by Maureen Welch

Roughly a month after the violent days in early May, San Salvador de Atenco has already become a case study in conflicting reportage and political spin. The tenor of the coverage immediately following the events focused on “machete-wielding” peasantry, but gradually shifted in the following days to the police brutality at the scene. This was in no small part due to the defiant stance of women detainees who denounced the sexual abuse inflicted on them en route to prison facilities in Toluca. By the 22nd of May, the Secretarìa de Seguridad Pùblica (SSP) was having to offer explanations for the report released by the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH) that stated “No one can say that these women lied.” (1).

The context of the conflicts of the 3rd and 4th reach back to 2002 when the residents of Atenco gained national notoriety for fending off the proposed federal takeover of the town’s land for a new Mexico City airport. Out of this struggle the People’s Front in Defense of Land (Frente del Pueblo en Defensa de La Tierra) was formed. Zapatista subcomandante Marcos has been vocally supportive of Atenco´s autonomy struggle, and called upon the People’s Front to provide security for him during the May 1st Labor Day march to Mexico City. During this current election cycle, not all residents of Atenco are People’s Front supporters, which has added another layer of complexity to recent events there.

On May 3rd in Texcoco, state police blocked 60 flower vendors from setting up their stalls in the town market around 7 am. The flower seller’s resistance to expulsion from their market on this morning was met with beatings and arrests by the police. Word spread to the neighboring residents of Atenco, and several groups arrived to join in what was by now a violent conflict. About 150 Atenco residents responded by blocking the Lechería-Texcoco highway that leads between the two towns.

The violence continued to escalate as hundreds of state and federal police attempted to remove the barricade unsuccessfully five times throughout the day. Reporters and camera crews from the national and international press started transmitting images of police beating people already taken into custody, as well as images of protestors retaliating against police with beatings and Molotov cocktails. El Universal reported that around 3:30 pm protestors had taken some of the police as hostages, and John Gilber of ZNet reported they were later released to the Red Cross that evening (2). A police raid took the leader of the People´s Front, Ignacio Del Valle, into custody. The press managed to take photos of Del Valle, badly beaten, as he was brought in to prison later that night. Wednesday was also marked by the tragic death of 14-year-old Javier Cortés Santiago. Early reports claimed the fatality was caused by an exploding firecracker, implicating the responsibility of the protestors, but official autopsy reports released soon after determined the cause of death was a bullet from a .38 caliber weapon (3). Whether the police were armed during the conflicts of the 3rd and 4th remains a point of contention, as the SSP claims that none of the Policía Federal Preventiva were armed, whereas pictures taken at the scene and bullet casings collected afterwards indicate the presence of arms (4).