Oaxaca Attack Exposes Repression of Social Movements

On April 27th, a caravan of people intending to enter San Juan Copala was attacked by an armed group.

Residents of San Juan Copala had declared their autonomy in January 2007 from their municipality in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca. This was in response to recent violence by paramilitary groups fighting for control in the region, but it was also a reaction to the annexation and subsequent fragmentation of Triqui communities. (The Triqui are a large indigenous group in Oaxaca.) This divided the community into many groups, some aligned with the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional), and some supporting the autonomous movement. Some of these evolved into armed paramilitary groups. Conflict has erupted several times in the history of the region, and many people have been killed, including two female journalists from the autonomous community radio station in April 2008.

The caravan fired upon last month included members of local and international human rights organizations and the teacher’s union, as well as journalists. They were to take water and provisions, as well as supervise the re-entry of teachers into the town. This was in response to the state of siege enforced by armed groups that has kept water, food, and teachers out of the town for months. The caravan, consisting of about 37 people in several vehicles, departed from a nearby town and stated in their press release that, should anything happen to them, local government officials should be held responsible. In their demands, they included the participation of alleged PRI-aligned paramilitary groups in peace negotiations in the Triqui region.

The caravan was attacked. Two activists, a Oaxacan named Bety Cariño and a Finnish national named Jyri Antero Jaakola, were killed. Many others were hurt, and some were interrogated. Family members begged the state government to send in police to rescue the people who were wounded and trapped in the town, but the government said the conditions were not safe enough. When the family members started planning their own caravan of journalists to find the missing members of the caravan, the government finally managed to mount a police intervention and enter the town--two days after the attack.

The attack and murder of human rights activists bringing provisions into San Juan Copala is alarming. There are some important questions raised by this attack and the aftermath.

Does the local government’s reluctance to send police into town suggest government complicity with the group that attacked the caravan? Will this incident lead to further repression of the autonomous movement not by the paramilitary groups, but by an increased military and police presence in the region as the eventual response by the government to the violence there?

The 2006 conflict in Oaxaca taught us that the government will not hesitate to use great force to repress social movements, and to maintain control. Furthermore, in an interview, paramilitary group leader Antonio Cruz García, agreed that was the right government response. In stating that his group is currently congregating the elders of the communities that sympathize with the paramilitary groups to find a solution for peace in their region, Cruz says “we think that police and military presence are necessary to guarantee the rule of law.”

We already know that Mérida Initiative funding is being used to train Mexican soldiers and police. There are several instances where the very same police and military forces that receive the training and equipment have been enforcing a policy of criminalization of social protest, including in Oaxaca and Atenco in 2006. We have seen a six-fold increase in human rights violations committed by soldiers since 2006. The new Mérida appropriations for 2011 call for a cut to military funding, but also call for an increase in police funding. As long as the US continues funding the use of violence to create an image of security in Mexico through the Mérida Initiative, the human rights abuse will continue.

A Day in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

My name is Dunya Cope and I am a former member of the Witness for Peace Mexico International Team currently living in El Paso, Texas, just a few blocks away from what seems to be the epicenter of drug violence in Mexico. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has acknowledged the demand for drugs in the United States and weapons illegally trafficked from the U.S. to Mexico as causes of the continued violence. U.S. military aid to Mexico through the Mérida Initiative has done nothing to calm the situation. Instead, military “solutions” to the war on drugs have exacerbated the violence.

I went to Juárez to hear some stories. On my way to lunch with a nun, a priest and the director of a Catholic workers’ legal aid center, I saw my first dead body.

We were walking down Avenida Juárez, “the Strip” adjacent to the international bridge connecting two downtowns. Avenida Juárez had been a buzzing hotspot for many years, but numerous establishments have closed in the years since the Mérida Initiative was established. There are few areas of Ciudad. Juárez that bustle like they used to. The economic effects of the violence on the city are apparent. People are fleeing the city, people who stay can’t find jobs, and people with jobs still can’t afford to live. I see this reality in abandoned houses, barred up convenience stores, demolished restaurants: the ruins of a once-lively city.

On this day though, there were people in the streets, much more than usual. The labor center director told us she had heard shots just a minute before. Then, across the street, I saw a body lying on the sidewalk, partially blocked by an SUV, and a police officer picking up shell casings in the street.

I don’t know who the victim was. I don’t know if the media was portraying him as involved in cartel or narco activity. I know that most murders aren’t investigated in Juárez so there is no way to know the number of innocent people killed. The Associated Press reported on April 9 that the war for control of the drug trade in Juárez was “over.” But a friend who lives with her boyfriend in Juárez told me that there were still 8 murders the next day.

Regardless of who controls the drug trade in Juárez, regardless of whether murders have decreased from 300 a month to 200 a month, Juárez remains a desperately poor city. The Association of Maquilas reported over 80,000 job losses, about one third of jobs in the maquila sector, between January 2008 and June 2009.

Mexican politicians promise funds for development during campaigns, but nothing changes. The U.S. government is now including anti-poverty funds as part of our strategy for combating narcotrafficking But this aid is a drop in the bucket compared to the money being pooled to Mexican militias. And is violence really what it’s going to take to end the war on drugs?

The Human Face of Coal

Jairo Fuentes Epaiyu poses in front of the Salem Harbor Station,
which burns coal from Colombia.

Check out this recent column from Lynn Nadeau in Marblehead, MA. She's been hosting Jairo Fuentes Epaiyu, a Colombian man from a coal mining community called Tomaquito, during his speaking tour "to tell us — the people who use the coal buried beneath his village — about how his ancestral home has been destroyed by the owners of the largest open-pit coal mine in the world."

The column states that:

"The removal of topsoil and enormous excavations deep into the earth have destroyed the land and rivers on which [Jairo's community] farmed and fished for generations. The mining operation polluted their water and made the villagers’ life unsustainable. There is coal dust everywhere, especially in their lungs. Before the mine was built, Jairo and his neighbors in Tamaquito depended on the nearby village of Tabaco for services such as health care, schooling and mail delivery. Then, tragically, the multinational corporation took over the mine and bulldozed Tabaco, scattering its inhabitants in diaspora. Now Jairo’s villagers must travel great distances for these vital services and connection to the outside world. Their simple dwellings form a small island in a wasteland. Their social fabric has been ripped apart; their livelihood has disappeared."

This July, Witness for Peace is organizing a delegation to two regions devastated by coal mining: one in Appalachia and one in northern Colombia near Jairo's hometown.

For information about joining the "Behind the Coal" delegation please click here.