Just two weeks prior to the July 4 state-wide election in Oaxaca, Mexico, an anti-mining and political confrontation took place. A battle broke out between PRIistas and residents of the villages El Cuajilote and Maguey Largo who oppose the exploitation of the mine “La Trinidad” located on communal lands in the municipality of Ocotlán, Oaxaca on June 19. […]
MARÍA (the group’s acronym for Women, Abortion, Reproduction, Information and Accompaniment) was founded in May 2009 to provide information, support and financial assistance to women outside greater Mexico City who want an abortion. “The aim of the Fund is not to be a welfare-kind of support system, but to provide women with the tools they need to take responsibility for their bodies and their lives, and to help them understand that they are receiving support for exercising a right, not a favour,” Oriana López, director of operations of MARÍA, told IPS. […]
The election in eleven Mexican states for governors, mayors and state representatives on July 4 assumes a special importance in Oaxaca because this state is said to be key for re-positioning the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in its bid to retake the presidency of Mexico in 2012.
Since neither the federal government of Mexico nor the Oaxaca government of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (URO) will put aside the blockade of San Juan Copala, one might conclude that the policy of the governments is to starve out the autonomous community which wants self determination and control of their lands and territory. The second humanitarian caravan “Bety Cariño y Jyri Jakkola” to San Juan Copala was halted three times on June 7, and finally headed back to Huajapan de Leon to consider their next step.
“The big international NGOs, like Greenpeace and Oxfam, are well connected and tolerate too many things from the governments. They accept programmes and issues in the summit negotiations which are unacceptable to the social movements,” said Miguel Valencia, one of the 10 members of the Klimaforum 2010 Mexican organising committee.
Less than a month after the deaths of two activists in the ambush of a humanitarian caravan headed to San Juan Copala, an armed group assassinated the indigenous leader Timoteo Alejandro Ramirez, a member of the Movimiento de Unificación y Lucha Triqui-Independiente (MULT-I) and a founder of the autonomous community now under siege. The armed group entered the home of Ramirez in the community of Yosoyuxi, which has been giving shelter to those who fled San Juan Copala. The shooters also murdered Ramirez’ wife.
Twelve people were kidnapped and disappeared in San Juan Copala on May 16, following the ambush of a caravan on April 27 in which two human rights activists were murdered by Unión de Bienestar de la Región Triqui (Ubisort) paramilitaries. The twelve disappeared are women and children. The kidnapping appeared to be a reprisal for the call to send a second, international and larger caravan to San Juan Copala, scheduled for June 8.
In an act of implacable defiance, the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala has called on civil organizations to organize another Human Rights caravan to attempt to break the paramilitary blockade surrounding their besieged headquarters in the indigenous Triqui region of Oaxaca, Mexico. The caravan, called for May 30-31, hopes for the participation of hundreds of national and international human Rights observers and activists, and will be convened by Diocesan Commission of Peace and Justice, and the Bartolomé Carrasco Regional Human Rights Center.
A caravan carrying human rights activists from Finland, Italy, Belgium and Germany as well as members of the Oaxaca Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO), of Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE), and of the Network of Indigenous Radios and Communicators of Southeast Mexico was ambushed on the road near La Sabana in the Triqui territory of Oaxaca by paramilitaries identified as members of the Unión de Bienestar Social de la Región Triqui (Ubisort), a PRI sponsored organization. The caravan was attempting to break the siege of San Juan Copala by Ubisort.
Two people were killed and at least another five are missing after a paramilitary group ambushed a human rights caravan yesterday in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. The caravan was organized by Oaxacan Voices Building Autonomy and Liberty (VOCAL) and the Popular Assembly of Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO).
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