Nestora Salgado García, coordinator of the Communal Police of the Regional Coordination of Communal Authorities (CRAC) in Olinalá, was on 21 August detained by units from the Army, Navy, State Police, and Municipal Police. The state forces forced her to board a helicopter, and her whereabouts are unknown. As a response to the arrest of Salgado, the communal police of Tixtla blockaded the federal highway between Chilpancingo and Chilapa, toward the end of impeding that she be taken before the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) in Chilpancingo. More than 250 members of the CRAC marched the following day in Guerrero to demand her release, together with that of dozens of other comrades of theirs who are incarcerated.
In parallel terms, close to 500 soldiers and marines invaded the community of E Paraíso, Ayutla de los Libres municipality, in the Costa Chica region, where they forcibly released some thirty persons who had been held by a CRAC faction, including a PRI leader from Olinala and his collaborators. The previous week, in the Huamuxtitlán community, the Communal Police of Olinalá indicated that Salgado García had detained this PRI leader, Armando Patrón Jimémez, and five others for having covered up the crime of two shock groups; she had them transferred to the justice house of El Paraíso to be prosecuted. The government of Ángel Aguirre Rivero accused Nestor Salgado of having kidnapped this PRI leader through the State Attorney General’s Office.
To date, the whereabouts of the CRAC members detained by the marines and soldiers are unknown, although it is has been suggested that they could be in the headquarters of the State Attorney General’s Office, to the south of the state capital, where the ministerial authority is expected to arraign them before a judge. On 22 August, the National Network for communication and urgent action on Human-Rights Defenders in Mexico released a communique demanding “knowledge of the whereabouts and health status of Nestora Salgado García, director of the Communal Police in Olinalá, Guerrero, as well as to assure her physical and psychological integrity [and to] guarantee the security and integrity of all the imprisoned, in addition to the right to defend the rights of the Communal Police.”
For more information (in Spanish):
Detienen en operativo a la coordinadora de la Crac en Olinalá, Nestora Salgado (La Jornada de Guerrero, 22 de agosto de 2013)
Policía Comunitaria de Olinalá marcha para exigir liberación de su líder (Proceso, 22 de agosto de 2013)
Red Nacional de comunicación y acción urgente de Defensoras de Derechos Humanos en México (22 de agosto de 2013)
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