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Please also write to Mexican diplomatics in your countries . With copy to: zapateandoxalteo@gmail.com,apetac@hotmail.com

Please find below a note concerning the charge of slander issued by the Zapopan Alcohol Company against the local residents and the Ecological Producers Association of Tatexco (APETAC) in Veracruz State, Mexico.

Adapted from the Spanish at: http://zapateando.wordpress.com/2007/07/02/alcoholera-zapopan-demanda-a-defensores-del-medio-ambiente-en-veracruz/

A complaint against the industrial plant submitted to the Attorney General, the Mexican Environmental Protection Agency and the National Water Commission is ignored; instead its signatories are placed under surveillance by security forces. One of the charged organizations, APETAC, is an adherent to the Other Campaign.

Zapateando.– The Zapopan Alcohol Plant, originary of the Mexican States of Michoacán and Jalisco, charges slander against residents who issue formal complaints against the company’s environmental pollution in Veracruz State. The Zapopan alcohol production plant in the municipality of Atoyac, Veracruz had been denounced to Federal Attorney General, the National Environmental Protection Agency (PROFEPA) and the National Commission of the Water (CNA) for dumping fermented liquid waste (vinasse) on land and water.

The Veracruzans who signed the penal demand to the Attorney General and an official complaint to PROFEPA and the CNA are representatives of communities affected by the Zapopan plant’s pollution in the Atoyac River and environs – contaminating arable land, irrigation streams and water bodies that flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Affected communities are located in the municipalities of Central Veracruz: Atoyac, Carrillo Puerto, Cuitláhuac, Cotaxtla and Yanga. Isaúl Rodriguez Merales, member of the Rural Producers Association of Tatexco AC (APETAC), an adherent organization to The Other Campaign, is among the signatories that Zapopan now accuses of slander. On Sunday July 1 Radio Teocelo’s The Other Campaign, Privileging the Ear interviewed Matilde Robles – another signatory now charged with slander. Robles indicated that communities would defend themselves against this legal maneuver to intimidate them and the complainants would continue insisting that the plant end its dumping practices. To summarize from the signatories’ press release: ‘The communities affected by the vinasse (a toxic waste produced in the transformation of molasses into alcohol) contamination… placed formal complaints before the Attorney General’s office of the Republic (PGR) as well as the National Environmental Protection Agency (Profepa) and the National Water Commission”. Both complaints, they indicated, have entered the slow bureaucratic process via which the citizens of Veracruz and Mexico must negotiate to “defend the environment and the health of our children. They have not even notified us of any concrete action to investigate the pollution”.

Those who signed the popular denunciation to PROFEPA and the CNA are residents of communities affected by dumping into agricultural lands and the Atoyac River, which channels into the Gulf of Mexico. These central Veracruzan communities include: Atoyac, Carrillo Puerto, Cuitláhuac, Cotaxtla y Yanga . The “slander” charge made by the Zapopoan Company has been officially processed by the Attorney General’s office at PGR/VER/COR/11/078/2007, while “the citizens who signed the legal complaint against the company are now cited as the accused. We see this as a clear attempt to intimidate the communities into dropping their demand for respect of their environmental and health rights. ” Hilario Vázquez Durán of Arroyo Azul in the Municipality of Carrillo Puerto, Matilde Robles Gómez of Cuitláhuac, Isaúl Rodríguez Merales of the Ecological Producers Association of Tatexco AC (APETAC) along with the rest of the signatories of the complaint “must now defend themselves legally from the charge made by the company, but will not retract their demand that environmental law be implemented, and the Zapopan plant obliged to cease dumping toxic residue.”

In an earlier press conference in Jalapa on October 8 2006, the day the complaint against Zapopan was issued to the Attorney General’s office, signatories explained the environmental problems generated by the plant. These are summarized at www.ecoportal.net: “The waters of the Atoyac river, polluted by Zapopan, are used for domestic consumption, crop irrigation, and to water livestock in150 communities. The company generates approximately 70 barrels of vinasse daily which is then discarded onto fields as ‘fertilizer’. The substance, however, is not a fertilizer, is dumped in large quantities and subsequently carried by rain water to the riverbed.”
“Vinasse is the waste substance generated in the production of cane alcohol. The pollution from the Zapopan plant has been transported through streams and rivers to Potrero Nuevo, Medellín and Boca del Río, Veracruz. The polluted waters turn dark red, give off a foul odor, and are infested with worms and black flies… The river water thus becomes useless for bathing and washing of clothes, forcing inhabitants of these areas to look for other water sources, in some cases at considerable distance. Those who bathe in the water have developed hives and spots on their skin, rashes, and in a some cases loss of toe-nails. Where potable water is unavailable, mothers have had to wash their babies with purchased water, a very expensive option given that many inhabitants of the region live in poverty. Various species of dead fish in addition to lobster, crayfish and other seafood floated on the water which was also filled with bloodsuckers. In local fish-ponds/farms, fish stocks died. In addition some dogs, pigs, goats and cows aborted their young. There were also deaths of armadillos. The vinasse also caused the deaths of ducks, turkeys, cows, hogs, and damaged fields of beans, tomato, chili peppers, corn, sesame and lemon.”
“The alcohol plant is trying to save money and thus does not invest in a proper treatment plant for the water, a process that is carried out in Colombia and Cuba which employ the treated waste in industrial production of building materials like cement and mortar. The government of the state of Veracruz gave its word that not one further drop of vinasse would enter the water. They have not lived up to this promise. Instead, state authorities have defended Zapopan against the will of thousands of Veracruzans. Consequently, the government negatively affects more sources of employment than it creates given that the alcohol plant has created 80 jobs, but negatively affects thousands employed in lemon farming.”
The PRG, the Profepa and the CNA are quite aware of the complaints against the Zapopan made by representatives of communities in the municipalities of Atoyac, Yanga, Cuitláhuac, Carrillo Puertos and Cotaxtla and the Association of Ecological Producers of Tatexco) (APETAC) with legal counsel of the Mexican Center of Environmental Law (CEMDA). Zapopan has answered by filling the region’s commercial media with statements by local “opinion leaders” in their defense, including some well-known politicians. And now they are level an accusation of “slander” against environmental advocates.
A similar strategy has been unsuccessfully employed against the environmentalist Sergio Aguilar, who alerted the public concerning pollution in the reserve area in Jalapa known as La Joyita, a home to native species of birds and vegetation. In the ensuing judicial case against Aguilar by the landowner – the Fernandez family, Aguilar won. Nevertheless a project to build a Wal-Mart, a housing estate and a hospital in the reserve area remains in place.
Other similar cases to Zapopan and La Joyita are a series of judicial charges made by the American business Carroll Farms against inhabitants of Perote, Veracruz, nearby communities of Populates and the journalists who transcribed the statements of the inhabitants. Here residents complained of the overuse of the aquifer by large industrial pork plants (in factories of approximately one thousand hogs). Recently Carroll Farms retracted their charge against Veronica Hernández Argüello who had endured months of legal harassment and threats of arrest for the alleged crime of “slander” after reading a communiqué over the air at the Perote Radio Station concerning the pollution. Despite failures in these cases, the current business strategy in Veracruz is to quickly charge slander against environmental justice advocates, hoping to force civilian complaints to be dropped or ignored.

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FELIPE DE JESÚS CALDERÓN HINOJOSA
Presidente de la república
Residencia Oficial de los Pinos Casa Miguel Alemán
Col. San Miguel Chapultepec, C.P. 11850, México DF
Tel: +52 (55) 27891100
Fax: +52 (55) 52772376
felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mx
Licenciado Francisco Javier Ramírez Acuña,
Secretario de Gobernación,
Bucareli 99, 1er. piso, Col. Juárez,
Delegación Cuauhtémoc, México D.F., C.P. 06600, México,
Fax: +52 (55) 5093 3414
frjramirez@segob.gob.mx
Lic. Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza
Procurador General de la República
Procuraduría General de la República, Paseo de la Reforma nº 211-213, Piso 16
Col. Cuauhtémoc, Del. Cuauhtémoc, México D.F., C.P. 06500, MÉXICO
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Correo-E.: ofproc@pgr.gob.mx
Lic. Fidel Herrera Beltrán
Gobernador del estado de Veracruz
Ave. Enríquez sin Número, Colonia
Centro, Xalapa, Veracruz, México
Código Postal 91000,
Teléfono (228) 8 41 88 00
fidelherrera@veracruz-llave.gob.mx
correo@segobver.gob.mx
Lic. Emeterio López Márquez
Procurador General de Justicia del estado de Veracruz
Nicolás Bravo #34 Col. Centro C.P. 91000 Xalapa, Ver.
Tel. Conmutador (228)841-61-70
Lic. Nohemí Quirasco Hernández
Presidenta de la Comisión Estatal de Derechos Humanos Veracruz
Carrillo Puerto No.21
Col. Centro CP 91000
Xalapa de Enríquez, Veracruz
Teléfonos y Fax: 2288 120796 / 120589 Ext: 110
Lada sin costo 01 800 260 2200
comentarios@cedhveracruz.org
Dip. Emilio Gamboa Patrón
Av. Congreso de la Unión 66
Col. El Parque, Del. Venustiano Carranza
CP, 15969, México, DF
Tel. conmutador y pedir fax 56 28 13 00
emilio.gamboa@congreso.gob.mx
Senador Santiago Creel Miranda
Torre Azul, Piso 20, Reforma 136
Col. Juárez, Del. Cuauhtémoc
México DF, 06600
Teléfono 53.45.30.00 Ext: 3042,3493, Fax 3527
screel@senado.gob.mx
Please also write to Mexican diplomatics in your countries. With copy to: zapateandoxalteo@gmail.com,apetac@hotmail.com

More information: http://zapateando.wordpress.com/