Mexico, the Country of Disappearances
In the context of the war against the people in Mexico, official figures report 127,000 disappeared people, over 470,000 homicides, and 72,000 unidentified bodies. This undeclared situation of war has led the UN’s Committee on Enforced Disappearances to issue a resolution, recognizing “well-founded indications that enforced disappearance is practiced in a generalized or systematic manner in the territory.”
However, representatives of the State, including President Claudia Sheinbaum, quickly denied the existence of an undeclared war in Mexico, Sheinbaum stated: “In Mexico, there is no forced disappearance by the State; we have always fought against that; that does not exist in Mexico.“
As Current of the People – Red Sun has denounced, the Mexican State has played a clear role in disappearances: “In the midst of this war, the phenomenon of disappearance of people has had an evident political use, serving the interests of the Mexican State. First, to pursue and exterminate the socialist armed movement during the dirty war; subsequently, to criminalize and exterminate popular movements opposed to the regime under the pretext of combating drug trafficking ; and finally, to wash the bloody hands of the State’s legal apparatus using its illegal apparatus in this symbiosis between armed forces and criminal groups that allows current rulers to cut political costs and say that ‘the Mexican State no longer disappears anyone.'”
The Newspaper Mural reports that Mexico’s structural crisis of bureaucratic capitalism and the effects of commercial and military threats from US imperialism have led to the normalization of militarization and violence, reflecting a State policy.
“These examples make it clear that our country is experiencing a reactionary civil war imposed by the parasitic classes in power, which is not new [it’s true] but shows a clear trend towards its continuity and deepening in the hands of the Morena governments. It’s a war against the people that is measured by the coldness of official figures, which, in addition to being manipulated, represent the tragedy and pain of the Mexican people,” the Newspaper Mural adds.
Violence continues to be a central theme in the Mexican narrative, a war that has perpetuated itself from the “dirty war” of the 1960s and 1980s to the present day. From 2006 to 2024, approximately 478,390 homicides and 105,776 disappearances have been recorded. These data reflects the brutality of the war against the people.
In addition to homicides and disappearances, the reality also includes an increase in the murder of women, human trafficking, forced displacement, and over 72,000 unidentified bodies. The response of the current government, led by Claudia Sheinbaum, has been criticized for ignoring the demands of families of disappeared persons and downplaying the crisis, as evidenced by her first speech after taking office.
Recently, we reported on the case of comrade Sandra Domínguez, a human rights defender who disappeared after denouncing a plot of human trafficking that implicated the state government, and the case of Dr. Sernas García, who has been missing for more than seven years, with campaigns still being organized to demand his presentation with life.
The Newspaper Mural concludes that the Mexican State is increasingly subordinating itself to Yankee imperialism and its Government interests “centered on migration, narcotrafficking, trade, and mega-projects, leaving a cycle of violence that makes Mexico the country of disappearances.”
