Alleged rape at center of human rights controversy in Mexico

By David Ovalle

McClatchy Newspapers

MEXICO CITY - In life, Ernestina Ascencio was an unheralded 73-year-old grandmother who lived quietly in a rural village 120 miles from here. In death, she's become the center of a controversy that's raising questions about Mexican President Felipe Calderon's commitment to human rights.

Political analysts say they're baffled by the uproar that's surrounded Ascencio's death since prosecutors charged two months ago that four Mexican soldiers had beaten and raped her in a field.

Allegations of abuse of Mexico's indigenous population by soldiers are hardly unprecedented - such criticism is a regular feature of human-rights group reports - and the Defense Ministry said it would use semen samples to track down the guilty parties. The governor of the state of Veracruz visited Ascencio's family and vowed to pump resources into her tiny village, Soledad Atzompa, in the mountainous Zongolica region.