Magdalena Saavedra might have been asleep, but she was awake. On the night of may 10, 2013, in which around nine marine stormed his house in San Luis Potosi and put a plastic bag on the head, she repeated to herself several times that what could only be a nightmare. But I was very conscious, so much that he gave thanks to God that her daughter, who lived with her, were not there. That night the Mother’s Day she was arrested, beaten, electrocuted several times, and raped her in a group, until after more than 11 hours of enduring the unbearable agreed to sign a confession that he has paid the price of five and a half years in prison. A few weeks ago a judge ruled that there was not enough evidence to blame it on all the charges: possession of weapons, trafficking of drugs and operation with resources from illicit origin. Today is free and recalls in an interview to this newspaper his case, along with 28 other women, fueling debate about the human rights violations of the Armed Forces, shortly after López Obrador announced the creation of a new military corps, the National Guard, which ensures the security of the country.
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All wore the face cover. While they searched his home and raided their closets thought that that group of men were criminals to whom the law had guaranteed a rifle. And the ability to bend it without showing a warrant or explain the reasons, backed up on the political strategy to win the drug war in mexico —a conflict that still lingers and has left more than 200,000 people dead and tens of thousands of people missing since 2006—. Learned later that they were seamen in the Navy, part of the mexican Army.
The skull is stamped on the balaclava of one of them was the first notice. “The had been there, on the mouth,” and account as if I were seeing him, indicating with his hands the exact place where he was carrying it. After the third time you put that plastic in the head, Magda passed out. I didn’t understand why it was happening something like that to her. A single mother of three children, who like many others had sought the life selling acrylic nails to bring up her family. I had kept a diary with the addresses of their customers. Wanted with it to prove its innocence, that it was not a dangerous operator of the cartel of the Pacific or the Zetas —the involved with the two. But, although I learned later, that book would be placed in the tray the long-awaited confession. In one of its pages I was pointed to the new direction of his daughter.
she was pulled out of his house blindfolded and barefoot. His feet were the only ones able to identify the places that was going on: a vehicle, gravel, asphalt, cold. The retained what in military jargon is known as a safe house and there began the ordeal that marked in the right fist, at the navel, your forehead, in the vagina and in the uterus. Also in his gaze, clouded by the terror that comes to a man, even her father, touch her. In that room, according to his testimony certified by medical tests later, she was forced to undress from the waist down on a chair and beat him to electric shocks on different parts of the body —the hands, the ears, Kalebet the feet, the mouth and in the vagina— he tore the patella, and continued to hit her with elbows to the head. When he thought he was going to die, turned to him. And that group of soldiers raped her. “The blood was rushing me by the legs,” he recalls.
The case of Magdalena Saavedra, 51 years of age, has not been the only one who has reported the Centre Prodh, a national reference in the defence of human rights. 28 other similar complaints have revealed the horrific practices perpetrated by State security forces, the military and the police, when detaining suspected of collaborating with organized crime between 2006 and 2015. According to his figures, in 16 of the cases there was a violation, in 12 it was tumultuous. In almost all, 28, female detainees were sexually abused through fondling and forced to undress in front of their attackers, many of them listed in their demands that were photographed or recorded on video. In addition, they have recorded a dozen of victims of torture directed to the genitals, especially by using electric shock.
The report prepared by the agency, indicates the existence of a common pattern in these acts: the illegal detention of women without a report of reasons; its transfer to official or clandestine security forces, where they are tortured sexually, in half of the cases between 12 hours and three days; his presentation before the Public Ministry (Prosecutor’s office), “that in all cases it ignores its duty to certify and investigate the injury” —the medical evidence that corroborated were already in prison; and a judicial process based on confessions obtained under torture. The deputy director of the Centre Prodh, Santiago Aguirre, has pointed out that the testimonies are “not isolated” and that you realize the extent of this practice during the years of the so-called war against drug trafficking. The National Human Rights Commission has issued since 2014 five recommendations to the Army on cases of torture, sexual violence, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and extrajudicial executions. The last of August of this year, directed the Navy for 17 documented cases of torture and 11 of sexual violence.
In the case of Saavedra, the military that held them for more than 11 hours claimed that their transfer to a headquarters underground, and the delay in bringing to justice were justified, as they feared an attack by the cartel for recovering the insured objects and the people retained. An explanation that coincides in other cases recorded and responds to the military priorities of the fight against organized crime. Shortly before leaving prison, the human rights commission of the ministry of the Navy wanted to bring to your case and offer you a compensation of more than 100,000 pesos (about $ 5,000), account Saavedra, though the rejected.
Next to Magda, in adjoining rooms, that night were suffering from something similar to a man and another woman. She listened to them. Also, remember that a woman who was identified as a doctor of the Navy noted in a break from that torture. After taking the stress, he recommended to his attackers, wait a little before continuing. And continued. Between coup and download, showed him the address of your agenda where señalabto the place that had been his daughter to live and threatened to do the same thing to her and the rest of her family. “I, stupid, I gave them all”, mind full of courage.
—I Sign what they want.
That confession stated that he had worked as a operator of organized crime, and the man and the woman as his accomplices. That document was the fundamental test process, and despite the injuries recorded by the office of the Prosecutor —according to documents the complaint— no judge dismissed up to five and a half years later. This Wednesday remember out of jail, those over 11 hours of terror: “The pain was unbearable. The humiliation… I played it to death. But I survived”.
