July 8th, 2003
We have received the following urgent appeal from the United States organization ACERCA and from our Mexican partner organization UCIZONI. It concerns the situation of Miguel Bautista Alonso, a Zapoteco indigenous leader from the Sochiapa region of the state of Veracruz.
Miguel Bautista Alonso was arrested in July 2001. After being placed in special punishment cells, he was sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment for a number of alleged crimes including kidnapping, dispossession of property and damage to property, and usurping of functions. There was a four month lapse between sentencing and his being informed of his sentence.
Miguel Bautista is planning to appeal his sentence within the next few weeks.
There are also outstanding warrants for the arrest of thirty–six other community leaders in the Sochiapa region.
Miguel Bautista and the other indigenous leaders have been involved in a peacefu struggle for autonomous local government. Sixty–seven indigenous communities in the region are attempting to set up their own autonomous municipality of Santiago Sochiapa; they have elected their own municipal authorities. They also trying to recover communal land which was stolen during the 1930s. Their struggle has brought them into conflict with the existing corrupt political leadership in the region and in the state.
Sochiapa is located in the Mexican state of Veracruz and is a region of 67 indigenous communities inhabited by Zapotecas, Mazatecos, Mixes, Chinantecos, Nalmas and Totonacas. Until 1930, these communities had their own municipal government and 85,000 hectares of land. Political and economic power in the region now lies in the hands of corrupt and powerful cattle ranchers who allegedly maintain strong connections with local drug traffickers and benefit from the complicity of government officials.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Please write to the Mexican government and to the Veracruz state government to request the immediate release from prison of Miguel Bautista Alonso as well as the annulment of the outstanding warrants for the arrest of thirty–six other indigenous community leaders in the Sochiapa region of Veracruz. Please ask for the political rights of the indigenous communities of the Sochiapa region to be fully respected by the federal and state governments and for immediate steps to be taken for the restitution of the communal lands that originally belonged to these communities.
Please write to the Canadian government to inform them of the situation in the Sochiapa region, asking them to make known to the Mexican government the extent to which Canada deplores the use and misuse of the justice system as a tool of social and political control.
Lic. Vicente Fox Quesada
Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos
Residencia Oficial de Los Pinos
Col. San Miguel Chapultepec, Mexico D.F., C.P. 11850,
MEXICO
FAX: 011 52 55 522 4117 or 011 52 55 516 9537 or 011 52 55 515 1794 or 011-52-555-276-8011
radio@presidencia.gob.mx webadmon@op.presidencia.gob.mx
If you are unable to get your message through, please send it to the Mexican Embassy in Ottawa with a brief covering letter requesting that the message be forwarded immediately to President Fox.
Lic. Miguel Alemán Velazco
Gobernador del Estado de Veracruz
Xalapa, Veracruz
FAX: 011 52 228 841 8815
Please send copies of your letter to President Fox to the following persons:
Lic. Ricardo Sepúlveda
Director General de Derechos Humanos
Secretaria de Gobernación (Federal Ministry of the Interior)
Reforma 99, Colonia Tabacalera
CP 006030, Mexico D.F., MEXICO
Fax: 011 52 55 51 28 02 34
rsepulveda@segob.gob.mx
Her Excellency María Teresa García
Ambassador for Mexico
45 O'Connor Street, suite 1500
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 1A4
FAX: 613 235 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
125 Sussex Drive, B4
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G2
FAX: 613 943 0606
susan.gregson.agh@dfait-maeci.gc.ca
If possible, please send a copy of your letters to UCIZONI at ucizoni@laneta.apc.org
Political persecution of indigenous leaders in the Sochiapa region of Veracruz
We have received the following urgent appeal from the United States organization ACERCA and from our Mexican partner organization UCIZONI. It concerns the situation of Miguel Bautista Alonso, a Zapoteco indigenous leader from the Sochiapa region of the state of Veracruz.
Miguel Bautista Alonso was arrested in July 2001. After being placed in special punishment cells, he was sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment for a number of alleged crimes including kidnapping, dispossession of property and damage to property, and usurping of functions. There was a four month lapse between sentencing and his being informed of his sentence.
Miguel Bautista is planning to appeal his sentence within the next few weeks.
There are also outstanding warrants for the arrest of thirty–six other community leaders in the Sochiapa region.
Miguel Bautista and the other indigenous leaders have been involved in a peacefu struggle for autonomous local government. Sixty–seven indigenous communities in the region are attempting to set up their own autonomous municipality of Santiago Sochiapa; they have elected their own municipal authorities. They also trying to recover communal land which was stolen during the 1930s. Their struggle has brought them into conflict with the existing corrupt political leadership in the region and in the state.
Sochiapa is located in the Mexican state of Veracruz and is a region of 67 indigenous communities inhabited by Zapotecas, Mazatecos, Mixes, Chinantecos, Nalmas and Totonacas. Until 1930, these communities had their own municipal government and 85,000 hectares of land. Political and economic power in the region now lies in the hands of corrupt and powerful cattle ranchers who allegedly maintain strong connections with local drug traffickers and benefit from the complicity of government officials.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Please write to the Mexican government and to the Veracruz state government to request the immediate release from prison of Miguel Bautista Alonso as well as the annulment of the outstanding warrants for the arrest of thirty–six other indigenous community leaders in the Sochiapa region of Veracruz. Please ask for the political rights of the indigenous communities of the Sochiapa region to be fully respected by the federal and state governments and for immediate steps to be taken for the restitution of the communal lands that originally belonged to these communities.
Please write to the Canadian government to inform them of the situation in the Sochiapa region, asking them to make known to the Mexican government the extent to which Canada deplores the use and misuse of the justice system as a tool of social and political control.
Lic. Vicente Fox Quesada
Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos
Residencia Oficial de Los Pinos
Col. San Miguel Chapultepec, Mexico D.F., C.P. 11850,
MEXICO
FAX: 011 52 55 522 4117 or 011 52 55 516 9537 or 011 52 55 515 1794 or 011-52-555-276-8011
radio@presidencia.gob.mx webadmon@op.presidencia.gob.mx
If you are unable to get your message through, please send it to the Mexican Embassy in Ottawa with a brief covering letter requesting that the message be forwarded immediately to President Fox.
Lic. Miguel Alemán Velazco
Gobernador del Estado de Veracruz
Xalapa, Veracruz
FAX: 011 52 228 841 8815
Please send copies of your letter to President Fox to the following persons:
Lic. Ricardo Sepúlveda
Director General de Derechos Humanos
Secretaria de Gobernación (Federal Ministry of the Interior)
Reforma 99, Colonia Tabacalera
CP 006030, Mexico D.F., MEXICO
Fax: 011 52 55 51 28 02 34
rsepulveda@segob.gob.mx
Her Excellency María Teresa García
Ambassador for Mexico
45 O'Connor Street, suite 1500
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 1A4
FAX: 613 235 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
125 Sussex Drive, B4
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G2
FAX: 613 943 0606
susan.gregson.agh@dfait-maeci.gc.ca
If possible, please send a copy of your letters to UCIZONI at ucizoni@laneta.apc.org