Re: Arbitrary arrest of indigenous human rights defender Maximino Catarino Garcia, member of the Organisation for the Future of Mixteco Peoples (OFPM) on 21 January 2012.
I. Introduction
At approximately 13.30 on Saturday 21st January 2012, Maximino García Catarino, a prominent figure in the defence of the human rights of the Na Savi people (Mixteco) member of the Organisation for the Future of the Mixteco People (OFPM) and beneficiary of provisional measures granted by the Inter-American Court, was arrested by state judicial police from the Guerrero State Attorney General’s Office, in Juquila, in the municipality of Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero. Following his arrest he was ill-treated and now risks facing an unfair trial.
The arrest of Maximino García Catarino is yet another example of the harassment and persecution of human rights defenders who have prevailed in Ayutla de los Libres over the last few years. It occurs at a time where human rights in the State of Guerrero are continually deteriorating, defined by the grave violations and impunity that have marked the last months.
II. A violent history of executions, harassments, and persecution of the OFPM.
The rural regions of the Costa Montaña region in the State of Guerrero, which includes the municipality of Ayutla de los Libres, is inhabited by the Me’phaa (Tlapaneco) and Na Savi (Mixteco) indigenous communities. These communities show the lowest indicator of human development in the region; in addition, the situation deteriorates because of the high number of human rights violations caused by permanent militarisation and the absence of basic services like health care and education. In this context several indigenous social organisations have been set up, including the Organisation for the Future of the Mixteco People (OFPM) arose .
Because of their human rights defence actions, the members of the OFPM have received constant threats. Unfortunately, these threats were carried out in February 2009 when RAÚL LUCAS LUCÍA and MANUEL PONCE ROSAS were arbitrarily arrested, forced disappeared, tortured and finally executed. Their bodies were found on 20th February 2009. To this day, the facts have not been clarified nor the responsible have been locater or taken before justice.
After the attacks against both Na Savi human rights defenders, and in light of the serious risk to other indigenous defenders in Ayutla, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights requested the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, to grant ‘provisional measures’ for the families of Raúl Lucas Lucía and Manuel Ponce Rosas and other members of the OFPM, such as, Alicio Ponce Rosas, Victoriano Ponce Rosas, Toribio Santos Flores, Jorge Luis García Catarino, Aurelio García de los Santos, Santiago Ponce Rosas and Maximino García Catarino. These measures are still in force, even though it has been poorly implemented by the Mexican State.
Despite the on-going risk, at the beginning of January 2010 several members of the OFPM restarted working for their communities . The response was immediate. On 6th June 2010, Álvaro Ramírez Concepción was arrested in the municipality of Ayutla de los Libres and held in the local prison. Once imprisoned, he was informed that his arrest was due to the implementation of an arrest warrant by a Judge at the Court of First Instance of the Judicial District of Ayutla de los Libres, in the criminal case 079-1-2010, on grounds of murder and attempted murder, due to events occurred in November 2009.
From the moment on Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre took on the defence of Álvaro Ramírez Concepción, they could witness serious irregularities in the way that the criminal investigation had been carried out and the offences imputed against the Na Savi human rights defenders. Due to these irregularities and insufficient proof, Álvaro Ramírez Concepción was freed on 12th June 2010 due to lack of evidence. Despite the decision, the aggression continued, on 30th August 2010, several members of the OFPM were attacked with weapons by a group of people whilst carrying out agricultural work on a plot of land in Juquila, in the municipality of Ayutla de los Libres.
III. Arbitrary arrest and intent to persecute Maximino García Catarino
On 21st January 2012, at approximately 13.30, the indigenous human rights defender, Maximino García Catarino, was grinding sugar canes together with his family in Juquila, in the municipality of Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero, when an investigative police van arrived and officers violently and arbitrarily broke into his house and arrested him, without telling him why or showing any arrest warrant.
During the journey to Ayutla, police officers told Maximino he had killed Mr. Juan Teodoro García. Furthermore, they interrogated him about the whereabouts of other indigenous Na Savi people from Juquila and about other leaders of the OFPM. After they failed to get any information from him, officers punched and kicked Maximino all over his body.
At approximately 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the Ministerial Investigative Police unit arrived at the headquarters in Ayutla. Maximino was taken to a cell in the Ministerial Police Headquarters where he was held until 6pm, when he was taken to the Correctional Centre in Ayutla. On the same day, Maximino García was presented at the Criminal Court of First Instance of the Judicial District of Allende, where he was informed that an arrest warrant had been issued against him in the criminal case 04/2012.
Upon being informed on the arrest of Maximino, Tlachinollan’s lawyers demanded that the ministerial police immediately was brought before a judge with competence. In the same breath, on 21st and 22nd January, the legal representatives of the Na Savi defender asked the personnel of the Criminal Court of First Instance of the Allende District to take the prisoner’s preliminary statement immediately, in order to allow sufficient time to prepare his defence. His right to declare was denied at the time. It was until Monday 23rd January 2012 that Maximino was heard by a Judge, after the investigative police sent the official document to the Court, which stated that the Na Savi defender was brought before the Judge on the 21st, shortening the time to prepare his defence.
At 1pm that same day, Maximino García Catarino’s preliminary statement was taken. It was then that he was informed that two witnesses (Agustin Morales García and Atilano Bernabé Concepción, connected to the ‘cacicazgo’ belonging to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) from the Ocotlan community) had identified him as having participated in the murder of Mr. Juan Teodoro García on 22nd February 2011.
Since gaining access to the file, Maximino García Catarino’s defence could confirm that the only so-called proof that the police have to link the Na Savi advocate to this crime are the two witness statements and what’s more there are serious contradictions between them. These and other questions were presented during the Constitutional period. Notwithstanding, on 27 January, Judge Inocente Orduño Magallón determined and dictated an imprisonment order against Maximino García, even though, proofs that on the day the crime falsely imputed to the Na Savi defender, he was in the town of Ayutla taking some actions in favour of his community.
In addition, the Attorney General’s Office of Guerrero built the case based on an irregular investigation: there was no necropsy, no any field investigation by the investigative police, nor any reconstruction of the facts. Basically, the accusation is based merely in the declarations of the two alleged eye-witnesses, whose declarations have clear signs of instruction and implausibility.
Moreover, it is fundamental to emphasise that both the carrying out of investigations and the issuing of arrest warrants are left to institutions which in the past have purposefully persecuted indigenous human rights defenders; such as the Public Prosecutor of Ayutla and the Criminal Court of First Instance of Ayutla, institutions which fabricated the allegations against Raúl Hernández Abundio who was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International in 2009. The arbitrary arrest and false allegations brought against Maximino García Contreras show the persistent, deviant and unlawful use of law enforcement agencies in Guerrero in order to persecute and criminalise human rights defenders. In particular, it highlights that this behaviour is deeply-rooted and on-going throughout Ayutla de los Libres.
IV. Maximino García Catarino: human rights advocate
The false allegations against Maximino García Catarino charged by the Attorney General’s Office are of especial concern because of the prominent and visible role which the Na Savi defender, as member of the OFPM, has undertaken along with the community of Juquila in order to achieve a better quality of life.
For example, in 2010 Maximino García Catarino represented the OFPM in the legal case brought about after the arbitrary arrest of Álvaro Ramírez Concepción.
Similarly, on 16th June 2011, he represented his community and the OFPM at the reopening ceremony of the office of Tlachinollan in Ayutla, sharing the panel with the President of the Commission for the Defence of Human Rights of the State of Guerrero, Dr. Juan Alarcón, and the representative for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico, Dr. Javier Hernández Valencia, among other people.
In the same way, Maximino participated, alongside Álvaro Ramírez Concepción, in the public hearing “The current situation in Mexico for human rights defenders and journalists” organised at the Mexican Senate on 20th July 2011, where he presented before the Senators the work of the OFPM and the dangerous situation in Ayutla de los Libres.
Lastly, on 10th September 2011, Maximino García Catarino accompanied Álvaro Ramírez Concepción when he gave a testimony before the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity when they marched and carried out a public act in the Zócalo, in the city of Chilpancingo, Guerrero, before thousands of people.