Another sad day in Mexico

[MexicoDoug at aol.com]

Hola List, this sad event this week probably happened about 125 miles away  
from the Monarch Forests, and I am not posting it to get into an argument on  
what anyone thinks about Monarchs or related phenomena, just posting to give  
those in other cultures with different systems of administration of justice an  
idea on why the logic applied from societies which have an expectation of  
justice don't translate to those that do not.  The latter is alive and  well 
right over the border of the USA (hundreds of women and children abused and  then 
murdered you can imagine from Hollywood, with no justice right across  the 
bridge from El Paso Texas if you want it even closer).  While many will  turn a 
blind eye to this as "not applicable" in our nice Lepping world, I hope  some 
are open minded enough to consider what we deal with on an every day  basis.
 
On the contrary, in a departure from Monarchs, and all the fancy acrobatics  
and politics and trolling, and reasonable stuff mixed in as well we've been  
seeing, this is a similar problem but quite distinct and more representative  
nationwide - this particular region is an important center of endemism for  
tropical butterflies, probably including the relict Baronia brevicornis as one  
example of many (which I have not verified).  In the last 10 years my own  
butterflying habitats a 1000 miles north of the article's focus, in the NE  
portion of the country, have dwindled, and it isn't much fun to go to an  alarming 
number of them as unchecked development, where a little bribe  greases the 
permit wheel as if anyone actually needed to  bother...
 
Article (sorry I used an online translator and then tweaked it to make  sense 
instead of doing a real translation, but it is just fine):
 
(AFP) - The family of an ecological leader of the Mexican state of Guerrero  
(South) filed a complaint on Wednesday that he fears for the lives of  his 
family, after last week two of his children were assassinated in an  ambush.  "I 
request that justice, but by due process, not payment by  innocent lives like 
other occasions, and now we fear for our life, we do not  know even who we 
need to watch out for", Reyna Mojica, the wife of the peasant  ecologist 
Albertano Peñalosa said in press conference.  
 
On May 20, 2005, Peñalosa, one of the leaders of the Organization of  Peasant 
Ecologists of the Mountain Range of Petatlán and Coyuca de Catalan of  
Guerrero, were caught in an ambush by several armed men as he returned to his  
house.  In the attack, two of the children of the activist, aged 9 and 19  years 
were riddled with bullets, according to official information.  
 
"My children were like a jigsaw puzzle, not much recognizable after so many  
bullets; I shouted to them (to the aggressors), not to be cowards that my  
children were there", lamented Mojica between tears.  In this incident, the  
ecological leader only received minor wounds, while another one of his children  
is alive but in critical condition in a hospital.  
 
The secretary of the Environment, Alberto Cardenas Rojo, condemned the  
attack, which he attributed to the presence of "clandestine groups that, in  their 
eagerness to become rich become predators the national natural resources,  and 
foment divisions among real owners of the Land".  In an official  notice, 
Cardenas Rojo endorsed the proposal of the government of Guerrero to  establish a 
table of dialogue with the peasants to review the situation around  
sustainable forest advantages, and how to administer fee collections from to the  wood 
harvestors.  
 
The attack against the Peñalosa family followed a March statement from the  
organization Amnesty International, which was worried because to that date, 14  
orders of apprehension against ecologists of Guerrero were transmitted.   
"Yet another attack against those that try to protect of the deforestation to  
the Mountain range of Petatlán", stated on Wednesday Alexander Calvillo,  
director of the Mexican chapter of Greenpeace.  
 
Visibly moved by the testimony of the wife of Albertano Peñalosa, Calvillo  
requested that the Mexican government protected the family of the  activist.  
 
Amnesty International, as well as Greenpeace, and more than 50 Mexican  civil 
organizations are motioning to request to the Inter-American Commission of  
Human Rights (CIDH) take measures that protection the Peñalosa family.  
 
Due to their position against the constant cutting of the forests of the  
Guerrero State, the peasant ecologists of that Mexican State have been harassed  
by wood cutters and chiefs of the region since 1998.  In 1999 two members  of 
the Organization of ecological farmers of the Mountain range of Petatlán and  
Coyuca de Catalan, Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Goatherd, were stopped by the  
Army and tortured and made to confess guilty of positions related to firearms  
and drugs.  In 2001 president Vicente Fox ordered his release of them from  
prison, though still their innocence was never  recognized.
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