Police repress peaceful rally for 43 missing students in Mexico. Débora Poo Soto/Demotix. All rights reserved.
On January, 2, Gisela Mota, mayor of Temixco (state of Morelos), was executed at her home within hours of taking office; on December, 23, Alberto Guzmán, neighbourhood leader of Chilpancingo was killed near his home; on December, 19, Martín Negrete, leader of the Peasant Worker Independent Popular Union (UCOPI) in Guanajuato was killed near his office; on December, 25, the son of Heraclio Rodríguez, the leader of the El Barzón movement in Chihuahua, was gunned down in Ejido Juárez; on December, 21, Nahua co-op members in Ayotitlán (state of Jalisco), sought protection from death threats for fighting for their land.
At the same time, the Chiapas civil pacifist organization Acteal Bees reminds us how, 18 years on, the slaughter of 45 Indians remains unpunished and the paramilitaries who by all accounts were responsible for it have been released on the grounds that "due legal process" safeguards were allegedly lacking. In Morelos, for the very same reason, the actual murderers of the Popular Revolutionary Front (FPR) social activist Gustavo Salgado are about to be released and the masterminds of the assassination – among them, according to the FPR, José Tablas, then mayor of Ayala – remain unpunished.
