Oaxaca: Creation of tool for monitoring and denunciation about territorial rights

 

At the beginning of December was made public the creation of the Observatory of Territorial Rights, an initiative that has been promoted by Services for an Alternative Education (EDUCA A.C.), “focused on the monitoring, investigation, analysis, diffusion, and denunciation of violations of popular and communal rights to territories at the hands of transnational corporations, the State, and other power-groups.”

As EDUCA’s website notes, “the Observatory has as its general objective to influence State policies and public opinion so as to guarantee respect for the rights of the peoples and communities of Oaxaca by means of the monitoring of specific cases, the systematization of information, sessions of analysis with different sectors of society, and bulletins and journalistic information.” During this year, the Observatory will monitor the projects of “Paso de la Reina,” the construction of two dams in the Paso de la Reyna community; “San José,” or the construction of a subterranean mine in San José del Progreso; and “the Doctor,” for exploratory mining work in Magdalena Teitipac.

It bears mentioning that the attacks on environmental defenders has been on the rise during the past five years at least. According to the Second Annual Report on Attacks against Environmental Defenders, as compiled by the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA), the attacks have worsened during the reign of Enrique Peña Nieto. In accordance with a proper media registry, 240 cases of attacks on environmental defenders have been observed, nearly half of which have taken place between April 2014 and May 2015, with the states of Sonora, Oaxaca, Mexico, and Guerrero being those with the highest number of incidents.

For more information (in Spanish):

Observatorio de Derechos Territoriales

Inicia Observatorio de Derechos Territoriales a partir de procesos de defensa en Oaxaca (8 de diciembre de 2015)

El Topil. Observatorio de Derechos Territoriales (Septiembre 2015)

Con EPN crecen agresiones contra defensores ambientalistas;“en el último año 109 ataques y una tendencia preocupante a la criminalización” (Revolución Tres Punto Cero, 9 de diciembre de 2015)

Oaxaca, primer lugar en agresiones a defensoras de derechos humanos (Sididh, 14 de diciembre de 2015)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Oaxaca: Detained and disappeared, anti-mining activists from San José del Progreso (12 December 2013)

Oaxaca: New death-threats directed against members of the CPUVO in San José del Progreso (7 June 2013)

Oaxaca: Civil Observation Mission to San José del Progreso (30 November 2012)

Oaxaca: access to the Cuzcatlán mine is blocked in San José el Progreso (16 May 2012)

Oaxaca: Actions, denunciations, and mobilizations in the case of San José del Progreso (3 April 2012)

Oaxaca: Murder of the spokesperson of the Coordination of the United Peoples of the Ocotlán Valley (25 March 2012)

 

Chiapas: Believing People of Simojovel continue to defend “life, peace, justice, freedom, and democracy” y democracia”

On 3 November by means of a public denunciation, the Believing People from the San Antonio de Pádua parish in Simojovel expressed gratitude for the accompaniment by all those who have walked beside them, reviewing the different meetings of the past few months as well as the mass-pilgrimage from Simojovel to Tuxtla Gutierrez.

Furthermore, they reported on the present situation that they are experiencing, noting that they are “disappointed with the different levels of government” and that despite their “peaceful actions, the situation remains the same” amidst their demands. They denounced that “the number of bars has actually increased,” and furthermore that “these firms have more power than state and federal officials, such that it is clear that the governors are not governmental but rather financial […].”

In light of a situation that “does not improve,” the Believing People will continue to organize themselves “so as to find the true freedom for our people, as we see clearly the complicity due to the omission of the authorities at the three levels of governance in terms of the beer-making firms and the drug-traffickers.” They assured that “true change does not come from a political party, because the major problem is the governmental and political-economic system,” adding that they will not “keep silent, because to do so would be to become complicit.” The principal demand made by the Believing People continues to be “the closure of all bars, legal and clandestine.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Pueblo Creyente de Simojovel continúa la lucha por la vida, paz, justicia, libertad y democracia. (Chiapas Denuncia Pública, 3 de noviembre de 2015)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: Cries of liberty from the Believing People in Simojovel (23 de septiembre de 2015)

Chiapas: New threats against the priest and members of the Believing People (2 July 2015)

Chiapas: Believing People of El Bosque march for a halt to violence in their region (30 June 2015)

Chiapas: OMCT and FIDH urge protection of Simojovel priest (23 April 2015)

Chiapas: New threats against members of the Believing People in Simojovel after their fifth pilgrimage demanding security and peace (12 November 2014)

Guerrero: Tlachinollan dedicates its XXI activity report to parents of the disappeared from Ayotzinapa

On Saturday 29 August, with the participation of some 3000 persons, the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights celebrated its XXI anniversary in the city of Tlapa de Comonfort, Guerrero. Tlachinollan dedicated its activity report, entitled From the Trenches of Ayotzinapa, the Defense of Education and the Lives of the Children of the People, to the mothers and fathers of the 43 disappeared students from the Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa. Due to the events of 26 September 2014, “we left aside being just an office of lawyers and accompaniers to fully join the struggle of this exemplary movement,” said dijo Abel Barrera, director of Tlachinollan. He spoke of a movement that has “unmasked the reality of this country in which the military, parties, and firms collude with organized crime.”

Beyond this, he denounced that there exists a systematic pattern of attacks on the rural normal schools, particularly Ayotzinapa, and that, nearly a year after the acts, not one legal case has been initiated due to the forcible disappeared, nor has the possible responsibility of the 27^th Infantry Batallion of Iguala for the crimes, which also included six other executions and torture. The representative of the UN High Commissioner’s Office in Mexico for Human Rights, Jesús Peña Palacios, indicated that “the State should never stop seeking out the disappeared until they are found.” A father of one of the 43 disappeared, Mario César González, also participated, saying that not knowing where his son causes him great despair, and that it is a sort of pain he would not wish anyone else to experience. The event ended with a march for the Ayotzinapa case toward the center of Tlapa, where a rally was held that incorporated the participation of many people.

For more information (in Spanish):

Desnuda Ayotzinapa “patrón de ataque a normales rurales” (La Jornada, 29 de agosto de 2015)

De ¡Eureka! a Tlachinollan (Carlos Fazio en La Jornada, 31 de agosto de 2015)

XXI_Informe_Tlachinollan  (agosto de 2015)

El Estado nunca debe de dejar la búsqueda de un desaparecido, dice representante de la ONU en Tlapa (El Sur de Acapulco, 30 de agosto de 2015)

Chiapas: Las Abejas Civil Society denounce impunity once again

Victims of the massacre @SIPAZ

On June 22^nd, the day for the monthly commemoration of the Acteal massacre (1997) in which 45 people were murdered, the Las Abejas Civil Society of Acteal denounced impunity for the massacre as well for the murder of its member Manual López Pérez. Their communiqué stressed that “The authorities of bad government, “the Prosecutorial Office of Indigenous Justice, ” “the Agrarian Tribunal,” and the municipal president and judge of Pantelhó, had been informed that their comrade Manuel was risking his life, as his own son, Alonso López Guzman, had threatened to kill him on several ocassions.

The June murder has been connected to the lack of justice that still prevails since the massacre of 1997. “Almost 18 years after the atrocity, the Mexican State, instead of assuring the non-repetition of Acteal or reprisal murders of a member of our organization, is based fundamentally on impunity, which is bought through the misnamed Supreme Court for Justice (SCJN) in the Nation, a court of criminals and rich people that allowed that crime against us. The so-called Supreme Court liberated the paramilitary group that performed the massacre of Acteal. Their message is that killing innocent people is not punished but on the contrary is rewarded with money, houses, and land.”

For more information (in Spanish):

a un mes del asesinato de muestro compañero Manuel, sigue impune (Las Abejas de Acteal, 22 de julio de 2015)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: A member of the Las Abejas Civil Society is murdered (2 July 2015)

Chiapas: Las Abejas announce that they will not vote in the mid-term elections (9 June 2015)

Chiapas: Civil Society Las Abejas denounce human rights violations in the country and show solidarity with various processes (24 April 2015)

National/Guerrero: Nine months after the Ayotzinapa atrocity, relatives express that they will not be silenced

@LaJornada

On 26 June, nine months after the forcible disappearance of the 43 students from the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, parents of the youth and other groups mobilized in Mexico City, carrying out a rally and an artistic event of 43 hours in length that included poetry-readings and theater next to the Bellas Artes (Fine Arts) Palace. Felipe de la Cruz, the spokesperson for the movement of relatives of the disappeared, said that “just as we have remained firm from the beginning, so will we continue until our youth appear with life.” “We tell you, State, and we say to you that we will be the pebble in your shoe, because we are not going to be silent, and we are not going to stop on our path […]. We will not stop struggling until our sons are presented with life,” said another relative of the disappeared. Also in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, many social organizations united their demands toward the presentation with life of the youth, and they took to the streets to demand justice. Using slogans such as “Down with the State!” and “Investigate the military!” protestors also carried banners denouncing military harassment and educational reforms.

On 17 June, Proceso reported that one of the 43 disappeared students was an active soldier. Previously, a journalist had requested information from the Ministry for National Defense (SEDENA) inquiring into whether any of the disappeared students had been an active soldier. According to the editors, this approach had to do with “a line of investigation regarding the degree of infiltration o the State within the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School, which is considered by the political authorities to be a ‘fountain of guerrilleros.” SEDENA responded by saying that “we have found one person whose name corresponds to one of the 42 disappeared students from the Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School, following your request; however, the name is classified to protect personal data.” Amidst this revelation, relatives of the disappeared stressed that this “shows clearly the military’s responsibility” in the case. Subsequently, on 26 June, personnel from the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) visited the municipal landfill of Cocula, where in October of last year a clandestine mass-grave was discovered. Beyond this, the command of the Iguala Preventive Police was shuttered, with no further information provided regarding the aim sought by this move.

For more information (in Spanish):

“No nos vamos a callar”: familiares a 9 meses del caso Ayotzinapa (CNN México, 26 de junio de 2015)

Manifestantes marchan en Guerrero a 9 meses de caso Ayotzinapa(Informador.mx, 26 de junio de 2015)

Personal de PGR acude a basurero de Cocula a 9 meses del caso Ayotzinapa (Proceso, 17 de junio de 2015)

A nueve meses de su desaparición, padres de normalistas dicen: “está muy cerca la verdad” (Proceso, 27 de junio de 2015)

Personal de PGR acude a basurero de Cocula a 9 meses del caso Ayotzinapa (CNN México, 26 de junio de 2015)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas/Guerrero: Delegation of relatives and comrades of Ayotzinapa students tour CNI communities (29 June 2015)

Guerrero/National: 8 months after the forcible disappearance of the 43 students from the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa, there is no progress (9 June 2015)

Guerrero: Ayotzinapa – seven months of impunity and struggling for justice (3 May 2015)

Guerrero: IACHR experts confirm that the Ayotzinapa case is a forcible disappearance and a crime against humanity (10 April 2015)

Chiapas: Denunciation of paramilitary attack on the El Rosario community, pertaining to the La Garrucha caracol

(@SIPAZ)

In a communique from 25 June, Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) made known the facts of a new attack on Zapatistas on recuperated lands in the El Rosario community, which belongs to the autonomous municipality of San Manuel. The Subcomandante also includes the denunciation made by the La Garrucha Good-Government Council (JBG) regarding the events.

The “Path to the Future” JBG explains that 28 “paramilitaries” from the Chiquinibal neighborhood of the Pojkol ejido arrived on 24 June to El Rosario, 8 of them openly carrying firearms. According to the JBG, in this community there live 21 “paramilitaries” who occupy lands recovered by the EZLN in 1994. According to the JGB, there was a meeting between these paramilitaries with an engineer and Guadalupe Flores, the owner of the lands in question before the 1994 uprising. The JBG claims that this group carried out measurements of the lands, supposedly to plan the subsequent construction of a church and homes. It adds that 10 gunshots were fired behind the home of a Zapatista support-base (BAEZLN) to intimidate the population, and that the aggressors entered two other homes and destroyed yet another, robbing the belongings of its inhabitants: animals, construction materials, tools, food, and cash. The JBG concludes that the engineer and the landowner are advisors to the paramilitary group.

It should be recalled that the La Garrucha JBG had in August 2014 denounced actions taken by this same group, including the killing of a stud bull, the destruction of homes and a collective store, robbery, the defoliation with pesticides of common grazing lands, shooting of live ammunition, and the writing of “Pojkol territory” on burned-out homes. In May 2015, the JBG denounced that one of them shot at a BAEZLN girl.

The JBG affirms that these events are a provocation which form part of the government’s counter-insurgent strategy. “We say clearly that we will not remain with our arms crossed while our comrades are attacked by any of the means that the bad government uses against us. We have said clearly that we will defend our lands, because on them were we born, from them we live, and on them we will die, regardless of the costs.”

The JBG holds the federal, state, and municipal governments responsible for any acts that might follow, and it calls on the public to remain attentive.

For more information (in Spanish):

Nuevo ataque de paramilitares. Caracol Resistencia Hacia un Nuevo Amanecer. La Garrucha. (Enlace Zapatista, 25 de junio de 2015)

Denuncia EZLN un ataque de paramilitares a indígenas de Ocosingo (La Jornada, 26 de junio de 2015)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: La Garrucha Good-Government Council (JBG) denounces two paramilitary attacks (17 May 2015)

Chiapas: Update regarding forced displacement of EZLN support bases belonging to the La Garrucha caracol (2 September 2014)

Chiapas: Forced displacement of EZLN support-bases belonging to La Garrucha caracol (29 August 2014)

Chiapas: Violence in Teopisca to force women to attend a PRI rally

Graffiti: “Votes are gained, not bought,” Teopisca (@Chiapas Paralelo)

On 27 May, women who benefit from the Próspera governmental welfare program occupied the Teopisca City Hall to protest the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its mayoral candidate, as they had been forced to attend a rally from this party, planned for 10am the next day. They were threatened with having their support withdrawn if they did not attend the action, they denounced.

In retaliation, women painted graffiti against the PRI mayoral candidate, Raúl López; they also punctured the PRI bus’ tires and broke its windows. They demand the resignation of the Próspera municipal coordinator, and that the SEDESOL officials suspend political conditions for participation in the program.

In light of these acts, the Chiapas Center for Women’s Right A.C. (CDMCH) denounced “the violence that women face if they receive welfare programs from the political parties and officials of public policy, in exchange for votes, forcing them to join whatever political party to ensure the flow of support.” The CDMCH denounced that the women had been threatened with “having their programs withdrawn if they do not join the party, [which] takes advantage of their impoverished state, amidst the fact that there is no comprehensive attention granted by the State in terms of education, health, housing, and just work.”

The CDMCH has demanded a halt to violence against women, as well as the use of poverty for political ends, being “consequences of the impunity and social backwardness in which thousands of us women and our families live in Chiapas, in terms of the exercise of the right to free and informed voting on 7 June.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Beneficiarias de Prospera en Teopisca desocupan alcaldía tras cese de funcionaria, La Jornada, 30 de mayo de 2015

Protestas en Teopisca por uso electoral de programa social, La Jornada, 29 de mayo de 2015

Comunicado del cdmch ante los hechos violentos een el municipio de Teopisca por motivos electorales, CDMCH, 29 de mayo de 2015

Mujeres denuncian que el PRI les condiciona la entrega de PROSPERA en Teopisca, Chiapasparalelo, 28 de mayo de 2015

Chiapas: Las Abejas announce that they will not vote in the mid-term elections

Acteal (@Sociedad Civil Las Abejas)

On 22 May, in observance of the monthly commemoration of the Acteal massacre (1997) in which 45 people were murdered, the Las Abejas Civil Society published a new communique presenting its take on the present electoral context.

Las Abejas affirmed that “the people who we represent will not vote in the elections,” given that the “so-called vote” is a “farce that offers political leadership of the people, but we know that there above they know well and already have arranged who and which parties will win in the elections to come.”

Instead, they recommend “the exercise of our rights as citizens not to participate in elections, but rather in the decision-making processes we carry out in our communities, in the daily resistance we embody, in the construction of autonomy, and in our collaboration with different spaces and processes to denounce injustice and human-rights violations committed by the State against our people. In exchange for not participating in the elections, we have begun a process of building an ethical and responsible government that actually represents us and listens to our voice: one that defends our lives, lands, and territories.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Comunicado completo (Sociedad Civil Las Abejas, 22 de mayo de 2015)

“Las Abejas” de Acteal informaron que no participarán en elecciones 2015(Chiapas Paralelo, 24 de mayo de 2015)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: Civil Society Las Abejas denounce human rights violations in the country and show solidarity with various processes (24 April 2015)

Chiapas: Las Abejas de Acteal reject dams and high electricity prices, affirming “Free Rivers and Free People” instead  (April 10, 2015)

Chiapas: Las Abejas Civil Society expresses solidarity with the relatives and comrades of the disappeared students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero (February 5, 2015)

Guerrero: Valentina Rosendo renounces MORENA candidacy after attack

Valentina Rosendo Cantú (@Amnesty International)

Valentina Rosendo Cantú has renounced her candidacy for the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA, led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador) for the mayorship of Acatepec, after she received death-threats and suffered a motor-vehicle accident that she qualified as an attack on her person. On 10 May, she was followed on the highway that leads to Tlapa de Comomfort, and for this reason had an accident. Pablo Amílcar Sandoval Ballesteros, the MORENA candidate for Guerrero state, reported the decision.

It should be recalled that Valentina Rosendo Cantú is an indigenous woman who was raped in 2000 by Army soldiers in the Ayutla de los Libres municipalities. In 2010, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights sentenced the Mexican State in the case, and demanded compensation for damages, and ordered an adequate investigation and punishment for those responsible, among other dictates.

For more information (in Spanish):

Atentan contra Valentina Rosendo y renuncia a candidatura de Morena en Guerrero (Proceso, 20 de mayo de 2015)

Una candidata de Morena en Guerrero deja la contienda por seguridad (CNN México, 20 de mayo de 2015)

La mujer a la que el gobierno de México pidió perdón renuncia a su candidatura en Guerrero (Animal Político, 20 de mayo de 2015)

Candidata de Morena a edil renuncia por temor (EL Universal, 20 de mayo de 2015)

From more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: SCJN decision in the case of Inés Fernández and Valentina Rosendo “far from the heights” of the Court’s decision on the Radilla case (2010) (17 May 2015)

Guerrero: Murders and death-threats against candidates for June elections (17 May 2015)

Chiapas: legal motion denied to the ejidatarios of San Sebastián Bachajón

(@vivabachajon.wordpress.com)

Ejidatarios from San Sebastián Bachajón, who struggle against the imposition of tourist megaprojects on their land, have been denied the legal motion they had presented to the courts in March 2011.  After three cancellations, an attempt to transfer the case to the Supreme Court for Justice in the Nation, and despite the the detection of violations of due process, a federal tribunal denied the motion 274/2011.  In a communique released on 10 April, the anniversary of the murder of Emiliano Zapata, the ejidatarios reported their knowledge of the refusal of the motion, reaffirmed their commitment to the struggle against the State, and denounced that official authorities are meeting with party-members from the region, seeking to develop strategies to crush their own autonomous process.

This struggle over the management of lands surrounding the Agua Azul waterfalls has resulted in three violent displacement operations, two murdered communal leaders (Juan Vázquez Guzmán, killed on 24 April 2013, and Juan Carlos Gómez Silvano, killed on 21 March 2014), and several political prisoners.  Recently, the ejidatarios also had their regional headquarters burned down, in an operation that involved 600 police, who threatened two autonomous journalists and took their equipment.

In the latest communique, released on 11 April, the ejidatarios make an invitation to the commemoration of the murder of Juan Vázquez Guzmán.  On 24 April, the second anniversary of his, a mass will be held in the family home of Juan Vázquez Guzmán at 3pm.

As a means of popular pressure, a petition has been launched on www.change.org, and the Chiapas Center for Women’s Rights seeks signatures for its communique in support of the ejidatarios.  Those interested can email adorsetchiapassolidarity@aol.co.uk.

For more information (in Spanish):

En Ejido San Sebastián Bachajón Adherentes a la Sexta Declaración de la Selva Lacandona. Chiapas. México. (Blog Viva Bachajón, 11 de abril de 2015)

Piden solidaridad para habitantes de San Sebastián Bachajón (Chiapas Paralelo, 15 de abril de 2015)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: Regional headquarters of San Sebastián Bachajón burned down; autonomous journalists attacked (10 April 2015)

Chiapas: new national and international brigade in solidarity with San Sebastián Bachajón (1 March 2015)

Chiapas: Tensions maintained in San Sebastián Bachajón(10 February 2015)

Chiapas: first report of the caravan of adherents to the Sixth to San Sebastían Bachajón after the violent displacement of 9 January (29 January 2015)

Chiapas: Indigenous ejidatarios from San Sebastián Bachajón are forcibly cleared from the entrance of the Agua Azul waterfalls (21 January 2015)