Angry White Kid

The Murder of Bety and Jyri: We Demand Justice

My translation of a letter from Omar Esparza, the husband of Bety Cariño, assassinated by paramilitaries in an ambush on the way to the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, two years ago today. For more background on San Juan Copala and the continued impunity that reigns in Mexico, see my post from the same time year.

The Murder of Bety and Jyri: We Demand Justice
April 27, 2012, Two Years Since the Murder of Bety and Jyri
By Omar Esparza
[Spanish original]
Translated by Scott Campbell

To Felipe Calderón Hinojosa,
President of Mexico

To Gabino Cué Monteagudo
Governor of Oaxaca

To public opinion

Two years could be called easy for those who have not lost a loved one in a violent way; for those who decide the changes that the masses will face, arguing that they do so for the well-being of the country; for those who claim to represent Mexico and who impose, with arrogance, social control strategies in order to generate fear and, with them, militarize the country and strengthen their policies in order to criminalize society until reaching the point of establishing a terrorist state that persecutes, assassinates, jails and disappears those of us who are not in agreement with them.

This war is a smokescreen that hides what is really happening: the displacement from our territories, the looting of our natural resources, the loss of our sovereignty, the dismantling of all resistance, the rupturing of the social fabric and the dismantling of all the forms of organization that the original peoples have maintained for millennia. All of this seeks to turn our free will into obedience, which has created a deep wound in our country, in our peoples, and has left thousands of orphaned children, widowed women, mothers without children or husbands, women disappeared and violated, all victims of a violence which doesn’t stop and continually repeats itself in this country.

Statement from the Communal Autonomous Council of San Juan Copala on the Caravan and Negotiations

While many events have occurred since this statement was issued, I've translated and posted it as it offers helpful insight as to the "official" stance of the Copala displaced regarding the caravan and negotiations. For more info on recent events, see this article on El Enemigo Común.

Statement from the Communal Autonomous Council of San Juan Copala on the Caravan and Negotiations
February 3, 2012
[Spanish original]
Translated by Scott Campbell

TO THE MEDIA
TO THE OTHER CAMPAIGN
TO THE PEOPLES OF OAXACA AND MEXICO
TO THE HUMAN RIGHTS BODIES

Sisters, brothers, painful is the path of return to our village from which we were displaced by the rancor and hate of those who from afar send the owners of power to our region, but we know well that reconciliation can and should come to our lands. More than 500 years of resisting exploitation, repression and misery have given the indigenous of this country the wisdom necessary to resolve their problems through the word. It is because of this that the displaced communicate to those who have accompanied us that we are doing everything in our power to put into action the Triqui word. We are sure that this will help to solve our differences, that it will ensure peace always exists in our region, but we want to state very clearly that we are not asking for impunity for anyone, those who commit crimes  by following the orders of the powerful should and have to pay, as our lands have been dyed with blood spilled by indigenous who have exchanged their dignity for a few coins or for promises of positions of power (in the state congress, for example) but we will speak of these individuals another time in a more detailed manner and we will do it with names and evidence.

Today we merely want to address you to tell you that we are doing everything in our power to find the path to peace through the word and we want to ask for your fraternal solidarity, which you have always shown us, so that today more than ever, the flower of the word does not die.

The Caravan of the Displaced Returns to Yosoyuxi

UPDATE - February 1:

• After being arrested outside of Copala on Sunday, today David Venegas was released without paying bail and with all charges dropped, again emphasizing the false and illegal nature of his detention.


• Today at 1pm, a delegation from the displaced was to meet with government officials in the city of Oaxaca regarding the implementation of protective measures for the displaced families ordered by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. The government was mandated to implement these measures by January 20, yet has still failed to do so.


• The displaced have agreed that ten of them would enter Copala under government protection to meet with 10 of the occupiers to see if the displaced would be allowed to enter. This meeting was to occur on Sunday as has still not happened, with the government continually postponing. The displaced have given the government until 2pm on Thursday to facilitate their entry. If the government does nothing by then, the 10 representatives will enter without government protection.

More information at El Enemigo Común.

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The Caravan of the Displaced Returns to Yosoyuxi
January 30, 2012
[Spanish original]
Translated by Scott Campbell

As a security measure and to avoid the great risk that remaining isolated and out in the open near La Sabana (UBISORT territory), four kilometers from San Juan Copala, represented, the displaced from San Juan Copala, members of the Autonomous Municipality, and solidarity organizations returned to Yosoyuxi near nightfall.

We woke up here and the displaced and the autonomous authorities decided to establish a blockade of the highway the runs from Juxtlahuaca to Jalatlaco, at the turnoff for Yosoyuxi, while a commission of 20 compañeras and compañeros traveled to the city of Oaxaca to demand information as to the location of David Venegas Reye “Alebrije” and his immediate release. 

We again condemn the state government authorities (deputy secretaries) for their inability to facilitate the arrival of the commission of the displaced, to which they had already agreed, to the assembly that took place this Sunday in San Juan Copala, and who were only able to manage the deceitful and illegal arrest of David Venegas.

It was agreed upon that 10 representatives of the displaced would be at the assembly, but something very shady happened with the government “negotiators,” as with the arrest they prevented the meeting that would have occurred in said assembly.

The displaced have agreed to give the government’s representatives until Thursday one final chance to mediate. If, upon receiving no response, the displaced will enter San Juan Copala that morning, knowing that they are risking their lives and that this is due to the irresponsibility of the government, which has only managed to maintain checkpoints on the highway from Juxtlahuaca to Yosoyuxi, in order to keep watch, as a means of intimidation and surveillance. 

Communal Council of the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala

Police stop the caravan of the displaced from San Juan Copala

UPDATE - January 30 - See new post.

UPDATE - January 30 - El Enemigo Común has several new statements and communiqués posted regarding the caravan and the arrest of David Venegas. In brief:

• David Venegas is being held at the State Attorney General's Office, falsely charged with "assault, threats and bodily harm to public officials." Supporters will hold a protest in front of the Cathedral in the city of Oaxaca today at 5pm.


• Solidarity reinforcements for the caravan of the displaced will be departing Mexico City at 8pm on February 1.


• Through negotiations with the government, the displaced agreed to send ten representatives to the assembly being held in San Juan Copala to determine whether or not the displaced will be allowed to enter their own town. Aside from the ten displaced, the participants in the assembly will be made up of the paramilitaries currently occupying the town.


• The caravan of the displaced is currently stopped just outside of La Sabana, an UBISORT paramilitary stronghold where the ambush of the first caravan on April 27, 2010 occurred. The police have left the area, placing the caravan members at grave risk of attack from paramilitaries.

UPDATE - January 29 - (via email) - Compañerxs, the dialogue between the government and the displaced from San Juan Copala has been broken off.

The Triqui compañeras are ready to enter Copala, even without safety guarantees.

We ask you to be on alert.

As well, as a result of a direct order from Jesús Martínez Alvarez (state interior minister) the state police have just detained David Venegas Reyes without saying where they are taking him. Please update the media that the caravan to San Juan Copala today hoped to enter their town and negotiations have broken off and we hold PRI-UBISORT and PRI-MULT responsible for the attacks and murders that these organizations have carried out against our brothers and sisters from San Juan Copala.

Autonomy, Autogestion, Direct Action, For the revolution!

Long live indigenous autonomy!

Free Political Prisoners!

UPDATE - January 28 - [Spanish original] - After the caravan of the displaced, members of the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala and members from Yosoyuxi left for San Juan Copala, approximately 200 riot people blocked our way today, January 28, about three kilometers from where we had left, in a place known as Barranca de Lodo, at approximately 12:54pm.

The caravan, largely made up of displaced women and children, men, women and children from the region, as well as solidarity activists from several social, political and student organizations from Oaxaca, Mexico City, Mexico state, and other entities, had spent the night in Yosoyuxi, after having been on the highway that runs from Tlaxiaco to Juxtlahuaca, and after hours of negotiations with government authorities, finally after nine in the evening on Friday, January 27, they were able to reach an agreement that the caravan could go to Yosoyuxi, accompanied by a strong police presence.

The displaced put forward their willingness to establish a dialogue with state authorities capable of resolving the matter, such as those from the Interior Ministry, the Indigenous Issues Ministry, the Public Security Ministry, so that some conditions could be established that would begin the work towards lowering the tension in the area.

However, again the state government sided with the paramilitaries, alleging that there could be no agreement to allow the entry of the displaced until tomorrow, when an assembly will happen by those who have illegitimately and violently occupied San Juan Copala since September 2010.

As of this moment, there has been no rapprochement from the authorities, nor overtones about ending the blockade maintained by the state police. The situation is tense and we ask everyone to be alert as there is information that since yesterday, Friday, January 27, hundreds of MULT paramilitaries are occupying San Juan Copala, maintaining blockades at various points on the way to Copala, thereby blocking the entry of the displaced.

Caravan of Dignity for the Dignified Return of the Displaced from San Juan Copala

January 27, 2012
[Spanish original]
Translated by Scott Campbell

Approximately 200 police officers, belonging to the state Department of Public Security, blocked the path of the caravan of displaced Triquis who are trying to return to the cultural and ceremonial center of San Juan Copala. The police positioned themselves at kilometer 7, in the municipality of Tlaxiaco, to keep the children, women and men from entering the Triqui region.

In the group are traveling 71 Triqui women, 24 children and 26 men. As well, there are 47 members of non-governmental organizations, international observers, human rights defenders and members of an alternative media outlet.

Members of the caravan state that a stretch of the highway was dynamited near the village of Santa Catarina in order to block their path.

They say that the police operation is being headed by Víctor Raúl Martínez, coordinator of the advisers to Governor Gabino Cué Monteagudo.

These events occur 24 hours after the displaced were to sign a peace agreement, in the presence of the governor of Oaxaca. However, in meetings held through Thursday morning, members of the Union for the Social Well-Being of the Triqui Region (UBISORT) and the Triqui Movement for Unification and Struggle (MULT) made clear their disagreement with the displaced returning to Copala this week. Given the impossibility of arriving at an agreement, Governor Gabino Cué has said that he cannot guarantee the safety of the displaced.

We hold Gabino Cué, MULT and UBISORT responsible for what may happen to us in San Juan Copala

For more information on the current caravan to San Juan Copala, see El Enemigo Común.

For background on San Juan Copala and the continued impunity in Oaxaca under Governor Gabino Cué, see this previous post.

We hold Gabino Cué, MULT and UBISORT responsible for what may happen to us in San Juan Copala

January 26, 2012
[Spanish original]
Translated by Scott Campbell

TO THE MEDIA

TO THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF MEXICO

TO THE HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS

TO THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS

TO THE OTHER CAMPAIGN

Sisters, brothers – up until yesterday a great joy filled our hearts as we were sure that this time we would be able to return to our village – San Juan Copala – from which we were displaced by criminals in the service of the wicked Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. We were content as we believed that with the exit of the PRI from the state government that things had changed and that the criminals would no longer be protected. But our pain was great when we realized that nothing changed, that governments of any stripe will always protect those who supply them with votes, they guarantee them political and economic control and allow the indigenous population to remain displaced from its land and territory; dealing with the worst criminals doesn’t matter.

Yesterday we arrived at the meeting of Triqui “authorities,” arranged by the governor, with the aim of signing a supposed agreement of peace and understanding for our region, of which we were unaware until that moment and which the event served as a pretext for the state government to use as a reason to continue postponing the date which it had promised – in writing – of January 20, for the return to our village. Despite the fact that on several occasions we made clear to representatives of the state government that our displaced village does not recognize the supposed “municipal authority” of San Juan Copala, Julio Martínez Ramírez, who was put into that position by his son, Julio Cesar Martínez, the murderer of Jyri Jaakkola and many other people, this individual occupied the most privileged seat at the meeting, at the side of Governor Gabino Cué.

Also occupying a seat at the meeting was former state representative and well-known strongman in the Triqui region, Rufino Merino Zaragoza, who has committed with his own hands or personally ordered more than 80 murders. This criminal is the cause of much of the blood that has been spilled in our region. During the course of the meeting it became perfectly clear that the supposed “social organizations” MULT and UBISORT are one and the same, given the following: Rufino Merino presented himself as the representative of MULT’s communities but through the entire meeting he defended the proposals made by the former journalist Ixtli Martínez, who is the legal representative of the paramilitaries occupying San Juan Copala. Ixtli Martínez is the representative of the group of criminals who displaced us from our community, who imposed Julio Martínez as the municipal “authority,” who call themselves UBISORT but who in reality have been absorbed by MULT.

It is clear that all the murders committed against our brothers and sisters, including on April 27, 2010, were carried out by these two groups of criminals. The municipal “authority,” Professor Julio Martínez Ramírez, is the father of Julio Cesar Martínez Morales, the right hand of Antonio Cruz García, alias “Toño Pájaro,” both of whom have several arrest warrants out against them and today we understand that they have not been arrested because they receive protection from the government palace and the impunity they have allows them to dispose of human life at whim.

Knowing he was protected and that he enjoyed complete impunity, Julio Martínez put forward useless, stupid conditions for the return of the displaced to their homes – one of those was that the entry of two displaced families per month would be allowed beginning on March 20, or rather that the complete return of all 110 families would require four years. All of these were met with complacency by the governor, who continues to maintain that we are responsible for what might happen to us should we try to enter our village. Compañeros, compañeras: We can wait no longer.

We will return to our community and we hold the governor, Gabino Cué Monteagudo, the serial murderer Rufino Merino Zaragoza, Julio Martínez Ramírez, Antonio Cruz García, Julio Cesar Martínez Morales, and the advisor and inciter of this group of murderers, Ixtli Martínez, responsible for what may happen. Finally, we say to the governor that what happens will remain in his conscience, because he could have stopped it simply by ordering that the law of the state he supposedly governs be respected.

RESPECTFULLY

THE AUTONOMOUS COMMUNAL COUNCIL OF SAN JUAN COPALA

A Discourse of Divisiveness: Al Giordano and Mexico’s Social Movements

The Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity participates in a ceremony
at Monte Albán in Oaxaca. (Photo from SDPNoticias / Lucía Vergara)

A Discourse of Divisiveness: Al Giordano and Mexico’s Social Movements

By Scott Campbell

On September 28, Al Giordano, founder and publisher of NarcoNews.com, published a lengthy article on the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity and its time in Oaxaca. Taking the political landscape of Oaxaca as a jumping off point, the main gist of Giordano’s piece was in pointing out the distinctions between the activities and rhetoric of the left and those of Javier Sicilia and the caravan. In the dichotomy he creates, Giordano comes down firmly on the side of Sicilia – one needs to read no further than the sub-headline where he distinguishes between the “annihilating language of the left” and the “language of humanity of drug war victims” to grasp the argument he is putting forward.

In Giordano’s view, “the left” is stuck in a no-longer relevant posture of confrontational and militant rhetoric and action which does not resonate with the everyday individual surviving in a country wrecked by neoliberalism and the violence of the state and drug cartels. He posits that Sicilia’s movement of Gandhian nonviolence with its post-partisan focus on common humanity – from the victims of the drug war all the way up to Felipe Calderón – creates a bond based not on ideology but shared loss, pain and grief, a bond which does resonate with the Mexican populous, and is something much more preferable to what the left has to offer.

A scorched earth attack on the left

Now, when you set up a contrast like that – between a side with humanity and a side that is annihilating – it makes tearing down one and raising up the other rather simple. In doesn’t hurt to throw in some unsubstantiated take downs, such as that those annihilators “gladly will jump on the caravan buses and accept free food from many of the poorest indigenous communities in the nation…but who seemed to be doing so with a grimace on their faces.” Or to imply that they are so out of touch they care more about politics than their own dead family members, as he does with Omar Esparza, whose wife Bety Cariño was assassinated by paramilitaries in 2010. At a caravan stop in Huajuapan, Giordano states Esparza, “said nothing about his late wife…choosing instead of offer a boilerplate political speech of the sort that gets made at so many other political meetings and protests.” He also inaccurately labels Esparza as a spokesperson for the anarchist-leaning group Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Freedom (VOCAL) when in fact he is a member of the Zapatista Indigenous Agrarian Movement (MAIZ). This error takes on more significance when Giordano notes that after speaking, Esparza invited someone from the Stalinist Popular Revolutionary Front (FPR) to speak and implied that the invitation involved “some kind of organizational log-rolling or concessions” on the part of the annihilating left, as VOCAL and the FPR do not get along, to put it mildly. However, since MAIZ and the FPR do frequently work together, the invitation is no surprise at all. When you create your own straw man, it’s easy to knock him down. Problem is, in the end it still is just a straw man of your own creation.

24 arrested at land occupation in Oaxaca

UPDATE: 5:57pm - All 24 of the comrades detained this morning have been released. Thank you for your support and solidarity.

UPDATE: 4:34pm - Seven of the 24 detained have now been released, including the five compañeras from the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala. Seventeen remain held without charge. Four of them: David Venegas Reyes, Natalia Venegas Reyes, Daniel Arellano and Abril Ortega are being told by the police that they will not be released because there are supposedly arrest warrants out for them.

UPDATE: 2:43pm - Here is the most recent statement on today's repression. As well, comrades who weren't detained this morning are now blockading the road in front of the municipal police headquarters in Oaxaca, where those detained are being held:

Today October 2 police intimidate and repress comrades building spaces for the people  

To the peoples of Oaxaca
To women and men standing in solidarity in Mexico and the world
To the news media
To human rights organizations

Today on the 2 of October, as we had previously stated, we took over the foundry lot. This brought on the kind of repression commonly used by corrupt, repressive governments to intimidate, threaten, beat and jail people who are peacefully mobilizing. In this case people from the neighborhoods and other free people were generating organizing spaces for the people of Oaxaca in order to be able to come together in places formerly used by those in power seeking to enrich themselves with what now belongs and has always belonged to the people.

Around 8 o’clock this morning, we were there in the space just taken over by different collectives, organizations, and indigenous peoples, such as the Mixes, members of the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, and people of VOCAL, Hormiga Libertaria, CASOTA and the APPO. While we were organizing different activities for the space, doing radio broadcasts about what was happening and letting people know what this Okupation is about, three men in street clothes who looked like bodyguards came up to us and told us we’d better get out of there in less than an hour or they were going to call the hired thugs from the UABJO High School # 1. We asked them to explain these threats, but at about 8:30 am three pick-up trucks full of Municipal Police officers pulled up and began to harass and threaten those of us who were occupying the lot. According to them the bodyguards work for Manuel Maza Sanchez.

More Municipal Police agents began to arrive, but these were wearing ski-masks and carrying long arms and pushing everybody around who got in their way. Even though we are sure that the lot does not belong to Mr. Manuel Maza Sanchez, we decided to to try to dialogue about the matter outside. Meanwhile, more Municipal Police reinforcements came up, as well as another white truck carrying police agents wearing ski-masks. The truck bore no insignia, so we had no way of knowing which police force it was from, but the license plate number was RV50197.

At approximately 9:30 am the physical attacks against us began. The only things our comrades had with them were a video camera and a digital camera, and these were taken from them at the time of their arrest.

More than 24 men and women were violently arrested and some were beaten by several Municipal Police agents. They were then loaded onto trucks and taken to the offices of the Municipal Police Department. This much we know, because a few comrades were able to let us know what was happening. But as of now, they haven’t been presented by any police agency. They are being held incommunicado and not even allowed to speak to their lawyers to verify their physical and psychological state.  

We hold Mr. Manuel Maza Sanchez, the state government of Gabino Cué Monteagudo and the municipal government of Luis Ugartechea responsible for the physical well-being of our comrades.  

We urgently call on all honorable people in Oaxaca to show your solidarity by going to the Municipal Police Department to demand the presentation and liberation of our comrades. We also ask you to stay alert for further news and to be ready to engage in solidarity actions.

Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Freedom (VOCAL)

Oaxaca de Magón, October 2, 2011

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UPDATE: 1:18pm

An updated statement has been released with more details of what happened this morning. But the basic situation remains the same. As soon as translations are available, I'll post it here.

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UPDATE: 11:07 am

At 9:24 am, 24 comrades were arrested and are now being held incommunicado in the Oaxaca City holding tank. Please spread the word and show your solidarity.

Please write to these autorities to demand justice and the immediate release of the people arrested:

Lic. Gabino Cué Monteagudo, Gobernador Constitucional del Estado de Oaxaca gobernador@oaxaca.gob.mx

Luis Ugartechea, Presidente Municipal de la Ciudad de Oaxaca
luis.ugartechea@municipiodeoaxaca.gob.mx

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Communiqué from VOCAL on intimidations and arrests today, October 2.

Today, October 2, police intimidate comrades building spaces for the people 

To the peoples of Oaxaca
To women and men standing in solidarity in Mexico and the world
To the news media
To human rights groups 

Today, October 2, 2011, we took over the space by the foundry two blocks down the hill from the wall as a form of peaceful mobilization and, above all, a way of generating organizing spaces for the people of Oaxaca. Here, people from the neighborhoods and other free people will be able to come together in spaces formerly used by those in power seeking to enrich themselves with what now belongs and has always belonged to the people. 

The collective takeover and construction of this space is part of an effort to create spaces for gatherings and processes of creation, autonomy and freedom. From here, we will continue the struggle that peoples have always waged for the defense of the land, first against the invaders and then against powerful people who now hold positions of political and economic power.  

The legitimate right to defend our territory and recover spaces that have lain idle as a result of capitalist greed is what moves us to collectively maintain this project in conjunction with other peoples’ organizations, collectives, and individuals who agree on the need to organize ourselves. Reason is on our side; the governments and the interests it defends can only keep us from pursuing this project through the use of force and violence.   

Resistance to the mining industry in Mexico (Part 2)

Some of the 800 federal and state police in action during the violent removal of the community's
blockade of the mine in San José del Progreso, Oaxaca in 2009. (Source: La Jornada)

Resistance to the mining industry in Mexico (Part 2)

By Andrea Caraballo*
August 15, 2011
[Spanish original]
Translated by Scott Campbell

“…It’s very painful to say it to you, but it’s reached the point to examine and to decide that the earth is worth giving your life for.”

These are the words of Carmen Santiago Alonso, better known as Carmelina in the towns in her area and amongst social organizations. She identifies as a Zapotec from the central valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico, and for fifteen years has been part of the founding team of the Flor y Canto Indigenous Rights Center, an organization that works in resistance to the mine located in the municipality of San José del Progreso, belonging to the district of Ocotlán, in the state of Oaxaca.

This is a mine that has been prospected for many years, from which gold and silver have been extracted. This began more than 40 years ago, but prospecting was started again in 2009 by the Canadian company Continuum Resources, which has thirty concessions in just this region alone.

What risks does mining in the region bring with it?

It fills us with deep concern, because we well know that these mining companies, in order to obtain purified metal, clean and ready for sale, require millions of cubic meters of water, with the result of leaving the poor farmers in the region without water, without being able to obtain water for their harvests.
What happened is that the authorities – civil as well as agricultural – got involved in this matter of mining.

How did the authorities get involved?

Through buying off their consciences, through bribing them with economic resources to gain their trust, through perks, through deception they purchased lands here; this was through bribery, deception and manipulating the authorities.

A little later on they also poured in resources in order to pave the roads, to provide attention to the housewives, to the single mothers, and through the creation of leaflets they made the community believe that what this company brings is progress and it is going to give them work.

Resistance to the mining industry in Mexico (Part 1)

Broad Opposition Front to the New Gold-San Xavier Mine (Image: Sala de Prensa UP)

Resistance to the mining industry in Mexico

Part 1
By Andrea Caraballo*
August 2, 2011
América Latina en Movimiento
Translated by Scott Campbell

     “…In Mexico they have been beating us down a lot with these mines. There are several activists who have been murdered, there is a lot of persecution; but life goes on through the communities and countries.”

    These are the words of Rurik Hernández, member of the Broad Opposition Front (F.A.O.) to the San Xavier Mine, in the municipality of Cerro de San Pedro, belonging to the state of San Luis Potosí, Mexico. This is an open-pit mine extracting gold and silver, where cyanide is used as an extractor in the heap leaching process. After ten years of legal rulings, the F.A.O. has won some victories; the company doesn’t have permits, they were able to cancel the project. However, the company keeps mining.

But the F.A.O. also participates in advising groups, peoples, communities and movements who are facing off against other mining ventures.

Many are aware of the gold extraction process, but what can you tell us about the iron mines?

To understand the matter we have been investigating the iron mines; mainly here in Mexico, in the state of Oaxaca. In Santa María Zaniza, called Zaniza Project. It’s a Mexican company affiliated with the Chinese – half of the company is Chinese. The processing of iron is dangerous, principally because they are huge open-pit mines and the means of obtaining the mineral is by very finely grinding all of the earth. Then they use magnets and the iron has the ability to be attracted to this magnet; so they magnetize and pull. The dust that remains, which doesn’t have the mineral they need, is usually put in the tailings dams or piled on the land around the pit.

What risks are there to the health of those nearby?

The main risk that we’ve detected up to now in what we’ve investigated is that the rock is so finely ground it is like powdered sugar. So the wind carries it very easily and the people inhale it. This dust they remove the iron from is generally in very mineralized areas, it has different minerals, not just the ones they’re looking for: it also has lead, arsenic, heavy metals; and it is those that create health risks. The wind carries this dust, bringing it to rivers, streams, lakes; it contaminates the water sources the people drink from. It also gets in their houses; even their food, without us being aware of it.

To have contact with heavy metals in this way causes cancer and many illnesses. Here in Mexico there is the example of Lázaro Cárdenas, in Michoacán, where there is an iron mine. The dust kicked up contaminated the water. The people from that community have an elevated rate of cancer in the region and basically it is due to mining activity.

As well, the open-pit, as we have seen in many places, removes all the trees and removes everything; it has a very severe impact on the environment. They get rid of mountains and valleys over great expanses, they impact rivers, be they on the surface or underground, and where a mine arrives, that area can’t be planted due to the serious environmental destruction and the huge consumption of water.

Statement from the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala regarding the massacre in Agua Fría Copala by MULT-PUP

 

Below is the statement from the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala about the killing of three of their members by paramilitaries from the Movement of Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT). One of those killed, Francisco Ramírez Merino, survived a previous assassination attempt by MULT in 2006. During that attempt, the MULT gunmen killed his six year old son. In response to Saturday's murders, today the bodies of the three men were brought to the doors of the government palace in the central plaza in the city of Oaxaca where a wake was held and Governor Gabino Cué was implicated as responsible for the continued climate of impunity in the Triqui region. (See above video)

After the remains left the zócalo to be taken back to Agua Fría Copala and buried, state police attacked those who attended the wake, in particular the displaced women from Copala who have an encampment on one side of the government palace. Women between the ages of 3 and 60 were beaten and police attempted to arrest the encampment's spokespeople. On Monday a protest will take place outside the offices of the High Commissioner of the United Nations in Mexico City.

Statement from the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala regarding the massacre in Agua Fría Copala by MULT-PUP
August 6, 2011
[Spanish original]
Translation by Scott Campbell

TO THE HONEST MEDIA
TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS
TO THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF MEXICO
TO THE OTHER CAMPAIGN

Compañeras, compañeros – again, the blood of our people becomes the spoils of those who in their infinite greed care not about the pain of a son, of a sister, of a mother, of a wife, so long as it achieves their ambitions.

Yesterday, as with anticipation we previously denounced, another massacre was carried out in our lands, which casts a pall over and fills with pain three homes of dignified men and women who as of January 2007 decided to stop being a number in a clientelist organization, with a puppet leadership for the bad governments and the rich of this country, who care only about plundering the natural wealth of our peoples.

Because of that, and only that, MULT never forgave our movement, for having returned the word to our people so that they may decide their own destiny with dignity, which by nature we Triquis have. Many denials may be spoken with mouths full of lies, but the reality is that ever since we split from MULT and UBISORT, many of our brothers have died by their criminal hands because it is they, and only they, who have always been behind the attacks on our Autonomous project, it is they who used the name of UBISORT, together with several criminals, to attack San Juan Copala without mercy and to displace an entire town, it is they who today occupy our community and our homes, and it is they who, with the complicity of some government officials want to make it look like all is calm in San Juan Copala and one can live in peace, it is they who have taken Toño Pajaro and his group of criminals under their protection in order to clothe them with impunity.