2005

6 February 2005: The PRD candidate Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo wins the election for governor of Guerrero with 55% of the vote. The PRI candidate takes 42% of the vote, and the PAN candidate only 1%. This marks the end of 80 years of PRI domination in the state.

April: the new governor Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo names ex-soldier Heriberto Salinas Altés the Secretary of Public Security. This general was the commander of the 9th Military Region in the era of greatest repression against PRD party members during the government of Ruiz Massieu (1987-1993) and was named in a CIDH report on human rights abuses. Civil organizations express their disagreement with the appointment of a soldier to the cabinet. They also mention that the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS) recommend that Mexico not involve members of the Army in public posts.

6 July 2005: José Rubén Robles Catalán, Secretary of State during the administration of Rubén Figueroa Alcocer, is killed during an attack in Acapulco. José Rubén Robles Catalán was named as one of those principally responsible for the Aguas Blancas massacre. The following day “The Homeland Comes First – Popular Revolutionary Command”, an unknown armed group, claims responsibility for the attack. The group declares that it “had judged and condemned to the maximum penalty those intellectually responsible for the Aguas Blancas massacre.” The group threatens to kill the three other individuals responsible for the massacre (ex-governor Rubén Figueroa Alcocer, ex-Attorney General Antonio Alcocer Salazar, and the former director of the Judicial Police, Héctor Vicario Castrejón) if the new government does not seek justice in the Aguas Blancas case.

9 August 2005: environmental organizations and human rights defenders award the Chico Mendes Prize to Felipe Arreaga directly in the Zihuatanejo prison. Arreaga was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

23 August 2005: a community assembly is held in San Marcos to approve or reject La Parota project. A second one is held on the 27th of November in Dos Arroyos. Denouncements are made against irregularities such as the buying of votes or the impossibility for oppositors to participate in them. Furthermore, the state and municipal preventative police take control of the area and, according to testimonies, begin to provoke the opposition. Finally, another collective landholders assembly is held in los Huajes on the 27th of December. That last assembly is held outside of the collectively owned land and in the presence of police forces. Denouncements are made, calling the session illegal and ponting out that insufficient votes were cast.

15 September 2005: after 10 months of incarceration, Felipe Arreaga is released. According to the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, “this decision confirms that he was persecuted for his environmental activism.”

September 2005: Miguel Ángel Mesino Mesino, former political prisoner connected to the Revolutionary Popular Army (EPR) and brother to the leader of the Farmer’s Organization of the Southern Sierra (OCSS), Rocío Mesino, is assassinated by gunfire in the center of Atoyac. The OCSS became known outside of Guerrero after the massacre in Aguas Blancas on June 28, 1995, when police killed 17 farmers and left another 14 wounded; the majority of them were OCSS militants.