FLOC: Mexico Doing Nothing to Solve Organizer’s Murder
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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.
