Soon before Claudia Sheinbaum became Mexico’s first female president last October, a clergyman pleaded with her to listen to the mothers of thousands of “disappeared” Mexicans. Such a step, said Catholic Bishop Francisco Javier Acero Pérez, would help mend the country’s “broken social fabric.”
His request came after Dr. Sheinbaum stated she did not share the church’s “pessimistic evaluation” of violence by organized crime in the country.
In March, the new administration finally did show a readiness to act – after news broke of an “extermination center” run by a drug cartel at a ranch and reportedly used for mass killings.
President Sheinbaum and her attorney general have now announced reforms to deal with the estimated 120,000 missing persons in Mexico. The reforms include a legal change that will treat forced disappearances as kidnappings. Officials have also cataloged items recovered from the ranch for identification by families and have allowed limited public access to the site.
Across Mexico, scores of groups known as madres buscadores (searching mothers) have persevered to find missing loved ones in the face of inaction, corruption, and cartel threats. As one mother of four disappeared sons told the United Nations last year, “This struggle is very, very painful, but it is a struggle based on love, and that love is what sustains us.”
The power of such love and the yearning for truth seems to have moved Dr. Sheinbaum to be more empathetic and to help the families of missing persons. Yet perhaps not enough. Numerous mothers groups around the country have signed a statement saying her actions are insufficient.
The mothers’ insistence on finding the truth reflects what has helped other conflict-burdened societies move from hate to reconciliation. If Mexico needs a model, it might be Colombia. Since it achieved a peace pact in 2016 ending a civil war that left some 120,000 missing, “Dozens of former rebels, officials, forensic anthropologists and religious leaders now work side-by-side in finding their country’s disappeared,” reported The Associated Press.
As Juan Santos, Colombia’s president during the pact’s negotiations with the rebels, said, “Truth will make you free. … More than being a biblical quote, this statement is a summary of a reality that may change the future of our nation forever.”
