The Human Rights Actions Network - Derechos Human Rights
http://www.derechos.org/human-rights/actions/

Direction of Studies on Human Rights 
UNIVERSIDAD IBEROAMERICANA


Santa Fe, Mexico City, March 10th. 1997.

TO YOUR HOLYNESS POPE JOHN PAUL II
TO THE HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANISMS
TO THE WORLD PUBLIC OPINION



Last Saturday, around midday, were arbitrarily arrested jesuit priests
Jerónimo Alberto Hernández López and Gonzalo Rosas Morales, and chole
indigenous Francisco González Gutiérrez and Ramón Parcero Martínez.

They were illegaly prived of their liberty, without order or any
explanation, and only after many negotiations made before federal and
local authorities it appeared to be recognized that they were in status
of ^Ópresented^Ô before the General Justice Attorney^Òs Office for the Sate
of Chiapas.  The authorities informed, every moment, that the State
Attorney was out of the entity.  The captives were kept incommunicated
for more than 13 hours, and no visits were allowed.  When at last people
of their trust could see them, they were found beaten.  Twenty four
hours later their lawyers were allowed to enter and found out that there
is pretended to involve the four prisoners in an ambush to Chiapas
Public Security policemen and a dislodge in which two policemen would
die and five more would have been wounded, all of which happened the day
after their capture.

This accusation is not only false, but also impossible, because in the
day the pitiful events happened -events that, of course, must be
investigated, but in which could be involved paramilitary groups created
and tolerated by the government-, the jesuits were moving, along with
other priests, to their own working places, because the day before they
assisted to the ending of the Diocesan Assembly, in San Cristóbal de las
Casas.  In spite of which they have been illegaly retained for more than
48 hours, surely in the desire of inventing other crimes for which to
accuse them.

This new agression inscribes itself in the frame of multiple
harrassments, pursuings and threats that have been suffering, for their
work for the poorest indigenous, the members of the Catholic Church of
the San Cristóbal de las Casas Diocesis, of which are bishops Monsignor
Samuel Ruiz García and Fray Raúl Vera, also permanently harrased and
slandered.

The aggressions to the Catholic church, have arrived to the fact,
without precedents, of calling Paz y Justicia (which means Peace and
Justice) a tolerated paramilitary group that acts unpunished, evidently
taunting the human rights catholic organization called Justicia y Paz.

Some authorities are not only not taking the necessary steps to solve
the causes that originated the Chiapan conflict, but are also appealing
to the methods used in the dirty wars, of such sad rememberings, that
make every day more unreachable the rule of law and the peace.

Particularly uneasy is the situation of the inhabitants of the North
Zone, attended by the captive jesuit priests, because they face the
consequences of a low intensity war that began in February, 1995.

Once more we turn up in search of Your Holyness and the International
Community generous solidarity, with the hope that you will be listened,
in demanding the mexican government to stop the agressions to the
Catholic Church in general, and particularly the Society of Jesus that
today, here, as before in El Salvador, is only complying its pastoral
mission, opposing to the violence and fighting for the true respect to
the social State of Right, in which the rule be the ethic, the
fraternity, the solidarity, the justice, the development, peace, and not
unpunishness as it happens now.

Please send Urgent Actions to:

Dr. Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León. 
President of the United Mexican States. 
Residencia Oficial de Los Pinos. 
Fax  (525)  515-17-94

Lic. Emilio Chuayffet Chemor. 
Secretary of Government. 
Bucareli 99 Col. Juárez, México 06699 D.F.  
Fax  (525)  546-53-50 

Dra. Mireille Roccatti. 
President of the National Comission For Human Rights. 
Periférico Sur 3469 esquina Luis Cabrera, San Jerónimo Lídice CP 10200. 
Fax (525) 681-71-99

Lic. Julio César Ruiz Ferro. 
Governor of the State of Chiapas. 
Palacio de Gobierno en Tuxtla Gutiérrez,  Chiapas. 
Fax  (961) 2 09 17 
        

With all our gratefulness and the most cordial of our greetings

         
María Teresa Jardí Alonso
Director

Human Rights in Mexico
http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/mexico/