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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | April 2007 
Mexico Civil Rights Worker Killed
 Associated Press
| Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History
F Arturo Rosales
ISBN: 1558853472
Price: $69.95
Published: May 31, 2006
Pages: 500
From the Alianza Hispano-Americana, a mutual aid society founded in Tucson, Arizona in 1894, to the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles in 1943, this first-ever dictionary of important issues in the U.S. Latino struggle for civil rights defines a wide-ranging list of key terms. With over 922 entries on significant events, figures, laws, and other historical items, this ground-breaking reference work covers the fight for equality from the mid-nineteenth century to the present by the various Hispanic groups in the U.S.
Click HERE for info |
A Mexican employee of an Ohio-based union that fights for the rights of Mexican migrant guest workers in the U.S. was found beaten to death in the northern city of Monterrey, officials said this week.
The body of Santiago Rafael Cruz was found early Monday at the Monterrey, Mexico, office of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Leticia Zavala, international vice president for the organization, said in a telephone interview from North Carolina.
The Toledo, Ohio-based arm of the AFL-CIO has fought for migrant worker rights in North Carolina and other states.
Officials believe Cruz was killed late Sunday or early Monday. He had been hired recently as the Monterrey office manager and was staying at the office while he looked for a place to live.
Police had made no arrests in the case, Zavala said. On its Web site, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee said it believed the killing was related to the group's work defending migrant workers.
"We have put up with constant attacks in both the U.S. and Mexico, including having our staff harassed, our office burglarized and broken into several times, and a number of other attempted break-ins," it said. "Now the attacks have come to this."
Zavala said the killing did not appear to be a burglary because nothing was missing.
"We are hoping the authorities in Mexico take the matter seriously and do everything they can to investigate what happened," Zavala said.
The office helped migrant workers get visas and defend their rights.
On the Net: Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Activists Play Up Political Motive
Kelly Arthur Garrett - El Universal
Labor and political leaders from the United States and Mexico urged authorities Wednesday to consider political motives as they investigate the murder of an employee for a U.S.-based labor organization specializing in migrant farm workers´ rights.
Santiago Rafael Cruz, the Oaxaca-born office manager for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), was apparently beaten to death before dawn Monday morning by an intruder in FLOC´s Monterrey, Nuevo León, office.
"A number of high-level people in the United States are taking a strong interest in this case," said Ben Cokelet, of the Mexico City branch of the AFL-CIO, with which FLOC is affiliated. "They´re expressing their concern that the government not look at this as just your average robbery-homicide but a politically connected murder."
One of those people is U.S. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat from the Ohio district where Rafael Cruz previously worked for FLOC.
According to FLOC founder and president Baldemar Velásquez, Kaptur has already contacted the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey and asked its political officer to press for "a speedy and judicious processing of the case."
The AFL-CIO has made a similar request to the U.S. State Department.
At least two Mexican human rights groups, CADHAC of Nuevo León and the national Pro Juárez Human Rights Center have committed to following the case.
"There has been a tremendous outpouring of support from civic organizations and human rights groups and other unions from both countries," Velásquez said. "They´ve been fighting the same kind of corruption we are."
Velásquez and Cokelet both say the killing was motivated by the work FLOC does in Mexico. The Monterrey office was set up shortly after FLOC came to a three-way agreement with the Mt. Olive Pickle Company and the North Carolina Growers Association to set up a guest worker program that would bring Mexican workers to North Carolina under the H2A worker visa program.
FLOC´s role is to protect those workers´ rights. For example, the agreement calls for a limit on what the migrants can be charged to transport themselves to the United States, with the North Carolina companies picking up the rest of the tab. Unscrupulous "recruiters" have been known to quote high transportation prices and pocket the difference.
"We educate workers about the recruitment process so they don´t get ripped off or extorted, which was an ongoing practice here before we arrived," Velásquez said.
"Our efforts don´t make those crooked people very happy, so we´ve had continued attacks on our officers here in Mexico, and harassment of our staff," he said.
Santiago Rafael Cruz and his family had to abandon their Oaxaca cornfield in the mid-1990s, "a victim of NAFTA," according to Velásquez. Most of his family moved to Puebla, but Santiago migrated to the United States, working in the fields without papers. He eventually hooked up with FLOC, working in its Toledo office. He returned to Mexico, and was re-hired by FLOC in Monterrey just six weeks ago.
Rafael Cruz´s body was returned to Puebla on Tuesday,after a brief ceremony in the CADHAC offices. Results of the autopsy have not yet been released.
"He was one of the most affable, courteous, respectful people I´ve ever met," Velásquez said. "He was one of those guys who would subvert his own interest to help others. That´s what made him such an attractive hire." |
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