.
On September 19, on a property in Cajeme, Sonora, personnel from the public prosecutor's office located skeletal remains and yesterday confirmed that they correspond to five members of the Yaqui ethnic group. Photo Cristina Gómez Lima Cajeme, Sonora.
The media coverage by AP and many news outlets has been mediocre, and failed to point out that Bacum Yaqui, south of the Arizona border, have been fighting the Sempra gas pipeline, promoted by the state and federal governments. La Jornada points out that it is this opposition to megaprojects that led to the kidnapping of 10 men from Bacum Pueblo, when they went for a cow for a traditional feast. Earlier, Bacum Yaqui said the Mexican military planted drugs in their community in an attempt to dismantle their Yaqui traditional guard. As families held out hope for the safe return of the kidnapped men, the remains of five were confirmed on Monday, found in a stream bed near the remote camp of a criminal gang. Investigators were fired on and killed two of the assailants during the search. -- Censored News.
CAJAME, Sonora, Mexico -- Yaqui in Bacum Pueblo said that the kidnapping of ten men, and confirmed murder of five of the men, from their community is the result of their opposition to megaprojects supported by the state and federal governments.
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Translated article by La Jornada
Bacum Yaqui are opposed to Sempra's gas pipeline planned for construction across the state of Sonora. In their original homeland of Yoeme (Yaqui) south of the Arizona border, Yaqui said Sempra's megaproject would directly affect their culture, language, religion, and their relationship with the land, including farming areas and medicinal plants.
On Monday, the prosecutor's office in Sonora located skeletal remains and confirmed that they correspond to five members of the Yaqui ethnic group. The remains were found on September 19 on Chichiquelite Hill in Cajeme, Sonora, La Jornada reports.
Bacum Yaqui said that the kidnappings and assassinations are the result of political persecution by the state and federal governments in collusion with business consortiums planning mega-projects on their lands.
The legal advisor of the Loma de Bácum people, Guadalupe Maldonado, said that the attacks are the product of persecution by the State, in order to divide the tribe and take over their natural resources, and ruled out the possibility of retaliation by organized crime cartels.
"It just so happens that those who have disappeared, been murdered and are political prisoners are people from Loma de Bácum, the first town from south to north that has opposed the megaprojects that seek to destroy our identity," he said.
 |
| Yaqui family members of the murdered and disappeared 10 men from Bacum Pueblo |
By Cristina Gómez, La Jornada correspondent
Online translation by Deepl
The State Attorney General's Office (FGJE) of Sonora confirmed, based on DNA studies, that the skeletal remains found in the Chichiquelite hill correspond to five of the seven Yaqui Indians reported missing on July 14, when they and three other men from outside the ethnic group were kidnapped by armed individuals in the municipality of Bácum, in the south of the state.
According to the results obtained at the FGJE's Forensic Scientific Intelligence Laboratory, DNA composition made it possible to identify the remains of Fabián Sombra Miranda, Braulio Pérez Sol, Heladio Molina Zavala, Martín Hurtado Flores and Fabián Valencia Romero.
Prosecutor Claudia Contreras Cordova contacted the families to inform them of the results and clarified that they have the right to request the support of the Ministry of the Interior, the National Human Rights Commission or a private laboratory for a second comparative DNA analysis, in order to have full certainty. ADVERTISING The whereabouts of Benjamín Portela Peralta, Juan Justino Galaviz, Leocadio Galaviz Cruz, Artemio Arvallo Canizález and Gustavo Acosta are still unknown.
The Sonora Prosecutor's Office stated that "in the area of Chichiquelite (the place where the discovery was made on September 19), personnel from the FGJE's Expert Services, the National Defense Secretariat, National Guard, Navy Secretariat and State Police, continue the search and have processed seven linear kilometers along a stream, where they have secured skeletal remains and clues that will be placed in view of the indirect victims for possible identification" or to rule out that they belong to other people.
On July 15, the tribe denounced the disappearance of the 10 men who went out in search of cattle for the traditional festival of the Virgen del Carmen that is celebrated every year -- from July 14 to 16 -- in the Bataconsica ranch. They explained that on their return they were surprised by an armed group, who forcibly loaded them into several vehicles.
Members of the ethnic group asked the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples to intervene in the case, and called on the Morenista governor, Alfonso Durazo Montaño, not to allow the situation of violence and disappearances to become normalized in the state, especially in the eight Yaqui villages.
Megaprojects, behind the violence
They assured that the kidnappings and assassinations of members of the ethnic group are the result of political persecution by the state and federal governments in collusion with business consortiums planning mega-projects on their lands.
The legal advisor of the Loma de Bácum people, Guadalupe Maldonado, assured that the attacks are the product of persecution by the State, in order to divide the tribe and take over their natural resources, and ruled out the possibility of retaliation by organized crime cartels.
"It just so happens that those who have disappeared, been murdered and are political prisoners are people from Loma de Bácum, the first town from south to north that has opposed the megaprojects that seek to destroy our identity," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment