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- Coastal Communities Report Links between “Papa Smurf” And the Caballeros Templarios
- Another US Marine shackled in Mexican prison on gun charges
- Using Art to Protest the Drug War: Homer Simpson becomes “El Chapo”
Coastal Communities Report Links between “Papa Smurf” And the Caballeros Templarios Posted: 02 May 2014 09:12 PM PDT
By: Regeneración Radio / Tejemedios Gabriel Caballero Farías, known as “El Plátano”, was born and raised in Caleta de Campos, and underwent emergency surgery on December 3, 2013 because of a condition on his cervical spine. The operation went smoothly and the doctor, as is in other cases, prescribed him a year of rest. On January 14, 2014, a little more than 30 days after the operation, “El Plátano” joined the autodefensas of Aquila. “I went to Aquila because they had risen up in arms, I became an autodefensa because of the violence that my town was suffering through, people couldn’t even go outside, the Templarios were just doing stupid things in the town; they had threatened us all.” Such was the level of extortion for people living in Caleta de Campos; that is why Gabriel opted for the safety of his family and left his hometown to move to the city of Colima for three long years. On his exile, he left his life as a rancher, his ranch, and orchards of mango and papaya. “Here everyone knows my from when I was a little kid, they know that I’m a hardworking person and know that I’ve never been around thugs”. Gabriel makes this explanation because recently Estanislao Beltrán "Papa Pitufo" (Papa Smurf), leader of some of the autodefensasof Tepalcatepec, has spoken criticism to the press about “El Plátano” and the autodefensas of Caleta de Campos being pseudoautodefensas, this occurred after the shootout that occurred on Sunday August 27 in the town of Chiquiapan.  On the morning of February 13, 2014, “El Plátano” took his AK-47 and rode on a truck along with his autodefensa comrades; the community of Ostula, 30 minutes from Aquila, had just been liberated barely three days ago by a group of locals who had also been forced to migrate from the area and now returned as autodefensas. The autodefensas, led by Semeí Verdía, had called on all of the communities and landholders of the area for a meeting to address the issue of the movement. The meeting was a high calling and was attended by many of the coastal Nahua communities from the municipality of Aquila. The decision was emphatic; full support for the autodefensas and authorization to displace along Highway 200, which connects Lázaro Cárdenas to Manzanillo, installing checkpoints in order to expel the Caballeros Templarios in the area. Some 60 trucks, filled with autodefensas from the municipalities of Aquila, Cohayuana, Chinicuila and Coalcomán took off to clean the coast. Within two weeks, they had already fulfilled their mission. They checked village by village, house by house, hill by hill, but found no one; the Templarios had already escaped. While this advancement was occurring, checkpoints were placed along the road: El Duin, Cachán, Tizupan, Huahua and finally, on February 24, Caleta de Campo, establishing the autodefensa border with territory not yet liberated, about 70 kilometers from the port of Lázaro Cárdenas.  Gabriel had acquired sufficient experience during the operations of the coast and as well as being a native of Caleta; he was elected as the coordinator of the barricade. “When we arrived, people felt kind of scared, but then they saw that I liberated Caleta and said; oh, well he’s ‘El Plátano’. By the time we arrived, we gathered about 400 people, then we made the assembly and the people began to rise up in arms, they saw that we were people from Caleta, all of the people support us”. The barricade of Caleta de Campo can’t survive without the support of the people. The kitchen we have that feeds the volunteers is supplied by donations from the community, “without them, without the support of the people, we wouldn’t exist,” says “El Plátano”. In its borderline condition, the roadblock hasn’t been without its tense moments. “Who is helping here is the Federal Police; they arrived and set up within a few days. Who we distrust is the Mexican Navy; they have come here repeatedly and tried to disarm us, if we didn’t ring the bells, they would disarm us. We have the people on our side; they came out and defended us in front of the Navy. They couldn’t mess with us”.
Coastal Communities Report Links between “Papa Smurf” And the Caballeros Templarios This is how things remained until Sunday April 27. It had been several weeks that they had reports about a checkpoint being set up in the town of Chuquiapan claiming to beautodefensas; they had never had contact with them or with any other autodefensas of the coast, which are coordinated by Semeí Verdía. “They were wearing facemasks all the time, and the same people from there told us that they were being paid by organized crime. We saw time passing and nothing was being done about it. We talked with Semeí and Dr. Mireles to be given permission to advance”. The permission finally arrived and on Sunday “El Plátano” confirmed with Velerio, an official in charge of the Federal Police who entered the zone along with the autodefensas and who also set up with the autodefensas at the checkpoint. “The Federal Police has been with us since the beginning, we have coordinated with them all this time; so I talked with Valerio and he confirmed with me that his superiors had given them permission to advance”. At 3:30 in the afternoon, more than 150 autodefensasfrom Aquila got together and began the expected advancement. The operation took Highway 200 towards Lázaro Cárdenas led by the autodefensas of Caleta de Campos. At the checkpoint, the Federal Police stayed to guard the area. A few minutes later after the group left towards Chuquiapan, “Papa Smurf” appeared in Caleta, who had come down by Arteaga, through a trail in the mountains accompanied by the State Police in a convoy of 20 trucks. “We come for ‘El Plátano’”. “The Federal Police defended me because they know me; we’ve been working together for three months. ‘Papa Smurf’ was investigating me in order to catch me because he’s being paid by the Templarios”, Gabriel said irritably. For a moment, the situation could’ve become dangerous, but finally the Federal Police and the convoy of Tepalcatepec gave in to the argument of the Federal Police and everyone took off towards Chuquiapan, where a few moments ago a shootout had unleashed. It was “El Plátano” and his comrades who had finally made contact with the fake checkpoint. Upon the arrival of the coastal autodefensas to Chuquiapan, they were ambushed; taking fire from the hills and the roadblock. After the confrontation, which lasted about 15 minutes, they repelled the attack and killed four gunmen. “When we arrived, we were greeted with gunfire, we got out of our trucks and defended ourselves, but they looked like they didn’t know how to use their weapons well. Soon after, a gunman died from the hills and the three from the checkpoint also fell”. After the shootout and while theautodefensastended to their wounded, Estanislao Beltrán, the State Police, and the Federal Police arrived. “I didn’t see who it was, but the weapons of the Templarios weren’t there anymore. How strange is that right? I think it was Papa Smurf who made them disappear, that’s why in the photos released to the press the dead gunmen are unarmed.” An hour later, Semeí Verdía, and José Manuel Mireles arrived at the scene. They confirmed that the checkpoint was associated with the Templarios. During the operation 18 people who remained at the checkpoint, were also able to be detained. When questioned, they explained that a woman from the town of La Mira had promised them between $1,000-$1,200 pesos for “supporting” the people at the checkpoint. “Many of us said yes because we were desperate, because of the lack of work, we need the money, that’s how they convinced us to stay”, one of them said. Another of the detainees, a youth who was barely 20 years old, admitted to have been working for the Caballeros Templarios as a “hawk”, “I reported on the movement of the feds here”; he was unaware of addresses of people in charge or who paid him. After the urging from the autodefensas, they reported about someone who goes by “Cebollo” as the person who explained to them about the “checkpoint”. Another detainee was identified by the autodefensas of Huahua as a man who tortured and killed innocent people.  “We have no doubt that “Papa Smurf” is with the Templarios and the Mexican Navy. We found a truck from them with a document that was signed by “Papa Smurf”, where along with the people from this checkpoint, they asked the Mexican Navy for help to fuck us up”. That’s why the Mexican Navy has bothered us so much, all this time they have been with them”. The document that “El Plátano” is talking about, shows very clearly the signature of Estanislao Beltrán, who serves as “representative of the communities of the municipality of Lázaro Cárdenas”. In the document, they request support and “permanent” presence in the area, autodefensaswho moments before, had confessed to being paid by organized crime. “How is it possible that the Mexican Navy will provide support to them while seeing that the Federal Police was with us? Did the government representatives ever gather to see who was who? Everyone here knows that we are for the good of the people”. Gabriel vigorously questions. The detainees were handed over to the Attorney General of Michoacán and transferred to Lázaro Cárdenas. After the police and the autodefensas of “Papa Smurf” left, the autodefensas went to the neighboring town of Chucutitán where different operations were performed, and they delivered material in order for the residents of the town to arm themselves. During the tour of the orchards and the river banks in Chucutitán, vehicles, remains of a camp, and a narco-laboratory were found. While the checkpoint of the pseudo autodefensasexisted, they never performed patrols in the surrounding communities in order to chase out the Templarios from there.  On Thursday, April 30, they began to perform an operation in the town of Chucutitán, about 60 kilometers from Lázaro Cárdenas. The operation consisted of a house that neighbors identified as a gathering house for the Caballeros Templarios. Upon arrival, they found no one, but after an intense search, they found assault weapons and clothes hidden under the ground. Among the items, shirts alluding to the Caballeros Templarios, and official uniforms of the Mexican Navy and Municipal Police were found.  “The autodefensas from the coast are one of the cleanest autodefensas in Michoacán. Over in Tierra Caliente, they have their chaos and they went to come here fuck us up. They’re going after the mines, that’s what really matters to them, they are being paid by the Templarios and the Templarios are giving them protection, the mafia here is very dangerous and this is not yet over”. “El Plátano” fears for the worst because along with the accusations that the press has charged him with, the Federal Police no longer stations itself at the checkpoint; after the shootout they left and haven’t returned. “They know about the things that I’ve discovered, you can’t imagine, that’s why they want to smear me because if I disappear, fear will come back to the people. That’s why I’m telling you all of this; I’m worried that this may be the last time we talk”.    Source: Regeneración Radio  | ||||
Another US Marine shackled in Mexican prison on gun charges Posted: 02 May 2014 07:06 PM PDT Chivís Martínez for Borderland Beat  “I accidentally drove into Mexico with 3 guns, a rifle (AR-15), a .45 cal pistol and a 12 gauge pump shotgun...." Prison authorities in Tijuana, Mexico, have shackled a decorated U.S. Marine veteran of two combat tours in Afghanistan to his cot in a prison infirmary, restraining each of his limbs, on charges of introducing outlawed weapons into Mexico. The Marine reservist, Andrew Tahmooressi, 25, who is from Weston, Fla., outside Miami, drove his black Ford F-150 pickup through the San Ysidro, Calif., border crossing into Tijuana on April 1, carrying his worldly possessions, including three U.S.-registered firearms. Tahmooressi, who suffers from what his mother calls “directional dysfunction,” got lost near the border after dark. He and his family say he took a wrong turn into Mexico. Mexican prosecutors have slapped three firearms charges on him, and his fate has been clouded by an attempt to escape the La Mesa penitentiary April 6 that involved ninja-style scaling of a wall topped with coiled barbed wire. Tahmooressi’s situation parallels that of a another Florida Marine veteran who was held for four months in a Mexican border prison in 2012 for carrying an antique shotgun in his motor home on his way to surf in Costa Rica. A media uproar and pressure from U.S. legislators helped win the freedom of that Marine, Jon Hammar, who grew up in Miami. In a statement that he signed earlier this week, Tahmooressi said he had crossed the border inadvertently while he was looking for housing in the San Diego area so he could begin treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder at a nearby Veterans Affairs facility. Tahmooressi had received his official PTSD diagnosis on March 20. “I accidentally drove into Mexico with 3 guns, a rifle (AR-15), a .45 cal pistol and a 12 gauge pump shotgun with no intentions on being in Mexico or being involved in any criminal activity,” Tahmooressi wrote in a signed privacy waiver this week for the office of U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a Marine veteran himself whose district is near the border. Tahmooressi grew up in a gated community in Weston and graduated with honors from Cypress Bay High School in 2007. He earned a pilot’s license at age 17, then headed off to Alaska’s Kodiak Island, where he fulfilled a dream of joining a commercial fishing crew. “They went out into the Bering Sea. They pulled up something like 20,000 pounds of halibut a day,” said his mother, Jill Marie Tahmooressi, a nurse at Miami Children’s Hospital. After returning to Florida and entering a local community college, Andrew Tahmooressi decided he wasn’t ready for schooling, and joined the Marines in 2008. He served two combat tours in Afghanistan, winning a rare combat field promotion to sergeant in Helmand province. Earlier, in Marjah district, a homemade bomb upended his combat vehicle but he survived. In 2012, Tahmooressi mustered out with an honorable discharge but he remains a reservist with a commitment until 2016. He returned to Weston to be with his father, Khosrow “Paul” Tahmooressi, an Iranian-born engineer, and his mother, and to pursue a dream of training as a professional pilot at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. But the demons of war dogged him. “He had been struggling for all of 2013,” his mother said. He borrowed the family’s Ford pickup and drove to California, where he received an official PTSD evaluation at a VA facility. U.S. officials have visited Tahmooressi at least nine times since his arrest the night of April 1, and the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana “is taking all possible steps” to ensure his safety, William W. Whitaker, the American citizen services chief, said in an email to a staff member of Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., that McClatchy obtained. Tahmooressi’s two-day detention in a holding pen, followed by detention at La Mesa Penitentiary, has been far from calm. The first night was the worst. “When he called me, with all the background noise, it sounded like a riot was going on,” his mother said. “He said, and I quote, ‘Mom, I’m not going to make it through the night. … There are hit men in that cell with me” His escape attempt came after he was put in with the general prison population at La Mesa. On April 6, he was placed in a single-person cell, where he apparently stabbed himself in the neck, either as a suicide attempt or a ploy. After getting stitches at Tijuana General Hospital, he was placed in the infirmary. His “arms and legs are restrained because the infirmary is an open room with access to many objects, but the cuffs are doubled in length so that he has some movement and padding and bandages are between his skin and the cuffs to prevent injury,” Whitaker wrote in the email. Tahmooressi’s mother visited him April 14 at the penitentiary. His mood was grim. “I would say, precarious at best, fearful, nervous,” she said in a telephone interview. “He’d already had his life threatened. Very anxious about the legal process, highly distraught.” More news came this week. Whitaker wrote to Jill Tahmooressi to say the consulate had gathered a summary of VA medical records of her son’s ailment, and an affidavit, and presented them to the judge. A trial is set to begin May 28. “We learned today that the prison system intends to move Andrew to another penitentiary called El Hongo II, a new facility located near the town of Tecate, about 40 minutes east of Tijuana,” Whitaker wrote. “There, he will be in a single cell.” That move may be imminent. Whitaker wrote the family Wednesday that prison authorities “indicated that this would happen in around a week.” Legislators, including Hunter and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat who lives in Weston and is the chair of the Democratic National Committee, have voiced concern about the case. A spokesman for Wasserman Schultz, Sean Bartlett, said she had “instructed her staff to get in touch with the State Department right away to ensure that Andrew’s case was being handled as expeditiously as possible.” He said the legislator was “in close contact with the State Department as the trial approaches.” For his part, Tahmooressi offered a simple plea at the bottom of his half-page handwritten statement allowing the public to be informed of his plight. “Please help, thank you very much. I appreciate anything you can do. Thank you,” he wrote on his U.S. privacy waiver form. Source: Stars and Stripes  | ||||
Using Art to Protest the Drug War: Homer Simpson becomes “El Chapo” Posted: 02 May 2014 12:00 PM PDT Chivís Martínez for Borderland Beat   The collection is titled “Stop the Drug war” series. I did not vote for our current president, nonetheless seeing Chapo holding Obama's decapitated head is a little too creepy for this American. However, Bart purchasing marijuana from our president did bring a smile to my face. Another has President Obama growing marijuana on the White House lawn, a nod to the recent legalization in Oregon and Washington states. As for Pablo Escobar’s caricature, one of the illustrations has Pablo kneeling in front of a collage of images of victims such as the editor of “El Espectador” newspaper. Another illustration has him wearing a crown of thorns. Escobar predicted that drugs would eventually be legalized. On the Humor Chic website Palombo writes: When art, illustrations, cartoons and satire collide, "When I put pencil to paper, I know where I'll start but I don't know where I'll finish" |
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