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By Chris Covert
Ruling they were tried in a illegal proceeding, the Mexican Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nacion, or Supreme Court ordered the immediate release from prison of seven defendants in the 1997 Acteal massacre, according to Mexican news reports.
A total of 45 individuals were murdered in 1997 in Acteal, Chiapas on December 22nd, including women and children allegedly by a paramilitary group. Eventually 34 individuals that Mexican legal authorities said were involved were sentenced in 2009 to 26 years in prison, following nearly 10 years of legal proceedings. In 2009, the court ordered the release of 20 defendants on essentially the same grounds: that the evidence against them was flawed.
According to a post on its website, Proceso reported that the court also took the unusual step of declaring the seven innocent of all charges. The defendants were all indigenous Tzotzil Indians.
The seven defendants were identified as Lorenzo Gomez Jimenez, José Ruiz Tzucut, Juan Perez Hernandez, Bartolo Luna Pérez, Agustin Perez Gomez, Mariano Perez Jimenez and Juan Santiz Vazquez. Of the 88 individuals detained at the time for their alleged involvement, 14 were current or former officials. Seven others are serving time for their role in the attack.
The Proceso article repeats the claim made by EZLN supporters and their sympathizers, that the attacks were planned at the three levels of Mexican government and were part of a government plan to "crack down on those defending their rights."
The massacre at Acteal came at the end of the Marxist Ejercito Zapatista Liberacion Nacional campaign to flip several municipalities to autonomous status using violence and intimidation of Mexican citizens who opposed the EZLN. The autonomy status would have made those municipalities ultimately answerable to EZLN and whatever legal and social state they imposed. Autonomy also had to be approved by the Chiapas legislature, making the campaign EZLN conducted illegal.
The actual attack at Acteal, which last six hours, was an apparent payback for the deaths of several Mexican citizens at the hands of EZLN supporters two days before.
The victims of the attacks, who called themselves Los Abesas (The Bees), was a pacifist religious sect said to be dedicated to non-violence. Mexican government reports at the time said the sect was non-violent and opposed EZLN's use of force, but supported EZLN, which is against Mexican law. Los Abesas support of EZLN apparently made them an easy target.
The Acteal massacre is the subject of a civil lawsuit in US District Court in Hartford Connecticut, where the defendant to that claim, former Mexican president Ernesto Zedilllo Ponce de Leon lives and works at Yale University.
That legal action claims that Zedillo, as a Mexican chief executive bears ultimate responsibility for the killings. The suit has requested unspecified damages.
Currently, the lawsuit rests on Zedillo's counterclaim that as a Mexican chief executive he enjoys immunity for crimes that were committed while he was Mexican president. That claim has nearly 150 years of legal precedent behind it, so it is difficult to see the lawsuit going forward once that issue is resolved.
The high court decision places the onus on the Mexican Procuradoria General de la Republica (PGR), or attorney general to reopen the investigation into the attacks.