In an act of revenge cartel members in 2011 razed and burned houses and disappeared people just by bearing the last name of the alleged traitor. 'Somos.': One of Mexico's Worst Massacres Told Through its Victims And I remember what he said to me: Don't be an ass. He told her about other people from the region who the Zetas had kidnapped and killed, including a pregnant teenager and the nephew of the former mayor of Piedras Negras. Subscribe to our newsletter and join other 2,442 Justice in Mexico readers! Netflix's 'Somos.' gives a human face to unspeakable tragedy Later we took these people to the Garza ranch where we put them in the same house where we had the others. What actions had they taken to guarantee the security of the people of Allende? First published on Wed 6 Nov 2019 16.31 EST. Declassified Documents on the San Fernando Massacre & Violence against Migrants in Northeastern Mexican States . 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. 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. 'Somos.' on Netflix gives Mexican massacre a Hollywood twist - Los In July, Coahuila state investigators gave them a nearly identical set of questions; among them: Did they know about the disappearances as they were happening? Some cooperated more than others. Netflix will release a series next month inspired by a story that revealed . The money went through the [police] commander, which he then delivered to the RTs [shift commanders] and from them to the rest of us police officials. See Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. [10] How the U.S. State investigative police in Coahuila said her testimony pointed to the method of operations of organized crime at that time in relation to the kidnappings in the northern region of the state of Coahuila and was one of the first clear signals that the Allende massacre was connected to many other cases around the region. How US intelligence has helped cartels kill thousands in Mexico Somos. [I]n fact, he sometimes came and went inside the cells to beat those who were locked up. [A]t that time I lived in La Colonia Presidentes, and I knew all of these people because they were from the town. He just asked us if we knew about what was happening. Witnesses Described Defendant's Participation in the 2011 Allende Massacre, Where Over 100 Men, Women, and Children Were Slaughtered by the Zetas Cartel PLANO, Texas - A Mexican national and high-ranking member of the Los Zetas cartel received a life sentence for drug trafficking violations in the Eastern District of Texas, announced Acting . May 29, 2021. [T]he director, who almost never left his office, knew all about this. Bri Rooke. Sep 28, 2022, 5:00 AM SGT. The two had gone to the ranch on March 18 to get medicine for a cockfight that evening. The majority of these cases happened in Allende, so that time referred to as the Allende Massacre. April 16, 2018, US: Mexico Mass Graves Raise "Alarming Questions" about Government "Complicity" in September 2014 Cartel Killings De Len said that he already knew that all of the municipal police of Allende were associated with or worked for the Zetas., When I saw all those police I realized that they were keeping watch or guarding the place, that is to say the [Garza] ranch In addition to the police I already mentioned, I noticed that there were more people wearing civilian clothes, some hooded, some not. There were not many of us. But this is the first time that images of records from the case file have been published in their original form (although many of the pages have been redacted by CNDH for public release). Inside the gate, a small building was burning. November 6, 2013, National Security Archive Allende y la masacre de la que no se habla en Mxico - Cultura Colectiva When the Zetas arrived in Allende a decade ago, they infiltrated the very . Witnesses said the recent killings came after CDN members entered the town days earlier in search of rival gang members. Senior officers, including the police director, commander, and shift commanders, were paid more handsomely than regular cops. Police commander Juan Ariel Hernndez Ramos (who served under police director Trevio) said that Lozano had called top city officials to a special meeting to discuss the ongoing violent attacks around the city. What is clear is that the failure to do so sealed the fates of an untold number of victims who were murdered at the ranch later that night. The targets included the families of Juniors father, Jos Luis Garza y Garza, and his unclesVctor, Rodolfo, and Sergio. During the two years she spent investigating the role of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the 2011 massacre in Allende, Mexico, she worked to understand and portray that reality of . Zcalo, a regional paper in Saltillo, Coahuila, also published portions of the testimony. He said his hands were tied, so he stepped aside . Much of the worst violence occurred at a pair of ranches owned by the Garza family and located outside of the city center along the highway. Audio series examines DEA culpability in 2011 Allende massacre. 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. In June 2019, more than eight years after the fact, President Lpez Obradorapologizedfor the Mexican governments ineffective response to the assault on Allende, pinning most of the blame on narcotraffickers but also recommitting his government to implementing the March 2018CNDH recommendations, which included punishing government agents who facilitated or failed to react to the violence. Mauricio, the infant son of Liliana lvarez and Arturo Espinoza, was never seen again. To date, prosecutors have managed only a handful ofconvictions in a case that involves dozens of crime scenes, hundreds of victims, and the documented participation of numerous Zetas and public officials. PICTURED: Victims of Mexico massacre that left 3 moms and 6 children The 2011 massacre carried out by the Zetas drug cartel in Allende, Mexico was a shocking reminder of the brutality of the black market, which thrives under governmental drug . And the mayor commented on what was happening in the city, but never said if he was going to ask for help or if he had advised anyone of what was happening. 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. The mayor of Allende in the Cinco Manantiales region of Coahuila said at the time of the slaughter that he was helpless to prevent the massacre. Germn Zaragoza Snchez, better known as El Canelo, was a top Zetas boss in Allende and managed a group hawks who monitored and reported on the movements of state and federal security forces. 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]. The six-part miniseries examines the lives of the victims of a cartel massacre at the Mexican border town of Allende. [H]e was telling me that he wanted to look for the Zetas to see what they were asking for the return of his family. The collection is at once a narrow and graphic examination of the events of March 18-20 and a broader look at the combination of bribery, intimidation, and ruthless violence used by Los Zetas (and now, CDN) to turn local security forces into instruments of their criminal operations. Residents of the small town of Villa Union, 12 miles from Allende, said Tuesday . There was also a man by the name of [Everardo Elizondo,] who raised fighting cocks, and [Csar Alfonso Garca Ramrez] And how the people from the Zetas were shouting, hitting and mistreating these people!-Declaration of Allende volunteer firefighter Luis Gerardo Herrera Estrada, November 23, 2014, The chief of the fire department, Christian Alejandro Lpez Tamez, told investigators in a revised statement that, just like his colleagues, he was able to identify many of the faces he saw there, including the director and other top officials from the Allende police department. That he and the then-mayor of the city had a meeting with people from Los Zetas. The soldiers found doors torn off, the building sacked, spent shell casings, dead animals, burned buildings, and a pick-up truck riddled with bullet holes, but no people. Washington, D.C., March 18, 2021 - Ten years ago, the Mexican municipality of Allende was the site of one of the worst human rights atrocities ever seen in the country: a three-day wave of violence in which the criminal group known as Los Zetas kidnapped, murdered, and later burned the bodies of an estimated 300 . Chilling New Report by FXB's Sergio Aguayo Cites Greater Death Toll in Herrera said he knew many of the victims as well. 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. One former Allende police official interviewed during the investigation described how the payments were made. 15 Killed in Mexican Car Wash Massacre | Fox News And he said this openly, because almost all the police received money from those people And that according to that meeting, they had told him that if we saw strange things related to Los Zetas, that we would not do anything or say anything. History. Hit especially hard was the extended family of Jos Luis Garza Gaytn (also known as Junior and El Wichin). [T]hey brought them there to the Los ngeles Cemetery near the Piedras Negras city seminary, and also more people. Elvira Espinoza and her husband were among the first to inform federal authorities about the violence, telling investigators that she and her husband reported the disappearance of Arturo, Liliana and the three children to the military garrison along Highway 57, just outside of Allende. On the night of March 20, 2011, four firefighters arrived at a ranch along a stretch of rural highway linking the northern Mexico towns of Allende and Villa Unin. Ten years ago, the Mexican municipality of Allende was the site of one of the worst human rights atrocities ever seen in the country:a three-day rampage that punctuateda larger wave of violencein which theLos Zetas criminal groupkidnapped, murdered, and later burned the bodies of as many as 300 victims, many of them from Allende but also from nearby towns like Villa Unin and Piedras Negras, a city 35 miles to the north that lies just across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas. They had brought people from Sabinas, among others an ex-federal highways official and other people from the municipalities of Zaragoza and Morelosthis was weeks after what happened in Allende.- Complaint of wife of murdered Zeta, November 13, 2014. 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. I recall that he was light-skinned, thin, of medium height, around 20 or 25 years of age, and they brought him in with his hands and feet tied up and with his face covered with tape.- Declaration of Zetas safe house guard, part 2, March 2, 2016, After a few days, he said, members of Los Zetas came and took him away in the bed of a pick-up truck, adding that he heard that they were going to turn him into roast beef, which is to say, that they were going to cook him.. She learned that her husbands friend, Hector, had also been called away and picked up by the same white truck that came for Rodolfo. Mexico has again witnessed a brutal incident of gun violence, where a gunman opened fire and killed at least 18 people at San Miguel Totolapan City Hall on Wednesday. Her brother-in-law, who also worked for the Garzas, arrived later and told her that her husband had been kidnapped. What we saw, he said, was something thats not easy to forget.. Remembering the Allende Massacre - BlogTest Jimnez told authorities that local Zetas leaders sent him to the ranch as part of an all-out assault on people and properties associated with the Garza family. The slowly unfolding investigation of the Allende massacre finally gained some momentum with the establishment of a special task force in 2014. A self-described foca (lookout) for the Zetas, he had been found sleeping on the job. Mexico Mormon massacre: US victims were shot at point-blank range Cartel Assassin Involved in Allende Massacre Sentenced to Life in Gunmen open fire in a roadside eatery, leaving nine customers dead in pools of blood. 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. [W]hen the Zetas realized that we were there, they said to us, Youd better get the hell out of here, motherfuckers! In fact, the meeting only lasted around ten minutes.-Declaration of Juan Ariel Hernndez Ramos, Allende police commander, August 18, 2016. Among other evidence is thestatementof a former Allende police official, Fernando Hernndez Reyes, who gave a vivid account of his involvement in the kidnappings. One of the guys that went with Pala, who was nicknamed [El Cabezn,] forced me to kill one of the men, and [forced Chucho to do the same.] In a sworn statement, El Pjaro said the Zetas coordinated the kidnappings with high-ranking officials of the Allende municipal police department, who were present during the abductions and who carried the victims from the house to the ranch in a police patrol vehicle. Declassified Documents Released on The Allende Massacre SALTILLO, Mexico In the waning days of January 2014 state and federal security forces along with military troops fanned out across the scrubland of Coahuila in northern Mexico, reportedly in search of human remains.. Over 20 days, some 250 masked agents combed the ranches and towns of Allende, Nava, Acua and Piedras Negras, across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas, for the victims of a . In March 2011, The Zetas They carried out a massacre in the municipality of Allende, Coahuila, which did not receive the attention of the media at the time, until many years later. FOR almost three years residents of Allende, close to the Mexican border with . The six-part drama series is inspired by the Allende massacre in Mexico. His wife, Sarah Angelita Lira, said that Liliana had called to tell him that their uncles ranch was on fire, and that she was leaving the ranch, and that they were closing the gate., So my husband left. One of the homes destroyed in Allende in 2011. shares. And after five or six hours during which the corpses were cooked it was then around five or six oclock in the morning. Despite the brutality of the case, major U.S. TV and print outlets have largely ignored the kidnapping and murder of hundreds of people from Allende, Coahuila. Beginning as a group of deserters from an elite unit of the armed forces at the service of the Gulf Cartel, the Zetas would go on to become one of the most powerful and feared cartels in Mexico before infighting and the loss of leaders started the organization's decline. In exchange, Reyes passed DEA intelligence to the criminal groups, including, in at least one case, sensitive information about a pending DEA investigation. In 2020, a U.S. court also indicted Reyes Arzates boss, former public security minister Genaro Garca Luna, for taking tens of millions of dollars in bribes from Sinaloa Cartel chief Joaqun El Chapo Guzmn. Alone on a remote mountain road after witnessing the slaughter of nine close relatives, the wounded children who had survived a cartel ambush in . Report says Mexico state officials ignored massacre | AP News Edited by Michael Evans. 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. The 2011 San Fernando massacre, also known as the second massacre of San Fernando, was the mass murder of 193 people by Los Zetas drug cartel at La Joya ranch in the municipality of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico in March 2011. Mexican Federal Police collect ashes, bone fragments and other bits of evidence from the Garza Ranch on January 28, 2014 (Source: Document 40: Field Criminology Opinion Report, January 28, 2014). We continued to advance until we reached the ranch, where I saw that there were a number of blue and white municipal police patrol cars and several police officers And these police, its like they were guarding the place. 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. In the worst cases, civilian authorities were little more than subcontractors of the Zetas criminal organization, involved in shakedowns, kidnappings, drug trafficking and numerous murders, not over a period of weeks or months, but for many years. 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. 8 min de lectura. The recent violence is also a reminder that Mexican authorities have largely failed to protect the countrys civilian population from historically high levels of violence or to alleviate the effects of an ever-deepening security crisis. Of particular importance was the November 2014 testimony of a woman from Piedras Negras whose husband, himself a member of the Zetas, had been kidnapped, detained, and later killed by the group in 2010. That is to say, to transfer them to the Los ngeles Cemetery of this city and later to the ranch of the [deleted] to finish them off. El 18 de marzo de 2011, sicarios de Los Zetas irrumpieron en el pequeo municipio fronterizo buscando venganza porque alguien les haba . [5] The Mexican government signaled its intention to soften some of the more severe restrictions imposed by the new law. Warning: violence in San Miguel de Allende : r/digitalnomad - reddit The newly released files on Allende, including evidence gathered in the weeks and months immediately following the massacre, show just how inadequate these investigations have been. Allende, Coahuila, municipio donde se perpetr una masacre, en 2011. 'Are.' from Netflix: learn the true story of the Allende massacre Is Netflix's 'Somos.' a true story? Horrifying Allende massacre still 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. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico," "Somos." tells the story of a 2011 mass killing in Allende, in the Mexican state of Coahuila . Elizondos wife,Etelvina Rodrguez, said she soon realized that many of the wives of those who worked at the Garza ranch were looking for their husbands.. To me in particular they gave me 2,000 pesos [per month].-Declaration of former Allende police official, July 22, 2014. American authorities eventually helped Mexico capture the Trevios but never acknowledged the devastating cost. Hundreds Believed Disappeared in Allende Massacre - Al Jazeera Child survivors of massacred family spent 10 hours hiding in Mexican [18]On homicide rate, see this report from the University of San Diegos Justice in Mexico program; On impunity, see, Mexicos bloody drug war is killing more people than ever, Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2017. About five estacas[9]participated, and with [deleted] and [deleted] ten more joined. And together with the patrols there were many cars and trucks both inside and outside the ranch, and these people carried long arms from which I deduced that these people were from Los Zetas.- Declaration of Allende firefighter Jess Gerardo De Len Ramos, December 17, 2014, 14:50. September 26, 2019, FiftyYears After Tlatelolco, Censoring the Mexican Archives: Mexico's "Dirty War" Files Withdrawn from Public Access Una nueva serie de Netflix intenta . This was at about 7:30 or 8:00 AM on Saturday, March [19], 2011 Just past the entrance I could see some Allende municipal police trucks, and beneath these were armed people who I recognized as police.- Complaint of wife of victim Csar Alfonso Garca Ramrez, May 23, 2014. The DEA claims credit for helping Mexico make the arrest, but would not discuss what steps were taken to investigate the 2011 intelligence leak that led to the massacre in Allende. Oct. 9, 2016. 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.
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