Guerrero: Denunciation of the Mexican State before the Inter-American System of Human Rights due to the death and torture of student-teachers in Ayotzinapa, 2011

Photo @Tlachinollan

On 12 December, relatives of the student-teachers from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College, Jorge Alexis Herrera Pino and Gabriel Echeverría de Jesús, who were killed during a police operation carried out by state and federal agents in December 2011 in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, together with Gerardo Torres Pérez, a student-teacher victim of torture, denounced the Mexican State before the Inter-American System on Human Rights due to the violation of its basic obligations as stipulated in the American Convention and the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Sanction Torture. The same day, student-teachers and relatives of Gabriel and Jorge Alexis took over the streets of Chilpancingo to arrive at the same place where the crimes took place.

It bears mentioning that, on 12 December 2011, State officials violently displaced the protest being carried out by students from Ayotzinapa. Two student-teachers were executed extrajudicially, being Jorge Alexis and Gabriel, whereas three others were injured by gunfire, 24 were arrested arbitrarily, and one student, Gerardo, was tortured. Despite the existence of evidence that clearly accounts for the violations that took place, to date the violations that have been denounced continue in impunity, as a communique from the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights notes: “The Mexican State has in no way adopted the necessary and adequate measures to prevent and guarantee that similar acts do not repeat themselves.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Ayotzinapa otra vez (La Jornada, 15 de diciembre de 2015)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Guerrero: Body of tortured and executed Ayotzinapa student, Julio César Mondragón, is exhumed (21 November 2015)

National: Mobilizations within and outside the country for the first anniversary of the forcible disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa (10 October 2015)

Chiapas: Actions for the one-year anniversary of the Ayotzinapa disappearances (8 October 2015)

Guerrero: Attack on Ayotzinapa students leaves 8 seriously injured and 13 arrested

March to reject attack on student-teachers @El Sur

On 11 November, 8 buses carrying about 150 student-teachers from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Teachers College were stopped by federal, state, and ministerial police as well as the military on the highway between Chilpancingo and Tixtla. According to media, the police attacked the buses three times, leaving 20 students injured and requiring hospitalization, while 8 of these have been seriously injured, and 13 arrested.

According to the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, “the units of the different police corporations treated these students cruelly and inhumanely,” detailing that “approximately 5 of these students had their pants forcibly removed by state and ministerial police and were told obscene things and threatened with torture, while others were beaten over the head.” Beyond this, one of the arrested student-teachers who has been released declared that “there is a comrade who has had his leg broken, while another had his lips split by a kick to the face, and others were burned with cigarettes after having been arrested. I was strangled with a scarf and they had me hanging.” In this way, there is information that the police shattered the windows of the buses, fired tear-gas grenades, trapped a group of 7 students in a bus using four gas-grenades, thus preventing their exit for 20 minutes. The students in question were arrested just after escaping.

In reaction to these attacks, some of the student-teachers fled to the mountains. At first, there were reports that 20 students had been disappeared, but these were presented with life at midnight. Beyond this, thanks to social pressure, the arrested were transferred to the Human Rights Commission of Guerrero State, where their injuries were certified, and after which they were released. There have been several marches to reject the violence exercised against the students, such as one that was led by relatives of the 43 student-teachers disappeared on 26 September 2014 together with 500 other student-teachers from Ayotzinapa. For its part, the United Front of Public Teachers Colleges of Guerrero State (FUNPEG) announced the suspension of its dialogue with Governor Héctor Astudillo Flores (PRI), in response to the repressive action. Some of the protests have joined the rejection of the educational reform and the assessment of teachers.

For more information (in Spanish):

Brutalidad policiaca contra estudiantes de la Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa (Tlachinollan, 13 de noviembre de 2015)

Suspenden en Guerrero diálogo con el gobierno; protestan contra represión (La Jornada, 13 de noviembre de 2015)

Normalistas de Oaxaca repudian represión a estudiantes de Ayotzinapa (Proceso, 13 de noviembre de 2015)

Policías persiguen y se enfrentan a normalistas: 8 estudiantes hospitalizados y 12 liberados (Animal Político, 12 de noviembre de 2015)

[México] Después de la brutal agresión policial del 11 de noviembre, aparecen los normalistas que huyeron a los cerros (12 de noviembre de 2015)

Padres de Ayotzinapa y normalistas marchan para protestar por la agresión del miércoles (Sin Embargo, 13 de noviembre de 2015)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Guerrero: Body of tortured and executed Ayotzinapa student, Julio César Mondragón, is exhumed (21 November 2015)

National: Mobilizations within and outside the country for the first anniversary of the forcible disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa (10 October 2015)

Chiapas: Actions for the one-year anniversary of the Ayotzinapa disappearances (8 October 2015)

Guerrero/National: “Fruitless” meeting between relatives of the disappeared from Ayotzinapa and EPN (8 October 2015)

Guerrero: Group of Experts on Ayotzinapa case presents its report 6 months on (13 September 2015)

Guerrero: Group of Experts on Ayotzinapa case presents its report 6 months on

March for Ayotzinapa, Mexico City, 26 September. Photo @SIPAZ

The disappeared students from Ayotzinapa were not incinerated in the Cocula dump, as the Federal Attorney General’s Office had indicated at the beginning of this year, in accordance with the findings of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), as asserted during the presentation of its report 6 months on (6 September 2015). What took place against the students of Ayotzinapa nearly a year ago in Iguala, Guerrero, was “a massive attack” that involved 180 direct victims, including 6 extrajudicial executions and 43 “forcible disappearances,” as the IACHR experts discuss. The expert Carlos Beristain affirmed that “there was the presence of different State agents (municipal, ministerial, and federal police) and we did not find any evidence of attempts to rescue. What happened was an attack that went beyond the mere neutralization of persons.” Beyond this, “there was a delay in attention to the victims. The ambulance crews were afraid to go out.” The experts further stressed that the ovens and crematories that may have been used to burn the students’ bodies must be investigated. For their part, the parents of the disappeared request the indefinite presence of the specialists until truth and justice are revealed.

The expert José Torero visited the Cocula dump on 12 July, accompanied by the GIEI, and he established the necessary conditions to incinerate a human body. “He showed us the evidence and the state-of-the-art science indicating that the optimal means of incinerating a body is a crematory oven. These conditions require between 90 and 120 minutes to burn a sole corpse,” noted the expert Francisco Cox during the press-confernece. He also specified that to incinerate a body 650 kilograms of wood are needed. Besides this, the flames that would be needed would have overwhelmed the dump altogether, destroying everything else present—something that did not happen. “The incineration of the 43 could not have transpired in the Cocula dump,” stressed Carlos Beristain. In light of this, the experts called for an investigation of the crematory ovens that could have been used to burn the bodies of the students.

Another affair that the experts clarified is that there were five, not four, buses that had been taken by the students on 26 September. The existence of the fifth bus was first denied in the initial investigations. In light of video evidence indicating its presence, federal authorities presented a truck for the experts to examine, and the latter concluded that it did not seem to be the same one that appeared in the video taken the day of the disappearances. To date, this bus has not been found, and the GIEI suspects that it could have been a vehicle used for the transport of drugs that had been casually taken by the youth, thus provoking the massive and indiscriminate attack prosecuted by unknown actors who have been protected by total impunity.

Both the parents and mothers of the disappeared as well as the organizations that accompany them, the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, and the Prodh Center stressed that all the authorities who have impeded the investigation should themselves be investigated. They also specified that the investigation should incorporate the entire context of criminality, as it is not believable that collusion between organized crime and the authorities is limited merely to the municipal level.

For more information (in Spanish):

“Los muchachos no fueron incinerados en basurero de Cocula”: #InformeGIEI (Aristegui Noticias, 6 de septiembre de 2015)

Investiguen los hornos crematorios, piden expertos del caso Ayotzinapa al gobierno (Aristegui Noticias, 7 de septiembre de 2015)

Trasiego de drogas en autobuses, línea por indagar en caso Iguala (La Jornada, 6 de septiembre de 2015)

Informe completo Ayotzinapa (GIEI, 6 de septiembre de 2015)

video: Informe Ayotzinapa

video: Posición oficial de la PGR

video: Pronunciamiento de familiares

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Guerrero: Tlachinollan dedicates its XXI activity report to parents of the disappeared of Ayotzinapa (11 September 2015)

National/Guerrero: Nine months after the Ayotzinapa atrocity, relatives express taht they will not be silenced (3 July 2015)

Chiapas/Guerrero: Delegation of relatives and comrades of Ayotzinapa students tour CNI communities (29 June 2015)

Guerrero/National: 8 months after the forcible disappearance of the 43 students from the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa, there is no progress (9 June 2015)

Guerrero: Ayotzinapa – seven months of impunity and struggling for justice (3 May 2015)

Guerrero: IACHR experts confirm that the Ayotzinapa case is a forcible disappearance and a crime against humanity (10 April 2015)

Guerrero: Tlachinollan dedicates its XXI activity report to parents of the disappeared from Ayotzinapa

On Saturday 29 August, with the participation of some 3000 persons, the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights celebrated its XXI anniversary in the city of Tlapa de Comonfort, Guerrero. Tlachinollan dedicated its activity report, entitled From the Trenches of Ayotzinapa, the Defense of Education and the Lives of the Children of the People, to the mothers and fathers of the 43 disappeared students from the Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa. Due to the events of 26 September 2014, “we left aside being just an office of lawyers and accompaniers to fully join the struggle of this exemplary movement,” said dijo Abel Barrera, director of Tlachinollan. He spoke of a movement that has “unmasked the reality of this country in which the military, parties, and firms collude with organized crime.”

Beyond this, he denounced that there exists a systematic pattern of attacks on the rural normal schools, particularly Ayotzinapa, and that, nearly a year after the acts, not one legal case has been initiated due to the forcible disappeared, nor has the possible responsibility of the 27^th Infantry Batallion of Iguala for the crimes, which also included six other executions and torture. The representative of the UN High Commissioner’s Office in Mexico for Human Rights, Jesús Peña Palacios, indicated that “the State should never stop seeking out the disappeared until they are found.” A father of one of the 43 disappeared, Mario César González, also participated, saying that not knowing where his son causes him great despair, and that it is a sort of pain he would not wish anyone else to experience. The event ended with a march for the Ayotzinapa case toward the center of Tlapa, where a rally was held that incorporated the participation of many people.

For more information (in Spanish):

Desnuda Ayotzinapa “patrón de ataque a normales rurales” (La Jornada, 29 de agosto de 2015)

De ¡Eureka! a Tlachinollan (Carlos Fazio en La Jornada, 31 de agosto de 2015)

XXI_Informe_Tlachinollan  (agosto de 2015)

El Estado nunca debe de dejar la búsqueda de un desaparecido, dice representante de la ONU en Tlapa (El Sur de Acapulco, 30 de agosto de 2015)

Guerrero: Release of the CECOP spokesperson, Marco Antonio Suastegui

Marco Antonio Suástegui (Tlachinollan)

On 21 August, the spokesperson for the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (CECOP), Marco Antonio Suástegui Muñoz, was released after having been incarcerated for fourteen months. He had been arrested on 17 June 2014 on the charge of having participated together with eight other opponents to the La Parota dam project in a shootout and attempted murder.

The Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, which provides him counsel, reiterated in this sense that “the case of Marco Antonio Suástegui is a clear example of how the ministerial power strives to fabricate charges and act swiftly to criminalize him. This they have done also with Nestora Salgado, Gonzalo Molina, Arturo Campos, and the communal police of Ayutla.”

On various occasions after his release, Marco Antonio Suástegui expressed his gratitude for the support he received, even though “justice is still pending.” He also affirmed that the struggle against the La Parota dam will continue, and he pronounced himself before the media in favor of the release of all political prisoners: “We will struggle for Nestora, Gonzalo, Arturo, and all those communal guardians who are unjustly imprisoned. I believe that CECOP has three objectives at this time. The first is the definitive cancellation of the La Parota dam, the second to request release of political prisoners, and the third to promote development in our communities.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Sale de la cárcel Marco Antonio Suástegui; la lucha sigue, declara el líder del Cecop (El Sur de Acapulco, 22 de agosto)

Demanda Suástegui Muñoz liberar a los presos políticos (La Jornada de Guerrero, 22 de agosto de 2015)

Lo reciben en Salsipuedes con lágrimas, aplausos y consignas por la continuación de la lucha contra la presa (El Sur, 22 de agosto de 2015)

La apuesta por la justicia (Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña, Tlachinollan, 24 de prestezaagosto de 2015)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Guerrero: Marco Antonio Suastegui, opponent to the La Parota dam, is ordered to return to a Guerrero prison (8 February 2015)

Guerrero: The Navy has tried to arrest him, denounces brother of CECOP spokesperson (30 December 2014)

Guerrero: Attack on CECOP members leaves 5 dead (6 December 2014)

Guerrero: Arrest of a leader of the opposition to the La Parota Dam (23 June 2014)

Guerrero: March in Tlapa de Comonfort, one month after the murder of Antonio Vivar Díaz

Federal police invade the Tepeyac community, Tlapa, 7 June 2015. Photo @Tlachinollan

On 7 July, a month after the murder of Antonio Vivar Díaz, an activist from the Popular Guerrerense Movement (MPG), at the hands of federal police, some 2,000 teachers, retirees, and neighbors of the Tepeyac community marched in Tlapa to demand justice and punishment for those responsible. On 7 June, election day, Federal Police arrested eight people from El Tepeyac while lacking any arrest-orders. The tensions between the federal police and neighbors was controlled at about 8pm, when it was agreed that the 8 prisoners would be released and transferred to Tlapa, in exchange for 30 federal police who had been taken by the community. Regardless, this agreement was broken by the police and military, who entered forcibly using tear-gas to rescue the detained police. This action caused the death of the activist and teacher Antonio Vivar Díaz by gunshot.

The Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, in a report on 7 July notes that “the victims of the grave human-rights violations […] find themselves in a very high-risk situation. For this reason it is critical that the State implement the necessary measures to protect the lives and physical and psychological integrity of the victims, witnesses, and all other residents of the Tepeyac community […].” In this way, on 7 July, the World Organization against Torture (OMCT) released an open letter to the Secretary for Governance and the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) which demands that “an immediate, exhaustive, effective, and impartial investigation be launched into these acts, particularly the death of Antonio Vivar Díaz,”

For more information (in Spanish):

Marchan maestros y estudiantes en Tlapa; exigen justicia por el activista asesinado por federales (El Sur de Acapulco, 8 de julio de 2015)

Los ocho de Tlapa no se conocían ni fueron detenidos en la CETEG (El Sur de Acapulco, 6 de julio de 2015)

OPINIÓN | Las ejecuciones del Ejército en Guerrero (CDHM Tlachinollan, 6 de julio de 2015)

Ficha Informativa (CDHM Tlachinollan, 7 de julio de 2015)

Carta Abierta (OMCT, 7 de julio de 2015)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Guerrero: PRI wins elections within violent context (25 June 2015)

Guerrero: Murders and death-threats against candidates for June elections (17 May 2015)

Guerrero: PRI wins elections within violent context

Federal police invade Tepeyac community, Tlapa. Photo @Tlachinollan

With a margin of 41%, the preliminary results of the Guerrero State elections place the PRI-PVEM candidate, Héctor Astudillo Flores, as the winner. Astudillo gained 465 mil 263 votes, 7% more than his most popular rival, the PRD-PT candidate, Beatriz Mojica Morga. The candidate for the Citizens’ Movement (MC), Luis Walton Aburto, took third place, with 91,651 votes. Beyond these, comes the National Action Party candidate (PAN), Jorge Camacho Peñaloza (58,005 votes); the MORENA candidate, Pablo Amílcar Sandoval (30,355 votes), and the New Alliance Party (PANAL), Karime Sevilla (19,625 votes).

In the mayorships, the PRI took 36, the PRD 24, the MC 7, the PAN 4, and the PT and PVEM 2 each, with PANAL taking 1. According to these results, the PRI will retake control of Acapulco, Iguala, and Tixtla, and it will maintain power in Chilpancingo, Taxco, and Chilapa, while the PRD will continue to govern in Zihuatanejo and Cocula, and it will recover Ayutla and Metlatónoc.

On election day, the process took place within a violent context in many parts of the state. In Tlapa de Comonfort, police and soldiers attacked citizens (including two women and a girl) who had kidnapped federal officials, whom they wanted to exchange for 9 imprisoned teachers. The group was arrested by the authorities at the headquarters of the State Coordination of Educational Workers of Guerrero (CETEG) and one house in particular. Abel Barrera, director of the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, arrived to the site to mediate a dialogue and interchange between the arrested teachers, who had been transferred by helicopter to Mexico City, and the federal officials. Barrera reported that the Secretary for Governance had accepted the exchange, but that the teachers would be handed over in Chilpancingo. Nonetheless, at night, federal police fired tear gas and live ammunition at the citizenry to disperse them. One youth died by gunfire for this reason.

Tlachinollan has demanded that the security forces that participated in this attack be investigated and sanctioned. The Agustín Pro Juárez Center for Human Rights published an Urgent Action on 8 June that demands that federal and state authorities “guarantee the security of the people of Tlapa and of the people arrested by the federal police at the CETEG offices,” beyond “carrying out an independent investigation,” among other things. Crescenciano Gallardo Sánchez, spokesperson for the CETEG in the Costa Grande, observed that “whoever wins the election, the protests carried out by social organizations in the state will continue, to demand the return with life of the 43 students of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa, who were forcibly disappeared on 26 September of last year in Iguala, as well as to demand the release of all political prisoners, especially the communal leader Nestora Salgado García.”

A day before the elections were held, Saturday 6 June, there was a confrontation involving members of the United Front for Security and Social Development in Guerrero (FUSDEG) in a rural zone of the Acapulco municipality which left 16 dead and an unspecified number of injured. Nonetheless, the mayor, Luis Uruñuela, expressed that the events do not have to do with the elections, and he claimed that the State Attorney General would investigate the incident.

For more information (in Spanish):

Cómputo del Prep coloca a Astudillo Flores como ganador de la elección (La Jornada de Guerrero, 9 de junio de 2015)

Federales y militares disparan contra civiles en Tlapa; reportan un muerto (La Jornada de Guerrero, 7 de junio de 2015)

Policía ingresa a Tlapa y rescata a federales retenidos; confirman muerte de una persona (Sin Embargo, 7 de junio de 2015)

Gobierno estatal rompió la negociación antes de operativo en Tlapa, denuncian (Centro ProDH, 9 de junio de 2015)

Lamenta el alcalde el enfrentamiento del Fusdeg en Xolapa que dejó 16 muertos (La Jornada de Guerrero, 8 de junio de 2015)

Se proclama vencedor Héctor Astudillo con ventaja de 14 puntos sobre Mojica (La Jornada de Guerrero, 8 de junio de 2015)

Gane quien gane la elección, seguirán las protestas de organizaciones: Ceteg (La Jornada de Guerrero, 8 de junio de 2015)

ACCIÓN URGENTE (Tlachinollan, 7 de junio de 2015)

ACCIÓN URGENTE (Centro de DDHH Pro Juárez)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Guerrero/National: 8 months after the forcible disappearance of the 43 students from the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa, there is no progress (9 June 2015)

Guerrero/International: Eurocaravan for Ayotzinapa prohibited from protesting in front of Mexican embassy in Spain (7 June 2015)

Guerrero: Ayotzinapa – seven months of impunity and struggling for justice (3 May 2015)