Amnesty International Report 1996 - Mexico

Dozens of prisoners of conscience were detained. Human rights activists suffered death threats and assaults. Torture by law enforcement officers was widespread. At least two people "disappeared" and the whereabouts of hundreds who "disappeared" in previous years remained unknown. Dozens of people, including peasant activists and members of the opposition, were extrajudicially executed. Shortly after coming to power in December 1994, President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León announced reforms to the administration of justice, including the judiciary and the Republic Attorney General's Office. He declared that the aim of the reforms was to increase the independence and effectiveness of the system, and to help end impunity. Measures included reducing the number of members of the Supreme Court; empowering the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of laws; and creating a Federal Council of the Judiciary to appoint judges, who were previously appointed by the Supreme Court. Some of the measures announced, such as the creation of a special prosecutor's office to guard against abuse by the state prosecutor's office, had not been implemented by the end of the year. In November Congress approved a bill for the creation of a National Public Security System to coordinate the activities of all public security forces. The incorporation of the army and the navy into the system raised public concern that the militarization of activities normally carried out by the police could increase the number of human rights violations during law enforcement operations. Peace talks between the Mexican Government and the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN), Zapatista National Liberation Army, an armed opposition group, were temporarily suspended in February, after the government launched a crack-down on EZLN leaders and military operations to recapture territory controlled by the rebels in the state of Chiapas. During the operations, between 9 and 14 February, the rebels retreated to isolated mountainous regions. Serious human rights violations, including torture and extrajudicial executions by the security forces, were reported during and immediately after the operations. Police raids on suspected EZLN members were also carried out in other parts of the country. Dozens of people, including prisoners of conscience, were arrested and many were tortured. Peace talks resumed in April and were continuing at the end of the year. Dozens of prisoners of conscience were arrested for peaceful political or civil rights activities. For example, Jorge Santiago Santiago, a theologian and coordinator of a non-governmental organization involved in Indian community development, was arrested without warrant at his home in Teopisca, Chiapas, after President Zedillo ordered the arrest of alleged EZLN leaders in February. Despite the lack of any credible evidence, he was held on several charges, including rebellion and terrorism, until his release without charge in mid-April. Others arrested on the same charges included María Gloria Benavídez and her husband Javier Elorriaga Berdegué. María Gloria Benavídez was reportedly tortured in detention before her release in mid-July, and her husband remained in detention at the end of the year. On 8 April Ricardo Barco, a union rights lawyer, was arrested together with five leaders of the Sindicato Unico de Trabajadores de Auto-transporte Urbano-Ruta 100 (SUTAUR-100), an independent union of public transport workers. The union had organized peaceful protests and industrial action against the privatization of public transport in Mexico City. On 13 April, six other leaders of the same union were also arrested. All 12 remained in detention at the end of the year, reportedly on unfounded fraud charges. In November Faustino Valente Cortés, a peasant activist, was arrested by members of the state judicial police in Tepetixtla, Guerrero, for denouncing human rights violations suffered by peasants there. He was reportedly tortured and forced to sign false confessions, and was transferred days later to prison in Acapulco. Manuel Manríquez San Agustín, an Otomí Indian and human rights activist, was still in prison at the end of 1995 awaiting a ruling on his 1994 appeal against a court decision to accept as evidence a confession allegedly extracted under torture (see Amnesty International Report 1995). He was a prisoner of conscience. Dozens of human rights defenders, including journalists, were threatened with death for criticizing the human rights situation in the country. These included, among many others: David Fernández Dávalos and José Lavanderos Yáñez, director and lawyer respectively of the church-based organization Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez, Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Centre, in Mexico City; Graciela Zavaleta Sánchez, president of the Comisión Regional de Derechos Humanos "Mahatma Gandhi", Mahatma Gandhi Regional Human Rights Commission, in Tuxtepec, Oaxaca state; Lourdes Sáenz, a member of Ciudadanos en Apoyo a los Derechos Humanos, Citizens in Support of Human Rights, in Guadalupe, Nuevo León state; Francisco Goitía and Javier Núñez, president and lawyer respectively of the Comité de Derechos Humanos de Tabasco, Human Rights Committee of Tabasco. In November Emilia González Sandoval, a journalist and founding member of the Comisión de Solidaridad y Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, Human Rights Defence and Solidarity Commission, a human rights group in Chihuahua, received anonymous death threats. Some human rights defenders were attacked for their activities. For example, in June Bishop Arturo Lona Reyes, a renowned human rights defender and president of the Comité de Derechos Humanos Tepeyac, Tepeyac Human Rights Committee, in Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, survived an armed attack by unidentified individuals on the car in which he was travelling. In September Marciana Campos Juárez, a member of the Comité de Derechos Humanos y Orientación Miguel Hidalgo, Miguel Hidalgo Committee for the Orientation on Human Rights, in Hidalgo, Guanajuato, was raped and beaten by an individual who had threatened her in the past for her activities. Members of grass-roots organizations were also subjected to threats and harassment. For example, sisters Rocío and Norma Mesino Mesino were both forced to leave their community in Guerrero in July, following death threats, after they complained about the killings of 17 members of their peasant organization the previous month (see below). Their father, Hilario Mesino Acosta, a peasant leader, survived a number of assassination attempts. Santa Manzanares Vásquez, a peasant activist in Guerrero, was abducted in September by unidentified individuals. She was interrogated and threatened with death before being freed the next day. In October Cristina Solís and Alfonso Ramírez Cuéllar, leaders of El Barzón, a peaceful grass-roots movement opposing the government's economic policy, were repeatedly threatened with death in Mexico City for their activities. None of those responsible for these attacks, or for those reported in previous years, was brought to justice (see Amnesty International Report 1995). Hundreds of men, women and children were tortured and ill-treated by the security forces, particularly the state judicial police. The victims included prisoners of conscience and members of ethnic minorities, particularly indigenous communities. The purpose was generally to extract confessions, which continued to be accepted as evidence in most courts. Torture methods included beatings; near-asphyxiation with plastic bags and water; forcing peppered water into the nose; and electric shocks. Proper medical treatment for detainees who had been tortured was unavailable in detention. Dozens of those arrested during police and army operations in February against alleged members of the EZLN, were tortured. For example, Alfredo Jiménez Santis and Mario Alvarez López, Tojolabal Indians from Ejido, Chiapas, were arrested by soldiers on 9 February. They said they were beaten, given electric shocks, nearly asphyxiated with plastic bags and in water and subjected to mock executions, before being released without charge on 13 February. Eight shoe-factory workers, including a 16-year-old youth and four women, were arrested by members of the Attorney General's Office, the state judicial police and the army, on 9 February in Cacalomacán, state of Mexico, on suspicion of belonging to the EZLN. They were allegedly tortured in a secret detention centre to make them sign blank confessions before being transferred to prison two days later on various charges, including terrorism. In November, seven peasant activists, including one woman, an 85-year-old man, and a physically disabled man, were arrested in their homes in Tepetixtla, Guerrero state, by members of the state judicial police. They were taken to a secret detention centre where they were allegedly beaten and threatened with death before being released without charge the next day. Those responsible were not brought to justice. Also in November a 14-year-old girl was abducted by a municipal police commander in Cuetzalan, Puebla state. She was forced into a cell in the town hall, where she was allegedly raped, under threat of death, by the commander and two other police officers. She was released later the same day, but warned not to complain about the attack. Those responsible had not been taken into custody by the end of the year. Soldiers responsible for the torture and killings of three peasant leaders from Morelia, Chiapas, in January 1994, and for raping and beating three young Tzeltal Indians in Chiapas in June 1994 had not been brought to justice by the end of the year (see Amnesty International Report 1995). Demetrio Ernesto Hernández Rojas and Félix Armando Fernández Estrada, who had been abducted in Mexico City, tortured and imprisoned on false charges in October 1994, were released without charge in April and May respectively. However, those responsible were not brought to justice (see Amnesty International Report 1995). At least two people "disappeared". In May Gilberto Romero Vásquez, a peasant activist, "disappeared" in Atoyac de Alvarez, Guerrero, weeks after presenting a series of demands on behalf of his organization to the state authorities. In October Cuahutemoc Ornelas Campos, a journalist and human rights defender in Torreón, Coahuila, "disappeared" after receiving a series of anonymous threats for publicly criticizing human rights abuses by local officials. The fate and whereabouts of the two men remained unknown at the end of the year. Similarly, little progress was reported in investigations into hundreds of "disappearances" of political activists in previous years. Most "disappeared" during the 1970s and early 1980s, but at least 14 Tzeltal Indian peasants "disappeared" after being detained by the army in Chiapas in January 1994 (see Amnesty International Report 1995). The whereabouts of political activist José Ramón García, who "disappeared" in 1988, also remained unknown. Dozens of people were extrajudicially executed by members of the security forces throughout the country. On 28 June, 17 unarmed peasants were massacred near Aguas Blancas, Guerrero, by members of the state judicial police, who stopped the truck in which the victims were travelling and shot them at close range. The police operation had been ordered by the state's highest authorities, some of whom participated in the attack, reportedly to prevent the peasants from reaching the town of Atoyac de Alvarez, where they planned a demonstration against the "disappearance" of Gilberto Romero Vásquez (see above). Ten members of the police were arrested following the killings, but several officers who participated in the attack had not been brought to justice by the end of the year. On 17 September Artemio Roblero Roblero, a member of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), Revolutionary Democratic Party, an opposition party, was murdered outside his home in Angel Albino Corzo, Chiapas, by people believed to be gunmen hired by prominent local figures. He was standing as a candidate for the PRD in municipal elections held in October. The killing of his predecessor, almost a year before, remained unpunished (see Amnesty International Report 1995). Soldiers responsible for extrajudicial executions in January 1994 in Ocosingo, Chiapas, had not been brought to justice by the end of the year (see Amnesty International Report 1995). Two members of the Seguridad Pública (state police) who reportedly participated in the torture and killing of Rolando Hernández Hernández and Atanacio Hernández Hernández, in September 1994 in Veracruz, were brought to justice, but several others remained at large (see Amnesty International Report 1995). During the year, Amnesty International repeatedly urged the authorities to end the impunity enjoyed by perpetrators of human rights violations, to release prisoners of conscience and to bring an end to the practices of torture, "disappearance" and extrajudicial executions. Amnesty International delegates visited Mexico in January and October to investigate reports of human rights violations. In November a delegation visited the country and met government officials, including the Foreign Minister, the Minister of the Interior, the Attorney General of the Republic, senior officials in the Ministry of Defence, and the president of the National Human Rights Commission. The delegates called on the new administration to implement recommendations that Amnesty International had submitted to President Zedillo in a memorandum in 1994 (see Amnesty International Report 1995). The memorandum was included in a report, Human Rights Violations in Mexico – A Challenge for the Nineties, which was launched in Mexico during the delegation's visit.