Mexico: Murders, disappearances and torture cases in Coahuila de Zaragoza constitute crimes against humanity

Improvised tank. Used to combust human remains bathed in diesel. The orifices
allow the air to guarantee combustion going. PGR Offices Coahuila, June 2017. 
“[Zeta's cartel in the region] acting can be summarized in the following equation:
The more brutal [acts were perpetrated], a rising fear overcame the population, a higher subjugation from authorities, a greater silence in the media, and  adding up to all these, an incontestable control over the territory they operated in”.

"[...] The Zetas transformed the traditional way in which cartels operated in Mexico. They became a professional weaponized arm, with aggressive expansive aspirations over several criminal activities. A good part of this transformation was due to the fact that the Zetas infused a territorial "brand" to the business, where [...] they had to control everything to minimize risks."

© Photograph: Tomas Bravo/Reuters
"[...] Today, it is known, that since 2008, the CERESO [Centro de Readaptación Social or penitentiary system] in Coahuila, located in Piedras Negras municipality, was transformed into an operation center for the Zetas. The "jailed" zetas exited and entered the state prison, and in the interior of the compound, elaborated the material they needed for their criminal activities (bulletproof vests, fake police uniforms and false military material, modified car structures, etc.). [Ironically, I might add] In the same way, the zetas hid inside the prison when chased after the federal forces. After some time went by, the compound also 'started operating as a reception center for the zeta cells victims that operated in Coahuila', becoming an extermination camp. [...] at least 150 of these victims, were dragged, tortured, dismembered and eliminated, through the use of acid and/or fire in steel tanks."

" [...] In [...] August 2009, and the apparent will of fighting narco, Jesús Torres Charles, acting as fiscal, formed the Immediate Reaction Group (GRI) with 64 officers chosen from 700 candidates. [...] In consequence, the creation of this special group opened up the registry of crimes committed directly by public security corporations, such as the GRI and the ones that followed after."

"[...] Jorge Juan Torres, a PRI member was appointed as interim governor by the Coahuila Congress for the January-November period in 2011. [...] During the period, violence continued and escalated in Coahuila."

"[...] In this period, a date must be highlighted, the 'Allende Massacre' in March 2011, in that same  municipality and nearby areas, apparently by a settle of accounts amongst the Zetas":
[...] what happened in Allende didn’t have its origins in Mexico. It began in the United States, when the Drug Enforcement Administration scored an unexpected coup. An agent persuaded a high-level Zetas operative to hand over the trackable cellphone identification numbers for two of the cartel’s most wanted kingpins, Miguel Ángel Treviño and his ​brother Omar.

Then the DEA took a gamble. It shared the intelligence with a Mexican federal police unit that has long had problems with leaks — even though its members had been trained and vetted by the DEA. Almost immediately, the Treviños learned they’d been betrayed. The brothers set out to exact vengeance against the presumed snitches, their families and anyone remotely connected to them. [source]

"[...] Amongst the sequestered, there were complete families, men women, old and young. The extractions [from their homes] lasted several days, and according to testimonies [...], they also included people from nearby zones, Piedras Negras, Múzquiz and Sabina. The Zetas, thereafter called for looting and the houses were vandalized, shot, burnt and finally bulldozed under the presence of the whole town. Everything done in broad daylight, without authorities nor police intervention. 'Nobody intervened, nobody put up a fight with the hitmen [can you blame them?] as dozens of people were taken from their houses to be partaken of a terrible vengeance'. Quite contrary, other testimonies, also narrate of how security forces also collaborated. According to the aftermath testimonies, [Allende's] neighbors and Zeta members, from 200 to 300 people had disappeared and 10 thousand ran away".

"[...] According to Article 7(2)(a) of the Rome Statute, an attack 'is a line of conduct that implies the multiple number of acts, mentioned in paragraph 1 against the civil population' as means of promoting the politics of a state or any organization to commit those attacks'. According to those Crime Elements, a military attack is not necessary".

The material that follows in the publication, details some of the types of tortures exerted on 32 cases from 77 victims in Coahuila, which I just can't translate. They are too hard to fathom in one language. The only detail I will provide which broke my heart was that some of these victims "were repeatedly, presented before the media as delinquents, without any condemnatory sentence"... Can anyone grasp the sadism behind the perverse mechanism of appearances? 

It also shows the political and military connections with the Zetas from 2006 to our days that have allowed these mechanisms to prevail in the region.

Under a tight surveillance, Coahuila government
demolishing evidence in Allende
I used to think Mexico was surreal, but in a magical sense. Nowadays I can't help but feel we're in a vanishing ball magic trick that is not guided by the dexterity of hands and fingers but where the the government keeps us looking for the truth, for the disappeared, the missing, our victims in prisons through the cracks of legal orifices, for glimpses of justice in our regions, while the cartels "allegedly" bet and win while they lure us to bet upon "solid" pieces of information that quickly get silenced or spied by our government. Later, militaries, cartels and police forces split the profits with a clear winner over an eternal bloodshed of towns, empty plazas and raided hope.


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