AMERICA/MEXICO – Nine years of indifference and impunity: the tragedy of Pasta de Conchos mine

Friday, 20 February 2015

Saltillo (Agenzia Fides) – “Although nine years have passed since the tragedy of Pasta de Conchos Mine, complicity between the authorities and the Industrial Minera Mexico group, and the impunity which reigned in this case, have become a world point of reference for the degree of corruption in Mexico”: this was said by the Bishop of the diocese of Saltillo, Mons. Raúl Vera López on the anniversary of the tragedy of the Pasta de Conchos Mine, on 19 February 2006.
Fides was informed that the anniversary was marked with meetings of various social leaders and a celebration of Mass to pray for the dead and their families. In the disaster some 63 minors were killed, the bodies never retrieved, and the families are still waiting for justice. For Bishop Raul Vera Lopez the tragedy revealed the extent of corruption and impunity in the Mexico.
The mine of Pasta de Conchos became emblematic of the indifference of the government at that time (see Fides 6/05/2011), just as today there is the case of the students who disappeared in Ayotzinapa. The Mexican Bishops considered the Mine episode so critical and such an emergency in the social life of the country as to discuss it even in their annual assembly. (see Fides 2/05/2006).
At the time the authorities not only insisted on the fact that there was a lack of security at the mine, but that economic agreements were fixed to save those responsible from imprisonment. " Protection of the mining company was exaggerated, while sufficient proof existed to open legal proceedings against of those guilty of negligence" Bishop Vera Lopez told the families of the miners who have asked for the bodies of their loved ones to be recovered. (CE) (Agenzia Fides, 20/02/2015)


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