AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 1995
(this report covers the period 1.1.94-31.12.94)

MEXICO

Scores of prisoners of conscience, mostly indigenous peasants, were detained. The widespread use of torture and ill-treatment by law enforcement agents continued to be reported. At least 20 people ''disappeared'' and the whereabouts of hundreds who ''disappeared'' in previous years remained unknown. Dozens of people were extrajudicially executed. Those responsible for human rights violations continued to benefit from impunity.
Zedillo Ponce de León, the candidate of the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (pri), Institutional Revolutionary Party, elected in August, took office as President in December.
On 1 January several towns in the southern state of Chiapas were seized by members of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (ezln), Zapatista National Liberation Army, a previously unknown armed opposition group formed mostly by indigenous peasants. They demanded a series of rights, including land, healthcare, education and an end to abuses against indigenous people. Several violent clashes between the Mexican army and the ezln were reported during the following days, during which the rebels retreated to the mountainous southern region of the state. At least 145 people died during the confrontations, and serious human rights violations by the army were reported during the conflict. The ezln took hostages who were later released unharmed. Following a growing outcry against the human rights violations reported in Chiapas, President Salinas named a peace envoy and declared a cease-fire on 12 January. The cease-fire lasted until the end of the year, despite the growing military presence in the region, which eventually amounted to more than 40,000 troops. Peace talks between the government and ezln, mediated by the Roman Catholic Church, began in February, but were suspended in June. Tensions in the region increased following allegations of irregularities in the conduct of the August elections, in which the pri won the state governorship. On 6 December the ezln declared an end to the cease-fire although no further armed clashes had been reported by the end of the year.
Hundreds of people, including scores of prisoners of conscience, were arrested for short periods during the uprising in Chiapas. Most of those arrested were Indians and scores were tortured and ill-treated before being released without charge. About 70 were imprisoned for several weeks in Cerro Hueco, a prison in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the state capital. Most faced false charges of participating in the uprising, based on confessions extracted under torture. Following public outcry, 38 of the prisoners were released in February and the rest in the following months.
Scores of prisoners of conscience were arrested in other regions of the country for their political or civil rights activities, and dozens of human rights monitors and journalists received death threats. These included Bishop Samuel Ruiz and members of a church-based human rights centre in Chiapas, the Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de las Casas; Sergio Aguayo, president of the Academia Mexicana de Derechos Humanos, Mexican Academy of Human Rights; Juan Carlos Martínez Martínez; and Víctor Clark Alfaro.
In January several reporters and the deputy director general of La Jornada, a national newspaper, received anonymous death threats because of their coverage of the Chiapas uprising. The staff and directors of El Tiempo, a local newspaper in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, were repeatedly threatened with death for the same reason. In April Edwin Bustillos, an Indian rights and environmental activist in the Sierra Madre region of Chihuahua, had a road accident after his car was tampered with by unidentified individuals; he was not injured. He had survived a near fatal beating by Guachochi municipal police in December 1993 and had received numerous death threats. Those responsible were not brought to justice and the anonymous death threats continued. Also in April Enrique Pérez López, chairperson of the Asociación de Derechos Humanos Sur Este de Comitán, a human rights organization, was attacked and abducted by armed civilians acting with local authorities in Chicomuselo, Chiapas, during a non-violent land dispute. He was severely beaten, threatened with death and transferred to a jail in Comitán, Chiapas, where he was held without charge until mid-May.
Manuel Manríquez San Agustín, an Otomí Indian and human rights activist convicted on the basis of confessions extracted under torture, had his appeal rejected by the high court in August. In October he presented another appeal. He remained in prison at the end of the year; he was a prisoner of conscience. Pablo Molinet, a poet imprisoned in Salamanca, Guanajuato, falsely accused of murder, was released in August after two years' imprisonment (see Amnesty International Report 1994).
Hundreds of people were tortured and ill-treated by the army and other security forces in Chiapas. In other parts of the country the frequent use of torture by law enforcement agents, particularly the state judicial police, continued to be reported. Torture methods included beatings; near-asphyxiation with plastic bags; forcing peppered water into the nose; electric shocks and burning. Some detainees died as a result. Confessions extracted under duress continued to be admitted as evidence in courts, and medical treatment for detainees who suffered torture was frequently not available. By the end of the year none of those responsible for any of the hundreds of cases of torture reported in Chiapas and throughout the country had been brought to justice.
Among the scores of Indian prisoners arrested after the Chiapas uprising and accused of links with the ezln were Pedro and Benancio Hernández Jiménez who were arrested without charge by soldiers in Ocosingo on 9 January. They were held in secret detention for several days in a military installation where they were reportedly subjected to beatings, semi-asphyxiation with plastic bags and electric shocks in an effort to force them to confess to participating in the uprising. They were forced to sign a confession before a public prosecutor, before being transferred to Cerro Hueco, where they did not receive medical treatment for their injuries. They were not informed of the charges against them.
On 7 January three peasant leaders from Morelia – Sebastián Santis López, Severiano Santis Gómez and Hermelindo Santis Gómez – were reportedly severely tortured for several hours in their church when scores of soldiers raided their village. They then ''disappeared''; their bodies were found near by in a shallow grave on 10 February. Forensic investigations concluded that the victims had been summarily executed. The army denied responsibility. Other men were forced at gunpoint to lie face down for several hours in front of the church, and dozens were detained and tortured by being beaten, semi-suffocated and burned. They were forced to confess to participating in the uprising, and transferred to Cerro Hueco.
Reports of torture in Chiapas continued throughout the year. On 4 June three young Tzeltal Indians – María Teresa Méndez Santis, Cristina Méndez Santis and María Méndez Santis – were raped and beaten by several soldiers at an army road-block in Santa Rosita Siabaquil. They were accused of belonging to the ezln, but were released that day without charge.
There were reports of torture from other regions. In Mexico City on 2 September, student activist David Lozano Tovar was seized by unidentified men believed to be members of the security forces. He was beaten and given electric shocks in a secret detention centre before being released the next day. Félix Armando Fernández Estrada and Demetrio Ernesto Hernández Rojas, a trade union activist, were abducted by unidentified armed men in Mexico City on 20 October and transferred blindfolded to a clandestine detention centre, where they were interrogated under torture about their political activities. This included suspension from the thumbs, slaps to the ears, semi-asphyxiation in water and with plastic bags and electric shocks to various parts of the body including gums and teeth. They were handed over to the police in Mexico City and charged with offences, including terrorism, based on their forced confessions, and remained in prison at the end of the year. They received no medical treatment for their injuries.
At least 20 people ''disappeared'', many in the context of the armed conflict in Chiapas. For example, at least 14 Tzeltal Indian peasants from the communities of San Miguel, La Garrucha, Patihuitz, La Galena and Prado Ocosingo ''disappeared'' after being detained by the army during the first week of the uprising. Their whereabouts remained unknown at the end of the year. No one was brought to justice for these ''disappearances''. Similarly, little progress was reported in the investigations into hundreds of past ''disappearances'' of political activists – most of which occurred during the 1970s and early 1980s.
Scores of people were extrajudicially executed by members of the security forces after the uprising in Chiapas, and dozens of other cases of extrajudicial executions were reported during the year throughout the country. At least 11 people, including patients, were reportedly killed on 3 January when members of the army entered a hospital in Ocosingo, in search of ezln rebels. Their bodies, which were buried in a common grave, were exhumed later in January. The governmental National Human Rights Commission stated they belonged to members of the ezln who had died in combat. Further investigations contradicted these claims, and at least three of the bodies were identified as belonging to non-combatant civilians, one of them a hospital patient. The bodies of at least five unidentified young men, their hands tied behind their backs, were discovered in Ocosingo marketplace on 4 January. The victims wore bandannas used by members of the ezln, and all had been shot through the head at point-blank range. The army initially claimed that they had died in combat, but subsequent independent forensic investigations suggested they had been murdered in detention. The bodies of at least 14 men, many shot through the head, were discovered beside a civilian bus near the Rancho Nuevo army base in Chiapas. The army's claim that they had all died in combat was not consistent with the victims' injuries. Those responsible for the killings reported during the conflict in Chiapas were not brought to justice.
On 9 March Mariano Pérez Díaz and his son Jorge Pérez Núñez, both peasant activists in Simojovel, Chiapas, were shot by unidentified gunmen. The father died instantly, while the son survived his injuries. They had both received death threats from local paramilitary groups for their participation on behalf of Indian peasants in negotiations between the government and the ezln. On 6 September Roberto Hernández Paniagua, a schoolteacher and municipal leader of the Partido Revolucionario Democrático, Revolutionary Democratic Party, in Jaltenango, Chiapas, was murdered by unidentified gunmen when cycling to work. He had been repeatedly threatened with death. Those responsible for his death remained at large at the end of the year.
On 8 September Rolando Hernández Hernández and Atanacio Hernández Hernández, prominent members of the Nahua and Otomí Indian community of Plan del Encinal, Veracruz, were abducted by members of the state police and hired gunmen, who raided their community. Their mutilated bodies were discovered near by on 17 September. In November and December local officials prevented the participation of independent forensic observers in the exhumation and autopsy of both men.
On 1 November four Zoque Indians from La Blanca community, Oaxaca – Efraín Cortés Coronel, Cristóbal Sánchez García, Finar Jiménez Sánchez and Hilder Jiménez Sánchez – were arrested by the municipal police and never seen alive again. Their bodies, shot at point-blank range, were discovered near their communities in mid-November. Investigations into their killings continued at the end of the year, and those responsible remained at large.
Those responsible for the 1993 killings of Luis Manuel Salinas Germán, Israel García Hernández and 13-year-old Omar Ricardo Mendoza Palacios, had not been brought to justice by the end of the year (see Amnesty International Report 1994).
Amnesty International repeatedly urged the authorities to end the impunity enjoyed by perpetrators of gross human rights violations. In January an Amnesty International delegation interviewed and medically examined 70 prisoners in Cerro Hueco, who were mostly Tzeltal, Tzotzil and Ch'ol Indians. An Amnesty International delegation also visited the country in December to investigate reports of human rights violations. In October the organization sent a memorandum to the President-elect, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, which included more than 70 recommendations for strengthening human rights protection in Mexico.

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