On November 9th, the former mayor of Amatan, Manuel de Jesus Carpio Mayorga, of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) party was arrested by state police. He is accused of the murder of the leader of the Independent Regional Peasant Movement – National Coordinator Plan of Ayala-National Movement (Mocri-CNPA-MN in its Spanish acronym), Noe Jimenez Pablo and Jose Santiago Gomez Alvarez, a member of the same organization. Before being elected by MORENA (July 2018), he had been municipal president from 2001 to 2004, for the National Action Party (PAN in its Spanish acronym) and from 2012 to 2014 for the Green Ecological Party of Mexico (PVEM in its Spanish acronym).
The bodies of the two activists were found last January 18th in a dump near the headwaters of Amatan. They had been participating in protests to demand the dismissal of the mayor by denouncing the cacicazgo of the Carpio Mayorga brothers. In addition to this demand, the inhabitants of said municipality grouped in the Movement for Peace, Justice and the Common Good, had been denouncing corruption, the arbitrariness of municipal police in collusion with criminals, the lack of drinking water and street lighting, the non-completion of works, among other issues.
After these murders, on January 31st, Manuel de Jesus Carpio Mayorga and his entire cabinet resigned as they were allegedly implicated in the case. A new municipal council endorsed by the State Congress had been elected by February and various protests continued to demand justice for the death of Jiménez Pablo and Santiago Álvarez. On November 5th, one of the protests resulted in the taking over of the central offices of the Prosecutor’s Office.
For more information in Spanish:
Detienen a ex alcalde de Amatán, Chiapas; lo acusan por homicidio (La Jornada, 10 de noviembre de 2019)
Manuel de Jesús, ex Alcalde de Amatán, Chiapas, es detenido por el presunto asesinato de 2 personas (Sin Embargo, 10 de noviembre de 2019)
Detienen a exalcalde de Morena por estar implicado en doble homicidio en Amatán (Chiapas Paralelo, 10 de noviembre de 2019)
Exalcalde implicado en doble homicidio (Cuarto Poder, 11 de noviembre de 2019)
For more information from SIPAZ:
Chiapas: Gobierno estatal nombró nuevo Consejo Municipal de Amatán (Febraury 14, 2019)
Chiapas: Municipal Government to be Set up in Amatan (February 13, 2019)
Chiapas: Renuncian alcalde de Amatan y su gabinete. Llaman a a reconocer consejo de gobierno autónomo ciudadano (February 2, 2019)
Chiapas: Two Members of Movement for Welfare, Peace and Common Good of Amatan and Independent Revolutionary Campesino Movement Murdered (January 28, 2019)
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