The murder two years ago of Rafael Santiago Cruz, an organizer for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) in Monterrey, Mexico, is part of a corrupt system of supplying immigrant labor to harvest crops on America’s farms, says FLOC President Baldemar Velasquez. Over the past two days, Velasquez and members of his union have been in Washington, D.C., meeting with members of Congress and international human rights panels to push for justice in Cruz’s murder.
Yesterday, FLOC brought the case of Cruz’s murder before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an arm of the Organization of American States. After Cruz’s killing in 2007, the IACHR granted protective measures to Velasquez and FLOC staff located in Mexico.
The Mexican government has done little to solve the case. Of the four people who are known to have participated in the murder, all but one of Cruz’s killers remain at large, said Leonel Rivero Rodriquez, a Mexican human rights lawyer, at a briefing today at AFL-CIO headquarters.
The failure to fully investigate Cruz’s murder is indicative of the anti-union policies of the administration of Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, who last month took over the country’s second largest electrical power distributor, fired the entire 44,000-person workforce and disbanded their union.
Cruz was found bound and beaten to death in FLOC’s Monterrey, Mexico, office April 9, 2007. The union opened the office in 2005 to help guest workers obtain legal visas to work in North Carolina.
The FLOC office also fights corruption in the recruitment process. Velasquez says union investigations uncovered widespread corruption among Mexican labor recruiters, and Cruz, who had been on the job in Monterrey for less than a month before he was killed, was helping workers obtain legal visas without paying the exorbitant fees demanded by some recruiters.
"Human rights and labor rights will remain unrealized unless we persist in challenging the criminal elements who would like to use recruitment programs for bribes and extortion," said Velasquez.
Most of the workers who are granted visas work on tobacco fields. On the tobacco farms, workers face long hours and unsafe working conditions. But the battle to protect the workers is not with the farmers who directly employ them, Velasquez said. The battle is with the major companies who pay the farmers for their products. That’s the impetus behind FLOC’s campaign against R.J. Reynolds, the giant tobacco company, he said.
The ultimate answer to protecting immigrant workers is comprehensive immigration reform, Velasquez said. But “we can’t wait for immigration reform,” he said.
We’ve got to be out there and defend people and if you do it long enough and good enough, good things happen.
Justice For Santiago Rafael Cruz
Epifania Cruz, mother of Santiago Rafael,
stands in front of the FLOC office in Monterrey Mexico
at the dedication of the office to his memory
in the hope that his death will lead to justice and peace.
Today Santiago Rafael Cruz would have turned 32 years old. FLOC and its supporters, friends and allies are committed to make sure his death is not in vain. Santiago Rafael, Presente!
Santiago at a rally
One way FLOC is remembering Santiago is our newly remodeled office in Monterrey Mexico, which has been renamed the Santiago Rafael Cruz Justice Center in his honor. Santiago Rafael's mother Epifania Cruz and his brother Gustavo Rafael came to the reopening of the FLOC office on June 30, along with U.S. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur.
Mrs. Cruz cried in remembering her son. "We all have to die," she said, "but not like this." She remembered Santiago as a faithful son dedicated to the FLOC cause. She expressed appreciation for how FLOC has fought for justice for her son.
The Nuevo Leon government has proven incompetent and evasive in pursuing the case of Santiago's vicious assassination on April 9 in the FLOC office. Despite some 100,000 letters and messages from all over the world sent to the Governor of Nuevo Leon, state authorities have shown no interest in pursuing possible political and economic motives resulting from FLOC's efforts to clean up the corruption in recruiting farm workers going to the U.S.
Following the order by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to provide protection for FLOC staff, FLOC has been involved in a series of meetings with Mexican federal and Nuevo Leon state authorities concerning protective measures. In the first meeting with the Nuevo Leon government, state authorities said they were short staffed because half of their detectives had been arrested for ties to drug trafficking. In the second meeting, the day a progress report was due to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Nuevo Leon authorities announced that a press conference was being held at the same time indicating that a suspect, Jaime Martinez, had "confessed" to the murder. However, the government was unable to provide any convincing evidence.
Shortly thereafter, the suspect's mother filed a Human Rights complaint that the "confession" was a result of torture. In the third meeting, the Nuevo Leon government appeared almost absurd in avoiding even simple questions, evading direct questions by the FLOC attorney over 60 times. The next day, Rogelio Cerda, Secretary General of the State of Nuevo Leon, stated categorically to U.S. Congresswoman Kaptur that there was "no political motive in Santiago's murder", even though the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had found sufficient evidence to warrant a protective order. A few days later, Cerda himself resigned under accusations of ties to drug cartels.
The whole world is watching Nuevo Leon demanding justice for Santiago. How can FLOC staff feel safe with so many unanswered questions, the absence of a serious investigation, and blatant attempts to sweep the vicious murder of Santiago under the rug?
