Mexico ecologists slam jail sentences as political
© 2000 Reuters Limited
August 31, 2000
Story by Monica Ballesca
MEXICO CITY - Two Mexican peasants facing up to 10 years in jail rejected the sentences on Tuesday as politically motivated and said their only crime was to defend one of North America's last virgin forests.
Rodolfo Montiel, 45, who was awarded one of the top global ecological prizes earlier this year, and his colleague Teodoro Cabrerea, 50, were sentenced on Monday on charges of growing marijuana and possessing arms.
Speaking by telephone from their jail in Iguala, 122 miles (195 km) from Mexico City, Montiel and Cabrera told reporters they were being punished for interfering with the economic interests of powerful local political bosses who were in collusion with the government.
Prior to their detention, the two men and other members of an organisation aimed at stopping logging in southwestern Guerrero state had blocked the path of trucks belonging to the U.S. logging firm Boise Cascade Corporation , which led to the suspension of the company's operations in the area in 1998.
"It is unfair ... the government wants to keep us locked up because they know we didn't commit any crime," said Montiel, who in April received the $125,000 Goldman Environmental Prize, given to six grass-roots activists around the world every year by the San-Francisco-based foundation.
Montiel was sentenced to six years and eight months in jail for growing marijuana, carrying arms without a license and possessing arms of a type only the army is allowed to use. Cabrera got 10 years in jail on an arms charge.
Montiel and Cabrera asked for President-elect Vicente Fox to intervene. Fox, of the conservative National Action Party, won a July 2 general election, ousting the Institutional Revolutionary Party after 71 years in power. He takes office Dec. 1.
The two peasants were arrested by the Mexican military in May 1999.
Montiel said his organisation sought to protect the forests of the area, annoying local bosses "who are used to getting rich from them" through logging.
Cabrera said his sentence was very harsh. "Why did they give me so many years?" he asked.
Both men insisted the evidence against them was false and that there were irregularities in the sentencing.
Environmental and rights groups such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and the local Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Centre for Human Rights, conducting the legal defence of the two peasants, condemned the sentences.
Defence lawyer Mario Patron said the sentences would be appealed.
Edgar Cortez, president of the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Centre, said the two peasants had been tortured and forced to pose with arms that did not belong to them.