NoMasVictimas.org

El colectivo internacional NoMásVíctimas.org reitera su compromiso de difusión y monitoreo en el caso de Desaparición Forzada de los trés activistas Ana Belém Sánchez, Diego Antonio Maldonado y Luis Enrique Castaneda, para logar una visión clara del papel de las organizaciones de Seguridad Pública en México. Nuestra petición es clara: Queremos de regreso a Ana, Diego y Luis y queremos un México se

guro. Las bases estan en
www.nomasvictimas.org. After the presidential election fraud on July 1st 2012, illegitimately won by presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the biggest student movement in recent mexican history arose. These facts drove the left-wing opposition candidate, political scientist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, to uncover many illegal actions during the electoral campaign committed by Peña Nieto and his Party. In this complex atmosphere of peaceful resistance, authoritarian repression and media lies, is where this strange event in the little town of Paracho, in Michoacan, Mexico takes place. Both psychologists Diego Maldonado Castañeda (34), Ana Belén Sánchez Mayorga (30), along with the coordinator of the political mexican youth movement -Movimiento Ciudadano- Luis Enrique Nava Castañeda (30) travelled from Mexico City to Paracho to give a workshop for children at the local International Balloon Festival of Cantoya, an annual celebration in the town. Michoacan is well known for the presence of drug cartels such as “la Familia.” In 2006 alone, roughly 500 assassinations were committed by different cartels in Michoacan. After finishing the workshop on July 22nd, the young colleagues decided to stay for the festivities. They spent the night at Posada Santa Fe Hotel, where an armed group violently kidnapped them them from their rooms. The hotel suspiciously closed the next morning for “maintenance reasons”. It was not until July 24th that the police took action, when the victims’ families started to look for their loved ones. And the investigations started on July 25th (3 days after the abduction!). There is varied information regarding the evidence: some say there was blood on the hotel walls, some others tell about blood stains in the beds. A post from a blog called “Animal politico” writes:

“In the hotel stairways, commented Nava Castañeda’s mother, we were informed by federal agents about evidence of a struggle: holes in the wall apparently caused by the heel of a shoe and hand prints, as if they were trying to anchor themselves against being taken. A receptionist even informed us of a broken stair, as a result of the struggle.”

The police, who showed up three days later, disagreed with this version of events, claiming that they found no evidence of violence whatsoever. The hotel manager testified that he was so afraid during the whole ordeal that he hid and didn’t witness a thing. He said he didn’t see who came or who left the place. The news was already spreading by July 25th , although some reports have been erased from the net, especially those displaying pictures of Luis Enrique Castañeda in the company of the leftist party candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The authorities have not offered to protect or support the families of the victims. On July 26th members of political mexican youth movement “Movimiento Ciudadano” escorted the family members out of Paracho and took them to a safer place, because some tension had arose in the town as a result of the investigations. Every forced disappearance is a symptom of political problems with social repercussions, it displays the lack of control of public security organisms and, in the case of Mexico, reveals deep connections between criminal organisations and police forces because of impunity. Criminal organisations are in fact better equipped and are more numerous than security forces in Mexico nowadays. It is important to mention that since 2008 Mexico is ranked first for having the most abductions in a worldwide list developed by NGO IKV Pax Christi. Abduction is also known as an old practice of PRI, the party that just won the elections.