translated from Spanish: Stories of the Caravan for the missing in Michoacan

after eight years of not knowing anything about his missing son, Lady Ana Luisa Romo got a clue. An inmate of the criminal “thousand peaks”, as David Franco Rodríguez, known to michoacana prison told him that the last time he saw the boy was working in a workshop of the colony the Magisterium in Tacambaro, Michoacan.
Supported by members of the Municipal police of Tacámbaro and relatives of missing persons, Ana Luisa followed the trail, however, after several hours of search and after questioning its owners in two garages said ignore her son Noé Antonio, who came out of his house in Coahuila to visit his girlfriend on June 27, 2010 and never returned.
It is now up to the Prosecutor of Michoacan and to the Attorney General of the State of Coahuila follow with track offered by the inner of the criminal, after the passage of the fourth international caravan of search in life of missing persons, occurred between 5 and 16 November and that visited the towns of Morelia, Tacámbaro, Lazaro Cardenas, Apatzingan, Uruapan, La Piedad and Zamora.
It was not the only case where relatives of missing persons who participated in the caravan got clues about the possible whereabouts of their loved ones.
Michoacan has been declared by the Committee of relatives of detained disappeared persons in Mexico (COFADDEM) raising voices, as a “hotbed” of disappearances at the hands of State and ministerial police. It was for this reason that the members of this Committee requested to State authorities that, in the course of the caravan, allowed the entrance to different prisons to talk to inmates and ask for support to locate their missing In addition to different public events at the headwaters of the municipalities visited.
During the caravan, relatives visited the center of Social reintegration, David Franco Rodriguez.en the criminal case, the dynamic was that each of the inmates got in row to see the pictures of the hundreds of missing. If any recognized the inmate they approached those responsible for documenting and asking you questions to find out what was so sure of having seen him and if he passed the filter they asked all the information necessary to perform a search. When an inmate was 100% sure it was a “possible positive” or “pp”.
There were 66 possible positive during the Caravan and offered tracks of at least 51 disappearances that were not covered. In addition to Noah Antonio, another case was that of Irma Claribel Lamas, disappeared in 2008 in Torreón, Coahuila. An inmate said meet the girl and know the whereabouts, so the authorities opened a research folder to corroborate the data given by this person and, in the best cases, ensure the return of the young man with his family.
Indolence and inconvenience the port of Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, is in the place 26 of the 50 most violent municipalities of Mexico report August 2018 of the Executive Secretariat of the national system of public security (SESNSP). Here never became the AUC, there has never been a realignment of forces after the control that kept the Knights Templar in 2013.
Murders handmade Navy and disappearances are common at all hours of the day. Despite this, when the caravan arrived in this city only received them warmly were members of the local diocese and other family members of disappeared persons who live there and that with their arrival broke the silence and armed themselves value for reporting pu publicly their cases.
“We feel that many people we look bad, they tell us things, the truth is that one expects more support from a city in this situation, but we have seen that not;” here things are very bad and the truth do not see people react,”said Patricia López Rodríguez, Coordinator of the caravan in Michoacan.
Indifference was not only of the people of this city. In the Centre of rehabilitation Social (CERESO) of the sight, in Lázaro Cárdenas, there was a disagreement with its director, Alberto Padilla Ontiveros, who failed to act to facilitate access to families with only two months in charge of the criminal.
Alberto Padilla was an agent of the public in the anti-kidnapping group Ministry which the collective COFADDEM accused of being “ignored”, to investigate several of the 386 cases of disappearance have been documented since the year 2000.
Among the cases that documented the Committee and who were under investigation of the then-agent Padilla is that of Jose Francisco Paredes Ruiz, disappeared on 26 September 2007 when he was returning from a tribute by the 42nd anniversary of the assault on the wooden barracks led Arturo Gámiz in Chihuahua.
“He is remiss someone completely, which had neither the intention nor the interest of investigating cases of enforced disappearance which we presented him and did his job”, accused Cristina Erandeni walls Lachino, daughter of Francisco José and founder of COFADDEM.
The relatives of the victims also visited the forensic doctor Morelia service.” Instead of investigating we had to be so pressing and made value judgments, for example, he asked us what subversive movement financed us because we traveled much and me accused of being unruly to demand the onset of my father’s life, “said Cristina.
However, Padilla denied that it has done nothing to resolve cases of enforced disappearance and noted that at the time an effort was made to the preliminary investigations (name of folders of research back then) were investigated thoroughly.
Alberto Padilla was the only director of criminal who demanded the names of the prisoners who were possible positive, breaking the secrecy that promised the caravan to avoid reprisals against persons deprived of freedom, and when I did not want to give it to them is they returned to confront.
A week after concluded the caravan the consequences have not made wait: Thursday 22 November appeared hung a blanket over a wall of an elementary school in the port of Lazaro Cardenas, with a threatening message that advertcia its members to they were not welcome in that city.
The Church facing the caravan in Michoacan travel was possible thanks to the participation of the different local diocese and the State Archdiocese. Unlike what happened in the previous of Guerrero, Morelos, Oaxaca, and Coahuila, where Catholic structure was not present so convincingly, in the case of Michoacan were parishes and priests who led the awareness of the society.
“This is a decisive moment and Definitory for the michoacana Church, in the next few weeks will see where leaning,” said Martin heads Jauregui, Manager of the Dimension of Justice, peace, reconciliation, faith and politics of the Social Pastoral of Caritas in Michoacán.
For his part, Dr. Mariana Ponce Quezada, head of the unit ID of the service medical forensic (Semefo) of Michoacan, said even though it is the first Caravan that touches them to attend, since the unit was formed in 2017, will take into account the different elements which should bring each record identification to make confrontas them properly, this faced criticism from relatives of missing persons who have publicly denounced that the records are incomplete.
Those who made the caravan noted constantly, during the tour, that records of unidentified persons did not contain the necessary data for one confronts accurate, and asked that the causes of death, the sizes of the bodies be given and that any photographs of clothes with descriptions that are read. Despite these accusations, and annoyance that originated on several occasions, has said openly that it is in the State have found better records.
There were 66 possible positive during the Caravan and offered tracks of at least 51 disappearances that were not covered. For his part, the Mayor of Zamora, the morenoite Martín Samaguey (the only mayor who received the caravan) expressed concern about insecurity affecting the municipality and the region, which as La Piedad, are the scene of the dispute of territory at the hands of drug trafficking groups.
“Unfortunately the circumstances that we live, are of concern and uneasiness, we live much insecurity, however, in this environment we have to continue to work”, said.

Original source in Spanish