In response to international attention, the government of Mexico ordered an investigation into what had occurred at Acteal. The report cited what were, at best, egregious errors made by governmental officials at various levels, including Governor of Chiapas Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro, who "spurned repeated pleas for help with the escalating violence from Indian community leaders in the weeks before the killings, even when they came from members of his own political party." While committed to forgiveness, reconciliation, and nonviolence, Las Abejas has also been clear in its demands for justice in light of the massacre at Acteal. While many have been arrested in connection with the massacre, there are many others whom members of Las Abejas say were involved in the massacre whom have not been brought to justice, including those whom they consider the intellectual masterminds of the massacre.
Even in 2007, at the tenth anniversary of the massacre, members of Las Abejas reported that some of the killers have not been brought to justice. Diego Perez Jimenez, then president of Las Abejas, expressed his frustration with those who claim that justice has already been served, or that some who have been prosecuted ought not to be imprisoned: "They tell so many lies," he says. "These guys in jails were killers, and there are more killers out there. That's the truth," he insists. Many of those imprisoned, however, insist that they are not guilty, such as Agostin Gomez Perez, who has been imprisoned for more than a decade. "What happened in Acteal is very sad," he says, "But I wasn't involved in it. I didn't kill a soul." Some human rights groups say that many of the arrested have been innocent scapegoats, and that successive governments have protected the real perpetrators and the masterminds behind the massacre.
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