An indigenous leader threatened to lead an armed revolution this week after the head of Mexico’s National Electoral Institute (INE by its Spanish acronym) was caught on tape mocking him and indigenous people in general.
INE President Lorenzo Córdova described indigenous Mexicans as “Martians” in an audio recording published by Reporte Indigo on Tuesday.
The audio revealed Córdova reflecting on a recent meeting about the upcoming midterm elections with Mauricio Mata Soria, the supreme chief of the Chichimeca tribe in the central state of Guanajuato.
Spanish is a second language for many indigenous Mexicans, who are among the country’s most marginalized inhabitants, but this did not stop Córdova from laughing and ridiculing the way that Mata Soria spoke.
Córdova also recalled meeting parents of the 43 missing students from the rural Ayotzinapa college, many of whom are from poor or indigenous backgrounds. Again, using explicit language, he made fun of their way of talking.
Córdova’s derogatory comments only served to reinforce the widely held impression that the nation’s elite view the poor and indigenous with contempt…
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Locals look down at the burnt-out remains of their car. Photo by Victor Hugo Ornelas.
Mickey Hernandez, a 24-year-old accountant from Guadalajara, was heading to a beach vacation for the three-day May Day weekend with his parents, sister, and nieces when danger struck.
“We were driving on the highway when a truck pulled up in front of us blocking the lane. I thought it was turning around, but then I saw armed men with bulletproof vests and machine guns up ahead,” Hernandez told VICE News.
“They pointed and gestured for us to leave, and seconds later started shooting at the truck.”
Dozens of similar narco-blockades occurred across the western region of Mexico on May 1, causing chaos and panic on highways leading out of the Guadalajara metropolitan zone just as families were hitting the road for the holiday.
The coordinated blockades set up by the increasingly powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel came in response to a government operation aimed at capturing the group’s leaders. In all, 17 people died that day, including eight military personnel and a federal policewoman.
“We reversed as far as we could, and then started driving down the wrong side of the highway,” Hernandez recalled.
In a panic, Hernandez and his family tried to return to Guadalajara, but found their way barred by another blockade. After two hours stuck in traffic, they were eventually able to continue to the coast in neighboring Colima state, he said, passing the burnt-out husks of a bus and another truck on the way…
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Almost eight months since the forced disappearance and probable massacre of 43 students in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, survivors and family members of the missing continue to campaign for justice.
Having already traveled across Mexico and the United States in a bid to raise awareness of the human rights crisis in their country, a group of activists are now traversing Europe and are due to end their tour in the United Kingdom next week.
The case of the missing students has ignited waves of demonstrations and drawn international attention to the twin problems of corruption and violence that plague Mexican society.
The abductions took place on September 26 after police officers from the town of Iguala started shooting at busloads of student protesters from Guerrero’s Ayotzinapa teachers’ training college…
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