Indigenous Rights Activist Fighting Against Illegal Logging Killed in Northern Mexico
An Indigenous rights leader who campaigned against illegal logging was murdered in northern Mexico, five years after his activist brother was also slain.
Jose Trinidad Baldenegro was attacked when he left his home in the Colorada de la Virgen settlement to go to work on Monday, according to prosecutors in the border state of Chihuahua.
Witnesses reported hearing gunshots and saw multiple shooters. After a few hours, the house was set on fire.
Prosecutors claim he never asked for protection and that they were unaware of any threats made against him, according to the Sacramento Bee.
96 Human Rights Activists Killed Under AMLO's Government
The 47-year-old Baldenegro was part of the Tarahumara tribe, who has long battled illegal logging and mining in their territory, where drug cartels often cut down trees to plant narcotics.
His brother, Isidro Baldenegro, was murdered in 2017, after his campaign against illegal logging that earned him the Goldman Prize for environmental activism in 2005.
Another Tarahumara leader, Julián Carrillo, was killed a year later. Four of Carrillo's relatives had all been murdered.
Baldenegro has been less active in the Indigenous movement since his brother's murder, according to Isela González of the Sierra Madre Alliance rights group.
Since 2009, González said, ongoing violence in the Tarahumara mountains has forced more than 200 members from the Colorada de la Virgen community to flee.
In the first three years of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's government, 96 human rights activists were killed, said Human rights undersecretary Alejandro Encinas, in December.
Encinas claims that more than 90% of the crimes have gone unpunished.
More Rights Defenders Murdered in Latin American Countries
Latin American countries recorded the highest number of killings of human rights defenders, according to Front Line Defenders (FLD), with most of it taking place in Colombia, with 138 deaths recorded, per The Guardian.
Colombia remains the most dangerous country to be a human rights defender, where activists are routinely targeted by armed groups despite the 2016 peace accord.
With 42 deaths recorded, Mexico is the second deadliest country.
Brazil places third, following India, Afghanistan - where the Taliban's takeover in August has exacerbated the country's human rights crisis - and the Philippines.
The majority of those killed, 59%, worked on the land, environmental and indigenous rights, where their activities impacted the economic interests of corporations and individuals in mining, logging, and other extractive industries.
Andrew Anderson, director of FLD, said: "A lot of the killings in Colombia and Mexico are entirely preventable." However, they do it with impunity.
Colombia has a national protection mechanism that protects human rights defenders, but that primarily covers urban areas. Meanwhile, in Mexico, there is an increasing violence in the context of the cartels, according to Anderson.
The Human Rights Defenders Memorial, a global project of national and international human rights organizations, has documented and verified the identities of the 358 defenders killed last year.
Indigenous peoples comprise only about 6% of the global population yet made up almost a third of all human rights defenders killed.
This article is owned by Latin Post.
Written by: Jess Smith
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