Jailed Timber-Cutting Foe Seen as Guerrilla by Mexico Officials
8/27/99
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Title: Jailed timber-cutting foe seen as guerrilla by Mexico
officials
Source: The Dallas Morning News
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: August 27, 1999
Byline: Tracey Eaton
MEXICO CITY - To his foes, he's a dangerous man, an "eco-guerrilla."
But to supporters, Rodolfo Montiel is a humble farmer who tried to
save the forest and was jailed for it.
"The only bad thing he did was to defend the land, the trees, so
we'll have something in the future," said his nephew, Guillermo
Miranda Montiel, 28, of Acapulco.
Rodolfo Montiel, 45, has been jailed on weapons and other charges in
Guerrero state since May after forming an organization of farmers to
oppose logging in the area. And as word spreads about accusations
that authorities beat him up and brutally tortured him, his plight is
becoming an international cause celebre.
Environmentalists are starting to call him "the Chico Mendez of
Mexico," after the activist killed in Brazil after taking on the
loggers there.
Some 135 of the country's top nonprofit human rights, farmers' and
environmental groups have launched a letter-writing campaign on his
behalf and are demanding his immediate release from jail.
U.S. groups speak up
And now Americans are getting involved. Amnesty International and the
Sierra Club recently announced an unprecedented joint effort to help
Mr.
Montiel and others such as him around the world.
As part of a three-year pilot program, the two powerful organizations
- with a combined membership of nearly 1 million - plan to aid people
whose human rights are allegedly violated because of their
environmental activism.
Defenders of human rights and the environment have much in common,
leaders of the groups say.
"More and more we see that we face a common struggle," said William
Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA.
Mr. Montiel began organizing protests against timber cutters in the
Pacific Coast state of Guerrero in the mid-1990s. Then last year,
something remarkable happened, U.S. environmentalists say. One of the
companies he targeted, a sprawling Idaho company called Boise Cascade
Corp., packed up and left Guerrero.
Victor Menotti, a San Francisco environmentalist, found it so
incredible that he rushed to Mexico to investigate.
"Here's a group of poor people, mostly campesinos, with no support
from any U.S. environmental groups, and somehow they managed to kick
out this huge company. I wanted to learn how.
"I found out it has a lot to do with the tight social structure in
their villages. When something really threatens their community,
these people figure out a way to address it. They don't sit around
and watch TV at night."
Firm blames supply
Boise Cascade officials said in a statement that they left Guerrero
because of "an inconsistent and seasonal wood supply from log
suppliers," and not because local activists were upset with them.
Other versions about the company's departure from Mexico are
"malicious and false," the statement said.
In any case, American environmentalists' interest in Mr. Montiel went
from curiosity to grave concern after hearing that he and a fellow
farmer - Teodoro Cabrera Garcia, 60 - had been arrested and allegedly
tortured.
Both were reportedly beaten, and Mr. Montiel is said to have received
electric shocks to the genitals, human rights activists say.
Authorities in Guerrero did not return calls seeking a comment. In
the past, they have said Mr. Montiel is a suspected member of a
guerrilla group called the Popular Revolutionary Army, known by its
Spanish intiials, EPR.
"They say he's with the EPR. They say he's a marijuana grower. He's
not," said his nephew. "He doesn't know anything about those things."
"Rodolfo is definitely not a member of the EPR," said Alejandro
Villamar, a Mexican forestry expert and friend of Mr. Montiel's.
"That's just a pretext."
Mr. Villamar believes his friend was jailed because of his
environmental activism. Boise Cascade may be gone, but timber cutting
remains a big business in Guerrero, and authorities there do all they
can to protect it, he said.
Uniting farmers
Mr. Montiel founded a farmers' group called the Ecologists of
Petatlan to fight against logging in the mountains northeast of the
beach town of Zihuatanejo.
"They call themselves 'farmer-ecologists.' The reason is simple. As
mere farmers, they get no attention. Farmers have no clout. So
they're 'farmer-ecologists.' I don't know of any other such group in
the world," Mr. Villamar said.
The Sierra of Petatlan, with mountains reaching nearly 10,000 feet
above sea level, contains some of North America's most pristine
forest lands, environmentalists say.
When the forest is healthy, trees help capture rainwater and boost
the water supply which farmers rely on for irrigation. But as trees
are cut down, there is less water and farmers have trouble growing
crops, environmentalists say.
Taking action
Seeing their land dry up, Mr. Montiel and others began taking action.
In 1997, they set up a toll booth to collect a kind of local tax from
passing logging trucks. But the booth was quickly destroyed, and
increasing numbers of soldiers began patrolling the area, residents
say.
The activists began blocking roads, stopping trucks and stealing the
lumber, taking it to their villages. Boise Cascade soon pulled out,
but that wasn't the end of it for Mr. Montiel. His friends say thugs
and others threatened him, so he got out of town and went on the run.
On May 2, soldiers found him selling clothes on the streets of a tiny
village called Pizotla. He has been in jail ever since.
He missed the funeral of his father, Juan Montiel Ramos, 82, who died
of heart trouble a week ago.
"They called him on the phone and told him about it," his nephew
said. "He's very sad right now, very depressed. He just wants to get
out of jail and work. We're poor people, and he has a wife and five
children to maintain."