Informant38

These poverty-stricken residences scattered over a desert hillside hardly seem much of a threat to anyone, yet they are the reason that Julio Sandoval has been in prison for nine months, for helping migrant workers in Baja California settle in homes like these. Another housing activist, Beatriz Chavez, a well-known leader of similar efforts farther south down the Baja peninsula, has been in prison since May of 2001.

Their crime is an offense unique to Baja -- despojo agravado. Despojo, according to Tijuana attorney Jose Pe�aflor, "means using land or water belonging to someone else, without their authorization, in a furtive manner." This offense is on the books throughout Mexico. But in Baja the legislature created a new, more serious charge a few years ago -- despojo agravado -- the crime of leading or instigating others in committing despojo.....
"The government is afraid of the poor sections of the population, especially the migrant indigenous people from Oaxaca, and wants control over them," said Beatriz Chavez, over the phone from the Cereso prison. "They think their only way to ensure control is by throwing the leaders of social movements among them into prison."

For months the two cases have wound slowly through the state's court system, and Chavez and Sandoval now await sentencing. Rumor has it that the judge is preparing to give them five years apiece. Baja California authorities wouldn't permit a reporter to enter prison facilities to talk to the jailed activists, nor would they make any public statements themselves.
David Bacon in LA Weekly