We have received the following report from the Miguel Agustin Pro Human Rights Centre (PRODH). It concerns a wave of threats, harassment, and intimidation directed against a second campesino environmental organization in the state of Guerrero, the Vallecitos de Zaragoza Environmental Group in the municipality of Zihuatanejo and in particular against the Group's leader, ABIMANDO TORRES OREGON.

Dear Friends:

We have received the following report from the Miguel Agustin Pro Human Rights Centre (PRODH). It concerns a wave of threats, harassment, and intimidation directed against a second campesino environmental organization in the state of Guerrero, the Vallecitos de Zaragoza Environmental Group in the municipality of Zihuatanejo and in particular against the Group's leader, ABIMANDO TORRES OREGON.

The Vallecitos de Zaragoza Environmental Group was formed in response to a very serious local environmental problem. Because of the drastic over-cutting of lumber in this mountainous region, the Real de Guadalupe River, which has its source in the forests of the municipality of Zihuatanejo, has practically dried up over the past two years. In 1998, Abimando Torres Oregon, a member of the Vallecitos de Zaragoza Ejido which is located in the highest part of the Jose Azueta Sierra, together with a group of other campesinos, succeeded in persuading the ejidoþs community assembly to place a fifteen year moratorium on logging the areaþs forests. It is important to note that the community assembly decision was endorsed by the federal environmental protection agency, PROFEPA.

In response to a request from the Vallecitos de Zaragoza community assembly, ROFEPA promised to exercise strict supervision over the forest activities of the two other ejidos, theReal de Guadalupe Ejido and the La Laza Ejido, both of which are also located in the in the forests where the Real Guadalupe River has its source. It was felt that the moratorium in Vallecitos de Zaragoza would do nothing to protect the environment if the neighbouring ejidos continued the illegal over-cutting of lumber. This decision had a negative effect on the economic interests of some local loggers, who simply ignored the agreement. Taking advantage of the negligence of the environmental authorities responsible for forest protection, a group of twenty clandestine loggers continued to exploit the areaþs forest resources. However, the Vallecitos de Zaragoza Environmental Group's efforts to protect the forest did not end there.

The Group continued to insist that PROFEPA enforce the moratorium agreement by seeing that all over-cutting was ended in the region. They even gave PROFEPA information regarding the identity of the clandestine loggers.

On October 20th 2000, as a result of a direct agreement with PROFEPAþs Assistant Attorney for Natural Resources (subprocurador de Recursos Naturales) and with the General Director of the Forest Wardens (Director General de Vigilancia Forestal), it was decided that there would be a series of operations to bring all logging to an end. This decision was arrived at very discreetly and without any publicity, so that the illegal loggers would not be forewarned of the impending operations.

Nevertheless, the agreement was betrayed. The information reached the loggers, thus enabling them to suspend their logging in order to avoid being caught in illegal activities. On October 29th 2000, the illegal loggers had a verbal confrontation with Sr. Torres Oregon, stating that, if he did not end his environmental activism, they would kill him. Something else that may be troubling the illegal loggers and giving rise to their threats is the fact that the Vallecitos de Zaragoza Environmental Group have recently contacted the Organization of Campesino Ecologists of the Sierra de Petatlan and Coyuca de Catalan for the purpose of sharing strategies and carrying out joint campaigns against the excessive logging in these mountain ranges of Guerreroþs Costa Grande.

The Miguel Agustin Pro Human Rights Centre has expressed the hope that Abimando Torres Oregon and the members of the Vallecitos de Zaragoza Environmental Group are not subjected to the same kind of persecution as has been suffered by the campesino ecologists Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera.

(Please see Urgent Action #944 November 10th 2000.)

FURTHER INFORMATION:

On November 11th 2000, members of the Vallecitos de Zaragoza were again threatened while they were trying to take a journalist from the United States to the area where illegal logging had been taking place. Environmentalists from Vallecitos and from Zihuatanejo who were accompanying the United States journalist were stopped on the Filo Mayor road, close to a working saw-mill on the edge of the federal highway by Juvenal Farfan, one of the group of illegal loggers. Juvenal Farfan told the driver of the vehicle in which the environmentalist group were travelling that if he continued on his route he should be prepared to suffer the consequences. This threat was sufficiently menacing that no driver in the area was ready to risk disregarding it, and the trip to see the damage caused by clandestine logging had to be given up.

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Please write to the Mexican government asking for immediate guarantees for the physical and psychological integrity of Abimando Torres Oregon and the members of the Vallecitos de Zaragoza Environmental Group. Please ask for an end to the acts of harassment against Sr. Torres Oregon and other members of the Group. Please request that effective steps be taken to see that the agreement regarding a moratorium on logging in the forests of the Sierra de Jose Azueta of the Costa Grande of Guerrero is respected and that there is an immediate halt to the illegal and excessive logging in the region.

Please ask for a prompt investigation of clandestine logging activities, so that the appropriate legal penalties can be applied in the cases of those persons who are found to be responsible for the environmental crimes in question and also for making death threats against Sr. Torres Oregon and the Vallecitos de Zaragoza Environmental Group.

Please write to the Canadian government informing them that a second environmental organization in the state of Guerrero is being subjected to harassment and persecution, and asking them to make known to the Mexican government the importance that Canada attaches to the work of non governmental environmental organizations as expressions of the concerns and aspirations of civil society. Since there is also alarm in a number of areas of Canada regarding what many environmentalists consider to be excessive logging, you may wish to ask the Canadian government for details of ways in which the Ministry of the Environment in Canada and SEMARNAP in Mexico are now cooperating or may be able to cooperate in the future in order to safeguard the health and longevity of the forests that it is their responsibility to protect.

ADDRESSES:

Lic. Jorge Madrazo Cuellar (federal Attorney General)
Procurador General de la Republica Paseo de la Reforma 65, esq. Violeta Col. Guerrero, Mexico D.F. 06300, MEXICO
FAX: 011 52 5 349 0906 / ofp...@pgr.gob.mex

Mtro. Antonio Azuela de la Cueva (head of PROFEPA)
Procurador de la Federal de Proteccion al Ambiente Periferico Sur 5000 Col. Insurgentes Cuicuilco Delegacion Coyoacan, Mexico D.F. 04530, MEXICO
FAX: 011 52 5 528 7409 / azu...@buzon.semarnap.gob.mx

Please send copies of your letters to:

Lic. Carlos Vega Memige,
procurador General de Justicia del Estado de Guerrero, Carretera Nacional Mexico-Acapulco Kilometro 270.5, tramo Chilpancingo-Petaquillas, Chilpancingo, Guerrero, MEXICO
FAX: 011 52 757 223 28 (Guerrero state Attorney General)

Dr. Octavio A. Klimeck Alcaraz,
procurador de Proteccion Ecologica del Estado de Guerrero, Av. Miguel Aleman 608, Colonia Centro, Chilpancingo, Guerrero 39000, MEXICO
FAX: 011 52 747 140 15 or 011 52 747 247 79 (head of the Guerrero state environmental protection agency)

Ambassador Ezequiel Padilla Couttelenc Embassy of Mexico, 45 O'Connor St., suite 1500, Ottawa, Ont. K1P 1A4
FAX: 613 235 9123 / inf...@embamexcan.com and if possible to pro...@sjsocial.org
(the Miguel Agustin Pro Human Rights Centre)

For Canada:

Adele Dion Director, Human Rights Division Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade 125 Sussex Drive, Room B4 152, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G2
adel...@dfait-maeci.gc.ca

Harold Hickman Mexico Division Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade 125 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G2
FAX: 613 996 6142 / haro...@dfait-maeci.gc.ca