When President Vicente Fox came to power in Mexico, he promised to undertake a thorough examination of his country's murky record on human rights abuses. Fox was faced with many mysteries, from a 1968 student massacre at Tlateloco to a number of high profile murders in the early 1990s, and the deaths of hundreds of suspected leftists at the hands of government forces two decades ago (Zarembo, 2000). Though Fox has made some efforts to bring to justice individuals or groups that have perpetuated human rights abuses in Mexico or are continuing to do so, it will be argued herein that many of the rights accepted as obligatory in many Western societies are not protected in Mexico and that more needs to be done in this critical area of governance in order for Mexico to overcome its poor human rights record.
On December 7, 2000, the Mexican embassy in Washington, D.C. released a statement in which it was noted that "President Vicente Fox has committed his administration to an absolute respect to the human rights of all people in Mexico and to contribute to the promotion of human rights worldwide" (The government of Mexicoa, 2000). At that time, it was announced that President Fox had designated Mariclaire Acosta has Special Ambassador for Human Rights and Democracy. On his second day as president, Fox met with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Oaxaca, Mexico, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding. The point of this Memorandum was to strengthen cooperation between Mexico and the United Nations to improve the promotion and defense of human rights (The government of Mexicoa, 2000).
However, in September 2000, two short months before Fox met with the UN officials, Mexico expelled 40 Italian human rights observers and banned them from returning to the country after branding them "professional provocateurs" for their visit to a Zapatista rebel village in the state of Chiapas (Neilson, 2000). In his preside...