Guerrero: Attorney General and SEDENA Denounced for Lack of Interest in Solving Ayotzinapa Case

On May 14th, during a protest by the parents of the 43 disappeared students of the Normal Rural School of Ayotzinapa in Iguala in 2014, it was reported that in “five months of government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the Ayotzinapa case continues stalled because the FGR and the SEDENA have no interest in solving it.”

The spokesperson for the parents, Meliton Ortega Garcia, urged the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR in its Spanish acronym) to appoint the special prosecutor for the Iguala case and the National Defense Secretariat (SEDENA in its Spanish acronym) to deliver the evidence and information they have in their possession about the attack on the the students.

According to Vidulfo Rosales Sierra, lawyer of the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center, “there is a commitment with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and with Undersecretary Alejandro Encinas, although there are federal government institutions that are not walking hand in hand with the instruction given by the head of state, such as the FGR, which to date has not designated the Special Prosecutor for the Ayotzinapa case. As long as the prosecutor is not named, there will be no investigation. The same happens with the Mexican Army, which has information, but we do not know which and the relevance it has.”

According to La Razon, the relatives of the disappeared are conducting a first day in search of information in Iguala and asked the population to join in a “manner of solidarity to deliver information that they have the whereabouts of their children and that they will reserve their right to anonymity”

For more information in Spanish:

Padres de los 43: FGR y Sedena sin disposición para aclarar el caso (La Jornada, 14 de mayo de 2019)

A la FGR y Sedena no les interesa resolver el caso Ayotzinapa: padres (La Razón, 11 de mayo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero/National: More Information Published on Role of Army in Ayotzinapa Case (March 15, 2019)

Guerrero/National: Commission for Truth and Access to Justice in Ayotzinapa Case Set Up. Federal Judge Orders Investigation into Possible Responsibility of Attorney General Employees for Irregularities (January 22nd, 2019)

Guerrero/National: Decree Establishes Truth Commission for Ayotzinapa Case (December 19th, 2018)

Guerrero/National/International: CNDH and IACHR Ayotzinapa Reports  (December 14th, 2018)

Guerrero/National: Ayotzinapa, Four Years On…  (October 1st, 2018)

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National/Guerrero: Disappearances Increasing in Mexico – CNDH. No Progress in Victor Ayala Tapia Case

Photo @ CCTI

In April, Ismael Eslava Perez, first visitor of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH in its Spanish acronym), reported that “the disappearance of people in Mexico has not stopped and on the contrary, continues to increase throughout the country, with about 30,000 missing persons, 1,306 clandestine graves found and 3,760 bodies or remains found to date (…) due to the complexity of this problem in Mexico, the official figures are not precise, ranging from 30 thousand to more than 40 thousand people disappeared today , however what is a fact, is that the numbers do not descend, do not stop, and what is more, continue to increase.”

Forbes said it is important that “the political will be reflected in channeling resources necessary for the search, location, investigation and punishment of those responsible from the federal authorities, but particularly the states because there the largest number is missing”

The Mexican government has announced that, “in this 2019 a budget of more than 400 million pesos will be applied for searches.”

Many of the cases of forced disappearance in the country remain unpunished. One example is that of Victor Ayala Tapia who disappeared on September 14th, 2010 in the community of Papanoa, municipality of Tecpan de Galena, in the state of Guerrero. Ayala Tapia belonged to the organization Hermenegildo Galeana Free Front, a campesino organization that promotes productive projects with its partners that negotiated with a mango processing factory to locate it in Papanoa.

According to information from the Collective Against Torture and Impunity (CCTI in its Spanish acronym), “eyewitnesses reported that approximately 100 meters from Victor’s home, a patrol car of the State Preventive Police was parked, moments before the van arrived that took Victor and continued circulating behind the colony to reappear when they took him.”

Nine years after the disappearance of Ayala Tapia there has been no progress in the investigation and the relatives remain in uncertainty.

For more information in Spanish:

Desaparición de personas aumenta en México: CNDH (Forbes, 19 de abril de 2019)

Caso: Víctor Ayala Tapia (CCTI, 4 de febrero de 2016)

De 2007 a 2016, alrededor de 30 mil personas desaparecieron en México (UnoTV, 19 de abril de 2019)

México: Detención-desaparición forzosa del Sr. Víctor Ayala Tapia (Organización Mundial Contra la Tortura, 8 de octubre de 2010)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: briefs – Support is requested in Radio Ñomndaa case; SCJN assumes responsability in the case of Rosendo Radilla; 4 months of disappearance for activist Victor Ayala (January 24, 2011)

Guerrero: briefs – NGOs present amicus brief to Inter-American Court on case of environmentalists; activist is detained (September 23, 2010)

Guerrero: CNI Denounces Kidnapping and Murder of Two Members

@Aristegui Noticias

On May 5th, the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), the Indigenous Council of Government (CIG) and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) denounced “the kidnapping and murder of the Nahua council member of the Indigenous Council of Government Jose Lucio Bartolo Faustino and of the delegate of the National Indigenous Congress Modesto Verales Sebastian, of the Nahua indigenous communities of Xicotlan and Buenavista respectively.” The two victims participated on May 4 in a meeting with the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ) in the city of Chilpancingo, Guerrero, at approximately 3 pm. On their return trip they were attacked “by narco-paramilitary groups that operate in the region with the complicity and protection of the three levels of bad government, which with contempt and lies pretend to meet the demands of security and justice of the indigenous communities.”

The identities of the deceased were confirmed by the Prosecutor’s Office that initiated an investigation into the murder by firearm as the vehicle of Jose Lucio Bartolo Faustino and Modesto Verales Sebastian was found with bullet entry holes.

Both participated in the collection of signatures for the CNI presidency candidate, Maria de Jesus Patricio, Marichuy, as well as in mobilizations and meetings of the CNI/EZLN. In addition, they organized the Community Police in their communities “to resist violence, extortion and the imposition of the poppy cultivation by two criminal groups, Los Ardillos and Los Rojos, who control the municipal presidencies of the region with the complicity of the Mexican Army and the state and municipal police and even succeeded in imposing, at some point, one of its leaders as president of the Congress of the state of Guerrero.”

“We denounce the intensification of neoliberal repression against the peoples, nations and indigenous tribes that do not agree with their death plans in Guerrero and throughout Mexico, nor with the violence they use to impose them and repress, kidnap, disappear and assassinate those of us who decide to plant a new world from the indigenous geographies that we are”, the statement concluded.

For more information in Spanish:

COMUNICADO DEL CNI-CIG Y EL EZLN ANTE EL COBARDE SECUESTRO Y ASESINATO DE LOS COMPAÑEROS DEL CONCEJO INDÍGENA Y POPULAR DE GUERRERO – EMILIANO ZAPATA (Enlace Zapatista el 5 de mayo de 2019)

Dos activistas indígenas son asesinados en Guerrero; el CNI, vinculado al EZLN, culpa a AMLO (Sin Embargo el 5 de mayo de 2019)

“Narcomilitares” emboscan y asesinan a líderes del CNI en Guerrero (Grupo Fórmula el 6 de mayo de 2019)

Asesinan a dos activistas indígenas del CNI en Chilpancingo, Guerrero (Político el 5 de mayo de 2019)

Matan a dos integrantes del Congreso Nacional Indígena en Guerrero (Aristegui Noticias el 5 de mayo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas: denuncian dos comunidades choles de Salto de Agua amenazas, persecución y hostigamientos (El 22 de abril de 2019)

National: Third Assembly of National Indigenous Congress and Indigenous Council of Government (CNI-CIG) in Mexico City (March 14, 2019)

Chiapas : CNI denuncia amenazas y agresiones en la zona Norte (El 16 de agosto de 2018)

Chiapas: denuncia aumenta de violencia en los municipios de Sitalá y Chilón (El 6 de marzo de 2018)

Chiapas: A year since the “unjust” incarceration of communal defender from Salto de Agua: Chiapas Denuncia Pública (October 8, 2015)

Guerrero: CRAC-PC Coordinator of San Luis Acatlan Murdered

Photo @ Irza Agency

On April 12th, Julian Cortes Flores, coordinator of the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities-Community Police (CRAC-PC in its Spanish acronym) of San Luis Acatlan, was murdered.

La Jornada reported that “according to official reports, around 3:20 pm Cortes left the San Luis Acatlan House of Justice in his car, and when he was walking down Emiliano Zapata Street, about 200 meters from the House of Justice, he was attacked.”

In a statement, the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center said that the attack “is an attack on the system of security and community justice of the peoples of the Costa-Montaña.”

For more information in Spanish:

Asesinan a coordinador de la CRAC en Guerrero (La Jornada, 12 de abril de 2019)

Pronunciamiento | Sobre el asesinato de Julián Cortés Flores coordinador de la CRAC de san Luis Acatlán (CDH Tlachinollan, 13 de abril de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: posible desaparición de Gonzalo Molina de la CRAC PC de Tixtla y de 3 miembros de su familias en Ciudad de México (28 de marzo de 2019)

Guerrero: Gonzalo Molina, Tixtla CRAC PC, Released (March 7th, 2019)

Guerrero: 19 aniversario de la CRAC-Policía Comunitaria (11 de noviembre de 2014)

Guerrero: demand for release of political prisoners in observance of the eleventh anniversary of CECOP (September 2nd, 2014)

Guerrero: Police operation provokes confrontations and new arrest of member of CRAC-PC in Tixtla (March 30th, 2014)

Guerrero: Ministerial Police detain Gonzalo Molina, CRAC promoter, in Tixtla (November 14th, 2013)

National: Multiple Mobilizations on Centenary of Death of Emiliano Zapata

CNI march in Chiapas (@SIPAZ)

On April 10th, as part of the centenary of Emiliano Zapata’s death, indigenous people, campesinos and teachers mobilized in seven states: Chiapas, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Michoacan, Guerrero, Aguascalientes and Morelos.

In Chiapas, approximately 3,000 members of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI in its Spanish acronym) and the Indigenous Council of Government (CIG in its Spanish acronym) marched in San Cristobal de Las Casas. They denounced that the president’s development plan “brings dispossession and the destruction of our territories”, with projects such as the Maya Train, which, they warned, “will not happen, whatever the cost, we will not allow their rotten ideas, with their megaprojects, enter and strip us of our territory, because the bad government will not come to command, to silence or to intimidate in our houses, even if they are thinking of doing it with their national Guard.” In a pronouncement they stated that, “those who dressed up as the left have only put on masks of good faces, but of very bad intentions. They wear clothes of other colors and call themselves by other names, but they do not deceive us the original peoples in struggle and resistance, because they are the same foremen who want to impose plans of death with their lying and rigged consultations.” They also said that the government “does not ask us in their consultation if we want to live, but in what way we want to die. There are many wars that we face, but we are not afraid of them.”

Although it was not present here or in Morelos, where the CNI also called a march, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) published a statement in which he explained that his absence has a “simple” reason: “in our mountains and valleys the military presence has increased, police, paramilitary, and spies, ears and informants (…), the threat of death travels by air and land to indigenous communities who have decided to remain in resistance and rebellion to defend the land.” Although it noted a continuity with the previous governments, it pointed out that “today the persecution, harassment and attack against our communities is “for the good of all” and is done under the banner of the supposed “IV Transformation.” The EZLN also said that the new government seeks to appropriate the image of Zapata “so that, with his death, the defense of the land also dies.” However, “the original peoples will continue in rebellion and resistance,” it said.

In Morelos, social organizations from various states of the Republic arrived in Chinameca, where Zapata was murdered, and criticized President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for “the incongruity with which he seeks to legitimize his government by trampling on the rights of the people.” Jorge Zapata Garcia, grandson of the revolutionary, said that “100 years ago Madero betrayed Zapata and now 100 years later, the same government again betrays the ideals of Zapata. For me it is a mockery what he did to decree 2019 the year of General Emiliano Zapata and to commemorate it by handing over the water of the ejidos to the transnational companies. In addition, it is a provocation because the peoples have already shown that the thermoelectric plant is not going to be allowed.” For its part, the People’s Front in Defense of the Land and Water for Morelos, Puebla, Tlaxcala denounced the lack of action in the case of the murder of Samir Flores on February 20th, and demanded that Lopez Obrador announce the suspension and cancellation of the gas pipeline in Morelos.

The members of the CNI present at the event declared themselves on alert to the megaprojects that the federal government intends to impose on their territories and against the criminalization of social protest. They warned that “today 100 years after the betrayal and the lie that cowardly ended life of General Emiliano Zapata, that lie and betrayal returned with a supposed face of democracy, but, as then, that word, when it comes from above, only means war, impersonation and deception of the whole nation.” They announced that they would continue an organizational process that articulates the different expressions of struggles and agreed on a second national assembly on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, with a date to be defined.

In Veracruz, the demonstrations also denounced the projects of transnational companies, in particular Nestlé, which intends to grow coffee for a plant it wants to establish in the state. In Oaxaca, professors of the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE in its Spanish acronym) demanded the abrogation of the educational reform. They also raised demands regarding reconstruction after the 2017 earthquakes and rejection of the federal megaprojects based on the Special Economic Zones and the Program for the Isthmus of the Tehuantepec Region. In Michoacan, the teachers also marched. In Guerrero, teachers and students of Ayotzinapa marched and took over highway tollbooths and reiterated their request that their 43 disappeared in Iguala in 2014 companions reappear. Finally, in Aguascalientes, the offices of the Welfare Secretariat were occupied to demand the delivery of programs.

For more information in Spanish:

PRONUNCIAMIENTO DE LOS PUEBLOS DEL CONGRESO NACIONAL INDIGENA, CONCEJO INDIGENA DE GOBIERNO EN CHIAPAS (CNI Chiapas, 10 de abril de 2019)

Mensaje del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional en los 100 años del asesinato del General Emiliano Zapata (EZLN, 10 de abril de 2019)

Recuerdan a Zapata con protestas contra autoridades en seis estados (La Jornada, 11 de abril de 2019)

El gobierno actual quiere secuestrar la imagen de Zapata: EZLN (La Jornada, 10 de abril de 2019)

Más de 3 mil indígenas marchan en Chiapas en memoria de Zapata (La Jornada, 10 de abril de 2019)

“Así como Madero quiso comprar a Zapata, el mal gobierno quiso comprar a Samir y a los pueblos que resisten”: EZLN a cien años del asesinato de Emiliano Zapata (Desinformémonos, 10 de abril de 2019)

Entre consignas contra el “mal gobierno”, lanzan vivas a Zapata en Chinameca (Proceso, 10 de abril de 2019)

Congreso Nacional Indígena, en alerta contra los megaproyectos del gobierno de AMLO (Proceso, 10 de abril de 2019)

En ceremonia por Zapata, Blanco justifica consulta de AMLO sobre termoeléctrica en Huexca (Proceso, 10 de abril de 2019)

En ceremonia por Zapata, Blanco justifica consulta de AMLO sobre termoeléctrica en Huexca (Proceso, 10 de abril de 2019)

Con ausencia de nieto de Zapata “decepcionado” de la 4T, AMLO conmemora centenario luctuoso del caudillo (Proceso, 10 de abril de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Nacional: CNI, EZLN y organizaciones indígenas convocan a las jornadas de lucha “Zapata vive, Samir vive, la lucha sigue” (19 de marzo de 2019)

Nacional: Se lleva a cabo la tercera asamblea del Congreso Nacional Indígena y el Concejo Indígena de Gobierno (CNI-CIG) en la Ciudad de México (8 de marzo de 2019)

National: No Cancellations but No More Mining Concessions in Mexico – AMLO

Photo @ Desinformemonos

In a press conference, the president of the republic Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said “that the Federal Government will respect all the mining concessions in the country and the permits will not be revoked.” He announced that during his government no more agreements of this type will be signed, since more than 25% of the national territory has been given over in the past 36 years. He said that since his campaign he had made the commitment that the concessions would not be revoked. AMLO guaranteed however that the communities where mining is carried out will benefit from the taxes paid by the mining companies.

He also mentioned that “it will seek that mining companies, particularly those of Canadian origin, carry out clean exploitation and act as they are obliged to do in their country.” “That the miner is paid well, that they pay the amount of taxes they pay there, and that they do not pollute.”

The statements contradict others issued by AMLO, in the municipality of Minatitlan, state of Colima, in 2014, which were published through the official website of the president through which he said that when the National Regeneration Movement triumphed, the concessions would be thoroughly reviewed for the mining exploitation that had been given to foreign companies. That wasbecause, he said, the riches of Mexico would have to be for the benefit of Mexicans, not foreigners.

Several newspapers also stressed that in February, during the Mexico Mining Forum 2019, the Undersecretary of Mining of the Ministry of Economy reported that “the cancellation of more than five thousand mining concessions in the country is being analyzed.”

Meanwhile, Miguel Mijangos Martínez, spokesman for Mexican Network of Those Affected by Mining (REMA in its Spanish acronym) stated that “the policy of the federal government has very mild nuances. If we see the problem of the extractive model as a whole, mining, water, biodiversity, fracking (hydraulic fracturing), gas … there are no significant changes. In REMA we think that the positions of power were reinforced, because now there are former entrepreneurs in public positions, (and that is) a position of advantage against the communities”, according to La Jornada. It stated that more than teo thousand rural communities in about 50 municipalities of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Puebla, Guerrero, Chihuahua and San Luis Potosi have declared themselves free of mining through legal actions.

Many of these communities continue with their demands for the cancellation of concessions in their territories, among them the Zapotec peoples of the Central Valleys of Oaxaca and the Wixarikas of San Luis Potosi. The latter hope to be able to engage in dialogue with the president on a final judgment given the injunctions that were processed in 2012 against the 78 concessions granted to two Canadian mining companies during the Felipe Calderon administration, which cover 70% of the 140,000 hectares of the protected natural area of Wirikuta.

For more information in Spanish:

Prevén otra ola de despojos de mineras y petroleras en México (La Jornada, 18 de marzo de 2019)

Al triunfo de MORENA, se revisarán las concesiones de explotación minera en México, asegura AMLO (Lopez Obrador, 21 de marzo de 2014)

No se otorgarán nuevas concesiones mineras: AMLO (La Jornada, 18 de marzo de 2019)

Impuestos por extracción minera llegarán a comunidades, asegura AMLO (La Jornada, 20 de marzo de 2019)

Wixárikas esperan diálogo con AMLO para proteger su territorio de mineras (Vanguardia, 19 de marzo de 2019)

Exigen a AMLO la cancelación inmediata y definitiva de las concesiones mineras en Oaxaca (El Proceso, 19 de marzo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas : Frente Popular en Defensa del Soconusco “20 de junio” (FPDS) exige que se decalre el municipio de Acacoyagua “Territorio Libre de Minería” (26 de enero de 2019)

Chiapas: Zoque People’s Assembly against extractivism (September 20, 2018)

Oaxaca: Here we say “Yes to Life, No to Mining” – Magdalena Teitipac is still fighting for its territory (April 7, 2018)

Chiapas: No to Mining Press Conference (September 30, 2017)

 

Guerrero/National: More Information Published on Role of Army in Ayotzinapa Case

@Cuartoscuro

The National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH in its Spanish acronym) has reported that it has corroborated a link between organized crime and the Mexican government in the forced disappearance of the 43 students of the Normal Rural School of Ayotzinapa in Iguala, Guerrero, on September 26th, 2014. In addition, the Commission has declared that there was “connivance or collusion” between the local, state, and federal governments regarding the follow-up of the case. Additionally, the CNDH has indicated obstacles on the part of the authorities during its investigation that led to a series of recommendations at the end of 2018.

In December, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) in one of his first acts as the new president created by decree the Commission for Truth and Access to Justice in the Ayotzinapa case. On March 11th, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) presented the Technical Support Group (TSG) that will provide technical support to the Mexican authorities to arrive at the truth in the facts. In presenting the new work plan, the president of the IACHR and rapporteur of that agency for Mexico, Esmeralda Arosamena de Troitiño, applauded the position of the new federal authorities, which unlike the previous administration, have opened an impulse that represents “a historic opportunity to break impunity.” During the event, the Undersecretary of the Interior for Human Rights, Alejandro Encinas, remarked that the TSG will technically support all the open criminal investigation lines, which were not followed by the former Attorney General’s Office.

One of the most delicate in this sense is the role that the Mexican Army could have played in the events. On March 12th, a video was published that shows that Julio Cesar Lopez Patolzin, one of the 43 missing student teachers, had been recruited by the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA in its Spanish acronym) to infiltrate the Ayotzinapa School.

Faced with this, civil organizations accompanying the families of the 43 students declared that the video shows that the army “did not deliver or have given all the information it has about the Iguala case and its context (…) to more than four and a half years after the events.”

The second reason for concern, they said, is that it confirmed that SEDENA practices the infiltration of the Ayotzinapa School, which “does not delegitimize in any way the requirement of the relatives of Julio Cesar to know the whereabouts of their son.”

Finally, they stressed that this new material “confirms the urgent need for a thorough investigation into the role of the Armed Forces in this new phase” and that they provide “all information in their possession that is relevant to the full clarification of the whereabouts of the 43 students, as ordered in the presidential decree that instructed to establish effective material, legal and human conditions, to strengthen the human rights of the relatives of the victims of the Ayotzinapa case to the truth and access to justice, signed, among other authorities, by the President of the Republic, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of National Defense and the Secretary of the Navy.”

For more information in Spanish:

CNDH a ONU: “obstáculos y negativas” en caso Iguala (Milenio, 14 de marzo de 2019.)

Proceso y la historia del normalista-soldado infiltrado en Ayotzinapa (Proceso, 14 de marzo de 2019)

CNDH presenta recomendación por violaciones graves en caso Ayotzinapa (Excelsior, 13 de marzo de 2019.)

Normalista de Ayotzinapa desaparecido era infiltrado de la Sedena (VIDEO) (Radio Formula, 13 de marzo de 2019)

Un normalista de Ayotzinapa era militar e informante del Ejército: reporte (ADN Politico, 13 de marzo de 2019.)

Señalan necesidad de esclarecer papel del Ejército en caso Ayotzinapa SIDIDH, 13 de marzo de 2019.)

Abren, formalmente, nueva etapa de investigación por caso Ayotzinapa (La Jornada, 11 de marzo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero/National: Commission for Truth and Access to Justice in Ayotzinapa Case Set Up. Federal Judge Orders Investigation into Possible Responsibility of Attorney General Employees for Irregularities (January 22nd, 2019)

Guerrero/National: Decree Establishes Truth Commission for Ayotzinapa Case

(December 19th, 2018)

Guerrero/National/International: CNDH and IACHR Ayotzinapa Reports  (December 14th, 2018)

Guerrero/National: Ayotzinapa, Four Years On…  (October 1st, 2018)

Guerrero/National: Incoming Government Confirms Creation of Truth Commission for Ayotzinapa Case (Aug. 13th, 12018)