Free José Ramon!
April 13, 1992
MEXICO
S
INCE then 40 months have passed, and more than 6,000 protest cards and telegrams from many countries have been received by the republic's officials. London-based Amnesty International took up the case a year ago and has made a film about the crime, while America Watch and the United States PEN club have used the case on several occasions as proof of systematic human rights violations in Mexi-
There have been meetings and protests in many cities to demand that José Ramon be released alive. Despite all this, the first
"disappeared" person of the Salinista era remains deprived of his freedom.
A political case
From the very first day, the PRT has insisted that this is a political case. José
Ramon was the main leader of the popular movement amongst the people of Cuautla in Morelos which opposed the governmentorchestrated electoral fraud.
Meanwhile, the state and federal authorities have tried to muddy the waters by floating the "hypothesis" that the disappearance was orchestrated by the PRT leadership to gain publicity, then saying that José Ramon had gone to Spain and become a member of the Basque armed nationalist organization
ETA, and a whole series of other absurdities. Three years on, what the PRT has been saying has been amply confirmed by events.
Towards the end of last year the National
Commission on Human Rights (CNDH)
issued two consecutive reports indicating that the investigations carried out by the special public prosecutor appointed to look into the case were in fact used to distract attention from the real reasons for the abduction of José Ramon.
The commission demanded the arrest of a number of former and present officials involved in the affair, notably Antonio Nogueda
Carvajal, the police chief in the state at the time of the abduction, who the PRT has accused of being responsible for diverting the investigation by circulating false theories.
Because of this and because the international solidarity movement had gained a second wind, the
28 Mexican government decided to
International Viewpoint # 226
JOSE RAMON GARCIA
GOMEZ, a leader of the
Revolutionary Workers
Party (PRT — Mexican section of the Fourth International) in the state of
Morelos, disappeared on
December 16, 1988, some 15 days after Carlos Salinas de Gortari took office as president after the worst electoral fraud in the Mexico's history.
### ALFONSO MORO propose that the prosecutor be replaced in favour of one nominated by the PRT.
This was clearly a political decision by a Salinas government hoping to improve its human rights image (it should not be forgotten that there have been some 500 cases of political "disappearances").
This decision, unimaginable in other countries, is not the product of a democratic system. It is, on the contrary, the result of social pressure and particularly of the lack of popular confidence in the Mexican police and authorities.
In any case, at the beginning of March, the PRT, in the conviction that José Ramon is still alive, decided to accept the nomination of Daniel Estrello, a member of the party's national leadership, as the new special prosecutor.
They insisted on two conditions being met before he accepted this sensitive position: firstly, that he should have at his disposal all the material and technical means to carry out a proper investigation and that the prosecutor and his aides should be allowed to work in full independence.
Subsequently a series of things have become clearer, in particular the fact that the state authorities in Morelos were involved in the abduction from the outset, as has been stated by a number of police officers involved in the affair who are now impriso-
Investigators' helicopter crashes
As a part of this inquiry, on March 20, Daniel Estrella and Edgar Sanchez, a member of the PRT's political committee, as well as two legal officials and a member of the CNDH, set off by helicopter towards Corral de Piedra to meet Antonio Nogueda Cavajal, who is in hiding. As it was coming in to land, the helicopter broke up, killing three passengers and seriously injuring Estrella and Sanchez. Initial information gathered in the village points to the conclusion that the helicopter was struck by bul-
The PRT has demanded the immediate establishment of a commission of inquiry into the causes of the accident, while continuing to insist on the arrest of Nogueda Carvajal and the freeing of José Ramon.
These latest events underline the need for stepped up international solidarity to demand from the Mexican government: • an investigation into the reasons for the accident of March 20; • the swiftest possible arrest of Antonio Nogueda Carvajal; • the freeing of José Ramon Garcia Gomez alive. Telegrams containing these three demands should be sent to: President Salinas de Gortari, Palacio Nacional, Mexico DF, Mexico; with copies to PRT, Avenida Xola 181, Colonia Alamos, CP 03400, Mexico DF, Mexico. *