrey (in the north of the country), announced Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO).

Mala noticia: murió doña Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, quien nos recordará siempre el más profundo amor a los hijos y la solidaridad con quienes sufren por la desaparición de sus seres queridos.

This era su verdadero partido aun cuando admired a Giordano Bruno.

pic.twitter.com/30mNALazlN

— Andrés Manuel (@lopezobrador_) April 16, 2022

 " 

 ," AMLO continues on Twitter.

After the disappearance of her son Jesus Piedra, accused of belonging to the Communist League on September 23, Rosario Ibarra founded the Committee for the Defense of Detained, Persecuted, Disappeared and Political Refugees, known as the “Eureka Committee!”

in 1977.

The Mexican Commission on Human Rights, chaired by his daughter, Rosario Piedra, the Mexican branch of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and many other bodies have praised Rosario's commitment and work Ibarra.

1. UN-DH deeply lamented the fallecimiento of Doña Rosario Ibarra de Piedra.

Mujer que abrió en México cauces en favor de la libertad y los #DDHH, la inclusión de las mujeres, la democratización y la demandencia de erradicar la desaparición forzada y otros abusos de poder 🖤 pic.twitter.com/gKFGsyzhN8

— UN-DH Mexico (@ONUDHmexico) April 16, 2022

Enforced disappearances between 1960 and 1980

The disappearances began in Mexico with the “dirty war” of the authorities against the revolutionary movements of the years 1960-80, recalls

.

Like Argentina or Chile, although in a less systematic way, Mexico has experienced an episode of enforced disappearances by the army, the police and paramilitary groups.

Their targets, as in the countries of the Southern Cone, the left-wing movements and in particular the Communist League September 23, in which the son of Rosario Ibarra was active, dissolved in 1983 after defying the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in power for a decade from 1929 to 2000.

A

during the “dirty war” was created in 2019;

among its missions, to find the " 

", that is to say the children born in captivity.

Some 500 people disappeared during that time, according to the Mexican Human Rights Commission.

This cause of the disappeared, Rosario Ibarra and his “Eureka Committee!

also defended her by playing her own role in a

on the subject,

, by Xavier Robles in 2006.

A political commitment too 

Born in Saltillo, in the state of Coahuila (in the north of the country) in 1927, Rosario Ibarra was also the

of Mexico in 1982 under the banner of the PRT.

She will be elected to the Senate in 2006 and several times cited to be nobélisable.

Among his other feats of arms, a hunger strike - with

known as the

in 1978 in front of the cathedral of Mexico City, a site forbidden to demonstrations. 

Thanks to the commitment of these activists and international pressure, an amnesty was declared in 1978, the prisons were opened and a certain number of political prisoners were released.

But the problem of the missing remains acute: their number exploded from the 2000s, with the increase in the activity of drug traffickers in Mexico and the war that ex-president Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) declared on the cartels .

Crimes that also taint the mandate of current President Andrès Manuel Lopez Obrador, despite the commitments made during his campaign.

►

: Faced with the 95,000 missing in Mexico, the UN criticizes the "inefficiency" of the authorities

(and with agencies)

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