And that if we didn't obey, they were going to fuck us and our families. Report Criticizes Mexican Officials for Ignoring 2011 Massacre Senior officers, including the police director, commander, and shift commanders, were paid more handsomely than regular cops. Many victims were brought to a ranch outside Allende, owned by the Garza family. The official, town council secretaryEvaristo Rodrguez Chapa, said he called police director Trevio to let him know what was happening, to which he replied: Dont even fart, you asshole. Four years later, and ten years since the Allende massacre, the families of those victimized by the Zetas and other criminal groups in Coahuilaare still waitingto learn whether the ICC will take up the case. One U.S. law enforcement officialsaid that [Reyes] Arzates corruption as the highest-ranking officer in the MFPs Sensitive Investigative Unit allowed violent cartels to continue the flow of drugs through the region without consequence.. Mexico's defense secretary, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, was in charge of the military garrison in Allende when the massacre took place but has deflected responsibility for failing to stop the killings. The Allende massacre - in which, according to the families of the victims, there were more than 300 people dead or missing - remained hidden for almost two years. The Zetas told the other children he was too little and cried too much to leave him there with them, according to Espinoza. And when we met with him, he told us that things were going to get hot. Warning: violence in San Miguel de Allende. The 2011 massacre carried out by the Zetas drug cartel in Allende, Mexico was a shocking reminder of the brutality of the black market, which thrives under governmental drug . Inside the gate, a small building was burning. Myself, and two others of my staff were driving from Monterrey, via Saltillo, on our way to Acuna, travelling on the 57 . See Vanguardia, March 18, 2019.. [At the meeting] were the mayor, the city council secretary , the person in charge of civil protection the police director and me. November 6, 2013, National Security Archive The next day,investigators requested, andlater received, a list of Allende police officials active in 2011 and began to interview them systematically. June 19, 2017. The recent violence is also a reminder that Mexican authorities have largely failed to protect the countrys civilian population from historically high levels of violence or to alleviate the effects of an ever-deepening security crisis. That he and the then-mayor of the city had a meeting with people from Los Zetas. A cartel war has transformed once-tranquil Guanajuato into one of Mexico's deadliest states. During Mexico's unknown massacre, Los Zetas carried out a systematic extermination by killing and incinerating more than 400 people in Allende and the surrounding towns. Many others disappeared and were presumably killed in the weeks and months that followed in the wake of the massacre. Few had the courage to defy Los Zetas. January 28, 2015, Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History U.S. Prosecutions Bring Mexico Corruption into Focus 1:07. An Allende police radio operator who worked closely with the shift commanders said in his declaration that a ranking Zetas member[17]would sometimes come by the police station and take people from city jail cells with the full knowledge of the police director and commander, both of whom, he said, were paid by the Zetas. Volunteer Luis Herrera Estrada was one of the four Allende firefighters who responded to reports of a blaze at the Garza ranch, and his statement of November 23, 2014, three and a half years later, is the first detailed account in the file of what the firefighters saw at the ranch that night. We told him, Yes. And I asked him why he, as the person in direct charge of the city, the top authority, had not asked for help from the military or the state or federal government, since I had explained that we did not have the weapons or the resources to take on these people? . Others had nothing whatsoever to do with the Garza family and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Villa Unin, just a 20-minute drive from Allende, has been the site of numerous acts of violence linked to the CDN in recent years. Hundreds Believed Disappeared in Allende Massacre - Al Jazeera According to multiple local media reports, the massacre happened on Wednesday afternoon when an armed group opened fire at the city hall of San Miguel Totolapan, resulting in the . When we arrived at the ranch, they went inside the houses and I began to hear many shots fired and people shouting, and they began to throw the bodies of dead people in the bed of the truck, and later they tellme Get down here, asshole, and tie up this fucking bitch I tied up a man who seemed to be a worker at the Garza ranch, but I did not know this person. And together with the patrols there were many cars and trucks both inside and outside the ranch, and these people carried long arms from which I deduced that these people were from Los Zetas.- Declaration of Allende firefighter Jess Gerardo De Len Ramos, December 17, 2014, 14:50. He told me: "The United States . Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History Two days after the Zetas caravan of death had gotten underway it had arrived at the residence of Juniors uncle, Vctor Manuel Garza Garza, and his wife Alma Patricia Prez. -Declaration of Allende volunteer firefighter, December 17, 2014. He gets up into the truck and with his hand he says goodbye leaving his suitcase there at the house because he was supposedly going to come back. For years after the massacre, Mexican authorities made only desultory efforts to investigate. Bri Rooke. October 2, 2018, Transcripts of intercepted cell phones open new lines of investigation in Ayotzinapa case The destruction of the 2011 Allende massacre is still evident to this day. Whereas, according to a 2016 interview of Coahuila attorney general Homero Ramos Gloria, the Mexican government has identified only 28 human remains and 54 . May 29, 2021. A center for car manufacturing northwest of Mexico City, Guanajuato averaged at least nine homicides a day in 2020, one of the highest murder rates in the country. I still love Mexico. Arriving at the ranch that night with three others from the department, Herrera said he could see that what was burning was a small room that was near the ranch. He saw that there were units of the municipal police out front. He always knew what was happening here.- Declaration of former Allende police official, November 12, 2014, 17:30. The collection is at once a narrow and graphic examination of the events of March 18-20 and a broader look at the combination of bribery, intimidation, and ruthless violence used by Los Zetas (and now, CDN) to turn local security forces into instruments of their criminal operations. Thats the last thing I know about my family., Almas brother, Hctor Reynaldo Prez Iruegas, also witnessed part of the attack and was one of the first to file a missing persons report in the case. In a country where more than 90% of crimes go unsolved, searching. Declassified Investigative Dossier Examines Officials' Roles in Cartel Killings, 10th Anniversary of Worst Human Rights Episode in Mexico's Recent History, By Michael Evans, Senior Analyst, National Security Archive, For more information, contact: Los Zetas Drug Cartel Sicario and Piedras Negras Plaza Boss Sentenced 'Somos.', the fictionalized retelling of the massacre that took place in the town of Allende, is now streaming on Netflix (Netflix) 'Somos.', which began streaming on Netflix on June 30, may involve a fictionalized perspective of the victims of the shocking massacre that took place in the town of . That things were going to get ugly.-Declaration of former Allende police shift commander, September 18, 2016. [6]In January, the bodies of 19 Central American migrants werefound in Tamaulipas, a neighboring Mexican border state and the site of hundreds of still largely unexplained migrant murders over the past eleven years. Leave them. Zetas. I stopped working for Los Zetas because they disappeared my father who worked as a security guard at a construction site from where they also kidnapped another worker and a woman who I did not know, but she seemed to be a minor At the time of the disappearance of my father I was still with the municipal police and I asked the commander for help And he told me not to involve myself in these matters and that I should go home and go to sleep.-Declaration of former Allende police transit officer, July 31, 2014. Witnesses describe in graphic detail how Los Zetas undermined and criminalized the public security forces of Allende, and how the latter routinely participated in kidnappings, murders, and other crimes on behalf of the group. Tracing the missing | The Economist And you could see that they were unloading large barrels, and the odor of diesel or gasoline was evident. He didnt have anything to do with crime, nor did his family, since they were kidnapped by mistake.. The mini-series is created by James Schamus, who divides the real-life emotional fable into 6 . Remembering the Allende Massacre - BlogTest THE DOCUMENTS. Mauricio, the infant son of Liliana lvarez and Arturo Espinoza, was never seen again. What Do American Officials Know About the Allende Massacre? The six-part drama series is inspired by the Allende massacre in Mexico. Both in charge of Los Zetas, Allende's is a much less known story. A 10 aos de la masacre de Allende, recrean la pesadilla para no olvidarla ALLENDE, Coahuila - Only abandoned and destroyed farms and the self-imposed silence of the inhabitants of Allende remain after the massacre perpetrated in this city in . And I remember what he said to me: Don't be an ass. September 27, 2019 1:06 PM EDT. In towns like Allende, Los Zetas relied mainly on local recruits and corrupt officials to protect their narcotics operations, shake down local businesses, and keep watch for rival gangs and other threats. [14] In many cases, the names of the people identified by firefighters Lpez Tamez and De Len Ramos are legible behind clumsily applied redactions. The National Security Archive marks this grim anniversary by publishing an extensive evidentiary history of the Allende massacre focusing on key documents and testimony from a 4,000-page dossier of investigative records that prosecutors in the state of Coahuila only began to compile almost three years after the fact. In the latter group was Csar Alfonso Garca Ramrez, who had just returned home to Coahuila for a visit from his job in Texas. Five years on, mystery still shrouds Allende massacre in northern What actions had they taken to guarantee the security of the people of Allende? In July, Coahuila state investigators gave them a nearly identical set of questions; among them: Did they know about the disappearances as they were happening? Nine people, including three mothers and six children, lost their lives Monday when they were shot execution-style while traveling to a wedding in Mexico. Of particular importance was the November 2014 testimony of a woman from Piedras Negras whose husband, himself a member of the Zetas, had been kidnapped, detained, and later killed by the group in 2010. Allende is a small town southwest of Piedras Negras, Mexico and is the site of a massacre by the drug cartel, Los Zetas. The plan, he said, was to kidnap and kill everyone. When more Zetas and various patrols of the municipal police arrived later they knocked down the main gate of the Garza ranch by ramming it with a truck, according to Jimnez. Another told investigators that the local Los Zetas chief acted like he was in his own house during frequent visits to the Allende police station. According to testimony, the police would also arrest and detain people wanted by the Zetas, keeping them in the city jail until the Zetas arrived to take them away. The same year, the Zetas member known as El Cubano was arrested in the U.S. and later extradited to Mexico in connection to the case. [4] The thinking behind the special exception measure is simple: Human rights crimes affect both the immediate victims and society as a whole, and in such cases there is a society-wide interest in full transparency to ensure that such grave abuses do not reoccur. A longtime resident of Allende, Herrera knew or was familiar with many of the people he saw at the ranch, including the Zetas, their police accomplices, and many of the victims. Outside the ranch entrance, the firefighters spotted officers and vehicles from the Allende police department. And as I am originally from here in Allende, and this is a small town, for this reason I know these people. El Pjaro said that a group of victims that had been tied up inside the ranch house were later taken out back to the bodega where they were killed with a shot to the head. I would ask you the same thing, she replied. The newly released files on Allende, including evidence gathered in the weeks and months immediately following the massacre, show just how inadequate these investigations have been. Where did your husband leave my husband? one asked. Based on Ginger Thompson's 2017 oral history, "How the U.S. [W]e all went in shooting and tied up all the people that were found inside the ranch. follows the lives of an ensemble group of fictional characters, all inspired by real-life . [W]e passed by the entrance of the ranch where I saw people practically in the street with hoods and black vests who had rifles [W]e passed by again on the way back to Allende, and through the opening I could seebecause from the road you could see all the way to the backthat there were about five or seven trucks, many people with rifles, and I also saw people piled up, like this was where the fire was coming from [I]t was something big like a bodega. He just asked us if we knew about what was happening. So they formed them into rows of people and later took them to the ranch of the [deleted] where they killed and burned them together with people from Allende. 2011 San Fernando massacre - Wikipedia Netflix series inspired by story of 2011 massacre in Allende, Coahuila His wife, Sarah Angelita Lira, said that Liliana had called to tell him that their uncles ranch was on fire, and that she was leaving the ranch, and that they were closing the gate., So my husband left. And each estaca is made up of four assassins, but there were trucks that brought more people in the trailers. In exchange, Reyes passed DEA intelligence to the criminal groups, including, in at least one case, sensitive information about a pending DEA investigation. In 2020, a U.S. court also indicted Reyes Arzates boss, former public security minister Genaro Garca Luna, for taking tens of millions of dollars in bribes from Sinaloa Cartel chief Joaqun El Chapo Guzmn. In the worst cases, civilian authorities were little more than subcontractors of the Zetas criminal organization, involved in shakedowns, kidnappings, drug trafficking and numerous murders, not over a period of weeks or months, but for many years. Hours later, his daughter was one of the last people to see him alive. Through the gate, she could see what appeared to be bodies piled up next to a burning building. And out of fear that they would do something to me if I disobeyed orders, I had to kill a person, that being Everardo Elizondo, who was about 30 or 35 years old, to whom I gave a shot in the head. Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. Some portions of these files have been excerpted elsewhere, including in reports from the CNDH and the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), which cites many of these same records.But this is the first time that images of records from the case file have been published in their original form (although . (AP) MEXICO CITY -- Gunmen killed 15 people at a car wash . Prior to 1832 the settlement was known as San Juan de Mata.. Los Zetas Massacre. You know who they are., Still other witnesses said that they saw Lozano standing calmly outside his house on the night of March 20 talking on a mobile phone while the Zetas sacked a house across the street. 15 Killed in Mexican Car Wash Massacre | Fox News See Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. 2018 is on track to be Mexico's deadliest year on record with over 20,000 homicides so far. Document 1 August 25, 2007 Shutdown Slows but Doesn't Stop Central Americans Headed North U.S. Embassy in Mexico, cable, sensitive, 3 pp. Prosecutors say that Reyes took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from the cartels during his 13-year career at the SIU, including large payments from the Sinaloa and Beltran-Leyva cartels, among others. Yesterday I heard machine guns right outside my door on Independencia. Witness statements and other records from the Allende case file published here today corroborate Osornos account of the enduring tragedy and illustrate the extent to which the group continued to rely on compliant police to execute some of its most sensitive operations.
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