[News] OCEZ Leader Disappeared in Chiapas
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Wed Sep 30 17:22:38 EDT 2009
OCEZ Leader Disappeared in Chiapas
Posted by
<http://narcosphere.narconews.com/users/kristin-bricker>Kristin
Bricker - September 30, 2009 at 2:56 pm
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/09/ocez-leader-disappeared-chiapas
Neighbors Suspect Police Kidnapped "El Chema" and Will Kill Him
September 30 -- Early this morning, people
dressed as members of the Mexican Federal
Electricity Commission (CFE) kidnapped Jose
Manuel Hernandez Martinez, aka "El Chema." El
Chema is one of the leaders of the Emiliano
Zapata Peasant Organization (OCEZ). His
whereabouts remain unknown, and fellow OCEZ
members fear that he will be killed. Members of
the organization believe that police kidnapped El
Chema, although the kidnappers never identified
themselves other than as CFE employees.
According to information that OCEZ member Jose
Manuel de la Torre provided to Narco News, the
OCEZ believes that El Chema's kidnapping is in
retaliation for a
<http://www.narconews.com/Issue58/articulo3710.html>successful
land occupation and hunger strike that 13 OCEZ
members held this past July. As a result of the
hunger strike, the Chiapan government agreed to
legalize 215 hectares of the occupied lands. The
government handed the legalized lands over to OCEZ members two weeks ago.
Details of the Kidnapping
According to de la Torre, men dressed in CFE
uniforms arrived in the 28 de Julio community,
where El Chema lives, to ask residents if they
had any problems with their electricity, or if
the CFE could help them in any way.
Today at midnight, ten men in CFE uniforms
arrived in 28 de Julio in a CFE pickup
truck. Community residents recognized some of
the men as the same ones who had arrived 15 days
ago. The men in CFE uniforms asked for El Chema,
saying that they wanted to know if there was any
problem with the community's electricity.
When the men dressed in CFE uniforms located El
Chema, he was with ejido leader Maximino Perez
Rodriguez. The men in CFE uniforms kidnapped
both El Chema and Perez Rodriguez. The
kidnappers drove the CFE truck to the Laguna
Verde ranch, located about five minutes from 28
de Julio. In Laguna Verde they transferred El
Chema to a gray pickup truck that was waiting in
that community. The gray pickup truck was filled
with eight men dressed completely in black who
had covered their faces with balaclavas. Before
driving off, the kidnappers dumped Perez
Rodriguez by the side of the road, only taking El Chema with them.
Laguna Verde residents, aware of the kidnapping
in progress, jumped into a pickup truck and
attempted to stop the kidnappers. The residents'
truck reportedly crashed under unknown
circumstances, killing one resident and injuring
several others. The kidnappers managed to escape with El Chema.
El Chema's whereabouts are currently unknown,
meaning that he has been "disappeared." OCEZ
members suspect that the kidnappers are police
because they had access to a federal government
truck and uniforms. They fear that the kidnappers will kill El Chema.
Government Persecution of El Chema
El Chema's effectiveness as a community organizer
in the Venustiano Carranza region of Chiapas has
made him the frequent target of government repression.
The government falsely accused El Chema of murder
and detained him in 1984. Amnesty International
adopted him as a "prisoner of conscience," and he was freed in 1985.
The government has also informally accused El
Chema of being the Popular Revolutionary Army's
(EPR's) contact in Chiapas. In February 2008,
federal agents
<http://www.chiapas.contralinea.com.mx/archivo/2008/junio/htm/epr-objetivo-militar-chiapas.htm>detained
and tortured Chiapan math teacher Felipe
Hernández Yuena and his 5-year-old son. During
the interrogation, the torturers asked him, "Do
you belong to the EPR? Do you know EPR
leaders? Do you know José Manuel Hernández Martínez, aka El Chema?"
The government has never presented any formal
accusations, nor any proof, that El Chema belongs
to the EPR. As Narco News has documented, the
government has been known to
<http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/06/oaxacan-political-prisoners-find-new-hope-zapatistas-other-campaign>accuse
effective community organizers of belonging to
the EPR, which is a clandestine insurgent
organization. By accusing community organizers or
community leaders of belonging to the EPR, the
government justifies repression, kidnapping,
torture, and judicial railroading of these important community figures.
El Chema insists that he does not belong to the
EPR. However, there's plenty of proof that he is
a dangerous man to the government, even though he
hasn't taken up arms. His organization has
defended single mothers who wish to sell
vegetables in roadside stands, and it has
successfully pressured the government to legalize
lands for peasant communities that had never
before legally owned the land they worked. The
OCEZ's primary tactic for land recuperation is to
occupy lands and then pressure the government to
legalize them (that is, give titles to the
peasants occupying the lands). Since the
Zapatista uprising in 1994, Chiapas has been the
site of constant low-intensity warfare, and
<http://www.leftturn.org/?q=node/1184>control of
land and territory is at the center of the
battle. Even though El Chema and the OCEZ have
never used firearms to occupy land, the mere fact
that they are successfully taking control of
territory in Chiapas and putting it in the hands
of peasants places them squarely in the middle of a war.
As a result of its work, OCEZ has suffered
detentions,
<http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2008/09/ocez-rc-member-disappeared-pujiltic-chiapas>disappearances,
and government aggression. In 2008, when
<http://www.narconews.com/Issue54/article3129.html>the
military and police entered Zapatista territory
under the cover of anti-drug operations, it also
entered OCEZ
territory.
<http://chiapasaldia.com/web/?p=334>In a July
interview, El Chema reported that his
organization has suffered 37 assassinations since
its founding and currently has over a dozen
outstanding arrest warrants, all poltically motivated.
Freedom Archives
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