The town's mayor believes 30 to 40 Allende families were exterminated, and he has a list of 34 houses that were destroyed. Ten years later, the case has wide-ranging implications after investigative reporting in the U.S. and Mexico have linked the massacre to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and top Mexican security institutions. For reference to U.S. training and other background, see our previous Electronic Briefing Book, especially Document 1 and Document 2. Senior officers, including the police director, commander, and shift commanders, were paid more handsomely than regular cops. . Most of them, he said, were killed and cremated inside the state prison in Piedras Negras. Report Criticizes Mexican Officials for Ignoring 2011 Massacre The US shares the blame for a massacre in Mexico A self-described foca (lookout) for the Zetas, he had been found sleeping on the job. For years after the massacre, Mexican authorities made only desultory efforts to investigate. Sergio Aguayo is a prominent Mexican human rights investigator at the Colegio de Mexico, which last year launched an independent probe into the Allende massacre. Schamus presents the trailer and key art for his new drama series Somos. A fire department volunteer described the scene as they approached. What is clear is that the failure to do so sealed the fates of an untold number of victims who were murdered at the ranch later that night. 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. Many of the victims were ordinary laborers at the Garza properties. They watched as gang members led their victims into a larger shed near the back. When the Zetas arrived in Allende a decade ago, they infiltrated the very . And I remember what he said to me: Don't be an ass. 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. Large swaths of northeastern Mexico have been under the de facto control of drug cartels for more than a decade despite the promises of successive governments to rein in the criminal groups and root out the corrupt officials who have made it all possible. The truth is I accepted them, one said of the payments, because I needed to take care of my family, and also because they told us that we had to enter the ring, because if we didnt, they were going to harm us, or kill us or someone from our family. He explained why, after16 years on the force, he finally quit the Allende police late in 2011. He told her about other people from the region who the Zetas had kidnapped and killed, including a pregnant teenager and the nephew of the former mayor of Piedras Negras. Remembering the Allende Massacre - BlogTest Vasquez then ordered that the father be killed. Washington, D.C., 20037, Phone: 202/994-7000 [17] The Zetas member is not identified in the text but from context appears to be El Canelo. [A]t that time I lived in La Colonia Presidentes, and I knew all of these people because they were from the town. December 9, 2020, Six Years On, Ayotzinapa Investigations Advance In March 2011, The Zetas They carried out a massacre in the municipality of Allende, Coahuila, which did not receive the attention of the media at the time, until many years later. Tracing the missing. What they saw, before fleeing for their lives, was the beginning of the grimly methodical process often used by the Zetas to destroy the bodies of their victimsto eliminate the primary evidence of the crime. In March 2011 witnesses say the notorious Zetas cartel abducted at least 300 people in northern Mexico, but a local investigation still has a long way to go to identity all the perpetrators - and . The attack . Declassified Documents on the San Fernando Massacre & Violence against Migrants in Northeastern Mexican States . With thousands of abductions in Mexico, families keep searching for the [At the meeting] were the mayor, the city council secretary , the person in charge of civil protection the police director and me. September 26, 2019, FiftyYears After Tlatelolco, Censoring the Mexican Archives: Mexico's "Dirty War" Files Withdrawn from Public Access Published September 10, 2021. On the night of March 20, 2011, four firefighters arrived at a ranch along a stretch of rural highway linking the northern Mexico towns of Allende and Villa Unin. That is to say, the [Garza] ranch. [11] A portion of the Prez Iruegas complaint was previously published by Zcalo, revealing some of the parts that were redacted in the version released by CNDH (shown here in brackets). But as the investigation picked up steam in 2014, dozens of people, including local firefighters, law enforcement officers, civilian eyewitnesses, and municipal officials, came forward to describe a city government almost completely immersed in the criminal structure of Los Zetas, including the mayor and top police officials. [T]hey gave [Trevio] a quota of 10,000 pesos [about $850 USD] every 20 days, and he did not get involved in what [deleted] was doing. Whereas, according to a 2016 interview of Coahuila attorney general Homero Ramos Gloria, the Mexican government has identified only 28 human remains and 54 . One of the guys that went with Pala, who was nicknamed [El Cabezn,] forced me to kill one of the men, and [forced Chucho to do the same.] For which reason I left the circus and I parked about two blocks from the house And outside the house I saw a red, four-door, Chevrolet pick-up truck with a bull bar [tumba burros] on the front. Mexican President Consoles Family of Massacre Victims. Allende, Coahuila, municipio donde se perpetr una masacre, en 2011. Based on Ginger Thompson's 2017 oral history, "How the U.S. September 29, 2020, Five Years Later, the Search Continues 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. And he told me to get out of the house and to go to my moms house [W]hen I got to my moms house, my husband called again to tell me that things were getting really ugly; that they had broken into my house and stolen our truck.- Complaint of Sarah Angelita Lira, November 11, 2014. Subscribe. It's tranquil now in Allende, but 300 are still missing - Mexico News Daily Somos ("We are" or "We Exist" in English) is a Spanish Television Mini-Series based on the ProPublica article " How the U.S. triggered a massacre in Mexico. [His mother] told him that they were shooting up the house I could hear the shots and that she was shouting very desperately. And there were approximately from seven to ten people that we tied up with rats tails. A cartel war has transformed once-tranquil Guanajuato into one of Mexico's deadliest states. [A]nd how the Zetas were shouting at them and hitting and mistreating them, the then-chief of the department told investigators in his 2014 statement to state prosecutors. Cartel Assassin Involved in Allende Massacre Sentenced to Life in I could see that the owners of the ranch were there, since I could identify [Jos Luis Garza,] Mrs. [Alma Patricia,] their son [Julio Csar Garza, Rodolfo Garza, and] his daughter, whose name was [Nora Liliana Garza de la Torre.] What Do American Officials Know About the Allende Massacre? Prosecutors said at least a dozen specially trained police officials may also have been involved. US Intelligence Helped Cause 2011 Massacre in Mexico The money went through the [police] commander, which he then delivered to the RTs [shift commanders] and from them to the rest of us police officials. Claudia Snchez last saw her son, Gerardo Heath, around 9:30 PM on March 18 when he left their home in Piedras Negras to visit a friend who lived down the street. The wife of another victim, a heavy machinery mechanic who worked for the Garza family, also went looking for her husband on the morning of the March 19. Jimnez told authorities that local Zetas leaders sent him to the ranch as part of an all-out assault on people and properties associated with the Garza family. The name "Allende" is in honor of Ignacio Allende, a hero of Mexico's War of Independence.The town's folk hero is Arnulfo Gonzlez who was gunned down in the mid-1920s, and has a "corrido" sung by artists such as Vicente Fernndez and many others. The original Zetas are former members-turned-deserters of Mexicos elite Airmobile Special Forces Group (GAFE), trained in the U.S. at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, GA. The George Washington University "This new law is requiring all foreign agents to report any interaction with Mexico. Later on the following Sunday, with all of those people locked up at the ranch, around 8:30 or 9:00 at night, I accompanied Comandante 7 and [Comandante Pala], together with various estacas, among others that I recall were [El Canelo, El Cubano, El Chilero, El Panda, El Ruso, El Flacaman, El Cabe and El Meno,] together with a municipal police patrol [in which were riding police officers Guadalupe valos Orozco, La Lupe, and Jess Alejandro Bernal Guerrero,] to a house on [Cuauhtmoc] Street in the Center of Allende, which is where Vctor Garza lived. What actions had they taken to guarantee the security of the people of Allende? In written statements, both themayorand thepolice director said they had only limited contemporaneous understanding of the events of March 18-20, 2011, and claimed that they did not receive any reports about the violence as it was happening. After what happened to my spouse in May 2010, approximately one year later, in June 2011, [his captor] started looking for me according to him because my ex-spouse put him in charge of telling [me] what had happened to him He told me many things related with acts of violence in the region and I knew from his own words that he was an assassin for the Zetas cartel, and as we built some trust, I asked him various things.- Complaint of wife of murdered Zeta, November 13, 2014, He told her how the Zetas had killed someones grandson, probably a reference to Mauricio Espinoza, whose grandmother, Elvira Espinoza, was one of the first to report disappearances in Allende. Allende is a small town southwest of Piedras Negras, Mexico and is the site of a massacre by the drug cartel, Los Zetas. December 9, 2020, Advirti EU riesgo ante mandos mexicanos corruptos 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. They picked me up, and, for having fallen asleep, they gave me ten blows on my buttocks with a board, and they gave me shocks [sapones] to the head [T]hey tied up my feet and hands with tape. He said that as many as ten of his family members disappeared that day, including Vctor, Alma, and their youngest son Julio Csar. I n the dead of night on Jan. 28, 1918, a group of white Texas Rangers, U.S. military men and local ranchers burst into the homes of Mexican and Mexican American . The soldiers found doors torn off, the building sacked, spent shell casings, dead animals, burned buildings, and a pick-up truck riddled with bullet holes, but no people. See Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. [Rodolfo] came home all covered in grease, ate, and later, as we sat outside smoking a cigarette, he told me, Things are getting to be a real pain in the ass, but he didnt tell me anything else, and we were there for about ten minutes. Through the gate, she could see what appeared to be bodies piled up next to a burning building. Just a few people. US Intelligence Helped Cause 2011 Massacre in Mexico The cartel allegedly turned this storage shed, which held equipment and animal feed, into an incinerator for the . The situation was especially dire in Piedras Negras, where Los Zetas had turned the state prison into a center of operations. Beyond criminal prosecutions, the Mexican government also has a specific legal obligation to divulge information related to cases, like Allende, that constitute clear violations of human rights and humanitarian law, raising the hope that additional information may come to light through the countrys access to information law. Witnesses Described Defendant's Participation in the 2011 Allende Massacre, Where Over 100 Men, Women, and Children Were Slaughtered by the Zetas Cartel PLANO, Texas - A Mexican national and high-ranking member of the Los Zetas cartel received a life sentence for drug trafficking violations in the Eastern District of Texas, announced Acting . 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. Source: ProPublica. Somos. [H]e was telling me that he wanted to look for the Zetas to see what they were asking for the return of his family. Netflix series inspired by story of 2011 massacre in Allende, Coahuila Los Zetas Drug Cartel Sicario and Piedras Negras Plaza Boss Sentenced Over the course of six episodes, "Somos." gives a platform to the victims of the Allende massacre to tell their stories. I dont know who those people were, just that they were people that the police detained or his own people that he ordered be locked up when they handled themselves badly, or people with whom he had a disagreement [tuviera pedos]. Please do not fill in this field. 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. Other witnesses said that the citys top official ignored urgent pleas that he request assistance from state or federal law enforcement to help quell the violence. Horrifying Allende massacre still haunts Mexico. The acrid odor of diesel fuel hung in the air. The missing from the Allende massacre are among the 13,000 the . Arts & Culture. In Coahuila we were hearing the word being passed from municipality to municipality, about a large scale Zeta massacre in several towns of "The Five Springs", (Los Cinco Manantiales) including Allende. We continued to advance until we arrived at the ranch, where I saw that there were several police patrols from this city, colored white and blue, and a number of police, among others I remember [deleted], [Mara Guadalupe Avalos,] [deleted,] the director And it seemed like the police were guarding the place. De Len also remembered the moment, as they were leaving, when he saw the Zetas lead the victims into the bodega. [6] CDN is reportedly led by Juan Gerardo Trevio Chvez (El Huevo), nephew of former Zetas leaders Miguel ngel Trevio Morales (Z-40) and Omar Trevio Morales (Z-42), according to this press release from the U.S. Department of Justice. Los Zetas Cartel Used Network of Ovens to Hide Mass - Breitbart Sep 28, 2022, 5:00 AM SGT. Zetas - InSight Crime Chilling New Report Cites Greater Death Toll in Allende Massacre Mexican cartel war transforms Guanajuato into a deadly place - Los In return for the departments cooperation, most officers received 2,000 to 3,000 pesos per month (about $175-260 USD) from Los Zetas. 1:07. There were other people in civilian clothes who carried long arms, and these people were Los Zetas, since I realized that there at the [Garza] ranch were [El Pala,] whose name is [Fernando Ros Bustos]; [El Canelo,] whose name is [Germn Zaragoza Snchez]; [El Cubano], whose name is [Juan Rafael Arredondo Oviedo]; [El Pjaro], whose name is [Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar]; [El Flacaman,] whose name is [Gabriel Zaragoza Snchez,] among other people, some of whom I did not know, but they seemed to be from the south since they wore sandals and carried machetes. In February, 2014, members of the Army, Navy, State, and . One installment revealedthat officials from the Mexican Army and the top civilian intelligence agency (CISEN) within days knew key details about the massacre, including that Poncho Cuellar had fled to the U.S. with a stash of cartel money and was talking to the DEA. April 16, 2018, US: Mexico Mass Graves Raise "Alarming Questions" about Government "Complicity" in September 2014 Cartel Killings Elvira Espinoza told investigators about the day, about a week later, when she found two of her three missing grandchildren at an orphanage in Piedras Negras. It is not clear why members of the the military unit thatexamined the ranch did not secure the property or, evidently, take any additional steps to comprehend what was happening in Allende. According to testimony, Vasquez did so because he and other Los Zetas wanted the father to suffer. Armando Castilla, the publisher of the newspaper Vanguardia de Coahuila, says his publication was the first to report the case, in December 2013. Lilianas brother, Rodolfo Garza, Jr., last heard from her around six or seven oclock that evening. Fax: 202/994-7005Contact by email. 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 . In the U.S., the prosecutions of Reyes Arzate and others are likely to result in the collection of significant new evidence on the Allende case, including the testimony of Reyes himself, the statements of former Zetas, and key DEA records from the period in question. And that if we didn't obey, they were going to fuck us and our families. An important moment seems to have come in March 2015, when state investigatorssaw a familiar patternemerge in three seemingly unrelated cases. He told her to cancel the birthday party they were planning for her the next week. A story about the 2011 massacre in the Mexican border town of Allende Another explained that he stopped cooperating with the Zetas after they kidnapped his father. LAS CRUCES - On Feb. 10, 1990, two men walked into a Las Cruces bowling alley and shot seven people execution style including four children robbed the bowling alley's safe and set . She told me that around 5:30 in the afternoon she came across the pick-up truck that came for my husband, and that had been circulating up and down Calle Independencia, and that her father was on board the truck together with about five other people, and that he was in the cabin in the back, in the middle, and that the truck was followed by two black late-model cars, Malibu or Impala, and the three vehicles headed for the mountain; this being the last time they saw my husband.- Complaint of wife of victim Rodolfo Snchez Robles, November 10, 2014. It was approximately 7:00 or 7:20 in the evening, which is the hour of the shift change. For the family members, nothing has changed. Zetas. Closer look at massacre in Mexico reveals glimpse of corruption Witnesses said the recent killings came after CDN members entered the town days earlier in search of rival gang members. The story of the Allende Massacre from the words of eye witnesses A disturbing report released today by researchers at the prestigious Colegio de Mexico provides new details about a 2011 massacre in Allende, a quiet Mexican ranching town less than an hour's drive from the United States, and suggests that many more people were killed in the incident than estimated by Mexican authorities.
Anita Feherty Age, Articles A
Anita Feherty Age, Articles A