A ‘Cause for Murder’ Uncovered

The ability to exhibit courage in the face of danger can earn you kudos. But as two women tragically discovered in Mexico last year, it can also get you killed.

Not that knowing the level of risk involved likely would have dissuaded the crusading attorneys from following their related but independent courses of action. As we learn tonight in the “Wide Angle” documentary “Cause for Murder” (KCET, 8 p.m), the two may have come from vastly different backgrounds, but they shared a fierce distaste for the human rights violations and political corruption that have plagued Mexico for decades.

Digna Ochoa was one of 13 children born into poverty in eastern Mexico. Marigeli Tames was the only child of a middle-class couple who had a keen interest in politics. Both women found their way to law school and, upon graduation, sought to ferret out injustice wherever they found it.

And they found plenty. Although both women saw Vicente Fox’s election to the presidency in July 2000 as a hopeful sign, they were soon to learn that El Cambio (the change), promised by Fox’s PAN party wouldn’t come overnight.

Fox appears in tonight’s program to discuss the reforms that have been implemented in his country, but unfortunately, Ochoa and Tames aren’t around to hear the message.