The mayor said that he has been pressured for weeks to resign from his position as mayor, but he refused to do as Leonel Reyes, coordinator of government delegates in the General Government Ministry, asked.
By: Isaín Mandujano
In a “secret session,” the plenary of the State Congress removed the constitutional authority and privilege [1] from the mayor of Pantelhó, Raquel Trujillo Morales, and the State’s Attorney General (FGE) opened a criminal process against him for the crime of homicide.
Raquel Trujillo Morales was elected mayor as a member of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD, its initials in Spanish) in the elections last June 6. However, after the armed irruption of the El Machete Self-Defense group last July 7, he left Pantelhó and could no longer return to his municipality. The day for taking the oath of office, he did so from a hotel in the state capital, because the self-defense group and the 86 communities maintain a presence in Pantelhó.
The 86 communities and 16 different neighborhoods in the municipal seat, named their new council authorities so that they were recognized by the State Congress. However, they had no validity after September 30 until constitutional proceedings against Raquel Trujillo Morales. [2]
Trujillo Morales expressed having been pressured to resign, since they put blank sheets of paper in front of him in the installations of the General Government Ministry. Also, the government body allegedly presented his resignation, thus declaring the disappearance of powers in Pantelhó, so that now it can proceed to recognize the new councilors headed by the Tsotsil indigenous leader, Pedro Cortés López.
For his part, the former mayor assured that, all this. is a “fabrication of crimes” and that “in due course each one of the lies that the FGE mounted will fall.”
He said that he will face the criminal process because he is innocent and that he will return to his municipality with his held high: “I can’t deny my courage and frustration because with the hand on the waist the institutions that are supposed to exist to guarantee the Rule of Law lend themselves to these tricks.”
Imagine if they can do that to a municipal president, what can we expect as citizens? I strongly condemn the unprofessional and non-legal attitude with which the people and institutions that participated in this infamous act conducted themselves, the now former mayor said in a statement.
He holds the State responsible if something should happen to him, to his family or people close to his person or family.
Raquel Trujillo Morales, not only maintains the threat of being deprived of his freedom by the FGE and the state’s judicial apparatus, but also of being deprived of his life because of a threat that hangs over his person from the El Machete Self-Defense group.
The Self-Defense group points to him as being an accomplice of the civilian armed group called Los Herrera, whose founder Austreberto Herrera and his son, the leader of that group, Dayli de los Santos Herrera, are both prisoners in the El Amate Prison in Cintalapa, pointed out for different crimes. The civilian armed group is pointed out for different crimes, such as homicides and forced disappearances committed in Pantelhó for more than 10 years.
[1] This removes not only his power to carry out official duties, but also his immunity from prosecution, a privilege of office.
[2] Despite removing Trujillo Morales from office, the Chiapas government has not officially renewed or extended the authority of the municipal council elected by the people. That council continues to govern de facto.
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Originally Published in Spanish by Chiapas Paralelo
Wednesday, November 19, 2021
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Chiapas Support Committee 