They didn’t put lives at risk!

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FORMER BORDER PATROL OFFICERS
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Foreign News Report

The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and condenses the material that follows from Mexican and Central and South American on-line media sources on a daily basis. You are free to disseminate this information, but we request that you credit NAFBPO as being the provider.
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Cuarto Poder (Chiapas) 3-30-10

 Massacre Condemned

 MEXICO, D.F.-The Secretary of Gobernacion-Fernando Gomez-Mont, condemned the assassination of 10 youths on Sunday in Pueblo Nuevo, Durango.

 In a press conference, the official condemned the deaths of which 7 were minors and two young people aged 19 and 21 years.  “The Federal Government shares the pain of the families and friends of the dead youths who were murdered in Durango”, said Gomez.

 The murders took place at a phony checkpoint set up by criminals.  “The Armed forces set up checkpoints to combat crime and this cowardly act will only strengthen the determination of the Mexican Government to continue the struggle against organized crime”, confirmed Gomez.

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 Gasoline Sales Decrease

 In the first few months of this year, PEMEX produced some 774 million barrels of petroleum which represents a decrease of .5% from the same period last year.  This is a loss of millions of pesos into the government treasury.

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 Hunger Strike in Prisons

 Prisoners in four institutions are conducting a hunger strike to protest being charged with major crimes that were, in fact, unjustified. “A case in point is that of Erick Bautista, who was charged with the murder of Martha Gomez in which Bautista never fired the weapon”, said Eduardo Velasco, of the Press Commission, in a press conference called to bring to public attention the unconscionable charges brought against these prisoners.  The hunger strike began this morning. Some of these prisoners have been incarcerated since 1999 without being sentenced and without their cases being heard before a judge

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 Diario de Guadalajara (Guadalajara) 3-30-10

 Corruption Reigns in Attorney General’s Office

 A lawyer representing employees of the State Attorney General’s Office in Jalisco says that the office is totally corrupted including police investigators, secretaries, and “everybody else in high authority”.  “The whole system of collecting fees for service is corrupted”, according to attorneys in the community not associated with the protest.

 Accompanied by dozens of employees, the lawyer denounced harassment of employees by superiors who wanted the employees to resign after they made allegations that superiors were influenced by Zetas. The employees asked for reformation, by changing government officials and procedures, in a document presented to the Governor of the State of Jalisco.

 (Translator’s Note:  The article goes on to state that among the charges levied against  the Attorney General’s office are reducing charges against criminals after collecting “fees” and failure to release defendants after paying fines and legal fees.)

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 Diario de Guadalajara (Guadalajara, Jalisco) 3-30-10

 Solve the murder of Armando Rodriguez

 Today the Interamerican Press Society asked the President of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, to take concrete steps to solve the murder of Armando Rodriguez, a reporter for the newspaper El Diario de Juárez, who was murdered in 2008 after he left his home to pick up his daughter from school.

 The Mexican journalist known as “El Choco” had worked for 14 years covering political issues.  He was gunned down in his car after reporting violence, narcotics traffic and political corruption.

 The investigation into his murder is at a standstill and no arrests have been made.

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 Torturing Equipment sent to Mexico

 Amnesty International denounced sending prohibited torturing implements to Mexican police and Mexican Armed forces.

 “We have evidence that the Czech Republic has sent torturing implements to Mexico that is prohibited by the European Union”, said Mike Lewis, who covers the commercial traffic in torturing instruments for the European Union, in a publication by Amnesty International and the Omega Research Foundation. “We were not able to identify the destination in Mexico or the exact Czech Agency that sent the instruments, but we do know that the recipients are the Mexican Police and the Mexican Armed Forces to be used in inflicting torture”, said the official.

 Among the items sent to Mexico are thumb cuffs and high voltage stun guns according to Lewis. “These are serious violations of individual rights” said Lewis.

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 El Imparcial (Hermosillo) 3-30-10

 Armed group attacks officers in Sonora

 MAGDELENA-Around 25 armed subjects broke into the offices of the State Investigations Bureau and the City Hall.  They beat agents and told them that they will come back.

 The Attorney General’s Office denied that the armed group released any detained suspects. “They were armed and inflicted wounds that will last for more then 15 days, but they didn’t put any lives at risk”, said the official.

 Although the offices are in downtown Magdelena, there is no indication that they (the armed subjects) were detected by Municipal Police, the Federal Police or the Army.

 Yesterday, the police launched an operation to locate the armed group which left in 4 vehicles.  Without identifying anyone in the armed group, Larrinaga Talamantes said that one of the threats was “Don’t bother us and let us work”.

 In a press release, the Attorney General’s Office said that the actions were in response to enforcement actions taken by the State Investigations Agency.

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 -end of report-