La Jornada
January 28, 2001
By Daniela Pastrana
Translated by Whitney Schott and Craig Adair

Ciudad Altamirano, Guerrero -- Four men armed with sub-machine guns and restricted-use pistols got out of the four-wheel drive vehicle. In one felt swoop they opened the shelled door of the old city bus, which they intercepted at the Piedra Parada junction.

"Who here is Roberto Baltazar?"

Nobody responded.

Tayde Cervantes Morales' gaze fixed on the young 19-year-old boy sitting in the back of the bus with his mother.

Roberto Baltazar Segura still had the marks from the automobile accident that just in December had interrupted his studies at the Michoacán University of San Nicolas de Hidalgo in Moreliay, during his return home to Las Cruces, in the heart of the Tierra Caliente.

The passengers could do nothing for the young man. The men pushed him out and dragged him 20 meters to a clearing. There they forced him onto his knees and shot five bullets into his head. Three of the bullets were from AK-47 rifles (better known as the "goat horn") and two from a 38-super.

That's how the accounts were settled with Roberto's father, Pablo Baltazar Jiménez, who months ago killed Efigenio Cervantes Morales, Tayde's brother.

The murder of Roberto Baltazar occurred, according to case 04-2001 of the judicial district of Coyuca de Catalán, at three o-clock in the afternoon on the 10th of January last year, at a crossing a little more than an hour from Altamirano.

His execution was the product of revenge, one of many that occur in these Guerrero lands.

But his death did not occupy commensurate space in the local newspapers (which concentrated on earlier deaths this year in Taxco and Kilometer 30) -- perhaps because the violence in this area is almost part of everyday life.

"In Tierra Caliente, it is Talion Law. People take justice into their own hands," laments Gabriel Jimenez Montiel, criminal judge of Coyuca de Catalán.

He knows something. Here, a fifth of the crimes committed are homicides.

The Leading Producer of Poppy

The image, in the entrance of Nueva Cuadrilla, would be the perfect scene for a Western movie if it were not for the fact that instead of a revolver in his holster, the man on horseback carries an AK-47.

And because the fear that hangs over the town with the arrival of strangers is very real.

This is not without reason. The man on the horse is a member of Delgado Cruz -- a gang of bandits, kidnappers, and cattle thieves. The scourge of the zone for a number of years, the group operates in a region which includes the highlands of Coayutla and Vallecitos, above Zihuatanejo and Petatlán.

Because here, in the Guerrero sierra, it has been some time since the police have dared to come around.

The highlands of Filo Mayor, close to the Michoacan border, have become fertile land for the cultivation of marijuana and poppies. There are 400 kilometers between Zihuatanejo and Ciudad Altamirano dedicated to the production of poppies, opium paste and marijuana.

A representative of the Attorney General's office let the fact slip: the state of Guerrero is the leading producer of poppies in the country, according to reports by the Mexican army.

Though in agreement with the representative, the bulk of the poppies come from "small producers" who have "switched" because cultivation of stimulants yields five times more than traditional crops. But there are no great drug lords "yet," he insists.

It is, they say here, the "crop of survival," and the producers are referred to as narcochangarros (small-time traffickers.)

What there are, admits Pedro Quiroz, ex-president of the Union of Ejidos de Vallecitos and current coordinator of the Regional Council of the Guerrero Sierra (CRESIG,) are gangs of bandits and thieves who "live off of those who are working."

There is a reason why people from the small villages recommend not taking the road from Zihuatanejo to Altamirano.

It is there that the second secretary of the Egyptian embassy in Mexico, Mohamed Ismail Sadek, was murdered in January 1998, while vacationing with his family. He was assassinated in the town of Cuyuca de Catalan for resisting an assault, the official report said.

Nobody can keep track of the number of assaults and rapes registered on these roads anymore, where the fields are seen as empty.

"Anyone who denounces a crime is murdered. That's why nobody says anything," admits a rancher from Vallecitos.

Perhaps it is for that reason that in Nueva Cuadrilla, the poorest ejido (communal farm land) in Coahuayutla and where (as calculated by ex-commissioner Antonio Vargas) more than half of the population already lives in the United States, members of Delgado Cruz walk around with their AK-47's in broad daylight.

From Disneyland to Metlatonoc

"Here there are many problems. This is not Disneyland; it is not having a tape recorder in hand. This is governing Guerrero," responded governor Rene Juarez Cineros last Thursday to the questioning of reporters about the conflicts in the area since the beginning of the year. ÊThe murders at Kilometer 30, the confrontation with Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) supporters in Xochistlahuaca, the federal road blocks in Atoyac and Chilpancingo...

"This is not Disneyland," said the exasperated governor at the end.

That's for sure. According to the 1996 National Survey of Nutrition and Food in the Countryside (ENAL,) Guerrero occupies an ignoble first place in categories such as high-risk infant malnutrition (32.4%) and the percent of illiterate parents (54%). It is also the national leader in poor quality homes (69%) and homes with dirt floors (57.5%.)

The second poorest municipality, Metlanoc, is located in Guerrero. ÊAlmost half the population (44%) lives in areas of less than 2,500 inhabitants, and according to the National Population Council (CONAPO,) at least 23 of its municipalities have "very high" marginalization rates.

Political and social conflicts add to the desolation and have prompted the fall of at least three governors (Israel Nogueda, Javier Olea and Rubén Figueroa Alcocer) in the last three decades.

The state has fallen so far behind that attempts in recent years to improve state financial conditions have done little to reduce the gap between Guerrero and the states in the North of the country.

Discussion about the Support Program for the Strengthening of the States (PAFEF) by 2001 was a prime example of this. ÊThis program was created last year to provide states with extra federal funding.

Guerrero was the state that benefited most, after Oaxaca, from the plan presented by the National Action Party (PAN) that was finally approved by the other parties. ÊThe program increased Guerrero's portion of resources by 200% over last year.

However, the difference between allotments given to other states, like Nuevo León for example, is still enormous.

Even with the increase, Guerrero and its 3 million inhabitants will receive 351 million pesos through the PAFEF. In contrast, Nuevo León, with 3.8 million inhabitants, will receive an additional 602 million pesos of support.

The Attorney and his Bad Luck

The year was going to close with two homicides in Taxco. In the afternoon of the last day of the year 2000, the third arrived: it was Constantin Giannitsis, the son of the Labor Minister of Greece. He resisted assault by three adolescents and they killed him.

The next day, three members of the Torres Palacios family were murdered by a group of 8 men headed by the municipal commissioner of Kilometer 30, Abel Arizmendi, who two days later was executed along with his son, Abelito.

Would there have been a history of "paybacks" on the coast if the chief of the state news station, Jorge Torres Palacios, had not been seen as being involved?

This was bad luck for the state attorney general, Carlos Vega Memije, who did not tire of clarifying that the crime rates had not shot up in the area and that the other murders in the first few days of the year were not at all related.

But he did not bring luck with him.

On January 2, Santiago Torres Reyes, a mango merchant, was murdered in the community of Cacalutla. He was shot with an AK-47 while he was taking a break.

On January 5 a soldier and an alleged fugitive of the law died in a confrontation in the community of El Paraíso, municipality of Atoyac de Alvarez.

Four days later, the political conflict in Xochistlahuaca blew up. The confrontation between PRI supporters left at least 10 injured.

The next day, Robert Ckets McNulty Murphy, a US citizen and Acapulco resident for 30 years, was beaten to death. His death could be related to sexual issues, since it seems that he was involved in selling child pornography.

To the news of the deaths were added the declarations of the ex-commander, Víctor Castro Valente (suspended 5 months ago from the organization,) of an anti-kidnapping group, " The attorney general is an honest but inept man."

There are also claims of alleged torture by members of a band of kidnappers and of a pact among judiciary officials accusing Frederico Peredo Jiménez, in charge of vehicle recovery for the Attorney General's office, of torture and extortion.

Chaos. At his office in Chilpancingo and still in the post of attorney general (a week after the interview he was invited to join the National Commission on Human Rights,) Vega Memije insisted that the situation in Guerrero is not out of control. This was a series of unrelated circumstances and facts that happened to converge at the beginning of the year.

He gave some facts: for example, more than half of the 30,000 registered crimes were property-related -- that is, various forms of robbery. Acapulco, of course, had the greatest incidence at 5,600, followed by Chipancingo with 800. Iguala, Taxco and Zihuatanejo are much lower.

Homicides? They did not reach 800 taking into account accidents and involuntary manslaughter, which make up the majority. In this, at least, he is right. According to press reports, Guerrero has registered about 50 murders in the last 2 years that can be considered paybacks related to narcotics.

For Vega Memije, "very strong economic interests" manipulate information on violence in the state in an effort to scare away tourism.

Above all, said the official, why his area of jurisdiction is so disadvantaged remains unexplained.

"We have been forgotten," he insisted, and he offered a fact to illustrate his complaint. Until last year, the state government owned 12 of the agencies of the Public Ministry. Before, they were only rented.

This was made possible by agreements, signed by the states, with the National Security Advisory.

The Guerrero Attorney General's office received an additional 75 million pesos for year-end bonuses for judicial agents and Public Ministry officials earning between 3,000 and 4,900 pesos per month. The funding was also to improve training courses evaluated by Ceneval, Sedena and the IMSS. But one cannot ask miracles of the personnel.

"Compare this office to the Federal Attorney General's office, which is responsible for drug-trafficking issues," complains Vega Memije. "We need resources. What does it matter if they recognize us if we are in the same condition as Chiapas?"

Reign of Cartels?

The executions in Kilometer 30 forced the issue of drug trafficking in Guerrero.

Some judicial sources attributed the control of drug distribution along the coast to the Arellano Felix brothers of the Tijuana cartel Ê(Milenio Diario, 1/7/01)

Military reports cited by the Milenio allude to other gangs of alleged hit men, bodyguards and drug transporters in the region: the Gómez Cabrera, the Rauda Orozco, the Bautista Valle and the Cruz Carrillo.

The report is convincing. The underground narcotics network in the Guerrero region of Costa Grande is controlled by the ex-priista mayor and leader of the Petatlán ranchers association, Rogaciano Alva Alvarez (well known in the region for his dictatorial practices.) ÊAlva Alvarez may have been involved in the execution of at least 4 small farmers in June 1998.

Do the great drug lords fight over the Guerrero market?

In Guerrero, it is not seen that way.

"The executions are for personal revenge. We're not talking about organized crime or large mafia groups as exists in other states, but rather peasant farmers who cultivate small quantities of stimulants," says the Attorney General's office.

Pedro Quiroz agrees. For him, some bandits earn even more through kidnapping or cattle robbery. In any case, he explains, the perception of CRESIG members is that general security in the region has deteriorated.

In April of last year, Global Exchange, a human rights-defense organization based in San Francisco, sent a delegation of lawyers (members of the National Lawyers Guild and the Raza Centro Legal) to investigate the murders in Guerrero.

Their conclusions, available on the internet, are as convincing as those of the army: the most common pretext for police and military repression in the state is the War on Drugs; furthermore, the current situation in Guerrero is the continuation of a historic tendency that includes extensive and endemic poverty.

Among others, the report draws attention to the cases of the leaders of the Organization of Peasant Environmentalists from the Sierra of Petatlán, Rodolfo Montiel (winner of the annual Goldman Environmental Award) and Teodoro Cabrera, detained in May 1999 by army officials.

Both were accused, first, of participating in the guerrilla war, and then, of cultivating marijuana.

"The systematic violation of human rights has occurred and continues to occur in GuerreroÉ Using the pretext of the Drug War and/or the search for arms or guerrillas, local police and dispatched military personnel do not respect basic civil liberties, equitable procedures, or human rights," concludes Global Exchange.

There must be some truth to that. Just last week, for example, residents of the community of Linda Vista in the municipality of San Miguel Totolpan blamed the murder of adolescent Esteban Martínez Nazario, who died of a gunshot in the back, on members of the army.

"Phantom Guerrilla"

They were seen several times.

Only a year ago they used to see them coming from the direction of El Coyol in Tierra Caliente. Some were walking down a break in the tall grass, others behind the fence. They were wearing their boots, arms and their handkerchiefs covering their faces.

"They would watch us pass by without saying anything. They just kept on walking," relates Franco Torres, representative of the Diconsa Community Supplies Council in Guerrero, in his Tlabpehuala office.

Jacinto del Angel of the office of Sedeso in Ciudad Altamirano confirms, "We knew they came from El Coyal, but it's been a while since anyone has seen them. People say they're more than just hooded men. They're assailants that cover their faces."

Two weeks ago, judicial agents detained four alleged members of the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People (ERPI) in the village of Ayutla de los Libres. Victoriano Eugenio Morales, Francisco Flores de Jesús, Margarito Eugenio Rufina and Domingo Constantino Soto were accused of being members of the armed group, based on two charges: first, for carrying a 357-Magnum revolver and two 22-caliber pistols, and second for a photograph found in one of their homes of armed individuals dressed in olive green with the ERPI insignia.

Nevertheless, the guerilla group abandoned the jailed members in Ayutla this week.

An employee of the state Attorney General's office recognizes that "Luckily, all we have had to face so far is a phantom guerrilla."

* * *

I am from Guerrero, gentlemen, and in Guerrero I must be found.

I am pure Tierra Caliente, whether you like it or not.

Jump and yell as you may, you will never defeat a Guerreran.

Because Guerrero is brave and knows how to defend herself.

With my pistol and machete I will march until I arrive.

And get to Chilpancingo, the capital of the state.

(Town of Coyuca de Catalán)

The Gun is as Common as the Belt

To untangle the Guerrero puzzle and "discover the hidden meaning of meaningless deaths each day" requires a perspective broader than the immediate context, maintains historian Armando Bartra.

In the book Guerrero Bronco (Ediciones Sinfiltro and The Institute of Studies for Mayan Rural Development AC, 1996), the researcher warns of the "alarming similarity between recent events (referring to the massacre of 17 small farmers in Aguas Blancas that occurred in June 1995) and those of the last two decades as well as those of the first half of the century."

He affirms that since 1995, a "familiar and perverse" intermixing of political and social realms has created a crisis of economic control and political domination in the state.

The journalist Maribel Gutiérrez, who documented a series of executions, lynchings, political confrontations and murders that occurred between 1993 and 1997 in his book Violence in Guerrero (La Jornada Ediciones, 1998), also recognizes that "1995 was worse."

Those were the days of Governor Rubén Figueroa Alcocer, who once complained to reporters: "I can not govern if you are counting a death every day."

Now it is Governor René Juáre who gets angry when asked if the state is ungovernable.

"Here in Guerrero there will always be problems!"

Who knows? Maybe he is a prophet. Just this week the CTM leader of the municipality of Cutzamala, José Molina Cabrera, was taken by surprise and ambushed. He also claimed -- though denied by the family -- that Juan Pablo Acevedo González, son of the former mayor of Chilapa and nephew of the federal deputy Raúl González Villalba, had been kidnapped.

Although in Guerrero's Tierra Caliente, none of this news seems to especially affect its inhabitants.

"Here in Tierra Caliente, wearing a gun is like wearing a belt," says Franco Torres -- not entirely in jest.

* * *

Thursday, January 18. The owner of a restaurant in Ciudad Altamirano watches the news on television: a gift-bomb, alleged parricide, intended for Patricio Martínez, the governor of Chihuahua, killed a child in the Federal District...

The man lets out a large sigh.

"The country is in chaos, and it's not just in Guerrero."