US weapons kill more people in Mexico than in the United States of America, due to illicit trafficking that is often in the hands of organized crime, revealed this Saturday the investigation “Foreign Weapons in Mexico.”
According to researcher John Lindsay-Poland, who moderated a panel made up of experts from the United States, Mexico, Germany or Italy, “70% of the weapons with which homicides occur in Mexico come from the United States and, based on In these statistics, it is more likely that there are more homicides with US weapons in Mexico than in the United States.”
However, the official stressed that the calculation made in the framework of the study is only “an estimate.”
At the conference this Saturday, the responsibility of the arms industry and of the States was also pointed out for not monitoring exports that arrive in Mexico, mainly from the United States, but also from Europe, which are sometimes carried out ignoring the legislation and treaties current. .
Thus, the exhibitors indicated that the weapons end up in the hands of organized crime or police institutions, with which they end up committing homicides.
“And in the United States they don’t realize this. The weapons that arrive illegally in Mexico are used to control and intimidate the Mexican population,” said Po Murray, a member of the North American movement “Guns Down America.”
Lorena Reza, a member of the Regresando a Casa Morelos movement, highlighted the participation of these weapons in the disappearance, in 2007, of one of her brothers in Cuernavaca, capital of the central state of Morelos, and in the torture and murder of another. of his brothers
“Weapons from the United States come here and destroy our families. We don’t want to continue like this,” she said.
Leticia Sedou and Charlotte Kehne, experts from Belgium and Germany respectively, explained how in 2014 weapons exported from both countries were used in the forced disappearance of 43 students in the state of Guerrero, known as the Ayotzinapa case.
“Italy is the main European exporter, especially of small arms. These weapons are used by the police in human rights violations, such as in Ayotzinapa. The Iguala police had 63 Beretta rifles,” recalled Sedou, a member of the European Network Against the arms trade.
For his part, Kehne assured that German-made G36 rifles were used in the disappearance of the youths and that, according to that country’s legislation, they should never have reached Guerrero.
According to official data from Mexico, under the Arms Control Treaty, between 2019 and 2021, 40,644 weapons were exported from Europe to Mexico, 24,395 for civilian use and 16,249 for military use.
“European companies are installing their production in the United States, which allows them to have less rigid export laws to export them to Mexico,” Sedou warned.
Source: TSF
