On 30 August, the director of the Organization for the Future of the Mixteco People (OFPM), Álvaro Ramírez Concepción, was attacked by eight men carrying firearms. The attack lasted some 20 minutes; it took place on the land owned by Jorge Luis García Catarino, recipient of provisional precautionary-protective measures granted by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights. Álvaro Ramírez received several gunshot-wounds, two of which were grave. The gunfire also struck his brother Audencio Ramírez as well as Ambrosio García Catarino and Ramón García Guadalupe. The aggressors managed to escape while the injured were aided by members of the community of Juquila, municipality of Ayutla de los Libres, from where they originate. Later Álvaro Ramírez was taken to the hospital in Ayutla de los Libres, where doctors have reported his state of health to be delicate but stable.
The Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights has requested that the state’s Secretary of Public Security grant protection to the injured OFPM members who find themselves in the General Hospital of Ayutla, “because nothing guarantees that, in this environment of impunity, the aggressors will not take their lives.” In a 31 August communiqué, Tlachinollan mentions that “this aggression is part of a series of attacks on indigenous rights-defenders who find themselves totally defenseless, despite the fact that the Inter-American Court has granted provisional precautionary-protective measures to 108 defenders associated with the OFPM, in addition to Inés Fernández, Valentina Rosendo, Tlachinollan, and relatives of Raúl Lucas Lucía and Manuel Ponce.” Responding to an urgent call from the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, SIPAZ sent a letter to federal and state authorities, demonstrating its concern for the situation.
In other news, on 28 August two individuals attempted to kidnap the daughter of Inés Fernández, an indigenous Me’phaa woman who was raped by soldiers in 2002–this for the second time. She and her relatives have been threatened with death and harrassed during the entirety of these 8 years of their struggle for justice.
For more information (in Spanish):Attack against Mixteco leader (La Jornada, 1 September)Daughter of Inés Fernández Ortega is threatened (1 September)
For more information (in Spanish):Attack against Mixteco leader (La Jornada, 1 September)Daughter of Inés Fernández Ortega is threatened (1 September)
Tlachinollan communiqué (31 August)
For more information from SIPAZ (in English):
Guerrero: Leader of the OFPM liberated (25 June)
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