Those responsible in the case of 43 missing students have been identified: attorney general

by Mexico News Daily

For the first time, arrest warrants have been issued against soldiers and federal police in connection with the disappearance and presumed murder of 43 students in Guerrero in 2014.

The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) announced Saturday – the sixth anniversary of the Ayotzinapa rural teachers college students’ disappearance in Iguala – that 25 new warrants had been issued for the arrest of people who participated in and/or knew about the abduction.

Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero said that “those responsible for the forced disappearance of the 43 students … are fully identified” and will be prosecuted.

In an address to parents of the missing students at an event on Saturday, President López Obrador also spoke of the arrest warrants against soldiers and police.

“He who participated and it is proven will be tried, this is an advance, there will be no cover-up,” he said.

“The truth, the authentic truth, has to be known. That’s the commitment,” López Obrador said, pledging that there will be zero impunity in the case.

He called on judges to act with rectitude and not release suspects, many of whom have already been set free.

“We need the judges to help to advance [in the case]. There are a lot of problems in the judicial branch, they release suspected culprits for any reason,” López Obrador said.

According to the previous government’s official version of events – the so-called “historic truth” – the students, who had commandeered buses to travel to a protest march in Mexico City, were intercepted by corrupt municipal police who handed them over to a local gang, the Guerreros Unidos.

Gang members then killed the students, burned their bodies in a dump in the municipality of Cocula and disposed of their remains in a nearby river, according to the version of events presented by former attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam in January 2015.

But the “historic truth” was widely questioned and rejected by the current government, which established a truth commission and launched a new investigation into the case.

The army has long been suspected of being involved in the students’ disappearance and parents of the victims have demanded it be investigated.

There is a large army base near where the students were abducted and independent investigations have found that members of the military were aware of the events of September 26, 2014. One theory is that the students’ bodies were burned in army incinerators after they were killed.

Omar Gómez Trejo, the special prosecutor in charge of the reexamination of the case, said that among the suspects currently being sought are “the intellectual and material authors of the disappearance.”

“These orders [arrest warrants] include police from various municipalities, federal police [and] members of the army,” he said.

Gómez said that current and former officials with the FGR and members of organized crime groups are also being sought. He didn’t reveal whether Murillo Karam was one of the officials authorities are seeking to arrest.

The motive for the students’ abduction and presumed murder has not been definitively established by the current government but Gertz Manero, who said earlier this year that the “historic truth” is over, said Saturday that the students were “victims who ended up in the middle of a battle of interests between drug trafficking forces.”

They were allegedly mistaken for members of a rival gang, Los Rojos, and there have been reports that there were drugs on the bus they commandeered. Heroin made with opium poppies grown in Guerrero has long been transported through Iguala en route to the United States.

Gertz Manero said the Ayotzinapa students were not the only people to have been killed in Iguala on the night of September 26.

“Nearly 80 people were massacred and hidden in Iguala by the different criminal groups and their official accomplices,” he said.

Of the 43 students who were presumably killed, the remains of just three have been found and identified.

One former official being sought by authorities is Tomás Zerón, who was head of the now-defunct Criminal Investigation Agency at the time of the students’ disappearance.

A warrant has been issued for his arrests on charges of torture – many suspects were found to have been tortured and were released from custody as a result – and covering up forced disappearances.

Gertz Manero said Saturday that Zerón was in Israel and that the Mexican government has asked Israeli authorities for help to arrest him.

The attorney general also accused Zerón of stealing more than 1 billion pesos (US $44.3 million at today’s exchange rate) from the budget of the PGR, the FGR’s predecessor.

“Last year, when we started this investigation and discovered this enormous embezzlement, this individual fled the country,” Gertz Manero said, adding that after authorities obtained a warrant for his arrest they lodged an application for his extradition with Canadian authorities.

“But he immediately fled to Israel, a country which has been asked for its complete support. … Its authorities know very well what human rights violations mean and the responsibilities that executioners and torturers [must face],” he said.

Gertz Manero asserted that the previous government was “deeply infiltrated by crime and corruption” and that Murillo Karam was involved in the cover-up of the Ayotzinapa case.

Gómez said that Zerón must face justice and reveal why he did what he did. He said that a total of 70 arrest warrants have been issued in connection with the students’ disappearance. One Federal Police officer is already in custody, he said.

Several suspected members of the Guerreros Unidos are also in custody, including alleged leaders José Ángel “El Mochomo” Cassarrubias Salgado and his brother Sidronio Cassarubias Salgado.

Former Iguala mayor José Luis Abarca and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa – who have been accused of being the masterminds of the students’ abduction and complicit with the Guerreros Unidos – are also awaiting trial in prison as are at least two municipal security officials.

Source: Reforma (sp), AP (en)

by ACI Press

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Saturday signaled he would soon nominate a potential replacement to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Friday evening at 87. Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a Catholic mother of seven, is widely reported to be the front-runner in the president’s deliberations regarding a nominee.

In his Twitter account, the president wrote this Saturday that “we have been placed in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us, the most important of which has been the election of judges for the Court. Supreme of the United States. We have this obligation, without delay! ”

Barrett, a federal judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, has been reported to lead the president’s short list, and was also a contender for Trump’s second Supreme Court nomination in 2018, before the president nominated Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

According to Axios, Trump reportedly in 2018 told confidantes of Barrett that he was “saving her for Ginsburg” in explanation of his decision not to appoint her to the Supreme Court seat vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Appointed a federal judge in 2017, Barrett had been a professor at Notre Dame’s law school and has twice been honored as “Distinguished Professor of the Year” at Notre Dame, and had clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. She is married and has seven children.

As a nominee to the federal bench, Barrett was pointedly questioned by Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee in 2017 on how her Catholic faith would influence her decisions as a judge on cases of abortion and same-sex marriage.

In Senate hearings, California Senator and Democratic Party member Dianne Feinstein called Barrett “controversial” because in analyzing his career he told her “you have a long history of thinking that religious beliefs should prevail” over law.

Her seven children include two adopted from Haiti; one of her children has special needs. She is also reportedly a member of the People of Praise charismatic community, which was criticized as a “cult” during her 2017 confirmation hearings.

Bishop Peter Smith, a member of a related association of priests, told CNA in 2018 that there is not anything unusual or out of the ordinary about the group, which is a “covenant community,” mostly of laity.

“We’re a lay movement in the Church,” Smith explained. “There are plenty of these. We continue to try and live out life and our calling as Catholics, as baptized Christians, in this particular way, as other people do in other callings or ways that God may lead them into the Church.”

Whether or not he selects Barrett, Trump’s likely nomination of a Supreme Court Justice to replace GInsburg has become a matter of serious political controversy, in an already fractious U.S. political and social context.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged Friday that a Trump Supreme Court nominee will be voted on for confirmation by the United States Senate, even while there are fewer than seven weeks until the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Democratic leaders have pushed back, and pointed to McConnell’s refusal to consider Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland in March 2016, seven months before that year’s presidential contest. At the time, Republicans said that it would be more appropriate to wait until after the November election to fill the Court vacancy.

McConnell defended his decision Friday night, saying that “in the last midterm election before Justice Scalia’s death in 2016, Americans elected a Republican Senate majority because we pledged to check and balance the last days of a lame-duck president’s second term. We kept our promise. Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.”

“By contrast, Americans reelected our majority in 2016 and expanded it in 2018 because we pledged to work with President Trump and support his agenda, particularly his outstanding appointments to the federal judiciary, we will keep our promise,” McConnell said.

Also reportedly on Trump’s short list are is 11th Circuit Court judge Britt Grant, 6th Circuit Court Judges Amul Thapar and Joan Larsen, and 10th Circuit Judge Allison Eid.

Most acts of aggression are threats of death or violence

by Mexico News Daily

For Mexico’s journalists 2020 will likely be the worst year for violence against them in a decade, according to a freedom of speech watchdog organization.

Article 19, which reports on violence and intimidation against members of the press in Mexico and Central America, said the first half of 2020 was 45 percent worse for such acts than during the same period in 2019.

In the first half of 2019, Mexican journalists reported 280 acts of violence or aggression, and so far, between January and June 2020, that number has nearly doubled to 406, averaging out to an act of aggression or violence against a journalist occurring every 10.75 hours.

This puts Mexico on track to surpass the 2019 total by at least 66 percent and be most the violent year since the organization started recording such data. In 2019, Article 19 reported 609 acts of violence or aggression, which it says was the highest number reported in a decade.

Four journalists have been murdered this year and physical attacks on journalists are up 80 percent at 47.

However, the majority of aggressive acts toward journalists this year has come in the form of threats of various kinds, including death threats and threats of violence which, in all, have totaled 96, a 26 percent increase.

The organization also recorded 91 cases of other kinds of intimidation or harassment, up 40 percent. This includes smear campaigns, which the organization said have doubled in 2020 as a tactic to silence reporting.

The organization also reported 61 cases of censorship or other alterations of journalistic content, which they said doubled compared to last year.

The states with the most acts of aggression toward journalists reported this year are Mexico City, Puebla, Oaxaca, Veracruz, and Quintana Roo. Together, these states represented nearly half the total number of recorded incidents in the country.

Mexico City topped the list with more than double the reported incidents from last year — rising from 27 incidents last year to 64 this year. However, the biggest change was in Puebla: Although the state recorded fewer incidents than Mexico City — only 49 cases — it rose from 10th to second place on Article 19’s list.

The organization said among the factors behind the growing cases of aggression was intolerance among officials for public scrutiny. It also said there has been a multiplier effect in which the strategy of media attacks by President López Obrador has been repeated by state governors.

Program helps thousands of small restaurants stay alive

Training in health measures and providing protective equipment boost confidence among customers

An initiative supported by the national restaurant association Canirac, Coca-Cola and others is helping thousands of small eateries survive the coronavirus-induced economic downturn.

Called Tu Cocina Local (Your Local Kitchen), the program provides training to staff at fondas (small, informal eateries), taquerías (taco restaurants) and torterías (sandwich shops) on the implementation of health measures that reduce the risk of coronavirus infection and make diners feel safe.

The idea is that the restaurants will attract more customers if they are seen to be taking people’s health and hygiene seriously.

The initiative has also provided social distancing screens, face shields and washable tablecloths to more than 50,000 small food businesses.

In addition, it has launched a digital campaign to encourage people to return to their local fondas, taquerías and torterías, which account for 95% of all restaurants in Mexico, according to Canirac.

More than 30,000 are at risk of closing permanently due to a downturn in sales, the restaurant association says. Tu Cocina Local aims to help as many as possible remain open and thus keep thousands of people in work.

One restaurant owner who has benefited from the program is Rocío González Díaz.

“El Volcancito is a family business. We’re the third generation. Approximately nine people work here and nine families depend on [their employment]. The pandemic has affected us in an economic sense,” she said.

González said sales fell and that she was unable to meet some costs but nevertheless she was able to keep her inexpensive eatery open.

“We didn’t have to close because the government allowed us to open at 30%. Tu Cocina Local has helped me a lot with tablecloths and partitions [to separate diners]. That’s helped a lot in terms of making customers feel safe,” she said.

In addition to Canirac and Coca-Cola, the companies Mondelēz México, Unilever, Kimberly Clark and Ragasa are supporting the initiative, which was launched in June.

Source: El Economista (sp)