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| (Photo: Lenin Ocampo Torres) |
Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero - El Paraíso [The Paradise] is an indigenous Mixtec community in this municipality, located 180 kilometers [111 miles] from Chilpancingo, the state capital. It is also the location of the fourth House of Justice maintained by the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities, Community Police (CRAC-PC).
On a property opposite the church of San Isidro Labrador is located the "jail" where 51 citizens are imprisoned in the process of re-education for allegedly having committed murder, organized crime, rape and domestic violence.
As part of their sentence, last Friday they were responsible for distributing food and tortillas to the 500 people, including 30 community police officers, who attended the inauguration of Radio El Paraíso.
"For those who cannot read or write, their punishment will be to learn to do so during their stay in the Community," commented Margarito Ramírez, coordinator of this House of Justice--a man highly respected in that area--while he watched a group of six new inmates as they descended one by one from a van.
On Friday the newcomers were brought from the municipality of Huamuxtitlán in the High Mountain, about 350 kilometers [217 miles] from Ayutla de los Libres, to join the other 45 who are in the process of re-education.
"Here it's about carrying out a re-education under knowledge; it is going to give them knowledge. Those who are illiterate are going to learn to read and write, this will be their punishment. Here they are not beaten or treated inhumanely."
Those who do not know work, he added,
"are going to learn how to do it, in any kind of occupation. He is given his notebook and pencil in order to learn positive things. They work in the course of their re-education process. In fact, they are already doing it to build the wall of what will be our House of Jusice. They are going to work there."
Here, he insisted,
"everyone goes to work, and their stay in our House of Justice will depend on the offense (crime) they committed. The majority are people who are rapists, robbers, and murderers. Here in this region it was very normal for people to be killed, but now all that ... deaths have fallen to almost zero."
He mentioned that there were only two murders in the past seven months:
"The perpetrators are already in detention, and they are in their process of re-education, which will last according to their behavior in this House of Justice."
This day the promoter of the CRAC-PC, Gonzalo Molina González, also delivered a pad and pen to the detainees,
"in order to write your story, letters to your mother, your children, your brothers, or to write yours thoughts and your experiences of your stay in this House of Justice, during the hours that are set aside for study."
He added that the process of integrating the community police from the municipality of Tixtla, in the center of the state, is moving forward.
"These are neighborhoods that have asked the CRAC for information; they are already working in compliance with the requirements so later they can take the oath for new community police officers," he said.