Repression of anti-logging activists in Mexico
The New York Times carried an article today about the case of Felipe Arreaga, "a farmer-turned-environmentalist," who has been made a political prisoner because of his opposition to the logging favored by the local wealth elites and government figures.
The Times notes that "More often than not, the forces of law and order end up arrayed with the loggers against the peasants in Guerrero, where old political bosses, known as caciques, can still manipulate the legal system for their own ends, human rights advocates say."
The article also mentions another, more gruesome act of repression:
On May 18, Albertano Peñalosa, another of the prime leaders in Mr. Arreaga's group, came home to his small house in the woods near Banco Nuevo at about 8:30 p.m. It was pitch dark. Someone had cut the power lines. His wife, Reyna Mojica, 39, was in the kitchen with their smallest boy and her pregnant daughter-in-law.
Three of Mr. Peñalosa's sons had gone to town with him for supplies and were in the pickup. He had just opened the driver's door when the shooting started. Gunmen in the woods rattled off dozens of rounds from an AK-47, a .22-caliber rifle and a .380-caliber pistol.
Mrs. Peñalosa said she heard the shooting and ran with her daughter-in-law across a wood bridge over the creek in front of her house. She was trying to make her way across their garden to where the pickup was parked, when she saw two bloodied figures dragging themselves along the ground. One was her husband, shot three times. One slug grazed his head, one lodged in his shoulder and one in his leg. The other figure was her second son, bleeding badly from the left side and right leg.
She struggled through her fear and the dark toward the pickup. Her 20-year-old son, Armando, who had recently married, and her 9-year-old, Abatuel, never made it out of the truck. "Their faces were gone, pecked to pieces by bullets, and their chests. . . ." she trailed off, her hand circling her heart. "I saw my sons and they were dead."
So far, the state attorney general's office has made no progress in solving that crime, said a spokesman, Miguel Betancourt. He said one line of investigation was that loggers loyal to Mr. Bautista ambushed Mr. Peñalosa, though he said other motives and suspects had not been ruled out.
The Times notes that "More often than not, the forces of law and order end up arrayed with the loggers against the peasants in Guerrero, where old political bosses, known as caciques, can still manipulate the legal system for their own ends, human rights advocates say."
The article also mentions another, more gruesome act of repression:
On May 18, Albertano Peñalosa, another of the prime leaders in Mr. Arreaga's group, came home to his small house in the woods near Banco Nuevo at about 8:30 p.m. It was pitch dark. Someone had cut the power lines. His wife, Reyna Mojica, 39, was in the kitchen with their smallest boy and her pregnant daughter-in-law.
Three of Mr. Peñalosa's sons had gone to town with him for supplies and were in the pickup. He had just opened the driver's door when the shooting started. Gunmen in the woods rattled off dozens of rounds from an AK-47, a .22-caliber rifle and a .380-caliber pistol.
Mrs. Peñalosa said she heard the shooting and ran with her daughter-in-law across a wood bridge over the creek in front of her house. She was trying to make her way across their garden to where the pickup was parked, when she saw two bloodied figures dragging themselves along the ground. One was her husband, shot three times. One slug grazed his head, one lodged in his shoulder and one in his leg. The other figure was her second son, bleeding badly from the left side and right leg.
She struggled through her fear and the dark toward the pickup. Her 20-year-old son, Armando, who had recently married, and her 9-year-old, Abatuel, never made it out of the truck. "Their faces were gone, pecked to pieces by bullets, and their chests. . . ." she trailed off, her hand circling her heart. "I saw my sons and they were dead."
So far, the state attorney general's office has made no progress in solving that crime, said a spokesman, Miguel Betancourt. He said one line of investigation was that loggers loyal to Mr. Bautista ambushed Mr. Peñalosa, though he said other motives and suspects had not been ruled out.
posted by Steve Fake at 7/13/2005 09:54:00 PM
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