Human Rights Education: The 4th R
Educating for Economic Justice,
Vol. 9, No. 1, Spring 1998.

Mexican Environmental Activist Receives Death Threats


 
We are not tired of our struggle, but we are in despair.
—Leticia Moctezuma Vargas

Leticia Moctezuma Vargas is a teacher and community activist. Together with many other members of the Tepoztlán community in the Mexican state of Morelos, she has been campaigning peacefully to stop a government-sponsored project which would seriously damage the community’s environment. Her right to do so is set out in Article 20 of the UDHR, promising freedom of association. As a result of her participation, she and her young daughters were beaten and received death threats.

The project involves building a multi-million dollar golf course and tourist complex on common land regarded by the inhabitants of Tepotzlán as sacred. It is backed by a major development company, the state governor and the government. Lined up in opposition to it are the indigenous people of Tepotzlán, human rights activists, and grassroots organizations working to protect the rights of the poor. Article 22 of the UDHR says that everyone is entitled to economic, cultural, and social rights.

Local people have organized repeated peaceful protests. In April 1996 Leticia Moctezuma Vargas and her daughters joined a rally which was violently broken up by police. Leticia said that police seized old women by the hair and beat her and her children, including her 11-year-old daughter. This violates Article 5 of the UDHR, which forbids torture and ill-treatment.

Leticia saw three policemen drag Marcos Olmedo Gutierrez, an elderly member of the community, wounded but alive, into a police vehicle. He was later found dead. He had been killed by a bullet in the back of the head, in breach of Article 3 of the UDHR, the right to life.

On 1 July 1996 Leticia Moctezuma Vargas received two threatening telephone calls. A man said: “Stop interfering in politics” and “You should take it easy with your politics or we will kill you.”

The following day there was another threatening call at the nursery where she works. The anonymous caller, this time female, said: “Take it easy or things will go bad for you, take it easy or we will kill you.”

Such threats are a violation of Article 3 of the UDHR, which says that we all have the right to live in safety, and Article 12, which protects the privacy of the family.

What You Can Do:

Leticia Moctezuma Vargas is in fear for her life because of her environmental campaigning. She has been denied rights that the world has said should never be violated.

Ask for a prompt and thorough investigation into the attacks and threats against her and others in her community and ask for those responsible to be brought to justice.

Ask for immediate measures to be taken to protect her and her family. Write to:

The Minister of the Interior
Francisco Labastida Ochoa
Secretario de la Gobernación
Secretaria de la Gobernación
Bucareli 99 1er piso, Col. Juárez
06699 México DF, México