Mexico's semi-governmental National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) has issued a recommendation to Zeferino Torreblanca, center-left governor of the southern state of Guerrero, in the unsolved case of two indigenous leaders kidnapped by three armed men on Feb. 13, 2009 in Ayutla de los Libres municipality, Guerrero, and found dead on Feb. 20 in Tecoanapa municipality. The CNDH noted irregularities in the state's investigation, and asked Torreblanca to correct them and to offer protection to witnesses and to the families of the victims, who were leaders in the Organization for the Development of the Mixteco Méphaa Peoples. (La Jornada, Jan. 3)

Although media reports failed to identify the victims, presumably they were Raúl Lucas Lucía and Manuel Ponce Rosas, Guerrero indigenous leaders whose bodies were found on Feb. 20, 2009 "with visible signs of torture and in an advanced state of decomposition," according to the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center. (El Universal, Feb. 21, 2009 from AP)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 4

See our last posts on Mexico, the human rights crisis and the struggle in Guerrero.