Mexico Urgent Action 22 August 2002

Attacks on Zapatista supporters in Chiapas
We have received the following reports of serious violence in Chiapas.

1. On August 7th 2002, JOSE LOPEZ SANTIZ, a resident of the Zapatista community of 6 de Agosto in the Autonomous Municipality of 17th of November (official municipality of Altamirano) was shot to death in his cornfield by three men. Sr. Lopez's two young sons were eyewitnesses to the attack. They were able to recognize one of the attackers, Baltazar Alfonso Utrilla, an acquaintance of their father's. The authorities of the Autonomous Municipality believe that Benjamín Montoya Oceguera and Humberto Castellano Gómez were the two accomplices to the crime – based on the fact that all three men have since fled from the area.
   
   In the opinion of the Fray Bartólome de Las Casas Human Rights Centre there are serious flaws in the manner in which this crime is being investigated:
   
   
   • The fact that the failure of the authorities of the Municipality of Altamirano to take prompt action enabled the three prime suspects to go into hiding.
   • There was neither a medical examination of the deceased at the scene of the crime, nor an autopsy at the municipal centre.
   • According to the Ministry of Justice representative, the death of Sr. López was caused by one shot. Eyewitness accounts, as well as videos and photographs, give evidence of at least eight bullet wounds. Furthermore, when Sr. López's family returned to the scene of the crime, shortly after his death, they found that his body had been moved from where they remembered his having fallen after being shot.
   
   It was reported in the newspaper La Jornada of August 20th that Chiapas governor Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía travelled to Altamirano, in the company of his Secretary of Government, Emilio Zebedúa González and his Secretary of Indian Peoples, Porfirio Encino, and without an armed escort, in order to talk to the Zapatista civilian supporters who, following Sr. López's death, had organized a protest march and had gone to the homes of the alleged assassins to remove some of the men's belongings – in accordance with Zapatista principles of indigenous justice by which a murderer is responsible for the support of his victim's family (These belongings were to be used as a form of support in kind or to be sold to provide financial support.)
   
   Governor Salazar enjoined the Zapatistas not to take the law into their own hands. He promised that the alleged assassins would be arrested and brought to trial. The Zapatistas refused to place faith in the Governor's statements, reminding him of previous assassinations of Zapatista supporters in the region, including that of the three men from the village of Morelia who were executed by the Mexican army in 1994. They repeatedly requested that Sr. López's alleged assassins should be brought back to the Autonomous Municipality to face Zapatista justice after their arrest. Sr. López's widow told Governor Salazar how she had asked the State Public Security Police to arrest the alleged assassins, but "the brutes of policemen refused to do so."
   
   
2. On August 19th 2002, a second armed attack on Zapatista supporters took place in the Autonomous Municipality of San Manuel. Approximately 200 of members of the paramilitary organization OPDIC attempted to kidnap four members of the Zapatista community of Nuevo Guadalupe. Three of the captured men escaped (one of them with a bullet wound which pierced his liver) when a group of women manage to stop the cars which were taking them away. A number of people were injured (some seriously) in the ensuing violent confrontation between the OPDIC group and a much smaller number of Zapatistas.
   
   The above incident took place in reaction to the Zapatistas' having installed a roadblock to impede the passage of illegally cut lumber, stolen cars, and alcohol. (Alcohol is forbidden in Zapatista communities.) A few days earlier, a truck loaded with illegally–cut lumber had in fact been detained. Claiming that there are a number of PRI supporters engaged in such illicit activities,the Zapatistas have stated that they plan to continue the roadblock.
   
   According to the newspaper La Jornada, the OPDIC members use another PRI (the Institutional Revolutionary Party – the former governing party in Mexico and in Chiapas, which still controls the state legislature but no longer controls the governorship) organization, the Front of Organizations of the Selva (FOS), as a cover. On this occasion OPDIC disguised the coming together of two hundred of their members as preparations for an FOS rally to protest the Plan Puebla Panama. It is worthy of note that, according to the newspaper account, the 200 armed men, who arrived in three separate contingents, gathered together in front of the military barracks at Monte Libano before setting our for Nuevo Guadalupe.
   
   It should also be noted that, again according to the above newspaper report, the Coalition of Autonomous Organizations of Ocosingo (COAO), which supports the left of centre PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática), had learned of the impending attack on the Zapatistas and had issued a public statement warning of the attack. The COAO had for some time been organizing a public protest against the Plan Puebla Panama, and they feared that their own members might also be attacked by the PRI supporters belonging to OPDIC. (It should also be remembered that the Zapatistas, for their part, have made many statements of adamant rejection of the Plan Puebla Panama.)
   
   In Ocosingo on August 20th, the PRD–supporting coalition COAO made a public statement demanding the withdrawal of the Mexican army from indigenous communities and the disbanding of the paramilitary organizations, as well as denouncing government plans to evict the indigenous communities living in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. According to the COAO, the federal government's threat to evict (the communities) is supporting the "dirty game of the transnationals (seeking) to pillage our natural wealth".

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Please write to the Mexican government to request that justice be done in a prompt and impartial manner in the case of the assassination of José López Santiz. Please ask that there be a thorough investigation of the actions of the competent authorities with regard to this case, and that those officials found to be guilty of negligence be appropriately sanctioned and punished.

Please ask the government to take immediate steps to disarm and disband the paramilitary groups that are operating in Chiapas.

Please reiterate once more the need for full recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples as incorporated in the original COCOPA legislative bill based on the San Andres Accords. Please remind the government that passage of the COCOPA bill was one of the Zapatista's pre–conditions for resuming peace talks, and that the reason that the peace talks are still blocked is because the COCOPA bill has not been passed.

Fellow Canadians: Please write to the Canadian government informing them of the very disturbing situation in Chiapas. Please ask for details regarding official Canadian support for the Plan Puebla Panama. Please remind the government that the indigenous peoples of southern Mexico have not been adequately informed or properly consulted with regard to this mega–development project, and that, furthermore, the San Andres Accords call for the full participation of indigenous communities and municipalities in defining, designing and administering their own development projects.

ADDRESSES:

For Mexico:

Lic. Vicente Fox Quesada
Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos
Residencia Oficial de Los Pinos
Col. San Miguel Chapultepec
C.P. 11850, México D.F, MEXICO
FAX: 011 52 55 522 4117 OR 516 9357 OR 515 1794
vicente@fox2000.org.mx or radio@presidencia.gob.mx or go to www.gob.mex and from there to interactivo to send a message

Please send copies to
Gobernador Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía
Governor of Chiapas:
Palacio de Gobierno del Estado de Chiapas
Av. Central y Primera Oriente
Colonia Centro, C.P. 29009
Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas
Mexico
Fax: + 52 9(61) 612 09 17

Dr. José Luis Soberanes Fernández
Presidente de la Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos
Periférico Sur 3469, Col. San Jerónimo Lidice, C.P. 100200, México D.F., MEXICO
FAX: O11 52 55 681 7199 correo@cndh.org.mx

Lic. Mariclaire Acosta, Subsecretaria de Derechos Humanos y Democracia
FAX: 011 52 55 117 4334 327 3195 macosta@sre.gob.mx

Her Excellency María Teresa García Segovia
Ambassador for Mexico
45 O'Connor St, suite 1500, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 1A4
FAX: 613 2235 9123 info@embamexcan.com

For Canada
Hon. Bill Graham
Minister of Foreign Affairs
125 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G2
FAX: 613 996 9607 Graham.b@parl.gc.ca

Ms. Susan Gregson, Director
Human Rights, Humanitarian Affairs and International Women's Equality Division (AGH)
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
B4 125 Sussex Drive
FAX: 613 943 0606 susan.gregson.agh@dfait-maeci.gc.ca