Atzin Helps Special Needs of 80 Children & Adults

Good day everyone, this update has been weighing heavy on my mind over the past week. There was much to reflect on. This report outlines where we are as an organization working on basic human rights, like health and education. 

When drug trafficking started to invade Tlamacazapa about ten years ago, and open drug use soared among male youth during the covid19 lockdowns, I thought, “Every possible problem plagues the people of Tlamacazapa - poverty, toxic exposures, insecurity, violence, and now drugs.” These factors shaped what Atzin did, how and when. In the immediate wake of covid19, I thought we had seen it all, full frontal.

But I was wrong. Beyond the pandemic, we had yet to experience a massive hit of a different kind.

Petition denied. As many readers know, Atzin’s program coordinator, Xochitl Ramirez, was arbitrarily detained and imprisoned on May 3^rd, 2023, charged with an aggravated kidnapping that occurred in 2019. Last week on November 16^thafter a four-hour hearing, a judge denied Xochitl's lawyers’ petition for dismissal of charges and immediate release, a petition with ample and clear evidence of innocence. With a sudden about-face in his final summary, the judge ruled that Xochitl’s case should enter into a full legal process. Immediately, Xochitl’s sobs echoed throughout the building; she knew that this process would take at least one year, if not more.

Totally new ground. With many people assisting over the past six months, we focused on helping to build her defense. It continues to be an intensive and rather abrupt learning curve. The work engulfed us as an organization: new legal language, new judicial processes, new analyses of situations; new contacts and approaches; new understandings of what constitutes evidence. And we lost. Or rather, Xochitl lost, caught up in overwhelming external forces that are organized… and corrupt.

1 in 90,000. Xochitl's fate hangs in limbo. She is one among an estimated 90,000 innocent people imprisoned in Mexico (UN 2022). She made errors of judgement about boyfriends in her personal life and is now unwittingly associated with a kidnapping. 

Cartel warnings. This past Sunday night, a car chase with a shootout just down the street from Atzin House left ten men dead as drug territory wars continue -- the shots woke me up – the dominant cartel left posters advising of a midnight curfew in effect, that they would be patrolling and stopping anyone on the streets after midnight in Cuernavaca. Our phones are tapped since Xochitl’s arrest (Really, you ask? Yes. By who? We’d like to know that too). Last week the body of a young taxi driver from Buena Vista was dumped on the road outside Tlamacazapa as a cartel warning for all drivers refusing to pay “piso” or monthly protection fees: pay or be done.

Don’t nudge the bear. These events, among others, have given me pause. Mexico is in turmoil, with more to come in the lead up to federal and state elections next June – the largest election in Mexican history. While not at the scale or form of the current warfare in Afghanistan, Gaza or Ukraine, Mexico is also at war, an internal war among conflicting factions. Atzin is at a crossroads.

This isn’t the usual type of newsletter for this festive occasion. But it is an honest accounting of where we are as a small organization in an ever-darkening context. Prior to Xochitl’s arrest, Atzin survived by mostly staying under the proverbial radar, not nudging the bear so to speak. Post-Xochitl’s arrest, by necessity we are suddenly very visible: in person, to government, and on social media.  

In short... over the years,our activities have “lightened the load” for many families and opened up opportunities for some. But now, external circumstances block any significant advances.

Changes coming. After a solid 25-year run, we are taking a close look at what is possible given the circumstances, and casting our net for ideas. While tightening our working model, we are buckling down on training of trainers and the most promising activities (like early child stimulation and scholarships, special needs, ecological stoves). As we wait for better times ahead, this means being patient, low key, and deliberate in building collaborative alliances to achieve justice for Xochitl.

Thank you for your tremendous support this year.

Gratefully,

Susan and the Atzin Team

PS For those who want to read more:

Arbitrary detention still widespread in Mexico, rights expert warns | UN News

Submission to the Universal Periodic Review of Mexico | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)

Human rights in Mexico Amnesty International

Links:

• Front page video - Justice for Xochitl

Dear Friends, Certain events over the years became “defining moments” for me, events that were embedded in everyday life and that caused me to pause and reflect more deeply on human behaviour – the good, the bad and the mediocre. This account is about one of those moments.

As many of you know, I am the founder and (volunteer) ED of Atzin Mexico, a non-profit humanitarian organization operating in an impoverished and violent area of rural Mexico since 1997, with support from Atzin Canada, a sister charitable organization (www.atzin.org). We concentrated intentionally on a single large rural Nahua community, understanding that progress in such a complex setting would take steady accompaniment. In fact, in 2006 CBC The National featured our work in Tlamacazapa, a coverage that highlighted water scarcity in the midst of acute poverty and insecurity. All told, advances have been hard won under relentless, demanding circumstances.

This year, for the first time, we were almost overwhelmed. Our colleague, Xochitl Ramirez, was arbitrarily arrested on the street by three police officers in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico on May 3, 2023, and taken to the state prosecutor’s office. Later that evening, Xochitl was transported to Atlacholoaya state prison and is being held there in abysmal conditions. She was falsely charged with aggravated kidnapping, a serious criminal event that actually occurred four years earlier in March 2019. The kidnapped victim was rescued by police on the fourth day, and three men were arrested and sentenced to seventy years in prison. A woman also actively participated, but it wasn’t Xochitl.

Xochitl has worked with Atzin since 2005; she started as an intern and office assistant and later, coordinated our development programs. Aware of the risks involved, Xochitl has worked tirelessly as a community organizer and trainer, defending the human right to a life with dignity.

Xochitl is innocent. She did not commit this, or any other, crime. On the day of the 2019 kidnapping, Xochitl was working with the Atzin team in Tlamacazapa, Guerrero, and, on subsequent week days, with us in the Atzin office.

In Mexico the probability of an innocent person being sentenced is high. Although Mexican law says that a person is innocent until proven guilty, the presumption of guilt is the actual starting point. A national Senate Forum held last month in Mexico City openly pointed to the constant “fabrication of guilt” by a judicial system that results in innocent people going to prison, as there is much to be gained from a “case-closed” status. We debated: how to extract Xochitl without poking the bear, as they say? Or, would carefully-considered documentation help to expose and eventually contribute to the release of the innocent? What were the risks?

Lawyers are constructing a legal defense to prove Xochitl’s innocence at her next hearing on November 9^th.  But that will not be enough – for Xochitl to have any chance of release, her case needs to stand out from the hundreds of others, putting public pressure on the legal system.

The bright side of this traumatic event is the fact that the local coordinators and promoters in Tlamacazapa are stepping up, taking on more and more responsibility in program administration and planning - their work is praiseworthy! Just goes to show once again that a person learns to manage responsibility by having responsibility, in this case because of the sheer necessity to do so.

What I know for sure is this: our worlds are interconnected, and authentic development requires resolve - a gritty, persistent determination to build and protect our rights and freedoms. Social justice, then, becomes personal, and only when personal, is it possible to keep up the work over time. After resting and reflecting, we are not quitting any time soon!

Gratefully as always, Susan