Domestic buyers soon filled the void. The peasant ecologists blamed Bernardino Bautista Valle, the ejido boss from Montiel's village of El Mameyal, for selling the wood rights for the benefit of a handful of insiders. Bautista Valle in turn went to the army and police to accuse Montiel and his group of being drug traffickers and members of the Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR, which operates in the area and killed seven police officers near here in March 1999. The human rights center said gunmen loyal to the cacique killed one ecologist near Banco Nuevo in May 1998, and a soldier, allegedly accompanying Bautista Valle, killed another ecologist in July that year. Earlier this year, Bautista Valle's son was murdered as he descended from Banco Nuevo toward El Mameyal.
Villagers think that it was a revenge attack for assaults against the ecologists.
The cacique has fled from the village and his whereabouts are unknown. Detained Activist Says He Was Framed Montiel was arrested by the army in the village of Pizotla near Coyuca de Catalan while he was selling clothes to earn a living. A peasant was shot to death during the raid, and Montiel's friend, Teodoro Cabrera, was arrested and remains jailed with Montiel in the regional city of Iguala. Montiel was charged with illegal possession of a military weapon and with planting marijuana and possessing poppy and marijuana seeds. He insists that the weapon and seeds were planted to frame him.