CDHM "TLACHINOLLAN" A.C.

Tlapa, Guerrero, Mexico, on 5th November2008. In Guerrero the civil authorities, in collaboration with the Army, have implemented a strategy of preventative war in which indigenous peoples have been persecuted, tortured, massacred and imprisoned. Since the El Charco massacre the Mexican State has opted for militarising the indigenous regions in order to contain the emancipatory movement of the aboriginal peoples.

The Army has illegally occupied indigenous territories in order to implement a surgical operation on social organisations categorised as ‘radical,’ such as the Indigenous Me’phaa People’s Organisation (Organización Indígena del Pueblo Me´phaa, OPIM).

In this high-risk context for the work of human rights defenders and to mark the 10^th anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, Amnesty International has written a report on the OPIM entitled ‘Promoting the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Mexico’ in which it recognises the members of the OPIM as human rights defenders and affirms their trajectory as a respectable organisation, at the same time highlighting the harassment and threats suffered by their leaders.

Several years have passed since the OPIM began the journey of their struggle. However, today the State has once again prevented the Me’phaa from accessing justice and arrests and imprisons five OPIM members in Ayutla jail, accusing them of murdering an Army informant on 1^stJanuary this year. This is in spite of the fact that during all the legal proceedings the accused and their witnesses have demonstrated their innocence and that the evidence against them was fabricated: The state government has conspired with the federal government to keep the five indigenous men from the OPIM in prison.

The human rights defenders were arrested on 17th April at a police-military checkpoint. Among the prisoners were Orlando Manzanarez Lorenzo, the leader of the OPIM from El Camalote and representative of the 14 indigenous Me’phaa men from this place who were forcibly sterilised, the ex local civil authority and one of the sterilised men, Manuel Cruz Victoriano, along with Natalio Ortega Cruz and Romualdo Santiago Enedina (who are nephews of indigenous Me’phaa woman, Inés Fernández Ortega). Finally, there was Raúl Hernández Abundio, an activist from the OPIM. They reported that during their imprisonment they were tortured and received death threats from officers from the PIM and they said that they were not allowed to speak in Me’phaa.

On 15^th October 2008 the Eight District Judge based in Acapulco, Livia Lizbeth Larumbe Radilla granted an appeal by the four detainees because there is no evidence that they committed the murder and she ordered their release. However, on 3^rd November the Federal Public Prosecutor registered an amparo appeal, challenging the judge’s decision. This demonstrates that the state and federal executive branch retain their policy of criminalising and fabricating evidence: Even when a federal body such as the Eighth District Court has ruled that there is no evidence, the executive branch uses the Public Prosecutor to keep them deprived of their freedom.

This contradicts what was said by the General Director of Human Rights and Democracy from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, SRE), Alejandro Negrín, who during the thematic hearing granted by the IACHR on 22^nd October on the Criminalisation of Human Rights Defenders in Guerrero, claimed that the federal justice system corrected the defects of the state justice systems. He also wanted to announce that the indigenous human rights defenders from the OPIM had already been released, in order to ingratiate himself with the IACHR commissioners.

The reality is that the federal, like the state government preserve a pattern of criminalisation and fabricating evidence in order to take the social problems explained by defenders to court and present a false image before the international authorities that they respond to the defender’s propositions. In reality they insist upon keeping them in jail, such as in the case of the colleagues who now have to remain deprived of their freedom even when a federal judge has said that there is no evidence against them.

As human rights defenders, we want to denounce the authorities in charge of investigating the crimes, who as well as ignoring human rights instruments, apply criminal law in a biased manner and work towards criminalising social organisations that have had the courage to report cases of serious violations of human rights, despite the risk of being threatened, persecuted and imprisoned.

Far from worrying about investigating the different cases faced by members of the OPIM, the authorities have failed to punish the rape of Valentina Rosendo Cantú and Inés Fernández Ortega or the permanent threats suffered by Obtilia Eugenio Manuel. They have failed to implement the recommendation regarding the sterilised indigenous men and there have been no investigations to initiate administrative procedures against those responsible. Furthermore, the murder and torture of Lorenzo Fernández Ortega, Inés’s brother, has not been investigated and there has been no follow-up regarding the complaints registered before the National Human Rights Commission (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, CNDH) against the Mexican Army for the damages caused to crops and the searches carried out in their homes.

The Indigenous Me’phaa People’s Organisation and Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre demand: