2012

9 January: The National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH) releases a preliminary report detailing the failures of the authorities involved in the acts of December 12, when lethal force was used against a student protest carried out by students of the Rural Normal School “Raúl Isidro Burgos” in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, which led to the deaths of two students and a gasoline-station worker.

17 January: The Observatory for the Protection of Human-Rights Defenders, a program associated with the World Organization against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), requests the urgent intervention of the international community in light of the lack of progress that has been made in the official investigation regarding the forced disappearance of the human-rights defenders Marcial Bautista Valle, president of OCESP, and Eva Alarcón Ortiz, coordinator of the same organization.

21 January: Maximino García Catarino, member of the Organization for the Future of the Mixteco People (OFPM), is detained in the municipality of Ayutla de Los Libres, by ministerial police of Guerrero. He is accused of the homicide of a PRI leader in the zone which occurred in February 2011.

29 January: The Secretary of National Defense (SEDENA) calls into question the sentence of the federal justice system which contested the extension of the military courts over the case of the homicide of Bonfilio Rubio Villegas, an indigenous Naua who in 2009 was arbitrarily killed by soldiers of the Mexican Army.

4 March: A delegation from the Foundation of the General Council of Spanish Attorneys (CAEG) makes a visit to the human rights-defender Maximino García Catarino, who finds himself imprisoned since 21 January 2012 in Ayutla de Los Libres. The lawyers declare that “there is no reason why the Mexican State should keep him in prison,” considering that it is “unjust.”

6 March: In the name of the Mexican State, Alejandro Poiré, Secretary of Governance, together with Marisela Morales, Federal Attorney General, plead for forgiveness to Inés Fernández Ortega, a Tlapan indigenous woman who was raped by soldiers in 2002.

20 March: Maximino García Catarino, indigenous leader of the Organization for the Future of the Mixteco People (OFPM) who has been awarded precautionary measures by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR), is released unconditionally after having been arbitrarily detained on 21 January 2012 by the Ministerial Police of Ayutla de Los Libres. Some minutes after leaving the Ayutla jail, Maximino García receives a telephone call threatening him with death if he does not suspend his work in defense of justice.

28 March: The National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH) releases a recommendation regarding the special investigation undertaken in light of the grave human-rights violations committed on 12 December 2011 in the city of Chilpancingo, Guerrero, against students from the Rural Normal “Raúl Isidro Burgos” of Ayotzinapa, Guerrero.

12 April: Members of the Union of Peoples and Organizations from the State of Guerrero (UPOEG) protest before the Electoral Institute of the State (IEEG) because that institution did not distribute information about the law that establishes that indigenous peoples can elect their own popular representatives by means of the uses and customs that rule in various municipalities of the state.

16 May 2012: In a joint pronouncement, the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, the Institute for Security and Democracy, the Fundar Center for Analysis and Investigation, and the Civil Police Monitor express their concern for “the recent announcement made by Angel Aguirre Rivero, governor of Guerrero, that he would soon begin to substitute soldiers for the state police who find themselves up for retirement or who have failed their accreditation exams.”

23 May: The Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights denounces that Vidulfo Rosales Sierra, lawyer for the organization and beneficiary of provisional measures dictated by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR), received an anonymous death threat for the work he carries out in defense of human rights in Guerrero.

30 May: President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa announces the launch of a comprehensive strategy to reconstruct the social fabric called All for Acapulco, which is the last of the three axes of the Coordinated Operation Secure Guerrero, which includes five points of attention: education, health, poverty, economic development, and recovery of public spaces.

15 and 16 June: Communities and peoples of the Montaña, the Costa Chica, traditional authorities, civil and social organizations, human-rights defenders, and resistance movements that give life and strength to the tradition in Guerrero of struggle meet in observation of the XVIII Anniversary of the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights to carry out the forum “From the heart of the struggle.“

22 June: During the audience called for by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR) to present the report regarding the Mexican government’s observance of the sentence in the case Rosendo Radilla Pacheco v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos (23 November 2009), Tita Radilla Martínez, Rosendo’s daughter, expresses her denunciations, because this resolution has not been observed, and her father has not been found nor even been searched for.

1 July: in the state of Guerrero, elections for president of the Republic, mayorships, local deputies, senators, and federal deputies are held. In the preliminary results, candidates from the left parties take nearly all offices for senators, federal deputies, mayorships, and local deputies.

11 July: The community radio of Xochistlahuaca, Costa Chica, called Radio Ñomndaa, issues a statement denouncing the threats to this media by Rocha Ramírez family (PRI), a family that had been in political power for many years and lost the municipal elections on July 1.

12 July: A Tribunal confirms the definitive cancellation of the hydroelectric dam project La Parota in its denial of a motion advanced by a minority group of communards in favor of this project.

16 July: national and international human-rights organizations send a letter to Alejandro Poiré, head of the Secretary of Governance (Segob), in which they point out that two years have passed since the Inter-American Court on Human Rights handed down sentences in favor of the indigenous women Inés Fernández Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantú, who were raped by soldiers in 2002; and that, to date, grave omissions can be seen as regards the State’s observance of these sentences.

9 August: Vidulfo Rosales Sierra, the lawyer for the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights who went into exile from the country for some months following his being threatened for his work as a human-rights defender, returns to Mexico to reintegrate himself into his work tasks.

16 August: the Supreme Court for Justice in the Nation (SCJN) decides in favor of the motion advanced by the relatives of Bonfilio Rubio Villegas, a Naua indigenous youth from the Montaña of Guerrero who in 2009 was murdered by soldiers of the Mexican Army. The SCJN orders that the penal investigation undertaken into this homicide be transferred to civil federal jurisdiction.

16 August: the official signing of the Cacahuatepec Accords between members of the Council of Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (CECOP) and governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero is held in Acapulco. This agreement stipulates that the government will not support or promote the construction of the hydroelectric dam “La Parota”.

29 August: Máximo Tranquilino Santiago, member of the Regional Coordination of Communal Authorities (CRAC), is released “for lack of evidence”, after having been detained for more than 24 hours by agents of the Ministerial Investigative Police (PIM) on the charge of kidnapping.

17 October: Civil organizations, merchants, transport workers, and students from various institutions march in Acapulco to protest against “arbitrary actions and abuses” committed by members of the Federal Police (PF) since the beginning of the operation Secure Guerrero.

21 October: Relatives of those who were detained and disappeared in the municipality of Atoyac de Álvarez during the “Dirty War” demand that the Truth Commission (Comverdad) intervene to ask authorities to grant security to those who received payment for the reparation of damages on the part of the federal government, given that many of these have been threatened to be kidnapped due to the money they have received.

31 October: More than 700 residents of Olinalá, some of them armed with rifles, install barricades in the access-points to the municipal center so as to impede the passage of organized crime.

11 November: Juventina Villa Mojica, leader of the ecologist campesinos of the La Laguna community (Coyuca de Catalán municipality, in the Costa Grande region of Guerrero state), denounces that on that same day two of her nephews were killed.

14 November: In observance of the inauguration of the OAS IX Meeting of the Committee of Experts of the Mechanism for Continuation of the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention to Prevent, Sanction, and Eradicate Violence against Women “Belém Do Pará” (MESECVI), Valentina Rosendo Cantú, a Me’phaa indigenous woman from the state of Guerrero, receives a recognition for her support for the defense and promotion of the human rights of women on the American continent.

14 November: Students of Rural Normal schools in Mexico hold a march in Chilpancingo to reject what they have called violent actions taken against them, as well as to demand justice for the murder of two of their comrades who were killed on 12 December 2011.

21 November: Federal and state governments offer a public apology to the victims of the eviction of Ayotzinapa students, which occurred on December 12 last year resulting in the death of two students and a gas station worker.

28 November: Juventina Villa Mojica, leader of the Organization of Ecologist Campesinos of the Sierra de Petatlán and Coyuca de Catalán, is murdered together with her son during an ambush in the Sierra Madre del Sur. The activists were attacked despite the fact that they had been protected by at least 25 agents from the State Preventive Police who had been assigned to ensuring their security since May 2012.

30 November: 45 families who fled the community of La Laguna, municipality of Coyuca de Catalán due to the violence generated by loggers and criminals in this space, are relocated to Puerto de los Ollas, protected by units of the Army and State Police. The displacement took place following the murders of the ecologist leader Juventina Villa Mojica and her son Rey Santana Villa, which occurred two days previously.

12 December: Relatives, students, and members of social organizations march in Chilpancingo and condemn that a year after the murder of two students of the Normal Rural of Ayotzinapa during a police operation to evict their sit-in, the crime continues to enjoy impunity.