All Things Considered
NPR - 10//22/01
Segment transcript

 OCHOA MURDER

REPORTED BY GERRY HADDEN

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HADDEN: Ochoa was shot twice Friday evening by unknowns assailants. A note left by her body warned others would face the same fate. She was currently representing two young brothers accused of guerrilla activities, including bombing banks in Mexico City.

Mexico has a long history of political murders, torture and disappearances. Two years ago, then presidential candidate Vicente Fox promised to end such abuses. Mexico, he said, would soon no longer be considered a violator of human rights. But since coming to power, he has done little.

Dennise Dresser is a professor of political science at Mexico's Technological Autonomous Institute. She says Fox is afraid of alienating opposition parties in congress.

DRESSER: One of the parties that has great weight in the congress itself is the PRI, and Fox has felt in order to get key legislation passed, such as the pending fiscal reform bill, that he needs to sit down at the table with the PRI and negotiate ad nauseum with the party and give it essentially what it wants.

HADDEN: To date that seems to be letting the past die, but Dresser says she hopes Ochoa's assassinations forces Fox to take action.

Bert Garring is with Amnesty International in New York. Amnesty worked closely with Ochoa, most recently on a highly celebrated case of two farmers imprisoned for speaking out against logging in rural Mexico.

GARRING: She was just an incredible woman. She was someone who couldn't see human rights violations and injustices around her and not act. She refused to be indifferent to injustice and she felt she had to do something and now, unfortunately she's paid the ultimate price.

HADDEN: Amnesty International's latest report on Mexico says torture, especially the military and police is still a cause for concern. It says threats against individuals often go uninvestigated and passed atrocities remain sealed off from scrutiny. Fox's administration has condemned Ochoa's murder, but so far, President Fox has not commented. Human rights groups have said in the last several years they have reported 150 cases of threats and attacks against their workers, but not one case has been resolved.