Activist killed while hosting show Atilano

Román Tirado led a movement to aid families displaced by Picachos dam



Mexico News Daily | Sunday, October 12, 2014


A community activist who fought with government officials for several years on behalf of villagers in Sinaloa was killed yesterday while hosting his weekly radio program.

Atilano Román Tirado, 47, began working in 2009 on behalf of some 800 families displaced by the Picachos dam, which was officially opened in 2012. He alleged that the state had failed to honor its obligations to the villagers and became the community’s voice for seeking compensation.

One of the forms of that compensation was to be fishboats, but their delivery and the licences to operate them were slow in coming. As late as last week there were protests in the city’s tourist zone, but the protest ended Friday upon delivery of the licences.

A year ago Román Tirado accused federal and state officials of authorizing fishing licences to other individuals ahead of the 189 would-be fishermen affected by the Picachos dam, and this week charged authorities with favoring illegal fishing. Early Saturday morning some 120 fishermen whose boats had been obtained as a result of the activist’s efforts left to go fishing.

In the meantime, two armed men entered a broadcast booth at the Mazatlán radio station Fiesta Mexicana where Román Tirado was interviewing several guests for his program, called This Is My Land. He was shot three times, and pronounced dead at a nearby hospital shortly after.

http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/sonora-activist-killed-hosting-radio-show/#sthash.wazFlBDJ.dpuf

the gunmen just walked in, killed him and walked out? wtf

But anything's possible in today's Mexico.

vanished due to what was going on them. In the years before that, many cars had the TOURISTA decals applied on the back windows. And they really did mean 'just visiting' and going back and forth the border was no big deal.

Both were university educated, one a professor at a university, the other with a degree like a MBA, their parents also highly educated. The bottom fell out and they had to take whatever jobs they could get, but they considered Mexico their home.

We had long talks at night over pizza delivery, about newspaper reporters and offices being bombed, and how dangerous it was to speak out and that was over thirty years ago. They were furious seeing their country being suppressed, but had been cut off at the knees, their education meant nothing.

Others I know since then, when mentioning things like this killing (by no means the first) by the cartels, the slaughter of police, the sabotaging of community infrastructure to stop communications, and all the rest, now have only one response:

'The gangs told them to shut up, and they didn't. What did they expect.'

Civil society, democratic process and institutions, have been under siege for well over a generation. Not that Mexico was ever free to be what it wanted to be for centuries, either. Most I know are now paying more attention to their indigeous roots.

Disgruntled, but we are just one "terrorist" calamity away from the label of being"terrorists" being applied, and what is happening in Mexico could soon happen here.

We already have the joblessness situation going on. Add in the fact that the budget relating to how the Feds distribute the money shows us the only thing that is really cared about is more war and weaponry and the continual surveillance, and it is quite true our economy has been hollowed out.

When people even on "liberal" sites like DU say that totalitarian Surveillance is necessary and good, I really lose hope. Also watching everyone jump aboard the "Ooga Booga" Bogeyman ISIS theme has been discouraging.