H02980
Headlines : GovernmentTwo sons of Mexican activist killed in ambush
My heart goes out to this man and his family. It is a sad world when even an environmentalist cannot live without fear from persecution. Judging by the past record, I would be very pleased if there was any serious criminal investigation and ensuing charges.
[Posted By Colin]Republished from Yahoo! News/Reuters
Two sons of a peasant activist fighting logging in Mexico have been killed in an ambush, the Greenpeace environmental group said on Friday.
Gunmen opened fire on Albertano Penalosa and his four sons as they arrived home in the southern state of Guerrero on Thursday night.
Two of his sons died in the hail of bullets, Greenpeace and a local human rights group said. The activist and two other sons survived, but were seriously injured in the attack.
It was the latest attack on members of a Guerrero environmental group, which has long complained that local political bosses control remote mountain communities with iron fists to carry out logging.
Penalosa belongs to the same group fighting against logging in Guerrero as high-profile activists Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera.
After blocking corporate logging operations, Montiel and Cabrera were arrested and jailed on what were widely seen as trumped-up charges. Under mounting international pressure, President Vicente Fox freed them in 2001.
“The shooting against Albertano Penalosa Dominguez and his family comes on top of the acts of persecution and harassment against environmental leaders of the region,” Greenpeace and the rights group said in a statement.
Posted by Colin
"When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor were hungry, they called me a communist."
- Dom H. Camara
We are really beginning to see the merge of military and police agains the people, and not the other way around.
(We are really beginning to see the merge of military and police agains the people, and not the other way around.)
Nothing new down there….Chiapas. No wonder people walk across the desert to get away.
I was working a story down there a couple years ago. Met a group from Chiapas. Army had blocked the roads, kept food shipments out. People had gone north cause they were starving.
It became clear that the Mex. Gov’t was using the US as a dumping ground for the unwanted rather than trying to make any real changes to address their internal problems.
And of course their “laws” prevent people from having any means to redress the imbalence of power that’s stacked in PRIs favor….
JB
It’s all just really sad.