Blog dedicated to reporting on Mexican drug cartels
on the border line between the US and Mexico
.

Friday, April 9, 2010

"El Día de la Coneja" for Two Little Boys

I cried today

In the state of Tamaulipas - Remember the shooting reported by Borderland Beat where two boys were killed? This was the first paragraph of the well written article by Borderland Beat:

"Two boys were killed and two adults wounded when a group of uniformed men opened fire on a highway on an SUV carrying a family of 13 in Tamaulipas, a state in northeastern Mexico, survivors said."


Cartoon translation: "New Federal Government Slogan: So drugs don't fall into your children's hands, we are killing them for you."  Presidente Calderon with the hammer.

Well damn, it turns out the boys were actually killed by Mexican military forces, the same ones who are supposed to be here to protect us from the bad guys.

Here are the facts as reported by La Jornada:
According to the victims' complaint, the seven children and four adults were traveling in a Tahoe truck, driven by Carlos Alfredo Rangel, early Sunday morning.

When the vehicle passed the military checkpoint, Rangel observed that the soldiers were alongside the highway. Rangel slowed down, but the soldiers did not signal for him to stop.
After passing the checkpoint, the soldiers began to shoot indiscriminately at the vehicle; the adults say that they even threw multiple fragmentation grenades.
They recount that they experienced moments of terror and confusion as they got out of the truck and tried to run for the brush. Martín Almanza carried his sons Bryan and Michel, but at that moment he felt a bullet graze him. His son Bryan was covered in blood. He died in his arms.

Despite the fact that the civilians were screaming at the soldiers to stop shooting at them because there were children present, the soldiers ignored them and injured the other youngster, who died at the scene.
From his hospital bed, injured driver Rangel told La Jornada:
"All of a sudden they started shooting at us; I stayed with my wife and baby in the truck and they were shooting at everything that moved. We yelled at them that we had our family with us and they kept shooting. When we passed in front of them we even rolled down the truck's windows so that they could see the kids, but I don't know what happened.
"When they saw me wounded they cocked their weapons and told me that they were going to kill me; I don't remember anything after that... we were a family with seven children. My wife got out of the truck and ran into the brush with the baby and they kept shooting at her."
Cinthia Salazar, the murdered children's mother, told Milenio, "I never saw other people at the scene who were not soldiers. I saw the soldiers."
 
So today was a sunny day, we could almost say it was a nice day but some of the friends, family and neighbors of the two boys were holding a protest in front of the military base known as "Macario Zamora." I don't know if you remember but the two boys killed were Martin 5 and Bryan 9 and now we are finding out they were apparently killed by Mexican soldiers. The People at the public protest were very angry expressing their rejection of the military forces and were demanding punishment for the soldiers who they thought were guilty of double murder.

With signs and banners on hand, the people berated the military's aggression against 13 people who came under fire last Saturday in an area on the riverside road of Nuevo Laredo-Reynosa-Matamoros. The families who live in the community of Colorines de Nuevo Laredo, were travelling on this road going to the beach of Matamoros to celebrate Easter Sunday or what is typically called here “El Día de la Coneja.”

Cinthia Salazar, 28, mother of the slain children led the protest. Also present was the wife of Carlos Alfredo Rangel Delgado, who received bullet wounds to his legs. A child was holding a poster with the phrase "Please do not shoot me I am a child."

Another said: "I am a friend of Martin and Bryan."

One more said: "Get out murderous soldiers."

Also another read: "Punish those responsible."

A group of adults hung a blanket on a wall with the slogan: "Stop the violence."

The protesters remained there until noon for about 2 hours of chanting slogans against the military. The picket was peaceful and there were no incidents.

This whole thing is so sad, especially because we are talking about innocent children, who were just looking forward to going to the beach to hide eggs for Easter. How can this be happening?

This is not the first time Borderland Beat has covered the death of innocent bystanders killed by military forces, last month the Editor of this blog wrote a report entitled "The Mexican Drug War’s Collateral Damage ." I really don't want to repeat a lot of what has already been said, but really, something needs to be done.

Just so you know, La Jornada and El Milenio, which are national media sources, ran with the story, but the local media outlets did not publish shit, nada! They totally suck, who are they working for? The people should stop buying their worthless newspapers or watching their lame news on TV.

God recieve these two young boys in heaven because they have already been in hell for Easter Sunday!

Today they are in the garden of God hunting for eggs on el día de la coneja.

Shit!



11 comments:

  1. I understand the parents pain but its a war down there and there is always collateral damage no matter how sad it may be it was obviously mistaken identity. They are behaving as if the soldiers are the criminals at least there doing something to protect their country and dying in the process while the civilian population is cowtowing to the narcos and to scared to speak out against them, narcos kill innocent people everyday without consequence grow up you fools. The military isnt the enemy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's unacceptable my reply comment wasn't posted after the pure ignorance Gerardo posted he's obviously and ignorant disrespectful scumbag who has no concept of reality or what my original post stated. This is a blog not CNN and I see no reason for you all to censor comments especially since you allowed Gerardos the troglodyte to spew his hatred at me directly I respect your bLog but urge you to not be biased allow both sides to be told. To clarify my position I understand it was a tragedy two children were killed and the parents pain must be horrific but why rail against the only ones standing up for Mexico because of mistake Cowards like Gerardo cower in their home while the military and police are patrolling everyday being ambushed beheaded and slaughtered. Fact of the matter is there risking their lives that's more than whores like Gerardo can claim. He's says I'm a child molestor cause I respect and appreciate bravery you must be going through some Intrspective thoughts or guilt over what you do to your own children. I've heard much too much anger towards the army and police true alot are corrupt but more often than not the brave ones who are honest are slaughtered. What are the marine who helped take down Arturo levya and his whole family wAs slaughtered where was the people in the streets holding signs saying narcos go home and what they did was intentional. The army makes a mistake and women lie Gerardo are ready to go to war. Open your eyes post this comment

    ReplyDelete
  3. First of all these comments are moderated, they are not to be used as you wish, if we feel they are inappropriate, we will not publish them as yours were, period. This blog is not some sleazy free for all public forum where you can spew your personal obscene rants, take them somewhere else. We don’t take sides, we don't know you or Gerardo, so figure it out, I am sure you know why they were not publish, so don't sound surprised.

    When you submit comments as you did, not only do you verbally abuse another but it's offensive to all of the community of this blog.

    This second response has been toned down a bit from the first one you submitted, although both yours and Gerado's got personal, instead of debating the point of view and although we may not agree, we still remain some sort of sensibility and level of decency.

    Enough said.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My take in this as I have said in previous posts. I don't have a problem with using the military to combat organize crime, but under no circumstance is it ok to have "collateral damage" as you call it, against your own people, especially since we have seen cover ups in some of the instances by the military and politicians to justify the mistake. You can see the evidence in some of the posts here on this site.

    Believe me when I say this, I have law enforcement background with extensive experience and have served in the US Marines for an extensive time, and these killings of innocent people are the result of bad training and bad policy. If this happened in the US, it would be major incident, like it should be.

    Also, there is no effort by the "powers to be" to make any adjustments in training or policy to prevent this from happening again, so it will continue. I spoke with a mother who had her child killed “by mistake,” can you really tell her that her son was just "collateral damage?" That is not right no matter how you try to slice it. We should not get blinded by the patriotism of our military to condone something that is wrong, we deserve better. We should be ensuring that everything is done to prevent this from happening to any family, because God forbid perhaps tomorrow it might be your little brother or sister, and I don’t think you will accept someone say, “ah, they were just collateral damage.”

    Check this out: LINK

    ReplyDelete
  5. come on dont talk like theres no collateral damage and that if it would have happened in the us this will be a huge matter, the truth is that military are also afraid of there lifes they are human to and the way things are in the border people should be more careful to, if you see a military checkpoint you should do total stop of your truck everyone knows that, specialy if your driving an SUV cause thats the typical truck that the drug cartel use, and in the us army there has been mistakes to not to long ago in irak they us army took down one of there own airplanes, what happend there?????
    the thing is mistakes are done because they are humans too, and as humans they make mistakes, like everybody else...That is if what the mother is saying is true.... the point is shit happens.....

    ReplyDelete
  6. Collateral damage? Shit happens? ...what tha... What are you trying to say? La misma chingadera que siempre dicen los impotentes... NIMODO...TE CHINGASTE... POBRECITOS...

    ...que bola jotos...

    Once the conversation becomes a debate over extremes (either, raking the military over the coals or turning a blind eye to what they do) we loose control over this important debate about the future of our country.

    ¿Aqui quien manda? ¿Nadamas tienen la autoridad los hombres armados? ¿Aunque sean nuestros militares? ¿En Mexico, que lugar tiene la justicia? La justicia es lo unico que nos queda exijir como ciudadanos! …y si no hacemos justicia con los nuestros, ¿con cual cara queremos hacer justicia con los perros de los carteles?

    The conventional wisdom is that, …well… since they’re on our side, we shouldn’t “knock-em “ over their fuck-ups because they’re doing the work the rest of us are afraid to do…

    So then… …are we to dismiss the military’s errors as “ouchies;” since they’re said to be on our side?

    …that’s ignorant… and cowardly because we refuse to take control of those WE have authority over; nuestros cabos, sargentos y tenientes (los trabajadores militares).

    We should have a public investigation, public trials and public justice. We should demand accountability and reform.

    Could these events be the beginning of a government that is responsive to its citizens? We’ll never get there if we don’t start with our own.

    A.R.
    Matamoros

    ReplyDelete
  7. Why would anyone take their family out on holiday in a war zone?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Because they live in a war zone?

    ReplyDelete
  9. To the comment right above Iliana's:

    People are still trying to live their lives as normal as possible...we can't push pause on our lives because of what it's going on...and like Buggs said, had this happened in the U.S. it would have been HUGE deal, but Mexico -noooo. To Mexico all it was was: OOPS! SORRY! WRONG TARGET (WHEN NO ONE ELSE WAS AROUND EITHER WAY), oh wait, nvm, it wasn't us.

    ReplyDelete
  10. "Why would anyone take their family out on holiday in a war zone?"

    Really? well when you say it like that, yeah of course, why would you take your family to a warzone? you wouldn't!
    But if the violence has been going on for YEARS and it hasn't really affected your personal lives then why the fuck not go out to the nearby beach on a holiday? it was an honest mistake they made, trusting the route to the beach AND those goddamn solider. it was just a horrible one for that matter.
    Thanks for these insightful blogs, and for keeping me up to post! i am very grateful for this blog and i'm going to show it to everyone i know! this is some fucking bullshit thats going on!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Airport code of Tijuana is TIJ and Mexico Metropolis iss MEX.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated, refer to policy for more information.
Envía fotos, vídeos, notas, enlaces o información
Todo 100% Anónimo;

borderlandbeat@gmail.com