Kidnappings still plague Mexico

WASHINGTON, June 9 (UPI) -- Kidnapping in Mexico has long been a lucrative industry that has plagued the country's psyche with fear and filled the pockets of plotters and conspiring law enforcement officers.

While federal data from the Mexican Attorney General indicates that the country's kidnappings are on the decline, experts say official conclusions are wrong.

The Mexican daily El Universal Wednesday obtained a report from the Attorney General's office, which cited that only four remaining kidnapping groups in the country are large enough to be classified as organized crime rings.

According to the document, the PGR has broken up over 45 groups dedicated to the crime and arrested 292 kidnapping suspects since President Vicente Fox took office in 2000. It also claims to have rescued 424 victims, and that only 5 percent of all ransoms demanded by kidnappers have been paid.

But Mexican crime experts say the real figures on kidnappings and other crimes could be five times as high as the government figures. The government's numbers are inaccurate in part because many victims are unwilling to report crime out of fear of neglect from the notoriously corrupt police.

René Jiménez Ornelas, who tracks kidnappings at Mexico's National Autonomous University (UNAM), told El Universal he estimates there are around 3,000 kidnappings a year.

"Mexico has a history of complicity between law enforcement an actual kidnappers," Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, director of the Mexico project at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, DC, told United Press International. "As a result, law enforcement is still seen skeptically by the Mexican people."

Mexico City police are known for frequently enhancing their modest salaries with bribes for traffic offenses and other small transgressions. And authorities have reported instances of police taking part in hold-ups and kidnappings.

Guillermo Velasco Arzac, the director and president of Mexico United Against Delinquency, a civil organization, announced June 2 Mexico ranks second in the world for the highest number of kidnappings registered each year.

"The phenomenon of kidnapping in Mexico is derived from the lack of coordination between the country's political bodies," Velasco Arzac said.

Velasco Arzac, also a member of the Civic Advisors for Public Security and Justice, said a change in Mexican penal laws is urgent. He added the number of abductions in the country "as it continues to be high, is occupying second place in the incidence of this crime" at the global scale.

Nevertheless, he signaled that year after year the number of this type of crime has gone down in Mexico. But he asserted because "the bands of kidnappers have not fallen apart," the phenomenon of kidnapping continues to register high incidence in the country.

Velasco Arzac said additionally the penal laws are obsolete and insufficient for attacking the problem.

Meanwhile, President Vicente Fox said Wednesday his government is not evading its responsibility around kidnappings and guaranteed that it will redouble its resources and collaboration with states to combat the illicit crimes.

In a recent report from the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations reported that in the last decade kidnappings have multiplied in countries like Mexico, Spain, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Mexico exemplifies the gravity of the phenomenon, which has doubled its figures between 2001 and 2002 from 245 to 464 incidents of kidnapping, according to the report.

Armand Peschard-Sverdrup noted that the prevalence of kidnapping in Mexico is a small part of a much broader problem that beleaguers Mexico's judicial system.

"As long as Mexico has a problem of impunity and a lack of professionalism among the Mexican law enforcement, problems like kidnapping will continue," Peschard-Sverdrup said. "But the Attorney General has done an incredible job of professionalizing the federal law enforcement so far."

Mexican Attorney General Rafaél Macedo has created a Mexican version of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, called the Agencia Federal de Investigacion.

Most promising, Peschard-Sverdrup said, is President Fox's comprehensive judicial reform proposal which will come up in the next Congressional session beginning in September.

"Judicial reform will be an important part of the upcoming legislative debate," Peschard-Sverdrup said.