Guerrero: Relative of PRD member is killed in the Petatlán municipality

Landscape of Petatlán. Photo @Colectivo Atecocolli

On 13 June, in the La Barranca community, Petatlán municipality, Justiniano Rosas Farías, father of Álvaro Rosas Martínez, ex-director of the PRD in this municipality who was disappeared and later killed in 2009, was himself shot dead.  Perfecto Rosas Martínez, ex-member of the PRD state directorship and collaborator with federal representative Sebastián de la Rosas Peláez, held Ángel Aguirre Rivero’s government to be responsible for giving protection to the Torres community of La Morena who had threatened his father.  One of the Torres Perfecto was referring to was Felipe, brother of the ecologist Javier TOrres Cruz, who was ambushed and murdered in April 2011.  The activist in defense of the forests of the Petatlán sierra denounced ex-mayor and cattle-herder Rogacinao Alva Álvarez of being the intellectual author of the murder of the human-rights defender Digna Ochoa y Placido in 2007.

For more information (in Spanish):

Asesinan en pueblo de Petatlán al jefe de una familia de militantes perredistas (La Jornada de Guerrero, 14 de junio)

Ejecutan al padre de un exlíder del PRD en Guerrero (Proceso, 13 de junio)

Guerrero vive una situación de “alerta máxima”, afirma lider perredista(Proceso, 12 de junio)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Guerrero briefs: Two ecologist are kidnapped by armed men in the Sierra de Petatlán (14 December 2011)

Guerrero: violence in the Sierra de Petalán (17 October)

Guerrero: Lucio Cabañas’ widow and her sister are murdered (17 July)

Guerrero: Second murder of ecologists in the Sierra de Petatlán (9 June)

Guerrero: The ecologist campesino Javier Torres Cruz is murdered (6 May 2011)

Guerrero – briefs:  Concern for the safety of the inhabitants of La Morena (28 December 2010)

Guerrero: The ecologist campesino Javier Torres Cruz is murdered

Photo @www.vientodelibertad.org

On Monday 18 April, the defend of the forests of the sierra of Petatlán, Javier Torres Cruz, known also for his having denounced before the Prosecutorial Office of Mexico City the cacique Rogaciano Alba as author of the murder of the lawyer Digna Ochoa, was killed by hired assassins, presumably at the service of Alba, who is imprisoned for presumed offenses linked to organized crime.  Similarly, it was reported that his brother, Felipe Torres Cruz, finds himself gravely injured.  In accordance with information released by the coordinator of the Workshop of Communal Development (TADECO), Javier Monroy Hernández, Torres Cruz, 30 years old, was traveling through the area known as Puerto de la Mosca in the Sierra of the municipality of Petatlán when he was shot by a group of men with the last name Arreola, identified as hired assassins at the service of Alba.

The non-governmental organizations TADECO and the Collective against Torture and Impunity (CCTI) condemned the crime in a press-release on 19 April and demanded that the state and federal government investigate the case and punish those responsible.  “Javier Torres is yet another victim of the criminalization of social struggle and of the so-called war on drugs, which is a war of dark capital in which the State has taken part and the government of Calderón collaborates with groups of political and economic power found in the turrets of the parties and the groups of large firms […].  In light of the aforementioned, the organizations demand, among other things, that the discourse of the struggle against narco-trafficking not be used to cover up acts of harassment and intimidation against the communities of the Sierra of Guerrero, that the military presence in the region be clarified, and that the presence of paramilitaries be covered by reports having to do with their actions and results.  We also demand the immediate exit of the Mexican Army from the communities of the Sierra of Guerrero, their return to their barracks, punishment of the soldiers responsible for violations of human rights, and reparations for damages caused to communities, social organizations, and families.”  Finally, TADECO and CCTI call on “social organizations and civil organisms and human-rights defenders to stand in solidarity and join the actions of denunciation and solidarity.”

In other news, the National Association of Democratic Laywers (ANAD) and the CCTI expressed in a 20 April press-release that “it is important to stress the period of 10 days during which Javier Torres Cruz was disappeared (1 to 10 December 2008) during which he was tortured and threatened with death by soldiers pertaining to the 19th Infantry Batallion of the Mexican Army, who apparently ‘worked for the people of Rogaciano.’  This disappearance and torture were never investigated by the competent authorities.  Other events related to the threats against Javier are found during the year 2009 when on at least 6 different occasions soldiers of the Army entered the community of La Morena, attacking Javier’s family-members and threatening him with death.  All these violations as well as incursions were denounced in a punctual manner, but no appropriate authority has resolved any of the cases.”  The press-release emphasizes that “the murder of the ecologist campesino Javier Torres Cruz cannot remain in impunity, given what it represents” and that “the state government must act immediately to find the evidence and testimonies to detain, disarm, and demobilize the group known as ‘Los Arreola’.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Matan en la sierra de Petatlán al campesino que denunció el asesinato de Digna Ochoa; culpan a sicarios de Rogaciano (Sur Acapulco, 20 April)

Sicarios emboscan y matan al ecologista Javier Torres Cruz (La Jornada, 19 April)

Boletín de prensa  (TADECO y CCTI, 19 April)

Boletín_de_Prensa_ANAD_y_CCTI (20 April)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Guerrero – briefs:  Concern for the safety of the inhabitants of La Morena (28 December 2010)

Guerrero: Torres reappears with signs of torture (29 December 2008)

Mexico: Family and defense of Digna Ochoa take a stance against PGJDF resolution

In a press conference on December 8, the family of Digna Ochoa y Plácido, their legal representative and the Human Rights Commission of the Federal District (CDHDF) claimed that the investigation into the death of the activist Digna Ochoa “is not an issue yet completed “and warned that they won’t give up in their determination that the authorities clarify the crime and acknowledge that the conclusion endorsed by the Attorney General of the Federal District Office (PGJDF) regarding a ” simulated suicide” was an “irregular and poor” finding.

On November 26, the Attorney General of Federal District Court reiterated the determination not to go on with criminal proceedings in the case of the human rights defender Digna Ochoa’s death, which occurred on October 19, 2001, as, according to him, the death of the lawyer was not caused by others, but it was she who took her life through suicide.

In a statement, the prosecutor noted that to reach this decision almost 38 000 folios and 83 annexes as well as studies by international experts appointed by the Human Rights Commission and other external and independent experts were thoroughly reviewed. Thus, the dependency completed the revision of the case that resulted from an appeal won by the activist’s family in 2005, when they denounced irregularities in the investigation of the prosecutor, considering that they had proof showing that Digna Ochoa was actually murdered.

On December 8, the family of Digna Ochoa and their defence took a stance against the resolution stating that the PGJDF based its findings “with contradictory expert opinions and using defamatory remarks against the lawyer.” They reported: “In this determination, the PGJDF dedicated more than 1800 pages to analyze the sexual, family, working, personal and academic life of the lawyer, not as lines of inquiry, but as elements and evidence of the ” environment ” in which the human rights defender lived to create a basis to support the theory of suicide. “

On December 14, they will file an appeal for revision against the Attorney General of the Federal District Office. They also announced that they will ask the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights an admissibility hearing on this case in March. Finally they declared that “they are analyzing a claim for liability against the Government of the Federal District because the entire burden of providing proofs and expenses for “litigation” incurred in the case against the prosecution are the result of irregular and poor activity from the Attorney General of the Federal District Office. “

For more information (in Spanish):

Las complicidades alejan la justicia: familiares de Ochoa (La Jornada, 13 de diciembre de 2010)

Estudios desacreditan el supuesto perfil suicida (La Jornada, 13 de diciembre de 2010)

Le debemos respeto (La Jornada, 13 de diciembre de 2010)

Avalan las inconsistencias (La Jornada, 13 de diciembre de 2010)

Familiares de Digna Ochoa presentarán el caso a la CIDH (La Jornada, 9 de diciembre de 2010)

Sospechosas, respuestas del presunto homicida intelectual (La Jornada, 9 de diciembre de 2010)

Fija su posición la familia de Digna Ochoa y su defensa con respecto a la resolución de la PGJDF (Boletín de prensa de la familia Ochoa y Plácido, 8 de diciembre de 2010)

Ilegal, dar carpetazo al caso de Digna Ochoa, califica la ANAD (La Jornada, 30 de noviembre de 2010)

Justicia federal tendrá última palabra en caso Digna Ochoa (La Jornada, 28 de noviembre de 2010)

Digna Ochoa se suicidó, ratifica la procuraduría (La Jornada, 27 de noviembre de 2010)

PGJDF ratifica suicidio de Digna Ochoa (El universal, 27 de noviembre de 2010)

Comité Digna (Blog)