Two excerpts from the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center's daily human rights bulletin (SIDIDH):

• Perpetrators of Acteal Massacre Sentenced
• Acteal: Partial Justice

Perpetrators of Acteal Massacre Sentenced

July 20, 1999

A district judge sentenced to 35 years in prison 20 members of the armed group that carried out the December 22, 1997 massacre of 45 people in Acteal, municipality of Chenalho, Chiapas. The defense immediately appealed the sentence, and the circuit court judge will be responsible for ratifying or changing it.

Second district court judge Jacinto Juarez Rosas explained that because he believed there was sufficient evidence to determine that the 20 detained individuals had participated in the crime, he imposed a penalty of 35 years in prison. The sentence was unique: the judge ruled out fines for damage reparations, according to penal file 223/97. Of the 103 detainees in Cerro Hueco accused of the massacre - among them 87 indigenous men from various communities in Chenalho - the judge had previously sentenced 11 for homicide, injury, carrying fire arms for the exclusive use of the army and carrying fire arms without a license. Ten of them are former state police officers, sentenced to three years and nine months in prison for permitting the massacre to occur and for transporting arms for the armed civilian groups. The other is an ex-military officer that carried out espionage work for the National Defense Ministry in the communities of Chenalho, who was accused of giving military training to the group of PRI (ruling party) supporters that perpetrated the massacre. He received a sentence of only two years in prison and a fine of $86,000 pesos (around $9,000 US dollars). In coming weeks the remaining 72 detainees are expected to be sentenced, among them the former coordinator of the Chiapas state police, the former state prosecutor in Chenalho, the former municipal president of Chenalho, and the rest of the indigenous members of the paramilitary group. At the same time, two minors accused of participating in the massacre are also detained in a rehabilitation center. Over 90 warrants issued by the special prosecutor's office for the arrest of indigenous people from various communities in Chenalho are still to be carried out, as well as warrants for 11 former government officials that are currently fugitives of justice. Recently the indigenous men processed for the Acteal case accused the state police of having perpetrated the massacre of 45 members of the group Las Abejas (the Bees). The men only recognized their participation in a violent confrontation which allegedly occurred hours before the act.

Acteal: Partial Justice

July 21, 1999

On July 19, Jacinto Juarez Rosas, Second District Court Judge in Tuxtla, Gutierrez, Chiapas, sentenced 20 civilians to 35 years in prison for their involvement in the Acteal massacre, in which 21 women, 15 children and 9 men were executed from a Las Abejas community.

While the sentence can be considered as a small advance in clarifying the facts and punishing those responsible for the egregious events, it is also true that many doubts remain regarding the political will of the federal government and the Attorney General's Office to completely explain this crime. We base this assertion on the following considerations:

1. The 35-year sentence imposed by the Judiciary on the 20 civilians contrasts with the two-year sentence that was received by the former military officer accused of giving military training to the paramilitary group that carried out the massacre, and with the three year, nine-month sentence given to 10 former police officers that permitted the massacre and transported the arms of the aggressors. These authorities should be punished with the same parameters that were used to punish the civilians, or even harsher parameters if we consider that their crimes are made even more serious by the fact that they used and abused the authority of their posts in order to participate in the act.

2. Until now, the intellectual authors of the Acteal massacre have not been processed. There is no evidence that members of the National Defense Ministry and of the Chiapas state government are being investigated for their presumed participation in planning, supplying arms, training, covering up the existence of paramilitary groups, altering a crime scene, and altering evidence and results. Rather, the former governor of Chiapas, Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro, who was removed from his post after the massacre, was assigned to the Mexican Embassy in the United States. In this sense, the government of Roberto Albores appears to have the goal of hiding grave violations of human rights that may have involved the state and federal governments, by sending an amnesty initiative to the national congress which would bury a good portion of the existing evidence against these authorities. Therefore justice is only applied in a partial manner by identifying only the material authors, who are often characterized with having few resources and with little access to justice, and (without ignoring the responsibility of these individuals) generally are manipulated or pressured by authorities, which up to this point continue to act with impunity.

3. There is a shameful precedent that places in doubt the validity of this sentence: the Aguas Blancas case. In April of this year, 15 state police officers and one sub-prosecutor accused of directly participating in the massacre of 15 campesino peasants in Guerrero were freed via a staying order. That is to say, the implementation of justice, when it has occurred, has been irregular and contradictory. For this reason no one can guarantee that Federal Judiciary bodies will not arrive at a verdict of not guilty - due to poor legal procedure by the Attorney General's Office, the responsible judge, and/or political pressure and a lack of independence of the judicial branch vis-a-vis the executive branch.

Finally, it is curious that this sentence has been emitted the day before the visit of the United Nation's Rappoteur on Extra-judicial Executions to Chiapas. It would appear that with the sentence being handed down just one day before the rappoteur, the Mexican government is determined to make international actors believe that impunity does not exist in Mexico, while recent events demonstrate the contrary. Let us hope that this resolution has been a product of a true desire to carry out justice for the victims of the massacre and not a product of the visit of the rappoteur, and that at the same time that it is a step forward in the implementation and administration of justice in Mexico.