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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2006 
Police Take Control Following Violent Clashes in Rebellious Town Outside Mexico City
 Gloria Perez - Associated Press
| | Mexican riot police detain a villager in San Salvador Atenco. (Reuters) |
Toluca, Mexico – Mexico's president condemned a violent uprising by residents that left a teenager dead and wounded dozens of people in a rebellious town outside the capital.
Just before dawn Thursday, police fired tear gas and crashed through human barricades to take control of San Salvador Atenco. Hours earlier, protesters had released six badly beaten police hostages. Some of them had been sliced with machetes.
A 14-year-old Atenco resident was killed during Wednesday's pitched battles, but circumstances surrounding the death were still unclear.
Wilfredo Robledo, director of security for Mexico state which includes Atenco and borders Mexico City, said late Thursday night that at least 30 police officers had been injured and 210 people had been arrested in two days.
“The regrettable, violent acts perpetrated by a small group yesterday in the state of Mexico are an outrage against society and an attack on the rule of law,” President Vicente Fox said Thursday. “No cause justifies breaking the law.”
The clashes began when inhabitants attacked authorities in anger over the arrest of several of their companions at a market in the nearby town of Texcoco.
Television broadcasts showed officers repeatedly beating protesters, including some who already had been taken into custody. Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said it was investigating the beatings.
Shortly before midnight Wednesday, radical community leaders called Red Cross officials to a small clinic near the center of town and released six police officers they had seized hours earlier.
Robledo said machete-wielding leaders of a radical farmers' rights movement had wanted to stage a rebellion for weeks and used the arrests as an excuse.
He suggested that a recent visit to the town 15 miles northeast of Mexico City by Subcomandante Marcos, the ski-masked spokesman for the Zapatista rebels, may also have played a role.
“The presence of that individual was a factor,” Robledo said.
Marcos was in Mexico City when the violence began Wednesday in Atenco and called a “red alert” ordering Zapatista forces to close outreach offices in Chiapas and drop out of sight. Authorities say there is no evidence Marcos was directly involved in the uprising.
Attorney General Daniel Cabeza De Vaca vowed to punish all those responsible for the uprising.
Fox pledged to “guarantee the rule of law,” though earlier, violent demonstrations by the same group of townspeople here have largely gone unpunished.
The 17,000 residents of Atenco have a history of clashing with authorities, including a successful 2002 fight to block construction of an airport in the area.
Atenco leader Ignacio del Valle and a fellow resident who were charged with the February kidnapping of a state official were among those arrested, said Carlos Mota, spokesman for the Mexico State Superior Court. |
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