Verdia leader

Nacional

To Verdia is accused of carrying illegal weapons, but the state government provided them

Cemei Verdia

By: Carlos Damian                                               August 21, 2015

The military ones shoot to civil, not to the air: ejido’s men of Ostula, Michoacan

Mexico. -  Residents of the community of Santa Maria Ostula municipality of Aquila, Michoacan, rejected the official version that the military elements threw to the air, in an intent of dispersing the population that showed: "they threw so that people took off, they shot against the civilians, defenseless". they affirmed that the detention of Cemei Verdia Zepeda (CVZ), coordinator of indigenous groups of self-defense of the region, accused by the crime weapons to carry of exclusive use of the Army, a "dirty betrayal " went to the community police because they came working with the state government besides that its commandant went low deceits to the place where it was arrested. The ejido’s men gave photocopies of agreements subscribed by the secretary of Public Security of Michoacan, derived of work meetings, in which 50 positions are even approved for they were provided them by the same state authorities, the Rural Force in the municipality of Aquila. They argued that the weapons in their possession, and that they are the "pretext " for commandant Verdia's apprehension (CVZ), it perceived a wage for that work to the front of the group of defense of the indigenous community, since “he has their payment checks in order", they indicated.     In conference of press in that they related the happened facts last Sunday 19 of July, where a 12 year-old boy died for the impact of a bullet in the head and other four people, among them a 6 year-old girl, they were wounded, Agustin Vera, spokesman and ’lands of the commune’ boss, and Ezequiel Celestino, of the commission of surveillance, they pointed out that everything indicates that there is a "complicity " between the elements of the army and the Federal Police with bosses of the criminal group it ‘caballeros templarios’ in the municipalities of Aquila, Chinicuila, Coahuayana and Coalcoman, to attack and to hit the population of this region. They insisted that the carried out only shots that Sunday they were made by the military elements and of the federal force that arrived to the area to arrest commandant Verdia. They related that at 5 in the afternoon of that fatidic Sunday, after the detention of the Marina commandant Verdia elements and state and federal policemen, to those who the soldiers of the 86 battalion incorporated, they attacked with firearms, truncheon and tear gases reserve corps them installed by the indigenous ejido’s men.    The indigenous community of Ostula, Michoacan, demanded commandant “Verdía's immediate and unconditional” freedom (CVZ) prisoner in the penitentiary of Mil Cumbres in Morelia, from the past 29 of July, and the “retirement of the false positions that are imputed". In an official statement they outlined that and other six demands to the state and federal authorities, to those that made responsible of “any violation, detentions, disappearances, kidnappings and violations to our rights as town native of Santa Maria Ostula". They demanded that it is punished to the controls and integral of the military and police corporations that murdered the boy Hidilberto Reyes Garcia, they hurt and they hit to ejido’s men and they destroyed the goods of the community of Ostula, the past 19 of July. They demand repair of the damages and goods of the community and refund of the following articles: four communication radios and the stamp of identifications of the advice of surveillance. Also the presentation with life of the missing ejido’s men and the punishment to the intellectual and materials authors of the murder of ejido’s men of Ostula during the recent four years that it has been unpunished.   The fifth demand is the respect, recognition and grant of guarantees for the operation of the community police of the municipalities of Aquila, Coahuayana, Chinicuila and Coalcoman, since are the true guardians of the natives’ towns. The sixth is the rejection to the tourist projects and miners that seek to destroy and to plunder the mineral resources and the privatization of beaches in that territory Nahua. "Stop to the disinformation and the creation of crash groups in the town Nahua", it says the last demand. As long as ejido’s men Nahuas of Pomaro and El Coire, sympathetic of the PRI and antagonistic with the work that the leader of the group of self-defense of the municipality of Aquila, Cemei Verdia, carried out they agreed with the State government that the Federal Police and elements of the Army will take charge of the security of both towns in that city council. The affiliated ejido’s men to the PRI rejected the elect mayor of the PRD Jose Luis Arteaga Olivares, with the argument that because people of Cemei Verdia “burned” several polling-booths passed July 7, the results were negative for the tri-colored one in the power.     Free Nestora Salgado  Two years after their unjust and illegal imprisonment, Nestora Salgado (NS) leader of the community police of Olinala, Guerrero State said to be convinced that the pressure that national and international organizations exercise against Guerrero's federal and state government is essential for to obtain its freedom and that of the other policemen community arrested together with her, amid an openly infringing process of the law and of their human rights. In a message sent from the Medical Tower of the prison of Tepepan, the commandant thanked the support received in this long period of prison, also, she called to not losing the spirit, to maintain the unit and to continue in the fight in defense of the town. "To me they captured me to arrest criminals and they have been cruel with me. But I ask to the government why they don't stop them to those criminals that so much damage has made, to those that truly kidnap, they violate, they extort and they kill our people. Why there are not answer neither justice so that the mothers of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa neither for the families of missing people's thousands in the country."   In press conference, representatives of diverse organizations of human rights and collective of the civil society, as well as the lawyers that take the case, reiterated their solidarity with the community leader and they denounced their unjust and illegal imprisonment, although it was already acquitted by the federal justice and that the presumed victims of the crimes of increased kidnapping that they are imputed they have never been presented in the face of the judicial authority to ratify their accusations. Alejandro Gonza, lawyer and representative of Nestora Salgado in The States and before the Interamerican Commission of Human Rights Watch (CIDH, for their initials in Spanish), it pointed out that this absence of the presumed victims in any other country had caused the fall of the positions, and with her the accused's immediate freedom. However in this case it is evidenced that in Mexico the penal system and of justice it has a political use. "It is a quite shameful matter, since it has all the juridical elements that it has Salgado (NS) in prison, and they are corrupted from the beginning", the lawyer underlined. Atziri Ávila read the positioning of the National Net of Defenders of Human Rights in Mexico, in the one that besides the community leader's immediate and unconditional liberation and repair of the caused damage, it demands the ceasing of the political use of the Mexican penal system to criminalize the social leaders. Also demand the liberation of the other seven community policemen of Olinala, Ayutla, and Zitlatlepec imprisoned together with the commandant NS to who also them imputed she diverse invented crimes. It was also informed on a series of actions to demand the liberation of the other community policemen, between August 22 and September 5. (La Jornada, politica, p.p. 6-7, Julio 22, 2015).