He made his debut as governor by massacring eight farmers in Carranza
II. Of the massacres
Four months after the beginning of a government that will go down in history as the worst of all time, Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía took office for the first time in the Executive Branch of Chiapas with the massacre in Carranza, a region full of conflicts in agrarian history.
Eight militant farmers from the PRI organization Alianza San Bartolomé de los Llanos were shot dead by alleged community members from Casa del Pueblo.
Salazar, as he did throughout his six-year term, minimized the tragedy and re-victimized the victims in a mean and cowardly way, an excuse used by ruthless and inhumane authority, whose reign is cruelty.
On Friday, April 20, 2001 at dawn, men in hoodies used “goat horns” weapons, AK-45 and R-15 to carry out a brutal massacre that left not only eight funeral homes, but throughout Chiapas.
The bloody attack was carried out about ten kilometers from the community of Paraíso Grijalva, a stronghold of the San Bartolomé de los Llanos Alliance. The slain men went to the fence of a meadow.
The exact point is the place known as Canalucum or Las Antenas. Whistling for joy, amid the rhythmic sound of crickets, twelve farmers were walking along the road when they were surprised by gunfire.
Eight died there and four stragglers, among them a child, managed to escape by hiding in the mountains, gripped by terror.
The lifeless bodies of Francisco Vázquez Ramírez, José Antonio Hernández Espinosa, José del Carmen Morales Ramírez, Juan Pérez Gómez, Manuel de Jesús Mendoza Gómez, Santiago Mendoza Hidalgo, Lucas Heredia Heredia and Manuel Morales Ramírez were left lying on the sidewalk.
In a wake filled with tears, helplessness and anger, mourners and militants of the San Bartolomé de los Llanos Alliance expressed the growing wave of violence in the region due to the impunity offered by the Salazar government.
Due to the government’s indifference, experts from the PGR arrived in Chiapas to conduct investigations and file appeals.
Inhumane
Far from being moved by grief and pain as any person with a hint of kindness or humanitarianism would do, Pablo Salazar will testify, at noon on April 20, that multiple homicide is an “execution.”
And he opened the possibility that it could be obtained from undocumented or drug trafficking. That angered community members. During the government, violence occurred in Chiapas.
On the eve of the 20th, in front of ambassadors from Latin America and the Caribbean, Salazar threatened to launch public forces in all the agrarian areas of Chiapas, but mainly in Carranza and Chilón, which showed the authoritarianism to come.
Salazar fulfilled his warning and the countryside, like the cities, submitted to the yoke of the institution. The result is very nice.
Police force
Emiliano Zapata’s Peasant Organization, whose activism was key to bringing Salazar to power, accused him of acting like the oldest PRI regime in using police force instead of dialogue.
On April 25, 2001, deputy Noel Rodas Vázquez, of the PRD, accused Salazar and his Government Secretary, Emilio Zebadúa González, of “trying to distort the origins of multiple homicides with the purpose of avoiding their responsibility.”
And he criticized: “They did not pay enough attention to the case, even though they were alerted to what might happen. “They let things reach their limit and this ambush happened.”
Salazar has intelligence data showing as red dots the towns of Altamirano, Ángel Albino Corzo, Frontera Comalapa, Ocosingo, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Simojovel, Venustiano Carranza, Yajalón, Nicolás Ruiz, La Concordia, and others.
Salazar destroyed the negotiation tables and minutes signed by the previous government. The apparent lack of political work and criminal impunity unleashed the Carranza massacre, like many other disasters that occurred in the entity during the government and that could have been avoided.
Protests
Deputy Rodas was strong when he pointed out: “The truth is that it saddens and saddens me that the governor, instead of solving this problem, promotes a state that is not peaceful.”
“Because of this loss of authority, Governor Salazar Mendiguchía and the Secretary of the Government, Emilio Zebadúa González, must become creditors of what is established in the Law of Responsibility of Public Servants.” Deaths continued throughout the territory.
A few months after the massacre, more than 20 thousand farmers, teachers and members of different social and indigenous organizations marched and paralyzed in Tuxtla to criticize Pablo Salazar’s repression.
The heavily armed state police are just waiting for an order to act… then a fierce response from the tyrant will follow.
