On 14 October was released Eugenio Ángel Molina, municipal secretary of San Juan Jaltepec Yaveo, Oaxaca, and office-worker for the Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Zone of the [Tehuantepec] Isthmus (UCIZONI) in María Lombardo, after having been kidnapped on 8 October by individuals who, according to Carlos Beas Torres, leader of UCIZONI, were directed by the “narco-cattle-farmer” Guillermo Bautista. Pedro Franco and Andrés Pacheco, indigenous Zapotec comuneros (communal-land holders) sympathetic to UCIZONI, were also kidnapped on 8 October, though they were released before Ángel Molina was.
These aggressions seem to find their basis in agrarian conflicts regarding some 6.600 hectares located near San Juan Jaltepec. According to Beas Torres, the conflict has resulted in the cutting-off of electricity by armed groups since June, a move that has affected more than 5000 residents of three indigenous groups from the municipalities of Yaveo and Cotzcon. These armed groups have also maintained the access-road to San Juan closed since March, impeding among other things the delivery of international humanitarian aid intended for the residents of the region who have been affected by tropical storm Matthew. UCIZONI has demanded that the state government stop supporting the “band of hitmen” who surround San Juan.
For more information (in Spanish):
Mexico: UCIZONI demands the presentation with life of Eugenio Ángel (Kaos en la Red, 10 October)
Kidnapped Zapotec comuneros are released (UCIZONI press-release, 15 October)
UCIZONI mobilizes in the Isthmus (Notimex, 11 October)
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