Campaign to Liberate Atenco Political Prisoners

Frustrated by the abject failure of the Mexican system to deliver justice in relation the atrocities committed in San Salvador Atenco on 3 and 4 May 2006 [i], a national and international campaign Liberty and Justice for Atencohas been launched by 110 organisations in 17 Mexican states and six countries, to demand the release of the remaining 12 political prisoners and the revocation of their sentences. The group is also demanding the cancellation of arrest warrants for a further two people persecuted and in hiding, unlimited observation of human rights, punishment of the material and intellectual authors of the repression of 3-4 May 2006, and cessation of the criminalisation of social movements.

Three years and numerous national and international investigations and reports later, all condemning the most savage repression in contemporary Mexican history [ii], not one individual has been held accountable for the gross violations of human rights documented. Worse still, twelve of those detained have recently been sentenced to periods ranging from 31 years to 112 years, following two years of legal processes fraught with political interference and gross irregularities, including the use of torture, no access to a defense lawyer, and being convicted for one charge despite being charged and processed for an entirely different one, to mention merely a few.

Ignacio del Valle, Héctor Galindo y Felipe Alvarez, all leading members of the Peo[ples' Front, received 67 years for alleged kidnapping, despite the fact that others were found not guilty on this charge as a court ruled there was no body of evidence to show this crime had been committed. Adding insult to injury, Ignacio de Valle, head of the social movement, received another 45 years on a third charge, bringing his total to 112 years thus guaranteeing that he will never be released, for a crime that a court had already ruled did not occur. His daughter America has been relentlessly persecuted and forced into hiding, and there are outstanding warrants for her arrest.

Jorge Alberto Ordoñez Romero, Román Adán Ordoñez Romero, Alejandro Pilón Zacate, Juan Carlos Estrada Cruces, Julio César Espinosa Ramos, Inés Rodolfo Cuellar Rivera, Edgar Eduardo Morales, Oscar Hernández Pacheco and Narciso Arellano Hernández all received sentences of 31 years for allegedly ‘attacking means of communication and transport’ ie blocking a public roadway, or ‘comparative kidnapping’. This despite the fact that several of them were either on their way to work or home from work, or were actually working at the time of their detention (some are drivers) and had never belonged to or participated in any social movement in their lives.

Liberty and Justice for Atencoclaims that the Peoples’ Front in Defence of the Land is a social movement whose cause is just, worthy, and legitimate and that the State should not have resorted to violent repression to address what were fundamentally social issues. They are extremely concerned that the Mexican Supreme Court recently failed to condemn the police and political commanders of the Atenco operation despite upholding the allegations of torture, rape, arbitrary detention and abuse of police powers.

“Politicians are undoubtedly responsible, and are clearly identifiable by their actions, by their omissions, and by their position in the chain of command. It is the State of Mexico and its highest functionaries who were in charge of the operation and who are responsible for the grave violations of human rights committed in San Salvador Atenco,” Liberty and Justice for Atenco said in a public statement. “The operation had two intentions – to destroy the organisational structure of this social movement and to leave it without a leader. It made a mistake using a small conflict with eight flower-sellers to try to polarise the movement. The State launched a planned, deliberate operation calculated to instil fear, and to punish through authoritarian violence, members of the peoples’ Front and other organisations in solidarity with it. The chapter of justice is still to be written, but it will come,” they stressed.

They have called on civil society nationally and internationally to join the campaign to free these political prisoners, a campaign which already counts among its supporters numerous artists, writers, actors, musicians such as Manu Chao, academics, lawyers, journalists, renowned human rights organisations, and leading religious figures such as Samuel Ruiz García and Raúl Vera, Bishops of the dioceses of San Cristóbal de las Casas and Saltillo, Coahuila respectively.

Activities will be taking place around the world on 3-4 May to draw attention to the plight of these prisoners, and demand their freedom. Your efforts will not be in vain – in mid-April David Venegas was released unconditionally on the trumped-up charges against him in Oaxaca (see http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0904/S00120.htm) following international attention focusing on the case.

Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno, the man arrested and imprisoned for supposedly killing US indymedia journalist Brad Will in Oaxaca in 2006, was last week freed by a federal judge who observed that no evidence supported the charge against him, but rather pointed to the guilt of the people Will was filming at the time of his death, ie police and other government agents. Martinez was a member of prominent social movement APPO, and was arrested and charged despite photographic, ballistic, and witness evidence not only his favour, but directly implicating the State agents. Tenacious national and international solidarity, including from the family of the murdered man, saw Martinez vindicated.

You can help restore Mexico to the rule of law by continuing to bring international attention to this case, and demanding the release of these twelve prisoners of Atenco.

To join in with a local activity in New Zealand, or send a message of support through the Latina America Solidarity Committee, contact LAC at lac@apc.org.nz

To send a letter of support directly to the prisoners, go to www.atencolibertadyjusticia.com

Background to the Crimes of Atenco
In 2001 then-President Vicente Fox announced his government’s intention to expropriate 5000 hectares of land in Texcoco, Chimalhuacán and Atenco to build a new international airport, offering to pay owners the princely sum of 7.5 Mexican pesos, or about 50 cents, per square metre.

Not surprisingly, the mostly indigenous subsistence farmers, market vendors, blue-collar workers and their families were pretty upset about the effects on their environment and livelihoods, the total lack of consultation, and the manifestly unfair compensation being offered. They quickly organised themselves into the People’s Front in Defence of the Land, and categorically rejected the proposal threatening not only their way of life, culture, traditions and history, but the very foundation of these - their land - passed down through generations, and often collectively owned.

The months of struggle that followed shook the country’s entire political structure, weakened as it was by corruption, a prejudiced judicial system too often bowing to political pressure, and the consequent undermining of public powers and institutions.

The State’s response to the series of demands, mobilisations, protests, and claims by the People’s Front was not only to criminalise social movements through widespread arrests, persecution and harassment, but also blatant repression. The assassination of Front member Enrique Espinosa Juárez became the catalyst for national condemnation of the use and abuse of State powers to promote the neoliberal agenda.

The devastating effects of free market policies, courtesy of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), had already brought most small and medium Mexican businesses to their knees. The broad Mexican public needed little encouragement to support this collection of citizens standing up to the increasingly-unbridled abuse of state power in the service of a few fat cats, however ‘slim’, at the expense of the interests of the people.

Fierce public debate finally forced the Federal Government to abandon the Appropriation Decree in August 2002, an achievement which was widely celebrated not only as a victory for the farmers, workers and residents of the area, but nationally, as a triumph of people’s power.

The wily Fox took his revenge cold – and cold-bloodedly. Before having to leave office in July 2006, he ordered the execution of the Atenco operation in May, which unlike his own talents but not his rewards, surpassed both his ethical capacity and his tenure. What to all appearances was a minor dispute involving eight flower-sellers in which locals came to the support of their fellow-citizens, revealed itself as a meticulously-planned assault on the town to terrify the people into submission, using extreme violence, including rape, as a weapon - the police were even issued with condoms to use during the operation.

Felipe Calderón took up the baton, and has wielded it relentlessly ever since, most recently in Chiapas, where there is a concerted effort underway to drive Zapatista communities off their communally-owned land so the government can build a superhighway between Ocosingo and the archaeological site of Palenque, a tourist railway, and an international airport, as well as control other tourist attractions such as Agua Azul, currently managed by the Zapatistas in an ecologically-responsible fashion.

In April 2009 alone attacks have been reported by the autonomous communities of Sok’on (12th April – threatened with spikes and pieces of wood), and those of Agua Azul, where attacks have occurred against San Sebastián Bachajón (13th - 8 detained and brutally beaten), Comandanta Ramona (17th – 800 Municipal, State and Federal police break up a roadblock demanding release of the 8 detained, smash a toll booth, steal radios, files, personal belongings and $115,000 pesos cash, also on 17th same police that smashed the toll booth entered a shop owned by two Zapatista women, stole merchandise, attempted to rape them, then stole 20,000 pesos cash), Ranchería Jol Huk’um (19th – fences destroyed by sectoral police and paramilitaries), Ranchería Mojón Tzuy (23rd – attempt to force Zapatistas off the land).

In addition to demanding the release of the twelve Atenco political prisoners detained since 2006, Zapatista communities and human rights organisations are also demanding the immediate release of the eight detained in Chiapas on 13 April 2009, prosecution of those responsible for the gross violations of their human rights, and the immediate withdrawal of all police from Agua Azul.

FOOTNOTES:

[i] *The Dirty War Returns to Atenco ** http://www.narconews.com/Issue41/article1831.html *; The Crimes of Texcoco/Atenco Remain Unanswered* http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0610/S00302.htm

[ii *Mexico:* National Commission of Human Rights, http://www.cndh.org.mx/recomen/recomen.asp ; Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Centre www.centroprodh.org.mx; National Supreme Court; * International:* United Nations, Amnesty International http://amnistia.org.mx/contenido/?s=atenco ; Comisión Civil Internacional de Observación por los derechos Humanos http://cciodh.pangea.org/?q=es/taxonomy_menu/3/29/72 ; *Currently under investigation*: Interamerican Commission of Human Rights of the Oraganisation of American States

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