Breathe
By Luciana Wainer
They say that what is not named, does not exist. And that is why we must insist, again and again, until the words are of some use, until the figures shock, until the authorities take heed: there were four extrajudicial executions, ten cases of torture, thirty-eight cases of cruel treatment and forty-eight arbitrary detentions. All occurred on April 5, 2017 in Arantepacua, Michoacán. All allegedly executed by municipal police and other authorities during the government of Silvano Aureoles, who, by the way, is today on the run from the authorities with a red card from Interpol for misappropriation of resources. And although at this point it is perhaps a truism to say so, all the crimes continue to go unpunished.
The community of Arantepacua continues to demand justice eight years after these events. In 2022 they won their first victory: after carrying out protest actions in Mexico City, they managed to get the Attorney General's Office to agree to assist in the investigation. At that time, the commitment was that they would act as a sort of supervisor of the investigation work of the local prosecutor's office and, at the same time, they would evaluate the possibilities of attracting the case. It was not until then that they began to gather evidence, testimonies and documentary records of what happened. Because, as the community has been saying all this time, the local prosecutor's office cannot be the perpetrator and the investigator of the massacre at the same time: it is so obvious that it is insulting. But the next step in the search for justice is the attraction of the FGR. And it can no longer wait.
This Saturday, April 5, the community of Arantepacua returned to Mexico City to protest in front of the Attorney General's Office. At a dialogue table they agreed on a work schedule for the next two months. The first action will be on April 18, when the lawyer representing the community, Enrique Guerrero, will present the legal arguments under which they are requesting the attraction. "Article 13, section six of the Law of the Attorney General of the Republic establishes that, in the case of indigenous peoples and communities, the power of attraction must be exercised when the case is of social transcendence," Guerrero explains to me. "If four extrajudicial executions, more than ten cases of torture, dozens of injuries, raids and forty-eight arbitrary detentions are not of social importance, I don't know what is, do you?
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