COMMUNITIES SERVED BY SMA:
COLORADAS DE LA VIRGEN :
Report on Assassinations of Indigenous

In 1993, the Licenciada María Teresa Jardi Alonso, the state delegate, requests that Licenciada Leonor de Jesús Figueroa Jácome go to Rancho Túpure, in Baborigame, municipio of Guadalupe y Calvo, to make a detailed report of the complaints of the indigenous peoples there.

The report includes the appearances of various Tarahumara of Túpure and Coloradas de la Virgen. We transcribe part of the first:

Jesús Torres Baldenegro complains that twenty-three years ago, they began to give seeds of marijuana and poppies to the local Tarahumara so they would sow them in their fields, and those who refused to sow, they called them lazy and made them give up half of their harvests, of beans or corn, as a tribute or quota. In that time, the homicides began. Alejandro, after he had killed someone, was named commander of the judicial state police of the municipio of Moreles, in the town of Palomas, which gave him more power as well in that zone.

In 1960, they killed the ejidal commissioner of Coloradas de la Virgen, whose name was Zenón Torres Palma; in 1977, they assassinated the police commander, Beto Molina Torres, and later on, José Valdéz Fontes, who was also police commissioner.

On September 27, 1986, they killed Julio Baldenegro Peña, member of the Supreme Council of the Tarahumara; on July 11, 1989, they killed Juan Molina, who was acting governor; and on June 24, 1990, they assassinated the ejidal commissioner, Julio Carrillo Torres; on March 14, 1992, they killed the second ejidal commissioner, named Cirilo Portillo Torres; and on April 17, 1992, they killed the ejidal commissioner, Martín Torres Molina. On November 7, 1992, they assassinated Luis Torres Molina, who was acting as second governor. Seventeen years ago, Alejandro Fontes Lugo perished in an aviation accident, leaving Artemio Fontes Lugo in charge of the gang. In 1978, Julio Baldenegro Peña, supported by the Tarahumara, began to organize people against sowing drugs, which cost him his life.

More or less in those years, Artemio already had houses in Parral, Cuauhtémoc, and Chihuahua, although to this date he continues to manage the region through his people. He also has a ranch in San Francisco, which he inherited from his uncles.

On March 24, 1990, the indigenous of Coloradas requested that the INI and the State Coordinator for the Tarahumara should revise the ejido registry and remove Artemio Fontes Lugo from it. The Agency of Agrarian Reform and the SARH (Secretary of Agriculture and Water Resources) came to an agreement with Fontes Lugo to make the meeting, which finally took place on July 12, 1990, fail.

Artemio’s cousin, who is in charge of the drug business in Sinaloa, has lived away from the ejido for many years; however, one week later, Agrarian Reform issues a new list where his name appears with full rights as a ejidatario. Artemio Fontes Lugo lets the Tarahumara know, through his gunmen led by Angel Fontes (El Towi), that he intends to keep the ejido and that he will leave them the barranca. Towi meets other armed people in Perico within the ejido (people from Atacaderos, Cosconate, Otate, Santa Rita y Sinaloa).