Human Rights First Statement on First Anniversary of Digna Ochoa's Death

En Espanol

Digna Ochoa was a prominent Mexican lawyer and a frontline human rights defender. As a staff attorney at the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center (PRODH) in Mexico City, she took on the most sensitive issues facing Mexico as it transitions from its authoritarian past towards a more democratic future. Working primarily in the southern Mexican states of Guerrerro and Oaxaca, she documented, denounced and judicially challenged the worst aspects of the army’s takeover of rural policing for counterinsurgency purposes. Her cases often highlighted the confrontation between economic interests and social activists, as well as the former’s ability to influence the criminal justice system to target their opponents. In 2000, Digna Ochoa received the American Bar Association’s Human Rights Award, presented by the Association’s Section on Litigation.

By the mid 1990s, Digna and her colleagues at the PRODH had won a reputation as a center of opposition to institutionalized abuse, particularly in the emerging conflict zones of Mexico’s indigenous south. As a result, beginning in 1995 they were targeted for an escalating campaign of harassment, intimidation and violence. In 1999, Digna herself was abducted twice. Once, unknown assailants held her hostage in her home for nine hours of interrogation before leaving her, bound hand and foot, in front of an opened gas valve. On this occasion, she managed to free herself and escape. During all these years, the reported incidents and threats were never properly investigated.

On October 19, 2001, Digna was found shot to death in her Mexico City office. Several of the PRODH’s past and present staff received death threats after her murder, reminding them that they should no longer ignore the many warnings to abandon their work.

Mexico City’s Attorney General is in charge of the investigation of Digna’s death. The investigation remains open and is still beset by controversy. After nine months of criticism of the Attorney General’s efforts, a special prosecutor was assigned to the case in August, replacing a senior prosecutor who had taken over the case early this year. A related case is now pending before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Digna Ochoa and others.

The Mexican investigation into Digna Ochoa’s death (and related threats) is now at a crossroads. The steps taken in the next two months will likely determine whether the Government is able to salvage the credibility of a deeply flawed process, or if a combination of politics, institutional incapacity and inertia will condemn this case to a murky non-resolution. Failed investigations are too common in Mexico, where prosecutorial and police institutions cannot afford another serious blow to their already poor reputations.

The Ochoa case carries particularly high stakes for government institutions because of the inevitable suspicion that she was murdered by someone connected with the military and security forces in reprisal for her public accusations against them for human rights abuses. During the many years of threats against the PRODH and Digna Ochoa, and in the twelve months since her death, Human Rights First has voiced its concern that each of these incidents be thoroughly investigated, and those responsible brought to justice so that this pattern of violence might be ended. We believe that one of the great impediments hampering the investigation of Digna Ochoa’s violent death is the previous failure to investigate thoroughly its many antecedents when they occurred. This is a particular concern because the circumstances surrounding those incidents indicated a significant possibility that State agents were involved.

After a year in which the Mexico City’s Attorney General has had to name three different prosecutors to the case, where news of the investigation (including investigators’ increasingly evident conclusion that the death was a suicide) was repeatedly leaked to the press, where federal officials have received criticism for lackluster cooperation with the investigation, and in which there have been allegations at various times that the military and the PRODH, as well as Digna Ochoa’s boyfriend, were linked to the crime, the government has four major challenges ahead of it. Regrettably, it is by no means clear that the relevant institutions will be up to the task of making and properly implementing the appropriate decisions. Human Rights First urges the Mexican authorities to:

• Obtain an impartial and independent expert review of the investigation. Since early this year, the local Attorney General’s office has conducted fruitful discussions with a number of actors about the possibility of commissioning an expert review of the investigation, intended both as technical assistance, and as a means of laying to rest any lingering doubts about the intention of the authorities to pursue the investigative trail to the appropriate outcome. Recently, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights agreed to select a panel of forensic, ballistic and investigative experts to work under the coordination of Pedro Diaz, a Colombian expert previously appointed by the Commission to review the case. The Commission has begun soliciting funds to finance this effort.

Mexican federal authorities have agreed with the Commission on terms of reference that define certain elements of the relationship between the proposed experts and the Mexican government. Understandably, these terms of reference do not address other matters relevant to the force of the expert’s conclusions with respect to the local investigation. The Mexico City’s Attorney General’s office has agreed in principle to more specific terms of reference regarding this effort, and these should be made formal in order to assure the experts that their work will carry the appropriate weight and receive full consideration.

• Ensure that the new special prosecutor has the means needed to complete the investigation. The new special prosecutor will need to enjoy full cooperation from federal counterparts and military and local officials in other states in order to pursue all appropriate lines of inquiry. While it is difficult to evaluate (due to the legal secrecy that governs this stage of the investigation) claims that such cooperation has not always been forthcoming, certainly many doubts in this regard can be dispelled by a transparent process in which the relevant authorities agree on specific terms of cooperation to carry out specific investigative steps.
  
  
• Properly investigate and prosecute the antecedents to the death and the most recent threats. These events form a crucial backdrop to this case. In particular, the most serious allegation, that the investigation into the kidnapping and attempted murder of Digna Ochoa was twice shelved prematurely by federal investigators, needs to be fully investigated. Addressing these incidents may provide information that is important to the current investigation, and sanctioning those responsible for failure to investigate at the time is a necessary step to restore public trust in the investigation.
  
  
• Avoid needless attack on or speculation about Digna Ochoa in the media. No valid purpose has been served by leaks to the press about Digna Ochoa’s private life. In addition to a probable violation of the norms governing Mexican investigations, these have caused unnecessary delay in the investigation and unnecessary discomfort to her family and friends.

For more information on the Digna Ochoa case, please contact Robert Varenik, Human Rights First representative in Mexico, varenikr@humanrightsfirst.org (tel. 011-5255-5553-0902 or 011-5255-5068-7678) or Maddi Azpiroz in New York, azpirozm@humanrightsfirst.org (tel. 212-845-5241).