Oaxaca: 7 persons detained in the “violent” displacement of Cacalotillo beach

Image @ OIDHO.org

The Indigenous Organizations for Human Rights in Oaxaca (OIDHO) has denounced that on 11 March a police operation entered “with an excess of force” to the land belonging to the Cacalotillo Cooperative for Aquaculture and Fishing, San Pedro Tututepec municipality, Juquila, to displace the community, leaving seven members of the Cooperative arrested.

OIDHO also denounced the organization that “attacked and threatened residents of the communities with death […].  Women and female children were threatened with rape if they did not leave the land.”  OIDHO affirmed that the police were acting on the orders of Francisco Gil, “a rich and powerful man who would like to have the land for himself.  Residents of the beach community yelled at them [the police] that their arrest-orders had been fabricated,” noted the press release.

It should be noted that the Cacalotillo Cooperative recovered the land “using juridical means and legal possession for more than a year, thus founding the community and resisting the caciques of the region” who have interests in the beach for touristic purposes.  In this way, “the residents of the community and Cooperative members have been subjected to death threats,” and the Judicial Police has arrived to intimidate and sow fear, as indicated in the denunciation.

For more information (in Spanish):

Boletín de OIDHO (11 de marzo de 2014)

Realiza Policía Estatal desalojo violento en Cacalotillo, Tututepec; denuncian abusos (Página 3, 12 de marzo de 2014)

Desalojo violento en la playa Cacalotillo, Costa de Oaxaca (CML Luna Sexta, 11 de marzo de 2014)

Cooperativa Cacalotillo, en pie de lucha a seis meses de la toma de la playa Barra Prieta (Mexico Nomads Network, 31 de julio de 2013)

Oaxaca: Declaration of the Forum in Defense of Land and Territory

Between 28 February and 1 March, there was held in the Isthmus community of San Francisco del Mar, Oaxaca, the Regional Forum in Defense of Land and Territory, We Struggle against the Caciques.

Various representatives of the people, assemblies, collectives, organizations, and municipal and communal authorities participated in the event, denouncing and raising different cases of rights-violations, such as those which have to do with the acts of transnational firms engaged in the wind-energy megaprojects that have been developed in the Isthmus region.  “We have met to exchange the words of our brothers and sisters who defend the land and their rights amidst the invasion we suffer on the daily due to the large firms from other places of the world and their accomplices from the bad governments.”

In the final manifesto final of the forum, “Declaration of San Francisco del Mar,” participants made a call to defend the land and the rights of communities: “We in this act say that we will continue together to defend the rights of our peoples.”

In this way, participants expressed their total rejection of the Energy Reform advanced by the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, which is “only a means of privatizing the resources that are the property of our nation, to benefit foreign firms; this reform signifies greater looting and violence for the indigenous peoples of Mexico and the Isthmus.”  They demand respect for the right to free, prior, and informed consent and consultation.

For more information (in Spanish):

Manifiesto del Foro Regional En Defensa de Nuestra Tierra y Territorio(Proyecto Ambulante, 4 de marzo de 2014)

Ratifican pueblos del Istmo alianza ante megaproyecto eólico (Quadratín, 4 de marzo de 2014)

En el Istmo se prepara “nueva ofensiva de las empresas” (Educa, 4 de marzo de 2014)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Oaxaca: Opponents to wind-energy parks threatened with death in the Isthmus (2 March 2014)

Oaxaca: Denunciation of harassment and death-threats against human-rights defenders in the Tehuantepec Isthmus (9 December 2013)

Oaxaca: The Popular Assembly of the Juchiteco People denounces attack on wind-energy camp (26 October 2013)

Oaxaca: Death by gunfire of opponent to wind-energy projected promoted by multinational Fenosa Natural Gas (20 August 2013)

Oaxaca: “The Isthmus at the Crossroads” Seminar (20 August 2013)