Guardian
June 27, 2001
By Jo Tuckman

The Mexican authorities are under pressure to release two internationally renowned peasant environmentalists who were convicted of drugs and arms offences. Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera claim the charges were invented to stop their protests against rapacious logging in the southern Sierra Madre.

Evidence presented to an appeals court last week indicates that Montiel and Cabrera were tortured into signing false confessions after their arrest by an army patrol two years ago. The same court last year confirmed convictions of eight and 10 years for the pair, after refusing to consider the evidence that cites an examination by doctors from the Danish branch of Physicians for Human Rights. A new ruling is expected within two weeks.

"I have been accused of stealing cattle, of growing drugs, of belonging to an armed group, but all I want is for the exploitation of the forests to stop," Montiel, 46, said in an interview from prison. He said he still suffers the legacy of the heavy beatings, electric shocks and repeated testicle pulling meted out by the soldiers who arrested him.

The case has become a cause cilhbre for international human rights and environmentalist groups, with both men declared prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International. Montiel was also awarded the San Francisco-based Goldman Foundation's Environmental prize worth $125,000, and the Sierra Club's Chico Mendez prize.

Meanwhile, the case has also become highly embarrassing for the new government of president Vicente Fox, who took office in December proclaiming a new era of respect for human rights -- after 71 years of one-party rule -- and an administration of unprecedented environmental sensibilities.

As if that were not enough, the image of two poor, subsistence farmers languishing behind bars because they confronted powerful logging interests hardly jives with the government's "crusade for our forests and water". Launched in March, the crusade declares public institutions unable to cope with Mexico's deforestation of 600,000 hectares per year, and appeals to communities to join a drive to conserve the 35m hectares remaining.

The environment ministry's list of areas under risk include the Lacandon jungle in the southern state of Chiapas -- the wooded sanctuary where tens of millions of migrating Monarch butterflies spend the winter before heading back to north America -- and the Sierra Tarahumara in the desert state of Chihuahua. It also names the mountainous ranges in the southern state of Guerrero, where Montiel and Cabrera lived at the time of their arrest.

Minister Victor Lichtinger has admitted his personal discomfort in calling on poor rural communities to save their forests, when the pair known around the world for doing just that are in prison. "The reality is that it is hard for people to believe in us as long as we are unable to get them out," he said recently.

But with the government insisting that it cannot interfere with the judicial process, getting them out is proving complicated -- something they and their supporters say betrays behind-the-scenes interests more powerful than either international embarrassment or President Fox's commitment to justice.