Guerrero: New Stage in Investigation of Ayotzinapa Case – Creation of Special Investigation Unit with Omar Gomez Trejo as Head

Photo @ teleSUR

On June 26th, Agreement A/010/19 was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation, with which the Special Investigation and Litigation Unit for the Ayotzinapa case was created.

“The agreement establishes that the Special Unit will be responsible for the investigation and prosecution of the crimes committed in Iguala, Guerrero, in September 2014, until the conclusion of all the criminal proceedings related to the events that led to the disappearance of the 43 students from the ‘Raúl Isidro Burgos’ Normal School.”

On the same day, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR in its Spanish acronym) reported that the teacher Omar Gomez Trejo would occupy the ownership of the new unit.

“For the relatives of the disappeared students and for the organizations that accompany them, the announcement means the beginning of a new stage in the criminal investigation (…) in particular, the appointment of the new head is a reason for hope.” This is due to his knowledge of the case and his long career in human rights organizations.

As a first initiative, the head of the Special Unit for Investigation and Litigation of the FGR and the Commission for Truth and Access to Justice for the Ayotzinapa case, agreed to design a work plan to guarantee progress such as, “the integration of all the archives of investigation linked to the case and that, depending directly on the Attorney General, would guarantee substantive progress in the investigation and clarification of the Ayotzinapa case”, the Government Secretariat stated.

For more information in Spanish:

Inician nueva etapa en investigación del caso Ayotzinapa (Aristegui Noticias, 28 de junio de 2019)

Omar Gómez se reúne con unidad especial del Caso Ayotzinapa (Milenio, 28 de junio de 2019)

Comunicado FGR 313/19 Se crea por Acuerdo, Unidad Especial de Investigación y Litigación para el caso Ayotzinapa (Fiscalía General de la República, 26 de junio de 2019)

Familiares y organizaciones saludan inicio de una nueva etapa en la investigación del caso Ayotzinapa (Tlachinollan, 28 de junio de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National/Guerrero: VIDEO of Torture in Ayotzinapa Case Belies “Historic Truth” (June 27, 2019)

Guerrero: Attorney General and SEDENA Denounced for Lack of Interest in Solving Ayotzinapa Case (May 17, 2019)

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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Chiapas/National/International: Observation Mission Concludes “Southern Border Is Silent Torture”

Civil Observation Mission of the Humanitarian Crisis of Migrants and Refugees in the Mexican Southeast (@RedTdT)

From May 29th to 31st, the “Civil Observation Mission of the Humanitarian Crisis of Migrants and Refugees in the Mexican Southeast” (MCO in its Spanish acronym), composed of 24 organizations from Mexico, Central America and the United States, including SIPAZ, academics and journalists, toured various control points and immigration authorities on the coast and southern border of Chiapas “in order to strengthen the documentation and support that local organizations have made in the face of Central American exoduses in recent months.”

In a press conference at the end of the mission, the organizations asserted that, “the southern border is silent torture.” They denounced that “a militarized security approach continues and is sharpening above the respect and protection of the human rights of people in movement. We documented multiple immigration control points with strong presence of state security forces, particularly federal police and military police, without clarity about their functions and powers in the context of migration“, something that was considered “incongruous with the official discourse of a migration policy that respects human rights.”

They also identified “a strategy of attrition and containment, which is intended to generate fatigue, demobilization and dissuasion of people before access to the right to seek refuge and regularization procedures, as well as to restrict and criminalize human mobility.”

They documented that “immigration detention serves as a strategy of repression and punishment” as “raids and migration control operations have intensified along the entire coast.” They pointed out that “the conditions of immigration detention, which are in themselves violating human rights, have intensified, amounting to forms of physical and psychological torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” In addition to racist and xenophobic practices towards specific groups, they expressed their concern when “families are separated in raids, during detention, release and deportation, thus violating the principle of family unity.” They were also outraged by “the deprivation of freedom of migrant children and adolescents and asylum seekers in detention centers, the lack of humanitarian aid and lack of general respect for their rights, contrary to their Higher Interest.”

The MCO pointed to several flaws in government attention, including “the lack of institutional coordination and co-responsibility among the different levels of government, as well as a lack of comprehensive care protocols on migration and humanitarian issues with a focus on human rights, prevailing improvised reactions, assistance and with an emphasis on security “; as well as the “limitation of human, financial and infrastructure resources.”

Finally, it noted “with particular alarm that the stigmatization and criminalization of migration is increasing, resulting in the denial of the right to due process and to have a defense in immigration procedures. As a result, solidarity and the work of defending human rights is hindered and criminalized.”

Interestingly, on May 30th, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador came out in defense of the migrants through a letter stating that “human beings do not leave their villages for pleasure but for necessity”, which was directed to the US president, Donald Trump, who threatened to impose tariffs on domestic products (from five to 25%) if Mexico does not solve the phenomenon of irregular migration.

For more information in Spanish:

La frontera sur es una tortura silenciosa: Misión de Observación (Misión de Observación de la Crisis Humanitaria de Personas Migrantes y Refugiados en el Sureste Mexicano, 31 de mayo de 2019)

Protección migratoria no puede subordinarse a relación México-EU: ONG (La Jornada, 31 de mayo de 2019)

Trump advierte que los aranceles a México aumentarán si no se controla el flujo de inmigrantes ilegales (CNN México, 31 de mayo de 2019)

AMLO defiende a migrantes frente a Trump, pero las detenciones en México se disparan 100% (Animal Político, 1ero de junio de 2019)

Discurso oficial sobre migrantes difiere de la realidad, afirman ONG (La Jornada, 1ero de junio de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas/National/International: Human Rights Organizations Demand End to Child and Adolescent Migrant Detentions (May 26, 2019)

Chiapas: First Depolyment of National Guard in Chiapas at Siglo XXI Migration Center (May 23, 2019)

Nacional/Internacional: OSC presentan el “Informe del monitoreo de derechos humanos del éxodo centroamericano en el sureste mexicano: octubre 2018 – febrero 2019” (May 3, 2019)

National/International: CNDH Requests Special Measures for Migrants (May 8, 2019)

National/International: Contrasting Mexican and US Government Approaches to Central American Migration (April 2, 2019)

Nacional/Internacional: Secretaria de Gobernación se reúne con funcionarios del gobierno de Donald Trumpf para abordar el tema Migración (March5, 2019)

International/National: Registration of Humanitarian Visas for Migrants Closes (February 12, 2019)

Guerrero: Two Members of CRAC-PF and CIPOG-EZ Murdered

(@(@CRAC-PF)

On May 23rd, Bertoldo Morales Hilario and Isaias Xantenco Ahuejote, members of the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities-Peoples’ Founders (CRAC-PF in its Spanish acronym), from the town of Xicotlan, municipality of Chilapa de Alvarez, were both kidnapped and killed. Both were promoters of the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ in its Spanish acronym), part of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI in its Spanish acronym). Their bodies were found the next day in plastic bags on the Chilapa-Tlapa highway,

The CRAC-PF identified as alleged perpetrators members of the Peace and Justice group, which has links with Los Ardillos criminal gang and confirmed that residents of Xicotlan are holding Braulio Palatzin Tranquero, nephew of Tranquilino Tecorral Palatzin, one of the leaders of the Peace and Justice Group. According to the CRAC-PF, the residents warned that because the authorities do not solve the problems of insecurity they would do justice “by their own hand.”

For its part, the CNI recalled that “this artful crime is added to the recent murder of compañeros Lucio Bartolo Faustino and Modesto Verales Sebastian, councilor and delegate of the CNI-CIG, for which we denounce the terror policy that the narco-paramilitary groups, with the blatant help of the three levels of bad government, are implementing against the brothers of the CIPOG-EZ and all the indigenous territories of Mexico.”

This is in the same region where on May 12th, a group of children from the community of Rincon de Chautla, from the municipality of Chilapa, announced their incorporation into the CRAC-PF to defend themselves from Los Ardillos. A week later, women from the Rinilla Tapila village, also in Chilapa, reported that they had chosen to do the same. As a result of this, the State Government went to the area four times to leave food supplies and to stop the participation of children in the self-defense process; but the demand for greater security was not met. “The children of the community of Rincon de Chautla in Chilapa are a sign of the abandonment of the authorities and are a call for help to address their problems”, said the director of the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center, Abel Barrera Hernandez. “The fact that they have drafted children is a example of the limit in which they find themselves in defenselessness. Placing children as a last resort to be able highlight a problem where the authorities have not attended is a sign of desperation, an expression of abandonment”, he said.

For more information in Spanish:

Asesinan a dos dirigentes de autodefensas en Guerrero (La Jornada, 25 de mayo de 2019)

ALTO A LA GUERRA NARCOPARAMILITAR CONTRA EL CIPOG-EZ (CNI. CIG, 25 de mayo de 2019)

Dos policías comunitarios que grabaron a niños autodefensas son asesinados en Guerrero (Sin Embargo, 25 de mayo de 2019)

Niños comunitarios, un llamado desesperado de auxilio: Tlachinollan (Bajo Palabra, 17 de mayo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: CNI Denounces Kidnapping and Murder of Two Members (May 11, 2019)

 

Chiapas/National/International: Human Rights Organizations Demand End to Child and Adolescent Migrant Detentions

Photo: SIPAZ

On May 17th, following the deaths of several Guatemalan children and adolescents detained by immigration agents in Mexico and the US, different networks of civil organizations and people defending the rights of the migrant population expressed their “outrage, repudiation and concern” over this situation. They also noted that these cases are not isolated “but continuous events that reflect patterns of human rights violations and, therefore, highlight the inhumane conditions of the control of migratory flows that these countries exercise, thus making the universal right to life impossibe.”

Therefore, they demanded a halt to the detentions of children or adolescents, accompanied or unaccompanied, and guarantee their integrity and human rights, incorporating “the fundamental principle of the best interests of children in all migratory and asylum processes.”

They also urged “to guarantee the non-repetition of these events, as well as to investigate and punish the officials who are responsible, directly and indirectly, for these regrettable acts, in which fundamental rights of people in great need of protection were compromised.”

For more information in Spanish:

Ante las muertes de niñas, niños y adolescentes guatemaltecos en manos de agentes de migración en México y EEUU; (OSC, comunicado del mayo de 2019

Organizaciones piden un alto a las detenciones de niños, niñas y adolescentes migrantes, (Chiapas Paralelo, 22 de mayo de 2019)

Exigen a AMLO que cesen “detenciones” de niños migrantes, (La Jornada, 17 de mayo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National: Judge Recognizes Migrant Caravan Children and Adolescents as Refugees (March 6, 2019)

National/International: 181 Countries Approve United Nations Global Pact for Refugees (January 4, 2019)

National/International: 164 Countries Approve UN Global Migration Pact (January 2, 2019)

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)

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)

 

National: Presentation of ‘Emergent Plan to Guarantee the Integrity, Security and Life of Women and Girls in Mexico”

On March 6th, the ‘Emergent Plan to Guarantee the Integrity, Safety and Life of Women and Girls in Mexico’ was presented, which outlines the main strategies that the new government intends to implement towards prevention, attention, sanction and eradication of violence against this sector of the population.

The Secretary of the Interior, Olga Sanchez, said that this plan will be the starting point to intervene “in a decisive and prompt way in the fight against any practice of violence that threatens the rights, integrity and life of women.” “All of them are united by a common factor: the lack of timely and diligent intervention of the Mexican State to preserve its integrity and to ensure their lives,” she said.

Among the main actions proposed by the Plan are: seeking greater coordination between the different levels of the Republic and the states that can play a role in the prevention, attention, sanction and eradication of violence; making modifications to the General Law on Women’s Access to a Life Free of Violence in order to prevent, investigate, punish and repair the damage to victims to make it effective; implementing campaigns on the right of women to a life free of violence; monitoring the incidence of crime and acts of violence, mainly disappearances, sexual violence, family violence and femicides; promoting safe cities and spaces free of violence, and creating mobile applications and Web pages to identify high-risk areas; sanctions to those who are omitted or act with negligence; establish a unique penal code to homologize femicide throughout the country, among others.

Some of the actions mentioned will be implemented immediately while others could take up to six months to implement due to their complexity, said the director of Inmujeres, Nadine Gasman.

In this regard, Maria de la Luz Estrada, president of the National Citizen Observatory of Femicides, stressed the importance that the federal government has recognized that violence against women is a state problem and that, to date, the authorities “have not been able guarantee a life free of violence.” Of the gaps she warned that, “You have to know how, you have to have risk maps and still need to know what the zones, the municipalities, are where they will be carried out.” “In the country they have tried to take actions to face the increase in crimes committed against women for reasons of gender, without achieving satisfactory results since 2012, because most of the strategies have not focused on concrete actions or have not been able to be evaluated because of the lack of a methodology to do it”, she explained.

For its part, the director of the National Network of Refugees (RNR in its Spanish acronym), Wendy Figueroa, warned that the plan presented by the government and Inmujeres lacks objectives and even measurements for evaluation, so it is necessary to review it in depth.

According to the authorities themselves, in Mexico 66 of every 100 women suffer some kind of gender violence; and on average, every day,nine women are murdered.

For more information in Spanish:

Plan Emergente para garantizar la integridad, la seguridad y la vida de las mujeres y las niñas (Inmujeres)

Ven insuficiente y poco claro el plan de protección a mujeres (Pie de Página, 7 de marzo de 2019)

El plan para atender a las mujeres víctimas de violencia tardará meses (La Jornada, 7 de marzo de 2019)

Presentan plan emergente para seguridad de las mujeres; continuarán refugios, afirma presidente (lopezobrador.org.mx, 6 de marzo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Nacional : OSC denuncian omisiones en investigación y combate a feminicidios (August 16th 2018)

National: the Mexican government does not comply with the recommendations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) (June 23rd, 2014)

Chiapas/National: Femicides on the Rise (May 24th, 2018)