"El Día de la Coneja" for Two Little Boys

I cried today

In the state of Tamaulipas - Remember the shooting reported by Borderland Beat where two boys were killed? This was the first paragraph of the well written article by Borderland Beat:

"Two boys were killed and two adults wounded when a group of uniformed men opened fire on a highway on an SUV carrying a family of 13 in Tamaulipas, a state in northeastern Mexico, survivors said."

Cartoon translation: "New Federal Government Slogan: So drugs don't fall into your children's hands, we are killing them for you."  Presidente Calderon with the hammer.

Well damn, it turns out the boys were actually killed by Mexican military forces, the same ones who are supposed to be here to protect us from the bad guys.

Here are the facts as reported by La Jornada:

According to the victims' complaint, the seven children and four adults were traveling in a Tahoe truck, driven by Carlos Alfredo Rangel, early Sunday morning.

When the vehicle passed the military checkpoint, Rangel observed that the soldiers were alongside the highway. Rangel slowed down, but the soldiers did not signal for him to stop.

After passing the checkpoint, the soldiers began to shoot indiscriminately at the vehicle; the adults say that they even threw multiple fragmentation grenades.

They recount that they experienced moments of terror and confusion as they got out of the truck and tried to run for the brush. Martín Almanza carried his sons Bryan and Michel, but at that moment he felt a bullet graze him. His son Bryan was covered in blood. He died in his arms.

Despite the fact that the civilians were screaming at the soldiers to stop shooting at them because there were children present, the soldiers ignored them and injured the other youngster, who died at the scene.

From his hospital bed, injured driver Rangel told La Jornada:

"All of a sudden they started shooting at us; I stayed with my wife and baby in the truck and they were shooting at everything that moved. We yelled at them that we had our family with us and they kept shooting. When we passed in front of them we even rolled down the truck's windows so that they could see the kids, but I don't know what happened.

"When they saw me wounded they cocked their weapons and told me that they were going to kill me; I don't remember anything after that... we were a family with seven children. My wife got out of the truck and ran into the brush with the baby and they kept shooting at her."

Cinthia Salazar, the murdered children's mother, told Milenio, "I never saw other people at the scene who were not soldiers. I saw the soldiers."
 
So today was a sunny day, we could almost say it was a nice day but some of the friends, family and neighbors of the two boys were holding a protest in front of the military base known as "Macario Zamora." I don't know if you remember but the two boys killed were Martin 5 and Bryan 9 and now we are finding out they were apparently killed by Mexican soldiers. The People at the public protest were very angry expressing their rejection of the military forces and were demanding punishment for the soldiers who they thought were guilty of double murder.

With signs and banners on hand, the people berated the military's aggression against 13 people who came under fire last Saturday in an area on the riverside road of Nuevo Laredo-Reynosa-Matamoros. The families who live in the community of Colorines de Nuevo Laredo, were travelling on this road going to the beach of Matamoros to celebrate Easter Sunday or what is typically called here “El Día de la Coneja.”

Cinthia Salazar, 28, mother of the slain children led the protest. Also present was the wife of Carlos Alfredo Rangel Delgado, who received bullet wounds to his legs. A child was holding a poster with the phrase "Please do not shoot me I am a child."

Another said: "I am a friend of Martin and Bryan."

One more said: "Get out murderous soldiers."

Also another read: "Punish those responsible."

A group of adults hung a blanket on a wall with the slogan: "Stop the violence."

The protesters remained there until noon for about 2 hours of chanting slogans against the military. The picket was peaceful and there were no incidents.

This whole thing is so sad, especially because we are talking about innocent children, who were just looking forward to going to the beach to hide eggs for Easter. How can this be happening?

This is not the first time Borderland Beat has covered the death of innocent bystanders killed by military forces, last month the Editor of this blog wrote a report entitled "The Mexican Drug War’s Collateral Damage ." I really don't want to repeat a lot of what has already been said, but really, something needs to be done.

Just so you know, La Jornada and El Milenio, which are national media sources, ran with the story, but the local media outlets did not publish shit, nada! They totally suck, who are they working for? The people should stop buying their worthless newspapers or watching their lame news on TV.

God recieve these two young boys in heaven because they have already been in hell for Easter Sunday!

Today they are in the garden of God hunting for eggs on el día de la coneja.

Shit!

Categories: Mexican Crime, tamaulipas, video