43 students taken, 28 presumed to be dead, Guerrero, Mexico

[mabar]

Protests continue today, there was a close encounter between families, students and people with grenadiers in Acapulco, the airport was closed several hours and several grenadiers were hurt.
_http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/11/student-massacre-mexico-acapulco-police-injured

Protests will continue until .... mmm I do not think students are alive, though. And government had not release information that could subside the anger in the population. Government seem to be in the same theory that thugs from the "Guerreros Unidos" criminal group were the ones who perpetuated the horrific masacre of the students, burn to ashes and some being alive, as was said in the last press conference. As one father of one of the students commented this morning in a TV news, that government want to have the case closed, and students and family wont accept it. So it seems almost everyday will be protests/actions. To the contrary, there seem to have been a pattern between government press conferences and protests. They are still looking for the students, last press conference was just an update. I was hearing an analysis TV show, they were saying that last press conference was a some sort of free pass for president Peña Nieto, for him to be able to go to China and Austria, so he wouldn't be too much criticized.

Last action I heard at the TV news of today was that, students from Rural Socialist Federation of Students of Mexico -- they are helping Ayotzinapa students, I would suppose. Federación de Estudiantes Campesinos Socialistas de México-Fecsm) took (robbed is the real term) a gasoline truck _http://www.elinformador.mx/mexico/2014/558986/6/estudiantes-toman-pipa-con-10-mil-litros-de-gasolina.htm (spanish)

Yesterday, students from the same federation, so it says the news, took (robbed) gasoline from several trucks/buses that were at the freeway of Chilpancingo and took the pay charge cassette of the freeway _http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2014/11/09/marchas-y-plantones-en-chihuahua-para-exigir-presentacion-con-vida-de-los-normalistas-de-ayotzinapa-5944.html (spanish)
Other news site say the students are from another organization, being the Unite front of public rural schools of Guerrero State--Frente Unido de Normales Públicas del Estado de Guerrero -FUNPEG as here _http://www.agenciairza.com/2014/11/normalistas-toman-caseta-de-peaje-y-%E2%80%9Cordenan%E2%80%9D-combustible-a-camiones/ (spanish)

There had been several mass movements around the country and there will be more.

Parents of the students claim that it was a state crime so government should apply justice, I had read and heard from analysts why it can be considered as a state crime and and why it cannot, it can be considered as a state crime because several levels of Guerrero state were involved in the crime, it cannot be, if it is understood a state crime being involved the federal government. But people know federal government is involved one way or another in everything as had been.

This is an issue of many threads.

Father Solalinde gave information to general prosecutor regarding the case of students like 20 days ago, he was the first to say that the students were burn, some being alive, information he obtain from witnesses _http://www.animalpolitico.com/2014/10/los-normalistas-estan-muertos-y-algunos-los-quemaron-vivos-dice-el-padre-solalinde/ (spanish), now Father Solalinde says that government is manipulating information with electoral ends favoring the PRI (actual political party in government) _http://www.notisistema.com/noticias/gobierno-manipula-informacion-de-caso-ayotzinapa-con-fines-electorales-asegura-solalinde/

"The government knew everything and had been giving away this information in order to take advantage of political times. Is not true that they are interested in the tragedy, so then, they had being driving, manipulating all the information for the benefit of the PRI"

Father Solalinde have what others do not, _http://www.notisistema.com/noticias/iglesia-catolica-aliada-del-gobierno-mexicano-solalinde/ (spanish) at a university forum, Father Solalinde stated:

"The state had the opportunity all these years to make a better country, and look what filth of country we have, and the catholic church had been a coupula companion and an coupular agent of the goverment. A simulating government that had been placed as if it really was a responsible government".

modify: add punctuation details

 

[gdpetti]

Doesn't it all seem like many situations around the world in which the hidden is coming out of its closet to smack the public in the face for their sheepish ignorance and acceptance of the obvious? The people go and set fire outside the palace or whatever and gives the photogenic 'leader' a reason to speak out against them, meanwhile nothing really changes, even as all of these political puppets are being prepared for the feast.... fatten the public so they are prepared for their own eventual sacrificial offering to the dark shepherds. Seems every country's history is repeating itself faster and faster as the spiral closes into collapse.... 'ashes, ashes, they all fall down'.

Symbol of the victims being students and not regular citizens out and about their lives.... is that symbolic of knowledge or its lack? Who but the young and naive would dare speak out and say the emperor wears no clothes? Who will the state use as its own fallguy? That couple? Is that enough given all the gangs running around as usual? Can they make it seem like an isolated case? It seems, given that spiralling energy, that if they do, another case will erupt like a volcano or a big zit on the end of one's nose... Damage control seems all the rage in our political puppet shows these days... for those with something to hide, and that is most.

I think the public's response is more important than the bodies... no doubt El Presidente is screaming, to those that are paid to listen, for someone to find the damn bodies and be done with it... or so he and his supporters hope... as hope seems to be about the only fuel left in most everyone's tank these days..... as most seem to be running on empty... from the top to the bottom... that STS/STO push-pull keeping the game interesting up to the end.

What else will be found if the digging continues? Will this 'digging' start in other arenas of state control next?

 

[mabar]

Doesn't it all seem like many situations around the world in which the hidden is coming out of its closet to smack the public in the face for their sheepish ignorance and acceptance of the obvious? The people go and set fire outside the palace or whatever and gives the photogenic 'leader' a reason to speak out against them, meanwhile nothing really changes, even as all of these political puppets are being prepared for the feast.... fatten the public so they are prepared for their own eventual sacrificial offering to the dark shepherds.

gdpetti, to whom "the hidden is coming" you are referring to?, to Father Solalinde?, if that so, he wasn't hidden, being an activist, there are not many reports on the media until things had escaped from whomever hands, like this case. I had learned that he was condecorated in 2012 of his work with immigration issues.

I agree to what you said in the post in the general, there are some details not against bu to complete, but wont be today, I found what you said here in synch to what Father Solalinde also said at the university forum. "The people go and set fire outside the palace or whatever and gives the photogenic 'leader' a reason to speak out against them".

Attack in Zócalo was caused by authorities: Solalinde

Raúl Torres| El Universal
21:47Monday 10 November 2014

Father Solalinde sees the attack as an attempt to capitalize on the situation in Guerrero.

The Catholic priest and activist said that the federal government is behind the fire attack against the ceremonial office of the President.

The incidents from last Saturday, when masked individuals burned the doors of the ceremonial Presidential office known as the National Palace, have all the markings of an action by the federal government, according Catholic priest Alejandro Solalinde, who spoke with students from the University of Guadalajara.

“What happened in the Zócalo is an official answer. The shock groups started it in December 2012, when (Mexican President Enrique) Peña Nieto was sworn in, you can see the signature of the house. Who could actually believe that a group like that could get close to National Palace and do what they did. It is either that or the Cisen (National Intelligence and Investigation Center) and the intelligence agencies of the Army and the Presidential General Staff are not working, which is unacceptable,” he said.

In his opinion, the main cause of anger among the people about the Ayotzinapa case is that Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam will not accept that the crimes against the missing teachers in training in Guerrero were caused by the federal government.

“What is happening is that the PRI (Institutional RevolutionaryParty) wants to have the state of Guerrero and that is why it has worked out the conflict. They are not interested in the farmers or what is happening. They have an election-minded interest.

Solalinde added that the moment has come to demand the presentation of all people disappeared in the country and take such demands to a higher level, organizing in every state of the nation a series of coordinated non violent resistance movements working in coordination.

 

[mabar]

Was reading the other day an article in SOTT The Iguala Massacre - "You can't remain silent, the government can't remain in denial", interesting interview, although I am not that sure that Peña Nieto do not want to confront reality as being said by Corchado, he just has other interests. Comments inserted are quite aimed, becuase, that is what is being happening.

Comment: To put the Iguala massacre in perspective with the massacres in Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, and beyond, it's necessary to understand that this violence is a symptom of an infection that crosses all professional and ethnic barriers. From Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes:

Pathocracy is a disease of great social movements followed by entire societies, nations, and empires. In the course of human history, it has affected social, political, and religious movements as well as the accompanying ideologies and turned them into caricatures of themselves. This occurred as a result of the participation of pathological agents in a pathodynamically similar process. That explains why all the pathocracies of the world are, and have been, so similar in their essential properties.
As a result of America's rampant warfare and pathological lying, on an unprecedented scale, along with the work of secret teams, this virus has eroded any semblance of international law and order:

Mexican drug cartel claim Bush and Obama administrations made deals with drug lords

Reality Check: Fast and Furious Operation was really about US supporting a drug cartel

Congress building and vehicles burnt: Mexico missing: Guerrero state congress attacked _http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-30031500, there had been also violent attacks to the three mayor political parties (PAN, PRI, PRD) buildings, news related this week _http://m.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/nacion/2014/causan-destrozos-en-partidos-de-morelia-220217.html, in spanish, here is noted that those who attack the buildings, were presumable students, so other groups (dissident teachers), and/or infiltrated ones may be the ones who act with violence and not the normalistas per se.

They (the ones who, and if they react with violence as the Political Ponerology book describe, because, there may be groups that do violence not by their direct anger but from being payed?, being orchestrated for others for other purposes) do not do the 2+2 that burning government buildings wont be useful at all, to the contrary, at the end, it will be reconstructed by our taxes, and we (people) know how politicians give themselves luxuries.


Found a couple of good articles, they have more information related, such as the case of Tlatlaya massacre and more of Father Solalinde, the attack of the door of National Palace, etc.

_http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/crisis-mexico-protests-missing-forty-three
Crisis in Mexico: The Protests for the Missing Forty-Three

_http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/crisis-mexico-forty-three-missing-students-spark-revolution
Crisis in Mexico: Could Forty-Three Missing Students Spark a Revolution?

--I really hope not, Revolution Anniversary day (20 of November) is getting near. _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Revolution, and from it, PRI political party was born, (National Revolutionary Party), nowadays the one in power. Instead of being a paradoja (paradox) would be a parajoda (you do not want to know)

There was an explosion at a convenience store this week that authorities says it was due to gas leak, but a guerrilla claims to be the author, though. _http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/in-english/2014/mexico-guerrero-iguala-ayotzinapa-parents-bomb-attack-97430.html
_http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/in-english/2014/mexico-guerrero-iguala-ayotzinapa-bomb-attack-refutation-97453.html
A friend live near and was rudely awoken by the noise, and of course, she was in a fear state on how things are becoming.

Not related with the missing students but related to crime/insecurity (tired of it, people demand the localization of a missing taxi driver) -the ones who make the blockage and fed up -the ones who were trapped in traffic for almost 12 hours.
_http://oronegro.mx/2014/11/14/cierran-autopista-mexico-cuernavaca-por-inseguridad/?lang=en Mexico-Cuernavaca highway closed due to insecurity, today started a "longer" weekend for the Revolution Anniversary, people from Mexico City use to go to travel to Cuernavaca, Acapulco (not much this days, many cancellations were made due to insecurity in Guerrero state, though) and around on weekends. Sings of [sth] to death.

It is also the "sales weekend" that government, banks and departmental stores promote to increase debts in the credit cards, the cheapest weekend say the ads. And many business (every kind) adopt the publicity and ads to give discounts and sell more. _http://www.elbuenfin.org/

Mall in Mexico City blocked by protesters _http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/in-english/2014/mexico-city-buen-fin-blockade-protesters-97460.html

Mexico's 'Black Friday' faces boycott
_http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/in-english/2014/mexico-oaxaca-buen-fin-blockade-teachers-97447.html

The cherry on top, an earthquake in Chiapas, 5.7, the National Seismological Service (SSN) reported. But hadn't appeared in USGS website, didn't felt it, good. And Popocatepetl volcano was active with around 300 exhalations _http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/in-english/2014/popocatepetl-volcano-spews-334-exhalations--97446.html

...many from the _eluniversal site, news are already in English :P


Identified, Father John Ssenyondo from Uganda, corpse found in a mass grave in the area near the ones related to the investigation of the missing students.
_http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-30062124

Aside of all of this SSD, I watched the opening of the Central Amercan Games in the state of Veracruz, it was lovely, full of Mexican folcklore. With a peace message, wishful thinking or not, sometimes one/me needs to focus/get distracted in other more calmer issues. I liked to see it.

modify: a letter

 

[mabar]

In short, the press conference was like this

Murillo Karam's account of the investigation by his PGR included testimony from two people in custody, who say the 43 student teachers were abducted by the municipal police and then turned over to the criminal organization Guerreros Unidos. According to the PGR report, the two detainees confessed to killing "a large number of people."

In their video testimony--played live at the press conference--the two men say they unloaded a large number of bodies from a dump truck and a pickup truck at the open-air dump in the town of Cocula.

Fifteen people were already dead by the time they were unloaded, purportedly from asphyxiation, according to the account. The witnesses claim the rest of the people were killed on the spot, and their bodies were buried under wood, tires and other objects, doused with diesel and set on fire. Supposedly, the fire burned for 15 hours. Afterward, the ashes from the fire were stuffed in black plastic bags and disposed of in the nearby San Juan River, according to the account.

Murillo Karam made sure to repeat that these were preliminary findings. He said that remains found in a black plastic bag in the San Juan River had been submitted for analysis to the University of Innsbruck in Austria. But he concluded that it would take some time for the remains to be identified, and therefore the PGR still considered the students to be "missing." After taking a few questions, he shut down the press conference.

I had been reading Proceso magazine printed version number 1985, there are articles regarding Ayotzinapa case, and it does talk about the supposedly evidences in the article "The Facts of the Version of the General Prosecutor office turn to ashes" _http://hemeroteca.proceso.com.mx/?page_id=278958&a51dc26366d99bb5fa29cea4747565fec=387739 from observations of experts and witnesses, that make the PGR (General Prosecutor Office) of the latest press conference on 7th November of Murillo Karam.

---There were people at the dump, those are the dustmen, they say that usually tires and plastic materials are being burn, because there are a lot of cows grazing, and the cows tend to eat them and they died, so the dustmen took them, with the allowance to recycle.

---Two weeks after the missing students, people were not allowed to enter.

---Officials told Proceso magazine that for the number of victims the remains were not even full a sackbag.

---At 28 of September, when the prosecutor invited the media to visit the dump and see the work/search of the work of forensic people, it looks at the bottom of the crater, green grass and even flowers. Once the PGR announced it was the crime site and that, in an unusual way, took off the guard and leave free access to press, this dump looks like the burn area double it size. As if someone would wanted to support the idea that there was where the burnt that PGR affirm occurred.

---A expert was consulted and said that, probably the removed soil was scattered and that is why the area covered of black.

---At the press conference, it says that police gave the students to "Guerreros Unidos" criminals and that these burn the students at the first minutes of the 27 of September until 3pm of the next day, but it turns out that that day was raining, Proceso tells about confirmation of rain of several centers that give meteorological information, even from the Guerrero's government, that alert of strong rains.

And yes, it rained at the State of Guerrero that day _http://guerrero.gob.mx/2014/09/se-preven-lluvias-fuertes-en-algunas-regiones-del-estado-pc/ _http://www.accuweather.com/es/mx/cocula/233079/september-weather/233079?monyr=9/1/2014&view=table

---In another article of Proceso magazine "In Cerrro Viejo there wasn't any incineration", an expert in bunrings and explosives, Alfonso Palacios Blanco affirms: "In Cerro Viejo there wasn't any incineration o they do not burnt the number of bodies they claim", "by the quantity of the bodies, there should had remained the metallic fibers of the tires that were used -between 3 or 4 per student- but he didn't observed in the videos shown by Murillo Karam.

---Alfonso Palacios Blanco says to Proceso magazine: "Our prosecutor, Murillo Karam says that, -they- burnt them with tires, diesel and gasoline at 1600° C, but the steel melt at 2500°C. So then, in considerable quantity, they should had found metallic fibers of the tires that used, because in order to burn 43 bodies, they should had used 3 or 4 tires por person and, a measuredly quantity of gasoline and diesel."

"To this its added the version of the Argentinian forensic people (called by Ayotzinapa parents), they found human bones more ancient, besides, in Cocula and Iguala, the delinquency had caved ditches in which throw bodies and set them in fire, but do not disintegrate them, that is why is not congruent with what the prosecutor says"

---"When Murillo Karam says the teeth were breaking at touch, "how a teeth becoming dust resisted to be put in a bag that was thrown to the river?, and waited until the prosecutor touch it? to break it? Where did he saw that? That's a fallacy" confirms Alfonso Palacios Blanco to Proceso magazine.

---"...the smoke of the tires and the smell -of a burning body- should had sparsed in 10km around. Besides, the smell should had impregnated the environment several days".

---
and today were mass movements to support Ayotzinapa missing students in the city, country and in other countries as well

continue later ...

 

[mabar]

... more of what I had been reading in Proceso magazine No.1985

from here and there (media) I had been hearing that parents of the missing students of Ayotzinapa have lawyers, and is in my impression that media say it with the intention as being stubborn, and with a very good reason, I say!, from Proceso magazine I learned whom is one of the group.

Is Abel Barrera Hernández, founder of Tlachinollan (_http://www.tlachinollan.org/), Center of Human Rights of the Mountain, he was rewarded in 2011 by German-International Amnesty for his labor for the human rights in specially difficult circumstances. It was good to know that parents from the missing students have good help. Because, it not just seems, that victims in this country are not treated rightly.

In the article "Even from the doubts, Peña Nieto "urges him" to close the case" _http://hemeroteca.proceso.com.mx/?page_id=278958&a51dc26366d99bb5fa29cea4747565fec=387750 Barrera mentions four irregularities:

1 The urgency to throw preliminary results that reduce the investigation lines to one armed group
2 Start from declarations from 3 presumable material authors -when it had been mentioned in its participation at least 15 (people) -without corroborate such declarations with an investigation
3 The lack of intelligence and the use of technology for the searching of the missing students.
and 4 the dilatory tactics in order to not inform the parents, he assure that the case expedients were turned to a judge in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. ---WHAT???

You see, Matamoros is in the state of Taumaulipas, that is almost 1500 km of distance, from Guerrero state!!!, parents of the missing students are of such low income ... #$% government of (/%#$, and is one of millions of things like this, that this government do ...

 

[Natievell]

I think that psychopaths control the government of Mexico. It isn't only 43 students, we are talking about every person who wants manifest or question the government.The police is a mechanism of repression, there is no justice.


Mexico is the most dangerous place for an journalist.
But a lot of people is tired, for the next years we are in a fight against psychopaths.

 

[mabar]

Obama and Peña Nieto talked by phone, we do (not) want to know what kind of tips they are sharing(??). :(

from Proceso website (Spanish) translated...

A phone call that had Obama and Peña, Ayotzinapa and the massive protests in Mexico were talked about in the frame of the bilateral fight against organized crimes and responsibilities to ensure citizen security and the application of justice, said a an officer from the White House National Security Council that talked with Apro

"It was talked about the missing students and, the president (Obama) reiterate the US support to clarify the case", said the officer who condition the comments to be maintained in anonymity.

It also mentions the same as washingtontimes

President Obama spoke with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto Wednesday about Mr. Obama’s granting of legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, and the White House said both men pledged to stop more immigrants coming from Central America.

“President Obama and President Pena Nieto reaffirmed the commitment of both countries to work together in Central America to help address the underlying factors driving migration from the region to Mexico and the United States and deter migrant smuggling, including the smuggling of unaccompanied children,” the White House said.

The presidents also pledged “to work together to combat organized crime and promote improved security and justice for our citizens,” the statement said.

Mr. Obama said Tuesday that he “changed the law” on U.S. immigration policy by shielding nearly 5 million immigrants from deportation and granting them work permits.

Both seem to be promoting disruptions, though.

 

[mabar]

A new version came from Berkley University and Proceso magazine this saturday, although I hadn't read it -the version in spanish- here is what it is said from Huffingtonpost.

Damning Report Claims Mexican Federal Police Participated In Disappearance Of 43 Students

Mexico's federal police collaborated with local forces in the September attack on 43 students whose disappearance and presumed killings have led to mass protests in the country, according to an investigative report published Sunday in the Mexican magazine Proceso.

Federal authorities also likely tortured key witnesses who offered critical testimony for an investigation by the Mexican attorney general's office into the disappearances, the lead reporter for the Proceso story told The Huffington Post.

The Proceso investigation is based on leaked government documents that are not publicly available, as well as a report by the state government of Guerrero, where the students' college was located and where they were attacked. The magazine published an abbreviated version of its story on Saturday, as well as a newswire version on Sunday. The full investigation was published Sunday in a print version of the magazine, only available in Mexico.

Both the newswire and early version of the Proceso investigation sharply contradict the version of events put forth by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration, at a time when a widespread protest movement has questioned the government’s handling of the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the missing students.

“We have information that proves the federal government knew what was happening in the moment it was happening, and participated in it,” Anabel Hernández, the lead reporter for the Proceso piece, told HuffPost in a telephone interview. “The government has tried to hide this information.”

Proceso's story was co-authored by journalist Steve Fisher and supported by the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley. The Mexican attorney general's office and the president's office did not immediately respond to requests from HuffPost for comment on the story.

On Sept. 26, a group of students from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers college in the southwestern state of Guerrero traveled to the nearby city of Iguala to take part in a protest. They were ambushed and shot at along the way by police forces, leading to three deaths and several injuries.

Several students escaped, but 43 of them disappeared -- feeding a protest movement with international reach and months of speculation over the role of security forces in their presumed killings.

The federal government has maintained that the students were first attacked by local police acting on the orders of the mayor of the town of Iguala, José Luis Abarca, and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda, both of whom were detained last month. Local police, according to the government, then handed 43 of the students off to members of the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel, who killed them and disposed of their remains.

But the Guerrero state report says that federal police began watching the students from the moment they left Ayotzinapa at 5:59 p.m. on buses heading toward Iguala, Proceso said. According to the magazine's account of the state report, both federal and state police were monitoring the students as they traveled, and federal police joined in stopping and shooting the students.

Proceso said that according to the state report, the first gunshots were reported at 9:40 p.m. to Mexico's Center of Control, Command, Communications and Computation, or C4, a communication structure used by federal and local security forces, as well as the military. Though the C4 unit in Iguala is run by state authorities, Proceso said that both federal police and the military have access to its communications -- making it impossible that the federal authorities would not have known about the attack as it was happening.

Univision.com said Saturday that Proceso's revelations clearly contradict the federal government’s previous statements that the violent incident was carried out by local authorities, without its knowledge, in collusion with drug traffickers.

“There’s no way the Peña Nieto government can say they didn’t know what was happening,” Univisión.com wrote in Spanish in an article published Saturday.

The Proceso article also questions the federal government’s handling of key witnesses in the investigation into the students' disappearance, according to Hernández. Federal authorities have relied primarily on testimony from alleged drug traffickers, who have said they were involved in killing the students and incinerating their bodies.

But Hernández told HuffPost that documents she obtained from the attorney general's office show that witnesses who testified had been tortured by federal authorities or the military during interrogations completed prior to their testimonies. The documents detail telltale signs of beatings on the witnesses' bodies, Hernández said -- black eyes, marks on the neck, bruising on the ribs and signs that authorities had electrocuted one witness's testicles. One witness had a series of red dots over his body that Hernández said also likely indicated electrocution.

“The version given by the federal government, by the attorney general’s office, is based solely on testimony by presumed drug traffickers,” Hernández said. "What we found is that, in at least five cases, these testimonies were obtained using torture."

Hernández said torture is prohibited in Mexico and would make the evidence inadmissible. The fact that the brutal tactics were apparently used to force confessions also casts doubt on the reliability of the information obtained, she said.

The version of the Proceso report published on Saturday includes a short video of compiled footage Proceso says the students took on their cell phones the night of attacks. At one point, voices in the footage shout "don't shoot" and "get down" in Spanish, after crying out "they already killed one" and asking to call an ambulance. Toward the end of the video, the students quietly talk to each other, saying that “the police are leaving, the federal [police] are going to stay. They’re going to hassle us.” ---at the end of the video inserted in the link, someone (students I suppose) are yelling why they (I suppose, the police) are picking up the metal cap/tip? casquillos--bullets, stating that they knew what had they done.

Though the Proceso report offers seemingly damning evidence showing some level of federal involvement, Fusion reported Sunday that it could not corroborate the allegations in interviews with two survivors of the attack.

In early November, the Peña Nieto administration announced that members of the Guerreros Unidos cartel had confessed to killing the students and burning their bodies, before discarding the remains in a nearby river. Authorities sent the remains to Austria for DNA testing, and last week, Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo said that those experts had identified at least one student from a bone fragment.

During the search for the students, at least a dozen mass graves were found in the area near their abduction. However, the Mexican government has said the unmarked graves do not contain the students' remains.

In the weeks that followed the students’ disappearance, thousands of people marched in Mexico City, demanding justice and transparency from the federal government, as well as the students' return.

Similar protests cropped up around the world, including in the United States, Brazil, Holland and Germany, and several prominent Mexican figures voiced their support for the demonstrators.

The public pressure prompted Peña Nieto to propose a series of measures to reform police forces and deter corruption between authorities, officials and criminal organizations.

Mexico has faced a surge in violence since the country's previous president, Felipe Calderón, launched a frontal assault on the nation's drug cartels in December of 2006. Since the conflict began, more than 100,000 people have died in drug war-related violence, and another 22,000 have disappeared.

Mexican authorities hadn't say anything as tonight, although the Secretariat of the Mexican Navy said last week _http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2014/12/10/lamentable-que-grupos-saquen-raja-del-dolor-por-normalistas-marina-5985.html that the parents of the missing students of Ayotzinapa were being manipulated.

"Is called my attention that, independetly of all the efforts that the federal goverment to identlify the bodies, stop and punish the guilty ones from what ocurred in Iguala last september, there are many actors trying to discredit what the General Prosecutor had done, with expressions that aren't real, and this is not good, is not good to gain with the parents (of Ayotzinapa missing students)"

To me, what he said, is translated to: "Is called my attention that, independetly of all the efforts that the federal goverment to hide, obscure, confuse, lie, etc... there are people to dare to find what happend, and the parents of the missing students do not conform with the Prosecutor, how they dare?"


note:for some reason the spell check did not work.

 

[mabar]

So it did happend, FBI ¨"helped" in the Ayotzinapa case, as part of the Plan Mérida, they were there just days after what happend, how considerate!... riiight! _http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/12/20/politica/005n1pol (spanish)

The other day I was getting links about Iguala-Opium-Afhganistan-US etc ... but everything was erased by a mistake of mine, didn't have time to do it again and do not have time to do it now. I will leave it her as a reminder.

 

[mabar]

Latest news in the case of the Ayotzinapa missing students

Today, the general prosecutor Murillo Karam, deliberately shelve Aotzinapa missing students case in today's press conference, a day after the fourth month of the disappearance of Ayotzinapa students, there were on Monday mass movements in the country and overboard.

For Murillo Karam, the official version remains: the missing students of Ayotzinapa were murdered and incinerated in Cocula's damp by members of the organized crime Guerreros Unidos. He kept repeating that it was the "historic truth of the facts". Adding other apparently "forensic facts". Stating that there wasn't any evidence of the participation of the military, so he said. (Mexico's Military in the Eye of Ayotzinapa Storm _http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ted-lewis/mexicos-military-in-the-e_b_6190118.html, in spanish La matanza de Iguala y el Ejército _http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/11/18/politica/017a2pol, in spanish: En el propio expediente de la PGR, las huellas del Ejército en caso Ayotzinapa _http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=392106)

Innsbruk mithocondrial studies did not work out:

Innsbruck University to conduct new studies on Ayotzinapa bone fragments

The Forensic Medical Institute of the University of Innsbruck which had been analyzing the bones and bone fragments found in Cocula Guerrero, where it is presumed 43 students from the Ayotzinapa rural teacher college were killed and burnt, ruled that there is not enough DNA in the remains. Mexico’s Attorney General had sent the bones to this institute for analysis, after realizing that the remains might be very damaged. The Institute however is saying now that they will apply a new technology to the remains.
Innsbruck said they will use a new technology on the bones, Massively Parallel Sequencing or MPS, which could bring better results. This decision came after the evaluation with DNA mitocondria did not generate good results because there was not enough DNA on the bone fragments and particles the police found in Cocula, Guerrero .
The new studies will take three months.

Nice video, many mexicans should hear/see it, we are so ignorant about our country.

University College London, one of the top 5 universities in the world (_http://www.topuniversities.com/univer...), organized the seminar 'The Struggle for a Better Life: A Context for Understanding the Enforced Disappearance of Rural Students in Guerrero, Mexico', which represented an opportunity to learn and have a debate about the Rural Teachers Training Schools in Mexico and the repression against its students both in Ayotzinapa on September 26th of 2014 and in past occasions.

Panelists:
Dr. Tanalís Padilla: Professor of History at Darmouth College _http://history.dartmouth.edu/people/t...
PhD Candidate María de Vecchi: _http://www.ucl.ac.uk/americas/people/...
Dr. Par Engstrom: Professor of Human Rights at University College London _http://www.ucl.ac.uk/americas/people/...
Here you can find Dr. Engrstom annotations of the lecture:_https://www.academia.edu/8810557/The_...

In the seminar, specialists discussed on three main topics: the social and political character of the Normal Rural Teachers Trainer Schools established since its articulation as part of a socialist program for education and social organization in the 1920s, and the repression against its students as a constant element by post-Lázaro Cárdenas Governments; the historical development of enforced disappearances in Mexico since late 1960's until now as the exercise of violence by the Mexican Government against social movements, framed in a context of impunity. They also address the question of: What guarantees the continuity of repression over time and allows the spectrum of victims to expand to other sector of civil society?

The third presentation told us about the systematic failure of Mexican government to address the duties to which it has committed both in terms of the Mexican legal system and of the International Treatises it has signed.

The presentations were followed by a round of questions and answers (not in this video) that revealed the interest of people in the current crisis of Human Rights in Mexico, and in the claim for justice by the relatives of people disappeared, kidnapped and murdered and those organizations working on these topics, both in the context of repression against social movements and the so-called 'war on drugs' undertaken by Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and maintained by Enrique Peña Nieto (2012 up until now).

The seminar was attended by more than 70 people from different nationalities based in London, UK. At the end of the seminar we made a collective portrait making visible the faces of the 43 students of the Rural Training School of Ayotzinapa disappeared by municipal police of Iguala, Guerrero since September, 26th 2014. This was the third London action in solidarity with the students, their relatives, and the Mexican society in their struggle for justice as condition for a better life.

Found this letter, even though, with the most good intentions, I do not think will move any Peña Nieto's hair, it is appreciated, though. Delivered to the Mexican Embassy at the UK last november. _https://yosoy132londres.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/letter-delivered-as-part-of-todays-protest-at-the-mexican-embassy-in-the-united-kingdom/

 

[mabar]

More with this case. Found an article at Proceso magazine translated to English, regarding the observations made by the Argentinean Anthropology Forensic Group that helped mexican goverment in the Ayotzinapa missing students investigation. And others regarding: Mexican goverment meeting with UN Committee on Enforced Disappearance and Mexican goverment indignated response, and business leaders backing up the army. Taking advantage of that blog containing articles regarding this case already translated to English, I inserted here these ones:

Mexico in Crisis-Ayotzinapa: Argentine Forensic Team Inconvenient Expert Witness for Mexican Government
Proceso: Marcela Turati

The Mexican government doesn't do it with national and international human rights organizations, or with the families of 43 disappeared from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa, or with indignant foreign and Mexican public opinion, or with global organizations like the United Nations, but Enrique Peña Nieto's government attacks the experts that it invited to help get to the bottom of the events of Iguala. Such is the case with the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team [EAAF]. A UN expert says that in his twenty years of work in human rights, he has never heard of governments questioning the scientific and professional integrity of the EAAF as Mexico is now doing.

With more than a decade of work in Mexico, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) has become an inconvenient witness for the Mexican authorities. Since it participated in investigations of the so-called femicides in Ciudad Juárez, through the migrant massacres in Tamaulipas and in the Ayotzinapa case, it has pointed out the messiness of Mexican justice in the search, exhumation and identification of human remains.

The EAAF's critique of forensic procedures has been carried to international courts and remained expressed in final reports of the missions to which it has been invited. The last publicly displayed was the last report to the parents of the Ayotzinapa students, in which the EAAF deduces that the "historic truth" put forward on January 27 by Jesús Murillo Karam, Attorney General of the Republic, to close the case of the 43 students' disappearance, is unsustainable because it lacks scientific rigor.

EAAF Report Revisited: Contradictions and Inconsistencies

The report suggests that, provided to square the official version that the students were killed and burned in the Cocula Dump, the PGR [Attorney General's Office] forced results, withheld information and rushed to conclusions, in addition to committing errors that put at risk the identification of remains collected in the San Juan River and sent to Austria for [DNA] analysis.

The EAAF report also insisted that it is not certain about where the student Alexander Mora Venancio's bone—the only one identified with genetic testing—was found, since the team was not present when Navy divers supposedly rescued it from the San Juan River. It [EAAF report] recounted that neither was [the EAAF] shown the chain of custody by that agency [PGR] with the exact report of the events. A member of the team consulted today by this reporter declared:
"They greatly simplified the evidence, and they only saw one possibility that tends to coincide with the story that they presented. They use the science to justify the statements (provided by gunmen) instead of using it to corroborate."

The [EAAF's] explosive report released on Saturday, February 7, indicated:
"The physical evidence must be interpreted in all its possibilities, without giving preference to those interpretations that include only one possible match with the statements of the accused."

On that day the EAAF team made public that the PGR, "among other serious difficulties":
Made mistakes on 20 of 134 genetic profiles of the relatives sent to Austria;
Fails to mention that the Dump, where supposedly the 43 students were incinerated, has been a place of burning for four years; and that it contains the body of at least one person who is not a student (thus, the evidence presented by the PGR can belong to other events or people);
Collected ballistic evidence and earth behind the EAAF's back; and
Left the Cocula Dump unprotected, despite its being a "key site" for the investigation.

In remarks by a team member to the reporter (the EAAF does not usually give interviews), he stated:
"We were not going to make this public. Normally, it would have been that both teams would have presented our findings at the same time, at the end of the investigation, but with what was said in the [press] conference, they didn't leave us any other choice."

He was referring to statements by Murillo Karam noting that the team was definitely present throughout the entire process and that more than 100 Mexican experts endorsed his statement.

The PGR's response came via a statement released on Monday, February 9, in which it criticized the prestigious forensic team. In short, the [PGR] talked back to [the EAAF team], telling it not to meddle, that it lacks experts like those of the PGR and that it had exceeded its authority by wanting to be in the entire process. The PGR statement says:
"It has been well established that the sediments and other evidence found in the bag of the San Juan River chemically match those found in the Cocula Dump; thus, any difference in that regard is hypothetical and far from the reality."
The statement adds that the PGR "accepts no doubt whatsoever" about the actions of the authorities and the evidence collected.

However, the press statement is in contradiction both to statements by the PGR's own highest officials and to its own content. In one part, the press communique states that
"the EAAF is not the authority, and its role is limited only to the anthropological and genetic analysis, so it has no reason to sign the chain of custody."
[However,] at the conference on Friday, January 27, Tomás Zerón, in charge of the investigation, stated:
"The Argentine experts are at all events in the river. This added to the fact that also in the wrapping [of evidence[ that we do at the scene is signed by them. Then we have the elements to be able to confirm that they [EAAF] were at each one of the events."
In other words, definitely, the EAAF signs documents. Going against Murillo and Zerón, the Argentines argue that they were not summoned to the river where they [PGR] were searching for remains.

To the criticism by the Argentine team that the Dump was noncustodial from November 7-27, despite its being a key site for the investigation, the PGR explains that
"it was not necessary to maintain the place preserved, given that they had conducted all the tests in totality, and there was little indication that they would contribute to the investigation."
However, another part of the PGR's statement mentions that on November 15, their experts found "ballistic elements" (40 pieces); this means that they should have maintained it [Dump] under custody because the site still had evidence.

Before the EAAF team's accusation that experts from the PGR entered out of sight of the Argentine team in order to collect ballistic elements and soil samples, the Federal Public Ministry [PGR] retorted with this explanation:
"They were not accredited experts in ballistics or any discipline other than anthropology, criminology and genetics within their group, and the PGR's purpose was the collection of ballistic elements, so it was not necessary that they be present."
Asked about that point, the Argentine team member mentioned that among the 30 forensic experts who come from eight countries and who investigate their part of the Ayotzinapa Case is a very experienced expert, who for a decade was head of ballistics at the morgue of one of the most violent countries. [Moreover,] he had meetings with his PGR colleagues in their laboratories. The EAAF member brought up:
"(The expert) participated in the collection of evidence throughout the first stage of the work in the Cocula Dump, until they decided to go it alone. Another question that arises is, how did the PGR know that it was going to find bullets during that inspection and that it was unnecessary to invite us? In that procedure, they not only lifted bullets; they also took soil samples that fall in the area of criminology."
The only mistake that the PGR recognized, and that half-way, is the bad transcription of 20 of 134 genetic profiles taken of the families and sent to the laboratory at the University of Innsbruck, which it [PGR] classifies as an "administrative error", although, according to the Argentines, it puts at risk the identification of 16 of the 43 students.

Worrisome Arrogance

The PGR's accusations worry Ariel Dulitzky, president rapporteur of the UN's Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID). Dulitzky says that in his 20 years of human rights work, he has never heard of governments questioning "even the scientific and professional integrity" of the EAAF.
"At least, I am not aware of a single case.
"If (the Mexican government) invites an external panel of experts, the least it should do is listen to the observations and take them seriously. It appears that it is not doing so. It is a worrisome sign if it expects to take this same attitude with the interdisciplinary group of the Inter-American Commission [CIDH]," he says about the group of experts sent by the CIDH that will begin investigating the case in March.
In a telephone interview, Dulitzky questions the true will of the Mexican government to be transparent about its work:
"On one side, they are open to supervision and international assistance; on the other, they close the doors just before it [EAAF] begins to carry out part of this cooperation."
Part of their [PGR's] concern is that the press statements bring to the forefront that the Argentines were neither given acess to all the facilities nor were they notified of all the actions that would be carried out; as if it [EAAF team] did not have "sufficient importance".

The timing of Murillo Karam's presentation of his "historic truth" caught the attention of the attorney [Dulitzky], who is also Argentine and academic and researcher at the University of Texas in Austin:

"He does so at a moment that for me is striking: just days before Mexico had its review before the Committee on Enforced Disappearances of the UN, and just weeks before the interdisciplinary group of experts from the Inter-American Commission arrives in Mexico. This shows a certain ambivalence and contradictions by the federal government."
Of the PGR: "Nothing Surprises Us"

The history of the EAAF in Mexico is not limited to Ayotzinapa. The team formed in 2001 in Argentina after the military dictatorship to locate the remains of thousands of disappeared. Since then, it has earned such prestige that it has worked in more than 30 countries. The team was the invited consultant to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico to create a protocol precisely for identifications and exhumations in murder cases.

Just last year the PGR created a protocol for responding to the same concerns as those expressed by the UN, but the protocol remains on paper. It has not been implemented nationally.

In 2004 the team was invited by victim and human rights organizations, in agreement with the government, to investigate the so-called femicides in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua. Mothers of the disappeared women were unhappy with the work of the state attorney, who delivered the wrong bodies and kept human remains without unidentifying them.

At that time—relates attorney Ana Lorena Delgadillo, who was a consultant with the EAAF team—the team's search was not limited to the number of remains in the morgue (they recovered remains from other morgues, from mass graves and from medical schools), nor was it limited to the list of complaints that the public attorney had, but they went house by house, "in a labor of ants", in order to to find out where families were who might have a disappeared daughter.

When the femicide scandal took shape in the Case of the Campo Algodonero, Cotton Field (as the place was called where three disappeared women were found, tortured and killed), and it reached the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the team rendered an expert report that served as the basis for the 2009 verdict against the Mexican State. Delgadillo says:

"In the Cotton Field verdict, they were predicting what was going to come, because it summarizes the main problems that we continue to see:
The State has no database for disappeared persons and unidentified bodies;
There is no clear methodology for control of unidentified human remains;
Technical and scientific problems surround investigations; and
Families suffer in their dealings with the states and institutions which are without the ability to give a response in line with reality.
"With that verdict, the court was already ordering the Mexican government to take action in that regard."
Delgadillo, who heads the Foundation for Justice and the Rule of Law, began working with the Argentine group in Ciudad Juárez ("I was fascinated by their vision of human rights and very high scientific standards and their degree of humanity in contact with the families and even in reviewing bodies"), and she currently supports the Ayotzinapa case.

Since 2013, the EAAF and her foundation have worked hand-in-hand with the PGR and three Mexican and Central American organizations on the so-called Forensic Committee created by Murillo Karam—under the jurisdiction of deputy attorneys Ricardo García Cervantes and Eliana García—to identify remains of migrants killed in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, and Cadereyta, Nuevo León, sent to a common grave by the PGR or local prosecutors.

As part of the joint work, they have already delivered the remains of twelve to their families and, according to the commitment by the Attorney General, the work will be extended to the entire Ruta del Migrante [Migrant's Route, across Mexico to the U.S.].

If in the Cotton Field case, the [EAAF] team exposed deficiencies of the Mexican State on the subject of forensics, this is a constant that is repeated in each case to which it is invited, including the identification of the remains of the 13 youth from the Tepito neighborhood in Mexico City [kidnapped and] killed after leaving the Heaven Bar, where they also detected errors.

In 2012, Delgadillo and other allied organizations, together with Mercedes Doretti, who leads the Argentine team in Mexico, participated in a hearing of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission where they reported the apathy of the Mexican government and deficiencies in the identification of migrants' remains. At the hearing, Doretti said:
"While the Argentine team recognizes improvements in the Mexican forensic system, it also continues to observe serious problems of methodology and diagnosis in the process of collecting and analyzing remains, including their identification and the use of genetic [DNA] forensics. It has also observed problems in custody, loss of remains and, in extreme cases, substitution of remains."

It's no wonder that the WGEID [Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, UN Office of the High Commissioner], on which Dulitzky participates, after its last visit to Mexico, pointed out in its conclusions that the system
"lacks a comprehensive policy to address the phenomenon of enforced disappearances, including the search for victims, identification of remains and exhumation of corpses."
Or, as Dulitzky herself explains:
"Searches are not done, and when we have information, there are problems in how the exhumations are done, how the chain of custody is managed, and how identifications are made and samples taken."
Therefore, in referring to the dispute between the EAAF and the PGR, she comments that the mistakes made by the PGR do not surprise her. Meanwhile, she does not doubt the professionalism of the EAAF, which has also helped to create other forensic teams with high quality standards, such as those in Guatemala and Peru.
"If cases such as the Cotton Field and now Ayotzinapa, which are emblematic and that have so much international attention, expose the shortcomings that are there, what is left for the thousands of cases that do not reach the front page of the media? As the Committee on Enforced Disappearances said in its conclusions: Ayotzinapa represents all the institutional deficiencies and institutional weaknesses that the PGR has."

Guadalupe Morfín, who in 2004 was commissioner for the Prevention and Eradication of Violence against Women in Juárez, told Proceso:
"All the work performed across the years by the EAAF in the state of Chihuahua, which pointed out the right way, as it did in El Salvador, Guatemala, Dominican Republic and many other countries besides Argentina, should have served as a tested example for the Mexican government of what should be done to identify the remains of disappeared persons."
Morfín adds:
"Something that has to be admired about the EAAF is that it works to serve the truth, not any ego. We would lose much if the Mexican State closes the doors due to the discomfort of their [EAAF's] questions and preciseness."

Proceso gives access to this article to subscribers only.

Mexico in Crisis-Ayotzinapa: Attorney General Meets His Match in UN Committee on Enforced Disappearance
La Jornada: Carlos Fazio*

On Friday the 13th of February, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CDF-UN) put into doubt Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam's "legal certainty" and "historic truth" regarding the events of September 26-27 in Iguala, Guerrero. Referring to attacks against students from the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa, the Committee seated in Geneva, Switzerland, said that the case
"illustrates the serious challenges facing the (Mexican) State in the prevention, investigation and punishment of enforced disappearances."
It also asserted that in Mexico enforced disappearance is a kind of "pervasive" crime in much of the country, and the vast majority of its perpetrators, including public servants, enjoy complete impunity, which is reflected in "the virtual nonexistence of convictions for this crime."

The Committee found "a series of obstacles" in access to justice in cases of disappearance, including the fact that the authorities might not immediately initiate a criminal investigation (the Office of Attorney General Murillo Karam to 10 days to take the case) or "they might classify" acts of enforced disappearance "as another crime". The accusation is not minor, given that in international humanitarian law enforced disappearance is a notion that includes various crimes, including illegal detention and denial of due process, which involves torture and cruel and inhuman treatment, more often than not murder (extrajudicial execution). Furthermore, according to the International Criminal Court (Rome, 1998), if it is practiced in a "widespread" or "systematic" way (even in peacetime), the disappearance is considered a crime against humanity, continual and not subject to a statute of limitations. [It is a crime] without possibility of pardon or amnesty, and it must be investigated in the civil courts.

Crimes against humanity are considered part of jus cogens, international legal norms of higher rank that, therefore, constitute a non-negotiable rule of international law, which implies that these crimes are subject to universal jurisdiction. Hence, Murillo Karam's efforts to reclassify the crimes of Iguala (with less severe legal concepts and attribute them to a group of the criminal economy), with the intention of extracting the Mexican State from any responsibility in the events.

In 2008 Mexico ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance; it is one of the 44 state signatories. Hence, as the CDF-UN reminded Mexico, the State has the
"obligation to investigate" in an effective way "all State agents or agencies that could have been involved, and to exhaust all lines of investigation" in the face of the acts of enforced disappearance.
This recommendation contains a central demand of the lawyers, parents and colleagues of the Ayotzinapa victims.

In this regard, the Committee recalled the obligation to punish "the superiors in the chain of command" in accordance with Article 6 of the Convention, which establishes the criminal liability of the high command that
"might have been aware that subordinates under its authority and control were committing or about to commit a crime of enforced disappearance, or might have consciously disregarded information that clearly indicated it" and, having responsibility for activities related to the disappearance,
"might not have taken all necessary and reasonable measures within its power to prevent or restrain it [disappearance] being committed" or "in order to put the events in the knowledge of the appropriate authorities."

This recommendation is crucial for breaking the cycle of impunity in Mexico. In the Iguala/Ayotzinapa case, it is obvious that "hierarchic superiors" in the chain of command of the State's public security agencies* were informed in real time by the Chilpancingo Center of Control, Command, Communications and Computing (C-4), and their respective agents in the state. Examples are the [mission] logs of the 27th Infantry Battalion that participated in tasks of containment and systematic search, and the respective reports [regarding] the exhaustion of state and federal police, which also indicated the weakest link in the chain: the Iguala and Cocula municipal police.

*SEDENA [Secretariat of Defense], SEMAR [Secretariat of the Navy], Secretariat of Government Relations [SEGOB], Federal Police, CISEN [Center of Investigation and National Security], SEIDO [Assistant Attorney General's Office for Special Investigations on Organized Crime], PGR [Attorney General's Office], Mixed Operations Brigades, Guerrero state police.
Either by action, omission, negligence, collusion, protection or complicity, there is some degree of responsibility at different levels of the chain of command of the State's public security apparatus surrounding the extrajudicial executions of five people, the torture and murder of student Julio César Mondragón and the detention and disappearance of the 43 normal school students. But Attorney General Murillo Karam refuses to open this line of investigation. In this way, he feeds and perpetuates military impunity on the subject of human rights violations.

As demonstrated earlier by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, Murillo Karam now had his Friday the 13th in Geneva. In both this context and that of an ideological crisis—Gramsci would say, hegemonic crisis—at the juncture of a profound disturbance inside the power bloc with a grave crisis of representation by the political parties, the meeting of the leadership of the Business Coordinating Council with commanders of the Armed Forces, General Salvador Cienfuegos (Secretariat of Defense) and Admiral Vidal Soberon (SEMAR) at the Industrial Club cannot pass unnoticed.

Needless to say, the repressive apparatus constitutes the core of the State and, in general, the hegemonic class or hegemonic part unlawfully holds the power of that apparatus. Although with contradictions in the situation, those who put Peña Nieto in Los Pinos [The Pines, Official Presidential Residence] go round to the Armed Forces and ask for order!

As La Rayuela suggestively asked on February 14 in La Jornada, are we witnessing a privatization of the military barracks? Are we traveling toward a kind of Bonapartism a la Mexico? Spanish original
MV Note: In a broad sense, Bonapartism refers to a political movement that advocates the idea of a dictatorship or authoritarian centralized state, where anti-elitist rhetoric supports a strongman or caudillo.

*Carlos Fazio, considered one of the most prestigious analysts in political-strategic, military and religious affairs of Latin America, is a professor on the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the Autonomous University of Mexico City (UACM). Carlos Fazio has been a visiting professor and lecturer at several universities in the U.S. and Europe and is the author of dozens of books and papers.

Mexico in Crisis: Foreign Ministry, Army Irritated By UN Committee Reproach of Enforced Disappearance
Proceso: M. Appel, M. Tourliere

Mexico City - The Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (SRE) dismissed the findings of the UN Committee On Enforced Disappearances included in the study presented in Geneva on Friday on the Mexican case. The Foreign Ministry [i.e., SRE] emphasized that the recommendations of the international body "do not adequately reflect the information submitted by Mexico."

The Foreign Ministry pointed out that neither do the Committee's recommendations "provide additional elements that might reinforce the actions and commitments that are carried out (in Mexico) to address these identified challenges."

In its final observations, the UN Committee concluded that the Mexican State fails to comply with the obligations that it assumed by ratifying the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. [The UN Committee reached these conclusions] after examining the country's situation on the subject last February 2-3. In the document presented today in Geneva, the UN Committee stated:
"The Committee believes that the regulatory framework in place, its implementation and performance of some proper authorities does not comply fully with the obligations of the Convention."
The UN Committee declared that the information received "illustrates a context of disappearances widespread in a large part" of Mexico, "many of which could be described as enforced disappearances, even initiated beginning with the Convention coming into effect" on December 23, 2010.

Shadow of Ayotzinapa

The UN Committee emphasized that the "grave case" of the 43 Ayotzinapa students, "subjected to enforced disappearance" in September of 2014 in the state of Guerrero, illustrates the "serious challenges" confronting Mexico "in the prevention, investigation and punishment of enforced disappearances and search for disappeared persons."

The echo of Ayotzinapa was also felt in other recommendations, such as the exhortation to "effectively investigate all State agents or agencies that might have been involved, and to exhaust all lines of investigation" and to involve in the search those closely related to the disappeared person, "without this conferring on them the responsibility to produce the evidence necessary for the investigation."

The UN Committee also noted that agents of the Mexican State should refrain from "making public statements that could discredit, stigmatize or endanger the relatives of disappeared persons or human rights defenders working to combat enforced disappearances."

But it wasn't just the Foreign Ministry that was irritated by the UN's reproachful note, the Mexican Army also showed its annoyance with the conclusions in which it is portrayed as doing fancy footwork in regard to the responsibility of the military in cases of enforced disappearance. In an interview with the newspaper Reforma, José Carlos Beltrán Benítez, general director for Human Rights of the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA), stated:
"I perceived that (the Committee members) want to create a recommendation about the armed forces more with media action and aggression, because it sells. They should not be generating things like this to show that they are working. It's time to be objective and concrete." Beltrán Benítz added:
"I could appreciate that they have a false perception, unfortunately undocumented (about the bias in military courts), [since] there is no case in particular that they could have shown me, but they certainly discredit our courts by saying that they are partial and that they are not independent."

Criticism Anticipated

On February 2 in Geneva, Switzerland, during his presentation to the UN Committee the report on progress made by the Mexican government in combatting enforced disappearance, the Foreign Ministry seemed to anticipate that the final verdict would be disastrous.

At that time, speaking a defensive tone, Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights, Juan Manuel Gómez Robledo, urged the Committee members to "go beyond the criticism" and "avoid incurring only condemnation."

Gómez Robledo called on the UN Committee to
"act with a sense of responsibility, dialogue and cooperation with those States that voluntarily decided to take on the obligations of the Convention."

Mexico in Crisis-Ayotzinapa: Business Leaders' "Desperate" Support of Army Sparks Strong Criticism
La Jornada: Susana González and Juan Carlos Miranda

The warning from Enrique Solana Sentíes, leader of the Confederation of National Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism (CONCANACO-Servytur), that
"for no reason will we permit that (the parents) get into the barracks" is an "unfortunate" and "desperate" measure to help the federal government, but it is also evidence of the insensitivity of business leaders and their belief that they own the Army, asserted Cuauhtémoc Rivera, president of the National Alliance of Small Businesses (ANPC), and Miguel Santiago Reyes, director of the Fair Wage Observatory from Iberoamerican University of Puebla.

If the leader of the CONCANACO wanted to support the federal government with his statements that business leaders will not permit "for any reason" parents of the disappeared normal school students getting into the Army bases—although the Secretary of Government Relations [SEGOB] agreed to the inspection only of Iguala—"they little help him get out of trouble," Cuauhtémoc Rivera said.

A democratic way to reach a solution must involve the parents in order to verify all the versions, those who have felt themselves deceived and betrayed "from there to here with buckets of cold water poured on them," he explained.

The statements by Solana Sentíes, he maintained, "are unfortunate", because "they fuel the fire of a problem that is far from being resolved."

For starters, he asked:
"Who is he to impede or permit access to the bases?" The question is important because, above all, more than opinion [the statement] seems to be a threat that business leaders will be at the door of the bases to block the passage of the parents: "Because they don't say: 'we will support that it not be done,'; instead, they say 'we are not going to permit', as if he himself were to be at the door with a machine gun. "With that, the problem is only further radicalized, [assuring] that it will survive until all versions about the students' disappearance are verified."

Imposition and Promises

In turn, the researcher Miguel Santiago Reyes indicated that the business leaders' closing of ranks around the Mexican Army over the Ayotzinapa case is nothing more than a desperate measure by big business to support a government that they themselves imposed, and whose promises, expressed in the structural reforms adopted in recent years, are still in the process of being fulfilled.

The statements by Enrique Solana are a show of callousness and reflect that major business leaders behave "as if they owned the Army."

The reforms approved during the first two years of the government of Enrique Peña Nieto were to favor a good part of the domestic and foreign private sector; thus, these groups are now trying to turn the page on the Ayotzinapa case that, Santiago Reyes said, is just a sign of social exasperation with impunity. Santiago Reyes observed:

"The private sector does it—in a desperate measure—trying to save this government and seeking to strengthen an institution that the majority of Mexicans know has been used as a repressive institution since 1968 [Tlatelolco Student Massacre] and, more recently, in Tlatlaya."
Spanish original

modify: little details

 

[mabar]

Today was the fifth month since the dissapearance of the 43 students, and, as had been in other months there was mass movements in several cities as well in Mexico City. But in this city ended this time with disturbances.

Violent arrests as hundreds rally over 43 missing students in Mexico (VIDEO)

Mexican police have violently arrested protesters rallying in the country's capital. The demonstrators are demanding a thorough investigation into the disappearance of 43 students in September.

Clashes between police and protesters broke out during the organized demonstration on the five-month anniversary of the disappearance of the students, who were attending a teacher training college in Ayotzinapa, located in southwestern Guerrero state.

Thousands have been rallying in the streets of Mexico City, carrying banners with the portraits of the missing students. Their parents were leading the demonstration.

Speaking to the media, the spokesman for the families, Felipe de la Cruz, called the disappearance a "state crime" that "should not go unpunished", according to news agency EFE.

The rally went peacefully through the streets of the capital, but the clashes started when part of the crowd moved to one of the subway stations. According to the Mexican newspaper Milenio, police asked a group of "hooded" youths to open their faces, which they refused to do. Six men, mostly teenagers, have been arrested.


The disappearance of the students has caused a number of mass protests in the country, with people demanding justice and demonstrating against corrupt police. The Mexican president's visit to the United States last month was also marred with rallies.

An independent investigative report published in December claimed the Federal Police were directly involved in the attack, contrary to authorities’ statements. The college the students were attending is known for its left-wing activism. The probe also asserted that state and federal authorities were tracking the students’ movements on September 26 in real-time; not only did authorities do nothing to prevent their abduction and consequent murder, but police reportedly directly attacked the youths. It is believed the students were handed over to local gangs and killed.

Maria de los Angeles Pineda Villa, whose husband José Luis Abarca Velázquez was the mayor of Iguala when the students went missing, has been charged with organized crime and money laundering. Pineda is being held in a maximum security prison until the start of her trial. ---from this see below

Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico: Has Government Manufactured Case Against Former Mayor for Disappearance of 43 Students?

Proceso: Anabel Hernández, Steve Fisher

Nearly five months after it happened, the disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students is less clear than ever for one fundamental reason: the disastrous and, even more, suspicious conduct of the Attorney General's Office [PGR] regarding these events, which it hopes to shelve. With regard to the case file of former mayor José Luis Abarca and his wife, whom the PGR hold responsible for the September 2014 attacks against the students from the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa, the [legal] process exhibits in its various stages accusations riddled with contradictions and based on accounts by discredited witnesses ...

According to various data contained in the criminal proceedings against José Luis Abarca Velázquez, former mayor of Iguala, and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa, the case against the couple as the ones presumed to be primarily responsible for the attack against the students from the rural normal school of Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, and the forced disappearance of 43 of them between last September 26 and 27, is based on contradictory evidence and discredited witnesses [in the case developed by] the Deputy Prosecutor Specializing in the Investigation of Organized Crime (SEIDO).

Abarca is accused of "organized crime" in the category of "against health [i.e., drug trafficking] for promotion purposes" (sic) for alleged connections with the criminal gang Guerreros Unidos [Warriors United].

In the criminal case (1/2015), which was initiated on January 3 in the Third Court of Federal Criminal Proceedings in Tamaulipas, the PGR requested an arrest warrant against the former mayor for the crime of "kidnapping" the 43 disappeared students without the Public Ministry [prosecution] presenting new evidence, only the same evidence that shows internal inconsistencies.

These and other irregularities surfaced following an investigation conducted by Proceso in collaboration with the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California at Berkeley.

Regarding Pineda Villa: After 40 days of arraigo* without finding evidence to incriminate her, in December of 2014 SEIDO turned to Sergio Villarreal Barragán—Mateo (the alias awarded to him as a cooperating witness; he was previously known as El Grande) extradited to the United States in May 2012—in order for him to incriminate her after more than four years of not having mentioned her in his formal statements about the Beltrán Leyva [brothers] and the brothers Mario and Alberto Pineda Villa.


*MV Note: Literally meaning root, arraigo is a legal concept (Constitution, Article 16) under which a suspect in cases involving organized crime may be held by court order for up to 40 days, renewable by court order for an additional 40 days, without formal charges.

Mateo's last-minute testimony was used to open criminal case 105/2014 and for the Third District Court of Federal Criminal Proceedings in the State of Mexico to issue an arrest warrant against Pineda Villa for organized crime. For the same charge, but in its category "against health [drug trafficking]", the PGR also requested an arrest warrant against her in criminal case 1/2015 [Ayotzinapa-Iguala], and now a formal detention order was issued without her having been notified....

Exonerated in 2010

The first complaint against the couple for alleged illegal activities was made via an anonymous call to the PGR on June 1, 2010, long before Abarca had voiced his political aspirations. The accusation led the PGR to open a preliminary investigation for the crime of operating with illegal proceeds, and the couple was summoned to make formal statements.

On August 31, 2010, Abarca gave his written statement. He said that he was focused on the jewelry business, the purchase and sale of gold and other similar metals, and products to sell house to house. He added that since 1988, when he married Pineda Villa, he has worked in the company of his wife and daughters; and that in 2010 he obtained income from both the jewelry business and management of the Tamarind Galleries commercial plaza....

The documents, to which access was obtained, indicate that the Federal Ministerial Police [investigative police in Public Ministry] did its own research. The PGR concluded:
"From the study of each and every one of the steps taken during the investigation, it is concluded that the evidence does not constitute the corpus delicti [proof of crime] of operations with illegal proceeds."
Regarding the accusation against Abarca and his wife for "unjust enrichment", on December 31, 2010, a ruling of "no exercise of criminal action" was handed down [by the court]....

Ayotzinapa Case

In the current criminal case, the PGR accuses Abarca of organized crime, allegedly for collaborating with the Warriors United criminal gang. In order to prove its charge, the Public Ministry [prosecutors] presented disjointed and incoherent ministerial statements [formal legal statements taken at Public Ministry]. The formal statements even contradict the PGR's official version about who, how and where they attacked the students, and they accuse the Federal Police and the Army of working for organized crime.

In the bulky file to incriminate the former mayor are statements by Luis Alberto José Gaspar; Honorio Antúnez; Martín, an Iguala municipal policeman; Alejandro Macedo Barrera, and Marco Antonio Ríos Berber, arrested in early October by the PGJE [Guerrero State Public Prosecutor's Office].

The last two testified that they opened fire on the normal school students in the center of Iguala; captured them, took them to a place known as Pueblo Viejo, killed them, burned them in a pit and buried them on orders from the municipal police [commander] Francisco Valladares and a person nicknamed El Chucky. Their statements led to graves in which 28 bodies were found; after analysis, it was learned that they were not the students.

In court documents, the PGR presents these testimonies as also showing that the students were transported in a pickup truck to the garbage dump of Cocula, [where] they were killed and incinerated on a pyre that went on [burning] for more than 15 hours.

On September 30, Abarca asked for a 30-day leave of absence; according to him, it was in order not to hinder the investigation of the case of the disappeared students. On October 6 the Guerrero state government filed a 'declaration of provenance' [i.e., immunity from prosecution accorded to government officeholders] with the state Congress. The following day Abarca's official immunity was revoked.

... the charge was for "gross and systematic violations of individual rights," "conduct that disrupts public order and peace" and "repeated failure to fulfill his obligations." He was not charged with the death or disappearance of the normal school students.

The first arrest warrant was requested by the PGJE and issued on October 21 by the Superior Court of the State of Guerrero, Second Court of First Instance in Criminal Matters. In criminal case (217/2014), the former mayor is charged with the crime of "murder" for the deaths of six people during the September 26 attacks, and "attempted murder" against 60 people (none of the disappeared students are among them).

Like the [federal] PGR, the [state] PGJE accused Abarca of having given the order to detain the students "no matter how". The Guerrero State Prosecutor, in his exposition of the events, affirms to the judge that Felipe Flores confirmed that, but this accusation was not part of the September 27-28 ministerial declarations, which are the only ones that it [PGJE] had.

There are three official versions of how Abarca was arrested:
The first was released by the federal government to the television media, when a video—supposedly recorded live when the former mayor was arrested with his wife in a house in the Mexico City borough of Iztapalapa—was broadcast.

The second is indicated in the informative report prepared by agents of the Intelligence Directorate of the Federal Police (PF/DI/COE/2625/2014) filed with the PGR when the couple was made available [to the PGR]. According to the document, both were arrested at a checkpoint in Mexico City while riding in a taxi.

The [third is the] only version of the capture in the case file with the court where criminal case 100/2014 is filed. This is the important letter (PGR/AIC/PFM/UAIOR/DF/IHT/1246/2014) signed by Federal Ministerial Police agents Javier Herrera Barrios, Elpidio Hernández Nájera, Aurelio Álvarez García and Juan Manuel Santiago García.
This document indicates that the arrest occurred on November 5, 2014, "in the vicinity of Paseo de la Reforma Avenue, Number 75, near the corner of Calle Violeta, in the Guerrero neighborhood in the Federal District [Mexico City]." That is, in the vicinity of the SEIDO.

Star Witness

The PGR had [María de los Ángeles] Pineda Villa under arraigo for 60 days. At 11:00 p.m., on December 28, 2014, Preliminary Investigation (PGR/SEIDO/UEIDMS/855/2014) was sent to the Third District Court of Federal Criminal Proceedings in the State of Mexico with the request that the arrest warrant be lifted. Criminal case 105/2015 was opened, and on December 29 the arrest warrant [under the new case] was issued.

The PGR's main witness against her is Sergio Villarreal Barragán, Mateo, a former member of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Beltrán Leyva Cartel. Mateo is the PGR's cooperating witness discredited during the administration of Felipe Calderón [2006-2012].

After the collapse of highly sensitive cases, such as his false accusations against the former Under Secretary of Defense, General Tomás Ángeles Dauahare, and five other military officers—all released for lack of evidence—Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam, at the beginning of Enrique Peña Nieto's administration, asserted that this one [Villarreal Barragán] and other witnesses were "little credible", and he announced an investigation.

Now, without giving the findings of that investigation, the PGR used Mateo's statements—made at a Mexican Consulate in the United States on December 11, 2014—to keep Abarca's wife in prison.

In turn, the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit [Treasury] accused Pineda Villa of "probably" having received more than 13 million pesos [US$871,650] from Guerreros Unidos. But alleged drug trafficker Sidronio Casarrubias said that Pineda Villa was given "three or four" million pesos [US$201,150 to $268,200] bimonthly or monthly so this criminal gang could operate.

Over the last four years, since Villarreal Barragán was arrested and taken into the program of cooperating witnesses, he has made lengthy statements about the Beltrán Leyva brothers and Mario and Alberto Pineda Villa, who have had drug trafficking operations in Guerrero since 2000. Never before had he alluded to María de los Ángeles.

Suddenly last December, he remembered that in 2006 and 2007 she met in Cuernavaca with Mario and Alberto [her brothers]. According to him, the first time he saw her was at a safe house in Cuernavaca in mid-2006. Supposedly, she greeted her brothers and he [Villarreal Barragán] was present during a conversation when she talked about the arrival of boats with five tons of cocaine.

Villarreal Barragán said that in December 2006, he saw María de los Ángeles during the supposed visit with her brothers, and she was in conversations about cartel operations. In December 2014, he asserted that:
"She told her brothers that she had bought some properties, and that they had seized others ... giving them information about properties, jewelrie stores and the shopping center."
On that date [2006] that commercial center [Gallerías Tamarindos] was not even built.

In another statement, he declared:
"he personally does not remember if at Christmas time, he doesn't know if it was 2000 or 2007 (sic), there was a meeting ... which was attended by members of the cartel, including Arturo Beltrán Leyva, his wife Marcela, his daughters ... at which arrived Alberto Pineda Villa, alias El Borrado, with his wife and two teenage sons and the sister of this last one to whom I have referred in the current statement."

Mateo had already previously given lengthy testimony of this type to the PGR. For example, in criminal case 44/2012—to which Proceso gained access—he asserted that General Ángeles Dauahare was compadre [godfather] of drug trafficker Juan José Esparragoza Moreno, El Azul, and he claimed to be an eyewitness to the delivery of five million dollars from Arturo Beltrán Leyva to the general.

In April of 2013, the General and four other military officers accused by Mateo were released for lack of evidence.

Proceso only gives subscribers online access to this article.

 

[mabar]

Mexico-Ayotzinapa: 2011-2015 Graduating Class Takes Slogan "Blood, Resistance and Hope"

La Jornada: Sergio Ocampo Arista

Tixtla, Guerrero - In an unprecedented event in the field of education and culture in the country, 124 students graduating from the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa [Teachers College] were sponsored by prominent Mexican intellectuals. During an emotional ceremony held on the campus, located in the municipality of Tixtla, justice was demanded for the 43 students disappeared in Iguala last September 26, even as the class of 2011-2015 [which took the slogan] Blood, Resistance and Hope, received degrees in primary education and physical education,

Led by Elena Poniatowska, Juan Villoro, Armando Bartra, Gabriel Retes, Luis Hernández, Rafael Barajas, Hector Bonilla and Marta Lamas, the class's sponsors took to the podium before the astonished eyes of the graduates' parents, mostly subsistance farmers who come from various regions of Guerrero and the country.

The graduation ceremony was held in the courtyard of the Ayotzinapa Normal School, where paintings were placed of the faces of the disappeared young men, whose parents did not attend. It was an account of the involvement of teachers at various times in the history of this school, which has been influential in almost all social struggles since its founding in 1926 [shortly after Mexican Revolution ended, 1910-1920].

48 Disappeared
To applause, Poniatowska began with messages to the graduates and their families:
"I know that you would give your life to be able to embrace your missing classmates, but you have to keep standing precisely because they are not here."

Poniatowska recalled that since 1975, Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, has not stopped for even one day searching for his son, Jesús Piedra Ibarra, who disappeared at age 21. Raúl Álvarez Garín, "leader of the 1968 movement, also fought until the day he died. He never gave up or stopped protesting. He put former President Luis Echeverría in the prisoner's dock."

About the events in Iguala, she remarked:
"Forty-eight are missing. In addition to the 43 disappeared, three were killed: David Solís García, Julio Cesar Mondragón, Julio César Ramírez Nava; and two were seriously injured: Aldo Gutiérrez Solano, who since then has remained unconscious, and Édgar Andrés Vargas, who has undergone numerous operations to reconstruct part of his face and help him restore functions."

Perfect Slogan: Blood, Resistance and Hope
Writer Juan Villoro also spoke, noting:

"One generation ends heavy with absences. Throughout nearly a year, the word Ayotzinapa has articulated a Mexico in a Republic of indignation and feeling. We have confirmed a country of injustice and impunity, where there are no convincing explanations for the forced disappearance of persons."

It is difficult "to find something that moves us, but this class's slogan is a perfect synthesis and, dare I say, a proposal of activity and work: blood, resistance and hope. Not forgetting the pain, but trying to reorganize it imaginatively into a different future.

"September 26, 2014, seemed to be a repeat of numerous attacks that have been lived through [before] in Guerrero, and in many other parts of the Mexican territory. The most amazing thing about this disgrace is that it is repeated. This is about a recurring pain. We have to put an end, once and for all, to this perpetuation of impunity and injustice."

Journalist Luis Hernández stressed that ... throughout its history the Ayotzinapa Normal School has suffered many negative campaigns. This happened in 1941, when the police arrested students and "charged them with having replaced the national flag with a red and black flag. It was not true. ..."
The teachers colleges have been accused of being schools of the devil, "of being 'Bolshevik kindergardens', hotbeds of guerrillas, communist nests and other things."

Hernández asked:
"Why this hatred of the rural normal schools? Because you are the last bastion of the Mexican Revolution. The rural normal schools sum up the Revolution's two main demands: free, secular, compulsory education for the populace, and land reform."

Face Reality
Actor Hector Bonilla told the audience of more than a thousand, who applauded all the speakers, that his parents were founders of the Ayotzinapa Normal School ... He told the graduates that they have a history:

"What remains to this generation is confronting your reality, with all your strength, without capitulation or surrender."
Armando Bartra, writer and university professor, said that "this is a moment to recall the pain, the shame," and to remember the crime of Iguala:

"It is a moment to refresh our courage, our outrage. This is not forgotten. This wound will not close. Some say that Ayotzinapa is already forgotten, but it will never be forgotten. Perhaps the movement and the capacity to convene might diminish—that is inevitable, but independent of whether the demonstrations could diminish or return to grow again, this is not forgotten, and neither will either the fury or the rage be forgotten."

Educate From Hope
Bartra urged:
"We have courage, indignation, anger, but even though in Ayotzinapa today the words sound bad, we cannot lose hope, joy. Hope and joy, you are going to be teaching children, and they have to be educated in hope, in joy, in laughter, in singing, not in hatred, or fury, or outrage. It isn't about trying to hide things, about denying the world, about not speaking of the injustice and pain, but there is a responsibility to do so with hope and joy."

Filmmaker Gabriel Retes Balzaretti asked:
"How do you explain to the children of this country that they can disappear from one moment to the next, just because they are students? How can they, just like that, disappear 43 students studying to be teachers? How can we participate in building a just, equitable country, with true peace, that is to be extended to all the people regardless of their origin?"

How to put an end to the corruption, social inequality, with the custom of bullying, "if not through education that supports us in forming our conscience, which includes not just reading and writing, but personal relationships as well."

Cartoonist Rafael Barajas, The Snoop [El Fisgón], considered that the attacks suffered by the Ayotzinapa Normal School "have become emblematic of how the Mexicans have been. Everything indicates that we are going backward. We are headed for the worst of our past; we are increasingly going backward. In 2015 we returned to the times of the oil expropriation."

Writer and feminist Marta Lamas proposed educating and keep on studying, plus promoting citizen action, because
"these are ways to search for truth and justice, such that a barbarism like that of the Ayotzinapa students might never happen again. Every society has a duty to remember, and you, by naming your graduating class, are bravely and painfully carrying out this painful memory of both murder and forced disappearance. As they say around the world: neither forgiveness nor forgetting."

Finally, the writer Paco Ignacio Taibo sent a recorded message to his normal school protegees:
"I have always thought that a country without teachers is a crappy country. We need our teachers, and you are the vestiges of the socialist education project of (Lázarus) Cárdenas, who was instrumental in education in Mexico."
Ayotzinapa, he concluded:
"has been, throughout the years, the traveling back and forth between teacher and community. I feel very honored to say these words to you; I wish you the best of luck in a degraded, corrupted and destroyed country. The struggling [activist] teacher is also teaching, but you need take to the children of the [indigenous] communities a way of learning, of understanding life, of training, of promoting mass education, which is so sorely lacking."

A duty to remember ... like it how it sounds, what it means ...

... unfortunately this kind of situations keeps happening, Michoacán an Zacatecas states in this post (because is much probably still happening other things that I do not know, yet) took their turn.

Mexico Drug War-Zacatecas: Three Soldiers and Officer Relieved of Duty for Disappearance, Execution of 7 Youths

Aristegui Noticias:

At least four soldiers, one of them high-ranking, were removed from their posts for their alleged role in the disappearance of seven young people later found dead with the coup de grace.


Proceso magazine reported that Lieutenant Colonel Martín Pérez Reséndiz and three other soldiers from the 97th Infantry Battalion were turned over to the Attorney General of Military Justice (PGJM) ... and have been transferred to the state of Jalisco ....

Pérez Reséndiz is identified as presumably responsible for leading the operation carried out in the municipality of Calera in which the young people were 'snatched'.

Military sources told Proceso news agency that, for now, the status of the military officer and the other three soldiers appearing before the PGJM would be as presented, not detained. However, they confirmed that witnesses and the young people's relatives identified the military officer as the person who led the operation in which they were apparently searching for drugs and weapons.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General of the state of Zacatecas told local media that five of the seven bodies located in two communities of Jerez (four bodies found on Thursday; the other three on Saturday) were positively identified following DNA tests of family members. Results for two of the victims, a woman and a 17-year-old, are still outstanding.

With these advances, it is a fact that the seven disappeared were executed—with gunshots to the head—and dumped in Jerez, about a week after having been taken from a house in Calera.

Mexico Drug War-Michoacán: Military Attacks Comuneros After Detaining Self-Defense Leader
La Jornada: Ernesto Martínez Elorriaga

Morelia, Michoacán - On Sunday Federal forces attacked comuneros from Ostula in the community of Ixtapilla, municipality of Aquila, leaving a 12-year-old boy dead and four others injured, including a six-year-old. The shooting occurred hours after the military arrested Semeí Verdía Zepeda, self-defense leader in the Costa-Sierra regions, while he was having breakfast in the seaside resort of La Placita, also in Aquila.

MV Note: Comuneros are members of indigenous communities whose land was granted to them by the Spanish king after the conquest. Comuneros own and work their land collectively. Article 2 of Mexico’s Constitution recognizes the right of these indigenous communities to choose self-government under traditional uses and customs, or indigenous customary law.

In a communiqué, the civic organization Team of Support and Solidarity with the Indigenous Community of Santa María Ostula reported that members of the Mexican armed forces attacked about 300 of Semei's supporters, who protested his detention by setting up a roadblock on the [Pacific] coastal highway linking [the port city of] Lázaro Cárdenas to the state of Colima at Xayakalan. They asserted that the military action resulted in several additional detainees.

Comuneros from Aquila claimed that minutes after they set up the roadblock, soldiers arrived intending to arrest several of their fellow villagers. They noted that after 11:00 a.m., another group hoped to arrest Santa María Ostula's Commissioner of Communal Goods. That's when community residents detained a group of soldiers.

After 3:00 p.m., soldiers arrived in Ixtapilla, where the detained soldiers had been taken, and they fired against the people who had gathered to set up another roadblock on the highway. In the shootout, during which the detained [military] personnel were released, Iriberto Reyes García, 12, was killed; and Melesio Dirsio Cristino, 60 years; Jeini Natali Pineda Reyes, 6 years; Horacio Valladares Manuel, 32, and Delfino Antonio Alejo Ramos, 17, were injured. The injured were taken to Tecomán, Colima.

The Support Team to the Nahua community declared that military personnel tried, without presenting an arrest warrant, to detain Ostula's Commissioner of Communal Goods. When they couldn't find him, they arrested other people.

After his arrest, Semeí Verdía was taken to the Marine base at La Placita, where he was put aboard a helicopter for transfer to the state branch of the [federal] Attorney General's Office (PGR) in Morelia [capital of Michoacán].

In a statement, the PGR reported that Verdía Zepeda was arrested in possession of two rifles—one 7.62 caliber known as the goat horn, and another .233 caliber—in addition to a 9mm handgun and 69 rounds of ammunition of different calibers. The statement concluded:
"Therefore, due to flagrant conduct taken into account and punished by the Federal Penal Code, he was secured and made available to the PGR in order that his legal status might be resolved."

The PGR's statement points out that Verdía Zepeda, who identified himself as a member of the Community Police in the municipality of Aquila, is being investigated for his probable involvement in other acts that constitute crimes against state and federal law, related to the destruction of election material in the June 7 election.

Proceso: Laura Castellanos

... In a telephone interview, [Self-Defense] Commander Hector Zepeda Navarrete from Coahuayana [Michoacán] ... demanded Semeí Verdía's release, considering that the Self-Defense and Rural Force on the [Pacific] Coast "are the cleanest in Michoacán."

Zepeda Navarrette believes that the arrest was due the fact that they [Self-Defense] continue fighting The Knights Templar cartel in the region, such that last May 25 the Nahua commander [Semeí Verdía] was ambushed on the coastal road, but he escaped.

The PRI [Party of the Revolutionary Institution] mayor of Aquila, Juan Hernández, was imprisoned as probably responsible for the attack, Zepeda stated, then added:
"[the mayor] had offered 2 million pesos [US$125,000] such that Semeí might be killed."

MV Note: "If Aquila Isn't Cleaned Up, the Mayor Will Be Run Out of Town" - Semeí Verdía is quoted saying, La Jornada, February 15, 2014.

Last April 1, the Nahuatl [Semeí Verdía] was legitimized as a commander of the [Michoacán] Rural Force. Semeí was in exile for four years, after his family suffered killings and abductions at the hands of the cartel.

Since 2009, the Ostula community has registered 32 comuneros executed and six cases of enforced disappearance by the cartel.

 

[mabar]

Tomorrow is going to be one year after the dissapearance of the Ayotzinapa's students, even though in past days the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (IGIE) of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission pretty much destroyed the official "historic truth", goverment keeps playing around, I suppose goverment thinks people/families are going to get tired ...

Ayotzinapa, Mexico: The Iguala Tragedy and Peña Nieto's 10 Lies
Proceso: Jenaro Villamil* Translated by Rachel Alexander

The report of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (IGIE) of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission is not just "another element" [Attorney General Arely Gómez's statement] in the investigation into the tragedy in Iguala, but a central blow to a political, judicial and police operation to "file away" one of the most chilling records of forced disappearance in the past years.

The persistence of the families, lawyers and survivors of the 43 students of the Normal School of Ayotzinapa, as well as an intense mobilization of public opinion against the failed "historical truth" Enrique Peña Nieto's government tried to plant, explain the size of national and international coverage of the Sept. 6 report.

A media counteroffensive by the Peña Nieto government is already working to dismiss the report. As with the "historical truth," the "hysterical response" of the media and columnists who toe the government line only aggravate the wound this case has produced.

Tellingly, this report reveals at least 10 lies about the handling of the case of the 43 Ayotzinapa student teachers.

1. The incineration in Cocula
"Based on this evidence, the IGIE dismisses the statements about cremation in Cocula being true." This sentence, backed by six months of investigation into expert reports and the assessment of the evidence almost scuttled the thriller narrated by Jesus Murillo Karam in his fateful press conference on Friday November 7, 2014.

Murillo Karam reiterated on Jan. 27, 2015 that, based on 386 declarations, "this is the historical truth: the student teachers were burned, they are dead."

It's not up to the IGIE to say what happened, but to recommend further research closer to reality, common sense and evidence.

2. The "filing away"
The IGIE experts insisted throughout their report that absent certainty about the incineration of the 43 student teachers and given clear contradictions about the perpetrators and masterminds, the open file cannot be "shelved."

Now, the government of Enrique Peña Nieto and the attorney general's office have insisted the case remains open, but neglected to mention that for more than seven months, the president himself has insisted that the country and the families of the victims "overcome" and accept what happened.

3. The lack of protection for student teachers
It was not a random attack, the result of fear by authorities in Iguala over the eruption of student teachers into the "imperial couple's" celebration [María de los Ángeles Pineda, wife of the mayor, José Luis Abarca, celebrating her presidency of the Iguala office of the federal Comprehensive Family Development Program]. The IGIE report stresses that from the time they left the Normal School until their arrival in Iguala, the students from Ayotzinapa were watched and followed by the military, the federal police, the state police and parts of the municipal police.

4. There is evidence of military participation
In his conferences on Nov. 7, 2014 and Jan. 27, 2015, Murillo Karam insisted that "there is not a single piece of evidence" of the participation of the military in the Iguala tragedy. Now we know that there is, in fact, evidence of their participation in surveillance, persecution and aggression towards the student teachers. They may not be the ones responsible for the disappearance, but members of the 27th Infantry Batallion of Iguala were aware, and there was, at least, omission and negligence.

5. There was a fifth bus
The student teachers and other witnesses mentioned time and again the existence of a fifth bus. The attorney general's office and the state attorney's office denied and destroyed evidence of the existence of this bus. The existence of this bus is key to understanding not only the motive, but the mechanics of the events.

The IGIE experts have suggested that this fifth bus carried opium gum. Guerrero produces 60 percent of the country's opium gum, essential for heroin. Opium is grown in 56 cities in the north of Guerrero. It's an industry that generates millions of dollars annually, according to calculations from the DEA.

6. Attack coordinated by "somebody"
The attack on the student teachers involved several public security bodies coordinated with C4 by "somebody" with an "athletic" build according to some accounts in the recovered file. The big unknown is who this person it. The big lie is that there was an attack by mistake instead of deliberate planning.

7. Evidence disappeared
From Aug. 17, members of the IGIE warned it was "serious" that the evidence from clothes worn by disappeared student teachers had not been conveyed to the families and expressed their concern for "the loss of evidence in the case" Among these was "the existence at the time of a video recording of the scene of police action which led to the disappearance of a group of student teachers on the road leading out of Iguala, near the Palace of Justice." It seems this evidence was destroyed. These events demonstrate that there was neither rigor nor impartiality in the investigations conducted by the prosecutor.

8. Respect for human rights
In his Third Annual Report on Government, Enrique Peña Nieto mentioned the term "human rights" more than 200 times and boasted of his administration's great advances in this area. Only the Ayotzinapa case shows that the most serious violations have been committed with the direct participation or outright failure of the country's police and armed forces. The IGIE has confirmed that they have not attended to the wounded and to the families of the murdered young people.

9. Aggression and disappearance of student teachers were connected
In the narrative of events, the IGIE experts highlight that it's not possible to disconnect or unlink the key events of the long night of Iguala on the 26 and 27 of September: that of aggression and that of disappearance. There are "enormous contradictions" among the experts and the testimony. Also, defining the destiny of 43 young men could not have been done as quickly as the "historical truth" Murillo Karam recounted.

10. Investigation not completed
The 20 recommendations of the IGIE stress that the investigation into the 43 student teachers cannot be completed, much less closed. The big lie was disguised in a "thorough" investigation that, we now see, was to build a version so it fits neither with reality nor with the most basic common sense.

There was also an identification by Innsbruck laboratory of another student, but do not conviced much ...

Mexico-Ayotzinapa: Argentine Forensic Experts Say Identification of Second Disappeared Student Is Not Definitive
Aristegui Noticias: The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team [EAAF] said they do not consider the "mitochondrial genetic match between bone #16-29102014 and the mother of the youth, Jhosivani Guerrero de la Cruz", one of 43 disappeared Ayotzinapa students, to be "a definitive result for identification".

In a statement released late Thursday, the experts criticized the statement made by Attorney General Arely Gómez, who at a press conference on Wednesday, presented new results obtained by the Innsbruck laboratory of forensic genetics.

"The genetic match via mitochondrial DNA found by the Innsbruck laboratory between the sample, which comes from the bag that, according to the PGR [Attorney General's Office], was recovered from the San Juan River, and relatives of Jhosivani Guerrero de la Cruz, is low in statistical terms (the probability of 73 to 1 means that it is 73 times more likely that it belongs to Jhosivani Guerrero de la Cruz than to another individual from the general population).

"However, in the context of a closed case (for example, a plane crash with a clear list of passengers who would be the only ones found in the debris recovery site) and considering the Innsbruck laboratory established that each of 43 families of the missing normal school students have mitochondrial profiles that are different from one another, the result could have very important significance. For the moment, however, we have an open case, where the two sites of recovery of remains (San Juan River and the Cocula dump) are uncertain and problematic," the experts insisted.

Nevertheless, regarding the [prior] identification of the student Alexander Mora, they acknowledged that
"the genetic match was obtained by nuclear DNA, with a clear result and with high probability of biological kinship. To date, it is the most important result in this process of identification."

The Argentine team also reiterated that
"There are also serious questions about the origin of the samples analyzed. We were not present at the time that divers and experts of the PGR recovered one of these bags from the San Juan River on October 29, 2014. Nor did the EAAF participate in the discovery of the bone fragment the PGR said it recovered in that bag, the fragment for which there is a positive identification with members of the family of the youth Alexander Mora Venancio, which was obtained via nuclear DNA.
"The results presented yesterday by the Attorney General are from two samples recovered from the same bag," the expert added.

Peña Nieto also have another talk with parents/families of the students ...

Ayotzinapa, Mexico: Parents' Meeting With Peña Nieto Ends in Disagreement

La Jornada: At the meeting held at noon on Thursday, Enrique Peña Nieto rejected the eight requests brought by parents of the victims of the night of Sept. 26-27, 2014, in Iguala. In so doing, he again caused a reaction of deep disappointment and anger.

Hours after the failed meeting, parents of the 43 disappeared students had harsh words for the President.
Carmen Mendoza, mother of normalista Jorge Aníbal Cruz, said:
"Those people have frozen blood. His look says it all."
Of the meeting with Peña Nieto and his cabinet, Mendoza added:
"In truth, we came out of the meeting with a lot of anger. We got nothing."
MV Note: The government's official response, according to Presidential spokesman Eduardo Sánchez, was that it would "analyze the feasibility" of the eight points raised and it "offers a rigorous and prompt analysis". No deadline was set for its response.

In the days before the meeting, in which there was basically nothing but disagreement, the group formed by the families of Ayotzinapa victims—including the three young men killed and two seriously injured; their advisers from the José Agustin Pro Human Rights Center, the Tlachinollan Center and Services for Peace—prepared a document with eight requests that they delivered to the President at the start of the meeting.

In turn, Vidulfo Rosales, lawyer for the family members and legal representative for Tlachinollan, explained that of these eight requests,
"the government did not commit itself to carry out any of them. Unilaterally, he presented us with six insignificant promises."
One of the President's offers was to extend the mandate of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (IGIE) for six months. The families demanded that they be allowed to work a full year, a period of time they consider sufficient to ensure that the investigation by the PGR [Office of the Attorney General] might in effect be redirected and that recommendations presented by the IGIE team in its report presented on September 6, might be followed.

Peña Nieto also offered a third expert who would be able to settle the profound contradiction between the conclusion reached by the PGR—its "historical truth", according to which the 43 youths had been murdered, incinerated in a human pyre at the Cocula Municipal Dump; their ashes crushed and thrown into a river—and the expert opinion presented by the IGIE in its report, which concludes "that incineration is not scientifically possible" and simply did not happen. Rosales indicated:
"We disagree with this third expert opinion. We do not need a third hypothesis. We need the truth."

In another of its commitments, the government offered to create a special prosecutor to continue searching for the youths.
"That's not what we asked for and need. We demand a rethinking of the investigation in a specialized unit, under international supervision, consisting of two sub-groups: one that investigates in depth where our sons are and another that investigates the made-up story intended to deceive us."
The parents demand that the legal case file be removed from the SEIDO [Assistant Attorney General's Office for Investigation of Organized Crime] and managed directly by the Attorney General.

They also ask that criminal responsibilities be established regarding former Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam; former Guerrero Governor Ángel Aguirre; former [Guerrero] State Attorney General Iñaky Blanco; head of the Agency for Criminal Investigation, Tomás Zerón de Lucio, and the head of Expert Services for the Attorney General's Office, Sara Mónica Medina Alegría.

In its document, the Ayotzinapa group—family members, normal school [teachers college] students and advisors—said:
"So long as there is not be truth, our legitimate quest for justice will mark his administration, and his name will be associated with Ayotzinapa as a symbol of impunity and the corruption that prevails in the country."
Moreover, they ask the President to place himself "on the side of truth, not of lies."

In this text, which was finally tacitly rejected by Peña Nieto and those who accompanied him to the meeting—including Secretary of Government Relations [SEGOB] Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, and Attorney General Arely Gómez—the Ayotzinapa families recognize that formally the investigation must continue. But they wonder how they can ever come to trust an Attorney General
"who, again and again, wanted to deceive us."
In their opinion, the solution for "reversing the damage done" rests in their eight demands. The President accepted none of them.

Not only did Rosales conclude that the government refused to carry out the list of demands of the affected families, but he complained that when they arrived at the Technology Museum, but especially when they were leaving, the Presidential Guard, responsible for security at the facility, "had a violent manner and was little engaged with human rights."

Also attending, seated among the mothers and fathers, was the young widow of Julio César Mondragón, She introduced herself:
"I am Marisa Mendoza, wife of the young man who was flayed alive in Iguala."
She informed the press that Mondragón's exhumation, originally scheduled for September 30, was postponed to a date not yet set:
"Other things are more important for them rather than getting to the bottom of how Julio César was murdered."
Initially, an autopsy conducted by the Office of the Guerrero Attorney General concluded that his face was "devoured by harmful animals."

The family of Mondragón Fontes demands a new autopsy and that experts from the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team [EAAF] be present. Agreement on this has not yet been reached.

Disappointment and Anger

María de Jesús Tlatempa, put it like this:
"I told the President that he has to take off his mask, that he has to be transparent. He has to decide if he is with the people or with the drug traffickers. He has to learn to acknowledge his mistakes. And if he cannot be part of the effort, that he leave it to the experts from the OEA [Organization of American States], who have demonstrated that they know how to work responsibly."
MV Note: The International Team of Independent Experts (IGIE) are from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which is part of the Organization of American States (OAS).
Don Bernabé Abraján, father of Adán, with his inseparable palm-leaf sombrero and his face even sadder than usual, declared:
"Today we leave empty-handed. We got nothing, really. Not even a commitment that they are going to keep searching for our sons."

Another rejected request was that during his participation before the UN General Assembly, Peña Nieto might ask for international cooperation in curbing the country's human crisis:
"As the case of our sons demonstrates, the pacts of impunity that exist in Mexico are so strong that only through an initiative of this magnitude (such as the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala) will it be possible to reverse them."
To shape this initiative, the statement proposes a consultation between victims, civil society and academia. For the families of Ayotzinapa, it was one more of the points not addressed.