Cozumel Military Base Assault: Girl Abused in Plain Sight

COZUMEL, Mexico — The young girl who was sexually abused inside the Cozumel Military Garrison this past Saturday was taken through the main entrance of the base in full view of other soldiers and subsequently assaulted in front of what are believed to be the aggressor’s own daughters inside a housing unit on the compound.

This information was revealed by the victim’s parents in an interview conducted by Cozumel journalist Silvia Peraza and broadcast live on the Facebook page Código Rojo Quintana Roo.

The soldier accused of abusing the girl is currently in custody; however, two days after the events occurred, acts of re-victimization perpetrated by agents of the Quintana Roo Attorney General's Office and by the mayor of Cozumel himself, José Luis Chacón Méndez, have come to light. In recent hours, the mayor has attempted to blame the girl’s parents instead of the aggressor.

According to the account given in the interview, the minor was forced onto a motorcycle by her aggressor while she was selling pork rinds approximately 500 meters south of the garrison's main entrance in downtown Cozumel. The soldier passed through the access gate without any issues with the captive girl, in front of other soldiers who were on guard duty at the gate. She was then taken to the residential housing area within the military base.

“My girl recounts that there are three other girls there… there is one girl about her age and there are two young girls, about 14 and 15. He introduces her to his daughters, tells them her age and name, and he tells his daughters to treat her well… it is there that he touches her in front of the girls,” the mother narrated.

Immediately afterward, under threat, he took her out of the residence and led her to a secluded area within the same military unit. After throwing her from the moving motorcycle, he continued to abuse her. At some point, he presumably became aware of a cell phone that was ringing and which the girl had with her. It was her mother, who was desperately trying to find her on the other end of the line. It was then that he decided to remove her from the military unit through another access point.

The girl was later found by a woman on the island’s waterfront promenade. She had scrapes as a result of falling from the moving motorcycle. A reunion with her mother followed shortly after.

Hours later, outraged Cozumel residents burned the military gatehouse, demanding the aggressor be handed over. Alongside these events, there was vandalism and looting of a store belonging to the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), arrests—some of them arbitrary—and gunfire used to disperse the crowd during the night of this past Saturday.

Re-Victimization

According to the version provided in the interview with Silvia Peraza, the girl had only been selling pork rinds for three weeks, near the street stall her parents set up every afternoon in downtown Cozumel. Her mother stated that she was monitoring her daughter via a cell phone GPS and that is how she realized she had disappeared.

The minor began selling the fried snacks due to her own insistence on wanting to be an entrepreneur. The money she earned was being saved in a piggy bank. Along with her siblings, she was due to start school in the coming days. Furthermore, her parents, despite their precarious financial situation, were seeking to enroll her in swimming lessons. However, the criminal incident they have faced has shattered the family's plans.

In multiple interviews given in recent hours, Cozumel Mayor José Luis Chacón has reiterated that the parents are at fault for leaving their daughter alone. Furthermore, without being a ministerial authority, he asserted on Saturday night that the child was fine.

The mother insists their social conditions are different, which is why they were out selling on the streets. They also deny having received support from the outset; on the contrary, they have an appointment for Friday with the Cozumel DIF family services agency, run by Chacón, to clarify the situation. “The mayor told us not to use the media, that he was going to issue a statement,” she said.

Regarding the formal complaint, the mother alleged she was pressured by a agent from the Quintana Roo Attorney General's Office to state that they knew the girl’s aggressor, when, according to the mother, they had never seen this person before.

The detention of Jairo “N”, the soldier accused of sexually abusing the girl, was announced on Sunday after 1:00 p.m. At nearly the same time, the girl’s mother was being pressured to identify a person by that name in order to obtain an arrest warrant.

“She writes that my daughter knows the aggressor (the prosecutor), and she puts his name. How is it possible that she put the aggressor’s name?” the mother recalled about the complaint document drafted by the prosecutor.

This Monday, Raciel López Salazar, the Attorney General of Quintana Roo, offered his traditional briefing with the Security Roundtable. He omitted any mention of this topic.