CONTINUED HARASSMENT OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN MEXICO
By Ricardo Ochoa
The Dantesque experience of Daniel Camejo Guanche's mother has provided yet another demonstration of how the harassment, humiliation and indignities to which political prisoners in Mexico are subjected, are extended even to those -their families included -- who try to come to their aid.
{For full details on the arrest, imprisonment and torture of 143 victims in Mexico's new witch-hunt, see World Outlook, August 11, 1967.]
Mrs. Elvis Ratner, a citizen of the United States living in New York, came to Mexico to give whatever help she could to her son Daniel, who is a victim of a "plot" frame-up cooked up by the Mexican government in order to establish closer ties with the Johnson regime.
She arrived in Mexico City on Saturday, July 29. This was not exactly the most propitious time for her to start a bout with the bureaucratic Mexican authorities. Only the day before, they had committed another arbitrary and illegal act against one of her sons.
Peter Camejo, also a U.S. citizen, had come to Mexico to help his brother and was abruptly deported after a fruitless attempt to visit Daniel in prison [see World Outlook, August 11, 1967].
Mrs. Ratner was able to see Daniel and his companions the following Sunday. She was able to witness in flesh and blood the truth about the tortures to which they have been subjected.
Pablo Alvarado was recovering from wounds which the political police of the Direccién Federal de Seguridad [Federal Security Administration], an organization closely supervised by the CIA, had inflicted on his arms, back and shoulders with a hot iron after burning cigarettes had produced no effect.
She saw how bad the conditions are under which the prisoners are forced to live -- without beds, in cells without doors, open to the harsh climatic conditions of the Mexican plateau -- intense heat in the day and bone-chilling cold at night.
On leaving the prison, Mrs. Ratner asked permission to bring a bed for her son and it was granted. But the following day, the guards refused to let her put the bed in the cell. She argued to no avail that the warden himself had agreed to let her bring it.
Mrs. Ratner went back to the warden. He was upset at "the trouble the lady was causing." Trouble?! She had to wait until Wednesday to bring the bed.
But in the meantime she was to receive another demonstration of "courtesy" from Mexican authorities. On that Monday night, three agents of the Secretaria de Gobernaci6én [Government Secretariat] tried to "interview" her.
Mrs. Ratner refused to open the door of her room because her son's experience had shown her that such "interviews" end in deportation. They didn't even let Peter Camejo go for his clothes and money and threatened to beat him up if he did not follow their orders to the letter.
With such past experience, Mrs. Ratner told them she would only speak with them in the United States Embassy. When she met them there the following day, they had no questions to ask her.
By the middle of the week, she had already gone through enough harassment to make her realize the difference between her country, where bourgeois legality is more respected, and the hell of the colonial and semicolonial countries.
In such countries, if bourgeois legality exists at all, it is only a pretext for demagogic speeches on fiesta days and is conspicuously absent from the day-to-day run of life. It is more than 7,000 kilometers from New York to Mexico City, but there is a thousand times greater distance between the bourgeois democracy of the U.S. and the "representative democracy" of Mexico.
Mrs. Ratner was to continue to be subjected to this painful difference. In order to accomplish anything, the prison police made her make many return trips and wait long hours. For instance, she had to wait four hours before they gave her the suit Daniel was wearing when he was arrested.
Finally, on the day of her departure for New York, she was not permitted to see Daniel because "he was being punished." They did not tell her the reason.
A few days later, a friend of Daniel's,one of his attorneys, tried to see him in accordance with his prerogatives as a lawyer. The authorities stopped him on the pretext he was not "on the list," exactly as they had done in the case of Peter's last attempt to see his brother.