(Another) Police Chief Killed in Oaxaca

I'm two days late on this. Ricardo Rodriguez Silva, regional commander of the Oaxaca state police, was gunned down Friday afternoon while having his shoes shined in the popular Llano park.

According to La Jornada, two men stepped out of a truck at the northwest corner of the park and fired on Rodriguez with automatic rifles. The shoeshine was also injured as a result of the attack. A Oaxacan friend told me last night that some 20 bullets were fired, though I cannot confirm this.

Emails from the Oaxaca Study Forum suggest that the killing is drug related. The La Jornada article mentions the discovery, hours before the shooting, of the bodies of three narcotraffickers outside the offices of the Procuradora General of Oaxaca, killed and dumped in some sort of act of reprisal between drug gangs. "Las autoridades presumen que pudo haberse tratado de un ajuste de cuentas entre narcos." I'd be lying if I said I understood the connection between the bodies and the Llano shooting. Perhaps it is merely offered as an aside, falling under the category of drug related violence on Friday afternoon.

The article also mentions--and I again do not understand--the trafficking of Central Americans into Istmo de Tehuantepec, located at the border between Oaxaca and Veracruz. Perhaps somebody can help me with the translation:

Según versiones extraoficiales, el jefe policiaco, quien se desempeñó por varios años como comandante de grupo de la PME en el puerto de Salina Cruz, ofrecía protección a grupos dedicados al tráfico de personas, principalmente centroamericanos, a su paso por el istmo de Tehuantepec.

It would not strike me as unusual at all that the same people running drugs through Mexico are involved in the smuggling of people as well.

Whatever the exact motive, the killing is shocking, as Oaxaca is not a place where people worry about violence on this scale. Parque Llano is a very popular destination for families, couples, students, artists, travelers--pretty much everybody--and is the site of a crowded Friday market. That there were not more injuries is remarkable.

The papers report crimes like this (complete with garish pictures) almost daily from Tijuana, Chihuahua, and Mexico City, but not sleepy little Oaxaca. On the heels of the assassination of another police boss, Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, I can't help but wonder if it's true, as some asserted in posts via the Oaxaca Study Forum and the Oaxaca Study Action Group, that the narco-war has arrived in Oaxaca.

Hashing it Out in Oaxaca

I'm a reliable one for blogging what I think in the heat of the moment, hitting the publish button, and the next day wondering whether I actually believe what I've most recently written. Things being a little hot in Oaxaca right now (not a lot hot, just a little), you can imagine that I've had plenty to try and wrap my brain around. So it's only natural that I've spent a chunk of time today hashing over what I wrote last night.

Yesterday I suggested that while narcotrafficking is the easy guess for an attack on the scale of what happened Wednesday morning at El Tequio--bad men, machine guns, multiple vehicles squealing away from the scene of the crime--it wasn't the only guess. While everything I read from the few who were writing pointed at narcotrafficking, even though the government wasn't really pushing this story yet, I wanted to take a moment to think about other possibilities.

The two or three that came to mind were the EPR (People's Revolutionary Army), a small but widely known terrorist organization; angry or vengeful victims, wronged by the deceased, Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, or their families, seeking reprisals; or splinter groups spun out from the unresolved conflict of 2006 who wanted to make a strong statement (the strongest) about the current state of unrest in Oaxaca. This last I saw as a possibility because of the coincidental announcement that Flavio Sosa would face new charges in Oaxacan courts, even though the federal government has told the state to let this one go.

Today I talked myself out of all those stories. Of course it has to be narcotrafficking. First of all, people who know more than I do about Oaxaca tell me so. Secondly, the officer killed was at the top of a division of police who would certainly have everything to do with narcotrafficking in Oaxaca, and you don't get to the top of that division by playing the straight and narrow. Most likely the guy got in too deep, got in trouble, and got what you get when you play those games. Lastly, do I really think a small band of guerrillas , who usually blow up oil pipelines, are really taking on the role of assassins? (Could be--I actually don't know much about the EPR). For that matter, do the friends and families of victims of repression in 2006, or small time anarchists, have access to so much firepower? I mean, AK-47s, 9mms, .380s . . . It seems like a lot.

Well, there you go. I was satisfied with my answer. Then I came home from work today and checked my email, and I discovered that both Ronald Waterbury and Nancy Davies, two of the voices I count on to keep me informed, were also questioning the narcotrafficking story. In a correspondence on the Oaxaca Study Forum listserv, Ronald Waterbury agrees with other readers that there may be many ways this thing actually falls out, and that, in the end, we may never know who is responsible. Similarly, Nancy Davies writes that

The possibilities are "organized crime", i.e. narcotrafficking, which to my thinking does not mean Barrita was fighting crime but was probably involved in it; the second possibility is the APPO which I don't beleive and which they have denied, because of their pacific stance; a third is the EPR or other civilian guerrillas.

Sounds familiar. If Ron and Nancy are wondering, then I'll come full circle again and leave myself open to all my questions and considerations from last night, without worrying that I'm some kind of conspiracy freak or skepto-pessimist or far-fetched daydreamer. I mean, I sort of am, but isn't that the point of keeping a blog?

In the meantime I think we have to leave off with these words, from Ron Waterbury, for now: "Tal vez nunca vamos a saber por seguro." Perhaps we will never know for sure.

NOTE: Nancy Davies points out in her recent update that the Policía Auxiliar, Bancaria, Industrial y Comercial is a private police force with government affiliations, and not a branch of the state or federal police, as I had originally thought. Sorry for any confusion.

Correction: Misreading the Spanish (And Believing What I Hear)

Yesterday I wrote that Wednesday's attack at El Tequio killed a police chief, his two bodyguards and a local athletic instructor. This is not correct. The attack targeted the chief and his one bodyguard. Also killed were local athletic instructor Virginia Galan Rodriguez, and another innocent bystander, Alonso Muños Rafael.

Tragedy in Oaxaca

Upon hearing yesterday that armed men drove into the popular sports park El Tequio and killed a police director and his bodyguards with a barrage of gunfire before driving away again, my first thought was "narcotrafficking." Apparently I'm not the only one who assumed that. Ronald Waterbury at the Oaxaca Study Forum seems to think the same thing. I received a link from him in my inbox today, along with a note that read "La narcoguerra ha llegado a Oaxaca": the drug war has arrived in Oaxaca.

The officer who was killed, Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, was head of the powerful Policía Auxiliar, Bancaria, Industrial y Comercial. This branch of the police force, I was informed by a student, protects banks and businesses where large sums of money frequently change hands. Though many security services are privatized, police guards are posted with assault rifles in bank lobbies and powerful business centers. These are the officers who stand guard at the doors of the bank when the armored truck pulls up and private guards remove or deliver the money.

Given Barrita Ortiz's role as head of the division, and given the slope of the playing field in Mexico, my first assumption was that Barrita Ortiz was probably corrupt, and when you talk about banking, business, and government in Mexico, the conversation eventually comes around to drugs.

In the first report I read yesterday, from El Enimigo Comun, the suggestion was made that the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) had taken responsibility for the killing:

Unofficial reports have surfaced indicating that a phone call was made to the local emergency services hotline by someone claiming to represent the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), and that the caller clarified there were “two more left to go”.

Suggesting the EPR is involved in a political crime is like suggesting a patient has a virus; it's the catch-all for what ails you, whether you know what it is or not. It is possible that the EPR is involved, but it is equally possible, if not entirely more likely, that powers that be want the public to believe that the EPR is to blame.

This is where things get tricky. An acquaintance who was here throughout the conflict of 2006 told me this morning that Barrita Ortiz was the police boss responsible for the kidnapping, disappearance, and torture of political dissidents during the height of the siege. Dozens of people were arrested, kidnapped, assaulted, and tortured in 2006. Some are still missing today. The man was hated, I am told, and there would be any number of people in Oaxaca who would want to see him done harm.

Also, while not directly related, news broke yesterday that Flavio Sosa, the APPO figurehead imprisoned since December 2006, has been charged anew, despite reported pressure from the federal government to release him as a gesture toward reconciliation in Oaxaca. Instead it seems that the new charges (something like destruction of property and interfering with police--recycled versions of the original charges) have been pushed through despite testimony that places Sosa in jail at the time of the alleged crimes. Welcome to Oaxaca.

Narcotrafficking now seems like such a simple explanation. Variables become slippery; best guesses are only that. Maybe a revolutionary terrorist group is to blame. Maybe angry, vengeful citizens, or splinter groups from the conflict of 2006 (which is far from resolved), carried out a retribution killing.

In addition to Barrita Ortiz and his two bodyguards, athletic instructor Virginia "Vicky" Galan Rodriguez was killed while exercising nearby in the park. Another bystander was also injured. Galan Rodriguez was an active member of the community, by several accounts a strong role model and teacher dedicated to providing youth with healthy options instead of leaving them to drugs, violence, and crime. She worked to promote health and happiness with people from all over the city, independent of political organizations or activist groups. Two vendors who I see regularly at the Mercado Juarez tell me that Vicky's death comes as a shock to Oaxaca and a monumental loss to the community.

More news and analysis to come as events unfold.

Police Boss Assassinated in Oaxaca

I'm still learning more about this. Early yesterday morning the director of an "obscure police agency" was killed at a popular sports park near the airport. 3 others are dead and 1 injured. Initial reports differed as to who the other victims were.

Articles appeared immediately yesterday in La Jornada, out of Mexico City, and Noticias and El Imparcial here in Oaxaca. El Imparcial reports that Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, director of the Auxiliary Police for Industry & Commercial Banking (Policía Auxiliar Bancaria Industrial y Comercial; please correct my translation if I have that wrong) was killed along with two escorts (bodyguards), and that a local sports promoter, Vicky Galan Rodriguez, was the fourth victim. La Jornada refers to Galan Rodriguez as an "athletic instructor."

More to come.