Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Environment, Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

Justice at Last for Peasant Environmentalists in Mexico

Emilio Godoy

MEXICO CITY, Dec 23 2010 (IPS) - “I feel I can breathe more deeply and look more towards the future. I feel at peace,” Mexican peasant Rodolfo Montiel told IPS, from somewhere on the west coast of the United States.

Montiel and his fellow activist Teodoro Cabrera have been vindicated by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which found against the Mexican state for the fifth consecutive time for violations of basic human rights.

“At last, after so many years, we have found justice in the international arena, since our own authorities were not capable of declaring our innocence,” said Montiel from exile in the United States.

The five sentences condemning Mexico, handed down in 2009 and 2010 by the Costa Rica-based court of last resort, a part of the Organisation of American States (OAS) human rights system, highlight the poor state of human rights in this country and the many failings of the Mexican justice system that Montiel and Cabrera had to suffer, say activists interviewed by IPS.

The sentences “show the serious human rights violations and the absence of structural reforms of the justice system,” Jacqueline Sáenz, a lawyer with the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Centre (PRODH), told IPS.

The Court ruling, dated Nov. 26 but only communicated to the parties on Monday Dec. 20, was handed down in the case of Montiel and Cabrera, who were arrested and tortured in 1999 by Mexican soldiers, and sentenced in 2000 by a Mexican court to six and 10 years’ imprisonment, respectively, for possession of weapons and growing marijuana.


The Inter-American Court, presided by Peruvian judge Diego García-Sayán, ruled that the Mexican state violated both men’s rights to personal integrity, freedom, due process and judicial protection.

Montiel, Cabrera and a group of other rural activists founded the Organización de Campesinos Ecologistas de la Sierra de Petatlán y Coyuca de Catalán (OCESP – Organisation of Campesino Ecologists from the Sierra of Petatlán and Coyuca de Catalán) in 1999 to fight rampant and often illegal deforestation in that mountainous area in the state of Guerrero, 600 km southeast of the Mexican capital.

In 2001 PRODH, the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Centre and the Centre for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) took the case to the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, also part of the OAS system, on the grounds that the environmentalists’ trials in Mexico were full of irregularities.

In the same year, then Mexican President Vicente Fox (2000-2006) pardoned them from serving the remainder of their sentences for “humanitarian reasons”, in response to national and international pressure on their behalf, but there was no judicial review to declare their innocence.

In June 2009, the Commission referred the case to the Inter-American Court, which heard it in August 2010 during its 88th period of sessions.

The Court ruled that the Mexican state must fully investigate the facts and prosecute and punish those responsible for the mistreatment of the victims, whose names must be cleared. It also ordered a reform of the military justice system, and the adoption of legislative, administrative and other measures to prevent torture.

The sentence must also be published in the official gazette in Mexico, and Montiel and Cabrera must be paid 7,500 dollars for medical and psychological treatment, 5,500 dollars for loss of income and 20,000 dollars in compensation for mental anguish, pain and suffering.

The Mexican state was also ordered to pay 38,366 dollars to CEJIL and 27,349 dollars to PRODH for legal costs. In the 134-page sentence, the Court set deadlines of between two and 12 months for the fulfillment of these obligations.

The Interior Ministry issued a communiqué stating that Mexico would comply with the Court sentence in full, and ratifying the state’s irrevocable duty to safeguard the human rights of all persons.

The verdict focuses particularly on the jurisdiction of military courts and the use of torture to elicit confessions, a frequent practice according to local and international human rights organisations.

“Cases of human rights abuses cannot be tried in military courts. The Inter-American Court ruling is a wakeup call,” said Sáenz, who was part of Montiel and Cabrera’s legal team.

In three of its five resolutions that found the Mexican state guilty, the Inter-American Court called for reform of the military justice system, which under the Military Code of 1933 applies even in trials of military personnel who commit crimes outside of the line of duty.

President Felipe Calderón sent a bill to reform the military justice system to Congress in October, providing for cases of forced disappearance, rape and torture to be tried in civilian courts.

But it is rejected by human rights groups as overly restricted in its scope.

In November 2009 the Inter-American Court issued two guilty verdicts for Mexico.

The first referred to the 2001 murders of three young women in the northern town of Ciudad Juárez, on the border with the United States, in what was known as the “cotton field case” because of the waste ground where the bodies were found. The other was in the case of the forced disappearance of teacher and social activist Rosendo Radilla in Guerrero in 1974.

In August 2010 the Court handed down two further sentences, in the cases of indigenous Mexican women Inés Fernández and Valentina Rosendo, who were both gang-raped by soldiers in Guerrero in 2002.

Mexico’s national budget for 2011 sets aside 2.5 million dollars for the reparations the state was ordered to pay in the five Inter-American Court rulings.

“Fortunately we did not remain silent; we survived and had the courage to denounce the abuses. I hope environmentalists and peasants will not be afraid to report other cases. They should know that sooner or later, justice will be done, and if justice isn’t done in Mexico, the cases can be taken elsewhere,” said Montiel, who does not plan to return to Mexico, for fear of reprisals.

 
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