Barcelona, May 17th, 2006

To the Mexican civil society
To the international civil society
To the Mexican Government
To the media
To the Sixth Commission of the Other Campaign

In Febuary 1998 due to the massacre in Acteal that took place 3 months before, the international civil society reacted with diverse mobilizations to show repudiation to the massacre of the indigenous people in rebellion of Chiapas, and looked for ways towards a pacific solution to the conflict.

More than 500 people and organizations of all five continents endoresed the creation of a International Civil Commission of Human Rights Observation (CCIODH) that traveled to Chiapas in those dates.

In November of 1999, a second commission carried out a new visit to observe and evaluate the then current situation and compare it to the observations and recommendations of the earlier visits.

In Febuary of 2003 the CCIODH carried out a third visit. After the new political party had won the elections, the objective was to verify the posibility of a just solution to the conflict with the passing of the Indigenous Law. This posibility was denied when the EZLN and the CNI did not support the constituional reform passed in 2001 as they saw that it did not fufill the San Andrés Accords.

As a result of these three commissions, varios reports were made that were given to all the interlocutors of the Commission in Mexico, as well as to the organizations and people who endoresed the visits, and to the international institutions (the European Parliament, the National Parliaments, the Central American Parliament, the High Commissioner of Human Rights of the UN, etc.).

After the occurrences in San Salvador Atenco on the 3rd and 4th of May of this year with the result of the death of a minor, varios people seriously injured, around 300 people detained and 5 foreigners deported in an operation in which participated more than 3,000 police officers, very serious denouncements have been made of sexual abuse, rape, phsysical abuse, humiliations, and torture that severely violate the fundamental rights of the people.

For all that is mentioned above, we invite the Mexican civil society as well as the federal government, the Sixth Commission of the EZLN for the Other Campaign, and the organizations and NGO´s affected by the events, to give us the same trust that they granted in the last three occassions, that they receive us and give us their word, that they permit us to freely and responsably realize our work.

We also solicit all organizations that endorsed us before to do it again so that we can observe, reflect, and to diagnose the human rights situation as a consequence of the conflict.

For these reasons, those who sign below support this manifesto to be given to the media, the Mexican government, and to the international entities as well as the civil society on this day, the 17th of May, 2006.

The CCIODH will travel to Mexico from the 29th of May to the 4th of June to carry out the interviews with the various actores of the conflict and, afterwards, to deliver the report to the entitites, institutions, and organizations in the same way that was done in the last three visits.

Barcelona 15th of May, 2006

International Civil Commission of Observation of Human Rights
Email: cciodh@pangea.org