2011

9 January: members of the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (CECOP) reinstall the blockade in the community of Parotillas, to prevent the access of the Federal Electrical Commission (CFE) to the land where the dam project is supposed to be constructed.

25 January: a judge acquits the attacker of one of the members of the Radio Ñomndaa Committee. After a process that had been prolonged for more than 10 years, the court exonerated José Luis Rocha Ramírez, the Secretary of municipal government in Xochistlahuaca and brother of the local cacique, Aceadeth Rocha Ramírez, who on January 9, 2001 attacked a member of the Radio Ñomndaa Committee, causing him to lose an eye.

30 January: Gubernatorial elections are held in the state of Guerrero. The candidate of the coalition “Join us Guerrero” (PRD, PT and Convergencia), Ángel Aguirre Rivero, wins with a 13.18-point advantage over his rival and ex-mayor of Acapulco, Manuel Añorve Baños, of the alliance “Better Times for Guerrero” (PRI, PVEM, PANAL). The pre-election environment in Guerrero had been riddled with attacks, disappearances, telephone leaks and tensions. Due to this climate of insecurity, 7,500 police officers were deployed during the elections and nothing more than minor incidents were reported on the day of the elections.

23 February: a group of armed men kills Rubén Santana Alonso, presumed to be the second-in-command of the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People (ERPI), in the community La Laguna in the Sierra de Coyuca de Catalán.

17 March: the lack of intervention by the state and municipal governments in Tecoanapa, in the Costa Chica region of Guerrero, results in a clash between the inhabitants of five villages belonging to the municipality, and the inhabitants of the county seat. The clash is due to the decision of residents from the five villages to finish establishing a drinking water system by themselves.

19 March: Amnesty International issues a statement that the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center of the Montaña and its director, Abel Barrera Hernández, will receive the VI Human Rights Award from Amnesty International.

25 March: an order is issued for the release of Radio Ñomndaa members, David Valtierra Arango, Silverio Matías Domínguez and Genaro Cruz Apóstal, after having been indicted on charges of unlawful deprivation of liberty in the case of Narciso Garcia Valtierra, without any proof that the defendants had participated in the events.

28 March: various organizations, as well as free community radios and alternative media groups, launch the Campaign in Defense of the Territory, called “With an Open Heart Defend our Mother Earth Against Mining“.

18 April: the defender of the forests of the sierra of Petatlán, Javier Torres Cruz, known also for his having denounced before the Prosecutorial Office of Mexico City the cacique Rogaciano Alba as author of the murder of the lawyer Digna Ochoa, is killed by hired assassins, presumably at the service of Alba.

19 April : the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to La Parota (CECOP) celebrates its triumph in light of the annulment of the assembly carried out on 28 April 2010 when, in the absence of opponents of the project and with the presence of hundreds of soldiers, the expropriation of 1,300 hectares was ‘approved‘ in favor of the construction of the dam.

21 April: 177 persons have to abandon the La Laguna community, municipality of Coyuca de Catalán, to take refuge in Puerto las Ollas, due to the wave of violence experienced in this part of the sierra.

4 May: the director of the Center of Studies and Projects for Wholesome Human Development (CEPRODEHI), Quetzalcoatl Leija Herrera, is brutally murdered in the central plaza of Chilpancingo.

7 May: In Agcuacaliente, close to Acapulco, 1600 members of CECOP meet with governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero. The governor expresses that he won’t impose the construction of the dam La Parota but refuses to sign the “Agreements of Cacahuatepec”.

16 June: Obtilia Eugenio Manuel y Cuauhtémoc Ramírez, directors of the Organization of the Me’phaa Indigenous People (OPIM), are threatened with death if they continue to stress the observance of the sentences handed down by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR) in the cases of Valentina Rosendo and Inés Fernández.

17 June: reopening of the office of the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights in Ayutla de Los Libres.

21 June: the Mexican State publicly commits itself for the first time to observe the IACHR’s ruling in the case of the ecologist campesinos Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera, protectors of forests in the Sierra de Petatlán.

28 June: Commemoration of the 16^th anniversary of the massacre of 17 campesinos at Aguas Blancas. Ángel Aguirre, governor of Guerrero, agrees to install a Truth Commission in the state regarding this case and others related to forced disappearances.

1 and 2 July: celebration in Tlapa de Comonfort in Guerrero’s La Montaña of the 17^th anniversary of the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, days on which is held a “Forum in Defense of Land”.

3 July: Isabel Ayala Nava, widow of the guerrilla ex-commander Lucio Cabañas Barrientos, is murdered by gunfire along with her sister Reyna Ayala Nava by unknown subjects from a car in movement as they were leaving a church in Xaltianguis, municipality of Acapulco.

7 July: Rafael Rodríguez Dircio, member of the Organization of the Me’phaa Indigenous People (OPIM), is released. He had been detained and incarcerated on 29 June on the charge of homicide of Alejandro Feliciano García. On these same charges had been detained five other members of OPIM on 17 April 2000.

7 July: the presence of around 50 soldiers is reported in the community of Suljaa’, municipality of Xochistlahuaca. They ask residents regarding the location of the autonomous radio Ñomndaa. The day of the military incursion coincided with the re-initiation of the transmissions of Radio Ñomndaa, which had been off-air for a month.

12 July: the Hannah Arendt Observatory on Violence against Women reveals that from 2010 to 2011, feminicide in Guerrero has increased some 40 to 50 percent.

26 July: on the occasion of the official visit by the Rapporteur for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) on Rights of Migrant Workers and Family-members, the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights presents information regarding the situation of vulnerability suffered by agricultural day laborers who leave their communities every so often in search of work.

27 July: Two armed persons enter Natalia Ruiz Martínez‘ house in Zihuatanejo, threaten her with death and pressure her to declare that those who killed her brother, Zenaldo Ruiz Martinez are the members of the Organization of Ecologist Campesinos in the Sierra de Petatlán and Coyuca de Catalán (OCESP). She has pointed out the Torres family from the community of La Morena (Sierra de Petatlán) as responsible for the murder of her brother.

27 July: 177 displaced individuals from La Laguna who had taken refuge in Puerto de Las Ollas, Sierra de Coyuca de Catalán, decide to return to their lands, and ask that the state government provide protective measures for the return journey.

28 July: Inés Fernández Ortega y Valentina Rosendo Cantu inform that they have visited the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) and the Secretary of National Defense to request that their cases be investigated in civil courts rather than military ones. A recent resolution by the Supreme Court for Justice in the Nation (SCJN) handed down on 12 July declared that military courts should not take on cases of human-rights violations involving the presumed participation of soldiers.

28 July: The coordination of the OCESP says that the problem of the Sierra de Petatlán is not a dispute among groups of organized crime, but rather that they are murders and death-threats against the civil population, in light of which governmental authorities do nothing.

28 July: the Regional Coordination of Communal Authorities (CRAC-Communal Police) reports that citizens of the municipality of Marquelia have pressured mayor Jesús Rico Santana to retire the communal police who are providing their services in several communities of this municipality.

28 July: in the community of Aguacaliente, a rural part of Acapulco, the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to La Parota (CECOP) commemorated the eighth anniversary of its struggle against the construction of the La Parota dam.

1 August: human-rights organizations of Guerrero hold a meeting in Chilpancingo with representatives of embassies of countries of the European Union (EU) in Mexico. They stress that in Guerrero rights-defenders face not only death-threats and harassment perpetrated by non-governmental actors but that they also face these same threats by state agents themselves.

4 August: the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) requests that the State authorities urgently grant protective measures to the relatives of Javier Torres Cruz, a campesino who was murdered on 18 April in the community of La Morena, Petatlán. The measures that the IACHR is demanding for the Torres family are due to the incursion on 21 July by armed men dressed as Marines and civilians into the community of La Morena, which developed into a confrontation with state police who were guarding the area.

8 August: the organizations behind the Slut Walk in Guerrero make up a citizens’ observatory for the human rights of women toward the end of observing the application of state, national, and international laws that protect individual guarantees of said populations.

12 August: the investigations regarding the rape and torture committed against Inés Fernández and Valentina Rosendo by members of the Mexican Army in 2002 are transferred to the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) and will be held in civil courts.

22 August: the Regional Coordination of Communal Authorities-Communal Police (CRAC-PC) initiates an informational campaign for indigenous peoples in the regions of Costa Chica and la Montaña regarding mining activities in the zone.

25 August: teachers in the suburban areas of Acapulco denounce that they have been victims of kidnapping, extortion, and robbery of vehicles, for which reason they have decided to strike in hundreds of schools. They have carried out marches and protests denouncing insecurity and extortion.

26 August: 37^th anniversary of the disappearance of the Guerrero activist Rosendo Radilla, which occurred at the hands of the Army on 25 August 1974

31 August: the Organization of the Me’phaa Indigenous people (OPIM) and the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, in coordination with Inés Fernández and Valentina Rosendo, initiate a new campaign named “Observe the Sentences of the [Inter-American Court on Human Rights] to Break the Wall of Impunity.“

3 September: the campesino Enrique Rodríguez Santana, defender of the forests of the zone of Tierra Caliente is murdered in the community El Pescado, municipality of Coyuca de Catalán.

5 September: the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights releases a press-bulletin announcing the impending arrival of the Caravan to the South, stressing the violent context in which arose the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity.

7 September: members of the Union of Peoples and Social Organizations of the State of Guerrero leave from Chilpancingo to Mexico city to demand that the National Congress define a single price for the service of the Federal Commission on Electricity (CFE).

13 September: Tlachinollan releases a press-release regarding the high electricity prices experienced in the region of La Montaña of Guerrero.

21 September: the case of Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera is sent to the civil courts.

21 September: two years after the Bar Association of Lawyers of England and Wales (BHRC) visited Guerrero, the situation of human rights in the state has not improved, in accordance with the report presented by the BHRC in Chilpancingo.

3 October: civil organizations from Guerrero and Chiapas that are part of the “Program of Interchange, Dialogue, and Assessment in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security” (PIDAASSA) denounce that due to the violence of drug-trafficking and the militarization of the country, many communities find themselves obligated to abandon their homes, lands, and crops.

6 October: the Senate of the Republic requests the presence before the Commission of Justice of Francisco Blake, Minister of the Interior, so that he present a detailed report regarding the actions taken to observe the sentences released by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR) in the case of Inés Fernández and Valentina Rosendo.

6 October: the federal government and Guerrero state-government announce the launching of the Coordinated Operation “Secure Guerrero”, in an intention to respond to the grave security crisis lived in the state.

13 October: the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (CECOP) requests that federal representatives reject the demanded budget for the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) to construct the La Parota dam in Acapulco.

14 and 15 October: XVI anniversary of the Communal Police in Malinaltepec. The thirtieth Pacific Central meeting of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) that was to be held during the anniversary is postponed “due to the presence and intervention of functionaries from the state government of Guerrero.”

25 October: the Regional Coordination of Communal Authorities of the Montaña and Costa Chica of Guerrero denounces that a convoy of approximately seven vehicles carrying military personnel and units of the Federal Police entered the communal territory and detained Agustín Barrera Cosme, member of the CRAC.

31 October: The Regional Coordination of Communal Authorities (CRAC) denounces that a convoy comprised of 6 Army trucks entered communal territory and reports that the Army had established a revision checkpoint on the Tlapa-Marquelia road.

9 November: members of the movements in resistance to high electricity-prices submit a complaint to the Commission for the Defense of Human Rights in Guerrero (CODDEHUM) due to the intimidation suffered at the hands of soldiers.

17 November: Public act in Atoyác de Álvarez that recognized the responsibility of Mexican State in the forced disappearance of Rosendo Radilla Pacheco, which occurred in 1974, an act from which were absent his relatives who for 37 years have sought justice.

22 November: at least 79 national and international organizations demand that President Felipe Calderón make effective his commitment to observe the sentences of the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR) in the cases of Valentina Rosendo and Inés Fernández, indigenous Guerrero women who were raped by soldiers in 2002.

30 November: at a forum of analysis, social activists and religious believers propose that the investigation period to be considered by the Truth Commission be extended, given that the coordinators of this latter organism plan only to look into the years 1969 to 1979, a historical period that corresponds to the Dirty War in Guerrero.

November: news are released noting that in light of the growth of demand for energy in the state of Guerrero, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) is considering accelerating the construction of the hydroelectric dam La Parota, aiming for it to become operational in October of 2016.

1 December: the Supreme Court for Justice in the Nation (SCJN) orders that the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) permit the access and handing-over of copies of investigations into the forced disappearance of Rosendo Radilla Pacheco to the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights and to Tita Radilla, daughter of the murdered social activist.

7 December: Marcial Bautista Valle, president of the Organization of Ecologist Campesinos of the Sierra de Petatlán (OCESP), and Eva Alarcón Ortiz, assessor of this organization, are taken by a commando-team in the region of the Costa Grande of Guerrero.

7 December: the latest report by the Civil Monitor of the Police in the Mountain of Guerrero is presented publicly in Mexico City. This report documents 353 cases of police abuse, the most frequent violations being arbitrary detention, extortion, and death-threats, in addition to cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.

12 December: during a peaceful protest carried out at an exit from the Chilpancingo-Acapulco highway, three students from the Rural Normal of Ayotzinapan are murdered. Furthermore an undetermined number of persons are injured and 24 are arrested. The students had been demanding that classes at their teaching-training college resume, given that they had been suspended for over a month. In light of these acts, human-rights organizations have expressed the urgency of an impartial, effective, and timely investigation into the police violence.

15 December: Alejandro Poiré, secretary of Governance, offers a public apology in the name of the Mexican State to the Guerrero indigenous woman Valentina Rosendo Cantú, in an act of recognition of its international responsibility in the violation of her humans rights and lack of adequate attention, a points that was outlined in a sentence of the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR).