 Network
of Community Human Rights Defenders
Now you can directly support front-line human rights
work carried out by those actually living at the heart of the conflict.
Since 1994’s dramatic eruption of the Zapatista
conflict, when thousands of indigenous Mexicans in Chiapas launched
a small revolution in defense of their rights and autonomy, the
Mexican state and paramilitary forces have conducted a campaign
of torture, disappearance, imprisonment and murder.
In one incident 28 innocent people - many women and children -
were gunned down whilst taking refuge a church.
External dependency
International human rights ‘monitors’
flooded the region; but the resources and agenda were controlled
by outside agencies, the people living at the heart of it mere subjects
or victims, dependent on foreign skills to defend their own rights.
Change through autonomy
So a local lawyer began to train the Mayans living at the heart
of the conflict to themselves monitor and take action on human rights
abuses. The Network now has trained 82 ‘community
defenders’ able to identify, document and pursue
cases of human rights abuses.
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