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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | February 2008 
2 Brothers Sentenced for 1997 Acteal Massacre
 Associated Press
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| | Photo from the funeral of victims of the Acteal Massacre that occurred on December 22, 1997. | | |
San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico - A Mexican judge has sentenced two brothers to 26 years in prison for their participation in the 1997 massacre of 45 men, women and children in southern Chiapas state.
Brothers Antonio and Mariano Pucuj were also ordered to pay more than $70,000 in compensation to the victims' families, the human rights group Fray Bartolome de las Casas said Wednesday.
Karla Banos, a spokeswoman for state prosecutors, said the Pucuj brothers are appealing the judge's decision.
Pro-government villagers armed with guns and machetes killed the 45 on Dec. 22, 1997 in an incident known as the Acteal massacre for the town where it occurred.
At the time, Chiapas was deeply divided between supporters of the Zapatista rebels — fighting for greater autonomy and indigenous rights — and backers of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for seven decades.
Officials said the killings were motivated by a land dispute between two Tzotzil Indian communities. But victims' families say the massacre resulted from a bid to crush the Zapatistas, with state officials providing weapons and paramilitary training for the attack.
Justice in the case has been slow. It wasn't until last October — a decade later — that courts sentenced 34 men to 26 years each for the killings. Several others were convicted in 2002. |
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