On the evening of March 20, 2011, Yuliana Lpez Ibarra heard the sounds of gunfire and the desperate cries of her mother-in-law coming through the tiny speaker on her husbands cell phone. Members of the criminal group Los Zetas could be seen unloading barrels next to a storage shed near the back of the property. Report says Mexico state officials ignored massacre | AP News Tagged: Allende best of vice news 2014 Border CARTELS Coahuila crime & drugs Diego Enrique Osorno Drugs garza massacre mexico moreira the five springs villanueva zetas VICE News Get the latest . If you experience a barrier that affects your ability to access content on this page, let us know via ourContact form. But this is the first time that images of records from the case file have been published in their original form (although many of the pages have been redacted by CNDH for public release). In November 2019, CDN gunmenriddled the city hall with gunfireand engaged in a gun battle with federal forces that leftat least 21 dead. Source: ProPublica. Some of those interviewed during the investigation said the rampage started as an act of revenge by top Zetas leaders against Cuellar, Junior, and other deputies, who they accused of pocketing millions of dollars in stolen drug money. Mexico has again witnessed a brutal incident of gun violence, where a gunman opened fire and killed at least 18 people at San Miguel Totolapan City Hall on Wednesday. This was at about 7:30 or 8:00 AM on Saturday, March [19], 2011 Just past the entrance I could see some Allende municipal police trucks, and beneath these were armed people who I recognized as police.- Complaint of wife of victim Csar Alfonso Garca Ramrez, May 23, 2014. Much of the worst violence occurred at a pair of ranches owned by the Garza family and located outside of the city center along the highway. THE DOCUMENTS. I want to point out that I did not know any of the dead And when we had them in the barrels [deleted] began to bathe the corpses in diesel so that they could then be set on fire, and I was then sent to keep a lookout a few meters from there to make sure that no one was coming. The destruction of the 2011 Allende massacre is still evident to this day. And out of fear that they would do something to me if I disobeyed orders, I had to kill a person, that being Everardo Elizondo, who was about 30 or 35 years old, to whom I gave a shot in the head. The official, town council secretaryEvaristo Rodrguez Chapa, said he called police director Trevio to let him know what was happening, to which he replied: Dont even fart, you asshole. Allende is a small town southwest of Piedras Negras, Mexico and is the site of a massacre by the drug cartel, Los Zetas. There were other people in civilian clothes who carried long arms, and these people were Los Zetas, since I realized that there at the [Garza] ranch were [El Pala,] whose name is [Fernando Ros Bustos]; [El Canelo,] whose name is [Germn Zaragoza Snchez]; [El Cubano], whose name is [Juan Rafael Arredondo Oviedo]; [El Pjaro], whose name is [Jos Alfredo Jimnez Aguilar]; [El Flacaman,] whose name is [Gabriel Zaragoza Snchez,] among other people, some of whom I did not know, but they seemed to be from the south since they wore sandals and carried machetes. Lpez said he knew all of the municipal police very well, owing to the fact that there was a lot of contact with them.[14], Upon seeing all of those police, I realized that they were keeping watch or guarding the place. Later we took these people to the Garza ranch where we put them in the same house where we had the others. She told investigators what she learned from a series of telephone conversations with her husbands captor. When the Zetas arrived in Allende a decade ago, they infiltrated the very . The call lasted for about a minute.-Complaint of Yuliana Lpez Ibarra, October 14, 2014, Shortly after the troubling March 20 phone call with his mother, Vctor Garza and Yuliana Lpez managed to escape to nearby Sabinas, but Vctor insisted on going for his parents, according to Yulianas statement. In April of 2014 . En el rancho Los Tres Hermanos rociaron los cuerpos con gasolina y los metieron de a uno en toneles de metal para prenderles fuego: "Despus de cinco o seis horas se cocinaron los cuerpos . PICTURED: Victims of Mexico massacre that left 3 moms and 6 children The six-part miniseries examines the lives of the victims of a cartel massacre at the Mexican border town of Allende. The Archive pried open the files using a special provision of Mexicos access law requiring the release of information relating to human rights violations. He gets up into the truck and with his hand he says goodbye leaving his suitcase there at the house because he was supposedly going to come back. The wife of another victim, a heavy machinery mechanic who worked for the Garza family, also went looking for her husband on the morning of the March 19. A declassified DEA report from 2015said that the Zetas in late 2015 made a conscious effort to rebrand as the Cartel del Noreste (Cartel of the Northeast). More information on CDN is available here. The missing from the Allende massacre are among the 13,000 the . Go fuck your mother! The National Security Archive marks this grim anniversary by publishing an evidentiary history of the Allende massacre focusing on key documents and testimony from a 4,000-page dossier of investigative records compiled by Mexican prosecutors in the state of Coahuila.[3]. We continued to advance until we reached the ranch, where I saw that there were a number of blue and white municipal police patrol cars and several police officers And these police, its like they were guarding the place. With the passing of the days, the identity of 14 of the victims from Guatemala have been confirmed (the police estimate there are 15, and the rest are possibly Mexicans). [13] Bracketed items identified in portions of the Herrera Estrada declaration published by Zcalo. [A]nd how the Zetas were shouting at them and hitting and mistreating them, the then-chief of the department told investigators in his 2014 statement to state prosecutors. He said that as many as ten of his family members disappeared that day, including Vctor, Alma, and their youngest son Julio Csar. Horrifying Allende massacre still haunts Mexico. Descendants of 1918 Porvenir Massacre Fight For Recognition - Time So I went to my friends house who lives only two blocks away to tell her this; but in the few minutes I was with my friend, my daughter [called] to tell me that her father was going on a trip [S]o I headed home, and when I was about 50 meters away, a white, double-cab, Tundra pick-up truck arrived, and I see my husband leave the house with his dirty clothes on. [7] GAFE stands for Grupo Aeromvil de Fuerzas Especiales (Airmobile Special Forces Group). Later we began to cook the corpses that we were left with, and to do this we looked for a space inside the same ranch near the corrals, and later a truck of Zetas brought some barrels and a pickaxe We made holes in the bottom and on the sides of the barrels, and they were like trash barrels made of sheet metal or iron, and after making the holes, I remember that El Chango and I took one of the bodies from the truck and put it in a barrel. During Mexico's unknown massacre, Los Zetas carried out a systematic extermination by killing and incinerating more than 400 people in Allende and the surrounding towns. Despite the unimaginable death toll and visible trail of destruction, for several years the case was largely ignored by federal, state, and local authorities. Leaving aside the role of the DEA and the wider implications of the case, todays posting focuses on the most revealing documents among the facts-on-the-ground evidence gathered by the state of Coahuila. Lilianas brother, Rodolfo Garza, Jr., last heard from her around six or seven oclock that evening. The police radio operator said that the director, Trevio, and the commander, Hernndez, were paid as much as five times what ordinary officers were given. Netflix drama series Somos. And from previously I knew that all of the Allende municipal police were linked to or worked for the Zetas.-Revised declaration of Christian Alejandro Lpez Tamez, December 17, 2014, Firefighter Jess Gerado De Len Ramos, too, spotted various units of the municipal police at the entrance to the ranch, including police director, Roberto Guadalupe Trevio Martnez, and shift commanders Maria Guadalupe Avalos Orozco and Rogelio Javier Flores Cruz, who he and others described as key links between the police and the Zetas. [18]On homicide rate, see this report from the University of San Diegos Justice in Mexico program; On impunity, see, Mexicos bloody drug war is killing more people than ever, Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2017. Hours later, his daughter was one of the last people to see him alive. Peering through the gates, the firefighters saw members of the Los Zetas criminal group berating and beating members of the Garza family, who owned the ranch, along with several of their employees. That they will help us and will help the people. A cartel war has transformed once-tranquil Guanajuato into one of Mexico's deadliest states. The slowly unfolding investigation of the Allende massacre finally gained some momentum with the establishment of a special task force in 2014. [4] The thinking behind the special exception measure is simple: Human rights crimes affect both the immediate victims and society as a whole, and in such cases there is a society-wide interest in full transparency to ensure that such grave abuses do not reoccur. He said that he and Rodolfo Jr., his brother-in-law, were going out to look for them. The government should do more to find them. In 2017, a group led by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)submitted a communicationto the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) detailing crimes committed against the civilian population in Coahuila, including murder, illegal imprisonment, enforced disappearance, torture and sexual violence, not just from March 2011 but from a seven-year period from 2009-2016. Based on Ginger Thompson's 2017 oral history, "How the U.S. Mass shooting at Mexico's San Miguel Totolapan kills 18, mayor among And he said this openly, because almost all the police received money from those people And that according to that meeting, they had told him that if we saw strange things related to Los Zetas, that we would not do anything or say anything. They erected a monument in Allende to honor the victims without fully determining their fates or punishing those responsible. One of the cooks told investigators that his involvement in the Allende massacre began a few days earlier when he was awakened with dousing of cold water. Justice in Mexico 5998 Alcal Park, San Diego, CA. Known as El Pjaro (The Bird), Jimnez was hired by the Zetas in the summer of 2010 as a halcn (hawk) to monitor the movements of rival gangs, state and federal security forces, and anything else that might threaten Los Zetas. San Miguel de Allende might be voted the nicest town in Mexico by many travel magazines, but it is not safe at the moment and I advise you not to come here right now. [11], [A]round nine oclock at night, I found myself at the circus that had set up in town, when suddenly a person by the name of [deleted] came up to me and told me that in the house of [my sister] they were hearing shots. It's tranquil now in Allende, but 300 are still missing - Mexico News Daily In the latter group was Csar Alfonso Garca Ramrez, who had just returned home to Coahuila for a visit from his job in Texas. And when we met with him, he told us that things were going to get hot. As ocurri la brutal y olvidada masacre de Allende - BBC News Mundo A study from the Human Rights Clinic of the University of Texas Law School examined the trial transcripts of Zetas members prosecuted for drug trafficking, money laundering, and homicide in U.S. federal courts. He said he recognized many of the Zetas gathered there.[13]. May 29, 2021. I saw that they took two people out of the house, but I could not distinguish who they were. April 16, 2018, US: Mexico Mass Graves Raise "Alarming Questions" about Government "Complicity" in September 2014 Cartel Killings See Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. 6/27/2017 (written by Lucy Clement La Rosa)- Over six years ago, a small ranching community near the Texas border of Mexico bore witness to the vengeful assault of Las Zetas, one of Mexico's historically violent drug trafficking organizations. The next day, the wives of other ranch workers came by the Snchez Robles house, looking for their missing spouses. Please do not fill in this field. Finally, the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice recently confirmed, in a FOIA denial letter to the National Security Archive, that its investigation of the DEAs links to cartel violence in Mexicofirst announced in 2018is ongoing, a probe that may have significant implications for the Allende case and for U.S.-Mexico security cooperation more broadly. The National Security Archive marks this grim anniversary by publishing an extensive evidentiary history of the Allende massacre focusing on key documents and testimony from a 4,000-page dossier of investigative records that prosecutors in the state of Coahuila only began to compile almost three years after the fact. Armando Castilla, the publisher of the newspaper Vanguardia de Coahuila, says his publication was the first to report the case, in December 2013. Allende massacre Archives - JUSTICE IN MEXICO The Seminar on Violence of the Colegio de Mxico had access to many of these files in preparing its groundbreaking reports on Allende and a second report on how the Zetas gained control of authority structures in Coahuila, including the state prison in Piedras Negras. What actions had they taken to guarantee the security of the people of Allende? To me in particular they gave me 2,000 pesos [per month].-Declaration of former Allende police official, July 22, 2014. El Pjaro said that a group of victims that had been tied up inside the ranch house were later taken out back to the bodega where they were killed with a shot to the head. Prior to 1832 the settlement was known as San Juan de Mata.. Los Zetas Massacre. Mexico's defense secretary, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, was in charge of the military garrison in Allende when the massacre took place but has deflected responsibility for failing to stop the killings. I left the job because, the truth is, I did not like what was happening in the town of Allende, since things were getting ugly, in addition to which the entire directorate of the municipal police were mixed up with people from Los Zetas. US Intelligence Helped Cause 2011 Massacre in Mexico Five years on, mystery still shrouds Allende massacre in northern I didnt know which of them woke me up with cold water since Id been asleep. One evening in March 2011, dozens of assassins tied to the infamous Zetas drug cartel began to arrive in Allende, a small town situated in the northern Mexico state of Coahuila, a lucrative . 'Somos.' on Netflix gives Mexican massacre a Hollywood twist - Los And as there were three barrels we put one dead body in each barrel. Netflix will release a series next month inspired by a story that revealed . 8:01. Suite 701, Gelman Library 'We are.', Miniseries of Netflix which is based on the report by journalist Ginger Thompson, fiction this harsh reality. Villa Unin, just a 20-minute drive from Allende, has been the site of numerous acts of violence linked to the CDN in recent years. One U.S. law enforcement officialsaid that [Reyes] Arzates corruption as the highest-ranking officer in the MFPs Sensitive Investigative Unit allowed violent cartels to continue the flow of drugs through the region without consequence.. Most of them, he said, were killed and cremated inside the state prison in Piedras Negras. Yesterday I heard machine guns right outside my door on Independencia. After three days of abuse, on the night of March 20, the Zetas took him to the Garza ranch and put him to work managing the incoming truckloads of corpses along with a few living hostages. 1:07. Among the evidence posted today are the first complaints filed by the loved ones of those who went missing, the sworn declarations of Zetas members, Allende police and other city officials, the statements of firefighters and others who witnessed the violence, along with hundreds of pages of forensic reports, crime scene photos and related material. [9] Literally stake or post, an estaca is a term used by Los Zetas for its assassination teams. Among the evidence are the first complaints filed by the loved ones of those who went missing, the sworn declarations of Zetas members, Allende police and other city officials, the statements of firefighters and others who witnessed the violence, along with hundreds of pages of forensic reports, crime scene photos and related material. He went on to say that now that Mexico has reformed its National Security Law, authorities from the U.S. could find themselves connected to another massacre similar to the incident in Allende. Las Cruces bowling alley massacre still unsolved after 30 years Notes Translations throughout the text by Michael Evans. Mexican Federal Police collect ashes, bone fragments and other bits of evidence from the Garza Ranch on January 28, 2014 (Source: Document 40: Field Criminology Opinion Report, January 28, 2014). El 18 de marzo de 2011, sicarios de Los Zetas irrumpieron en el pequeo municipio fronterizo buscando venganza porque alguien les haba . He did not take my opinion into consideration, and no one else said anything. The collection of testimonies found in the files of Coahuila state prosecutors depict a town almost completely beholden to the criminal groupfrom the mayors office to top police commanders to ordinary cops on the street. They picked me up, and, for having fallen asleep, they gave me ten blows on my buttocks with a board, and they gave me shocks [sapones] to the head [T]hey tied up my feet and hands with tape. On March 20, 2011, my husband and I went to the Garrison of Kilometer 53 to talk with the military officials and we told them what had happened. In a country where more than 90% of crimes go unsolved, searching. 'Somos.', the fictionalized retelling of the massacre that took place in the town of Allende, is now streaming on Netflix (Netflix) 'Somos.', which began streaming on Netflix on June 30, may involve a fictionalized perspective of the victims of the shocking massacre that took place in the town of . Oct. 9, 2016. Victim associations report about 300 people dead or missing from the Allende massacre. Declassified Documents on the San Fernando Massacre & Violence against Migrants in Northeastern Mexican States . There was also a man by the name of [Everardo Elizondo,] who raised fighting cocks, and [Csar Alfonso Garca Ramrez] And how the people from the Zetas were shouting, hitting and mistreating these people!-Declaration of Allende volunteer firefighter Luis Gerardo Herrera Estrada, November 23, 2014, The chief of the fire department, Christian Alejandro Lpez Tamez, told investigators in a revised statement that, just like his colleagues, he was able to identify many of the faces he saw there, including the director and other top officials from the Allende police department. Oneformer member of the Allende policeinterviewed in July 2014 told investigators that from the moment that I joined the ranks of the municipal police I realized that all of the people I mentioned previously, including the mayor, the police director, police commander, and the shift commanders, were linked to the Zetas criminal organization., One of the first witnesses to talk about the police departments links to Los Zetas was anAllende municipal official in charge of road maintenance, who in January 2014 told investigators that everyone knows about [the March 2011 Allende massacre] but is too afraid to say anything.. Many victims were brought to a ranch outside Allende, owned by the Garza family. Allende, el infierno: Los testigos de la masacre, Zcalo (Coahuila), July 10, 2017. Later on the following Sunday, with all of those people locked up at the ranch, around 8:30 or 9:00 at night, I accompanied Comandante 7 and [Comandante Pala], together with various estacas, among others that I recall were [El Canelo, El Cubano, El Chilero, El Panda, El Ruso, El Flacaman, El Cabe and El Meno,] together with a municipal police patrol [in which were riding police officers Guadalupe valos Orozco, La Lupe, and Jess Alejandro Bernal Guerrero,] to a house on [Cuauhtmoc] Street in the Center of Allende, which is where Vctor Garza lived.