Delegation tour of 16/3/96 to 8/4/96
1. Mexico DF year-long Labor Strike RUTA 100 TRANSIT WORKERS Assumes Social Justice & Political Reform Character as hunger strikers call for DF Government to follow the law and negotiate terms and press for release of imprisoned leaders.
2. NADM and Mexican Human Rights movements join to issue international call for the release of imprisoned journalist, Javier Elorriaga Berdegue and Sebastian Entzin from Chiapas prison. NADM delegation lodges formal protest to Chiapas authorities after their refusal to visit the two held in Cerro Hueco prison.
3. Observation of preliminary investigation of the Nicolas Ruiz violent eviction of ejido claimant campesinos and indigenous resulting in several farmworker deaths and imprisonment of eight rural Chiapas leaders.
A U.S. citizen delegation coordinated by the California human rights group, North Americans for Democracy in Mexico (NADM) based in Sacramento visited several cities in Mexico from March 16 to April 8, 1996. The group was made aware of a growing pattern of human rights violations through reports issued by Mexican civic groups and the international press. Al Rojas, president of the NADM explained upon his return that the U.S. public is not receiving complete information about human rights abuses through this country's mainstream media. We needed to talk with ordinary people -- workers, campesinos, and the indigenous people who are suffering substantial brutality. We've begun to disseminate what we heard and saw.
The group received assurances from the Mexican Justice Department and the Department of the Interior, and the National Human Rights Commission that access would be provided to prisoners being held from circumstances involving social justice issues.
RUTA 100 -- ONE YEAR LATER: GOVERNMENT CONCEDES TO WORKER DEMANDS and HUNGER STRIKERS MEET THEIR OBJECTIVE! The Human Rights record in regards to due process, petitioning government to observe social needs, and the right to participate in a free and independent labor organization is being defined by the transit workers of Ruta 100 in Mexico.
Mexican analysts view austerity measures imposed by the U.S. banking industry for the billions of dollars provided to Mexico's corporate elite are being resisted by workers such as Ruta 100. Meetings by the delegates with the Ruta 100 SUTAUR unionists (Sindicato Unico de Trabajadores del Autotranspsorte Urbano) in Mexico City were especially poignant due to the fact that two hunger strikers were entering their 30th day. SUTAUR union bus transit workers number 12,000 members, and were summarily laid off on Easter of 1995 because its public agency was put on the block of privatization.
Takeovers of bus lots and offices, sitins, and the hunger strike have won the hearts of the huge ridership in this city of 17 million people. In the process, a popular judge who ruled favorably in the strikers' case, Abraham Polo Uscanga, was murdered in June 1995. SUTAUR workers recently sponsored the International Forum Against Privatization where representatives from 18 countries discussed Ruta 100 as a case study. Forum attendees joined the hunger strikers who picketed the Company/Agency's offices. As of 4/16/96, Ruta 100 workers are pressing for release of the remaining union leaders from Reclusorio Penal Facility.
Shortly after arriving in Mexico, the delegation was alerted to a tragic incident on March 21 that occurred in the rural village of Nicolas Ruiz, Chiapas: State police invaded disputed ejido lands where scores of campesinos had settled while negotiations with agents of the wealthy absentee landlord were in progress. Five campesinos and 3 state police were killed. Farmworker families in two other nearby towns were also violently removed. In all, 124 men, women, and minors were detained. Human rights advocates, opposition parties, and religious leaders condemned what appeared to be carefully designed evictions at all costs. Chiapaneco farmworker and indigeous organizations calling for civil disobedience actions until the federal government investigates the state officials responsible. The NADM delegates met with officials of the Mexican Human Rights Commission, campesinos, and local leaders. As of April 16, eight campesinos were still being held. The delegation interviewed those prisoners in Cerro Hueco prison. They told the Delegation that after the forced evictions, they were pistol-whipped in detention and were forced to lie for hours in the searing Chiapas sun.
While in Mexico, the delegation was given a videotape that in a chilling manner, documents the ambush and massacre of 17 campesinos by state police in Coyuca, Guerrero state in June last year. The incident bears uncanny resemblance to the Nicolas Ruiz atrocity. The searing film footage shows defenseless unarmed men, women, and children shot with assault automatic weapons by uniformed troopers. The videotape was broadcast on national Mexican television in February and its showing prompted the resignation of Guerrero governor Ruben Figueroa. It is believed that the order for the mass killings came from Figueroa. The people murdered were on their way to a political rally when their large transport truck was stopped in a rural road. The occupants were shot point-blank as they were deboarding.
Cerro Hueco was visited by the delegation with plans to interview Javier Elorriaga Berdegue and Sebastian Entzin. A protest was filed with the Chiapas Attorney General by the delegation because officials refused to allow access to Elorriaga. Elorriaga is charged with being part of the rebel EZLN command and has been held for 14 months. No direct proof has been provided by the government of such a charge and legal experts have amassed substantial irregularities in the search, seizure, and interrogation phases of his arrest. Elorriaga has become a symbol for the hundreds of dissidents and activists whose numbers in prisons are increasing. Elorriaga is a journalist and film producer who was held in the nationwide sweeps of civilians that the Federal government conducted February 8, 1995. President Zedillo had ordered, in the same day, a military attack along several fronts in the jungles of Chiapas in order to crush the rebellion of Mayan Zapatistas.
Elorriaga, a peace advocate, confirms that he, like the great majority of Mexico's civic society, desire a peaceful solution to the issues that engendered Chiapas. The government prosecutor is charging Elorriaga with sedition and terrorism and has called for a 40-year sentence and extraordinary fine in a decision that will be rendered before April 30, 1996.
Javier Elorriaga, like thousands of dissidents and political reformers in Mexico, has been active and vocal in the democracy movement and has become a target of repressive actions. The Mexican newspaper, Mexico City Times, recently opined that The rash of incidents has raised fears that government controlled security forces are waging a dirty war against political activists. (3/30/96) The article was referring to the kidnapping, days earlier, of a prominent official of the National Human Rights Commission, Hector Gutierrez.
Gutierrez was badly beaten and threatened with death if he continued human rights investigations. He was also told that his colleague Teresa Jardi and her family would be slain if she continued her work. Jardi received several death threats by telephone.
The delegation's collection of testimony in the field attests to a worrisome reality that civil rights attorneys, women civic leaders, journalists, labor leaders, and grassroots religious workers are now being selectively targetted because they represent broad-based nongovernmental organzations and are advocates of the country's growing movement for political and economic democracy. NADM encourages the United States public to join the international community and heed the call of Mexicans of conscience.
Justicia para Ruta 100! Libertad a Javier Elorriaga and All Political Prisoners! Respect Indigenous Rights and Support Campesinos of Nicolas Ruiz, Chiapas!
The NADM has sponsored several delegations to Mexico in the last five years and its findings have been widely received by the U.S. human rights community as well as religious, labor, and U.S. Congressional bodies. The delegates in this tour included attorneys, retired businesspeople, labor leaders, and local human rights advocates.
North Americans for Democracy in Mexico P.O. Box 188031, Sacramento, CA 95818 Tel-FAX (916) 446-3021 Email: AlexDemo@aol.com
From: AlexDemo@aol.com
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 04:36:26 -0400