Angry White Kid

Gunmen attack assembly in Álvaro Obregón

By Scott Campbell
El Enemigo Común

For more than a year, the indigenous Binnizá community of Álvaro Obregón, in the Isthmus of Oaxaca, have defended their lands against the imposition of a wind park by the multinational Spanish firm Mareña Renovables. As part of that struggle, “the community became aware that the parties and political leaders have only used them for political and personal ends.” In August of 2013, the community held an assembly and decided to return to the traditional indigenous usos y costumbres form of governance, where community leaders are selected via general assembly, without the participation of political parties.

With 1,236 people participating, the general assembly to select the community’s leaders was held on December 8, 2013. Yet on February 8, 2014, Saúl Vicente Vázquez, the Municipal President of Juchitán, which includes Álvaro Obregón, announced that new elections, involving political parties, would be held in Álvaro Obregón on March 2, ignoring the popular and expressed will of the people. Ironically, Vicente Vázquez until recently served as an expert on the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. 

Self-defense groups and their critics

By Scott Campbell
El Enemigo Común

Since mid-January, when armed self-defense groups launched an offensive against the Knights Templar cartel in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán, Mexico, much ink has been spilled evaluating the pros and cons of the self-defense movement. Critiques and speculations have been leveled from the left and right, yet what has largely been absent is an appreciation for the events in situ.

From the right (including the government and mass media), the self-defense groups have been labelled as vigilantes, taking the law into their own hands, armed by an opposing cartel, and threatening to turn into paramilitary death squads a la the AUC in Colombia. Such meritless talking points are not of concern here.

What is of concern is the predominant response from the left, where the self-defense groups have received a lukewarm reception at best. Held at arm’s length, the self-defense movement is chastened for not being like the autonomous municipality of Cherán in Michoacán or the CRAC community police in Guerrero. For not being indigenous, for not having a comprehensive platform, or for cooperating with the government. From behind computer screens, those who are dodging the bullets of the Knights Templar (and occasionally of the state) are patronizingly told what they are not and what they should be doing.

Social activist wounded on December 1 inauguration of Peña dies

By Fernando Camacho Servín
La Jornada
January 25, 2014
Translated by Scott Campbell

The activist and theater director Juan Francisco Kuykendall, who suffered a fractured skull during the December 1, 2012 protests against Enrique Peña Nieto’s inauguration, died early Saturday morning after suffering a cardiac arrest.

“Kuy died at 5:05am. They have still not given me the death certificate and we don’t know what they are going to say the clinical cause was, but since 2:30 in the morning he was in cardiac arrest,” said Eva Palma, the victim’s partner.

The health of Kuykendall Leal – who for the past three months was at the Zone 30 General Hospital of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) – was critical for a long time, she explained.

First Statement from the Self-Defense Group of Aquila, Michoacán

Photo by Juan José Estrada Serafín

Aquila, Michoacán
January 18, 2014
Translated by Scott Campbell

From the Self-Defense Group of Aquila, Michoacán to the general public:

Today, the residents of the municipal seat of Aquila, tired of the extortions, rapes, killings, kidnappings and all sorts of criminal acts committed by the Knights Templar; given the complete abandonment of the citizenry by the municipal and state governments who for 12 years did not provide the security needed for our people to have a peaceful and dignified life; we have decided to organize our self-defense group in order to expel organized crime from our town, and we invite the rest of the people of the municipality to rise up against crime, so they never again feel fear or pay protection fees.

The regime launches a crackdown against community self-defense groups in Michoacán

By Adrián Alvarado
Kaos en la Red
January 15, 2014
Translated by Scott Campbell

The taking of the municipality of Nueva Italia by self-defense and community guardians, and the attempt to advance on Apatzingán, important drug trafficking territory in Michoacán, set off red alarm lights for the regime. Immediately, the federal government announced the “Accord for Federal Support for the Security of Michoacán,” whose main objective is: “to rigorously and indiscriminately enforce the law against those carrying arms illegally.” The first action of the accord was to disarm the community guardians and self-defense groups, sparking clashes with the federal forces. The result: not one drug trafficker was detained or bothered, it is reported that four members of self-defense groups are dead at the hands of the army.

“The with the imposition of gas station, they want to change our way of life”

By Jaime Quintana Guerrero
Desinformémonos
January 5, 2014
Translated by Scott Campbell

Federal District, Mexico. In the middle of Christmas, and after two years of opposition to the construction of a gas station on their land, the people of San Pedro Mártir were evicted from their protest encampment. But they guarantee that not even with the impressive police operation – when more than 2,000 of the capital’s forces encircled the town – will they stop their struggle against its construction that, they say, is illegal and represents the entry point of changing their traditional way of life.

Located in the Tlalpan district, south of Mexico City, the inhabitants maintain that “the gas station represents an imposition by businesses on our way of life,” says one of the opposition activists. “What is to come is a legal and peaceful struggle until the gas station is decommissioned and demolished,” announced a member of the Movement of Neighborhoods and Peoples of the South, which is part of the opposition.

A young woman recounts that, alongside the peaceful and legal protest, the repression they were exposed to is spreading. “Our idea is to remain strong and we are convinced that our stance is legal,” she says.

Nahuas reject mine in Colima

By Mónica Montalvo
Desinformémonos
December 29, 2013
Translated by Scott Campbell

For our indigenous people, the land is not merely an object of possession and production.

The integral relationship between our people’s spiritual life and our lands has many profound implications. Furthermore, our land and our water are not commodities to be appropriated, but a common good which we and our children should freely enjoy.

Indigenous Council for the Defense of the Territory of Zacualpan

Zacualpan, Colima. In recent weeks, the town of Zacualpan, in the municipality of Comala, has joined the growing number of farming and indigenous communities facing conflicts over mining. A few months ago, this indigenous Nahua community began hearing about a plan to build a mine – backed by Rigoberto Verduzco Rodríguez – from which gold, silver, copper and manganese would be extracted, without an environmental impact study or any approval process or permits in the offices of the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) in Colima.

The planned mine is one kilometer from a water spring that supplies the metropolitan area of Colima-Villa de Álvarez, which would mean contaminating the water source in an area known as Cerro Gordo, which is important from a biological and geological point of view and where there is a large number of species at risk of extinction. This would translate into putting at risk the water supply for 260,000 people in the state.

Five years in prison for activist who filmed October 2 march

By Arturo Rodríguez García
Proceso
December 6, 2013
Translated by Scott Campbell

Mexico, Federal District (apro). – Alejandro Bautista, one of those detained this past October 2, was sentenced today to five years and nine months in prison by a Mexico City criminal court.

Bautista, an actor and comedian who in recent years has been strongly opposed to the Super Highway and the South Arch in Mexico City, was accused of offenses against authority, with a gang enhancement, for which the crime was judged a felony.

The sentence was imposed despite the fact that using video footage, Alejandro was able to show that the police who accused him were not the same ones who detained him; as well, he proved that the prosecution’s description of events did not match the time, place, or his actions at the point of his arrest.

Alberto Patishtán: A Message From the State

By Luis Hernández Navarro
La Jornada
September 13, 2013
Translated by Scott Campbell

Alberto Patishtán is not a French kidnapper like Florence Cassez, nor a narcotrafficker like Rafael Caro Quintero, nor one of the killers from the massacre in Acteal. He is a Tzotzil schoolteacher, a member of the Other Campaign, unjustly imprisoned for 13 years. She, they and he are not the same. For Cassez, Caro Quintero and the paramilitaries from Chenalhó, despite their guilt, justice let them go. For teacher Patishtán, the justice system has him in jail, despite being innocent.

The judiciary recently had the possibility to rectify the damage done to the indigenous Tzotzil man from El Bosque. But this Thursday, the 20th Circuit First Appellate Court in Chiapas declared baseless the evidence with which his attorneys sought to obtain his release.

Under Attack, Mexico’s Teachers Fight Back Against Neoliberal ‘Reforms’

Originally published on El Enemigo Común.

By Scott Campbell
September 12, 2013

On December 1, 2012, while protests were being brutally repressed in the streets, Enrique Peña Nieto addressed Mexico for the first time as the country’s newly-anointed president. He outlined the five main goals of his administration and announced ten “presidential decisions” to achieve them. To reach his third goal of “quality education for all,” Peña Nieto stated he had decided to pursue a program of educational reform requiring the modification of the constitution and the establishment of a national evaluation system for teachers. And in doing so, Peña Nieto — the Butcher of Atenco and the signed, sealed and delivered choice of the ruling elite — made clear his intention to target education and take on Latin America’s largest union, the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE).

He wasted no time in getting to work. The following day, the heads of the three main political parties signed the “Pact for Mexico,” a document committing them to Peña Nieto’s five goals. With such backing, Peña Nieto’s proposed changes to the constitution easily passed both houses of Congress and were quickly approved by a majority of state legislatures. On February 26, 2013, the constitutional reforms related to education went into effect.