43 Missing Students, 1 Missing Mayor: Of Crime And Collusion In Mexico

[ChrisL]

I'd send in the Marines to take over Mexico City, take over the government and give the cartels a choice: pay taxes, act civilized or get droned. Then we enter into safe and sane immigration policy with the USA where anyone wanting to immigrate does so legally, with ID, registration and vaccinations.

Then we'll have another country full of terrorists that hate us, and they're our neighbors.

 

[ChrisL]

After reading some of these things, I am SO grateful to be an American citizen. This is just one reason why it's important to never trust politicians or government. They need to be kept in check constantly. Governments have a tendency to become tyrannical, which is just one more reason why our rights (and especially our 2nd amendment right) are very important, and we should never ever let government entities infringe upon ANY of our rights. They are so precious.

 

[Coyote]

Police Capture Mexican Mayor Accused Of Ordering Student Kidnappings

Mexican Federal Police captured the former mayor of Iguala, José Luis Abarca, and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda, near Mexico City this morning, the spokesman for the Federal Police said in a tweet.

 

[ChrisL]

Police Capture Mexican Mayor Accused Of Ordering Student Kidnappings

Mexican Federal Police captured the former mayor of Iguala, José Luis Abarca, and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda, near Mexico City this morning, the spokesman for the Federal Police said in a tweet.

Well, that's good news, but I still wonder about the truthfulness of the accusations. It is the government who is doing the accusing, and I would like to see what kind of evidence they have. All I've seen is that they say there was some altercation and that the mayor and his wife "ordered" the police to round up these student teachers and hand them over to a cartel. What evidence do they have of this I wonder, besides hearsay? I have no idea how they go about gathering evidence and preparing for trial, etc., in Mexico.

 

[waltky]

Are they gettin' fed up an' not gonna take it any more?...

Mexico's missing students: Will case prove a tipping point?
November 6, 2014 ~ The disappearance of 43 college students in September has reverberated deeply in Mexico, bringing together disparate protest movements and raising hopes that leaders will finally have to address the ongoing corruption and impunity it exposes.

The number 43 is cropping up across Mexico City these days: Written large on banners near Revolution Plaza and scribbled small on posters advertising office space for rent. In a public park, one wall bears the graffiti message: “It hurts 43 times.” The signs all refer to the mass kidnapping in September of 43 students from a teachers college in the southern state of Guerrero. It is not the biggest or bloodiest crime in Mexico’s recent history, but it has struck a national nerve. It has exposed alleged connections between local officials, police, and organized crime. And many here hope it can be a turning point for Mexico, which has struggled to address the corruption and impunity that grip the nation, even as President Enrique Peña Nieto tries to highlight its economic promise.

Since he took office, the international conversation about Mexico has changed markedly. From the start, Mr. Peña Nieto rallied politicians from rival parties to join a “Pact for Mexico,” enabling passage of landmark reforms including energy, education, and telecommunications. Homicides have fallen by 29 percent since 2012 according to government statistics, and after six years of headlines focused on beheadings and mass graves, suddenly the international media were heralding “Mexico’s Moment” for development and economic growth.

But the students’ abduction in Iguala, about 120 miles south of Mexico City, after a run-in with local police has drawn back the curtain once again, exposing the continuing grip of corruption and insecurity. Politicians have started talking about the need for a renewed “Pact for Mexico” that focuses on security, and protests have taken place nationally over the past month. The demonstrations are bigger, broader-based, and more enduring than Mexico has seen in recent years, says Lorenzo Meyer, a political analyst at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

There’s almost a sense of hope that this could lead to a real shift, says Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, who chairs the government department at the University of Texas Brownsville and focuses on organized crime. “Could it actually be that this is Mexico’s moment?”

'The hope of Latin America'

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - dey finally gettin' tired of it an' ain't gonna take it no more...

'Enough, I'm tired' comment rallies Mexico protest
Nov 8,`14 -- An off-the-cuff comment by the attorney general to cut off a news conference about the apparent killing of 43 missing college students has been taken up by protesters as a rallying cry against Mexico's corruption and drug trade-fueled violence.

During the session that was televised live Friday, Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam announced that two suspects had led authorities to trash bags believed to contain the incinerated remains of the slain students, who haven't been seen since being led away by police in the southwestern town of Iguala on Sept. 26. After an hour of speaking, Murillo Karam abruptly signaled for an end to questions by turning away from reporters and saying, "Ya me canse" - a phrase meaning "Enough, I'm tired." Within hours, the phrase became a hashtag linking messages on Twitter and other social networks. It continued to trend globally Saturday and began to emerge in graffiti, in political cartoons and in video messages posted to YouTube. Many turned the phrase on the attorney general: "Enough, I'm tired of Murillo Karam," says one. Another asks: "If you're tired, why don't you resign?"

Other people used it to vent their frustrations with messages such as "Enough, I'm tired of living in a narco state" or "Enough, I'm tired of corrupt politicians." Mexicans have reacted with outrage to the disappearance of the students from a rural teachers college in Guerrero state and a government response that has failed to fully explain what happened. On Saturday, protesters burned several cars and trucks outside the governor's offices in Chilpancingo, the Guerrero capital where demonstrations over the students' disappearance have escalated into violence several times. Investigators say Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda Villa, ordered police to confront the students, who had gone to Iguala to raise money and had commandeered passenger buses for their use. The couple reportedly feared the students would disrupt an event being led by the wife.

A group of 43 marchers, each representing one of the disappeared rural college students, parade through the streets, calling for people to gather at the city's main plaza, in Mexico City, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2014. Forty-three organizations arrived from the southern state of Guerrreo to take part in a rally Sunday, on what will be the 43rd day the young men of the Raul Isidro Burgos school went missing. Suspects in the disappearance of the 43 college students have confessed to loading the youths onto dump trucks, murdering them at a landfill, then burning the bodies and dumping the ashen remains into a river, Mexican authorities said Friday.

Iguala police fired on the students in two incidents, killing six people. Officers then allegedly turned over 43 arrested students to a local drug gang. Murillo Karam said members of the gang confessed to killing the students before burning their bodies and tossing the ashes and bone fragments into a river. At least 74 people have been arrested, including Abarca and his wife, who were found Tuesday hiding in a dilapidated home in a rough section of Mexico City. Families of the missing students insisted they will continue to believe their sons are alive until authorities prove the recovered remains are theirs. Murillo Karam said the bone fragments would be sent to a lab in Austria for testing.

Manuel Martinez, a spokesman for the families, said the "YaMeCanse" rallying cry was proof that their demand for answers is gaining strength. "The people are angered and I hope that they continue support us," he said Saturday. Filmmaker Natalia Beristain was among hundreds of people posting YouTube videos tagged (hash)YaMeCanse. "Senor Murillo Karam, I, too, am tired," she said. "I'm tired of vanished Mexicans, of the killing of women, of the dead, of the decapitated, of the bodies hanging from bridges, of broken families, of mothers without children, of children without fathers." "I am tired of the political class that has kidnapped my country, and of the class that corrupts, that lies, that kills," she added. "I, too, am tired."

News from The Associated Press

See also:

3 Guerrero Unidos drug gang-bangers confess to ghastly massacre of student teachers...

Three men confess to killing 43 Mexican students
Nov. 7, 2014 | The three men said the students were handed over to the Guerrero Unidos gang by local police.

Three alleged gang members on Friday confessed to killing 43 Mexican college students who disappeared in September. The missing students from Escuela Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa were en route to a protest when their bus was attacked by gunmen in Iguala on Sept. 26. Three students and three others were killed in the ambush.

Local police in Mexico.

The three men, Patricio Reyes Landa, Jhonatan Osorio Gomez and Agustin Garcia Reyes, allegedly told law enforcement the students were handed over to the Guerrero Unidos gang by local police. Fifteen of the students were already dead of asphyxia when they were brought to the gang, the rest were burned alive in a trash can, Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said. Forensic scientists were working to identify the victims from the burnt remains law enforcement found.

Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, were arrested Tuesday for allegedly masterminding the attack. According to Karam, the couple wanted to get rid of the students because they didn't want the students' protest to disrupt a planned political event hosted by Pineda in the town the same day. Dozens of other arrests had been made, including more than 20 local police.

3 alleged gang members confess to killing Mexican students - UPI.com

 

[ChrisL]

Well, it seems that the authorities believe they know what happened to these students. However, the public (and especially the parents of these students) still have a fear and mistrust (and rightfully so) of what their government tells them. I can't blame them. I don't really know what to believe when it comes to Mexico, given the amount of blatant corruption that is going on. SOMEBODY paid these drug cartel people to kill these students, I'm pretty sure on that much.

How sad this is, yet at the same time it takes horrible acts like this in order to make the people ANGRY enough to demand change. Let's hope these students didn't die for nothing, and that this leads to some much needed changes.

Mexico Burned bodies likely of 43 missing students

MEXICO CITY — The 43 students missing for more than six weeks are believed dead after charred human remains were fished from a river and its banks, Mexico's attorney general said Friday.

Extracting DNA will be incredibly difficult after the bodies and other evidence was burned for the better part of a day prior to being tossed in the water, Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam said at a press conference, adding many of the victims' teeth had "turned to powder."

"I know the enormous pain the information we've obtained causes the family members, a pain we all share," Murillo Karam said. "The statements and information that we have gotten unfortunately points to the murder of a large number of people."

The announcement came after confessions by members of the Guerreros Unidos cartel accused of burning the victims' bodies using gasoline, kindling and tires to keep the fire going, Murillo Karam said. Municipal police handed over the students — some dead, some unconscious — to the gang after a Sept. 26 attack in Iguala, in the southern state of Guerrero, he said.

Authorities have arrested 74 suspects, including Iguala Mayor José Luis Abarca and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda. The couple are accused of ordering the assault on the students — whom the pair claimed were coming to interrupt a public party thrown by Pineda. At least 10 more suspects remain at large, Murillo Karam said.

During the press conference, Murillo Karam played video showing charred fragments of bone being pull from the River San Juan in Cocula, located near Iguala. Confessions of suspects testifying to loading the students in dump trucks before taking them to a landfill site there were also shown.

According to the tapes, 15 students were already dead when they arrived at the site, and the rest were shot, the suspects said. A large funeral pyre was then built and burned from midnight until 2 p.m. or 3 p.m along the river.

After the ashes had cooled around 5:30 p.m., the suspects who disposed of the bodies were told to break up the burned bones, place them in garbage bags and dump them in the river.

 

[waltky]

Protests to keep up pressure on Mexican gov't until students are found...

Parents of missing Mexican students cling to hope
Nov 14,`14 -- Maria Telumbre knows fire. She spends her days making tortillas over hot coals, and experience tells her a small goat takes at least four hours to cook. So she refuses to believe the government's explanation that gang thugs incinerated her son and 42 other missing college students in a giant pyre in less than a day, leaving almost nothing to identify the dead.

The discovery of charred teeth and bone fragments offer Telumbre no more proof of her son's death than the many graves unearthed in Guerrero state since the students disappeared Sept. 26. She simply does not accept that the ashes belong to her 19-year-old son and his classmates. "How is it possible that in 15 hours they burned so many boys, put them in a bag and threw them into the river?" Telumbre says. "This is impossible. As parents, we don't believe it's them."

For the government of President Enrique Pena Nieto, the account, delivered by the attorney general and based on the confessions of detained gang members, begins to solve the mystery of the missing students. But for Telumbre, her husband, Clemente Rodriguez, and other parents, it is merely the latest lie from an administration that wants to quiet the poor and put this mess behind it. Their demands for the truth are fueling a pent-up national outrage at the government's inability to confront the brutality of drug cartels, corruption and impunity.

Maria Telumbre, center, walks with a poster emblazoned with the image of her missing 19-year-old son, to the Basilica of Guadalupe for a special Mass, in Mexico City. The discovery of charred teeth and bone fragments in plastic garbage bags offered Telumbre no more proof of her son's death than the many graves unearthed in Guerrero state since the students disappeared Sept. 26. Nor did it cause her 'enormous pain' as Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said it would, because she did not accept that the ashes belonged to her son and his classmates.

The Rodriguez family's chronicle of disbelief is rooted in collusion between Mexican officials and organized crime. The students of the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa were last seen in the custody of police in the city of Iguala, allegedly at the behest of the mayor. Soldiers and federal police didn't respond to the parents' urgent appeals for help. Federal officials waited 10 days before intervening. And when they did, parents say, authorities focused on finding graves rather than live students, so graves were all they found.

Telumbre and her husband say their beloved son, Christian Rodriguez Telumbre, is still alive, and they blame the government for failing to rescue him and his classmates. "They are hidden somewhere," insists Clemente Rodriguez. "I hope that they're going to let them go any day now."

MORE

See also:

Missing student protests killing Mexico tourism
Fri, Nov 14, 2014 - VACATION NIGHTMARE: Tourist hotspot Acapulco is bracing for a crisis as rallies over 43 students presumed murdered devolved into chaos, scaring away visitors

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has tried to keep the issue of violence separate from his focus on the economy, but the two are converging as violent protests over 43 disappeared students squelch tourism in Acapulco just before a major holiday weekend. As Mexico prepares to commemorate its 1910 revolution on Monday, hotels in the Pacific resort city have seen a wave of cancelations after demonstrators temporarily shut down the airport, blocked highways and attacked government and political offices in the southern state of Guerrero. Acapulco hotel occupancy rates are currently at 20 percent, well short of the 85 percent expected for the long weekend when Mexicans typically flock to the beaches, Joaquin Badillo, president of the Employers’ Association for Guerrero state, said om Wednesday.

More cancelations have been registered for Christmas week, the busiest time of the year for the Acapulco tourism sector, and Badillo said one company that operates 10 hotels has cut about 200 temporary jobs in recent weeks. “Seasonal employment in tourism is really being hurt,” Badillo said. “We’re talking about cleaning workers, security, bartenders, barkers, transportation.” Acapulco’s beaches were semi-deserted on Wednesday, except for small groups of sunbathers in the city’s famous Gold Zone. The emblematic Papagayo, Condesa and Icacos beaches were all but empty. The Employers’ Association called for a six-month tax waiver to get local businesses through the crisis. “With that, employees would not lack for salary and the businesses can maintain themselves in good shape,” Badillo said.

In decades past, Acapulco was a favored playground of Hollywood movie stars and other international travelers. While the city’s luster has faded, it remains an important draw for domestic tourists. Organized crime’s influence has risen in recent years in both Acapulco and the rest of Guerrero State, accompanied by soaring rates of homicide, kidnapping and other violent crimes. As recently as three years ago, 180 cruise ships docked in the city. So far this year, just five have made port calls, according to statistics from local businesspeople. Security concerns have also affected other business sectors.

Activists of the Comuna organization perform a symbolic blockade of a pyramid at the archaeological site of Monte Alban in Oaxaca, Mexico, on Wednesday as they hold painted silhouettes representing 43 students thought to have been murdered by gangsters, but who are officially still missing. The banner reads: “Until they are found.”

Juvenal Becerra, head of a pharmacy trade association, cited a 20 percent downturn in pharmacy business statewide. That includes US$3.8 million in lost business over the past month just in the area around Iguala, where the 43 teachers’ college students disappeared on Sept. 26 following a police attack in which six people died. “In Iguala and the communities that surround it, some pharmacies have cut hours. They open later and close earlier,” Becerra said, adding that organized gangs “never stopped charging extortion or kidnapping or assaults, but since the students disappeared in September, clients leave home less often.”

Investigators say the students were rounded up by local police, turned over to a drug gang and apparently killed, with their corpses charred to ash and dumped into a river. Authorities have yet to confirm that any human remains found during the search for the youths belong to the students and officially they are still considered missing. On Oct. 17, tens of thousands of protesters marched in Acapulco. On Monday, they blocked the city’s airport for hours, carrying clubs, machetes and gasoline bombs.

MORE

[/I]

 

[Coyote]

I heard on the news that the protests are spreading and people are demanding accountability.

 

[ChrisL]

I heard on the news that the protests are spreading and people are demanding accountability.

Good for them! Somebody needs to do something. Things are just out of control there! I wonder how Mexico is surviving fiscally? Their tourism industry (which was probably one of their biggest revenue makers) has suffered terribly! Just how much influence do the cartels have over the government (fed, state and local)? Have they actually infiltrated the federal government there? Are they actually "running" things in Mexico now?

 

[waltky]

Teachers band together to protest Mexican gov't...

Protests in Mexico City could turn violent
Nov. 15, 2014 | A contingent of hundreds of teachers is protesting against the government in Mexico City Saturday.

The protesters are demanding that the government present alive 43 students from Guerrero state that have been missing, and are unofficially presumed dead, since September. Other demands include the repeal of President Enrique Peña Nieto's structural reforms -- particularly education reform -- and the impeachment or resignation of Peña and other high level government officials. The march has forced the closure of two main avenues that lead downtown, reported local newspaper Reforma. The teachers, affiliated to a teachers' union known as Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE), are also expected to carry out demonstrations at first lady Angelica Rivera's private residence in the rich west Mexico City neighborhood of Lomas de Chapultepec.

Residents of that neighborhood have been warned by community groups to avoid the protests and lock up their homes and businesses. "We recommend to people who live near or transit through that area to make preparations. Do not leave cars parked on the street and lock your homes and businesses," read a communique released by the Central Committee of the Jewish community in Mexico. The disappearance of the 43 students in Guerrero -- and the government's delayed and poorly received response -- have sparked unrest. Protesters have shut down major highways, burned Guerrero state capital Chilpancingo's main government building, shut down the Acapulco airport (also in Guerrero) and set fire to the front door of Mexico City's historical seat of national government, the National Palace.

Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto arrives in Beijing to attend the 22nd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting and pay a state visit to China, November 10, 2014. The future risks faced by China's economy are not that scary and the government is confident it can head off the dangers, President Xi Jinping told global business leaders to dispel worries about the world's second-largest economy.

Further outrage was fanned with the president's trip to China for an APEC summit. Viewed by many as ill-timed because of the ongoing crisis, the trip also carried a negative historical connotation. On Oct. 2, 1968, while then-president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz was out of town, army, paramilitary and police forces opened fire on a student protest in Mexico City, killing at least 40 students and detaining thousands. Adding to Peña's troubles, a report by the Aristegui Noticias website uncovered that his family's private residence in Lomas de Chapultepec is worth nearly $7 million and is owned by Grupo Higa, a consortium that rented private jets and airplanes to his administration when he was a governor.

The government argued the house is being paid for by Rivera, who had a successful career as a soap opera actress before marrying Peña. The same group, allied with China Railway Construction, won a bid to build a high-speed rail line earlier this year. That bid was later discarded by the government after competing companies argued they had not been given a fair shot at the contract. The barrage of scandals has ignited calls for the president's resignation. Left-wing politicians and activists, including two-time presidential runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, have qualified the students' disappearance as a "state crime" and turned that demand into their rallying cry. The president's resignation is unlikely, as federal forces were not involved in the 43 students' disappearance and no Mexican president has resigned since Pascual Ortiz Rubio in 1932.

MORE

 

[Taz]

Maybe a schoolbus went over a cliff?

 

[waltky]

Mayor Abarca goes to trial...

Mexico begins court proceeding for mayor
Nov 16,`14 -- A federal judge has opened a court proceeding against the former mayor of a southern Mexico city in crimes that preceded the case of 43 missing students from a teachers' college.

The Federal Judiciary Council said in a statement late Saturday that Jose Luis Abarca has been charged with organized crime, the kidnapping of seven people and the killing of another in crimes that occurred before the students disappeared. Abarca was mayor of Iguala, in Guerrero state, when the students went missing.

Abarca has been behind bars since he and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, were arrested Nov. 4 in a crowded Mexico City neighborhood.

The Attorney General's Office considers Abarca the mastermind behind six killings and the disappearance of another 43 people in Iguala on Sept. 26.

News from The Associated Press

 

[Toro]

I heard a good broadcast on this subject today on NPR.
That's one fucked up country.
And we're not far behind...

So, what you're saying is that here in the US, we can soon expect to have a governor of a state with ties to criminal drug gangs implicated in the mass murder of students who were intending to protest the governor?

 

[ChrisL]

Maybe a schoolbus went over a cliff?

Not a very good defense strategy.

 

[ChrisL]

I heard a good broadcast on this subject today on NPR.
That's one fucked up country.
And we're not far behind...

So, what you're saying is that here in the US, we can soon expect to have a governor of a state with ties to criminal drug gangs implicated in the mass murder of students who were intending to protest the governor?

We probably already do have a governor with ties to criminal drug gangs. Would that be so surprising to you? Thankfully, we have a pretty good constitution and rights here to protect us from our government. Off topic, I know, but this is just one reason why I am against the death penalty. In no way can I support the government having the power to execute citizens.

 

[waltky]

Mexicans in an uproar over 43 massacred student teachers...

Molotov cocktails, clashes as Mexico City braces for massacre protests
Thu Nov 20, 2014 - Masked demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails and shot fireworks at police near Mexico City's airport on Thursday as thousands prepared to protest President Enrique Pena Nieto's handling of the apparent massacre of 43 trainee teachers.

Police in riot gear faced down around 300 protesters near the airport a few hours before three major marches were due to begin in support of the students apparently murdered after their abduction by corrupt police on the night of Sept. 26. No one was injured in the clashes, police said. The three marches in Mexico City were expected to start later on Thursday and converge on the central square, or Zocalo, on the 114th anniversary of the day the Mexican Revolution to overthrow dictator Porfirio Diaz began in 1910.

Mexico has been convulsed by a string of protests since the 43 students were taken from the southwestern city of Iguala by police working with a local drug gang and then very likely incinerated, according to the attorney general. Students and relatives of the missing were expected to be among the protesters, whose numbers were estimated in the thousands, said a spokeswoman for Mexico City police. A separate protest in the historic center of Mexico City saw around 650 students demonstrating peacefully earlier on Thursday, the spokeswoman added.

A masked demonstrator throws a petrol bomb towards riot police during a protest over the 43 missing Ayotzinapa students, near the Benito Juarez International airport in Mexico City

The government has been plunged into crisis by the violence in Iguala, where six people also died on the night in question. Exacerbating public discontent has been a scandal over a lucrative rail contract that personally embarrassed Pena Nieto. Earlier this month, the government abruptly canceled a $3.75 billion high-speed rail contract awarded to a consortium led by China Railway Construction Corp Ltd, partnered with a group of Mexican firms including one known as Grupo High.

It then emerged that a subsidiary of Grupo High owned a luxury house that Pena Nieto's wife, Angelica Rivera, was in the process of acquiring, raising questions about the tender and prompting her to announce on Tuesday that she would sell the stake. But the unapologetic tone of Rivera's announcement has prompted more anger in Mexico, especially as neither she nor her husband have explained why one of the winning team from the rail consortium was also the owner of the family's house.

Molotov cocktails clashes as Mexico City braces for massacre protests Reuters

 

[waltky]

Mexican bus drivers caught in limbo...

Drivers stuck for weeks at Mexico teachers college
Nov 29,`14 -- The men are holed up with their buses on the college's soccer field, sleeping in the compartments that once held passenger luggage and hanging the clothes they've hand-washed from the windshields.

While attention has focused on the kidnapping and disappearance of 43 students from the Raul Isidro Burgos teachers college in Tixtla, few have paid much attention to the three dozen or more bus drivers who say they are being forced by activists from the school to live as captives and act as chauffeurs for the very people who commandeered their vehicles. The drivers, some of whom have been at the southern Mexico school more than a month, say they cannot abandon the buses because their companies hold them financially responsible for the vehicles, some of which are worth well over a hundred thousand dollars. And with authorities unwilling to inflame tensions over the disappearance and presumed massacre of students from the school, no one is coming to their rescue. "They say we aren't kidnapped because we can get out and walk around, or swim in the (campus) pool," said one driver who, like the others holed up at the school, refused to give his name for fear of angering the students. "But a prison inmate can also go out to the exercise yard or the gym, and that doesn't mean they're free."

The students, who have a long history of sometimes violent activism, have justified the mass bus seizure as "an expropriation" and say they need the vehicles to ferry them to and from the many protests that have erupted in Guerrero state since the Sept. 26 disappearance and likely killing of their colleagues. Omar Garcia, a second-year student at the school, acknowledged it has put the drivers in a bad spot, unable to leave or earn a living to feed their families. But he told The Associated Press the students had no other choice, since they don't know how to maintain the buses or drive such large vehicles. Drivers have begged their employers to send replacements so they can go home and see their families. So far most companies have refused, though Garcia said an agreement was in the works between the students and the bus owners that would allow drivers to rotate out every 10 days. Several bus companies with vehicles at the school declined to comment, except to acknowledge that they hold the drivers responsible for the vehicles as a matter of policy. The companies say hijackings have become such a frequent problem that some lines have cut back on runs through southern Guerrero state.

The plight of the drivers at the teachers college is just one example of the government's inability to keep the peace in Guerrero state since the students disappeared, allegedly on orders from a local mayor whose corrupt police handed them over to drug traffickers. Masked students also control toll booths to collect "donations" from motorists passing on the federal highway and hijack passenger buses for their own use. Protesters from a local teachers' union have burned vehicles, public buildings and the offices of political parties, all while federal and state police stood nearby. The disappearance of the students has ignited public outrage, with near-daily protests against a government blamed both directly and indirectly for their fate. Such tension has complicated any attempt to help the bus drivers. "The police ... are not taking action at this moment to avoid giving the appearance of acts of repression," said Guerrero state prosecutors' spokesman Jorge Valdez. "It is the concept of not trying to put out a fire by pouring more gasoline on it."

A bus leaves the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa, where the 43 missing students attended, in the town of Tixtla de Guerrero, Mexico. While world attention has turned to the students of the rural teachers college in southern Mexico, almost no one has noticed the 30 or so bus drivers who say they are being forced to live as captives in order to act as chauffeurs for the activists who commandeered their vehicles. The men, some who’ve been at the school more than a month, say they cannot abandon the field because the bus companies hold them financially responsible for the vehicles worth tens of thousands of dollars. And with authorities unwilling to inflame tensions over the disappearance and presumed massacre of 43 students from the school, no one is coming to their rescue.

The state's new governor, a former leftist rebel himself, is "looking for a mechanism of conciliation, negotiation, persuasion - a political mechanism" to control the groups, Valdez said. Authorities also wish to avoid a repeat of an incident three years ago, when police shot and killed two young men from the school while trying to clear a student roadblock. A dozen officers were arrested and two of them charged. The soccer field has become a parking lot for not only the buses, but for seized delivery trucks that once held Coca-Cola and goods from milk, cheese and snack companies. The drivers said the students looted the goods and sold the merchandise to local vendors. One bus driver said he has been held since Oct. 24 when he was stopped while driving about a dozen passengers to Acapulco. A group of students blocked a road near Chilpancingo and threatened to pelt the bus with rocks unless he opened the door. The students, he said, boarded and ordered the passengers to get off. On a recent day, a hijacked gas tanker sat on the field near about 30 luxury buses from the lines that carry Mexico City vacationers to and from Acapulco. All of the buses are late model, with leather seats and individual televisions. "They know perfectly well which ones are the new ones," another driver, who also feared giving his name, said of the students.

Associated Press reporters discovered the captive drivers while reporting on the missing students, and had to talk quickly before students shooed them away. One driver warned journalists, "if they see you talking to us, they'll break your camera." A pair of students approached reporters as they left the lot. "Who gave you permission to be here?" they asked in angry tones. The men, who are fed simple meals by the students, said their companies do not pay them for their time as captives. While the students have promised to give them money when they are released, the drivers say that if they do receive anything, it won't come close to their normal earnings of nearly 20,000 pesos ($1,500) per month. "I haven't had a check for a month. I have to ask for a line of credit that I can't pay," said another driver, who was shirtless because he was hand-washing his only set of clothes. "I'm being ruined."

News from The Associated Press

 

[waltky]

Mexican Federales takin' over crime scene investigation...

Mexican federal authorities take over investigation of new mass grave
Nov. 28, 2014 | The murders are most likely unrelated to the case of 43 students missing since September.

Mexican federal authorities took over an investigation Friday relating to 11 burned and decapitated bodies found near a rural road in the state of Guerrero. The bodies, along with a message from the perpetrators, were found by local authorities Thursday. The sign read, "Here goes your trash" followed by expletives, and allegedly signed by a criminal gang.

Murder investigations are usually handled by state or local authorities, and in this case, Guerrero authorities began the investigation before it was formally taken over by federal officials. The bodies were then taken to Mexico City to be examined by forensic experts.

All 11 bodies were male. Guerrero investigators said "it's worth pointing out that the bodies are missing their cephalic extremity, which were not placed in the immediate surroundings of the find." The bodies were also partially incinerated.

These bodies are most likely unrelated to the case of 43 missing students kidnapped and presumably murdered in September. That incident has sparked intense demonstrations and debate throughout the country. The town of Chilapa, near the site where the 11 bodies were found, witnessed a violent confrontation between gangs in July, leading authorities to enforce a curfew for several days.

Read more: New mass grave in Mexico 11 decapitated bodies found - UPI.com

 

[waltky]

Mexican president gonna get tough on crime...

Mexican Leader Announces Nationwide Crime Crackdown
November 27, 2014 ~ Mexico's president announced a nationwide anti-crime plan Thursday that would give Congress the power to dissolve local governments infiltrated by drug gangs and give state authorities control over often-corrupt municipal police.

As if to underscore the crime problem, Mexican authorities Thursday reported the discovery of 11 mutilated bodies in the violence-racked state of Guerrero, with a note left at the scene tying the massacre to a criminal group. The victims were reported to be men in their 20s who were shot, partially burned or beheaded before being dumped on a highway in the area of Chilapa. That discovery was made as the country marked the disappearance two months ago of 43 students at a teachers college in the Guerrero city of Iguala. They were reportedly killed and incinerated by a drug gang working with local police. "Mexico cannot go on like this," President Enrique Pena Nieto said in announcing his initiative.

His plan would relax the complex manner in which offenses are dealt with at federal, state and local levels. At present, some local police refuse to act to prevent federal crimes like drug trafficking. It would also seek to establish a national identity number or document, though it was unclear what form that would take. The plan would focus first on four of Mexico's most troubled states — Guerrero, Michoacan, Jalisco and Tamaulipas — sending more federal police and other forces to the "hot land" area of the first two states, where the government has already sent significant contingents of federal police and soldiers.

Demonstrator covers face with poster reading "Pena Out" during protest in support of 43 missing students outside office of Mexico's Attorney General, Mexico City

Other main proposals include:

— Constitutional reform to establish unified state police forces, going from more than 1,800 weak municipal police forces to 32 forces in the country's 31 states and the capital.

— Establishment of a single national emergency phone number, preferably "911."

— Expeditious passage of anti-corruption legislation pending in Congress.

— Emphasis on a reform agenda in the next session of Congress on civil justice and human rights, including reform of torture laws and investigations into disappeared persons.

Gang-related violence and the government's crackdown on cartels have left tens of thousands of Mexicans dead or missing since 2006.

Mexican Leader Announces Nationwide Crime Crackdown