Human Rights Groups Want President Nieto To Stop Illegal Immigrant Genocide

Multi-million dollar profits generated from extorting undocumented immigrants travelling in La Bestia freight train has kept President Nieto's administration from providing security along the train route to protect immigrants. 

By H. Nelson Goodson

July 21, 2013

Coatzacoalco, Veracruz, Mexico - On Wednesday, more than 40 human rights groups, immigrant rights organizations, undocument immigrant refuge shelters, and immigrant rights activists in a letter sent to Mexico's President Enrique Nieto demands for him to take action and to deal with what the groups are now calling a genocide of undocumented Central and South American immigrants travelling through Mexico on their way to the U.S. border. The coalition of Mexican groups, organizations and immigrant refuge shelters claim that President Neito has failed to commit military security forces and federal police along the Bestia (Beast/train of death) route to protect undocumented immigrants in Mexico. 

Hundreds of undocumented immigrant deaths have been reported along the Chiapas, Tabasco and Veracruz freight train route. Just last Wednesday, Victor Manuel Venegas, 21, from Honduras while travelling between Merida to Coatzacoalco at the Popotla-Tlacuilolapan stretch in La Bestia was fatally shot by gunmen and another immigrant was beaten and thrown over the train. The injured immigrant is expected to survive. Venegas was travelling with 20 other immigrants, according to authorities. 

Venegas death is another one of those penniless immigrants who can't pay extortionists a $100 (U.S.) forced quota to be allowed to ride the train, forfeits his/her life for unfortunately being poor and attempting to escape poverty in Honduras. In late May, the bodies of Cynthia Carolina Cruz Bonilla, 19, and Suleida Raudales Flores, 24, from Honduras were found along La Bestia train route. They were killed in cold blood by members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) for not paying between $100 to 400 dollars each to ride La Bestia from Palenque, Chiapas to Tenosique, Tabasco. Ten MS-13 gang members associated with the Zetas were later implicated, arrested and charged for both the Bonilla and Flores murders.

Los Zetas and gangs along with criminal organizations associated with the Zetas control the train route sanctioned by corrupt local, state officials, including federal police and immigration enforcement officials that also charged quotas. The charging of quotas has become a mult-million dollar operation in four states including Tamaulipas. The groups wrote in the letter addressed to President Nieto; Dr. Javier Duarte de Ochoa, Governor of Veracruz; Dr. Ernesto Cordero Arroyo, Mexico's Majority Senate leader;  Francisco Arroyo Vieyra, House of Representatives Majority leader; Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, Governence Secretary; Jesús Murillo Karam, Federal Attorney General and Dr. Raúl Plascencia Villanueva, President of the National Commission of Human Rights that they have failed to protect all persons in Mexico, despite their legal status. They want for Nieto to commit security forces along the Bestia stretch in order to protect all Mexican citizens, including undocumented immigrants. They are also calling for justice for the murders committed against immigrants, which they say has become a genocide of immigrants on Mexican soil.

Every year, an estimated 140,000 undocumented immigrants travel through Mexico on their way to the U.S. border. In the last 6 years, at least 70,000 immigrants have disappeared or reported missing in Mexico and only 80 have been located alive.