In a letter to Mexican President Enrique Pena, Human Rights Watch’s director for the Americas, Jose Miguel Vivanco, said that if the numbers quoted by the Post were correct, they would “place the wave of disappearances in Mexico that took place during President Felipe Calderon’s six-year administration as the worst in the history of Latin America.”
In Chile, about 1,200 people disappeared during the 1973 to 1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. In Colombia, authorities and non-governmental organizations say at least 50,000 people have gone missing during more than 40 years of internal violence.
Between 2006 and this year, Calderon waged a campaign against organized crime that included the unprecedented deployment of thousands of soldiers. It is estimated by some that there were at least 70,000 deaths tied to organized crime violence during his six-year term, which ended on Nov. 30.