GUADALAJARA — Residents who say the water in their taps runs black and foul-smelling marched through Guadalajara for a second time on Sunday, and the night ended with fire at the entrances of the state Congress and the judiciary’s building.
Governor Pablo Lemus says the people behind it were not marchers. Anadolu Agency said five people were reportedly detained in a stolen pickup truck carrying gasoline containers and are suspected of setting the fires, and quoted a post by Lemus on X: “At the beginning, a group of violent thugs tried to provoke violence and chaos, but the citizen organizers identified them, rejected them and expelled them from the march.”
Organizers see it the same way, up to a point. In Anadolu’s account they refused to continue until the hooded group separated from them, and some marchers told RT en Español the violent groups had been paid to provoke disorder, a claim no report TEH read backs with evidence. Underneath the argument sits the reason people were in the street: Lemus has acknowledged “an unprecedented drinking water crisis,” and health authorities found coliform bacteria in the supply.
Sunday’s march came a week after the first. That one, on Oct. 11, drew more than 10,000 people, Anadolu reported, and riot police and firefighters reportedly used water to disperse it. Anadolu counts 57 injured and 39 detained, amid allegations of brutality against demonstrators and journalists. The state government’s own figures, as relayed by RT en Español, were 28 police officers hurt and 31 civilians treated, which by TEH’s arithmetic comes to 59. Seventeen officers have since faced legal proceedings over alleged excessive force, and detainees have accused officers of torture.
Al Jazeera reported that protesters were seen climbing on the windows of Jalisco’s state government building on Sunday and spray-painting it.
The state government, for its part, posted on X asking anyone who recognised the vandals to report them to a phone line.
The accounts do not line up on the details. Anadolu names the Congress and the judiciary’s building, Al Jazeera the state government building, and Lemus first reported four detainees and later five, RT en Español noted.
None of those reports says how many people marched on Sunday, how many were hurt, who the five detainees are or whether any has been charged. Lemus blames pipes left unmaintained for more than 70 years and has announced plans to renovate the aqueducts, but Anadolu’s account gives no date, and no report TEH read says when the taps will run clear.
