“State Crime, Extraction, and Cartels: The Meaning of Mining in Guerrero, Mexico”By Ximena Santaolalla - Maps + design: snobs (Pin & Benson J)
Por Ximena Santaolalla
Versión corta publicado en Revista I Harvard Review of Latin America
https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/author/ximena-santaolalla/
mayo 2023
The disappearance and execution of 43 students in 2014, during Enrique Peña Nieto presidency, is one of the most brutal and heinous state crimes in Mexican recent history. The reason behind such crime remains, if not unclear, unduly investigated by the authorities. In the following pages I will lay out an argument showing how the actions taken both by the military, police, and the organized crime, were very much influenced by interests of the mining industry.
On the evening of Sept. 26, 2014, according to Reports I, II, III, IV and V of the Ayotzinapa Grupo Interdisciplinario de Expertos Independientes, a group of young students from the rural school “Normal Raul Isidro Burgos” of Ayotzinapa, went to the city of Iguala, Guerrero, to hijack buses and travel to Mexico City, for the commemoration of the repression against students dated Oct. 2, 1968. This is an annual commemoration where the “Normal Raul Isidro Burgos” students temporarily take buses with the government’s (and transportation companies) tacit authorization.
However, on that same day, the authorities —municipal police of Iguala, Cocula, Huitzuco and Tepecoacuilco, ministerial police, Guerrero state police, federal police— and organized crime —the Guerreros Unidos cartel— prevented the buses from leaving Iguala. They used brutal force, opening fire on them.
In addition to this, military personnel from the Ministry of National Defense, from the 35th Military Zone, from the 27th battalion, and commanders and members of intelligence services (including the National Intelligence Center), went to the places where the students were being attacked and did not provide them with any assistance, but just passively observed. There is evidence that all the information of the attacks was transmitted in real time and that the C4 (Center of Command, Control, Communication and Computing of the State Guard of Guerrero) controlled the cameras of the sites through which the students passed, and, despite this, did nothing. There are reports in the Ministry of National Defense files of phone calls between military personnel and people claiming to have kidnapped the students between September 26 and October 4. One of them identifies himself as a member of the Guerreros Unidos cartel and another as a policeman. They did not attempt to rescue the students.
Mines creep up all over Guerrero, starting particularly in the southern-east side of the Sierra (where the school “Normal Isidro Burgos” is located), and continuing north across Tierra Caliente. Map 1 shows some of these mines, although other so-called “narco-mines” are not pinned here.
Map 1
Los Filos-Bermejal, the second largest gold mine in the country (exploited by the Canadian company Leagold) is located only an hour away from the school. The mine exploited by Equinox Gold—which extracts up to 250 thousand ounces of gold per year— is only 43 minutes away. In the near vicinity, not far away, there are many other mines. Carrizalillo, Limon-Guajes, Media Luna, Teloloapan, Cuetzala del Progreso, Mezcala, Cocula, Arcelia, Campo Morado, Eduardo Neri, Atlixtac, mines of gold, silver, zinc, copper, lead, titanium and uranium.
Mining companies have been present in Guerrero for a long time. It all started with the gold rush, which is now over, but the rush for other minerals such as Titanium and Uranium remains. However, the presence of mineral wealth has not benefited the local communities. Guerrero is the second poorest state in the country with around 66% of its population living in poverty. Still, mining companies thrive, even though they operate in a complex context of violently contested territories. On the one hand, organized crime extorts and demands a “payment of dues” (derecho de piso) from mining companies. On the other hand, organized crime "supports" them in an apparently unsolicited manner, by one of two documented methods:
First, they displace entire communities from areas where mining companies want to explore. Displacing communities would otherwise be more expensive and take them much longer to do so. Organized crime has other ways of driving people away and "clearing" the land so that the mining company may bring its machinery in. Take the case of El Porvenir for example. Journalist and author Francisco Cruz (2016) refers to a note published in the Digital Guerrero about the dismemberment of a live child in 2016 to warn the community and make it leave. Some had already left since 2014, but others were resisting, until some hitmen cut out the heart of a child (alive as it happened), in front of everyone, to clearly show what they were capable of. That is what was happening in Guerrero near the rural school Isidro Burgos, that is what continues to happen today;
(ii) Second, organized crime also provides the service of threatening, injuring, disappearing, and murdering environmental activists who try to stop mining companies and the government from granting mining concessions, among other types of environmental activism. In 2022, Global Witness established that Mexico was the most dangerous country in the world to practice environmental activism; in 2021 alone, 58 environmentalists were murdered, without counting those who disappeared and those who were injured and threatened. Of these, half belong to Indigenous peoples. Oaxaca ranks first in violence against environmentalists; Guerrero second, followed by Sonora and Morelos.
The rural school Isidro Burgos became, little by little, a meeting place for activists and communities aggrieved by mining and organized crime in the area. Especially, since activists Evelia Bahena and Diana Brito began to be persecuted, threatened and attacked for reporting the violence suffered in their community due to the La Media Luna mine megaproject since 2006 to date. Just as Nestora Salgado was unjustly imprisoned in 2013 for defending Indigenous rights, including land rights against mining companies.
On the fatal night of Sept. 26, 2014, a student, Julio Cesar Mondragon —22-years-old, married to Marisa and father of a little girl—survived several attacks; however, he decided to return to help his colleagues. In Marisa's words: "the only thing I told him was to run away, to hide or do something. He told me he couldn't because they were his partners and where his partners were, he would remain." The following morning, the body of Julio Cesar Mondragon was found faceless, lying near the C-4 headquarters. One of his eyes was on the ground a few feet away. The image of his body was disseminated on social networks when it was not yet known who he was.
The images of Julio Cesar's tortured body distorted the reality of the facts and opened the door to blame him. The authorities went as far as to accuse him of being part of the organized crime, arguing that the cartel Guerreros Unidos had killed him because he was "a member of another cartel” (Los Rojos). The first autopsy did not make clear the circumstances of the torture, as it implied that the loss of the eyes was due to animals roaming around. However, thanks to the careful work of late independent doctor Ricardo Loewe, it was possible to reach a conclusion that, despite being horrifying, was closer to reality. Julio Cesar Mondragon was brutally tortured to death. The set of fractures of the face, skull, thorax and spine, in addition to the pulmonary and abdominal hematomas, indicated that Julio Cesar was still alive while the attack ocurred. His skull had numerous fractures caused by blunt force trauma. The injuries to the face and neck showed a pattern of linear wounds from the use of a sharp object, probably when Julio Cesar was immobilized. Subsequently, Julio Cesar had the skin removed from his face —probably as a trophy— while he was still alive, in other words, he was flayed. His eyes were also gouged out while he was still alive. Julio Cesar's relatives had to pay all the expenses, including those of the transportation of the body and burial, making great efforts and economic sacrifices. The authorities did not offer any support.
Why leave the body of a student lying on the street, in such conditions? Those who did it were probably following orders. They knew that this image would be all over social media in just a few hours. Why? My hypothesis, which is similar to that of scholars and journalists —such as Francisco Cruz Jiménez and Raúl René Villamil Uriarte, who have done serious research around this state crime—, is the following: it was about sending a message: Do not mess with us, do not mess with our business —human trafficking, extorsion, kidnapping, drugs, weapons—, and especially do not mess with the mining business. As Ph.D. Villamil Uriarte (2015) puts it:
“The other image that travels against this symbolic system of artificial happiness, imposed and simulated by the State, the fleshless, flayed face of Julio César Mondragón [...]. His fleshless face, with its exposed skull on which a set of teeth is drawn in the manner of a rictus of an ironic, laconic, sarcastic smile that illuminates his skull without the globules of the eyes... the face of Julio César, "the chilango", the student of Ayotzinapa, is one of the first examples of all the pedagogical didactics of terror that was to come. An image that goes against the grain of the "freshness" of the president's self-referential photos. A face without a face, without facial expressions, [...] they castrated him in his public expression, in his presentation of the self in society, a dismal fact of horror that tries to erase the expression of discontent of the young subversives, it is the power before the mirror of the claim of impunity that disfigures him and presents him before the media without an expression of life, with the cold and aberrant expression of torture and death. The photograph of Julio César without any record of compassion is a warning that is being fulfilled, the expression of young people is condemned to disappearance, to clandestine graves, to death without identity, without memory. The fact that they have removed his gaze is a prophecy, it is a condemnatory vision, they do not want young people to see, to realize, to bear witness, to condemn, to legislate, to persecute, to question.”
Four months after these events, President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012 - 2018) declared: “this moment in Mexico's history, of tragedy and pain, cannot leave us trapped [...] we have to move forward with greater optimism [...], the important thing is not to remain paralyzed and stagnant”.
Guerrero is a topographically complex state, beautiful but rugged, crisscrossed by the rugged mountain ranges: Sierra Madre del Sur and the Sierras del Norte. These mountains are generally considered to be part of the much larger American cordillera, extending from Alaska down to these, across western North America. Guerrero’s area is 64,281 square kilometers, almost the size of Ireland. Ten percent of its population identifies itself as Afro-Mexican, and of the three and a half million people, around 600,000 speak an indigenous language: Náhuatl, Mixteco, Tlapaneco and Amuzgo.
The soil of Guerrero is rich in gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, zinc, mercury, antimony, uranium and tungsten, which, combined with its rugged topography, makes it attractive and vulnerable to extraction enterprises, and organized crime.
This is possibly why it is the state with the second highest number of forced displacements in the country, after Chiapas (Villamil, 2015). Guerrero has around six episodes of mass forced displacement per year. A mass displacement is understood as the displacement of at least 50 people (Argüello, 2021) (Map 2 shows the number of events of forced displacements in Guerrero between 2010 and 2020, of 50 people or more). These events are often invisible because they take place in small numbers and because they are internal displacements not visible at a national level. They are also rarely noticed beyond Mexico because they do not involve the crossing of international borders. In Guerrero, displacements are mainly linked to drug trafficking for poppy and cannabis plantations, organized crime of all kinds, and mining megaprojects. And although the Law Decree 487 to prevent and address internal displacement in the state of Guerrero for security reasons was passed in July 2014, the violence could not be stopped and has only intensified. In this sense, a colonialist, violent and extractive situation continues. Certain powerful groups gain access to isolated territories which are rich in natural resources, and approach them as if they were no man's land (Argüello, 2021). In this way, Mexican and transnational companies, organized crime and corrupt authorities accumulate wealth at the expense of dispossessed and precarious communities. As I have commented elsewhere, companies often avail themselves of the protection of both the authorities and organized crime, and organized crime also creates a kind of partnership with corrupt authorities, so that there are no clear nor real boundaries between actors.
Map 2. Forced Displacements in Guerrero
This situation has led to an increase in homicides, kidnappings, the trafficking of young women and children, extortion and disappearances, which has gradually led to the emergence of the so-called self-defense groups. These are groups of armed civilians who seek to defend themselves against both organized crime and the megaprojects that seek to forcibly displace them. In Mexico, there are at least 50 self-defense groups (consider there are 150 different gangs of organized crime in Mexico), mainly in the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Morelos, Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Tabasco (Atuesta, 2020). Of those 50 self-defense groups, 20 are in Guerrero (Flores, 2018). Sometimes they are armed communities and sometimes private militias, many times composed not only of adults but also of teenagers and, on rare occasions, children. This has been intensifying especially in the Sierra de Guerrero and Tierra Caliente, where there are many isolated and unprotected communities, vulnerable to all kinds of abuses and with few means of communication. By January 2023, there had already been 76 violent deaths in Guerrero in just three weeks (Zorroza, 2023).
Unfortunately, there is also a phenomenon of mutual distrust due to the arrival of displaced people in other parts of Guerrero, which implies the isolation of the so-called outsiders. It is believed that they plant poppy for heroin (consider that Mexico is now the number one producer of heroin, displacing Afghanistan), which may be true because there are parts of the Sierra where it is the only thing that grows, or where the Narcos force the population to plant it. In other cases, it is believed that they are insurgents or guerrillas; unfortunately, insurgents are routinely killed by the military, a topic I will discuss later.
Going back to the dreadful night of Sept. 24, 2014, authorities say the students used four buses. Seven years later, the public learned that there was a fifth bus, thanks to the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts. Why try to cover up the existence of the fifth bus for seven years?
Bus No. 5 was not attacked by the police nor by members of the cartel Guerreros Unidos. On the contrary, according to several witnesses, it was first parked in front of the Municipal Palace of Justice following police orders, and later escorted by the Federal Police to the highway at tollbooth No. 3 at the Iguala exit. The GPS confirmed its initial route before disappearing. In 2015, one person introduced himself as the alleged bus driver. However, his appearance did not correspond to that described by witnesses, nor to that captured by some images, and he lied more than once.
This bus undoubtedly contained something of great value or something that could not be discovered for any reason. Something that had to be hidden or protected by the Federal Police amid the shootings, disappearances and homicides, despite the risk of being detected by cameras, GPS and witnesses. What did it contain? The most obvious answer would be money, heroin, and/or weapons. Another possibility is that of illegal trafficking of minerals, usually hidden among other minerals or drugs.
This matter has not yet been investigated, although it would help to better understand the facts and possible reasons for conducting the operation against the students. However, according to the preliminary investigation of the Federal Attorney General's Office A.P. PGR/SEIDO/UEIDMS/871/2014, Johnny Hurtado Olascoaga, "El Fish" —one of the most wanted leaders of the La Familia Michoacana cartel—, Mexican-Argentine businessman Carlos Ahumada Kurtz and the company Farallon Minera Mexicana, were associated with La Familia Michoacana in the illegal extraction of gold and uranium from at least two mines in the north of Guerrero, in the municipality of Arcelia, under the protection of the 102nd Infantry Battalion, whose headquarters are located in San Miguel Ixtapan, Tejupilco. One of the mines is called Campo Morado, from where the uranium is transported hidden among other metals, especially silver, lead, zinc and copper. The uranium is then transported to Lazaro Cardenas or to the port of Colima, where it is delivered directly to Chinese ships, as China acquires uranium legally mainly from Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia. Maps 3 and 4 show the roads towards the two ports (Lázaro Cárdenas and Manzanillo) as well as the presence of the different cartels in the area.
Uranium production in Mexico is reserved to the Mexican Geological Service. When a mining company reports having found uranium or plutonium, it must close the deposit because it is for the exclusive use of the Mexican State and only for peaceful purposes and in accordance with the 1984 Law on Nuclear Activities, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1969, 2004), the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (1979, 1988) and the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America (Treaty of Tlatelolco, 1967). The country currently has two nuclear power plants: One located at the National Institute for Nuclear Research, in the state of Mexico, used for research (1968) and the Laguna Verde Nuclear Power Plant in Veracruz, used for electricity generation (1990). The National Institute for Nuclear Research conducts research and development in connection with nuclear science and technology, promotes the peaceful use of nuclear energy and provides specialized services and products to the industry in general and to the medical sector in particular. Radioactive mineral occurrences and deposits have been discovered in the country, in a wide variety of geological environments. In general terms, uranium mineralization is found in the Sierra Madre Occidental in the states of Oaxaca, Coahuila, Sonora, in the Burgos basin in the state of Nuevo Leon, in Durango in volcanic rocks, in the Sierra Peña Blanca in Chihuahua, in Tierra Caliente in the State of Guerrero and the State of Mexico, in phosphate rock in Baja California Sur, Zacatecas, Tamaulipas, and San Luis Potosi.
Campo Morado and other mines located in the municipalities of Arcelia and Cocula in northern Guerrero are the result of mega-projects planned during the governorship of Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu in Guerrero, from 1987 to 1993. At that time, the government was exploring in search of mineral deposits, especially gold, silver and copper. The mining exploration extension comprises almost 2,000 hectares and approximately 200 direct exploration points.
Cartels present in Guerrero
In addition to mining, the area in the municipalities of Arcelia and Cocula are home to agriculture production of beans, sesame seeds, corn, butter bean, sorghum, oranges, limes, lemons, melons, watermelon, squash, tomatoes, peanuts, sugar cane, rice, luffa, porophyllum ruderale, mango, papaya, mamey, guava and sapodilla. Good quality handicrafts and blacksmithing are also produced. Furthermore, there is an area of approximately 20 thousand hectares used for cattle raising.
However, since 2005 and more vigorously since 2011, a wave of violence was unleashed in the area that dramatically affected the lives of the inhabitants. Cocula is located in a strategic zone for illicit trade and transport — from minerals and drugs to human trafficking— from Oaxaca, Puebla, Morelos and southern Guerrero to the south of the State of Mexico, Michoacan, connecting the ports of Lazaro Cardenas and Colima. The road to Cocula connects with the road to Iguala directly to Lazaro Cardenas. Organized crime gangs, specifically Guerreros Unidos, La Familia Michoacana and Los Templarios began operating in the area. This involves kidnappings, extortion, shootings, and the murder and disappearance of people, activists and journalists. “Parties, weddings, baptisms were suspended. It was necessary to request the presence of the Army to be able to hold this type of festivities," according to Alfonso Lozano Sanchez, reporter (Cruz, 2016).
Tlatlaya is a well-known case of violence related to mining, including uranium, as described before. The events also occurred in 2014. The cartel La Familia Michoacana paid and ordered members of the 102nd Infantry Battalion of the Mexican Military to kill 22 young men. The group of men visited Tlatlaya, planning to acquire weapons. An important and strong civil movement of community police and self-defense was developing, made up of inhabitants of both Tlatlaya, State of Mexico and Arcelia, Guerrero, who sought to defend themselves against organized crime, especially human trafficking, arms trafficking, poppy planting and illegal uranium trafficking in the area, and to stop the rapacity of mining. It seems that the cartel wanted to teach them a lesson and, at the same time, send a message to all those who were organizing themselves as self-defense groups.
The 22 young men were waiting for the members of the 102nd Infantry Battalion to illegally buy weapons for the self-defense groups, as they had previously agreed. This type of agreement based on bribes and corruption is not uncommon. As they arrived, they sheltered, as instructed, in an isolated warehouse in Tlatlaya. When members of the Infantry Battalion arrived, instead of making the exchange, they point blank executed all of them. Then, they proceeded to manipulate the scene to simulate a confrontation, as if the 22 dead young men were drug traffickers. However, there was one survivor: Clara Gómez González, a rural teacher from Arcelia, who was there to pick up her 14-year-old daughter, Erika. Erika was killed in the butchery, but Clara eventually told her story. She explained how her daughter was kidnapped by the organized crime in Arcelia; Clara had been able to locate Erika and they were planning to return to Arcelia the day that the Battalion killed her.
This is not the only case of its kind. In 2011, there was a confrontation in Luvianos, near Tlatlaya, which was never reported; almost 100 bodies were left lifeless after being killed by military personnel and, allegedly, also by local police. The bodies were later removed with dump trucks by police and military. In 2014, about 30 people were killed from a Blackhawk near Zacazonapan. Apparently, they were a group of Narcos who tried to take control of the mine located in Tizapa, and their bodies disappeared in less than an hour. Both cases are being kept under state secrecy (Cruz, 2016).
An implausible version of the Ayotzinapa facts called “Historical Truth” (Verdad Historica) was constructed and announced all over the media by the former Attorney General of the Republic, Jesús Murillo Karam. Its intention was to frame a public narrative which assigned responsibility to the cartels, the municipal president of Iguala, Mr. Abarca, and his wife, and two municipal police officers. The federal government aimed to conceal the responsibility of all other authorities and government institutions. In short, they intended to conceal a high-level state crime.
According to statements of protected witnesses and other evidence, the students were divided into different groups before being kidnapped. Given the notoriety of the events, and to hide the coordinated operation, they were subsequently killed at different times. Apparently some of the students were still alive on October 4, eight days after the event. Subsequently, thanks to telephone conversations between members of the Guerreros Unidos cartel (DEA,2013), a military officer identified as "Colonel" and Iguala municipal policemen known as Los Belicos, it was revealed that some of the rural teacher students who disappeared on the night of September 26 and 27 were taken to the 27th Infantry Battalion of the Sedena. "By orders of the government", they must "erase evidence", "the bodies will be moved so they won't be found", except for those of the "River San Juan", so they will not "go around investigating here in Huitzuco", in the words of one of the leaders of Guerreros Unidos. Another member advises the Colonel that "there are students still alive in the Bodega Vieja". In another call, the Colonel says that "those of the Bodega Vieja" have been taken care of and orders soldiers to remove remains from Iguala and says that "they took most of them to the Battalion". At the same time, the Guerreros Unidos member says that the Colonel "is sending them around to clean up everything" so that "high-level officials look good" and that "they are moving all the bodies, so that there are no more problems", "they are analyzing how to get them out, in patrol cars, or how to get rid of them" (Flores, 2022).
It became evident that the military believed that they would be able to get away with the atrocious operation. This was not an outlandish idea. It is known that in Guerrero there are almost 4,000 people reported missing in the last five years, and 370 in Iguala alone, in addition to the existence of dozens of mass graves. This is so often in the news that the public rarely notices it anymore, it's part of everyday life. General Salvador Cienfuegos, then Secretary of Defense, prohibited the entrance of anyone who was not a member of the Military to the 27th Battalion facilities hindering the investigation. In an interview, he said that "There is nothing to see there", and "It is not possible, since the laws do not allow it. It is not clear to me, nor can I allow them to interrogate my soldiers, who have not committed any crime so far. What do they want to know? What did the soldiers know? Everything has been said. I cannot allow soldiers to be treated like criminals" (Aristegui Noticias, 2015). Years later, in 2020, Cienfuegos was indicted by the US Department of Justice for drug trafficking. Shortly after, he was extradited to Mexico by request of the Mexican Government. The Mexican Attorney General, Alejandro Gertz Manero, decided not to prosecute him. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (2018 to date), who succeeded Enrique Peña Nieto, asserted in public declarations that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration fabricated the accusation against the General, implying his innocence.
The first big step in the construction of the alleged "Historical Truth" happened on Oct. 28, 2014, when the Navy conducted a secret operation, which was concealed for seven years, through which they threw bone remains, bloody clothes and bullets in the Cocula garbage dump, and later threw a bag with the bone remains of one student into the San Juan River. The Attorney General tried to claim that the 43 disappeared students had been executed and burned at the Cocula garbage dump, and their remains taken to the San Juan River, where they were supposedly scattered.
Several torture videos were discovered, where members of the Navy are seen torturing people who were detained, deprived of their freedom, and forced to testify to incriminate themselves of the facts, which has further complicated the possibility of finding the truth, in addition to all the false documents created by the authorities. Almost 90% of the detainees in the case, presented some type of torture or injury. This was not all; many key witnesses have been killed over the years, some intentionally to hinder the investigation. For instance, El Caderas was killed in a police operation with 23 bullet shots just as he was about to be arrested.
Furthermore, we now know that not only did the army have several soldiers infiltrating the rural school “Isidro Burgos”, but also that it had been using sophisticated spying methods on the community for at least 20 years and Pegasus since 2010.
The day of the massacre, the infiltrated soldiers were constantly reporting on the whereabouts of the students. The army knew beforehand about the bus hijack on Sept. 26, 2014. That day, one of the informants passing as a student, even reported to his superiors that they were being assaulted, but the informant was not rescued and was also assassinated.
The rural school Isidro Burgos of Ayotzinapa is a boarding school founded in 1926. The ideology behind the creation of this and other Rural Schools was to bring education to the countryside, where it was and is so desperately needed. These schools train young men to become teachers who will then teach in rural areas: "The people for the University and the University for the people". However, the Revolutionary Institutional Party government after Lázaro Cárdenas never liked the idea of bringing education to the countryside and, little by little, the Ayotzinapa normal school became a target. Finally, one of the student leaders of the school turned out to be one of the most important insurgents in the history of our country: Lucio Cabañas Barrientos. Since his assassination in 1974, the school has carried a strong political stigma and has been the target of continuous government aggressions. It has survived thanks to the strength of its leaders, to the ongoing rallies of those who barely have enough money to support themselves.
To date, of the 43 kidnapped students, only the incomplete remains of three ⎯Alexander Mora Venancio, Christian Rodríguez Telumbre and Jhosivany Guerrero de la Cruz⎯, have been found. One of them was discovered in 2014, in the San Juan River, inside the plastic bag placed there by the Navy. The others were discovered between 2019 and 2020, in the Barranca de la Carniceria, with the professional and transparent performance of the Special Investigation and Litigation Unit for the Ayotzinapa Case.
That night of September 26, 2014, forty-three young students ⎯aged 17 to 22⎯ disappeared and are still missing; two were executed in front of witnesses; one was severely tortured, skinned alive and then executed; two were seriously injured, with permanent damages. Another bus carrying a youth soccer team, Los Avispones, which was unluckily returning late from a soccer game, was also attacked, as well as a woman who was in a taxi and was hit by a bullet; the driver of los Avispones bus and a 15-year-old player died; around 40 people were injured. Some of the surviving students took refuge in the homes of people who took them in, despite their fear. I thank them.
This violence, extraction and inequality, brings me to the efforts made by so many activists, journalists and insurgents who fight every day and to those who have lost their life for their people. I cannot write about every effort made in a few pages, but will remember the early morning hours of Jan. 24, 1994, because of its importance in the matter of mining and land rights.
An army of Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Chol, Zoque, Tojolabal and Mame men and women came down from the mountains surrounding San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, at the exact moment of the entry into force of the Free Trade Agreement in Mexico. The fighters wore red paisley bandanas around their necks; some were covering their faces. Others wore black worsted hoods. They were poorly armed, with weapons procured, not donated, on the black market. AK-47 assault rifles, M14 and G3 rifles, grenades, some explosives, hunting weapons and weapons from the Second World War; sticks, wooden rifles painted to imitate real rifles, clubs with a nail on the end. They were accompanied by a single mestizo with his face covered by a balaclava: Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
It is the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, better known as “Los Zapatistas”. On Jan. 24, 1994, after more than ten years of incubation ⎯or maybe twenty, if we think of them as heirs of the National Liberation Forces⎯, they took over the Municipal Palace of San Cristobal de las Casas and shouted BASTA!, over and over again. They declared war on the government, demanded the deposition of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and demanded the self-determination of the native peoples Pueblos Originarios de México.
President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988 - 1994) reacted by sending tanks, planes, helicopters and bombing the Zapatista Army of National Liberation hidden in the mountains. However, he had to stop twelve days later, due to the reaction of the civil society. The government initiated a peace dialogue with the Revolutionary Indigenous Clandestine Committee of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, something unprecedented.
Out of 19 delegates, only two women participated in the Committee: Comandanta Ramona and Major Ana Maria. Despite unequal gender roles within the communities, the women achieved a vote that allowed them to participate in the insurgency, and even to command (Castellanos, 2014). One third of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation army was composed of women, at that time.
I feel a combination of anger and sadness when I think of those who remember President Ernesto Zedillo (1994 - 2000) as one of our best presidents. During his mandate, in addition to completely militarizing the Lacandon Jungle and surrounding areas ⎯which subjects specially women to strong psychological and physical pressure, not only for fear of being subjected to sexual aggression, but also because it has been proven that walking through military checkpoints causes diarrhea, night terrors, anxiety crises and sometimes even miscarriages (Castellanos, 2014) ⎯, a counterinsurgency strategy was established and maintained, which consisted of creating paramilitary groups made up of non-Zapatista indigenous people. Zedillo’s government armed them, funded them and guaranteed them protection by the military and police. The paramilitaries had carte blanche to set up checkpoints, search private property, extort, rob, kill, burn houses.
The situation escalated, eventually leading to the displacement of more than six thousand indigenous people, not only from Zapatistas but also from neutral communities in the Chiapas Highlands. They fled their established communities to take refuge in the mountains, due to the terrorism provoked by the paramilitaries under the protection of the government. This culminated on Dec. 22, 1997, with the Acteal Massacre, in which 55 indigenous people (25 women, 15 children and 15 men) from the neutral group “Las Abejas” were gunned down by unidentified paramilitaries.
A few weeks after the Zapatista Army of National Liberation uprising, Subcomandante Marcos wrote this speech which puts into words a lot of the undertone of the insurgency:
What do we have to apologize for? What will they forgive us for? Not starving to death? Not remaining silent in our misery? Not having humbly accepted the gigantic historical burden of contempt and neglect? Having taken up arms when we found all other paths closed? [...] Having demonstrated to the rest of the country and to the whole world that human dignity still lives and is found in its most impoverished inhabitants? [...] Having taken rifles into combat, instead of bows and arrows? [...] Being Mexican? Being mostly Indigenous? Calling on the Mexican people to fight in every possible way for what belongs to them? [...] Not selling ourselves? Not betraying ourselves?
Who has to ask for forgiveness and who can grant it? The dead, our dead, so deadly dead of "natural" death, that is, measles, whooping cough, dengue fever, cholera, typhoid fever, mononucleosis, tetanus, pneumonia, malaria and other gastrointestinal and pulmonary diseases? Our dead, so mostly dead, so democratically dead of sorrow because no one did anything, because all the dead, our dead, were leaving just like that, without anyone to keep track, without anyone to say, finally, "ENOUGH!", to give back to those deaths their meaning, without anyone to ask the usual dead, our dead, to return to die again but now to live? Those who denied us the right and gift of our people to rule and govern ourselves? Those who denied respect for our customs, our color, our language? Those who treat us as foreigners in our own land and ask us for papers and obedience to a law which existence and justice we don’t know? Those who tortured, imprisoned, murdered and disappeared us for the serious "crime" of wanting a piece of land, not a big piece, not a small piece, just a piece from which something could be obtained to fill the stomach? Who has to ask for forgiveness and who can grant it?
On Feb. 16, 1996, the federal government and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation signed the San Andres Larrainzar Accords, under which the Mexican government committed itself to amend the Constitution and to legislate in favor of the autonomy of the native peoples and their cultural and political rights. Specifically, it was agreed, among other things, that they would be recognized as subjects of public law with self-determination and territorial autonomy, guaranteeing that they would be consulted on any fundamental decision affecting the natural resources and territories in which they were settled.
However, last Feb. 16, 2023, marked the twenty-seventh anniversary of the violation and betrayal by the federal government, which continues to fail to honor the Accords and, therefore, does not recognize the situation of injustice and historical discrimination against the native peoples.
Despite the EZLN's patience for the constitutional and legal reform, in 2001 ⎯under the command of President Vicente Fox (2000 - 2006) ⎯ a constitutional reform to the second article was conducted that did not comply with the San Andres Larrainzar Accords. The following was established:
"The right of indigenous peoples to self-determination shall be exercised within a constitutional framework of autonomy that ensures national unity. The recognition of indigenous peoples and communities shall be made within the constitutions and laws of the states, which shall take into consideration, in addition to the general principles established in the preceding paragraphs of this article, ethnolinguistic and physical settlement criteria.
A. This Constitution recognizes and guarantees the right of indigenous peoples and communities to self-determination and, consequently, the autonomy to:
VI. Access, with respect to the forms and modalities of land tenure and ownership established in this Constitution and the laws of the matter, as well as to the rights acquired by third parties or by members of the community, to the preferential use and enjoyment of the natural resources of the places inhabited and occupied by the communities, except for those corresponding to strategic areas, in terms of this Constitution.
The exercise of the rights of indigenous peoples was subject to the control and interpretation of the states and they were not recognized as subjects of public law. An extractivist legal framework was maintained through the Mining Law, the Agrarian Law, the Water Law, and the Energy Reform, allowing mega-projects in territories where native communities have always lived, sacred and ancestral sites, communal property and sites protected due to their natural qualities, causing the displacement of people, the disappearance and murder of activists and the degradation of the ecosystem.
Specifically, the current Mining Law (since 1992) has a strong and negative impact on the environment ⎯, especially due to open-pit mining and the high-water consumption required for mineral exploitation⎯, as well as on the rights of Indigenous peoples and the safety and integrity of communities and activists. It flagrantly violates the right to consultation provided for in the Indigenous and tribal peoples Convention No. 169. The regulation allows 100 percent foreign investment, which does not charge municipal or state taxes, but only federal taxes and not even according to the minerals extracted, but according to the hectares of land under concession.
The Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources estimated that approximately 26,559 mining concessions have been granted to 660 mining companies —242 are foreign and of these, 209 are Canadian—, covering an approximate area of 27.1 million hectares, or, in other words, almost 14 percent of the national territory granted to mining companies. This number is placed in doubt by other studies, such as those by the National Autonomous University of Mexico and civil and social organizations, who estimate that concessions have been granted for more than 58 million hectares, which means that between 29 and 31 percent of the national territory has been granted to mining companies. This includes both formal concessions and illegal mining such as mines under control of cartels —for example, Los Caballeros Templarios in Guerrero—.
The contrast of two realities which co-exist today is telling: on the one hand, Guerrero is still one of the poorest states in the country; on the other hand, it is the second largest gold producing state in Mexico and the sixth largest gold producing territory in the world. We are talking about dispossession and extractivism. Mining, despite being considered a priority and strategic activity, does not benefit the local population at large.
The mining industry is present in 26 states; most projects are located in Guerrero, Oaxaca, Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Sinaloa, Zacatecas and Jalisco, that is, in states with poor access to water. Indigenous communities, activists and farmers are trying to protect their land and natural resources, especially water. For example, one of the methods still in use is the cyanide leaching of clusters. A large amount of ore (tons) is gathered in order to bathe or spray it with a cyanide solution ⎯which requires millions of liters of water⎯ in order to extract the gold in the open pit, which can contaminate the groundwater, pollute the atmosphere for periods of up to five years poisoning people who breathe or drink it, causing convulsions and possible respiratory paralysis in humans and animals. In addition, to access mineral deposits, entire mountains are destroyed in a matter of days or hours, thereby affecting forests, flora and fauna, and the way of living of surrounding communities without benefiting them in any way.
On May 08, 2023, a new Mining Law (fiercely opposed by mining companies) was approved in Mexico. This law also implied changes to the National Water Law and to the Law on Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection. These are the most important changes:
- Mining concessions of 30 years instead of 50, to be extended up to 80 years instead of 100.
- A mine restoration, closure and post-closure programs must be submitted, including mandatory guarantee.
- A concession cannot be granted for mining activities in Natural Protected Areas.
- When the area under concession is inhabited or occupied by an indigenous or Afro- Mexican community, an agreement will have to be signed with such community to obtain the permission to exploit the land, as well as to cover a consideration of at least five percent of the amount that results from reducing the fiscal result referred to in the Income Tax Law, the amounts covered by the person who owns the
concession for non-deductible contributions for the purposes of said tax.
Even though this change is a good start, I still believe it is not enough. The change must be reflected also through a modification of the Constitution, and truly recognize the right of Native People to vote and have a say regarding the use of the land, as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation always demanded.
Finally, I would end by saying that to date, of the 43 kidnapped students, only the incomplete remains of three—Alexander Mora Venancio, Christian Rodríguez Telumbre and Jhosivany Guerrero de la Cruz—have been found. One of them was discovered in 2014, in the San Juan River, inside the plastic bag placed there by the Navy. The others were discovered between 2019 and 2020, in the Barranca de la Carniceria.
That night of Sept. 26, 2014, 43 students disappeared and are still missing; two were executed in front of witnesses; one was severely tortured, skinned alive and then executed; two were seriously injured, with permanent damages. Another bus carrying a youth soccer team, Los Avispones, was also attacked, as well as a woman who was in a taxi and was hit by a bullet; the driver of los Avispones bus and a 15-year-old player died; around 40 people were injured. Some of the surviving students took refuge in the homes of people who took them in, despite their fear.
According to the Report made by the United Nations Committee against Enforced Disappearance, an exponential increase in such crime has taken place since President Felipe Calderon’s “war against drugs” (98% growth); this shows the close relationship between disappearances and the deployment of military force to fulfill internal public security tasks, maintained and worsened today. The Committee stresses the nearly absolute impunity regarding enforced disappearance, with an average of 28 disappeared humans daily in Mexico (according to the National Commission for Human Rights, between 1964 and 2023, 100,000 have disappeared).
It’s been nine years since the 43 students were kidnapped and I can only think of their families. Will they ever find them? Will the responsible actors answer for the crimes committed, including former President Enrique Peña Nieto? Will we ever know the truth?
