© Environment News Service (ENS) 2001
July 18, 2001

MEXICO CITY, Mexico, July 18, 2001 (ENS) - Two jailed Mexican environmentalists have lost their last chance appeal of drug and weapons convictions. Their appeal claimed that the courts had excluded evidence that their statements to military officials were extracted by torture.

The Unitary Tribunal of Chilpancingo in Guerrero state gave its ruling Tuesday on the appeal of the campesino ecologists, Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera. Montiel is the 2000 Goldman Prize Winner for North America.

The Tribunal ruled, that despite the evidence of torture provided by a Danish Medical organization, that their appeals be denied, confirming the six year and eight month sentence for Montiel and 10 years for Cabrera.

Alison Cooper of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center (PRODH) which represented the two environmentalists in court, says the ruling demonstrates disrespect for justice and human rights.

"Far from preventing arbitrary acts committed by the authorities and protecting the rights of the victims, the Federal Judicial Power has become a mechanism that legitimizes such acts. Yesterday's ruling confirms the lack of judicial independence and efficiency in Mexico," PRODH said in a statement today.

"The two specialists that evaluated the proofs of torture are experts in human rights related abuses. The Secretariat of Foreign Relations commended the moral and professional quality of these experts. Nevertheless, the Tribunal ignored these proofs," PRODH said. "The Attorney General (PGR) has also ignored the importance of this proof."

General Rafael Macedo de la Concha, who was the military prosecutor when the ecologists were detained and tortured by the 40th Infantry Battalion, has "solicited systematically the confirmation of the sentences," PRODH said.

The Second Collegiate Circuit Tribunal of Chilpancingo, Guerrero, granted the environmentalists an amparo for effects (amparo para efectos) based on the fact that the appeals tribunal responsible for upholding the environmentalists' conviction had refused to admit onto the record an important piece of evidence - medical reports confirming torture.

The Collegiate Tribunal ordered that the appeals tribunal, the Unitary Tribunal, admit these medical reports as evidence and take them into account in issuing a new appeals resolution.

Unique to Mexican law, the amparo is a special type of legal procedure that allows an individual to challenge an action of an authority, such as an arrest or a court ruling, on the grounds that it violated his or her constitutional rights.

PRODH had filed a direct amparo (amparo directo) on the environmentalists' behalf, arguing that their constitutionally protected rights had been violated during their arrest, torture, and trial.

Montiel and Cabrera had reason to hope they would be freed based on interest taken in their case by newly elected President Vincente Fox. Both President Fox and members of his administration, particularly Minister of the Environment, Victor Lichtinger, have expressed strong public support for the two environmentalists. President Fox had made promises for justice in the case to noted U.S. human rights activist Ethel Kennedy and Pierre Sané, General Secretary of Amnesty International, PRODH said today.

The President could have insisted that the Attorney General comply with the Fox Government's "so-called commitment to human rights," the human rights group said, but the President permitted the Attorney General's "illegal criteria" to prevail.

Founded in 1988 by the religious order of the Jesuits in Mexico, PRODH is a non-governmental organization that seeks to promote a culture of respect for human rights and to defend persons or groups whose human rights have been violated. PRODH concludes that "the institutions that together form the Mexican state are responsible for perpetrating this injustice."

The Sierra Club sees the Tribunal's ruling as "the clearest indication yet that in Mexico it simply isn't safe to be an environmentalist."

"This stunning ruling against Rodolfo and Teodoro will have an extreme chilling effect on other environmentalists in Mexico," said Alejandro Queral, of the Sierra Club's Human Rights and the Environment Program.

"Such a ruling establishes the shocking and Kafkaesque precedent that confessions obtained under duress of torture are admissible and sufficient for convicting Mexican citizens of crimes they didn't commit. President Vicente Fox's administration, which has been trying to position itself as a leader on human rights, has lost much credibility, not only among the human rights and environmental communities, but also among the international community," Queral said.

In 1996, Montiel and his colleagues formed an environmental group, Farmer Ecologists from the Mountains of Petatlán and Coyuca de Catalán. They were protesting the environmental devastation left by logging in the Petatlán area. Montiel became an environmental activist, organizing other campesinos in the surrounding communities to protest the commercial logging.

The Goldman Foundation explained in its statement of the $175,000 award to Montiel in April 2000, that the conflict between the Farmer Ecologists and the military came to a head over a tollbooth. The booth was erected by a village to collect money from the many passing logging truck drivers. It was "a symbolic protest invoking toll booths previously set up by logging companies to collect fees from travelers for crossing through the forest," the Goldman Foundation said.

The loggers responded by destroying the booth. "The government sent troops to the most resistant villages. Many protestors were dragged from their homes. Prior to his arrest, Montiel’s life and that other members of the ecological organization were also threatened," said the Goldman Foundation.

The attorney general of Guerrero called for Montiel’s arrest, accusing him of trafficking in weapons and narcotics, and of being a member of an "eco-guerilla organization."

On May 2, 1999, Montiel and Cabrera were arrested by the army, bound, beaten and imprisoned on what PRODH, the Goldman Foundation and the Sierra Club agree were false charges of illegal possession of military weapons and uniforms.

In San Francisco, Richard Goldman of the Goldman Prize Foundation was not available for comment on the ruling of the Unitary Tribunal.

PRODH will now present Montiel and Cabrera's case to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights. Error: Unable to read footer file.