Florentin Melendez, president of the Interamerican Human Rights Commission (CIDH), in Mexico on an official visit, registered protest on the Mexican government's policy for indigenous peoples. He said the pre-NAFTA reform of the Mexican constitution's Article 27, allowing privatization of collective lands, has had a "destructive" effect on indigenous culture. He especially cited the example of Chiapas, where the "individual parcelization" of collective lands has broken up comunities, left many without land, and sparked a violent struggle over conflicting claims. (APRO [1], April 12)
Melendez officially received reports on the persistence of torture and political violence in Chiapas from groups such as the Fray Bartoleme de Las Casas Human Rights Center [2] and Las Abejas [3], the Tzotzil Maya pacifist organzation targeted in the 1997 Acteal massacre. (La Jornada [4], April 12)
Melendez also noted that in Mexico, as in the rest of Latin America, there has been an alarming increase in attacks against human rights workers [5]. (La Jornada [6], April 12)
All sources online at Chiapas95 [7].
See our last posts on Mexico and Chiapas [8], the Chiapas land crisis [9], the Melendez visit and the human rights crisis [10], and Mexico's indigenous struggle [11].