The Loxicha cases

Shortly after a rebel group known as the Popular Revolutionary Army (Ejército Popular Revolucionario, EPR) carried out its first armed attacks in several parts of Mexico in August 1996, approximately 150 indigenous peasants from the Loxicha region of the southern state of Oaxaca were rounded up and detained in joint police/army sweeps. They were charged with membership in the EPR. However, the sweeps more likely occurred as the result of a probable collaboration between the government and the powerful caciques, local large landowners who dispute ownership rights of lands claimed by local communities. Many of the detainees are members of the largely indigenous local municipal authorities that have had a long adversarial relationship with the caciques.

Almost all of the detainees suffered torture or mistreatment and were deprived of due process of law. In a number of cases, torture was used to obtain confessions and statements inculpating other detainees. These statements were often taken at installations of the Public Ministry without the presence of public defenders or other defense lawyers. Those public defenders who were present at the giving of statements largely did not take advantage of the opportunity to advise their clients, speak to the Public Ministry officials, or otherwise intervene in the process of taking statements, even when it was clear that threats were being used to coerce confessions. Other public defenders provided less than adequate legal representation to the detainees once they were taken before a judge, even after many of the detainees refused to ratify the coerced confessions. Legalized Injustice details the various violations of access to adequate counsel in the Loxicha and other cases.

Israel Ochoa Lara (see side bar), the attorney of most of the Loxicha detainees, has denounced, in the context of the criminal proceedings as well as more publicly, the human rights violations that Mexican state agents have committed against the detainees. Mr. Ochoa has faced reprisals as a result.* Most of the detainees were prosecuted in federal courts, although some have remained in Oaxaca state courts. Over 60 Loxicha detainees were released quickly after courts threw out the cases for lack of evidence or found alleged confessions suspect. In the years that followed, remaining detainees were held in prison for lengthy periods and trial courts began to convict and sentence many to prison terms in spite of irregularities. However, in December 2000, the Oaxaca state legislature passed an amnesty bill that has led to the release of 57 of these detainees, some of whom had already been sentenced to prison terms. Currently, 21 remain in prisons throughout Oaxaca.