The Dallas Morning News
August 27, 1999
By Tracy Alston

MEXICO CITY - To his foes, he's a dangerous man, an "eco-guerrilla." But to supporters, Rodolfo Montiel is a humble farmer who tried to save the forest and was jailed for it. "The only bad thing he did was to defend the land, the trees, so we'll have something in the future," said his nephew, Guillermo Miranda Montiel, 28, of Acapulco.

Rodolfo Montiel, 45, has been jailed on weapons and other charges in Guerrero state since May after forming an organization of farmers to oppose logging in the area. And as word spreads about accusations that authorities beat him up and brutally tortured him, his plight is becoming an international cause celebre.

Environmentalists are starting to call him "the Chico Mendez of Mexico," after the activist killed in Brazil after taking on the loggers there. Some 135 of the country's top nonprofit human rights, farmers' and environmental groups have launched a letter-writing campaign on his behalf and are demanding his immediate release from jail.

U.S. groups speak up

And now Americans are getting involved. Amnesty International and the Sierra Club recently announced an unprecedented joint effort to help Mr. Montiel and others such as him around the world. As part of a three-year pilot program, the two powerful organizations with a combined membership of nearly 1 million - plan to aid people whose human rights are allegedly violated because of their environmental activism.

Defenders of human rights and the environment have much in common,leaders of the groups say. "More and more we see that we face a common struggle," said William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA. Mr. Montiel began organizing protests against timber cutters in the Pacific Coast state of Guerrero in the mid-1990s. Then last year, something remarkable happened, U.S. environmentalists say. One of the companies he targeted, a sprawling Idaho company called Boise Cascade Corp.,packed up and left Guerrero.

Victor Menottii, a San Francisco environmentalist, found it so incredible that he rushed to Mexico to investigate. "Here's a group of poor people, mostly campesinos, with no support from any U.S. environmental groups, and somehow they managed to kick out this huge company. I wanted to learn how. "I found out it has a lot to do with the tight social structure in their villages. When something really threatens their community, these people figure out a way to address it. They don't sit around and watch TV at night."

Firm blames supply

Boise Cascade officials said in a statement that they left Guerrero because of "an inconsistent and seasonal wood supply from log suppliers," and not because local activists were upset with them. Other versions about the company's departure from Mexico are "malicious and false," the statement said. In any case, American environmentalists' interest in Mr. Montiel went from curiosity to grave concern after hearing that he and a fellow farmer - Teodoro Cabrera Garcia, 60 - had been arrested and allegedly tortured.

Both were reportedly beaten, and Mr. Montiel is said to have received electric shocks to the genitals, human rights activists say. Authorities in Guerrero did not return calls seeking a comment. In the past, they have said Mr. Montiel is a suspected member of a guerrilla group called the Popular Revolutionary Army, known by its Spanish intiials, EPR. "They say he's with the EPR. They say he's a marijuana grower. He's not," said his nephew. "He doesn't know anything about those things." "Rodolfo is definitely not a member of the EPR," said Alejandro Villamar, a Mexican forestry expert and friend of Mr. Montiel's. "That's just a pretext." Mr. Villamar believes his friend was jailed because of his environmental activism. Boise Cascade may be gone, but timber cutting remains a big business in Guerrero, and authorities there do all they can to protect it, he said.

Uniting farmers

Mr. Montiel founded a farmers' group called the Ecologists of Petatlan to fight against logging in the mountains northeast of the beach town of Zihuatanejo. "They call themselves 'farmer-ecologists.' The reason is simple. As mere farmers, they get no attention. Farmers have no clout. So they're farmer-ecologists.' I don't know of any other such group in the world," Mr. Villamar said.

The Sierra of Petatlan, with mountains reaching nearly 10,000 feet above sea level, contains some of North America's most pristine forest lands,environmentalists say. When the forest is healthy, trees help capture rainwater and boost the water supply which farmers rely on for irrigation. But as trees are cut down, there is less water and farmers have trouble growing crops, environmentalists say.

Taking action

Seeing their land dry up, Mr. Montiel and others began taking action. In 1997, they set up a toll booth to collect a kind of local tax from passing logging trucks. But the booth was quickly destroyed, and increasing numbers of soldiers began patrolling the area, residents say. The activists began blocking roads, stopping trucks and stealing the lumber, taking it to their villages.

Boise Cascade soon pulled out, but that wasn't the end of it for Mr.Montiel. His friends say thugs and others threatened him, so he got out of town and went on the run. On May 2, soldiers found him selling clothes on the streets of a tiny village called Pizotla. He has been in jail ever since. He missed the funeral of his father, Juan Montiel Ramos, 82, who died of heart trouble a week ago.

"They called him on the phone and told him about it," his nephew said. "He's very sad right now, very depressed. He just wants to get out of jail and work. We're poor people, and he has a wife and five children to maintain."