Five Tzeltal Prisoners from Bachajón Freed

SCOOP reported the detention in April of eight indigneous men in San Sebastián Bachajón, Chiapas. (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0905/S00015.htm )

Hermann Bellinghausen informed yesterday in Mexico that five of the remaining seven (one was released in May) were freed this week, but two remain imprisoned.

* They were accused of being "highway robbers;" judicial authorities dropped the charges

* The Attacks on tourist transportation persist; there are rumors that police are protecting the criminals

By: Hermann Bellinghausen

Five of the seven Tzeltal ejido residents from San Sebastián Bachajón, Chiapas, detained in April in the vicinity of Agua Azul in different police operations, are now free. They had been imprisoned since May in El Amate prison, Cintalapa de Figueroa (municipality), following several weeks of detention (without charges) in Quinta Pitiquitos, Chiapa de Corzo (municipality). They were accused, without evidence, of robbing tourist buses on the stretch of road between Ocosingo and Palenque.

Ejido authorities from San Sebastián, adherents of the EZLN's Other Campaign, and the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center, announced today that they were released on Monday, July 6 "thanks to national and international solidarity."

As a result of the withdrawal of the criminal charges by Chiapas judicial authorities, five of the seven indigenous men adhered to the Other Campaign, "who remained unjustly imprisoned for three months for defending their land," were freed.

They are: Gerónimo Moreno Deara, Alfredo Gómez Moreno, Miguel Demeza Jiménez, Sebastián Demeza Deara and Pedro Demeza Deara. Brothers Gerónimo and Antonio Gómez Saragos are still "unjustly" held in El Amate, according to their defence and their companions, facing charges of robbery with violence, and organized crime.

Miguel Vázquez Moreno, EZLN support base and a resident of Comandanta Ramona autonomous municipality, had been incarcerated with them. He was released a few weeks after the police operations, also without charges.

From the first moment of these arrests, social and human rights organizations denounced not only the unfounded accusations, but also that some of them were tortured physically and psychologically so that they would admit guilt, and they were obliged to sign statements without the assistance of an interpreter or a lawyer that knew their culture and language, as required by law,

The Zapatista Good Government Junta in the Caracol of Morelia announced in May the names of a gang of robbers identified in the neighboring ejido of Agua Clara. The state government promised to investigate, until now without result, while the attacks on tourist transport buses have continued in the zone.

The detained Tzeltales had the highway under observation especially to prevent such robberies, which also affect their communities. After the initial apprehension of Gerónimo Gómez Saragos in the Ocosingo market on April 13, the ejido residents of San Sebastián Bachajón established a roadblock demanding his freedom. In the next few days, the state government carried out several police operations whereby they broke up the roadblock, destroyed the ticket booth at the entrance where the ejido charged admission to the Agua Azul waterfall, and seized control of a gravel pit from the indigenous people.

In all these actions, the State Preventive Police (PEP, in their Spanish initials) and the State Highway Patrol (PEC, in their Spanish initials), as well as the Secretary of Government, associated themselves with a PRI minority of the Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and Campesino Rights (OPDICC, in their Spanish initials), whose members informed on the detainees, and also benefitted from the destruction of the ticket booth and seizure of the gravel pit. The PEP have set up a camp on the first site (the ticket booth), while the PEC and the Federal Preventive Police maintain patrols on the highway and, according to reports by locals, protect the real robbers.

Thus, two indigenous men from the Other Campaign remain (in prison) while private construction companies exploit the gravel pit, and OPPDIC leaders receive considerable sums of money from the "concession [the ticket booth]." All of this, within the context of the construction of a controversial toll road to Palenque, which will significantly affect the ejido, and is against the wished of its residents.

Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Thursday, July 9, 2009
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/07/09/index.php?section=politica&article=021n1pol
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Revision: Julie Webb-Pullman

© Scoop Media