Uncovering the Disappeared: Mass Graves and Migrant Disappearances
In August, 2010, a terrible discovery was made in northern Mexico. Fifty-eight men and 14 women were found murdered in a mass grave as a result of a conflict between Mexican soldiers and a drug cartel. . Of those found, 14 remains were identified as Salvadorans in addition to those identified as Hondurans, Guatemalans, and others. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated event. Less than a year later, in April, 2011, another mass grave was found in the same city. This time, 193 human remains were found. Less than a year after that, 49 remains were found at another site nearby. These mass graves are part of a horrifying, much larger picture of migrant disappearances in Mexico. By 2018, the Mexican Interior Secretariat declared that there were 37,435 missing persons in Mexico. However, the existence of mass graves proves that many people are not merely missing, but have been forcibly disappeared.
In January 2019, the Migrant Disappearances Team, as part of Boston University’s School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic (BU Clinic), traveled to El Salvador to conduct field work on missing migrants. As of 2015, the Foundation for Justice and Democratic Rule of Law, a non-governmental human rights organization, had documented 106 cases of missing or disappeared migrants from El Salvador with the assistance of the migrant families’ collective, el Comité de Familiares de Migrantes Fallecidos y Desaparecidos de El Salvador (COFAMIDE). However, the actual number of missing or disappeared Salvadoran migrants is likely much higher. Due to gaps in the investigation and forensic analysis processes it is possible Salvadoran remains have been found but not identified. Further, it is possible there are even more mass graves hidden throughout Mexico.
For many, the difference between the terms “missing” and “forcibly disappeared” is about more than mere semantics. While many organizations do not distinguish between the two, some such as COFAMIDE, point out an important distinction between them. Organizations such as COFAMIDE define a missing person as someone whose whereabouts are simply unknown. In other words, it is possible the person is alive and safe, but is choosing to keep private his or her location, even from his or her family. Migrants may do this is because they are residing in a country without legal status, and want to keep their status a secret.
On the other hand, these organizations define someone who has been forcibly disappeared as someone who has been murdered or has been allowed to die through deliberate negligence. The first type of forced disappearance has a long history in Latin America, most famously between 1973 and 1990 in Chile where the Pinochet government was notorious for “disappearing” more than 3,000 people. More recently, it has been non-governmental actors, such as gangs, human smugglers, and traffickers who have murdered migrants, but with the collusion or acquiescence of state authorities.
The second type of forced disappearance is more complicated. This type involves governments purposely not acting to protect migrants, who die or are killed as a result of that negligence. For example, the Salvadoran government is legally obligated under the Inter-American Commission ruling in Velasquez-Rodriguez v. Honduras to prevent, investigate, and punish any violation of the rights listed in the American Convention on Human Rights, restore the rights violated, and provide compensation to the victims of these rights’ abuses. These mass graves show that El Salvador has not been upholding its obligations to prevent the deaths of their citizens, investigate the circumstances of their deaths and assist in the prosecution of their murders. Thus, under this definition, El Salvador shares responsibility for the forcible disappearance of the migrant citizens of their country.
The BU Clinic’s interviews revealed that governments are usually reluctant to apply the term disappeared, rather than missing, because of the connotations associated with each classification. If they are to classify what is occurring as forced disappearances, they are admitting that they have not been upholding their obligations. If they classify these people as missing, they are not admitting any fault or legal liability. Our conversations with the families of COFAMIDE indicated that they do believe that their government refuses to use the word disappeared because it wants to escape liability or the obligation to take steps to provide redress to the families. They believe the government could be liable because the government has a duty to protect its citizens from dangers such as gang violence or cartel killings that would lead to a person being disappeared.
Mass graves also illustrate governments’ inability to properly identify and return remains to surviving family members. In 2001 the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) joined an advisory mission to the Mexican government at the request of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The EAAF is a non-governmental, not-for-profit, scientific organization that relies on forensics science to investigate human rights violations, including identifying remains and collecting DNA, both in Argentina and worldwide. The EAAF has taken the lead on identifying remains in this region because it has the most qualified teams of forensic experts, and maintains a massive DNA data bank to identify and return remains. EAAF has helped develop a “protocol for forensic investigations and the use of physical evidence” which has allowed it to systematize the identification of remains, and has lent significant credibility to its results.
The EAAF has been doing incredible work; however, there are still a lot of inefficiencies and impediments in identifying and returning remains. One issue is funding. The interviews that the Migrant Disappearances Team conducted revealed that the United States was the leading country in identifying bodies. This is due to the greater resources, such as money and technology, available for the purpose in the U.S. and the standardization of identifying and organizing DNA data. Mexico, on the other hand, does not have the same funding or technology available, and lacks proper standardization of DNA organization across its states. This results in miscommunication, improper identification, and the inability to properly return remains. Additionally, people who are not authorized or adequately trained to handle remains sometimes work with the remains, leading to the loss of important evidence that hinders investigations and judicial proceedings.
Additionally, the Mexican government has been criticized for significant levels of corruption that has also hindered the process of collecting and sharing data to find a match. For many reasons, the EAAF has demanded that Mexico create its own independent national forensic services agency. However, because of the high levels of corruption, the EAAF has insisted that this agency be isolated from any political corruption or improper influence, only guided by pure science. An independent forensics agency would help create a standardized and organized system that could operate in all Mexican states and help combat the influence of corruption on these investigations.
For migrant victims and their families, disappearances are awful and unjust. To combat this problem, more resources dedicated to the investigation of missing or disappeared persons are needed, including creating an independent forensic agency, standardizing the investigation and identification processes, and operating both nationally in Mexico and internationally across Central and North America. Only with such institutional and transnational reform will there be a possibility of justice and reparations for these grieving families.
Brief bio: Taylor Mielnicki was born and raised in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. She went to Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service for her undergraduate education where she focused on security and economic development studies, particularly in the Middle East. She is currently a third year law student, anticipating graduation in May, 2019.
