Series<\/a><\/p>\n Mexico – Monta\u00f1a<\/strong>,<\/strong> 2008<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n The state of Guerrero – southern Mexico – is one of the most remote regions of the country. Its mountainous area, the Monta\u00f1a, is mainly home to indigenous communities.<\/p>\n Their living conditions are extreme because of their isolation, but also because they live in a climate of terror, caught between the army, paramilitaries, guerrillas and drug traffickers. Since the uprising in neighbouring Chiapas in the 1990s, the government has deployed large military forces in Guerrero, particularly to combat guerrilla movements. The army is responsible for brutally repressing these movements, but in practice the repression is mainly directed against the indigenous civilian population, resulting in forced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, torture, assassinations… For their part, the large – non-indigenous – landowners maintain paramilitary militias to protect and extend their land interests, while the drug traffickers – who also claim control over part of the region – arm their own men. It is also not uncommon for a landowner to be in contact with, or even be part of, a drug cartel.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> In such a context of violence, the indigenous populations are nevertheless trying to survive in villages very far from urban centres. Isolation makes access to a certain number of essential rights (health care, education, etc.) extremely complicated. Indigenous people who do not emigrate to the north of the country or to the United States often have no choice but to join the guerrillas or join one of the plantations in the hands of drug traffickers.<\/p>\n Fears that the region will fall under the control of drug traffickers for the long term have increased the repression to which the indigenous people continue to be subjected.<\/p>\n Excerpt from the book DiGNITE, Amnesty International. 2010. Edition Textuel.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> My name is Teresa de Jesus Caterina. I am a Me’phaa. Today I am old, but I am still suffering from the rapes I have suffered. That was in 1993.<\/p>\n My daughter and I went to work in the fields. On the way, we stopped along a stream to catch crabs. Military men arrived and demanded, in Spanish, that they be given water. I replied, in my native language, Me’phaa, “You have hands, use them! \u00bb. They then forced us to follow them to their military camp in the mountains. Two women from my community were already there. My daughter and I stayed two days with the soldiers without food or drink, being raped. Then we left the camp and walked.<\/p>\n On the road, we passed my husband, who was drunk and asked them to free us. They replied, “Here we are the chiefs, you are nothing”, before tying him to a tree and hitting him.<\/p>\n We resumed our walk, taking my husband with us; the women were raped at regular intervals, about every four hours. And as I was trying to defend myself, I was tied up with a rope and dragged by the neck. Then we arrived in our village, where they tied me up again and beat my husband.<\/p>\n Then they “offered” my freedom and that of my daughter in exchange for a meal that I had to prepare for them.\u00a0 “If you don’t serve us, if you don’t shut up, we’ll come back for you, now we know where you are! \u00bb<\/p>\n They are gone. It’s very hard for me to tell all this.\u00a0 My husband died. He didn’t want me to tell my story for fear of the community’s reaction.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> My name is Raul Lucas Lucia, I am from the community of El Charco. In November 2003, soldiers came to my house.<\/p>\n It was 7 o’clock in the morning. I had a coffee in front of my house before I left for work. I heard their rifles click and they immediately wanted to hit me.<\/p>\n “Don’t do this in front of my family,” I told them.We went into the mountains. Then to a quiet corner. They stripped me naked, I found myself in my pants, they made me stand on my knees. They hit me with their rifles.”Where did you hide the weapons? “they asked me. “I didn’t hide anything, I’m unarmed. “They insulted me, humiliated me. Finally, in the afternoon, I was released. There were rumours that I had been part of the guerrillas. Every year I used to go to the site of the so-called El Charco massacre.My brother-in-law was one of eleven people killed by the Mexican army while they were resting after a meeting of the indigenous communities in the school in the village of El Charco on 7 June 1998. As they left, they threatened to kill me and my family if I told what had happened. They were part of the 48th regiment of Cruz Grande.<\/p>\n I denounced the military to the Human Rights Commission, but the justice system did nothing.<\/p>\n On 22 February 2009, the body of Raul Lucas Lucia was found in Ayulta de los Libre, along with that of another human rights defender, Manuel Ponce Rosas. <\/em>They were respectively president and secretary of the Organisation for the Future of the Mixtecan People (OFPM). <\/em>Both activists were abducted by armed men who presented themselves as police officers during a public demonstration on 13 February.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\n<\/div><\/div><\/main><\/div><\/div>Guillaume Herbaut<\/a><\/h5>\n<\/div><\/section>\n
![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/01LAMONTANA.jpg\" "Maria. Her father was murdered on 7 June 1998, during the massacre committed by soldiers in El Charco, during a coordination meeting bringing together different indigenous communities of the region in the village school. El Charco village. La Monta\u00f1a region. State of Guerrero. Mexico.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/02LAMONTANA.jpg\" "Mountain landscape in the Monta\u00f1a region. State of Guerrero. Mexico.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/03LAMONTANA.jpg\" "Teresa Jes\u00fas Caterina. Village of Barranca Guadalupe. She was raped in 1993, with her Daughter, by soldiers. Region of La Monta\u00f1a, state of Guerrero. Mexico.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/04LAMONTANA-avec-texte-a\u0300-gauche.jpg\" "Detail of a kitchen in a house in La Monta\u00f1a, state of Guerrero. Mexico.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/06LAMONTANA.jpg\" "A soldier from the Mexican army\u2019s 48rd battalion at a roadblock in Guerrero state. This batallion is suspected by human rights defence associations of committing rape, torture and summary executions against indigenous peoples. Region of the Monta\u00f1a. State of Guerrero. Mexico.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/05LAMONTANA.jpg\" "Ra\u00fal Lucas Luc\u00eda shows the position he was forced to hold when the soldiers beat him in November 2003. On 22 February 2009, the body of Ra\u00fal Lucas Luc\u00eda was found at Ayutla de los Libres, together with the body of another human rights defender, Manuel Ponce Rosas. They were, respectively, president and secretary of the Organisation for the Future of the Mixtec People (OFPM). The two activists had been abducted by armed men who posed as policemen during a public demonstration on 13 February. El Charco village. La Monta\u00f1a region. State of Guerrero. Mexico.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/07LAMONTANA.jpg\" "Modesta Cruz Victoriano, 42, was married to Lorenzo Fernandez Ortego, 39. Lorenzo was an activist for the OPIM (Organisation of the Me'phaa Indigenous People), an association for the defence of indigenous human rights. As a member of the OPIM, Lorenzo Fern\u00e1ndez campaigned on behalf of the 14 men from the Me'phaa (Tlapaneco) indigenous community who claim to have been forcibly sterilised in 1998, and for justice for his sister In\u00e9s Fern\u00e1ndez Ortega, a woman from the same community who was raped by the military in 2002. Lorenzo Fern\u00e1ndez Ortega was murdered in February 2008. He was abducted and tortured on 9 February. His body was found in the river in the town of Ayutla de los Libres. Modesta Cruz Victoriano holds in her hands the photos of her husband's body. Village of El Camalote. Region of La Monta\u00f1a, state of Guerrero.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/08LAMONTANA.jpg\" "A police check at Ayutla de los Libres. The municipal police force is widely suspected of corruption. La Monta\u00f1a region, state of Guerrero. Mexico.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/09LAMONTANA.jpg\" "Municipal prison in the town of Ayutla de los Libres. Region of La Monta\u00f1a, state of Guerrero. Five indigenous activists for the organisation of the OPIM (Organisation of the Me'phaa Indigenous People), Natalio Ortega Cruz, Romualdo Santiago Enedina, Ra\u00fal Hern\u00e1ndez Abundio, Orlando Manzanarez Lorenzo and Manuel Cruz Victoriano, are accused of having committed murder. They were arrested on April 18, 2008 and are part of a group of 15 members of the OPIM whose arrest was ordered on April 11, 2008. Since 2002, the OPIM has been working to defend the rights of the indigenous communities Ayutla de los Libres and Acatepec, Costa Monta\u00f1a de Guerrero. Mexico.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/10LAMONTANA.jpg\" "Ustino Santiago Garcia, 33, was threaten by soldiers at a Checkpoint. The militaries have told him that if he was an activist for the OPIM (the Me' phaa Indigenous People's Organization) they would to kill him and her family. Village of El Camalote. Region of La Monta\u00f1a, state of Guerrero. Mexico.")
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![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/11LAMONTANAavec-texte-a\u0300-droite.jpg\" "In\u00e9s Fern\u00e1ndez Ortega at the place where she was raped by soldiers on 22 March 2002.Tecuani community. Region of the Monta\u00f1a. State of Guerrero. Mexico.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/12LAMONTANA.jpg\" "Cemetery of the El Charco community. Out of thirty graves, ten are linked to homicides. Region of the Monta\u00f1a. State of Guerrero. Mexico.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/13LAMONTANA.jpg\" "Mountain landscape in the Monta\u00f1a region. State of Guerrero. Mexico.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/14LAMONTANA.jpg\" "Maurilia Hern\u00e1ndez G\u00e1lvez, 26, suffers from cerebral and mental disorders. Unable to afford a doctor, her family kept her tied up for several months. The soldiers who found her in this state took her to hospital. Today she is following a course of treatment but has only enough medication for a few months. Village of Costilla del Cerro. Region of the Monta\u00f1a. State of Guerrero. Mexico.")
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