ACTION
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FLOC and our allies in Mexico offered to cooperate in the investigation of Santiago's brutal murder. In Mexico, criminal investigators sometimes presume relatively simple solutions to potentially complicated cases, especially those involving defenders of human and worker rights. We are asking Mexican authorities to conduct a comprehensive and transparent investigation. To ensure a complete review of this case, we have also asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to fully investigate Santiago's case.
FLOC asks our supporters to contact the Nuevo Leon Governor and Attorney General. Below is a draft letter; please modify it to reflect your organizational and individual concerns, and fax, email, or mail it to:
Jose Natividad Gonzalez Paras
Gobernador de Nuevo Leon
Zaragoza y 5 de Mayo, Colonia Centro
Monterrey, N.L.
Mexico 64000
Telephone from the U.S.: (011-52) (81) 2020-1226 or 2020-1509 Fax from the U.S.: (011-52) (81) 2020-1087 or 2020-1085
Email: gobernador@nl.gob.mx
With a copy to state Prosecutor Trevino:
Attorney General Luis Carlos Trevino Berchelmann Procurador de Justicia de Nuevo Leon Ocampo 470 Poniente, Colonia Centro Monterrey, N.L.
Mexico 64000
Telephone from the U.S.: (011-52) (81) 2020-3333 and 2020-3317 Fax from the U.S.: (011) (52) (81) 2020-4094, 2020-4038 or 2020-4088
Email: ltrevino@nl.gob.mx
Also, please send a copy to FLOC and to our allies in Mexico, so we can follow up on Santiago's case: lzavala@floc.com in N.C.office and to mhale@floc.com in the Ohio office
Here is the letter template:
[date]
Jose Natividad Gonzalez Paras
Gobernador de Nuevo Leon
Zaragoza y 5 de Mayo, Centro
Monterrey, N.L.
Mexico 64000
Dear Governor Gonzalez Paras:
I am writing to inform the State of Nuevo Leon government that I am outraged by the brutal murder of migrant farmworker union organizer Santiago Rafael Cruz in Monterrey on April 9. Santiago was a human and labor rights defender who worked hard to ensure better working conditions for Mexicans working as H2-A guest workers in the fields of North Carolina. Santiago's union, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC, AFL-CIO), won a historic collective agreement in 2004 with the North Carolina Growers Association to represent nearly 7,000 Mexican farmworkers who harvest tobacco, cucumbers, sweet potatoes and Christmas trees.
In 2005 FLOC established an office in Monterrey to represent the contractual rights of its members as they travel from their home states through Monterrey en route to North Carolina. As you know, the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey hands out the majority of H2-A visas, and FLOC's office plays an important role ensuring workers are protected from illegitimate labor contractors in small towns of Mexico. FLOC's agreement cleaned up and systematized the recruitment of these workers in Mexico, jeopardizing the sometimes corrupt interests of fly-by-night labor recruiters in rural areas of Mexico who previously overcharged workers by hundreds of dollars to find them jobs in the U.S. Since FLOC established its office in Monterrey in 2005, it has been the victim of attacks in the media, deportation threats, several robberies, and violent intimidation.
I respectfully request that your government ensure the following steps:
* A formal, timely, honest and thorough criminal investigation
* A just prosecution and punishment for the perpetrators of this crime
* Measures to ensure that FLOC and human and labor rights defenders are not subject to political and economically-motivated intimidation
* Restitution for Santiago's family
I look forward to your timely response.
Sincerely,