The orders came from above

May 11: As of 1:50a.m. 17 of the political prisoners held at Santiaguito were freed. 144 will be released on bail (now 24,000 pesos per person, or USD$2,400), and 23 have been charged with serious offenses.

Today was national highway blockade day in demand of the liberation of the political prisoners taken in Atenco. Blockades took place on most of the major highways in and out of Mexico City. Police presence was heavy. [photo from Independent Media Center Mexico City] Students marching from the ENAH (National School of Anthropology and History) report the march was completely surrounded by police forces threatening to “partirles la madre” (f&*% them up); at one point this morning they report 2 buses of riot police had pulled up; the number is promptly raised to 12 buses. The students report that police released tear gas inside the ENAH. They also denounce government infiltrations and provocations within the school. Once again commercial media report that the police were unarmed, while protesters report that they were not only armed, but on the Mexico-Puebla highway, a helicopter of PFP (Federal Preventative Police) elite forces landed right on the highway, unloading reinforcements directly in front of them. The Mexico City Independent Media Center reports that despite all this, the protesters did not fall into provocations.

A Human Rights Center Miguel Agustin Pro interview with three anonymous police officers published in La Jornada (May 11, 2006) today confirms that the bullet that killed 14-year-old Francisco Javier Cortes was fired by state police (this after the it had been denied by government and police officials that the police were armed). The officers interviewed reported that “some officers carried weapons like the R-15, and 38 and 9 millimeter rifles, we received orders to hit anything that moved, as longs as the media couldn’t see us, and to enter the houses and haul out all the people we could.” In command of the operation was the ex-commissioner of the PFP during the presidency of Ernestoz Zedillo, Wilfrido Robledo Madrid. “There were more than 3,500 of us in the operation, just of the state police, and the PFP in addition to that. In command of our group was the commander David Pintado Espinoza, code name Zafiro.” They go on to list commanders of all the regions of Mexico state involved in the operation. When asked if their orders were to detain the people who had participated with the leaders (of the FPDT) in the blockade, they respond, “No, anything that moved. Because many of the people detained had nothing to do with it. Some were going to work, some were on their bicycles just watching, they were taken too. Everybody we found in the street and that we took out of houses..” “We even took out people who were still sleeping, young people still asleep, we grabbed them and cuffed them. That was the order. Grab any and all people, doesn’t matter if they’re leaders or not, it wasn’t about looking for who did it, but rather who would pay...”
What was the order to advance into San Salvador? They were asked. “Nothing other than that we were mobilizing, they hadn’t given us information, they hadn't told us what the problem was, or what the operation consisted of. We didn’t find out until that night that it was about some vendors in Chapingo.” Later in the interview they add, “I’m indignant, ashamed about everything that happened. Seeing it all on television now, the truth is I’m indignant about what I saw, what was done to this community, after all we are all human beings. There were many excesses that shouldn’t have happened. We want the people to know that those were orders from above. They make us do this kind of work. And we want to tell the government that this is not the way to govern, by repressing the people. We want them to give us training, but professional training.”