REPORT OF THE CIVIL OBSERVATION COMMISSION IN THE VILLAGE OF VIEJO VELASCO SUÁREZ, COMMUNITY OF BASES OF SUPPORT OF THE ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION, AUTONOMOUS MUNICIPALITY VICENTE GUERRERO THE LACANDON JUNGLE

15 November 2006

El Comite para la Defensa de la Libertad Indígena Xi’nich (The Committee for the Defence of Indigenous Liberty Xi´nich), El Centro de Derechos Indígenas CEDIAC (The Centre of Indigenous Rights), El Centro de los Derechos de la Mujer de Chiapas (The Women’s Rights Centre of Chiapas), Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste, El Comité de Derechos Humanos Fray Pedro de la Nada (The Human Rights Committee Fray Pedro de la Nada), Salud y Desarrollo Comunitario AC. (Health and Community Development), el Centro de Derecho Humanos Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas (The Human Rights Centre Fray Bartolomé de las Casas), Casa de Apoyo a la Mujer Ixin Anzetic (The Women’s Support House Ixin Anzetic), bring forward the following information with respect to our visit in the community of Viejo Velasco Suárez and its surroundings on 14 November 2006. 

About the attack and the deceased:

According to the testimonies obtained from persons displaced from the community Viejo Velasco, who witnessed and suffered the attacks, on 13 November, at approximately 6 am, about 40 individuals in civilian clothes mainly from the village Nueva Palestina arrived in the community armed with machetes and bats, screaming insults. Soon after, they were followed by a group of about 200 individuals dressed in military clothing, according to what the witnesses told us, who sieged the village surroundings; some of the aggressors wore blue uniforms and shirts with State Police insignias; others wore skimasks and black uniforms. The majority of the attackers were armed with high caliber firearms, amongst which could be recognized the “cuerno de chivo” and R15, as well as shot-guns and caliber 22 rifles. However, the witnesses could at times discern some of the attackers as Lacandones, due to their long hair and civilian clothes. It needs to be emphasized that immediately after this attack, a helicopter flew over the assaulted community. At 10:00 am four other helicopters – one of which belonged to the Attorney General, PGR (Procuraduría General de la Republica) and the other three bore Public Security force, SSP, insignias (Secretaría de la Seguridad Publica) – landed in Viejo Velasco, and according to the testimonies obtained, officials from the Office of the Procurator from the region Selva, stepped out and brought with them two of the bodies. 

It is important to consider that the attack was realized without any regard, devastating the majority of the houses and having people’s belongings scattered all over the place; apart from the fact that we found blood stains on the floor in some of the houses as well as marks of shots in the wooden walls, we observed evidence and heard testimonies about one woman, María Núñez González, who was assassinated inside her home.

During our visit in this area, we met several people in an exalted and confused state that had been displaced to the neighbouring communities, who told us that several of their family members were dead and that some of them were willing to go back to burry them.

According to the direct testimonies from the family members of the deceased, the individuals, whose deaths have been confirmed, are:

• Filemón Benitez Pérez,  20 years.
• Antonio Mayor Benitez Pérez, 30 years
• María Núñez González, 32 years.

With regard to María Núñez González, it is important to mention that, in accordance to what has been told to us by her brother, she was apparently raped, as there is certain evidence of the act, all pointing to a level of brutality with which the aggression was perpetrated. It is necessary to shed further light over this situation. 

About the missing persons:

We also recovered information from a testimony about the death of another of the two farmers from Viejo Velasco Suárez, by the name of “Juan Peñate Montejo”. Up till now his body has not appeared and his name has not been taken into account in the list of those killed in the attacks as presented by the authorities; we therefore consider him as missing. We also consider the following individuals – having been present during the aggression and with their current whereabouts remaining unknown – as formally missing: 

• Mariano Pérez Guzmán (60 or 65 years).
• Miguel Moreno Montejo (approximately 50 years)

About the hostages:

The testimonies state that various individuals were taken hostage by the land-owners from Nueva Palestina in the attack. At the moment we have the information that those who currently are held hostage in this community are:

• Pedro Núñez Pérez, and his daughter:
• Petrona Núñez González, sick and disabled

With regard to versions provided to us by people from other communities in the region, there exists a threat that “the people held hostage will be lynched should any of the individuals from Nueva Palestina that at the moment remain wounded, die”.

At approximately 3:00 pm on 15 November 2006, the families of the victims and the members of this Commission turned to the Office of the Public Prosecutor with a formal report regarding the missing individuals and the hostages from the attack, whereby an official administrative document was initiated with the file number 1334/CAJ74/2006. According to the members of this Commission, this would have to automatically reach the level of a criminal investigation (Averiguación Previa) by the Prosecutor, according to the very nature of the events, since they are classified as grave in the Penal Code.

About the displaced persons:

After the visit to the village of Viejo Velasco Suárez, we affirm that 23 men, 8 women, 5 boys and three girls were forced to leave their homes and lands due to the fear of suffering new attacks and aggressions, bringing some of their belongings with them, and looking for refuge in neighbouring communities without knowing what the future will be like for them; however, the burial of the deceased persons was carried out in the community of San Martin Chamizal.

About the detainees:

With regard to the detainees, once the helicopter belonging to the Police Security Forces landed in the village of Viejo Velasco on 14 November 2006 in the afternoon, Diego Arcos Meneses, health promoter from a nearby community, was detained. He testified that he was on his way back from working in his field, together with his wife and son, when he noticed several of the villagers from Viejo Velasco Suárez on the path carrying bags and packages and that at this instance personnel from the Agency of the Attorney General in the region Selva, who had just landed with a helicopter, reached him in the road, and at gun-point ordered him to lay down facing the ground; afterwards they asked questions and asked him to accompany them to the attacked community. There, they ordered him to help to carry the body of a woman who was inside one of the houses. Letting him know that they were taking him with them as a witness, they let his wife and son leave. They brought him along in the helicopter together with the woman’s body and left for Palenque.   

They took his testimony at the Office of the Public Prosecutor and afterwards tried to force him to sign it, but, as he told us, he refused to do so since he does not read Spanish and doubted that the contents of the document written by the lawyer at the Public Prosecutors corresponded to what he had stated, as they could not offer him any interpreter at the Office. As a reaction to him refusing to sign the document, Diego Arcos Meneses was physically assaulted in the premises of the Public Prosecutor, receiving heavy blows in the face and body and was later put in preventive custody to be kept as a witness.      

About the deceased in Nueva Palestina:

Given the unexpected and violent nature of the attack we have the knowledge of one person deceased from Nueva Palestina apart from some people wounded belonging to the group of the aggressors:

• Vicente Pérez Díaz (died in the hospital in Palenque on 14 November 2006)
• Felipe Díaz López, currently hospitalized with injuries at the same hospital

Antecedents:

The roots to the conflict date 30 years back in time to an irregular agreement that was signed in favour of the so called Community of the Lacandona Zone by which the land rights of various indigenous and rural communities, who were claiming right to the land prior to the Lacandona communities, were ignored.  Since 1982, the founders of the village Viejo Velasco together with other villages in the zone of El Desempeño have suffered numerous forced evictions carried out in a violent manner and the destruction of their homes and property. Trying to face this situation, an Agreement was signed in 1984 with the Lacandonas by Mateo Pérez as Councillor of the Frontera Corozal and Juan Chambor Yuk as Legal Representative of the Selva Lacandona with the affirmation of Luis J. Garza, the Delegate of the Agrarian Reform Institute. In this document they agreed to accept the re-location of the communities of San Jacinto Lacanjá, Flor de Cacao, Nuevo Tila, Viejo Velasco, Lázaro Cárdenas, Nuevo Progreso, Nuevo Jerusalén  y Ojo de Agua Tzotzil in the region El Desempeño; in this document an agrarian acknowledgement is granted to these communities. Subsequently, a Board of Inter-Institutional Attention from El Limonar was formed with the objective of working for a peaceful solution to the agrarian conflict in the region. On 25 November 2005, the federal and state government participating in the Board obliged themselves to recognize the agrarian rights and the regularization of the 28 villages, including that of Viejo Velasco Suárez; in April 2006 this official commitment was not recognized any longer when the government initiated processes of forced eviction and relocation in the region with the support of the villagers from Nueva Palestina, Frontera Corozal and Lacanjá Chansayab, against these 4 villages in particular (Viejo Velasco, Flor de Cacao, Ojo de Agua Tsotsil y San Jacinto Lacanjá).

During 2006, several NGO’s, for instance the Human Rights Centre Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, the Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Liberty Xin’ich and Global Exchange, published various communiqués and alerts, informing the Federal and State Governments about the fear of the fulfilment of the threats of violent aggressions by the land-owners from Nuevo Palestina, Frontera Corozal y Lacanjá Chansayab against the village of Viejo Velasco Suárez and the three other villages mentioned (Ojo de Agua Tzotzil, San Jacinto Lacanjá y Flor de Cacao).

Recently a group of land-owners from Nueva Palestina entered in Viejo Velasco Suárez with provocative attitudes, cutting off the drinking water supplies to the community, to which the villagers from Viejo Velasco reacted demanding that this group of 8 persons should leave the community. On Saturday 11 November, members of this group from Nueva Palestina signed an Agreement whereby obliging themselves to leave and not to come back provoking further violent acts. Everything that occurred two days afterwards was contrary to this agreement, when the very same 8 individuals returned accompanied by hundreds of armed persons to commit abuses and violate the rights described in the document they had previously signed.      

About the Civil Observation Commission:

On 13 November, several of the NGO’s that have signed this report, received various reports by phone from a commissioner from Viejo Velaso Suárez, who is a survivor of the repression, in which he was referring to the armed attacks suffered in the same community; these reports indicated in a preliminary manner, the death of 14 persons, including 2 children, which was the motive of the formation of this commission of observers integrating several Human Rights Organizations in visiting the site of the events. 

Once in the assaulted community we were able to obtain direct information and state that the number of deaths that had been given initially was not correct, due to the unexpectedness and level of aggression with which the attack was committed, and why as a result of this, the members of the community were dispersed, fleeing to the mountains in different directions. When the survivors were later able to gather together in another place in the jungle and noticed that they were not all present, they presumed the rest to be dead.

SSan Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas 15 de November 2006.

News letter 32

Evaluation by the Human Rights Centre Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas on the Report of the Civil Observation in the village Viejo Velasco Suárez.

Today we publish the “Report by the Civil Observation in the village Viejo Velasco, a community belonging to the bases of support of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Autonomous Municipality Vicente Guerrero”, that was carried out by various civil organizations, including this Centre, who entered into the area on 14 and 15 November this year.

The events that occurred in the village Viejo Velasco on 13 November, according to the report, carry the characteristics of a premeditated attack similar to the ones that were orchestrated in the Northern and Highland regions in the state of Chiapas between 1995 and 2000. Groups of armed civilians, wearing police and military like uniforms and armed with high calibre firearms, attacked the communities causing death, disappearances and forced evictions, in the authorizing presence of the Mexican Army, as part of the strategy of counter-insurgency against the EZLN.       

In this event the testimonies from the survivors point to a similar scenario:

• A numerous group of heavily armed people wearing uniforms, identified as Tseltal and Lacandona land-owners from the communities (Bienes Comunales) in the Lacandona jungle, entered to assault the Tseltal land-owners in the village Viejo Velasco, where the sympathizers had previously abandoned the village (the Tseltal land-owners from Viejo Velasco abandoned the village on Saturday 11). 
• The State Police (La Policía Sectorial) (which depends on the Secretary of the Public Security forces of the State of Chiapas – Secretaría de Seguridad Publica) and the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR – Procuraduría General de la República), arrived at the place of the events only a few minutes after the attack in a helicopter, without detaining anybody and only removing the bodies.  
• The Mexican Army, with a presence in the zone in military camps in the villages Cintalapa, Crucero San Javier, Frontera Corozal (as well as Frontera Echeverría) and Crucero Chancalá, surrounding the community of Viejo Velasco, strategists of the plan of the counter-insurgency campaign, and ignored at the moment of the events.  

Another event that is just as significant occurred in the community of Busiljá in the municipality of Ocosingo, some 15 km from Viejo Velasco, on Thursday 9 November. According to the testimonies obtained by this Centre from the land-owners in this village, at 7.00 pm, 6 armed men dressed in uniforms of the State Police, threatened several families from Busiljá with gunfire, displacing 18 persons, six men and 12 women, and leaving the rest in a situation of continuous threat. These events occurred in the presence of three patrols belonging to the State Police. 

The victims report that the aggressors are from the same community, and confirm that they are members of the OPDDIC, Organization for the Defence of the Indigenous and Agrarian Rights (Organización Para la Defensa de los Derechos Indígenas y Campesinos), affiliated to the PRI party, that the uniforms are provided to them by the State Police and that “they always agree with each other”. OPDDIC is coordinated by Pedro Chulín Jiménez, alleged leader of the paramilitary group MIRA, the Indigenous Revolutionary Anti-Zapatista Movement (Movimiento Indígena Revolucionario Antizapatista) which operated in the gullies of Ocosingo during the six-year term of president Zedillo.

Facing these events, the appointment of the retired Division General of DEM, Luis Mucel Luna as Director of the State Police in the State of Chiapas attracts our attention. He holds a Master’s degree in Administration of Defence and National Security at the National Defence College, and a Post-grad at the Inter-American College of Defence at J. Lesley McNair Fort, Washington.    

The events in Viejo Velasco and Busiljá are not confrontations between communities, but rather attacks with characteristics that configure governmental authority premeditation and complicity through actions or omissions with groups of interest in the region, artificially aggravating local differences. Events like these have not been registered in Chiapas since the year of 2000, at the end of the six-year term of president Zedillo.  

It is still not possible to ascertain whether Viejo Velasco and Busiljá can be registered at the end of a six-year period or at the beginning of a new one. What is certain is that it proves that the direct violence by the State, in a counter-insurgency logic, can be reactivated at any time, with the political conditions required.

We direct an appeal to the civil society to stay attentive to these events and to the Federal and State Governments, in order to:

• Conduct relevant impartial investigations to identify and clarify the liabilities of the direct and indirect aggressors both in Viejo Velasco and Busiljá.
• To disarm the land-owners from the communities (Bienes Comunales) in the Lacandona Jungle and the OPDDIC.

PÚBLIC

AI Index: AMR 41/053/2006

16 November 2006

AU 307/06: Fear for safety/Fear of ill-treatment/Arbitrary Detention                

MEXICO: Diego Arcos Meneses, (m) Members of the indigenous community of Viejo Velasco Suarez, Chiapas state

In the early morning of 13 November the indigenous community of Viejo Velasco Suarez, Chiapas State, was attacked by over 200 armed individuals, many of whom were wearing security force clothing.  Two men died and a woman was raped and killed during the attack.  Two people from Viejo Velasco are also being held hostage in the nearby community of Nueva Palestina and are at risk of being beaten or killed in retaliation for two attackers who died during the confrontation and one who was injured.  Two other men remain missing, and 39 people are displaced. 

About 40 individuals in civilian clothes and armed with machetes and bats first arrived in Viejo Velasco Suarez from Nueva Palestina on 13 November.  About 200 individuals followed soon after, armed with high calibre firearms usually commissioned by the military. Some reportedly wore military clothes, some wore uniforms of the State Police (Policía Sectorial) and others wore balaclavas. 

On 14 November Diego Arcos Meneses, a resident of a nearby community, was walking near the site of the attack when he was threatened and detained by agents of the Attorney of the Selva Region (Fiscalía Regional, Zona Selva]. Diego Arcos Meneses was reportedly forced to load the body of a dead woman onto the agents’ helicopter before being taken by them to the office of the Prosecutor in Palenque to be questioned as a witness to the attack in Viejo Velasco Suarez.

Diego Arcos Meneses, who does not speak Spanish very well and who cannot read Spanish, gave testimony verbally in Spanish and was not provided with interpretation.  He refused to sign the written version of his testimony because he could not confirm its accuracy. As a result, he was reportedly beaten severely and was put into preventive custody.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Conflicts around land issues in the Selva Lacandona, Chiapas State, have brought violence to indigenous communities for decades. Following an agreement in 2005, the Federal and State government committed to regularize the land rights of 28 communities, including that of Viejo Velasco Suarez. However, since April 2006, the local government has started a process of forced evictions and relocations, allegedly with the support of pro-government militia groups and individuals from communities, such as Nueva Palestina. Local human rights organisations, such as Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, have been documenting the threats and harassment in Chiapas and alerting the Federal and State authorities when incidents such as the attack in Viejo Velasco might happen.

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in Spanish or your own language:

• urging the authorities to charge Diego Arcos Meneses with a recognisably criminal offence or to release him immediately and to investigate his reported beating and arbitrary arrest on 14 November;
• calling on the authorities to ensure the safety of the displaced inhabitants of Viejo Velasco Suarez, following the attack of 13 November by a group of armed individuals, some of whom wore security forces clothing;
• calling on the authorities to take emergency measures to establish the whereabouts of those who seem to be missing, and to ensure the safe release of those reportedly held hostage in Nueva Palestina;
• calling on the authorities to identify without delay those who were killed and to ensure a full, prompt and impartial forensic examination and secure protection of all evidence;
• calling for a full, prompt and impartial investigation into the violent confrontation of 13 November, in particular reports of official involvement, with the results to be made public and those responsible brought to justice.

APPEALS TO:

Attorney General of Chiapas
Lic. Mariano Herrán Salvatti
Fiscal General de Justicia del Estado de Chiapas
Libramiento Norte s/n, tercer nivel, Colonia Infonavit “El Rosario”, CP 30064
Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, Mexico
Fax: + 52 961 61 657 24
Email: mherran@fge.chiapas.gob.mx
Salutation: Estimado Sr. Fiscal/Dear Attorney General

Governor of Chiapas
Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía
Gobernador del Estado de Chiapas
Palacio de Gobierno del Estado de Chiapas
Av. Central y Primera Oriente
Colonia Centro, C.P. 29009
Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, México
Fax:    + 52 961 612 5618/612 9189
Salutation:      Dear Governor/Señor Gobernador

Federal Attorney General
Lic. Daniel Cabeza de Vaca
Procurador General de la República, Procuraduría General de la República
Reforma Cuauhtémoc esq. Violeta 75, Col. Guerrero, Delegación Cuauhtémoc
México D.F., C.P. 06 500, MEXICO            
Fax:    + 525 55 346 0908 (if a voice reply say: “me da tono de fax por favor”)
Salutation:      Dear Attorney General

Minister of Public Security, Chiapas State
Lic. Horacio Schroeder Bejarano
Secretaría de Seguridad Pública
Libramiento Sur Oriente Km. 9
C.P. 29070 Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas
(01 961) 61 7-70-20
Email: hschoeder@chiapas.gob.mx
Fax:    + 525 55 961 61 7-70-20 ext. 16045
Salutation:      Dear Minister / Señor Secretario

COPIES TO:

Human rights organization
Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de las Casas A.C
Brasil No. 14 Barrio Mexicanos, CP. 29240, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico

and to diplomatic representatives of Mexico accredited to your country.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Check with the International Secretariat, or your section office, if sending appeals after 28 December 2006.