1 March 1999
La Reforma
By Daniel Pensamiento

Around 200 paramilitary supporters of the governing PRI party held a private meeting with Jorge Gamboa Solis, ex Coordinator General of Police, in a wooden house in the community of Los Chorros, 26 days before the murder of 45 tzotzil [indians] in the municipality of Chenalho.

According to a declaration by Felipe Vazquez Espinosa, a public security official, in case number 1/99 of the second judicial district, members of [the public security police] guarded the house to protect General Gamboa Solis's meeting with PRI paramilitaries on 25 November 1997.

He recalled that he had been given instructions from superiors to participate in the operation that gave protection to Gamboa Solis, Major Rogelio Hernandez de la Mata, and officers Absalon Gordillo Ruiz and Antonio de Carmen Nuricumbo, who arrived in Los Chorros by helicopter.

"They met some 200 PRI supporters in a small house, another meeting was held in private with 10 or 12 other people, where the general (Gamboa) gave them the telephone numbers of his office so that they could report to the police that had got involved with them (paramilitaries)", he explained.

He also said that on various occasions he received orders from first officer Gordillo Ruiz to warn PRI supporters to hide their weapons in the communities of Chimix, Yaxjemel, Miguel Utrilla Los Chorros, Majomut and Canolal in November 1997.

He added that the mixed operation unit under the command of Captain German Parra had also decommissioned twenty two .410 calibre shotguns and an AK 47 from a group of civilians who were receiving training in a basketball court in the community of Chimix.

"Captain Parra loaded the weapons into a patrol car, then, having held a conversation with them, returned the weapons to the PRI supporters", claimed Vazquez Espinosa in his declaration, a copy of which is now in the possession of La Reforma.

The proof that paramilitary groups are operating exists, said Vazquez Espinosa, who is serving three years and nine months for the Acteal case for carrying and transporting weapons that are for the exclusive use of the armed forces.