By: Octavio Vélez Ascencio, Noticias. Apr. 28, 2011
Translated by: Erica Lagalisse, June 2, 2011.
Oaxaca, Oax. — “Justice that arrives late is no justice at all.” Nonetheless, the application of the Amnesty Law in the case of the indigenous persons from Loxicha accused by senators of belonging to the EPR (Popular Revolutionary Army) will allow us to to fight and end the injustice they currently face, said Juan Sosa Maldonado, president of the Directive Council of the Organization of Zapotec Indigenous People (OPIZ).
The leader elaborated that the application of this law constitutes a “certified method” to free the nine arbitrarily imprisoned Zapotec people, currently sentenced according to Federal Law.
Regarding the men and women arrested and subsequently imprisoned, “their participation in the armed group (EPR) has never been proven,” as is likewise the case regarding municipal ex-president and ex-sìndico, Agustín Luna Valencia and Fortino Enríquez Hernández, accused of participating in the attack on police facilities and the Mexican Armory in La Crucecita, Santa María Huatulco during the early hours of August 29, 1996. “It’s impossible that they were in two places at the same time; August 28th of that year – the day of their yearly town festival – they were in San Agustìn Loxicha”, he said.
Furthermore, he emphasized that the arrested persons were tortured and made to sign blank sheets of paper, thus proving their supposed guilt regarding the acts in question and their membership in the EPR. “Records were fabricated, including declarations that the arrestees never made”, he stated.
On account of all this, he called upon the Senate of the Republic to approve the application of the Law of Amnesty in this case. This would allow the prisoners, after 15 years in prison, to finally gain their freedom; “After so much harm having already been done, the freeing of the prisoners represents a mere minimum of justice, but to end so much injustice we must start somewhere”, he remarked.
