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<h1><b>Police Testify that the Beatings and Arbitrary Arrests in Atenco
Were Committed on Explict Orders from
Above</b></h1><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.narconews.com/Issue41/article1870.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.narconews.com/Issue41/article1870.html<br>
</a></font><h2><b>Cops Turn Against their Bosses: the Atenco Citizenry
Runs Televisa Out of Town in Front of Four State Troopers<br><br>
<br><br>
</b></h2><h3><b>By Al Giordano<br>
The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign in
Mexico</b></h3><font size=3>June 5, 2006<br><br>
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.<br><br>
The <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/vi_139104.html">front
page of Mexico’s largest daily newspaper, </a><i>El
Universal</i>
<a href="http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/vi_139104.html">, today
reports</a>: “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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
“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.’”<br><br>
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 <i>El
Universal</i>, were obtained by the state prosecutor, which has solicited
handwritten testimony from state troopers and subsequent polygraph (lie
detector) testing.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<br>
</font><h5><b>Atenco Confronts Televisa</b></h5><font size=3>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.<br><br>
<a href="http://www.esmas.com/noticierostelevisa/mexico/540387.html%5C">
Televisa’s own website reports</a> that, on Sunday, “townspeople of San
Salvador Atenco in the State of Mexico attacked and robbed a Televisa
News Team.”<br><br>
And, claims the TV station, they did it in front of four state troopers
who were parked at the entrance to the town.<br><br>
This doesn’t sound like a population that has had its fighting spirit
beaten out of it.<br><br>
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:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>“At the main entrance to the town there was a state transit police
patrol car, number 07755, with four officers standing around it.
<br><br>
<dd>“Cameraman Antonio Peña began to videotape images of the highway and
together with the reporter they entered the pedestrian bridge.<br><br>
<dd>“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.<br><br>
<dd>“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.<br><br>
<dd>“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.<br><br>
<dd>“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.”<br><br>
</i>
</dl>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.<br><br>
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