VIDEO: Dr. Mireles Describes Agreements Made With the Government

By: Ernesto Martínez Elorriaga | Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

Morelia, Michoacán—A video message recorded in April 2014 by the former leader of the autodefensas, José Manuel Mireles Valverde, was released in social networks.  The video message was intended to be spread after his death.  According to Mireles, organized crime groups, federal and state governments, and even his wife, intended to eliminate him.

  Some parts of the message had already been released, however on the Grillonautas2 YouTube channel, the entire video, with a duration of 46 minutes, was released where it is clarified that Mireles lost all the support of the federal government after taking Tancítaro with a group of autodefensas, on November, 16, 2013.

In early November 2013, Mireles says, he met with several federal officials in Mexico City, including Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong and the director of the Center for Research and National Security (CISEN), who approved his proposals:

To clean up organized crime throughout Michoacán; restoring the rule of law; liberate all imprisoned autodefensas; to appoint a single spokesperson on behalf of all autodefensa groups, which would be Mireles, and the arrest of 20 organized crime leaders, of which seven main ones operated in the region of Tepalcatepec, from which Mireles was born.

He said that there was an unwritten agreement whereby the federal government committed to provide them with an armored unit, and “another agreement: that we would no longer move to other municipalities,” and in the case that they would progress to other municipalities, it would have to be jointly with the federal government.

At that meeting, Mireles said that he planned to take Los Reyes, Aquila, Coahuayana, Uruapan, Ario de Rosales and Apatzingán.  They asked him to wait a week.  There was no response.  “We chose to take Tancítaro (November 16, 2013) in response to the request for help.  The day we decided to enter, the body of a seven-year-old girl, the daughter of an avocado farmer, appeared and her nine-year-old sister disappeared, even though they had paid 23 million pesos.”

“Those of us who defended ourselves are imprisoned, those who did not, [are] dead or disappeared,” Mireles Says in New Audio

Dr. Mireles

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

The autodefensa leader, José Manuel Mireles, recorded a new audio in which he demands to the government justice for defending his people “those who did not, those who did not defend themselves, are appearing in clandestine graves that are being discovered throughout the Mexican terrain, for having waited for the institutions instituted to provide security and protection, to do their job,” he said.

Mexico City, Mexico. April 28, 2017– The founder of the autodefensas in Michoacán, José Manuel Mireles Valverde, who is imprisoned in CEFERESO #4 in Nayarit, broadcasted an audio in which he demands justice from the Secretariat of the Interior (SEGOB), National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), and the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN).

Likewise, Dr. Mireles questions these government bodies, as well as “the other rich people” to explain their definition of justice, since Mireles, like other autodefensas, “for having used our constitutional right to self-defense.”

“We humbly ask them to explain to us, as a people that we are, what is their true definition of justice?  Because those of us who defend ourselves from being murdered are imprisoned for defending ourselves, and those of us who waited for justice to be administered are dead and buried,” he says.

The leader explained that “those who did not, those who did not defend themselves, are appearing in clandestine graves that are being discovered throughout the Mexican terrain, for having waited for the institutions instituted to provide security and protection, to do their job, to do their justice, what they never did,” the leader explained.

Mireles demanded justice for all those who, like him, sought justice by their own means, and not only for “the murderers of the nation.”

“Justice only applies for the benefit of the political class and the rulers, the law only applies to the most fucked people in Mexico, which are us, the majority, and that we are all innocent of which we are accused of, with some exceptions.”

Due To Lack of Evidence, Former Mayor of Temixco Is Released

Miguel Ángel Colín Nava

Articles by: Jaime Luis Brito (Proceso), David Monroy (Milenio), Benito Jiménez (Reforma) | Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

A state judge ordered the release of the former mayor of Temixco, Miguel Ángel Colín Nava, who is charged with the alleged diversion of more than 80 million pesos ($4,219,300 USD).

Colín Nava was released at the end of the trail-related hearing held on Thursday, in which the judge considered that the evidence provided was not sufficient enough to bring him to trial and send him to custody.

Jesús González Otero

This would have been the second arrest of a former mayor because last month his Cuautla counterpart, Jesús González Otero, was arrested under the same accusations.  Both belong to the PRD party.

The former official was mayor of the Morelos municipality during 2012-2015 and was apprehended yesterday afternoon when he left the hospital ‘Dr. José G. Parres’, located in Cuernavaca, where he currently works.  He was then taken to the Social Reinsertion Center of Atlacholoaya, in the municipality of Xochitepec.

Juan Jesús Salazar Núñez

According to Juan Jesús Salazar Núñez, head of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, there was an investigation against Colín Nava carried out by the Superior Audit and Inspection Entity (ESAF), whereby a judge granted the arrest warrant against the former mayor, predecessor of Gisela Mota Ocampo, also belonging to the PRD party, who was assassinated a few hours after taking office on January 2, 2016.

Fifth Communicator Assassinated in Mexico in Less Than Two Months

Photo: Raúl Pérez / Proceso

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

Journalist and activist Juan José Roldán, 36, became the fifth journalist killed in the last two months after his body was found with signs of torture on a dirt road in the state of Tlaxcala, the Union of Tlaxcala Journalists (UPET) reported.

Members of the UPET reported that Roldán’s body was discovered Sunday morning in the municipality of Calpulalpan, when the 911 emergency service reported finding a man without vital signs.

Therefore, UPET demanded a transparent and immediate investigation to punish those responsible, and in agreement with the state attorney general’s office (PGJE), they have already begun work to clarify the incident.

Juan José Roldán

On April 14, another communicator in charge of the police section of a blog in Baja California Sur was assassinated, while in March, the murder victims were Journalist Ricardo Monlui in Veracruz, Cecilio Pineda in Guerrero, and Miroslava Breach in Chihuahua.  In addition, the reporter and director of the newspaper La Opinión de Poza Rica, Armando Arrieta Granados, was seriously injured after being shot in Veracruz, as he is still in recovery.  None of the above cases have been solved yet.

Regarding Veracruz, the state continues to be the one that poses the greatest danger to journalists, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (ONU-DH) in Mexico.

Social Media Reports On Shootouts in Nochistlán, Zacatecas

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

Dozens of citizens and neighbors of the municipality of Nochistlán de Mejía, located at 224 kilometers south of the capital of Zacatecas reported on a violent shootout through various social networks that lasted for several hours during the early hours of Wednesday without the authorities having so far issued an official communication in regards to the incident.

Various videos and messages of the citizenship recorded the events where strong machinegun bursts can be heard throughout various parts of the area where the presence of armed groups in the area has been denounced.

The “magical town” of Nochistlán has been a disputed area of alleged members of organized crime who are fighting for the drug trafficking corridor bordering both the north and northwest with the municipality of Jalapa, south with Yahualica in Jalisco, to the east with Apulco, to the west of the municipalities of Juchipila and Apozol, to the north and northeast with Teocaltiche in Jalisco and finally to the south bordering with the municipality of Mezticacán, also located in Jalisco.

Neighbors of the area alerted on the presence of trucks with armed men on board moving throughout highways and roads as well as in the urban area of Nochistlán.

Source: ZHN

“Video 2: Shootout some moments ago in Nochistlán, the following video shows the northern outskirts of the municipality as the two convoys of armed subjects attacked each other.”

Additional Videos:

Bloody Holy Thursday

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

Reynosa, Tamaulipas— Members of the Mexican military, marines, and Fuerza Tamaulipas repelled attacks by armed groups yesterday in the cities of Matamoros and Río Bravo, in a battle scenario that left a total of 10 dead: six aggressors killed and four others were executed with a coup de grâce in a dispute between rival groups.

In the municipality of Río Bravo, members of the Navy of Mexico responded to gunfire in two separate incidents that killed four suspects belonging to organized crime groups.

The first violent incident occurred in the neighborhoods Paraíso and Paraíso Norte, where several individuals traveling in a pickup truck with Texas plates fired on the Mexican Navy, who were carrying out patrols.

The infantrymen repelled the aggression and a persecution was unleashed in the area.  After the confrontation, one of the alleged offenders died and the navy seized a vehicle, a high-powered weapon, and communication equipment.

Through a statement, the Tamaulipas Coordination Group specified that later, another group of individuals on board two trucks attacked members of the navy, as it passed through gap #109, located at kilometer 14, in the rural area of the municipality.

These events resulted in the deaths of three alleged delinquents, which had assault weapons, magazines, and various equipment.  

In social networks, it was said that one of the armed clashes resulted in the death of a man known as “Comandante Charmín.”

Ministerial authorities were informed of the two assaults on navy personnel, in order to follow up on corresponding investigations.

Rival Groups

Protected By Autodefensas, Students Return To School in San Miguel Totolapan

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

Guerrero— Protected by autodefensas, students from San Miguel Totolapan returned to school on Monday, March 20, after schools at different educational levels (preschool, primary, secondary, and upper secondary) closed for three months because of the presence of the criminal group “Los Tequileros”.

According to information from the newspaper El Sur, autodefensa members known as “Movimiento de La Paz” are responsible for protecting students.

Federal and state authorities have been ignorant of the problem of violence and insecurity experienced by the inhabitants of the municipality, so that neither members of the different state police units nor the Mexican Army have been present to provide protection in the area.

In the municipal seat, there are three kindergartens, three primary schools, two secondary and upper secondary schools, some of which have closed their doors since January for fear of Los Tequileros.

And this criminal group is the main perpetrator of the kidnappings, extortions, and homicides that have been registered during the last three years in the Tierra Caliente region in Guerrero.

Therefore, autodefensa members have been responsible for providing protection not only to the students, but also to the teachers and workers of these institutions.

Cristian Was Kidnapped In Chilapa, Guerrero; He Was Found With a Bullet in the Head Next To another Minor

Cuartoscuro Archive

Last Saturday, Cristian left his house after midday to do homework with some of his classmates.  He told his parents that from there, he would go to see his girlfriend and that he would be back late, but he didn’t return.  Cristian was kidnapped by armed men and someone told his parents that they saw him when they took him in a taxi with tinted windows, after that, they didn’t know about his whereabouts until the following Monday when he was found in the neighborhood Panorámica, located east of Chilpancingo.  Next to him was the body of Luis, a 16-year-old boy from Xocomulco, located in the municipality of Chilapa.  Luis also had a bullet to his head.

By: Zacarias Cervantes | Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

March 11, 2017— During the funeral of Cristian Peralta Rendón, there wasn’t just crying, there was also anger, despair, rage and calls for justice to the government on the part of their relatives and friends.

They boy was 14 years old and was studying his second year of secondary school in Chilapa, where gunmen kidnapped him on Saturday, March 4 and on Monday, March 6, he was found seriously wounded in a neighborhood east of Chilpancingo next to the corpse of another boy.

Cristian only had on a pair of boxers and had a bullet in the head.  He was transferred alive to the hospital Raymundo Abarca Alarcón where he died Wednesday morning.

After midday on Thursday, Cristian’s body was transferred from his home on Calle 8 Sur de Chilapa to the cemetery where his relatives, friends, and neighbors buried him.

The Santa Fe, Veracruz Grave

The latest report of the exhumation work in the collective grave of Colinas de Santa Fe in Veracruz highlights that most of the remains found in the grave are of young high school and college aged men and women.  The search groups narrate that they haven’t walked through half of the land and they don’t stop from discovering corpses.  People continue to disappear in Veracruz, in the context of the war declared by the delinquency against the local government.  240 bodies from 170 clandestine graves have been exhumed.

By: Ignacio Carvajal García | Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

Mexico City/Veracruz, March 7, 2017— Blogexpediente had access to the latest report on exhumation work in the collective graves of Colinas de Santa Fe, and what stands out the most of the 240 bodies exhumed so far is that they mostly consist of young people.

The last cutoff on the works in the collective graves of Colinas de Santa Fe state that 240 bodies from 117 clandestine graves have been exhumed.

And in the middle of the cluster of bodies, the mothers of the collective Solecito, who are actively working in this grave, what has surprised them is the high number of young people among the victims.

“Most of them are young people, women and guys, although people with gray hairs have also been found, despite the advanced state of decomposition, that detail has been observed,” said a source close to the work on the grave, at the request of anonymity.

Among the findings of the various graves, which show the slaughter of young people; clothing, footwear, and intimate clothing corresponding to the ages of 14 and 25 are also abundant.

The information that this medium accessed shows that the finding of bodies far from diminishing increases, and these graves are not even half of the terrain.

The last cutoff on the works in the collective graves of Colinas de Santa Fe state that 240 bodies from 117 clandestine graves have been exhumed. Photo: Cuartoscuro Archive

They consist of 125 graves located until the beginning of March, of which 177 have been worked on, which have resulted in the findings of 240 skulls, which is equal to the number of victims, more than half, correspond to boys who were high school or college aged.

Michoacán Journalist Assassinated; Had Previously Denounced Death Threats Against Him

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

On Thursday, journalist Cecilio Pineda Brito was assassinated in Ciudad Altamirano, located in the Tierra Caliente region.  The incident happened around 19:30 hours.

It has been reported that the Cecilio was in a car wash when they opened fire on him.  It should be noted that  Cecilio Poneda worked in the newspaper Despertar del Sur, in the weekly La Voz de Tierra Caliente, as well as collaborating in La Jornada Guerrero and El Universal; he lived in Riva Palacio, Michoacán.

He wrote for the police section.  According to a report, gunmen aboard a motorcycle arrived and fired towards Cecilio who was lying in a hammock in the car wash.

Pineda was seriously injured, however, he died while he was being treated by paramedics who arrived aboard an ambulance.  Previously, through his Facebook account, the journalist had reported that he received death threats from organized crime.

This is not the first time that the reporter for La Voz de Tierra Caliente had suffered from an armed attack.

In September 2015, according to information from the newspaper El Sur de Guerrero, Pineda survived a gunshot attack.

In November of last year, Animal Político released a report from the organization Artículo 19 that indicates that 2016 had been the year with the most murders of journalists in the six years of the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto.

OPINION: Mireles Is Dead! (To The Media)

Father Gregorio López Gerónimo | Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

My primary intention when I first translated the article wasn’t to create misinformation or write a “fake news” piece or “clickbait” as other websites have done and as I have been accused of.  I know I should’ve added a disclaimer the first time I published this piece but I forgot to and I posted it in a hurry and for that, I apologize.  I was hoping that readers would read the article and make sense of the metaphors Father Goyo was alluding to. - V

 

Today, February 24, 2017, four years after the surgeon, in the repletion of violence and impunity, he left his practice and joined the men and women who decided to leave their anonymity and cowardice to be the voice of those “without voice”; after his heroic deed, José Manuel Mireles Valverde is dead and nothing could be expected from the criminal government of Enrique Peña Nieto, who has murdered him as he did with the 43 young men of Ayotzinapa, and as with other innocents in Tatlaya, Tanuhato y Apatzingán.

Only a state crime of such magnitude is possible, when the government is usurped by those who do not possess the slightest intuition of law, justice, dignity, or human rights.  Foolishness is abused when someone is condemned to life imprisonment when that person is recognized for his innocence and courage, leaving in exchange seven free and covered up former governors in payment for political favors and who have plunged 39 million inhabitants, from the states that they have stolen from, into misery.

An outrage is also committed when the privileges of house arrest is granted to Elba Esther Gordillo, who today has 20 million children falling behind in education; as well as when in Michoacán, it releases another scum of the same party of the institutionalized corruption for seven thousand pesos.

For the current administration, it is not a crime to steal education and the future of a generation, to wring out jobs and the livelihood of a people, nor to collaborate with criminal organizations in the disappearance of more than three thousand Michoacanos.  However, it takes a weapon, to defend itself in a failed state, where there was no law, no justice, and no rule of law; only corruption, impunity, kidnappings, uprisings, and deaths.

Four years after the historic February 24, 2013, Mireles has died for defending life.  His agony began on June 27, 2014, when Alfredo Castillo took him to jail so that he wouldn’t interfere with the Port of Lázaro Cárdenas, where the juicy businesses of the dominant cartel are.  From that moment, Mireles began to be veiled by the Mexican people; unaware that that’s how it was done while he reviewed the media obituary in the police sections of the newspapers.

Michoacán: Shootout Leaves 8 Dead

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

Eight people were found dead after two groups of organized crime clashed with each other.

The shootout took place on Tuesday in the municipality of Múgica with the dead bodies of six people identified as Miguel C., Crisóforo M., Narciso P., Carlos I., Saúl I. and Moisés G., who were inhabitants of Múgica and La Piedad.

Later, on Wednesday, February 22, 2017, two other shot up bodies were found while another man was arrested in a hospital in Apatzingán where he was being treated for a gunshot wound in his leg.  The man identified as Uriel G., also had other bruises.  It is thought that he also participated in the shooting.

Morelos: Two Families Attacked on Separate Occasions, 5 Dead

By: Jaime Luis Brito | Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

Cuernavaca, Morelos. — Two families were shot in the municipalities of Cuernavaca and Jiutepec, leaving five people dead.

 In the first instance, three members of a family, among them a 10 year old girl, were killed by gunfire this past Sunday (Feb. 19) morning in the neighborhood Lomas de Ahuatlán, located north of Cuernavaca.

Two of the victims, a woman and a ten year old girl, were found aboard a gray Nissan Tsuru, with plates from Mexico City.  While the third victim, a man, was lying outside the vehicle, on the street, Santa Ana de Amanalco.

Police forces belonging to the State Commission of Security, Attorney General of Justice, and other organizations arrived at the scene in order to carry out investigations and to remove the bodies.

At about the same time, a group of armed men attacked several people in a cemetery located in the Jardín Juárez neighborhood in Jiutepec, where at least two of them died: a man at the scene and a woman on the way to the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) hospital.

According to the police reports, a man, a 9 and a 10 year old minor, and two women, were outside a cemetery on Jesús Achavitia Street when a white Suburban attacked them.

The man, who was in a metropolitan taxi, died at the scene.  Meanwhile, the other victims were transferred to the clinic #1 of the IMSS, located on Plan de Ayala Avenue in Cuernavaca.  One of the wounded women died along the way to the clinic.

On February 6, in the neighborhood Lauro Ortega in the municipality of Temixco, a family of five was attacked.  All were wounded, while three died: two men and an eight month old girl.

This past weekend, other violent acts occurred:

The Effects of the Disappearance of a Parent

By Edgar Avila | Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

When violence knocked on the door of his house, it struck everyone equally, even the smallest in the family.

The disappearance of the head of the family left in the limbo any explanation that could be given to Marcos, 6, to call it somehow, because the fear left by the incursion of crime in his home still does not let them fully adhere back into their old daily life.

The father of the child, Juan Manuel, 28, was swallowed up by the land in the port of Veracruz, as well as the other 2,312 veracruzanos who only exist in the official figures of denouncements, but who were physically absent from their homes in the middle of a war between drug cartels, the official fight against crime and many other factors.

It was in 2013 when they never again heard from the man, although they discovered that the last time he was seen alive, he had been “detained” by alleged police officers, a version that they have not yet been able to verify.

“How do you explain to a child that his father is missing, that he isn’t dead, that he’s alive, but that he is not with us,” says his mother.  They have not yet found a way to tell him, because she doesn’t even known if her husband “went to heaven” or if he’s still in captivity.

10 Years of Mexico's War on Drugs, In Pictures

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

Former President Felipe Calderón declared the war against drug trafficking on December 11, 2006, in Mexico, leaving an outcome calculated with over 27,000 people disappeared, 150,000 dead, and 280,000 displaced from their home.  

December 11, 2016, marked the 10 year anniversary of Mexico's War on Drugs.

 

Former President Felipe Calderón watches a military vehicle on top of a pile of weapons confiscated in Ciudad Juárez.  The PANista unleashed the war on drugs on December 11, 2006.  Photo: AP / Eduardo Verdugo

In this archived photo of January 12, 2014, men belonging to the autodefensas of Michoacán travel on board a truck full of sandbags as they try to expel alleged members of the Knights Templar Cartel from the city of Nueva Italia, México.  Photo: AP / Eduardo Verdugo

In this photo from October 9, 2009, the corpse of an unidentified man beaten and mutilated hangs from his neck under a bridge on the old road Rosarito, in Tijuana.  Photo: AP / Guillermo Arias

Activists That Revealed Patrocinio, Coahuila “Extermination Camp” Find 5,000 Bone Remains in Viesca

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

Silvia Ortiz, spokeswoman for the group Víctimas por sus Desaparecidos en Acción (VIDA), said that last Saturday, they found more skeletal remains, molars, and gun casings on a property in the locality Estación Claudio.

Mexico City, Mexico, December 13, 2016 (SinEmbargo) – More than 5,000 human remains were found on a site in the municipality of Viesca, Coahuila, by the same organization that revealed the existence of the “extermination camp” in the common land of Patrocinio.

Silvia Ortiz, spokeswoman for the group Víctimas por sus Desaparecidos en Acción (VIDA), said that last Saturday, they found more skeletal remains, molars, and gun casings on a property in the locality Estación Claudio.

This is the fourth time that the relatives of the disappeared have searched the place this year.  And for two years now, the families of the disappeared have searched the area in search of their relatives.

The property measures around three hectares, although it was only possible to check a quadrant of about 100 square meters, an activist told the newspaper Reforma.  Patrocinio measures around 43 hectares (106 acres).

“The forensic police told us that Estación Claudio is a small Patrocinio, they found about 5,000 [remains], but it still hasn’t finished searching the area,” Ortiz told the national media outlet.

“The woman told Reforma that it is necessary to continue the searches on both sides “but not only those of the forensics, the PGJE [Prosecutor General of Justice of the State of Coahuila] was supposed to help them, but no, they are now asking for the collaboration so that they can go to Claudio and for the others to continue in Patrocinio.”

Silvia Ortiz told El Siglo de Torreón that she expects these tasks to intensify at least this week because they will be suspended for the holiday period.

Forced Disappearance in Veracruz

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

The state of Veracruz is one of the states of Mexico whose residents have suffered through the disappearances of their relatives.  Since December 2010, the local government has recorded more than 650 cases according to official figures from the National Public Security System [SNSP].  But in a state in which victims blame the authorities for their complicity, the testimonies of the bereaved women agree that the black figure of this terrible phenomenon, associated with organized crime, is very high.

The presence of Los Zetas and its rivals, such as The Knights Templar Cartel and The Jalisco New Generation Cartel have led to the murder of hundreds or thousands of people whose bodies have been hidden in at least 144 illegal graves recorded by the Attorney General of Mexico (PGR) between 2006 and 2013.  Because of this, the magnitude of the crisis that the state lives through could be worse than what we know so far.

Although the disappearances have been counted from years ago, it wasn’t until 2016 when the first public search brigades were organized in the state which soon found dozens of clandestine graves in several cities in Veracruz.

VICE News interviews the women who have been part of these committees to find out what their efforts are in finding their missing relatives.

On December 1, 2016, Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares (PAN) took office as the new governor of Veracruz, a state marked by the economic crisis and corruption left by his predecessor, Javier Duarte (PRI), who is currently a fugitive from the Mexican justice system.

Source: Vice