[News] Beatings and Arbitrary Arrests in Atenco Were Committed on Explict Orders from Above

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Police Testify that the Beatings and Arbitrary 
Arrests in Atenco Were Committed on Explict Orders from Above

http://www.narconews.com/Issue41/article1870.html

Cops Turn Against their Bosses: the Atenco 
Citizenry Runs Televisa Out of Town in Front of Four State Troopers





By Al Giordano
The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign in Mexico

June 5, 2006

Two reports this morning in the Mexican media 
demonstrate that the furor from below in response 
to brutality by government and media continues to 
turn on the perpetrators of the Atenco atrocity 
that shakes the conscience of the world. Early 
last month, more than 200 citizens were arrested, 
most of them beaten and tortured, and most of the 
47 women among them were sexually abused or 
raped. The titanic efforts by officials of the 
federal government of President Vicente Fox and 
that of State of Mexico Governor Enrique Peña 
Nieto to stonewall, deny responsibility for the 
crime, and commit new violations of human rights 
to cover up those committed on the third and 
fourth of May, continue to unravel as the true facts surge from below.

The 
<http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/vi_139104.html>front 
page of Mexico’s largest daily newspaper, El 
Universal<http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/vi_139104.html>, 
today reports: “At least fifty” of the state 
troopers that participated in the police raid on 
San Salvador Atenco on May 4 have testified that 
their brutality on that day was carried out on orders from their superiors.

Rogelio Cortez Cruz, state police chief, who 
directed the raid, gave specific orders to 
brutalize the population and enter homes without 
a search warrant to carry out the arrests. He 
literally ordered the troopers to “break the 
mothers” of the citizenry, to “fuck them all” and 
to do so indiscriminately. The troopers testified 
that they received the same orders via police 
radio. At least fifty state troopers have 
testified to it in written statements, according to the newspaper.

The police, themselves under investigation for 
the rapes, tortures and brutalities of those 
days, also named the assistant state police chief 
for the region, Remedos Estrada Colín, as confirming those orders from above.

“According to information obtained by EL 
UNIVERSAL, practically 90 percent of the police 
under investigation by the state prosecutor’s 
office have said that both commanders were 
‘explicit’ in their orders to beat, punish and 
repress any citizen in their path, as well as to 
enter private homes in order to ‘report good results to Wilfrido Robledo.’”

Robledo, the state police commissioner, has 
attempted to explain away what he calls 
“excesses” on the part of his troopers as 
isolated acts by a few rank-and-file cops. He and 
his boss, Governor Peña Nieto, have announced the 
“temporary suspension of police troops to calm 
the situation.” His effort to deliver the heads 
of a few scapegoats in order to escape his own 
debt to justice are thus being countered, now, by 
the testimony of his own troopers. These 
testimonies, reports El Universal, were obtained 
by the state prosecutor, which has solicited 
handwritten testimony from state troopers and 
subsequent polygraph (lie detector) testing.

Thus, the initial effort by police to circle the 
wagons and deny, in a united front, that the 
violations occurred has now deteriorated into 
finger-pointing among them. Specifically, in 
harmony with the message of the Zapatista Other 
Campaign, the counter-force, even within the 
police forces, now comes from below.



Atenco Confronts Televisa

If the bloody police raid on the town of Atenco – 
and the corresponding effort by mass media to 
demonize the townspeople, who, machete swords 
raised to the skies, stopped an international 
airport from being constructed there four years 
ago – was intended to silence the rebel spirit of 
the town, that strategy also appears to be falling apart.

<http://www.esmas.com/noticierostelevisa/mexico/540387.html%5C>Televisa’s 
own website reports that, on Sunday, “townspeople 
of San Salvador Atenco in the State of Mexico 
attacked and robbed a Televisa News Team.”

And, claims the TV station, they did it in front 
of four state troopers who were parked at the entrance to the town.

This doesn’t sound like a population that has had 
its fighting spirit beaten out of it.

According to Televisa’s version of the story, 
three station employees – a cameraman, a 
“reporter” and their chauffer – were parked along 
the Texcoco-Lechería highway when they heard the 
sound of fireworks in Atenco, and so “they 
decided to come closer to see what was happening.” The TV station website says:

“At the main entrance to the town there was a 
state transit police patrol car, number 07755, 
with four officers standing around it.

“Cameraman Antonio Peña began to videotape images 
of the highway and together with the reporter 
they entered the pedestrian bridge.

“Two minutes later they returned to their car, 
parked next to the patrol car, and the cameraman 
put the camera in the back part of the vehicle.

“The talked for a moment with the police about 
the situation there and they were about to leave 
when 30 people on bicycles and bicycle-taxis 
arrived and began to insult and threaten them so they got in the car.

“With the car already started, one of the 
aggressors opened the driver’s door to try to 
pull him out. Suddenly, Adolfo Camarena Ibarra 
closed the door and locked it. Simultaneously 
another person opened the back door and took the photographer’s camera.

“The aggressors kicked the automobile and the 
threats continued such that
 the four state 
policemen who had gotten in their patrol car took 
off, followed by the Televisa News Team.”

Perhaps the state troopers, having seen how their 
own bosses set them up to take the fall over the 
events of a month ago, are having second thoughts 
about sticking their necks out for two 
illegitimate authorities – the State and the Mass Media – again.


The Freedom Archives
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