Published: September 8, 2012
MEXICO CITY — A former Mexican president who is now a scholar at Yale University should be immune from a civil lawsuit brought against him in the United States in connection with a 1997 massacre during his term, the State Department said Friday.
Lawyers for victims of the massacre, who brought the suit last September against the former president, Ernesto Zedillo, said Saturday that if a federal judge concurs, as they generally do, the decision “will prevent us from proceeding with the case against him and presenting proof of his responsibility.”
The State Department said Mr. Zedillo should have immunity because the suit, filed in federal court in Connecticut, concerned actions taken in his official capacity, which generally allow heads of state freedom from the hook of American courts. The filing noted that the Mexican government had asked that immunity be granted.
“The complaint is predicated on former President Zedillo’s actions as president, not private conduct,” Harold Hongju Koh, a State Department legal adviser and a professor at Yale Law School, wrote in a letter accompanying the filing. He said the complaint’s “generalized allegations” did not give the department any reason to rule differently.
The lawsuit, which alleges war crimes and crimes against humanity, has generated speculation in Mexico that it has more to do with settling political scores; Mr. Zedillo is abhorred by some members of his party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, for allowing reforms that contributed to its downfall in 2000.
The suit was filed by 10 anonymous people who said they were survivors of a 1997 assault by paramilitary groups on the village of Acteal in Chiapas State during a conflict between Indian guerrillas known as Zapatistas and the government. Lawyers have said the plaintiffs are anonymous because they fear reprisals.
The plaintiffs said they were members of Las Abejas, or the Bees, who were sympathetic to the Zapatistas and had sought refuge in Acteal when it came under attack by vigilantesallied with the ruling party. In the end, 45 people, including 18 children, were killed.
Leaders of Las Abejas said in a statement last year that they did not know who the plaintiffs were and called the claim of possible reprisals “ridiculous and very suspicious.” But the group still asked the court not to grant immunity to Mr. Zedillo.
Lawyers for Mr. Zedillo on Saturday called the suit baseless and politically motivated. The lawyers for the plaintiffs said in a statement that they hoped that the suit had raised awareness of the “underlying wrongs” behind the massacre.
Legal experts said they were not surprised by the State Department’s recommendation, but said it hardly settled the matter of how courts should handle complaints filed against former leaders.
“In my view, the claim of executive branch authority to make immunity determinations is strongest for sitting heads of state but somewhat weaker for other officials and for former officials,” said Curtis A. Bradley, a Duke University law professor who studies immunity issues.
The issue has come up in a number of cases in recent years, he said, with courts generally siding with the State Department, but the United States Supreme Court has not addressed the issue.
The issue may arise again with the current president, Felipe Calderon, who leaves office in December and is known to be considering a move to the United States. Opponents of his aggressive policies in the drug war, which has left more than 50,000 dead in his six-year term, have tried to bring a case against him in the International Criminal Court in The Hague and may try to file other cases against him.
Responding to the international outrage over the massacre, Mr. Zedillo’s government moved quickly to arrest scores of suspects, with more than 30 people convicted. But many of them were released in 2009 after Mexico’s Supreme Court found that the prosecution was bungled.
Mr. Zedillo left office in December 2000 and has spent the past decade as the director of the Yale Center for Globalization.
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