The president of the North American country, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), described the murders of the five men as an apparent “execution” by members of the Armed Forces of the Aztec nation. All this after the leak of a video that was released this week through local media. There is already an investigation underway by the Ministry of Defense and Army prosecutors.
Security cameras in Nuevo Laredo, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, captured the moment in which uniformed officers removed five men from a truck after the vehicle collided with a wall after an apparent pursuit.
The sequence, dated May 18, shows how about a dozen soldiers drag the five occupants out, kicking and punching them, before pushing them against a wall.
Minutes later, the uniformed men fired into the horizon without showing a clear objective. It is observed how in the middle of the shots the detainees continue to move and, without further ado, after a moment there is no more movement.
Four of them were reported dead at the scene and one of them died after being taken to the hospital.
According to an expert from the DEA (United States Drug Enforcement Agency) consulted by the media outlet ‘Univisión’, which had exclusive access to the video, minutes later the military located weapons near the bodies of the detainees, using plastic to leave no trace. on them, which points to an alleged scenario of extrajudicial executions.
An action in broad daylight, totally amateur, unprofessionalism of the Mexican body is seen in this demonstration. With plastic or a shirt, they seek to put weapons on him, after having shot them
Statements by Jim Shedd, former DEA agent, to ‘Univisión’
The Mexican Ministry of Defense was quick to issue statements and assured in a statement that “there is no impunity in the conduct of military personnel and no conduct contrary to the rule of law will be allowed.”
Questioned by journalists, the attorney general’s office did not offer statements about what happened.
Under Mexican law, abuses by soldiers involving civilians must be prosecuted by civilian courts.
“They informed me and action is already being taken, apparently there was an execution and that cannot be allowed, we are not the same as the previous governments,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated in his daily press conference. “They are under protection, a group, all those who participated,” he added without detailing the number of participants or using the term detainees. “Apparently this was an execution, and that cannot be allowed.” “Those responsible are about to be handed over to the corresponding authorities,” she said.
“It will be analyzed, but from the outset the same Secretary of Defense is recommending that action be taken for the alleged crime of extrajudicial execution. Yes, it is the Prosecutor’s Office that is going to do its job, but there is no cover-up, because we do not tolerate the violation of human rights,” AMLO added in his morning conference.
What is the Army’s response?
The infantry lieutenant, José Luis N., who was in charge of the military convoy, signed the account that occurred before the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR).
According to his statements, the lieutenant explains that in the operation by the uniformed officers there was an attack by civilians just as the military sought to disarm them. His version also adds that the soldiers responded to the shots fired by the detainees “in an attempt to rescue their personnel.”
The explanation ends by saying that after the crossfire, the uniformed officers realized that four of the five detainees were dead “and one more in critical condition.”
The statement of the lieutenant in charge of the military convoy contrasts with the event captured on camera. Preliminary and expert analyzes consulted by the newspaper ‘El País’ and ‘Univisión’ point out that there is no evidence against whom the uniformed men were initially shooting, completely denying the official version that says that the civilians were armed and attacked; and also, they reinforce the idea that the weapons were strategically located to report a supposed crossfire.
‘El País’ contacted a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense (Sedena) to have an answer of what the agency has advanced about what happened. In a statement released for public availability, he responded:
This agency is cooperating with the FGR in order to determine the corresponding responsibilities. On the other hand, the General Prosecutor of Military Justice, within the scope of its competence, from the moment in which this edited videographic material was released, launched an investigation of the facts to determine the responsibilities derived from military legislation. Mexican society is guaranteed that there is no impunity in the performance of military personnel, nor will any conduct contrary to the rule of law overlap.
Other similar events
The recent event in Nuevo Laredo brings to mind what happened on February 26, when a group of soldiers murdered five young people who were traveling in their vehicle in that same area.
In a report by the Mexican Government Agency for Human Rights, it was said that the young men were unarmed and had come from spending the night in a discotheque.
It was written that the military murdered five boys and wounded another of them. A seventh young man was reportedly unharmed in the confrontation and was the one who said that the uniformed men attacked them with bullets “for no reason.”
The document indicates that the military skipped the procedure of giving verbal orders for the vehicle to stop and at the time the video went viral on social networks because angry neighbors attacked the soldiers and beat some of them in defense of the soldiers. civilians.
When this episode reached the presidential office, AMLO regretted what had happened but did not rush to point out the existence of a war. His comments implied that it was “single-fact logic,” a response that political analysts said ignored the long-running covert war on Mexico’s northeastern border with the United States.
The event also sparked a movement of protests in different cities of the country, in which relatives and close friends of the soldiers called for a march for the rights of the uniformed. “Human rights support our soldiers” and “Where are the rights of the military?” were some of the slogans of the citizens in defense of the military corps.
Two months after this event, in April, federal prosecutors charged four soldiers involved in a homicide. Days later, also in April, a human rights organization in Nuevo Laredo sent a formal complaint President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The letter, written by a civilian male, explained that Mexican National Guard troops had fired at his vehicle in Nuevo Laredo, killing his 15-year-old pregnant girlfriend and a 54-year-old friend and wounding two other people.
A police crime scene report on the incident largely corroborated the account of the shooting contained in the complaint.
Scandals aside, López Obrador has given the military an unprecedented role on the Mexican scene, from law enforcement to infrastructure projects, as well as running trains and airports.
The president has repeatedly defended the Army’s honesty, but the multiple complaints against the uniformed officers for alleged human rights abuses have called into question the president’s decisions, increasing citizen anger against the institution.
With Reuters, AP, EFE and local media
