Pubdate: Tue, 29 Aug 2000
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2000 San Francisco Chronicle
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Forum: http://www.sfgate.com/conferences/
Page: A1
Author: Wendy Patterson

MEXICO FINDS ACTIVIST GUILTY IN DRUG CASE

Peasant Won Goldman Environmental Prize

Mexico City -- A peasant activist who won the prestigious Goldman 
environmental prize for fighting rampant deforestation in western Mexico 
was convicted yesterday on drug and weapons charges and given a hefty jail 
sentence.

Rodolfo Montiel, who has been held without bail for 15 months, was found 
guilty of arms possession and growing marijuana in the state of Guerrero 
and received a sentence of six years and eight months.

A colleague, Teodoro Cabrera, was also found guilty of arms possession and 
given a 10-year term. There was no immediate explanation for the sentencing 
discrepancy.

Numerous human rights groups have said that the two men were tortured while 
in custody and that the charges against them were trumped up with the aim 
of ending their attempts to protect some of Mexico's last old-growth forests.

"They are both innocent farmers who have a commitment to protecting their 
area," said Richard N. Goldman, president of the San Francisco-based 
Goldman Environmental Foundation. "The evidence we have shows that the 
charges were all fabricated and confessions done under stress."

The arrest of Montiel, who won the $125,000 Goldman Prize in April, has 
drawn extensive international interest. London-based Amnesty International 
has declared both Montiel and Cabrera to be prisoners of conscience, and 
the Sierra Club has started a campaign for their release.

Yesterday's ruling by Fifth District Court Judge Maclovio Murillo of the 
small town of Iguala did not come as a surprise, but human rights groups 
that worked hard for the jailed farmers' release were visibly disappointed.

"It's an unjust decision," said Edgar Cortes, director of the Mexico 
City-based Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center, which represented 
the two peasant leaders. "The only evidence against them is a confession 
coerced under torture."

Cortes, who said the center had not studied the judge's 150-page brief, 
said his group would appeal both the verdict and sentences.

He also questioned whether a report by the government's own human rights 
commission had been taken into account. That panel, which rarely criticizes 
any government body, issued a report in July stating that the two men had 
been tortured and that evidence incriminating them had been planted.

Homero Aridjis, director of the most influential Mexican environmental 
group, the Group of 100, had harsh words for U.S. environmental groups' 
handling of the activists' plight. He said that they acted arrogantly by 
not working closely with local Mexican groups in a complex case where 
political and environmental concerns overlapped.

"This is a defeat for the Mexican and the American environmental 
movements," he said. "We need a coalition to work to liberate these two 
men, not paternalism directed from California."

"Western environmental groups say that peasants should defend their land. 
But when they do, there is immediate repression (by the state). So (those 
same) environmental groups must be involved in human rights work, too."

Trouble began for the two campesinos shortly after the U.S. forest products 
company Boise Cascade signed a contract in 1995 to buy wood from commercial 
loggers in Guerrero's Sierra de Petatlan. The development was spurred by 
the North American Free Trade Agreement, which allowed the sale of timber 
rights by local ejidos, or communal farms.

As the logging gathered momentum, Montiel, 44, gradually observed a decline 
of water and crop quality and erosion in his community. By 1997, he had 
begun organizing farmers along the mountains' rugged slopes to fight the 
logging.

When legal authorities ignored the complaints of Montiel's grassroots 
group, known as the Ecologist Farmers of the Sierra de Petatlan, the 
peasants organized protests to shut down the logging mills and erected a 
tollbooth along the main route to collect compensation from passing logging 
trucks.

By mid-1998, Boise Cascade halted its purchases in Guerrero, citing 
"difficult business conditions."

The protest campaign brought Montiel, who has a first-grade education, into 
conflict with local political bosses who supported the longing. They razed 
the tollbooth, and the state government sent troops to occupy villages 
where the protesters were strong. Many were arrested, and several were shot 
and killed.

On May 2, 1999, Montiel and Cabrera were arrested amid accusations by the 
state attorney general's office that they were members of an "ecological 
guerrilla organization."

In following months, the pair told human rights groups that they confessed 
after being beaten and tortured by electric shock, and denied medical 
attention.

Prosecutors, however, said Montiel, Cabrera and three other men fled from a 
house after an army patrol entered the village of Pizotla. The five 
allegedly opened fire on the soldiers. Local authorities have said they 
were protecting marijuana plants.

Aridjis said "there are hundreds of cases like this one in Mexico,'' where 
those fighting for environmental protection face state repression. "This 
one became complicated because they were charged with drug trafficking, 
which is a very serious charge," he added.

Environmentalists, however, are hopeful that President-elect Vicente Fox 
will release Montiel and Cabrera after he assumes the presidency on Dec. 1.

Amnesty International already has petitioned Fox to intervene, and 
according to Goldman, Fox showed "great interest'' after meeting with 
several environmental groups in Washington last week.

"He told an aide, 'We have to pursue this,' " said Goldman. "I hope he does 
what is proper."

Mike Brune, director of the San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network's 
old-growth campaign, called yesterday's ruling ``tragic'' and faulted Boise 
Cascade for tacitly encouraging destructive logging through its purchase of 
timber in areas not subject to U.S. environmental protection laws.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens