The Lord Manuel Uribe He could not explain how it all started: he told the authorities that he heard screams and a voice ordering them from outside that no one could leave the house. When he was able to get up, he managed to distinguish that They were soldiers. Then came the worst: his bullet-wounded guests ran into his room, in an attempt to take shelter, but They were already dying.
It was a baptism. It was a family that lived in the ranchería The Realito27 kilometers from the municipal seat of Badiraguato, Sinaloaa region that would be known decades later as the land of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman and Rafael Caro Quintero. On April 7, 1971, they celebrated the sacrament that the seventh Uribe child received. In that year El Realito had 26 inhabitants and everyone had been invited, as well as from other surrounding rancherías.
Outside the house, about 45 people were dancing and singing to the rhythm of the band, a party that the man had prepared early. Manuel and his wife Bertilia Coronelpregnant again with a seven-month-old baby. Manuel remembers that he has just entered his room, with some friends and family; He wanted to rest his right foot on the bed, which hurt from an old injury. He grabbed some beers and invited them to continue the party inside. Then came the tragedy. The shooting.
They were detained all morning while they listened to the last whispers of their people. Including his wife, who was shot and died during the early morning. “We stayed all night listening to moans and seeing dead people,” Manuel would later declare.
At 11 p.m., nine soldiers from the 34º. Infantry Battalion They broke into the party. According to the Army’s first version, when they were passing by the ranch, they were attacked with bullets by an armed crowd. However, reports from the Federal Security Directorate (DFS) and the testimonies collected before the local public prosecutor, Francisco Guerra, offer a different version. In one “anti-drug” operation The Army turned the baptism into a massacre and left them to die during the early hours of the morning.
This is a collaboration of ARCHIVIST for SUNDAYwhich reconstructs this case thanks to forgotten files between drawers and old public offices. Cases like this reveal that in Mexico the official truth is always in the dark.
16 civilians died in a baptism in El Realito
In the report of Historical Clarification Mechanismwhich seeks to shed light on the truth about the human rights violations committed by the State among 1965 and 1990the events of El Realito appear. One of the acts serious against inhabitants in areas where the fight against drug trafficking was carried out during the six-year term of Luis Echeverria. That of El Realito is one of the four massacres in the name of this war. The Battalion massacred 16 civilians and injured 12 others who were at the party.
Today a file kept in the General Archive of the Nation and documents from a Badiraguato court allow us to reconstruct that The shooting lasted approximately 20 minutes.which was until 6 in the morning the next day that the survivors were able to leave the house where the baptism took place.
Before the authorities the ladies Lydia Leyva and Maria Trinidad Perez They reconstructed what happened that night in El Realito. They said it was around eleven at night when everyone was dancing “happily.” Suddenly They were surrounded by elements of the Army; In command was a man they called “Second Sergeant” and today we know that it was the military man. Ausencio Esparza Reyes. They saw when one of the soldiers pulled one of the guests by the jacket. Then the soldier fell dead on the stony ground. The military’s version is that the man had a gun inside his jacket and that, when the soldier pulled him, he activated it and shot him.
“Immediately the soldiers who accompanied him They started shooting at people (…), everyone stopped dancing (…). There was shouting as people tried to run to take refuge in safe places,” they said one day after the massacre.
On the porch of the house were Mrs. Silvia Contreras with the hostess, Bertilia. The women tried to run to the kitchen when the shooting started, however, when they reached the door, Bertilia was hit by the military’s bullets. Silvia was shot in the back but survived the entire night wounded. ““The troops killed men and women without mercy.”says a report dated April 9, 1981 by the DFS.
Thanks to the testimony of another witness, Ramon Duarteknows that the soldiers left the wounded to die preventing anyone from entering or leaving there. The bodies of the women were piled up in the doorways of the house. 16 people who died overnight. The smallest of the victims was the boy Ramon Ochoaa resident of Los Limones. I barely had nine years and received 13 shots.
There were also soldiers wounded and one dead.
In a small ranch three kilometers from El Realito, other survivors declared that one soldier was killed and three others wounded who were shot down by their own companions, since they were shooting everywhere. It was not until 6 in the morning of the next day that a judge from Tameapa, Amancio Rales Gastelum, arrived at the ranch and began to distribute court orders for The victims could leave the scene and be treated for their injuries.. He gave others tickets to carry out their dead relatives.
“At the scene of the incident The corpses of women, children and adults were scatteredwho were victimized from behind. The Judge of Badiraguato, when he came to attest to the facts, was impressed by that ‘pathetic’ scene, full of pain and distress. There was a moment when the cries and screams of women prevented him from continuing to draw up the minutes,” says a DFS report about what happened that night.
At 2:55 p.m. on April 9, an army general named Castro y Castro ordered the withdrawal of El Realito. The military left aboard four commandos.
The soldiers’ version: they arrived attracted by the sound of gunshots
The version of the lieutenant colonel, who in the documents appears cited with the surname “Núñez Jiménez”, according to his investigations, said that The soldiers approached El Realito attracted by the sound of gunshots. Upon entering the house, Ramón Camargo Lugo, a 23-year-old soldier, found an armed person, who in turn shot the soldier, killing him. That’s why his fellow Battalion responded with fire.
According to the declassified DFS report, consulted by SUNDAYthey all belonged to 34º. Infantry BattalionIa based in the city of Salvador AlvaradoSinaloa. The soldiers who were injured were the second sergeant, Esparza Reyesthe capes Hermeneciclo Hernandez and Macario Lazcano.
José Martínez Lozano, a lawyer from the then Attorney General’s Office who arrived at the scene the next day, considered that The PGR did not need to carry out an ocular inspection after the massacresince the agent of the military Public Ministry was already doing it: “The one that is very well done and detailed.”
The injured were treated at the Culiacán Civil Hospital: They had wounds in the buttocks, in the back, they were hit from behind. As the days went by, more wounded people appeared who had hidden in nearby ranches or on the slopes of the hills. According to a report from local authorities They were trying to identify drug traffickers among the dead. But there is no record in the file that they have achieved this.
After they died, they tried to hold them accountable but they failed. According to authorities, The soldiers involved were transferred to a prison in MazatlánHowever, there is no more information about what happened to them.
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