Oaxaca: Confrontation between protestors and police during visit of Felipe Calderón – teachers mobilize themselves

On 15 February, protestors comprised largely of teachers from Section 22 of the National Union of Educational Workers (SNTE) and other social activists clashed with state and federal police while attempting to enter the zócalo of Oaxaca de Juárez to express their rejection of the visit by President Felipe Calderón to the city. At least 28 people were injured, including teachers, journalsits, photographers, and police. The mobilization was organized in response to the presidential decree made on 14 February that tuition for private schools would be made tax-free, a move that social sectors have interpreted as yet another assault on public education.

The following day, teachers from Section 22 of the SNTE struck in Oaxaca de Juárez and several regions of the state, blocking more than 37 highway points of the Oaxacan state in protest of the repression. In the capital, directors of the democratic teachers union led by Azael Santiago Chepi challenged the declarations made the same day by Governor Gabino Cué that “infiltrator groups provoked violence,” affirming this to be “a demagogical argument to justify repression.” On the other hand, they demanded the resignation of three state functionaries as a condition for the re-starting of dialogue with the state government. The State Attorney General’s Office (PGJE) initiated seven investigations into crimes committed during the confrontations, while 17 members of the popular movement who had been detained were released because they were found not to have committed any crime.

On 17 February, Gabino Cué Monteagudo rejected calls to apologize to the state teachers union as well as to sack Irma Piñeyro Arias, secretary of Government, Marco Tulio López Escamilla, secretary of Public Security, and Bernardo Vásquez Guzmán, director of the State Institute of Public Education in Oaxaca. He claimed that “if someone should be apologized to for the situation lived recently in the center of the city of Oaxaca [the confrontation on Tuesday between state and federal police and teachers], it would be to the people in general, who have given us the responsibility of assuming a role in the process of democratic transition—both to the authorities and other sectors.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Teachers and police engage in confrontation during visit by Calderón to Oaxaca (La Jornada, 15 February)

Teachers reject visit of Calderón to Oaxaca (El Universal, 15 February)

Journalist is shot in Oaxaca (El Universal, 15 February)

Secretary of security is beaten in Oaxaca (El Universal, 15 February)

Teachers announce mega-sit-in in Oaxaca (El Universal, 15 February)

SNTE blocks 37 highway-points in Oaxaca (El Universal, 16 February)

Cué sees radicals infiltrating confrontations (El Universal, 16 February)

“2006 cannot return to Oaxaca” (El Universal, 16 February)

Police and activists clash in Oaxaca; 18 are injured (El Universal, 16 February)

Cué rejects calls for apologies and resignation of 3 officials, as demanded by dissidents (La Jornada, 18 February)

Oaxaca: son of activist Marcelino Coache threatened with death

On 31 January, Edgar Coache Verano, son to Marcelino Coache, received a text-message threatening him with death.  This recent death-threat is the latest in a series of acts of intimidation and harassment directed at the Oaxacan political activist Marcelino Coache and his family.  On 4 March 2009, Marcelino Coache, member of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) was kidnapped in the city of Oaxaca.  After being tortured, he was released the following morning.  Also in March 2009, several unidentified men traveling in a truck followed Edgar Coache Verano and threatened him as he was returning home from school.  In April and August 2009, Reyna Rivera, the wife of Marcelino Coache, received several threatening text-messages; rights-defenders in Oaxaca who have supported Marcelino Coache have received similar messages.  On 8 May 2009, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights requested that the Mexican government grant protection to Marcelino Coache.  Regardless, the Mexican government has to date not provided him with effective protection, and those responsible for the death-threats and acts of intimidation continue at large.

For more information (in Spanish):

Urgent Action of Amnesty International (AI, 2 February 2011)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Oaxaca: new intimidation directed at Alba Cruz (18 January 2011)

Oaxaca: attack on union leader Marcelino Coache (20 May 2010)

Oaxaca: Reports-police operations/new aggressions against the Human Rights Center/precautionary measures for activist and his family (14 May 2009)

Oaxaca: New threats in the case of Marcelino Coache (4 May 2009)

Oaxaca: Urgent Action for new harassment against Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno

During the afternoon of 24 September, the home of Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, in the municipality of Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán, Oaxaca, was raided by strangers.  Martínez Moreno explained that nothing of value was stolen, but that those who entered did so by forcing the lock; they also left a number of official documents disorganized.  These documents are related to denunciations presented by Juan Manuel Martínez before the local attorney general’s office against previous acts of intimidation.  According to Juan Manuel Martínez, he and his family have considered it necessary to move houses three times due to the constant intimidation to which they have been subjected.  His wife has received threatening phone-calls, and the family has seen armed men watching their house and the school that his children attend.

Juan Manuel Martínez was detained in 2008 on the charge of murdering the U.S. journalist Brad Will during the 2006 conflict, but he was released in February 2010 when a federal tribunal conclued that charges against him were false.

For more information (in Spanish):

Urgent Action 25 November Committee: New act of intimidation against Juan Manuel Martínez

Oaxaca: more violence in the Triqui region following the killing of Anastasio Juárez Hernández, leader of UBISORT and brother to Rufino Juárez Hernández

Rufino Juárez Hernández (@Diario Despertar)

During the night of Thursday 29 July was killed Anastasio Juárez Hernández, designated municipal agent of San Juan Copalá by the Union for Social Welfare of the Triqui Region (UBISORT) and brother to the director of the organization, Rufino Juárez Hernández.  According to his brother, Anastasio was killed by gunfire while in his house, located in the center of San Juan Copalá, although representatives of the administration of San Juan Copalá claim the murder to have taken place elsewhere, in Juxtlahuaca. Juárez Hernández blamed the killing on leaders of MULT-I–José Ramírez Flores, Miguel Ángel Álvarez Velasco, Eugenio Martínez López, and Jesús Martínez; he has also accused Alejandro Encinas, deputy of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), the Catholic Church in Oaxaca, Section 22 of the Oaxacan teachers’ union, and the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) of being the “intellectually responsible” for the murder.  Surprisingly, he also extended responsibility for the murder to Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, present governor of the state, whom others have indicated as having strong ties to UBISORT.

Representatives from the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copalá affirmed that Anastasio was killed in the city of Juxtlahuaca following a conflict among PRI-members regarding control of the municipal government there; it is understood that the conflict also involved taxi-drivers and local merchants.  At mid-day on Friday 30 July, between 100 and 300 units of the State Agency of Investigation (AEI) and of the State Preventive Police (PEP) entered the autonomous municipality, as they claimed, to “support the prosecutor and investigators to find the corpse [of Anastasio].” Representatives of the autonomous municipality asserted, for their part, that the police were accompanied by 400 “heavily armed” men from UBISORT, and that both groups “entered with guns blazing,” resulting in the injuring of two girls, aged 15 and 17, and two arrested.  Authorities also denounced that members of MULT joined the attack; they have claimed that the goal of this incursion into San Juan Copalá was to bring the body of Anastasio to the autonomous municipality to make it seem that it had been the residents of Copalá who had killed him.

In a communiqué, the Regional Center for Human Rights Bartolomé Carrasco Briseño (Barca) repudiated the police incursion into San Juan Copalá, calling on civil human-rights organizations to “manifest their rejection of this aggression against the autonomous municipality.” Referring itself to the caravan that attempted to reach San Juan Copalá on 8 June, Barca declared that “it is contradictory that, when security-measures were requested so that the Bety and Jiry [sic] humanitarian caravan could enter to leave basic-goods, the state did not fulfill its responsibility and impeded that the mission be allowed to continue.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Anastasio Juárez, municipal agent of San Juan Copala, is killed (La Jornada, 31 July)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Oaxaca: following the caravan “Bety Cariño and Jyri Jaakkola” to San Juan Copalá (21 June 2010)

Oaxaca: violent eviction of vendors associated with the APPO in Oaxaca de Juárez

The zócalo of Oaxaca de Juárez, following the police operation (@ Noticias de Oaxaca)

On Tuesday 19 July–one of the first days of the celebration of the traditional festival Guelaguetza in the state of Oaxaca–conflicts broke out in the zócalo and the Alameda de León in Oaxaca de Juárez between vendors and units of the municipal police.  According to witnesses, at around 11am on the 19th municipal inspectors arrived at la Alameda accompanied by police-officers; they demanded that informal vendors associated with the organization “June 14″ leave the place, a demand that the vendors refused to obey.  In response to this, a police operation to displace nearly 100 vendors from the zócalo was undertaken, as between 100 and 300 police units employed tear-gas and pepper-spray toward this end.  Witnesses say that some of the vendors responded by throwing rocks, chairs, and tables at the Terranova restaurant, property of relatives of the PRI ex-candidate for mayorship of the city, Beatriz Rodríguez Casasnova, while masked youth confronted the police.  Once the police operation ended, police-officers stationed themselves in both places to prevent the return of the vendors.  The operations as a whole resulted in two people being injured and eight being detained; among the eight were four minors.

Those who were evicted, in addition to those who were subject to the dismantling of their kiosks by the police, pertain to the social organizations Venustiano Carranza, June 14, Organization of Conscious Vendors in Support of the Magisterium, and APPO, in addition to independent vendors.  The displaced vendors had installed themselves in the zócalo and la Alameda last Friday in preparation for the festivities associated with the Guelaguetza celebration.  Alberto Quezadas Jiménez, chief of Oaxaca’s state police, stated that the deployment of the police had been requested by municipal authorities, given that the vendors in question lacked official permission to remain in the plaza.  The governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, said in an interview on Tuesday that the eviction of the vendors sought to “guarantee security for tourism and Oaxacans.”  Following the events, Ruiz Ortiz made a call for tranquility to prevail and declared that the Guelaguetza celebrations should continue without pause.

For more information (in Spanish):

Eviction in the Zócalo (El Imparcial, 20 July)

Violent Guelaguetza (El Imparcial, 20 July)

Eviction of vendors in the zócalo of Oaxaca leaves 8 arrested (La Jornada, 19 July)

Vendors are evicted in the capital of Oaxaca; 2 injured, 8 arrested (La Jornada, 19 July)

Ulises Ruiz visits the zócalo following the eviction of vendors (Noticias de Oaxaca, 19 July)

Oaxaca: attack on union leader Marcelino Coache

On 10 May, Marcelino Coache Verano, an activist associated with the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) and secretary of the union of laborers of Oaxaca de Juarez’s City Hall, was threatened with death by two armed strangers who forcibly entered the offices of the union.  One struck the union-leader with a knife in the abdomen and a leg; the injuries, however, were not life-threatening.  Later in the week, Coache announced that the Federal Attorney General’s Office had launched an investigation to find those responsible for the crime.  It is worth mentioning that Coache has, together with other APPO leaders, feared for his security since his having been imprisoned in  2006 and again in 2008, in addition to the kidnapping and torture to which he was subject in March 2009.  In light of this latter attack, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) granted him preventive measures in May 2009.

For more information (in Spanish):

Attack on union leader in Oaxaca (La Jornada, 12 May)

Marcelino Coache accuses URO of attempting to kill him (Frente Popular.wordpress.com, 12 May)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Oaxaca: Reports-police operations/new aggressions against the Human Rights Center/precautionary measures for activist and his family (14 May 2009)

Oaxaca: New threats in the case of Marcelino Coache (4 May 2009)

(Foto: http://www.diariopm.com)

Oaxaca: Accused in the Brad Will case released from jail

February 19^th, 2010.

After 16 months in prison, Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno – accused of the 2006 murder of American videographer Brad Will – was released from prison on February 18. A protection order that was granted in December 2009 was finally approved because of a lack of evidence against Martinez Moreno. The Attorney General appealed the protection order, which meant Martinez Moreno spent an additional month and a half in jail. The 25^th of November Committee which is responsible for Martinez Moreno’s defence, said in a statement: “Today finally, the fact that there is no basis for keeping Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno in jail has prevailed. It’s obvious he is innocent and he’s been held hostage by the state to silence the government of the United States, who have demanded the hand-over Brad Will’s murderer. (…) From a legal perspective, Juan Manuel’s release lays bare the Mexican justice system. It’s an example of the lack of a formal and professional investigation, as well as the criminalization of social protest given that the evidence and witnesses were fabricated and manipulated.”

For more information (In Spanish):

El acusado de matar a Brad Will, libre (Jornada, 19 de febrero)

Excarcelan al implicado en el caso Brad Will (Milenio, 19 de febrero)

Juez ordena liberar a único implicado en el caso de Will (Universal, 19 de febrero)

Comunicado del Comité 25 de Noviembre: La libertad de Juan Manuel, desnuda la parcial actuación de la Justicia en México

More information from SIPAZ:

Oaxaca: Members of the APPO accused in the Brad Will case (October, 2008)

Oaxaca: Supreme Court decision in Oaxaca case

On October 14^th the Supreme Court of Mexico (SCJN) made a decision regarding human rights violations by authorities during the Oaxaca conflict of 2006 and 2007. The decision finds the governor at the time, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, responsible for human rights violations.

With a vote of seven to four, the Supreme Court holds the Oaxacan governor responsible for human rights violations committed by state police during the conflict that lasted from May 2006 until June 2007. However, a proposal submitted by Ministers Juan N. Silva Meza, Jose de Jesus Gudino Pelayo and Jose Ramon Cossio was rejected. Their proposal sought to include Vicente Fox, then president of Mexico, as well as Minister of the Interior, Carlos Abascal and Public Security Minister, Eduardo Medina Mora in the list of those responsible for allowing an unmanageable situation that exposed the population to situations that put their human rights at risk. The Supreme Court Minister Jose Ramon Cossio said now it will be up to Felipe Calderon and the Mexican Congress to decide whether or not they will proceed with a political trial against the Oaxacan Governor.

Ruiz Ortiz said he disagrees with the Supreme Court decision, calling into question whether or not Fox should have been included. Members of the Popular Assembly for the People of Oaxaca (APPO), who had asked for Ruiz Ortiz’s resignation during the conflict, insisted on the Oaxacan governor’s responsibility for human rights violations. The Secretary of section 22 of the National Education Workers Union (SNTE) Gabriel Lopez Chinas, said the ex-secretary general Jorge Franco Vargas and the ex-public attorney Rosa Lizbeth Cana Cadeza should also be put to trial for being the operators “of unlimited repression against the Oaxacan people.” Section 22 of the SNTE – which brings together teachers from all over Oaxaca – suffered repression from the state government on June 14^th, 2006. That repression resulted in the creation of the APPO, which integrated different social, political and indigenous organizations that confronted state authorities during the second half of 2006 to demand the resignation of the governor, whom they accused of suppressing social, political and indigenous organizations.

For more information:

• Resolución de la SCJN en el caso Oaxaca
• La Jornada: Violó Ulises Ruiz garantías individuales durante el conflicto en Oaxaca: SCJN (15/10/09)
• La Jornada: El Estado, obligado a reparar los daños ocasionados por el conflicto en Oaxaca (19/10/09)

More Information from SIPAZ:

THE SOCIO-POLITICAL SITUATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN OAXACA (August 2007) 

Oaxaca: Campaign for the punishment of the Assassins of Lorenzo Sampablo Cervantes

In 2006, architect Lorenzo Sampablo Cervantes, father of four and member of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), used to attend protests and carried provisions to the demonstrators. He always maintained “a very firm idea against acts of violence committed on behalf of the government.” He was killed on August 22, 2006 “at point blank and no chance at defending himself”. He was shot at by “paramilitary groups under the command of Aristeo López” who was José Murat’s ex-police officer in Oaxaca. Sampablo Cervantes was the first to be killed by such violent acts that terrorized the state between 2006 and 2007.

On August 8, 2009, three years after his death, his relatives decided to initiate a Campaign for the Punishment of the Assassins of Lorenzo Sampablo Cervantes in the City of Oaxaca, pleading for justice in this case. The goal of the activities carried out by this campaign is for “the demand of the punishment of those responsible for the murder of Lorenzo Sampablo Cervantes” indicating as culprits both active participants and intellectual responsibles: “the chiefs of police and government officials Manuel Moreno Rivas, Lizbeth Caña Cadeza, Jorge Franco Vargas “el Chuckie”, Bulmaro Rito Salinas, Lino Celaya Luría, Aristeo López Martínez and Ulises Ruiz, to name a few; there is no forgetting those who were associated with the Caravan of Death that took Lorenzo Sampablo’s life.”

Lorenzo Sampablo’s widow, Petra González Garnica, made a public plea to reaffirm the importance of pursuing justice so as to not forget the 26 people who were assassinated, over 500 people who were detained and 300 people who were interrogated during the repression that occurred in Oaxaca between 2006 and 2007. Petra González did not accept any compensation offered to her, and proclaimed that she would not accept it until they have found justice for her husband’s murder. Relatives of those assassinated, taken prisoner or injured during the confrontations in 2006 and 2007, held a meeting where, with much sorrow and indignation, they recounted all the consequences of impunity that changed their lives. After three years of violent acts, they have been left totally bereft. The suffering continues and the petition is absolutely clear to never let the dead and the injustices committed fall into oblivion.

For more information:

Blog: “Campaña por el Castigo de los Asesinos de Lorenzo Sampablo Cervantes”

”Justicia para Oaxaca: Lorenzo Sampablo Cervantes Presente Ahora y Siempre” (31/08/2009)

Oaxaca: Demands made for reparation of harm caused by torture and by arbitrary privation of freedom

Press conference – source LIMEDDH

In a press conference held on the 5th August, the Mexican League for the Defense of Human Rights–Oaxacan subsidiary (LIMEDDH), alongside the Magisterial Commission of Human Rights (COMADDH) of Section 22 of the Mexican National Education Workers Union (SNTE), and the Committee of Family and Friends of the Disappeared, Killed, and Imprisoned People of Oaxaca (COFADAPPO), presented their stance with respect to the report submitted by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) regarding Human Rights violations committed during the social conflict in Oaxaca, covering the period from May 2006 up to July 2007. They also announced that this year, 63 people who were detained on the 25^th November 2006 have demanded, through LIMEDDH, that state authorities repair the moral damage cause by torture and arbitrary privation of freedom.

According to the press bulletin issued by LIMEDDH on the 5^th August, “serious violations within the constitutional framework of individual safety and human rights have not been investigated and remain in the dark, following the conclusion reached by the preliminary investigation report (…) of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation in regards to the social political conflict of 2006 (…) in the area of Oaxaca. Arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances and violations of the principle of right to a just process are a few of the Human Rights violations committed by the state and federal authorities”. LIMEDDH emphasized the importance of the work carried out by non-governmental organizations in regards to Human Rights in light of the existing climate of impunity. Furthermore, LIMEDDH also called attention to the fact that there exist various public reports carried out by international human rights organizations that contrast with the report submitted by the SCJN and that give evidence of the serious violations committed during the conflict.

In addition, LIMEDDH announced that, so far this year (2009), 63 people who were detained on the 25^th November 2006 and who have been victims of Human Rights violations have demanded that state authorities repair the moral damage cause by torture and arbitrary privation of freedom, the total amount reaching 58,400,000.00 $ (Pesos Mexicanos), 940,000.00 $ for each victim. LIMEDDH stressed that “it is not a case of putting a price on personal freedom or on physical or psychological integrity and wellbeing, yet of restoring the right that the victims have to be compensated by the perpetrator, the Mexican State; furthermore, it represents the public shame that the State Government of Oaxaca should express, independently and without undermining legal and administrative responsibility, in the crimes committed by public responsible officials.” LIMEDDH also called upon state and federal authorities to abstain from any type of harassment against Human Rights defenders, victims and family members; on the contrary, it was stressed that all national institutional routes of obtaining justice will be considered closed and that they will turn to international Human Rights courts to denounce this if need be.

For More Information (in Spanish):

• Boletín de prensa de la LIMEDDH

• La Jornada: Physicians for Human Rights cuestiona dictamen forense (06/08/09)

• La Jornada: Descalifica la CNDH reporte de la PGR sobre el asesinato de Brad Will (07/08/09)

More information from SIPAZ:

• THE SOCIO-POLITICAL SITUATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN OAXACA (August 2007)