http://www.tulane.edu/~libweb/RESTRICTED/WEEKLY/1996_0630.txt
*4. NEW REBEL ARMY REPORTED IN SOUTHERN MEXICO (1996 Archive from Tulane University)
As of June 29 hundreds of Mexican Army soldiers and agents of the
federal attorney general's office (PGR) were combing the
mountains of the Coyuca de Benitez Sierra near Acapulco in the
southwestern state of Guerrero for members of the Revolutionary
Popular Army (EPR), a self-proclaimed guerrilla organization that
had made its first appearance the day before. Heavy rains from
Hurricane Boris hampered the military operation, which the
government said was aimed at arresting the rebels for violating
federal gun control laws. Some local elections, scheduled for
June 30, were cancelled.
The EPR is reported to have 500 armed combatants. On June 28 the
group issued a statement demanding "revolutionary justice" and
calling for the overthrow of the government of Mexican president
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon. The statement was entitled the
"Manifesto of Aguas Blancas," in reference to the Guerrero state
judicial police's massacre of 17 campesinos from the leftist
Southern Sierra Campesino Organization (OCSS) at Aguas Blancas
ford in Coyuca de Benitez municipality exactly one year earlier.
[La Jornada (Mexico) 6/30/96, electronic edition; El Diario-La
Prensa 6/30/96 from AP; Washington Post 6/30/96]
The EPR made its existence public at the massacre site on the
afternoon of June 28, during a rally organized by the Broad Front
for the Constitution of a National Liberation Movement (FAC-MLN)
to mark the anniversary. About 5,000 protesters, mostly local
campesinos, marched 12 kilometers from the town of Coyuca de
Benitez to Aguas Blancas, where the rally was addressed by two of
the widows of the victims and by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano,
the 1994 presidential candidate of the center-left opposition
Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Soon after Cardenas
finished speaking, a group of masked men and women wearing olive-
green uniforms and carrying AK-47 rifles appeared unexpectedly.
EPR members--exactly 38, according to the PGR and the federal
Governance Secretariat, and about 100 according to the Mexico
City daily La Jornada--approached the podium; one read the
group's manifesto.
Local police reported that the EPR had a shootout with the
Guerrero judicial police later that evening near the town of
Zumpango del Rio, about 10 kilometers north of Chilpancingo, the
state capital, and 80 kilometers northeast of Coyuca de Benitez.
Some 20 masked and heavily armed EPR members reportedly set up a
roadblock on the Mexico City-Acapulco highway, where they passed
out their manifesto to motorists and asked them to work together
"for the cause." Judicial police say they were attacked when they
arrived on the scene; three agents were wounded in the ensuing
shootout, along with a cab driver who had been talking to the
rebels, who then fled into the mountains. [LJ 6/29/96] The next
day the Guerrero attorney general's office announced that the
incident had simply been a fight between police and common
criminals the police had caught robbing two tractor trailers. [LJ
6/30/96]
Cuauhtemoc Cardenas and other PRD leaders issued a communique
denouncing the EPR's presence at the Aguas Blancas rally as "a
grotesque pantomime which would have had no importance except for
the heavy weapons [the group] carried." The communique implied
that the EPR members might be agents provocateurs. [LJ 6/29/96]
Lucas de la Garza, PRD leader in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, noted
that the EPR had better uniforms and weapons than the Zapatista
National Liberation Army (EZLN), Mexico's best-known rebel group,
and suggested that the disruption of the rally was meant to
distract attention from the Guerrero government's responsibility
for the Aguas Blancas massacre. [LJ 6/30/96] [President Zedillo
forced Gov. Ruben Figueroa Alcocer to take a permanent leave of
absence on Mar. 12 over the case, but the state attorney general
and the state legislature formally cleared him of all
responsibility on June 14. [ED-LP 6/15/96 from wire services; New
York Times 6/17/96 from Reuter]]
In contrast to the PRD, the FAC-MLN, which organized the rally,
simply stated that participants "received an unexpected visit
from a group...which brought us a beautiful, fraternal and
combative salute...in homage to the 17 massacred campesinos." [LJ
6/30/96]
*5. MORE MEXICAN REBELS: CHIAPAS FORUM, TABASCO BARRICADES
The FAC-MLN was formed at a Jan. 27-28 meeting of 268 grassroots
and leftist groups from around the country in Acapulco; this was
one of the EZLN's many efforts to unite groups into a broad
civilian opposition movement [see Update #314]. The EZLN, which
carefully calls for a "transitional government" rather than an
overthrow of the government, is continuing the effort with a
"Special Forum for the Reform of the State," to be held from June
30 to July 6 in San Cristobal de las Casas in the southeastern
state of Chiapas, where the Zapatista movement emerged in 1994.
EZLN military leader "Sub-Commander Marcos" and 20 other
Zapatista leaders will attend, along with a large number of
opposition groups and leaders: Cardenas, former Mexico City mayor
Manuel Camacho Solis [who recently deserted the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)], the El Barzon debtors'
movement, some business people and 335 other groups. [LJ 6/28/96]
Meanwhile, the southeastern state of Tabasco, which borders
Chiapas, was shaken by protests on June 25 when President Zedillo
paid an official visit to the state. The PGR formally charged on
June 7 that Tabasco governor Roberto Madrazo Pintado spent at
least $38 million over the legal limit in his 1994 election
campaign [see Update #332], but left actual prosecution up to
Tabasco state authorities, who are expected to do nothing in the
case. Madrazo and Zedillo are both members of the PRI, which has
ruled most of Mexico for 67 years. The state PRD holds that its
candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (likely winner of the
party's national presidency in party elections on July 14), was
defrauded of the governorship in the 1994 race.
At 8:00 in the morning on June 25, PRD leaders announced over the
XEVA radio station, which has the strongest signal in the state,
that their followers would blockade the three main highways into
the state capital, Villahermosa, letting traffic through for just
20 minutes out of each hour. Thousands of campesinos were waiting
for the signal, and immediately cut off traffic at six points in
the Cardenas-Villahermosa, Centla-Villahermosa and Macuspana-
Villahermosa highways. Campesinos also blocked access to some oil
fields, including the CEN field in Nacajuca municipality; Tabasco
protesters had blockaded some 70 oil wells in February and March
to demand compensation for environmental damage [see Update
#321].
The president flew into Villahermosa, but local PRI politicians
were unable to drive to the ceremonies. Accompanied by state
police and party goons, the politicians tried to break through
the barricades. Police agents used tear gas and fired into the
air, but the more numerous PRD supporters, armed with clubs,
stones and, some cases, machetes, routed the attackers and burned
vans belonging to the goons. By the time Zedillo flew out of
Tabasco in the afternoon, at least 30 people had been injured
(four seriously) and 29 arrested; five vehicles were burned
completely and 15 more were damaged. At one barricade near the
village of Vicente Guerrero, former governor Mario Trujillo
Garcia was injured when campesinos--who say he was firing a
revolver from his van as they were burning another van--threw a
hail of rocks at him. The campesinos pulled his companion, a
local business leader, from the van and deposited him in the town
jail. La Jornada reporter Jaime Aviles wrote that the scenes of
barricades and burning vehicles made him think of Nicaragua 17
years ago, during the Sandinista Revolution. [LJ 6/26/96]
Some 50 PRI members counterattacked the next day, taking over
XEVA for almost three hours to denounce the PRD and Lopez
Obrador. A state legislator announced at a committee meeting that
PRI members were ready to confront PRD members "on whatever
terrain they choose; we're going to win." [LJ 6/27/96] On June 27
a group of PRI state legislators and goons seized a colleague
from the PRD, state deputy Julio Alvarez Santos, in his office at
the state congress building, held him for an hour and beat him
repeatedly. That evening the PRI-dominated Business Coordinating
Committee filed a complaint with the federal PGR that "the Party
of the Democratic Revolution incites to violence." [LJ 6/28/96]
*6. MEXICAN LESBIAN-GAY PRIDE PROTESTS MEXICANA AIRLINES
About 1,000 people marched from Chapultepec Park to the Juarez
monument in Mexico City on June 29 in the city's 18th annual
Lesbian-Gay Pride celebration. Many participants were dressed as
animals or had their faces painted in bright colors. Despite
persistent rain, some marched in their underwear, but most were
fully clothed and carrying umbrellas. The marchers paused to
protest at an office of Mexicana, the main airline for flights
within Mexico. [La Jornada 6/30/96, electronic edition] On Dec.
1, 1995, a Mexicana pilot had six security guards physically
remove two lesbians from its flight 972 in the middle of the
night at the Guadalajara airport for "immoral behavior." The two
women, US nationals on their way home, had been holding hands.
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
(IGLHRC) and the Mexico City lesbian group El Closet de Sor Juana
are calling for letters asking Mexicana to issue a public
apology, discipline Captain Arturo Trujillo Viscarra for his
actions and take steps like providing sensitivity training for
its employees and instituting an anti-discrimination policy.
Faxes can be sent (within the US) to Ms. Elizabeth Krupski at US
Aviation Company, Mexicana's insurance underwriter, 212-349-8226,
and Ms. Maria Ruiz, Mexicana Customer Service Department, 310-
646-0433; copies can be sent to Lic. Jorge Madrazo, Comision
Nacional de Derechos Humanos, Av. Periferico Sur No. 3469, San
Jeronimo Lidice, CP 10200 Mexico DF, Mexico. [IGLHRC Emergency
Response Network Vol. 5, #3, May 1996]
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1A1-D90GUJ702.html
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Who wants Rogaciano Alba dead? Massacre of Mexican strongman's family breaks all the rules
By Mark Stevenson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
10:38 a.m. May 7, 2008
PETATLAN, Mexico – Somebody wants to kill Rogaciano Alba.
Dozens of gunmen attacked the house of the local political boss, killing his sons and kidnapping his daughter in a weekend rampage that left 17 dead. With Alba in hiding, the motive remains unclear, lost in the tangle of drugs, land disputes and rebellion that lurks amid Mexico's glittering beach resorts.
“If anybody has something against me, let them tell me to my face,” Alba raged in a call to a local radio station. “But (the victims) didn't steal or do anything to anybody. There was no reason to kill them like that.”
Alba is easily the most powerful man in Petatlan, a Pacific coast town near the resorts of Ixtapa and Zihuatenejo that was dependent on coconut plantations and cattle ranching until drugs and illegal logging pushed them aside in the 1980s.
Mexico's drug underworld has become ever more violent in recent years, with gunmen beheading victims and carving threats into their bodies. But almost like a code of honor, hit men targeting ranchers, businessmen, journalists and rival drug smugglers have largely left the victims' families alone.
The attack on Alba broke all the rules.
On Saturday, seven ranchers were killed as they returned from a union meeting led by Alba. The following day, gunmen disguised as police showed up at Alba's ranch. When they didn't find him, they lined up 10 of his relatives and friends in front of his sturdy, two-story brick house and mowed them down.
Alba's sons Alejandro and Rusbel were among the dead, and his 18-year-old daughter, Ana Karen, disappeared and is believed kidnapped, although no ransom has been requested. Alba immediately went into hiding.
“Only God and he knows where he is now,” said one of his daughters, who asked her name be withheld for fear the gunmen would come back for her.
She and other relatives gathered late Tuesday before the house's bullet-scarred walls, arranging white flowers and candles in a simple altar to the dead. Then they prayed for the victims and condemned the faceless killers.
On Wednesday, police set up roadblocks as they searched for weapons, but Petatlan police director Horacio Lluck Mendiola said his 30 officers are outmanned and outgunned by criminals.
“The situation has spun beyond our control,” he said. “The federal government needs to take control of this business because of the magnitude of the massacre.”
He said no arrests had been made, adding: “We believe it was a well-organized gang.” However, the motive remains unclear – largely because so many people have reason to want Alba dead.
Alba is a rural strongman who dominates economic and political life in one of Mexico's roughest stretches of countryside.
He was long active in the Ruben Figueroa Landowners Association, which worked with loggers gathering wood in the threatened forests of the coastal mountain range. Human rights groups say much of the logging was illegal.
Logging remains big business: Huge trucks continue to rumble down the coastal highway through Petatlan, groaning under the weight of old-growth fir and pine cut from dwindling forests.
In the 1990s when Alba was tied to the group, activists who tried to stop the loggers were threatened, jailed, shot at and sometimes killed. A group of Mexico City lawyers took up their cause, and the best-known, Digna Ochoa, was shot to death in Mexico City in 2001.
Investigators ruled her death a suicide, but activists believe she was killed and have demanded the investigation be reopened – with Alba as a prime suspect. Mexico City prosecutors will not confirm whether there is an active investigation against Alba in the Ochoa case.
Others speculate the killings could be tied to drugs. Mexico's main drug cartels are fighting over the Guerrero coast, with their gun battles reaching even international resorts like Acapulco. Along the coast, boats laden with cocaine land from Colombia, and in the mountains farmers tend opium poppies and marijuana plantations.
Many farmers in the region are forced to plant, guard or transport drugs for the cartels, and it is hard to conceive that someone of Alba's stature wasn't at least approached by the cartels for help.
The violence could also be related to the leftist rebels who have fought along the Guerrero coast since the 1970s, and landowners' attempts to defeat them.
Human rights groups are pressing the government to investigate mass graves suspected of holding the victims of counterinsurgency campaigns dating back three decades. The biggest group now is the People's Revolutionary Army, which first appeared in the 1990s after a police massacre of peasant activists and now targets oil pipelines.
Peasant groups have recently taken up the cause of the anti-logging activists – bringing them into direct confrontation with groups associated with Alba.
Family members say they have no idea what prompted the attacks. They deny that Alba was involved in anything illicit, pointing out that he served as Petatlan's mayor.
“People say a lot of things. But he is a rancher, that's all,” said the daughter. “There is no explanation for this.”
Meanwhile, Alba remains in hiding – and will likely stay there until he figures out who is gunning for him. Nobody has much confidence that Mexico's police can keep him safe.
“The killers have better weapons than the police,” Alba's daughter said. “Most cops make barely a living wage. They're not going to risk their lives to take the gunmen on.”
Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20080507-1038-mexico-huntedman.html
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