The following four case summaries are undoubtedly a result of revenge tactics used by wings of the PRI and their supporters in response to recent election results in Acapulco where the opposition parties won the municipal election for the first time in its history. The first case describes an attack on a new PRD councilmen and his son by an armed group carrying AK-47's. The next two cases describe recent disappearances of PRD political representatives, supporters, and family members by local police forces.
1. PRD candidate for councilmen Marco Antonio Lopez Garcia along with his wife and son were ambushed in the middle of the night after the October 3rd elections in Acapulco.
At approximately 2:30 A.M following the October third victory of Zeferino Torreblanca as municipality president of Acapulco, PRD candidate for councilmen Marco Antonio Lopez Garcia, his wife Kenia Hernandez Sotelo, and their son Marco Antonio Lopez Hernandez left their house in the La Colonia de los Periodistas to attend the victory celebration of Torreblanca. As they were about to drive away from their house they were attacked by a group of people who shot up their car with AK-47's. In the attack, Lopez Garcia's son was killed, and Lopez Garcia was seriously wounded but is presently listed in good condition. The official report by the police indicated that 19 shots from AK-47's (for exclusive use of the Mexican Army) were found in the body of Lopez Garcia's car.
Lopez Garcia has since testified that the former PRI councilmen, Antonio Valdez Andrade was responsible for the attack on his family and the murder of his son. He said that for some time Valdez had been after him, and that he even attacked him about a year ago in the office of city hall. At the same time, Lopez Garcia reported that neither himself nor his wife could identify any of the perpetrators of the attack.
State PRD officials are now claiming that the PRI candidate for Municipality President, Ernesto Rodriquez, is directly connected to this attack, and helped in the planning after his defeat in the elections. The PRD is also claiming that Rene Cisneros, the current Governor of Guerrero, was also involved because among many reasons, the weapons used in this attack are only available to the Mexican Army. Felix Salgado, PRD candidate for governor this past year, has claimed that Valdez was directly ordered by Cisneros and Rodriguez to carry out the crime.
It is important to note the Lopez Garcia was part of a civil organization called the "cazamapaches", a group that organized to keep those referred to as "mapaches"(PRI militants committed to ensuring voter fraud in favor of the PRI) from committing voter fraud. This group work diligently before the elections on October 3rd to ensure that the PRI couldn't commit as much electoral fraud as has occurred in previous years in Acapulco.
There is still no word on weather the Attorney General of the Republic has agreed to investigate this crime and the charges brought up in the case against Valdez Andrade.
2. Disappearance of Perredista Angel Guillermo Martinez Gonzalez
In the October 10th El Sur it was reported that PRD leadership in Acapulco, along with Federal Deputy Pablo Sandoval Ramirez, are demanding that Rene Juarez Cisneros and State Attorney Justice, Javier Vega Menije, hand over Angel Guillermo Martinez Gonzalez. Martinez Gonzalez disappeared on Friday the 8th of October, after being seen in the custody of the police, in the police station in the neighborhood of La Laja in Acapulco. The description of the clothes he was wearing by those who saw him in the police station has matched the description given by his wife.
The newest speculation around this case is that Angel Guillermo Martinez Gonzalez disappeared as a result of his work and assistance that he was giving to the family of Lopez Garcia after Lopez Garcia and his son were attacked in the middle of the night on Oct. 4th. Recently, PRD leader Felix Salgado went to the police station in La Laja to find Martinez Gonzalez, but Gonzalez was nowhere to be found. However, a prisoner in the same police station by the name of Martin Banos Hernandez reported that various police officers had just removed him from the jail cell before Salgado had arrived. Felix Salgado also testified that Martinez Gonzalez had called him a few days before his disappearance to say that the police had been following him.
The official police response to their kidnapping of Martinez Gonzalez has been to claim that Gonzalez's detainment, was a result of his involvement with the revolutionary group the ERPI. However, at this time Martinez Gonzalez has still not reappeared.
3. Disappearance of PRD Deputy elect Juan Garcia Costilla and his son Amilcar Garcia Estrada
It was reported in the October 12th El Sur that Deputy elect Juan Garcia Costilla and his son Amilcar Garcia, a medical student, disappeared on Monday the 11th of October at the hands of local police. As witnesses have testified, on the morning of the 11th Garcia Costilla left his house to drop off his daughter at school. Two hours after he had left the house, Garcia Costilla still had not returned home. As a result, his wife, Anita Estrada left the house to go look for him. After over an hour of looking, she decided to return to her house. When she arrived she found that her neighborhood was completely occupied by police and that her house had been surrounded. She then entered her home to find that the police were holding her two sons at gun point.
Her 21-year-old son Amilca Garcia Estrada was then physically forced from the house by police, who left with Amilca, family documents, photos, and 30,000 pesos which police had found underneath the television. Anita Estrada, her other son Raul Garcia, and other witnesses testified that Judge Adolfo Van Meeter Roque was present during this attack, overseeing this operation that had an estimated 500 policemen involved in occupying the neighborhood and surrounding the Garcia Costilla house. It was also reported that the police had also tried to detain 25 year-old Raul, but were unable to do so. However, when the police left the house and the community, they told the family they would return.
After the kidnapping of Amilca Garcia Estrada, the Costilla Garcia family had been waiting in their house to hear word from local authorities on the whereabouts of both Juan and Amilca. It was during this time that they received 6 threatening phone calls connected to the recent electoral victory of the PRD in the municipal election in Acapulco. One call warned them, "You won, but you won't be celebrating", while other calls threatened that, "don't walk too proud, we've got a gun pointed at you", and "you're finished, this is only the beginning".
The State Attorney General released an official bulletin that stated that both Juan Garcia Costilla and Amilcar Garcia Estrada had been detained and put at the disposition of the Attorney of the Municipality of Acapulco. However, each police headquarters under the jurisdiction of the Attorney of the Municipality of Acapulco has denied that they were ever, or are currently incarcerated in their facilities.
The article in El Sur also reported that the office of the State Attorney General has reported that Angel Guillermo Martinez had been arrested by the authorities (although he hasn't appeared anywhere either), and handed over to the 5th district Judge Adolfo Van Meeter Roque for his supposed involvement in the attack of PRD councilman Lopez Garcia and his son Lopez Hernandez. El Sur also reported that the State Attorney General is also now implicating Garcia Costilla and Garcia Estrada in the attack of councilman Lopez Garcia.
These two cases have so far been identified as non-politically motivated crimes:
4. Murder in Quechultenango
In the October 4th El Sur, it was reported that a militant member of the PRT (Revolutionary Workers Party) , Armando Gatica Mendoza, was shot to death on Oct. 3rd, 5 minutes after he left a voting booth in the town of Colotlipa, Municipality of Quechultenango. Both the wife of the victim as well as the State Attorney General of Guerrero have indicated that this murder was not political. Gatica Mendoza had a history of run-ins with the law and even killed a citizen of the same community in 1998. His wife reported that he has recently had personal problems, and that his murder was a result of these problems.
5. Two PRIistas attacked in Arroyo de los Corales Atoyac
According to the October 5th El Sur, a PRIista "militant" campesino by the name of Angel Blanco Sanchez was murdered after he, his wife, and two sons were attacked by unknown men minutes after Angel had cast his vote in the community of El Achotal, in the municipality of Atoyac. Angel Blanco Sanchez died immediately while his son, Pedro, was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the leg.
What has been reported thus far by the State Attorney General, as well as community members who knew the victim and his family, is that this ambush/murder was the result of long standing personal problems. Angel Blanco's family had just moved to the community of El Cerro Prieto because they had been having serious problems with a family by the name of Yanez in the town of El Chiflon, where they had previously lived. They went to El Achotal to vote, and when they were returning to El Cerro Prieto they were ambushed. The State Attorney General has reported that no arrests in this case have been made.