[At the meeting] were the mayor, the city council secretary , the person in charge of civil protection the police director and me. 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 . When he arrived, he told me and the other workers of the ranch to leave; that there had been a ruckus there; that armed, masked people told him to get inside; and that we should not get involved and should leave the ranch. Through the gate, she could see what appeared to be bodies piled up next to a burning building. 'We are.', Miniseries of Netflix which is based on the report by journalist Ginger Thompson, fiction this harsh reality. And this began to occur more or less in the years 2010 and 2011, which was about when Los Zetas got started in the region.- Declaration of former Allende police official, November 12, 2014, 15:20. 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 . 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. En 2011, cuando el cartel de Los Zetas dominaba el noreste de Mxico, ocurri una masacre en la localidad de Allende, Coahuila, de la que poco se conoci. [W]hen the Zetas realized that we were there, they said to us, Youd better get the hell out of here, motherfuckers! That was just one week in late January when the government said Guanajuato, which has around 5% of Mexico's population, suffered 20% of its homicides. And what I did, in that place, together with [Chucho] was carry containers filled with gasoline and diesel to the bodega, which was filled with hay. Garza Gaytnwas a member of a Los Zetas cell led by Mario Alfonso Poncho Cuellar, a former Mexican federal police officer. Declassified Documents on the San Fernando Massacre & Violence against Migrants in Northeastern Mexican States . [12] While the names of Zetas, police officials, and witnesses are for the most part redacted in the volumes released through CNDH, a previously published portion of El Pjaros declaration reveals some of those redacted names. Meanwhile, criminal violence continues to soar in Mexico, with the Cartel of the Northeast (CDN), successor to Los Zetas, implicated in some of the worst cases. La masacre de Allende, Coahuila, forma parte de la historia ms siniestra de Mxico. Edited by Michael Evans. For years after the massacre, Mexican authorities made only desultory efforts to investigate. I would ask you the same thing, she replied. The Zetas organizational structure includes counterintelligence, intelligence and tactical enforcement units.. 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. 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. Allende, Coahuila - Wikipedia The targets included the families of Juniors father, Jos Luis Garza y Garza, and his unclesVctor, Rodolfo, and Sergio. Many needed the money. It's between them. Many victims were brought to a ranch outside Allende, owned by the Garza family. . People from the town stole the furniture, vehicles, and machinery [from the houses] and sold it for scrap metal.- Declaration of Germn Zaragoza Snchez (El Canelo), April 8, 2014, 10:00am. Members of the criminal group Los Zetas could be seen unloading barrels next to a storage shed near the back of the property. And from previously I knew that all of the Allende municipal police were linked to or worked for the Zetas.-Revised declaration of Christian Alejandro Lpez Tamez, December 17, 2014, Firefighter Jess Gerado De Len Ramos, too, spotted various units of the municipal police at the entrance to the ranch, including police director, Roberto Guadalupe Trevio Martnez, and shift commanders Maria Guadalupe Avalos Orozco and Rogelio Javier Flores Cruz, who he and others described as key links between the police and the Zetas. The Zetas started out as an enforcer gang for the Gulf Cartel . As CrimeOnline previously reported, the victims were part of a faith group who lived in Sonora, an established faith-based city in Mexico, around 70 miles from Douglas, Arizona. Other convictions include Germn Zaragoza Snchez (the Zetas members known as El Canelo) and Fernando Hernndez Reyes, an Allende police officer. She learned that her husbands friend, Hector, had also been called away and picked up by the same white truck that came for Rodolfo. Tagged: Allende best of vice news 2014 Border CARTELS Coahuila crime & drugs Diego Enrique Osorno Drugs garza massacre mexico moreira the five springs villanueva zetas VICE News Get the latest . They watched as gang members led their victims into a larger shed near the back. The next day, the wives of other ranch workers came by the Snchez Robles house, looking for their missing spouses. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico" was published in 2017 by the investigative news agency ProPublica.. Netflix will release a series next month inspired by a story that revealed the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's role in setting off a massacre in northern Mexico in 2011, leaving dozens of people dead or missing. As ocurri la brutal y olvidada masacre de Allende - BBC News Mundo There was a fire coming from a small building inside the ranch alongside armed men who did not seem like they were police, according to the former volunteers statement. A fire department volunteer said he also saw many familiar faces among the victims, the Zetas, and the police officials gathered there. A new detention order for Lozano was issued in March 2018, after the publication of the CNDH report, but little is known about how the case has progressed, and it is unclear whether prosecutors have ever filed charges against police director Trevio, who was seen outside the Garza Ranch and who witnesses say knew about the attacks ahead of time.[16]. June 19, 2017. 92110 United States [email protected] +1 619-260-2299. "How the U.S. Oscar nominated screenwriter/producer James Schamus makes his television debut with 'Somos,' a six-part Netflix drama about a real-life cartel massacre in the Mexican town of Allende. He went on to say that now that Mexico has reformed its National Security Law, authorities from the U.S. could find themselves connected to another massacre similar to the incident in Allende. San Miguel de Allende might be voted the nicest town in Mexico by many travel magazines, but it is not safe at the moment and I advise you not to come here right now. Or do you want the same thing to happen to you or to your families?-Declaration of Allende fire chief, December 17, 2014. premiering June 30. It was the case that among them I recognized several, since I knew them, because we were from the same municipality of Allende, Coahuila, where I live.- Declaration of Zetas member Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar (El Pjaro), June 13, 2014. 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]. This story was originally published by ProPublica. [A]t that time I lived in La Colonia Presidentes, and I knew all of these people because they were from the town. 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. In a country where murders and disappearances are troublingly common, the scale and the horrific details of the Allende massacre case still stand out. In April of 2014 . Several said the police director ordered that officers should not do anything or say anything about the carnage. If you experience a barrier that affects your ability to access content on this page, let us know via ourContact form. The 2020 U.S. arrest of Mexicos former defense secretary, Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, for alleged narcotics ties has led Mexicos president, Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador, tofast-track a new lawimposing strict new restrictions on U.S. personnel in Mexico and that threatens to significantly curtail the exchange of intelligence and law enforcement information. September 27, 2019 1:06 PM EDT. This was the brutal and forgotten Allende massacre in Mexico portrayed In the latter group was Csar Alfonso Garca Ramrez, who had just returned home to Coahuila for a visit from his job in Texas. 202-994-7000 ornsarchiv@gwu.edu, Special thanks to former National Security Archiveintern Emily Taylor for her assistance with this collection. Descendants of 1918 Porvenir Massacre Fight For Recognition - Time American authorities eventually helped Mexico capture the Trevios but never acknowledged the devastating cost. Many of the nine women and children killed on a remote stretch of highway in northern Mexico Monday were shot at point-blank range -- victims of a targeted assassination that Mexican authorities . How one reporter uncovered the U.S. role in a massacre in Mexico They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. [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. Investigators firstquestioned LozanoandTrevioabout the massacre in 2012. A declassified DEA report from 2015said that the Zetas in late 2015 made a conscious effort to rebrand as the Cartel del Noreste (Cartel of the Northeast). More information on CDN is available here. [9] Literally stake or post, an estaca is a term used by Los Zetas for its assassination teams. Suite 701, Gelman Library 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 . According to testimony, Vasquez did so because he and other Los Zetas wanted the father to suffer. The George Washington University Access request to Mexicos National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH), Freedom of Information Act request to DEA. Hit especially hard was the extended family of Jos Luis Garza Gaytn (also known as Junior and El Wichin). The collection of testimonies found in the files of Coahuila state prosecutors depict a town almost completely beholden to the criminal groupfrom the mayors office to top police commanders to ordinary cops on the street. [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. The files depict a town almost completely beholden to LosZetasfrom the mayors office to top police commanders to ordinary cops on the street. 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. I saw that they took two people out of the house, but I could not distinguish who they were. . 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. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico, by Ginger Thompson, ProPublica, June 12, 2017. 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. U.S. Prosecutions Bring Mexico Corruption into Focus 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. 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. Many thousands disappeared in Mexico's drug war. [N]othing remained of them at all, in addition to which they burned and razed their houses. And there were approximately from seven to ten people that we tied up with rats tails. And after five or six hours during which the corpses were cooked it was then around five or six oclock in the morning. Remembering the Allende Massacre. 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. The police radio operator said that the director, Trevio, and the commander, Hernndez, were paid as much as five times what ordinary officers were given. 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. See Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. 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. 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 . Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History 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. American authorities eventually helped Mexico capture the Trevios but never acknowledged the devastating cost. 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. His wife recalled the ominous last moments she spent with her husband on March 18, 2011, the night that he and his friend, Hector Lara, disappeared. 6/27/2017 (written by Lucy Clement La Rosa)- Over six years ago, a small ranching community near the Texas border of Mexico bore witness to the vengeful assault of Las Zetas, one of Mexico's historically violent drug trafficking organizations. Bri Rooke. 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. Allende is a small town southwest of Piedras Negras, Mexico and is the site of a massacre by the drug cartel, Los Zetas. My parents were born in Mexico and every summer we visited and it we had the times of our lives as kids and young adults. Lilianas husband, Arturo, had also been unable to reach his wife or her parents. * * * * *. They began to see Allende not as an isolated spasm of violence but rather as one of the most explosive episodes of a wider problem of criminal violence and systematic subversion of legal authorities throughout the region. "Somos." de Netflix: as fue la brutal y olvidada masacre de Allende en 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. A self-described foca (lookout) for the Zetas, he had been found sleeping on the job. The attack at Allende began on the night of March 18, 2011, when the Zetas and their collaborators launched a coordinated three-day sweep through the town, situated only about 25 miles from the U.S. border. Somos. Lilianas brother, Rodolfo Garza, Jr., last heard from her around six or seven oclock that evening. The Seminar on Violence of the Colegio de Mxico had access to many of these files in preparing its groundbreaking reports on Allende and a second report on how the Zetas gained control of authority structures in Coahuila, including the state prison in Piedras Negras. 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. At that moment, I also realized that near a large bodega that was about 70 meters away from where I was there were various people from the town, who the Zetas were shouting at and mistreating, and who I knew because they were from the [deleted] family. El Gobierno de Mxico ofreci este jueves una disculpa pblica a los familiares de las vctimas de la masacre de Allende, una comunidad del norteo estado de Coahuila donde entre el 18 y el 20 de marzo del 2011 alrededor de 300 personas fueron masacradas por narcotraficantes. He said that this was an injustice, since he was just a little boy. What we saw, he said, was something thats not easy to forget.. The Allende Massacre: How A DEA Investigation Triggered The Destruction But a2017 investigation by Ginger Thompson of ProPublicafound that Cuellar and Junior weretargeted for another reason: Los Zetas leaders had discovered that members of Cuellars cell were cooperating with agents of the DEA and had provided them with secret PIN codes allowing the DEA to track the mobile phones of top Zetas leaders. See reference here. The Allende Massacre in Mexico: A Decade of Impunity Some of those interviewed during the investigation said the rampage started as an act of revenge by top Zetas leaders against Cuellar, Junior, and other deputies, who they accused of pocketing millions of dollars in stolen drug money. Later we took these people to the Garza ranch where we put them in the same house where we had the others. Thompson later turned the original report into amulti-episode podcast.
Eliyohu Mintz Net Worth,
Houska Castle Pit Exploration,
Nelms Funeral Home Obituaries,
Which Of The Following Is Not One Of Mulan Skill,
Alaa Abdelnaby Brother,
Articles A
