Justice for Ernestina Ascencio and her family arrived 18 years later. Through a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), Mexico accepted the conviction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IDH) on Tuesday and it was ratified this Wednesday by President Claudia Sheinbaum. The sentence is pronounced in the case of the death of the indigenous Nahuatl woman as a result of the injuries she suffered after being raped by the military, a case which was closed “prematurely, without having exhausted the necessary avenues of investigation”. None of those responsible have been brought to justice, as authorities determined years ago that the evidence was insufficient. According to the ruling, the state is responsible for violating Ascencio’s right to life, personal integrity and health, enshrined in the American Convention on Human Rights. And not to guarantee access to justice for their children and to contravene “the rights to judicial guarantees and to the judicial profession, as well as the principle of equality and non-discrimination”.
According to the resolution, read by Judge Rodrigo Mudrovitsch, vice president of the Inter-American Court, Mexico must conduct “a criminal investigation within a reasonable time to identify, prosecute and, where appropriate, punish those materially and intellectually responsible for these events” and create a national registry of translators for health services. He will also have to provide “free medical and psychological care” to Ascencio’s children, grant them a scholarship so that they can study and hold a “public act of recognition of international responsibility”.
Sheinbaum also spoke about the case. This Wednesday, during her morning conference, the president declared that “the actions that the Mexican State must develop are very concrete” and that they will be implemented. He recalled that the events took place during the presidency of Felipe Calderón and that in the following days Rosa Icela, Secretary of the Interior, and Arturo Medina, Undersecretary for Human Rights, Population and Migration of this same agency, will explain in this forum the measures that Mexico must take.
Ascencio, 73, had gone to tend a group of sheep in the Sierra de Zongolica, in Tetlatzinga, Veracruz (east of the country), on February 25, 2007. After several hours without returning, worry invaded his family, who therefore went looking for him. One of his daughters found her mother seriously injured a few meters from a camp of the army’s 63rd infantry battalion, set up near her community, where she accused several soldiers of having attacked her.
Despite his critical condition, Ascencio did not receive the urgent medical attention he needed until ten hours later. When she was finally admitted to the Río Blanco regional hospital, where she also had no translator to help her, it was too late. The Nahuatl woman died on February 26. Although an initial autopsy performed by the Veracruz Attorney General’s Office revealed that the victim had head trauma, a fractured cervix, vaginal and anal injuries, and remnants of seminal fluid, what was initially established as an alleged rape changed dramatically in the following weeks.
While the investigation is still ongoing, Felipe Calderón, then President of Mexico, declared on March 13 that Ascencio’s death was caused by “untreated chronic gastritis”, thereby strengthening the state apparatus to cover up the sexual assault and revictimize the woman and her family. A few days earlier, Ascencio’s body had been exhumed by the National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH) for a new autopsy which would show that his death was due to “hemorrhagic shock due to massive hemorrhage from the upper digestive tract, secondary to gastritis and superficial erosion of the gastric mucosa”. It didn’t matter at that time that the first report from the public prosecutor’s office indicated that “a sharp object” inserted through the anus had destroyed “his kidneys, his liver and his intestine”. Recommendation 34/2007 of the CNDH found that there was no “clinical evidence” that Ascencio had been a “rape victim,” and therefore there was no crime to prosecute.
Even after the Veracruz Prosecutor’s Office announced on April 30, 2007, that it would not initiate criminal proceedings due to lack of evidence and that the military investigation into what had happened was closed in June of the same year, the relatives of the Nahuatl woman continued a legal battle to obtain justice, which even reached the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN). In this case, the victims suffered a new setback when this organization refused them access to the expert files. Faced with this situation, the case was brought before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 2017, which, after analyzing the case, established that Ascencio “was the victim of sexual rape committed by the Mexican army, which constitutes torture and violates her rights to personal integrity, honor, dignity and the right of women to live without violence.”
The case was brought before the Inter-American Court on June 11, 2023, which admitted it for processing a few months later and held the public hearing on January 30. This Tuesday marks -almost- the end of a long process in which justice arrived 18 years late. It remains for the Mexican State to comply with the measures to which it has been condemned.
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