COMMUNITIES SERVED BY SMA:
COLORADAS DE LA VIRGEN :
Report from Centro de Derechos Humanos Augustín Pro

Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Augustín Pro Juárez, A.C.
Serapio Rendón #57-b Col. San Rafael
C.P. 06470 México D.F.
Teléfonos y Fax: (55) 55468217
(55)55667854 – (55)55356892
E-mail: prodh@sjsocial.org
Web: www.sjsocial.org/PRODH/

Nongovernmental organization with status as Consultant in the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations

México, D.F.
27 May 2003

Vicente Fox Quesada
President of the Republic

C.P. Patricio Martínez García
Governor of the State

Lic. Jesús José Solís Silva
State Attorney General

Lic. Oscar Francisco Yáñez Franco
President of the State Commission of Human Rights for Chihuahua

This Center for Human Rights is aware that on Sunday, March 29 of this year, in the Ejido Coloradas de la Virgen, Municipio of Guadalupe y Calvo, Chihuahua, agents of the Judicial Police identified as Socorro Rivas Ozaeta, Féliz Jesús Alarcón Jaquez, and Jesús Manuel Paniagua, arrested Isidro Baldenegro López and Hermenegildo Carrillo Rivas, indigenous Rarámuri who have been outstanding in their struggle against the illegal and irrational logging of their territory. Isidro Baldenegro has a long history of struggle for the defense of the forest. His father, Julio Baldenegro, an example of struggle for Isidro, was assassinated in 1985 by caciques who opposed the defense of the forests and the rights of the indigenous peoples, and who now are working against the community struggle. To date there have been thirty-eight persons murdered, among them José Cortes Valdez, police commissioner, Lucio Torres Carrillo, Martín Martínez Molina, Juan Molina Gastelum, governor of the community in 1989, Luis Torres Molina, Cirilo Portillo Torres, secretary of the ejidal comisariado, and Adolfo Martínez, among others.

According to the testimony of Isidro, about ten agents of the state judicial police came to his home on the morning of March 29. One of them, apparently the commander, interrogated him concerning his weapon and the persons who had stopped the trucks carrying timber, stating that the truck drivers had accused him of interfering with their work and wasting their time. The police told him that he had an appointment in Baborigame with the Public Ministry in two days (April 1), and so suggested that he go with them at that time so that he would not have to go on foot later on. Isidro accepted, but once he was inside the truck, they handcuffed him and also took his neighbor, Hemenegildo Carrillo. During the journey to Baborigame, Isidro and Hermenegildo were mistreated.

The next day, March 30, at dawn, they were taken to the jail in Parral, where he [Isidro] was accused of being the leader of his community because he allowed the people to go around armed, something which Isidro denied. In the afternoon, jail personnel called the press and then obliged Isidro and Hermenegildo to pose with weapons in their hands, as well as a plastic bag which contained marijuana seeds. Later on they were taken to the preventative jail where they remained in solitary confinement until April 1, without receiving food or water. And that is where they have remained to date, without the date for their transfer having been set.

On the one hand, the declaration of the ministry agents and the version that the Public Ministry has constructed, and which are set forth in file no. 61/2003, are radically different from what Isidro testified to concerning the circumstances of his arrest; in addition, the Public Ministry gave complete evidentiary value to the statements of the agents who made the arrest when these declared that Isidro and Hermenegildo had been surprised en flagrancia, that is to say, when they were carrying arms for the exclusive use of the army, and Isidro a bag with 230 grams of marijuana seeds. This way, the Public Ministry determined Isidro’s responsibility in the commission of that crime against health in the form of possession seeds of marijuana and carrying a firearm for exclusive use of the army, fleet, and national air force, this last charge also being made against Hermenegildo.

So the matter was turned over to Alfredo Hernández González, First Criminal Judge of the Judicial District of Hidalgo, with its offices in Parral in the State of Chihuahua. Being the state judge and acting as assistant to the federal justice, on April 7 he issued a formal indictment of Isidro and Hermenegildo.
Taking into account the irregularities of the process, obviously the arrests of Isidro and Hermenegildo should have been carried out by federal and not state agents, if they are assumed to have committed federal and not state crimes. Likewise, they should have been transferred to the Federal Center for Social Readaptation (CEFERESO) in Chihuahua on April 8, when the case was turned over to the competent court, and not left in the Parral jail, which is a state facility.

One more element which shows the vulnerability in which the indigenous who defend their forests are found is documented in the complaint presented to the State Commission for Human Rights in Chihuahua by Mrs. Josefa Chaparro Bojórquez, who was visited in her home during the first days of April by the Public Ministry and the Sectional President of Baborigame, Ramón Ochoa, who told her to gather the people who had stopped the logging trucks and bring them to testify at the Public Ministry. They also asked her to appear and testify about “certain things.” Several days later, she received a document, where the names of all the activists in defense of the forests appeared. For these reasons, she is afraid they will issue or execute arrest warrants against her.

Concerned about violations of the integrity and personal safety—whether actual or potential—of Isidro Baldenegro, Hermenegildo Carrillo, Josefa Chaparro Bojórquez, José Moreno Chavarría, Otón Portillo, Hilario Quiñónez Rubio, and Ramiro Castellano, due to the struggle which they have carried out to defend the forests, and the impossibility of exercising their right to defend their collective rights, to enjoy a healthy and balanced environment, and a life free of violence, this Center for Human Rights demands the following:

Of the State Attorney General, that he:

1. Investigate the circumstances around the arrests of Isidro and Hermenegildo, proceeding against elements of the Judicial Police of the State of Chihuahua and whoever is responsible.
2. Guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of the arrested persons, their families and those who carry forward the struggle against illegal logging, in particular Josefa Chaparro Bojorquez, José Moreno Chavarría, Otón Portillo, Hilario Quiñónez Rubio, and Ramiro Castellano, all of whom fear being arrested.
3. Respect judicial guarantees, principally that they apply the principle of innocence, and that he guarantee an impartial, speedy, and free trial.
4. Regularize his judicial situation and transfer the arrested persons to the proper place, so their trials may continue.

Of the Chihuahua State Commission of Human Rights, that they:

1. Investigate the probable abuses which Isidro and Hermenegildo may have suffered since their arrests to the present time.
2. Intervene in an effective manner to guarantee the physical and psychological safety of these arrested persons, their families, and other activists who are at risk, through the presence of witnesses in the Ejido Coloradas de la Virgin and the Parral jail, or at the CEFERESO of Chihuahua.
3. Intervene before the proper authorities in order to guarantee the judicial security of Isidro and Hermenegildo.

To the Federal Agency for the Protection of the Environment, that they:

1. Investigate in a prompt and effective manner the probable environmental violations committed by means of the irrational cutting of trees in the municipio of Guadalupe y Calvo, where the Rarámuri peoples are found, for the purpose of suspending and guaranteeing their right to a healthy and balanced environment, as called for in the International Treaty for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.

In the same way and in conformity with Article 8 of our Constitution, we ask that within the limits of your powers and its attributes, you inform us concerning the actions which you decide to carry out in accordance with our demands.

With no more at the moment, we remain at your orders.

Claudia Ordóñez Víquez,
Visitor from the Center for Human Rights “Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez” A.C.

For their information:

c.c.p. Federal Attorney
General Gral. Rafael Macedo de la Concha
c.c.p. National Commission for Human Rights
Lic. José Luis Soberanes Fernández
c.c.p. In charge of the Office for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples for the Presidency, Xóchitl Gálvez
c.c.p. Working Group on Arbitrary Arrests of the United Nations
c.c.p. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights and Fundamental Liberties of the Indigenous
Rodolfo Stavenhagen