Emergency protest at Mexican Embassy!!

by Valerie Tue May 09, 2006 00:31 vlagrave at gmail dot com

Its a total butchery, unbeleivable violence, state and police corruption at its highest,again, greasy burger eating mexican policemen raping women, shooting people in the head, beating people in custody for six hours..., hope many join the protest tomorrow and bring a friend, im bringing a crowd.C u tmw martha.

by macseamus Tue May 09, 2006 21:14

NarcoNews is currently carrying good information in English:
http://www.narconews.com/

Valentina Palma confirms today in LaJornada that there have been at least two rapes with penetration.
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2006/05/09/007n1pol.php (in spanish)

What has happened in Atenco, and everything that followed so far, is linked to complicated issues; - the presidential elections this year, the construction of a new airport for Mexico City, and the Zapatistas "Other Campaign" and a fight for control of the mass media in Mexico. - to name a few,
but in this small space, and in terms of todays protest in Ireland, the following two notes are worth highlighting, showing the brutality of the police repression. Solidarity with the prisoners is priority right now.

Samantha Dietmar, a young German photographer who has been covering the Other Campaign since January was grabbed in the doorway of her hotel, beaten in the face and thrown into a truck. A neighbor who witnessed the attack said that she asked why the police were taking her: "What did she do?" The police officer responded, the woman said: "She did whatever I say she did."
http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/mexico....html

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They dragged all the youths, men and women out of the house and threw them to the ground, pulling peoples’ shirts up to cover their own faces. The policed forced some people a squatting position and put everyone in a single line. One of the police began counting them by hitting them in the head one by one with a club. As he reached the end, he said, “Ay, I’ve lost count, let’s go back to the beginning,” and indicated to his partner to repeat the whole operation. But in the end, the other policeman said that he couldn’t count either, and so now they needed to count down in reverse order, beating the prisoners as hard as they could. The prisoners, especially the girls, cried out for them to stop the beating, but rather than listening to them the police kicked them without mercy, shouting, “shut up, you troublemaking assholes!”
“Many had lost consciousness, and the police kept beating them,” lamented the Atenco resident, who guessed that the operation lasted until 2:00 p.m. “If as many people as are here today had been there, we would have all come out of our houses, but we were very few. What’s more, when the police saw that we were watching everything they did, they pointed their teargas guns at us and ordered us to get inside because if we didn’t they would come for us.”
http://www.narconews.com/Issue41/article1774.html

by macseamus Tue May 09, 2006 22:42

For anybody who visited Mexico's troubled south east in the late 1990's this may not come as much of a surprise.

Wilfrido Robledo Madrid, the man charged with organising a plan to beat Atenco's Land Defence Movement Leaders and anybody else who happened to be around to a bloody pulp, shows how the ugly side of the powerful is far from gone away in Mexico today.

In relation to the death of a 14 year-old boy, he said:

"It's not possible that the child was harmed (he uses the word lesión - wound, injury harm) by our side. We have a policeman wounded by a similar gun. Why does nobody care about the police, they only ask about those wounded from Atenco. They are criminals!"

It's worth noting that the dead 14 year old was not wounded, he was killed almost instantly, shot in the chest with a .38 - the type used by state police. He had been sent on an errand to fetch something for dinner, hardly criminal activity.

Robledo Madrid, on the other hand, is known to have had an arrest warrant issued against him in the past for his allegedly dodgy dealings.

His statement is the only reference to a policeman wounded by gunfire.
He also made various references in the media to a fictitious autopsy that ‘proved’ the boy's death being caused by a firework.

Even after the official autopsy was completed, and the boys father's testimony to having seen the bullet which was removed from his son's body was published, the mainstream media continued their line of "14 year old boy possibly killed", unclear circumstances", "possibly hit by a firework", "killed by his neighbours to create a martyr"

It was said that the PRI were so surprised to lose in the last presidential elections because they had got so used to feeding lies to journalists that even they themselves were believing them. It seems the PRI Governor of Mexico State, Enrique Peña Nieto and his pal the butcher-rapist Robledo still suffer from the disease.

by Mary Connolly Tue May 09, 2006 23:55

I just want to correct that this was not a protest about elections, but that is beside the point.
This occurred just a couple of weeks after two striking miners were shot dead the day after their strike was declared illegal by the government, the Secretary of Work said that it was their fault, because they were involved in an illegal action. The government is taking the same stanceon its human rights abuses in San Salvador Atenco.

I don't know if I am more frightened or angry,. At the same time the step-sons of President Fox are protected from being charged with multi-million peso-dollar-pound-euro fraud and it has been decided the governor of the State of Puebla, Mario Marín, will not have to answer for using his influence to protect a paedophile and throwing a journalist into prison with orders for her to be abused there, despite the fact that there is conclusive evidence of his guilt.

by mms Thu May 11, 2006 05:36

Hello, I am just back from Chiapas. Every day were people talking about what´s happened in Atenco, how the flower markets have to be closed down in order to build the megastores...

For anybody interested I have a very good audio of everything what´s happened there. There is still red alter to visit the zapatistas communities, and there is a big march for tomorrow Thursday.
I don´t know if you heard that 6 people were expelled from the country, including 2 Spaniards, 1 German and 4 Chileans...

I am going to be back home next week, anybody interested you can reach me in Lasc. thanks