VZCZCXRO8879
RR RUEHCD RUEHGD RUEHHO RUEHMC RUEHNG RUEHNL RUEHRD RUEHRS RUEHTM
DE RUEHME #3267/01 1651406
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 141406Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY MEXICO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1626
INFO RUEHXC/ALL US CONSULATES IN MEXICO COLLECTIVE
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0914
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0084

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MEXICO 003267 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PREL MX
SUBJECT: OHCHR RUNS SLIM OPERATION IN MEXICO 
 
REF: STATE 73948 
 
¶1. (U) Summary:  Minister Counselor for Political Affairs 
(MCCA) and PolOff met with the representative in Mexico of 
the United Nation's Office of the High Commissioner for Human 
Rights (OHCHR), Amerigo Incalcaterra. The OHCHR's strategy in 
Mexico is to promote a human rights agenda by working with 
existing institutions and building governance capacity in a 
country that is increasingly democratic, transparent, and in 
many ways inclined to respect human rights but fraught with 
significant abuses. Incalcaterra arrived in October 2005 to 
run an operation that is so far a one man show charged with 
advancing recommendations made in the 2003 comprehensive 
assessment of Mexico's human rights situation.  His strategy 
is to work with government institutions to identify and 
enhance their ability to address human rights issues. His 
success will depend on his personal relationships, 
professional expertise, political acuteness, and the deft 
employment of his good offices in a country that, while 
opening to the world, is still suspicious of foreign 
interference and international criticism. This cable responds 
to reftel. End summary. 
 
Status 
------ 
 
¶2. (U) Amerigo Incalcaterra, the OHCHR representative in 
Mexico, assumed his position in October 2005.  He manages a 
UN office that was established in 2002 at the invitation of 
the Fox Adminsitration to conduct a comprehensive assessment 
of human rights.  At this stage the three-year mandate has 
expired and the office operates under global guidelines 
established in Geneva, with near-term focus on supporting 
implementation of a national human rights program, training 
forensic investigation techniques in torture cases, and 
building capacity of indigenous organizations. Incalcaterra 
arrived in Mexico after serving as Deputy Director of the 
OHCHR office in Bogot . He also draws on his UN experience in 
southern Mexico eighteen years ago. 
 
Strategy 
-------- 
 
¶3. (U) The OHCHR's strategy in Mexico is to promote a human 
rights agenda by working with existing institutions and 
leveraging their authority to build on the advances in human 
rights already made.  Incalcaterra specified five areas on 
which he will focus. (1) He is encouraging constitutional 
reform to conclusively define and protect human rights, 
banking on the constitution as the legal document that 
commands most respect in Mexico. (2) He is working with 
members of the Mexican Congress to identify existing tools - 
such as federal laws and international conventions - and 
explore ways to sharpen and utilize them. (3) He is promoting 
judicial reform to allow judges to exercise their full powers 
with respect to human rights and establish legal precedents. 
(4) He is working with civil society members to build 
governance capacity at the state level, where impunity 
remains a serious issue. (5) He is maintaining an open 
channel to the international community, a subtle but 
important development in a country that until recently has 
been largely closed to international scrutiny and remains 
suspicious of foreign meddling.  Incalcaterra was somewhat 
vague about specific implementation strategies. 
 
Scrutiny 
-------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) While the OCHCR initially hoped to work closely with 
the National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH), the Director 
refused to cooperate and the comprehensive assessment was 
done without CNDH's participation.  Incalcaterra has tried to 
find common ground with the very nationalistic CNDH, and 
proposed some areas where the two might work in parallel 
fashion, if not together.  Despite his conciliation efforts, 
Incalcaterra dscribed the extremely well-funded CNDH as a 
body without teeth which on occasion fails to defend 
adequately the public's rights. Moreover, he suggested the 
Commission has political motivations that sometimes can be an 
impediment to its human rights work. Incalcaterra explained 
that he had plans to work with the political parties in the 
Mexican Congress who have the power to influence the 
Commission's mandate, particularly in defining clear 
standards of human rights and how to the Commission should 
identify and respond to violations of these standards. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) While Incalcaterra made a positive impression in 
 
MEXICO 00003267  002 OF 002 
 
 
expressing his ideas for the improvement of human rights in 
Mexico and in his understanding of how the political system 
functions, his programmatic activities and objectives 
remained vague. His efforts to define common ground with 
CNDH, build ties with Congress, and reach out to states are 
somewhat hampered by the current fixation on elections. 
Incalcaterra was firm that his mandate was not to close out 
the office but to help inculcate respect for human rights 
inside Mexican institutions and NGOs. 
 
 
Visit Mexico City's Classified Web Site at 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/mexicocity 
 
GARZA