[Criminal drug cartels that prey on migrants--people who are vulnerable and criminalized--have attacked again. The failures of the Mexican state to provide any basic services or protections for the poor, and the gauntlet of the US' militarized border and War on Drugs which migrants face in their struggle for life and work, are the setting for this massacre. This horrific act highlights the need for a revolutionary movement to champion the migrants and all oppressed, against the Mexican capitalist state, the predatory cartels, and the militarized xenophobia of US imperialism. See the two news articles, followed by the statement from the National Network on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, below.
Brunei News.Net
Wednesday 25th August, 2010
Police in Mexico have found a migrant link in an incident in which 72 people were found murdered at a ranch in Tamaulipas state.
Government security agents have said the 58 men and 14 women who were murdered had come from South and Central America in an effort to reach the United States.
Their bodies were found on Tuesday, after a shoot-out between suspected drug traffickers and security forces.
A surviving member of the group told police they had all been kidnapped by an armed gang that had insisted they become drug mules.
Authorities only became involved when the surviving man managed to escape and alerted marines at a nearby checkpoint.
When they arrived at the ranch, the gang opened fire before escaping.
Tamaulipas state has been the scene of fierce fighting between the Zetas and Gulf cartels.
Migrants from South American countries, including Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras and Brazil are in great danger when they try to pass through Mexico to the US.
Common graves have been found in increasing numbers of states in Mexico.
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Mexico’s Migrants Outraged by Massacre
La Opinión, News Report
Aug 27, 2010
MEXICO CITY — Immigrant organizations, mothers of the disappeared and coordinators of shelters for deportees blame the Mexican government for the massacre of 72 Central and South Americans in Tamaulipas.
Xicotencalt Carrasco, director of the Belen Posada del Migrante shelter in Saltillo, Coahuila told La Opinión the Mexican government was guilty due to inaction, corruption and lack of respect.
Carrasco said that more than two years ago his shelter and other groups had presented a report on the deaths of migrants in Mexico, but the government was focused on debating the numbers.
Amnesty International reported in April that Mexican authorities had failed to implement effective measures to prevent the abuse and kidnapping of migrants by criminal organizations.
“Often they operate in complicity or with the consent of public officials,” said the organization.
In October 2008 and February 2009, two caravans of Central American women travelled through Mexico in search of their disappeared sons, but none of the authorities agreed to help them, according to pastor Luis Angel Nieto of the organization “Nuestros Lazos de Sangre.”
The Attorney General for the Republic (PGR) believes those killed were immigrants who failed to cooperate with Los Zetas.
In a separate article, La Opinión reports that one of the investigators looking into the massacre disappeared and was later found dead, presumably killed by Los Zetas.
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