Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Sonora government of Guillermo Padrés: Does it have no shame?

Javier Sicilia has put blame of the murder of Nepomuceno Moreno on PAN Governor Guillermo Padrés Elías. While all is speculation at this point, this reaction is understandable, and certainly from a moral point of view: Nepomuceno Moreno had repeatedly asked the state government for police protection given a range of threats to his life, yet none was offered.

Yet the point I want to make is this: Rather than lamenting the murder and simply keeping a low profile, what does the state attorney general do? In meeting with the press, state attorney general Abel Murrieta Gutiérrez is more worried about smearing Nepomuceno Moreno, pointing out to media that earlier he
had been imprisoned previously for possessing a weapon exclusively for military use.The attorney general's office said that Moreno Nunez was involved in an armed incursion of a home in 2005. According to the Mexico City daily Reforma, however, the authorities failed to mention that he was released from prison after being absolved. (From CNN)
What complete lack of any moral integrity. The gut reaction from an attorney general who is obviously incompetent, incapable or unwilling to do his job to protect his state's citizens, is simply to blame the victim.

The contempt demonstrated by some prominent PAN and PRI members - the Sonora government is led by Guillermo Padrés Elías, and the attorney general is from PRI - toward the victims of Mexico's drug conflict is simply stunning at times. It is also bordering on, or even crossing, the illegal.

Nepomuceno Moreno murdered in Sonora

Sad news from Sonora: Nepomuceno Moreno Muñoz was a key activist in the ¡No más sangre! campaign, and a participant in Javier Sicilia's peace movement. Recently, like Sicilia, he met with Felipe Calderón at the Chapultepec castle in Mexico City, where the president received a range of activists critical of the "war" against the drug gang. Many, like Moreno, have simply been demanding to know the whereabouts of their children. Moreno's son has been missing since July 1, 2011, kidnapped in Ciudad Obregón.

Now Nepomuceno Moreno was himself murdered, when an unknown assailant shot him seven times while he was driving in Hermosillo, close to the Universidad de Sonora.

Javier Sicilia blamed the murder on PAN Governor Guillermo Padrés Elías.