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| Witnesses describe the massacre at Tlatlaya Posted: 28 Dec 2014 10:40 PM PST El Diario.mx (December 28, 2014) Source: Reforma. Translated by un vato for Borderland Beat.
Distrito Federal.-- The military intrusion triggered an uproar inside the warehouse. Some of the armed young men were roused from their sleep by the operation. "Surrender, sons of bitches! Mexican Army!", they were yelling outside. "We're being hit by the contras (the rival gang)!", yelled one of the sicarios (gunmen). "They are not contras, they're military!" said another. "Wake everybody up!", yelled another young man. "One of the guys said they should surrender, but another person said no, that they were going to get killed anyway, it was then that the people inside began to fire towards the exterior, hearing the Army yelling at them to surrender and to come out one by one with their hands on the back of their heads," recalls Cinthya Estefany Nava Lopez, one of the two sex workers who were with the alleged criminals, according to statements given before the PGR (Attorney General), and which Reforma had access to. The soldiers lighted the entrance to the warehouse from their Cheyenne and fired their bursts. Patricia Campos Morales, the other prostitute, was awakened by the military gunfire. "The sicarios that were inside the warehouse begin to fire and one of them yells 'man down', that shooting lasted between 5 and 10 minutes, after that the sicarios yelled, 'Don't shoot, we give up.' "Then one sicario went out and the soldiers fired at him, and he managed to come back inside; he had gone out to tell the soldiers that they had surrendered and the soldiers told them, 'come out, sons of bitches, and we'll let you live!', at that point the sicarios began to surrender. Subsequently, the soldiers asked if there was anybody else, and that they would give us 10 minutes to come out", narrates Campos in her statement. When the shooting started, Mrs. Clara Gomez ran from the corner where she was sitting up to a white pickup that was on the right side of the building and climbed into the passenger side. "That's when I realize, thanks to the light (from the soldiers) that my daughter was lying face down, beside another boy, also face down, right by the open passenger side door of the truck I just mentioned. I heard both of them moaning, so then I get closer to look at my daughter and I touch her to see if she shows vital signs and I realize that she is still alive." "Right then, the shooting starts again and I move to the back of the pickup where I had been a few seconds before," the mother of Erika Gomez told the office of the Mexican Attorney General (PGR; Procuraduria General de la Republica). Cinthya Estefany Nava recounts that the soldiers reiterated their warning. "They yelled that they would give them 10 minutes to come out, and if they didn't, they would kill them like dogs, that's when I heard a voice from inside the warehouse say to surrender and go out, and after a 10 minute period, I heard no more shots, only moaning", said the young woman. "Yes, we surrender!" yelled one of the sicarios. The crossfire ended and, for the PGR, the casualties up to that moment were one wounded soldier and 14 armed civilians killed. Lined up and executed Lieutenant Ezequiel Rodriguez Martinez has declared to the PGR that, after the sicarios surrendered, he was the one who ordered three soldiers to enter the warehouse. "I ordered Sgt. Second Class Roberto Acevedo Lopez and two troopers, Fernando Quintero Millan and Leobardo Hernandez Leonides to reconnoiter the inside of the warehouse, where they stayed between 3 to 5 minutes, reporting 22 dead", declared the Infantry Lieutenant. warning graphic image on following page   The women survivors of the massacre have also stated separately that there were three soldiers who entered the warehouse, but it was not to make sure that there were more than 20 dead. Cinthya Estefany Nava, Patricia Campos and Clara Gomez testified that the soldiers went in to finish off the dying men and to execute at least 10 persons who had come out of the gunfight unharmed and had surrendered their weapons. The PGR says that there is only evidence to show that eight were executed; the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH: Comision Nacional de Derechos Humanos) says there were 15. The two prostitutes, in all of their statements before the authorities, have claimed that they were in fact kidnapped and that, at the moment the soldiers entered the warehouse, they had their hands tied. They insist that, along with them, there were two other kidnapped men, also gagged. "Only three soldiers went into the warehouse, two stayed guarding us and one went to look around the warehouse", recalls Campos. The soldiers took the weapons from the sicarios and took the men to a booth located on the left side of the warehouse. "This guy wouldn't give up even though his hand was messed up, shoot anybody that moves", instructed the one that was looking around the place. "That's when I heard a shot and, from where I was, I bent down to look at the soldier, and that's when I saw him shoot two boys that were wounded towards the back of the warehouse on the right side. After that we heard more shooting and moans from the people," remembers Cinthya Nava. When he started to pull the trigger, one of the soldiers who was guarding the captives yelled at him, "don't kill them!", says Patricia Campos. "It's because he was going to shoot at me," justified the executioner. "Ah, OK, in that case, do it", agreed his fellow soldier, according to Campos' statement. After finishing off the two sicarios, the soldier asked those who had surrendered their weapons to come out of the booth and to form a line. "Right then, a soldier who was guarding us said to the other, 'You don't think the shot will ricochet?', and the other one answered, 'No, it's not a problem,' then the soldier came back to guard us. "He told us, 'put your face down, don't turn around', right then the soldiers begin shooting at the people who were lined up on the left side of the warehouse. At the same time, I heard more shots from the right side of the warehouse, you could hear moans and cries and the soldiers were saying, 'you thought you were so tough? Now take it! You thought you had balls, sons of bitches?', and they kept on shooting", Campos narrates. Mrs. Clara Gomez says that one of the soldiers came out of the booth with the last boy who was still alive and took him to the soldier who had a flashlight. He stopped him in front of the soldier, who asked for his name, age, where he was born and his nickname. "Then the soldiers shot him and I heard him moaning. They brought out several persons like that and they would ask them the same thing and shoot them in the end, leaving them wounded. There were approximately 9 persons that the soldiers shot", states Clara, who says that once they fell to the ground, they were finished off. When all the sicarios had been executed, the executioners asked the three women and the two men who were tied up to get up off the floor and then they took them to the booth on the right. They kept the five of them there until 07:00 a.m., when the men in olive green decided to reduce the number of witnesses. "At that moment, two soldiers took the two (kidnapped) boys towards the back of the room with the pretext that they were going to take their photographs for the record, according to them, and I heard shots", says Campos. "I became aware that the two boys who had been tied with us were already dead along with two other people, I also saw that there were about eight people dead in the middle of the warehouse, and on the left side, there were about five dead, some on top of others", says Nava. The landscape was a bunch of dumped bodies. Well into the morning, Colonel Raul Castro, commander of the 102nd Infantry Battalion, based in San Miguel Ixtapan, came to the scene of the slaughter. They took on site photographs of the three women survivors and turned them over to the Edomex State Attorney General. The two prostitutes were sent to the Federal Prison at "El Rincon", Nayarit.   | ||
| Mexican democracy is a "green dog" Posted: 28 Dec 2014 06:02 PM PST Proceso (December 21, 2009) By Denise Dresser, translated by un vato for Borderland Beat Translator's note: Proceso published this analysis by Denise Dresser almost exactly five years ago. Another year has gone by, we have Enrique Pena Nieto in power, but the questions she posed five years ago regarding Calderon's proposals are still very relevant. Is Mexico a democracy yet? -- un vato  Necessary questions that Carmen Aristegui formulates in her new book, Transition. Essential questions that every citizen who worries about his country's fate should ask himself. Definitive questions to be able to take a position on the political reform initiatives proposed by Felipe Calderon. Because the words used to describe the Mexican political system are a metric and thermometer of disillusionment. Words such as incomplete democracy. Truncated transition. Failed representation. Institutionalized impunity. Simulation. Regression. Instead of responding to public interests, politics promotes private interests. Instead of solving problems, the institutional framework kicks them forward. Instead of generating incentives for representation, current rules prevent that from happening. Instead of empowering citizens, the transition ends up elevating oligarchs. Like Juan Pardinas suggests, Mexican democracy is a "green dog". It is too exotic. It is the only one in the world -- except for Costa Rica --in which reelection of legislators or municipal presidents does not exist. It is one of the few that do not allow citizen candidacies. It is exceptional for the absence of the referendum. It is unusual for the prohibition against "citizen initiative". It is extraordinary for its absence of mechanisms that allow the development of stable legislative majorities. It is very Mexican in the way in which it elevates political parties but ignores the citizens. The Mexican dog insists on being exceptional, but not for the better. That's why its fur is such a different color from that of other canines. That's why it limps instead of running. That's why it provokes street fights with such frequency. That's why it is such a dysfunctional species. Mounted on its back, it carries abusive syndicates, and blackmailing television networks, and irresponsible political parties, and untouchable governors, and privileged oligarchs. All of them, ancestors of the green dog and beneficiaries of its exceptionality. Without reelection, there is no accountability, nor complete political representation, nor professionalism in the political classes, nor any way to weaken local bosses. Without citizen candidacies there is no way to break the monopoly that the political parties and syndicates have over political life. Without referendum there is no way to involve the public directly in great national issues. Without citizen initiative, there is no way to promote public policies that the political class does not want to touch, including combating monopolies. If we do not raise voting levels to maintain registration, we will continue to finance small political parties -- like the Green Party or the Workers Party -- who sell themselves to the highest bidder or promote shams like Juanito. [Translator's note: Juanito was a clownish populist candidate for president. -- un vato]. Without preferential initiatives it is not possible to compel Congress to legislate on matters it is avoiding, including promoting competition. Without measures such as the ones being submitted to national debate, citizens will continue to be little more than the fleas on a rabid dog. And, yes, the proposals come from an unpopular president, cornered, weakened, who came to power under questionable circumstances. And, yes, the list is incomplete because it does not resolve all the problems in the economic system or in the political regime. But that should not be enough to disqualify them from the start; hatred of the messenger should not obscure the importance of the message that he sent. Mexico has a broken democracy that it needs to fix. Mexico has a stalled democracy that it needs to get moving. Mexico has an elitist democracy that it needs to broaden. Opening spaces for the citizenry so that its participation will matter; generating incentives so that legislators and municipal presidents will be forced to render accounts, which they do not do today; granting power to voters so that they can develop social counterbalances against special interests; creating ties of demand and representation between the governed and their leaders. Reforms with the power to air, shake, re-legitimize, diminish the exceptionality of Mexican democracy and normalize its functioning. Faced with that, the PRI and the PRD have made a mistake by positioning themselves like they have, claiming that the reforms are "a lie'; or that, "they resuscitate a depleted presidentialism"; or, "they do not want anything to change"; or, "they perpetuate electoral patronage"; or, they are "a distraction"; or, the most important thing is "to control the Executive with ratification of the Secretaries of State"; or, "I have serious reservations about models of political organization tested in other latitudes, but that do not have a history, condition or idiosyncrasy such as Mexico has"; or, "the citizens are not ready for that". By responding like this, Carlos Navarrete and Jesus Ortega and Enrique Pena Nieto and Beatriz Paredes reveal where they stand: close to the status quo and far from the citizenry; close to the party rule system they want to preserve and far from what Mexico needs to do to dismantle it; close to the spurious argument of "exceptionalism" and far from the democratic normality that the country demands. Training the green dog will require more that what has up to now been proposed, but the contemplated measures help place a democratic leash around its neck. To force the dog to obey the citizens instead of biting them, it is imperative to discuss: opening up the media, political party financing, eliminating legislative immunity, public demonstrations, strengthening autonomous agencies, combating corruption, and everything else that will allow Mexicans to protect their rights. Everything that will force political parties to surrender some of their power. Everything that refreshes political representation. Everything that can pull Mexico out of the pack of exotic democracies and put it in the litter of more normal democracies. And that way, tame the green dog.  |
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