CPTnet
30 April 2010
OAXACA, MEXICO: Paramilitaries attack human rights convoy, kill CACTUS
director and Finnish accompanier

La Sabana, Oaxaca, Mexico -- On Tuesday, April 27, paramilitaries attacked an aid convoy and killed two human rights workers, identified in news sources as Alberta "Bety" Cariño Trujillo, director of CACTUS (Center of Community Support Working Together) and Jyri Jaakkola, a Finnish human rights observer. Cariño was also a member of the Indigenous Community Radio Network of Southeast Mexico and was one of the community leaders Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) accompanied during its presence in Oaxaca in December 2006. Jaakkola was one of several human rights workers accompanying the caravan. One other woman was hospitalized for injuries. Two community organizers and two journalists, originally reported as missing after the ambush, have now been accounted for.

According to news sources, the caravan was carrying food, water, and other basic necessities to the autonomous community of San Juan Copala. About fifteen armed men ambushed the caravan at a road block just outside the village of La Sabana, where the paramilitary organization UBISORT (Union of Social Welfare for the Triqui Region) is active.

San Juan Copala declared itself an autonomous community in January 2007 in a nonviolent effort to create a space for political participation. Since then, paramilitaries allied with the state government have blockaded the community and cut off supplies or people from going in or out.

In late 2006, CACTUS asked for human rights accompaniment in response to the Oaxacan government's repression of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca movement (APPO). APPO was organizing protests in support of teachers and calling for the removal of Oaxacan Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. CPT sent Chris Schweitzer and Matthew Wiens  to the area, where they visited rural communities and met with other human rights defenders dealing with the crisis. CACTUS was also active supporting the traumatized families of the many local residents who had been arrested by police at the Oaxaca City bus station while waiting to head home after a protest.

One of the survivors of the ambush, APPO counselor Gabriela Jimenez, said the paramilitaries sent a death threat through her to Oaxacan community organizer Omar Esparza: "Tell him that he's next. We're going to find him, wherever he is, and we will kill him." Omar is another CACTUS leader CPTers accompanied in 2006 and the husband of Bety Cariño. They have two children.

CACTUS is calling for "an impartial, expedient, and accurate investigation led by the Federal Attorney General's Office in order to punish the murderers in this paramilitary group."

For more information see: 
* background on San Juan Copala, http://www.narconews.com/Issue44/article2499.html;
* a 2006 article by CPTer Schweitzer quoting Cariño and describing the work of CACTUS, http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2006/12/18/oaxaca-mexico-ampquotwhat039s-wrong-thatampquot;
* a speech by Cariño at a human rights conference in Dublin, Ireland in 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSk7drjmSx4 and an English translation, http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/files/en/Testimony%20by%20Bety%20Carino.pdf.