Tecalitlan, Jalisco: PRI Municipal President Assassinated

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: SinEmbargo

Armed subjects assassinated the PRIista of Tecalitlan Jalisco, Victor Jose Guadalupe Diaz Contreras.

The Attorney General of the State of Jalisco (FGE) confirmed the murder of the mayor of Tecalitlán , Víctor Díaz. With this, there have been 10 mayors and former mayors killed in Jalisco since 2004 .

July 2, 2018 
Extra Material from: Udgtv and Rice Univ.

The Municipal President of Tecalitlán, Jalisco, Víctor José Guadalupe Díaz Contreras, was murdered on Monday by armed individuals. According to the first reports, the aggression was reported around 12:00 in the Colonia Emiliano Zapata. Diaz Contreras died instantly.

The PRI mayor traveled in a vehicle with another official and a Civil Registry officer when an armed  commando opened fire on them with heavy weapons, AK47 bullet casings were found at the scene.

The Jalisco State Prosecutor's Office reported that it began with the corresponding investigations to find those responsible for the death of the PRI Mayor:

"The FGE is already carrying out the corresponding investigations to find those responsible for the murder of the Mayor of Tecalitlán, Víctor Díaz, as well as the assault on two other individuals, one an officer of the Civil Registry who accompanied him, who already receives medical attention, he was transported to Ciudad Guzman."

Last night, Diaz Contreras had denounced on his Facebook account an assault on his brother's truck:

" My brother's truck was found with broken out  glass at about 4 in the morning; whomever wanted to provoke us to getting into fights  they will not get what they wanted, " he wrote.

Víctor José Guadalupe Díaz was only 28 years old and was the PRI President of the municipality  since 2015 . The party, through its social networks, denounced  the incident and asked the corresponding authorities to punish those responsible for "with all the force of the law".

The spokesperson of the municipality indicated that the police station participates in the inquiries, but did not provide more information about how the events occurred and asked to communicate later because "everyone was busy."

Tecalitlán is the municipality where three Italians were deprived of their liberty by municipal police and handed over to a criminal group in the southern region of the state on January 31. That was the end of the story. See our BB Post: Feb 3,2018

Relatives of Europeans have accused that the Mexican government's investigations are slow, in addition to criticizing that they did not offer a reward for citizens to provide information in order to locate them.

Because of this, the state prosecutor's office intervened at the municipal police station. On February 24, prosecutor Raúl Sánchez Jiménez reported that four of the Municipal police elements were detained after confessing their involvement in the disappearance of foreigners.

Tecalitlán has been characterized by being one of the areas most conflictive in Jalisco , noted for its marijuana and poppy plantations, its narco-laboratories and the weapons that have been taken from its inhabitants (autodefensas).

According to another study by BakerInsitute.org ( see Rice U link at top ) : "Homicide of mayors in Mexico: a situational analysis of the victims, perpetrators and locations of the attacks" , nine were murdered from January 2004 to June 2018.

During his tenure, the three mayors murdered were Raúl Delgado Benavides (PRI), of Cuautitlán de García Barragán in 2006; Manuel Gómez Torres (PAN), from Ayutla in 2014 and Juan Carlos Andrade (MC), from Jilotlán de los Dolores in 2018.

The ex-mayors were Juan Manuel Orozco Serrano (PRI), of Cuautitlán de García Barragán in 2008; Alberto Herrera Casillas (PRI), from Tecalitlán in 2010; Gabriel Gómez Michel (PRI), from El Grullo in 2014; Carlos Orozco Madrigal (PRI), from Cabo Corrientes in 2014; Efrén Álvarez López (PRD), from San Sebastián del Oeste in 2014 and Enrique González Gómez (PRI), from Cihuatlán in 2015.

In an interview with # 44Lab, the co-author of the study that belongs to the Baker Institute of Public Policies, in Texas, Helden De Paz Mancera, said that violence against mayors in Mexico does not correspond to a single factor .

"The phenomenon is very heterogeneous throughout the country. The first thing that is thought is that the mayors had links with organized crime, but this is not a law. In January 2016, in Morelos they murdered a mayor because she opposed the presence of criminal groups; It can also be due to personal debts or political immaturity of its opponents, " explained De Paz Mancera.

Jalisco is in ninth place among the entities with the most mayors and former mayors killed in Mexico. The list is headed by Oaxaca -28-, Guerrero -20- and Veracruz -20-; followed by Michoacán -18-, Chihuahua -12-, Durango -9-, State of Mexico -9- and Puebla -9-.

- Conditions conducive to attacks:

A constant that found the study "Homicide of mayors in Mexico" is that the murders occur in municipalities with populations of less than 100 thousand inhabitants . In the case of Jalisco, Cuautitlán, Ayutla and Jilotlán have 17 thousand, 12 thousand and nine thousand inhabitants, respectively.

Another constant identified by the authors is that there were no murders of mayors or mayors if their political party also governed their federated entity and the country; that is, during the Felipe Calderón administration, there were no murders of PAN mayors in an entity governed by the PAN, the same with Enrique Peña Nieto and the entities governed by the PRI: there were no PRI mayors killed .

The above coincidences in Jalisco, where during the governorship of the PAN Emilio González Márquez  the PRI mayor Raúl Delgado Benavides was assassinated and during the government of the PRI Aristóteles Sandoval Díaz the Panista Manuel Gómez Torres and the Emecista Juan Carlos Andrade were killed. De Paz Mancera said that this can be interpreted as lack of support from a president and a governor to the mayors of rival political parties.

De Paz Mancera said that the cases of former mayors and former mayors should be more studied because, although some continue in other public offices as deputies, most of these no longer held any public office at the time they were killed.

"To solve the problem, you must first have data. There should be a national diagnosis of violence against officials of different positions: senators, deputies, aldermen, and see who are the most likely, " the researcher urged. He added that from July 2004 to June 2018, 178 mayors, former mayors, interim mayors and elected mayors were assassinated, that is, 1.2 a month.

Until June 2018, the study registered five mayors and seven former mayors killed in Mexico, a figure that must be added to the former mayor of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Fernando Purón Johnston, which occurred last Saturday.

De Paz Mancera warned that, if there is no change in public security policy towards mayors, the number of mayors killed could increase after the electoral process.

More data:

· 57% of the victims were not accompanied during the attack. 

· 8% of the victims were accompanied by one of their relatives in the attack. 

· 85% of the attacks were perpetrated by two or more people. 

· 76% of homicides were committed with a firearm , in 12% the victims were first abducted and then murdered ; 4% were tortured first. 

· In 22% of the attacks, prohibited firearms -AK-47- or for the exclusive use of the army -AR-15- were used. 

· 3% of the urban population in Mexico has firearms for self-defense .

The threats include intimidation, assault with weapons, kidnappings and assaults, among others. In 80 percent of the cases of politicians who lost their lives, the participation of organized crime is presumed.

The aggressions have been registered in 29 of the 32 states of the country.

But the violence also reached their families: during the same period there were 70 attacks against family members.

            

Only last February, it was reported that since the year 2000, elements of the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) destroyed in this territory 10,220 marijuana and 36 poppy fields, in addition to ensuring 10,573 kilos of the green plant and 1, 075 kilos of methamphetamine. 

                                                      ( Really?, that's it, since 2000?)

The study entitled the Third Report on Political Violence Mexico 2018, prepared by the firm Etellekt Consultores, establishes that during the period from September 8, 2017 to April 8 of this year, 173 direct aggressions against politicians were registered and 78 of them were murdered.

According to another study by BakerInsitute.org ( see Rice U link at top ) :
"Homicide of mayors in Mexico: a situational analysis of the victims, perpetrators and locations of the attacks" , nine were murdered from January 2004 to June 2018.
During his tenure, the three mayors murdered were Raúl Delgado Benavides (PRI), of Cuautitlán de García Barragán in 2006; Manuel Gómez Torres (PAN), from Ayutla in 2014 and Juan Carlos Andrade (MC), from Jilotlán de los Dolores in 2018.
The ex-mayors were Juan Manuel Orozco Serrano (PRI), of Cuautitlán de García Barragán in 2008; Alberto Herrera Casillas (PRI), from Tecalitlán in 2010; Gabriel Gómez Michel (PRI), from El Grullo in 2014; Carlos Orozco Madrigal (PRI), from Cabo Corrientes in 2014; Efrén Álvarez López (PRD), from San Sebastián del Oeste in 2014 and Enrique González Gómez (PRI), from Cihuatlán in 2015.
In an interview with # 44Lab, the co-author of the study that belongs to the Baker Institute of Public Policies, in Texas, Helden De Paz Mancera, said that violence against mayors in Mexico does not correspond to a single factor .
"The phenomenon is very heterogeneous throughout the country. The first thing that is thought is that the mayors had links with organized crime, but this is not a law. In January 2016, in Morelos they murdered a mayor because she opposed the presence of criminal groups; It can also be due to personal debts or political immaturity of its opponents, " explained De Paz Mancera.
Jalisco is in ninth place among the entities with the most mayors and former mayors killed in Mexico. The list is headed by Oaxaca -28-, Guerrero -20- and Veracruz -20-; followed by Michoacán -18-, Chihuahua -12-, Durango -9-, State of Mexico -9- and Puebla -9-.

- Conditions conducive to attacks:
A constant that found the study "Homicide of mayors in Mexico" is that the murders occur in municipalities with populations of less than 100 thousand inhabitants . In the case of Jalisco, Cuautitlán, Ayutla and Jilotlán have 17 thousand, 12 thousand and nine thousand inhabitants, respectively.
Another constant identified by the authors is that there were no murders of mayors or mayors if their political party also governed their federated entity and the country; that is, during the Felipe Calderón administration, there were no murders of PAN mayors in an entity governed by the PAN, the same with Enrique Peña Nieto and the entities governed by the PRI: there were no PRI mayors killed .
The above coincidences in Jalisco, where during the governorship of the PAN Emilio González Márquez  the PRI mayor Raúl Delgado Benavides was assassinated and during the government of the PRI Aristóteles Sandoval Díaz the Panista Manuel Gómez Torres and the Emecista Juan Carlos Andrade were killed. De Paz Mancera said that this can be interpreted as lack of support from a president and a governor to the mayors of rival political parties.
De Paz Mancera said that the cases of former mayors and former mayors should be more studied because, although some continue in other public offices as deputies, most of these no longer held any public office at the time they were killed.
"To solve the problem, you must first have data. There should be a national diagnosis of violence against officials of different positions: senators, deputies, aldermen, and see who are the most likely, " the researcher urged. He added that from July 2004 to June 2018, 178 mayors, former mayors, interim mayors and elected mayors were assassinated, that is, 1.2 a month.
Until June 2018, the study registered five mayors and seven former mayors killed in Mexico, a figure that must be added to the former mayor of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Fernando Purón Johnston, which occurred last Saturday.
De Paz Mancera warned that, if there is no change in public security policy towards mayors, the number of mayors killed could increase after the electoral process.
More data:
· 57% of the victims were not accompanied during the attack.
· 8% of the victims were accompanied by one of their relatives in the attack.
· 85% of the attacks were perpetrated by two or more people.
· 76% of homicides were committed with a firearm , in 12% the victims were first abducted and then murdered ; 4% were tortured first.
· In 22% of the attacks, prohibited firearms -AK-47- or for the exclusive use of the army -AR-15- were used.
· 3% of the urban population in Mexico has firearms for self-defense .
The threats include intimidation, assault with weapons, kidnappings and assaults, among others. In 80 percent of the cases of politicians who lost their lives, the participation of organized crime is presumed.
The aggressions have been registered in 29 of the 32 states of the country.
But the violence also reached their families: during the same period there were 70 attacks against family members.
Note: Various sources named Diaz Contreras as Mayor and/or President of the Municipality and town.