[News] Mexico - Paramilitary Attack Leaves Two Dead and Three Disappeared

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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<http://elenemigocomun.net/3444/x/en/>Paramilitary 
Attack Leaves Two Dead and Three Disappeared

To the news media
To the peoples of Mexico
To the peoples of the world
To the peoples of Oaxaca

Armed attack on the Support and Solidarity 
Caravan to the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca

CONTEXT:

Yesterday, an announcement was sent to the news 
media about the Caravan headed for the Triqui 
Region in our state of Oaxaca. Caravan 
participants include members of the Popular 
Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), Section 
22 of the teachers’ union, Oaxacan Voices 
Constructing Autonomy and Freedom (VOCAL), 
CACTUS, members of MULT-I (Independent Triqui 
Movement of Unification and Struggle), as well as international observers.

As announced, the caravan left the city of 
Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca, at 11:00 a.m. on April 
27, 2010, with the aim of breaking the siege 
around the Autonomous Triqui Community, a 
manifestation of state and paramilitary 
repression on the process of autonomy being built 
in this community. The violent paramilitary 
attacks have occurred at different times in San 
Juan Copala’s autonomous process and have been 
led by the paramilitary UBISORT organization 
(Social Welfare Union of the Triqui Region), now 
presided over by Rufino Juárez Hernández and MULT 
(Triqui Movement of Unification and Struggle).

Before the caravan left, the autonomous president 
of San Juan Copala, Jesús Martínez Flores held 
the following people responsible for any 
aggression whatsoever against it: Oaxaca State 
Attorney General Evencio Nicolás Martínez, Oaxaca 
Minister of the Interior Jorge Franco Vargas, ”el 
Chuky”, and PRI party legislative candidate 
Carlos Martínez. He also demanded that UBISORT 
and MULT behave responsibly and take the Triqui 
people’s peace talks seriously.

THE FACTS:

About 100 Km. from the entrance to La Sabana, the 
road was blocked with stones, and that’s where 
the cowardly attack began with firearms whose 
caliber is as of yet undetermined. The attack was 
perpetrated by around 15 paramilitaries at the 
service of the government of the killer Ulises 
Ruiz Ortiz, destroying the vehicles, wounding one 
comrade, and killing two others, according to initial reports.

During the attack, some comrades escaped, running 
into the mountains. Their location is unknown and 
it is feared that they have been captured by 
paramilitaries. The disappeared comrades are NOE 
BAUTISTA JIMENEZ, DAVID VENEGAS REYES, and DANIEL 
ARELLANO CHAVEZ, all members of VOCAL.

We have just received information about the two 
comrades who lost their lives in this attack. 
They are CACTUS member BEATRÌZ ALBERTA CARIÑO 
TRUJILLO, and an international observer from 
Finland, JYRI ANTERO JAAKKOLA. Both were shot dead.

During the attack, our comrade MONICA CITLALI 
SANTIAGO ORTIZ was shot in the back and has 
received medical attention at Juxtlahuaca.

Other people at the scene of the shooting were 
forced out of the vehicles and taken down the 
mountain to be interrogated. Some received death 
threats before being released on the highway. 
VOCAL member RUBÈN VALENCIA NUÑEZ was detained by 
paramilitaries who took his voter registration 
card and cell phone and threatened him with death before turning him loose.

An ambulance arrived at the scene to give medical 
attention to the wounded, but it was also fired 
upon in a cowardly paramilitary attack, causing 
it to leave. As it was leaving, the medics came 
to the aid of a wounded comrade, who confirmed 
the deaths of the two previously mentioned comrades.

Due to confusion and uncertainty regarding the 
events, it has been impossible to ascertain the 
whereabouts or the physical and psychological 
situation of the previously mentioned comrades.

WE EMPHATICALLY DENOUNCE the fact that this armed 
attack is the product of the conditions of 
institutional violence and impunity enjoyed by 
paramilitary groups in this region of our state 
and directed against different expressions of the 
social struggle in Oaxaca, specifically the 
construction of autonomous processes.

This aggression takes place in the circumstances 
of isolation and the state of siege imposed on 
the municipality of San Juan Copala, where 
children have been deprived of their classes 
since January. Furthermore, the lights have been 
turned off and the community has no access to 
drinking water or medical personnel. It is 
subjected to permanent harassment from military 
troops that have set up a roadblock just outside the town.

WE DEMAND:

– that the government of the killer Ulises Ruiz 
put an end to all paramilitary attacks in the 
Triqui Region, and to the financing, provision of 
arms, and impunity enjoyed by these paramilitary groups in our state;

– and assure the immediate presentation of our disappeared comrades.

WE CALL ON:

the people of Oaxaca, Mexico, and the 
international community and different social 
organizations, collectives and groups to make a 
visible show of solidarity and support, demanding 
the live presentation of our disappeared brothers 
and punishment of the responsible people. We also 
ask that you demand an end to the conditions of 
violence imposed on the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala.

Live presentation of our disappeared comrades!
Punishment for the murders of our comrades!
An end to the attacks against the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala!
An end to the paramilitary blockade around this autonomous Triqui community!

Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Freedom

(VOCAL)
****************************************************
Rights activists killed in Mexico

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/04/201042812413686521.html
By Andrew Wander
Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Two human rights activists have been killed in a 
paramilitary attack on an aid convoy travelling 
to a breakaway region of southern Mexico, the convoy's organisers have said.

Gunmen opened fire on the convoy as it was 
carrying food and water to a blockaded indigenous community in Oaxaca state.

At least three others were injured in the attack, 
which took place outside the town of La Sabana en 
route to the San Juan Copala municipality,which 
has declared itself autonomous, the convoy's organisers told Al Jazeera.

VOCAL, a human rights group involved in 
organising the convoy, released a statement 
stating that two activists had been shot dead by 
gunmen who oppose the declaration.

FROM A BACKGROUND ARTICLE WHICH FOLLOWS
The formation of Voices of Women from Oaxaca 
Building Autonomy and Freedom (VOCAL), a space 
formed not only by individuals and anarchist 
collectives but also by many others since the 
beginning of the mobilizations that were fought 
from inside and outside the APPO. U. An area that 
affects autonomy as a basis for socio-political 
order and refuses to leave the reins of political 
destiny in the hands of political parties.
VOCAL has already been subjected to harassment 
and repression and not only by the State. The 
imprisonment on April 13th of one of its members, 
David Venegas Reyes, a member of the State Board 
of APPO from where they fought against the 
positions of electioneering to those he defined 
as traitors to the movement (and who have 
identified and even accused of being a 
infiltration) is the clearest example of this.

Currently Oaxaca is living in a state of 
selective repression and harassment against all 
groups who continue to advocate the need for the 
disappearance of the state and the formal 
democracy that underpins it and this is helped by 
groups, such as the RPF, that criminalize all 
those who are standing in way of the claims of 
institutional power. Surely the media will give 
support to some of the processes that sooner or 
later will erupt and lead to situations worthy of 
a good photograph on the front page. Until that 
time, we must not forget and as often is said 
these lands, "Zapata lives, the struggle continues."


"Regrettably, as information is coming in, we 
know that two comrades lost their lives in this 
paramilitary attack," the statement said. "This 
armed attack is a product of the conditions of 
institutional violence and impunity that 
paramilitary groups enjoy in this region."

"This attack occurred in the context of the 
isolation and state of siege that the 
municipality of San Juan Copala lives under, 
where since January the children have not had 
classes, where the community does not have 
electricity, water, doctors, and lives under 
permanent paramilitary harassment as a result of 
the blockade they have established there."

The organisation said one of the dead was a 
Finnish national who was travelling with the 
convoy as an international observer.

Finland's foreign ministry was unable to verify 
the death, but said it had received "unconfirmed 
reports" that a Finn had been killed in the incident.

"There has been no confirmation yet of what 
occurred in this attack," an official from the 
ministry's Latin America department told Al Jazeera.

Cactus, an indigenous rights organisation also 
involved in organising the convoy, told Al 
Jazeera that it was attacked shortly after 
setting off on Tuesday, and that 12 of the 24 
members of the group remain unnaccounted for.

"12 escaped and are ok, but 12 are still missing 
in Copala. Five have been injured, some seriously," a Cactus official said.

Series of attacks

San Juan Copala is populated by members of the 
Trique indigenous people, and declared itself 
autonomous from the Oaxaca state government in 
2007 in protest at what it says is a policy of 
discrimination and harrassment against its people.

The declaration of autonomy has been dismissed by 
authorities, and the municipality has been 
subjected to a blockade by local paramilitaries loyal to the state government.

The latest attack is being blamed on a local 
paramilitary group known as Ubisort, which had 
warned earlier this week that it would prevent 
the convoy from reaching its destination.

Convoy organisers were so worried by the threat 
that they issued a joint press release hours 
before the attack warning that they could be the 
target of "aggression" en route to San Juan Copala.

"Given the circumstances, we hold the government 
of Ulises Ruiz [Oaxaca state governor] 
responsible for any aggression any member of the 
media or human rights observer could face," the statement said.

The Trique people say they face a range of abuses 
from government-backed paramilitaries who oppose their attempts at self-rule.

Previous convoys have been blocked from reaching 
the municipality, and Trique community buildings 
have been attacked by armed gangs, resulting in several deaths.

In 2008, two young Trique women who worked at a 
community radio station were shot dead on their 
way to Oaxaca City in what Trique leaders said 
was a targeted attack against members of the community.
*****************************************************


Anarchism and libertarian currents in the Oaxaca insurrectionary movement

http://libcom.org/library/anarchism-libertarian-currents-the-oaxaca-insurrectionary-movement

Article examining the influence of libertarian 
ideas in the recent uprisings in Oaxaca, Mexico.

SERGIO DE CASTRO SANCHEZ
Originally published in Spanish on 
oaxacalibre.org and in Rojo Y Negro, newspaper of the CGT
Translated by a comrade of Capital Terminus Collective

Between June and November of 2006, the Mexican 
state of Oaxaca lived through a popular revolt 
that both astonished and shocked the world. While 
the mass media took its characteristic 
perspective on the conflict, the people of Oaxaca 
rejected Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (URO), of the 
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and took 
the capital city demanding his ouster as the 
starting point for the creation of a new 
political and economic order to wipe out the huge 
social inequalities that submerge the mostly indigenous state.

To talk about the historical background that led 
to this uprising can be misleading. And it is 
because our discussion is imparted with an 
essential difference between that which occurred 
before and that which occurred after June 14th. 
In reality, the struggle in Oaxaca, Mexico and 
Latin America is a continuum in which only the 
limits of our thinking and of our language that 
impose dates and events with special historical 
interest, while ignoring the "silent" processes 
and "marginal of history "(at least media-wise) 
that occur within the society, as well as the 
struggles and the repression exerted upon them. 
Knowing this, however, we do advise that the 
fight in Oaxaca goes back to the arrival of the 
Spaniards, here we will just focus on the recent past.

A brief history
On June 14th 2006, 3,000 troops from different 
bodies of the Mexican State Police tried to enter 
the main city plaza or Zocalo with the intention 
to evict the annual encamped "sit-in" that the 
Mexican National Educational Workers Union (SNTE) 
union had established at the Zócalo for the past 
25 years as a means of pressure for a series of 
demands. The people of Oaxaca joined together 
under this movement and went to the streets 
forcing the police to retreat. From that moment 
on and despite the authoritarian and repressive 
policies of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (URO), the ouster 
of the governor became the unanimous demand of 
the people. A few days later, several 
organizations joined with the teachers in the 
creation of the famous People's Assembly of the 
People of Oaxaca (APPO), which in its first 
instance would be led by thirty members who 
comprised the "Interim Committee" and of various 
groups who saw only a opportunity by which some 
would seek to use the revolt to fill their lust for power.

 From that moment began the repression: arbitrary 
arrests, torture and killings become the norm in 
Oaxaca while the popular movement would meet in 
mega-marches of up to 800,000 people and 
developed actions that the APPO's direction could 
not control. June 14th provides one of the first 
examples of such popular effervescence that 
builds upon itself and takes the decision to 
confront the police. There are many more examples 
of this type. On August 1st, a "cacerolada" (pot 
and pan banging brigade) composed exclusively of 
women decided to take the state television 
station in a peaceful manner. For weeks all 
programming was in charge of these women until 
they were violently evicted by vigilante groups. 
But that same night it was decided to sieze all 
the commercial radio stations in the city. Days 
later, an attack by the "convoy of death" upon 
Radio La Ley resulted in a casualty and this 
leads the people take another decision: thousands 
of barricades were installed as a defense against 
the paramilitary and vigilante attacks. For 
weeks, and every night, the town jumps to the 
streets to defend the city until October 28th, 
one day after 5 people were killed, when the 
Federal Preventive Police (PFP) managed to enter 
the main plaza or Zocalo of the city. Then a few 
days later, on November 2nd, the police attempt 
to evict Radio University in violation of 
university's autonomy. As the leaders of the APPO 
offered support to the members of the barricades 
that protected the voice of the movement to the 
left ?, the people went back out into the streets 
forcing the PFP to withdraw. The APPO secured a victory.

On November 25th, following a mega-march that was 
intended to besiege the PFP in the Zocalo and 
before the police assault, clashes were unleashed 
leading to a night of brutal repression that 
would only be the prelude to torture, illegal 
arrests and while others negotiate with the 
government to end the movement. The outcome of 
the whole process: 26 dead, dozens of detainees 
and an undetermined number of missing.

When the repression continued and at same there 
was debate on the participation of certain groups 
of APPO in the forthcoming elections to State 
Congress that was threatening to break the 
fragile unity of the APPO, provides an ideal time 
to review how the anarchist groups participated 
in the movement outside of the electioneering 
perspective and the criticism of some groups such 
as the Revolutionary People's Front (RPF) that is 
effectively Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist and which 
showed its true face in trying to eliminate all 
opponents participating in the election game.

The APPO is not the Oaxaca Movement
During the months-long conflict, the media 
(including a majority of "independent" outlets) 
only gave voice to the leaders of the APPO under 
the sloganistic and well-intentioned principle 
"We are all APPO" to which were attributed all 
achievements by the people. From the beginning, 
voices who criticized the actions of these 
"leaders" were silenced, and on behalf of unity, 
the proposals outside the structure of the APPO were completely unknown.

Among those highlighted the voices of some 
anarchist groups who saw the APPO not as a 
radical alternative to the system, but as a way 
to find and administer power far too close to the existing structures.

Of the spaces that that tried to form and put 
into practice these other proposals was the 
Intercultural Occupation en Resistance. Chucho, a 
member of the collective "We are all Prisoners" 
(Tod at s Somos Pres at s) and who participated in the 
experience, speaks of an autonomous space on the 
margin of the structure of the APPO. The APPO 
made a call to organize and direct people. We 
made a call to self-organize and work in an 
autonomous manner, understanding that autonomy 
reflected this coordination space from all the 
spaces that expressed a desire for liberty.

The Okupa, located a few blocks from the Zocalo, 
was not formed as an space for exclusively 
anarchist groups, but was open for Oaxacan 
society from which it received its support. 
Located in a former headquarters of the 
Preventive Police, it was restored with the 
support of the population who both participated 
in the project and in the decisions through the 
assemblies that were held in the Okupa. 
Accordingly Chucho reports, "both the power of 
the state as well as the APPO prevented the 
development of such initiatives, we are proposing 
... why break with these two structures and to 
promote the creation of autonomous spaces either 
colonies or communities or small spaces such as 
the Okupación. " A proposal closer to the 
principles that were supposed defended the APPO 
leadership and to the demands of the people 
oaxaqueño: "The same people are aware that there 
is a need for government and they realize if we 
really wanted to topple Ulises and install 
another. In assemblies it was questioned whether 
the APPO would assign a person who was going to 
govern Oaxaca. "It was that "the people came to 
realize that none of these questions of 
directions and centralism are really for a 
change. Our intention was not to run a 
libertarian movement as a group outside of the 
APPO, but these practices are given autonomy and 
self-management everywhere based on the needs of each town. "

The barricades
The libertarian groups were also an essential 
part and parcel of the struggle and the direct 
resistance against different police forces, both 
paramilitary and vigilantes and were in the 
barricades before and after the entrance of the 
PFP on October 29th. There within crystallized 
two trends. While the first was focused on direct 
action and in defense against institutional 
attacks, the second sought to establish ties with 
neighborhoods and their residents with the aim of 
strengthening the popular resistance. Now a part 
of the Oaxacan collective imagination, the 
barricades were erected as a symbol of the 
popular struggle and those who were individuals 
of all kinds: anarkopunks, but also people of 
more orthodox dress and customs banners of the 
struggle against URO. Groups that although 
currently are even criminalized by a certain 
sector of the APPO, the players were not only on 
the daily resistance, but also of several clashes against PFP.

But in addition, the organizational experience of 
the barricades was very close to what is 
libertarian. As commented Noah, a student who 
participated in the fight from an undefined 
ideological positions. "the barricades were an 
experience of equality in that absolutely 
everyone was equally involved in decision-making."

Anarchists in the APPO
But not all groups of libertarian groups chose 
the same path. The Committee of Indigenous 
Peoples Oaxaca-Ricardo Flores Magón (CIPO-RFM) 
chose to join the initiative of the APPO at its 
own discretion and in a clearly critical manner. 
Dolores Villalobos, one of its members, says, "We 
thought that was an area that needed to be built. 
Now we know that not all people are honest and 
that we have different paths as some you are 
betting on what election or to armed struggle. 
But our duty is to propose to the other which is 
why we participated in the APPO. We will be in 
all movements for which there is a possibility of 
building something. When we see that our place is 
no longer there, then we will leave. " For that 
same reason there will be many individuals and 
groups participating in the State Council of 260 
members which was established in the Constituent 
Assembly held on November 11th and 12th, 2006 in 
the hope that they could make that body a true 
representative of the people's demands.

So when from the domes of the State Council and 
through groups interested in achieving 
institutional power sought to impose the 
participation of APPO in the elections, groups 
like the libertarian CIPO and also others such as 
those belonging to the Alliance 
Zapatista-Magonista like OIDHO and CODEDI, were 
among those who managed to stop the initiative. 
The consensus reached at the State Assembly in 
early February was that the APPO would not 
"enter" the elections as such, but that groups 
could do what they wanted on their own behalf. 
While the unity was preserved, the actions of 
mafia-like organizations such as the RPF (which 
was harshly criticized by groups such as the 
Socialist Labor Party Socialist) have led to what 
currently exists in the APPO, great internal 
division and a complete removal of the State 
Council with respect to the people of Oaxaca.

Anarchism, Magonismo and Indian commonality
To talk about libertarian currents in Mexico is 
to talk of Ricardo Flores Magón and Magonismo, 
which emerged at the beginning of the 20th 
century and was pushed into the background as 
compared to reformism at the end of the Mexican 
Revolution, and is intimately linked to the 
mindset of indigenous peoples, in which Flores 
Magón found more than inspiration for his proposals.

Since the formation of the APPO, it was defined 
as a heterogeneous group composed of the most 
diverse ideological trends. Its assembly 
character allegedly tried to show the APPO as 
structured on the basis of horizontal political 
decision modes, while groups with strong vertical 
hiarchical posts are more visible in the media 
and appointed theirselves in Oaxaca as spokespersons of the people.

However it must be made clear that libertarian 
currents like Magonismo are the only ones that 
really have built their political discourse based 
on these practices that are formed with the 
"manners and customs" of these people. Concepts 
such as autonomy, self-management or assembly are 
examples of the way in which both indigenous and 
libertarians agree on as key points of the vision 
of political and social relations.

Faced with the defense of "regional autonomy" by 
Marxist theorists like Hector Díaz-Polanco, the 
concept of "communal autonomy" built by the 
indigenous anthropology in Oaxaca was much more 
about the cultural principles governing 
indigenous worldviews. The Zapotec anthropologist 
Jaime Martinez Luna states, "we must affirm that 
we also have our own laws. Logic built by 
centuries of thought, ways to understand the very 
life that have brought us to solve a host of 
internal problems. But that right and that 
knowledge are undone to impose the engraved 
reasoning and what was developed in areas other 
than our own, to experiences that are not our 
reality. " One example is "always reasoning in 
terms of individual rights, never thinking of the 
community rights, ie always argue in terms of the 
interests of an individual and it is understood 
that the whole attitude becomes an individual 
interest, never he joins the ability to 
understand that the attitude is the result of a 
social act or even more so, a communal one, 
therefore warrants different treatment. "

Benjamin Maldonado, author of books such as "The 
Utopia of Ricardo Flores Magón or Autonomy and 
Indian Commonality", advocates "an anarchist 
world is a world community, if we rely on the 
definition of Ricardo Flores Magón of anarchy and 
order based on mutual aid . I understand that 
many of the libertarians have tried to create and 
build a world community similar to the structure 
of the communities in Oaxaca, with mutual 
support, where they are willing to donate huge 
amounts of work for others for the construction 
and reconstruction of the community, with a power 
structure in the assembly rather than their 
representatives, within a territorial space where 
power can be effected, with a system of shared 
government that was not corrupt, with a 
distribution system that allowed some margin of 
regional food self-sufficiency and especially 
with the and ed to be community and celebrate 
each time and waste of resources. "

For Maldonado, "commonality, the backbone of 
being Indian, consists of four core elements: the 
communal territory (use and defense and 
collective space), communal labor (interfamiliar 
through mutual aid and community through tequio, 
it is free for job works benefit of the people), 
the communal power (participation in the assembly 
and the performance of various civic and 
religious positions that form their system of 
government) and the communal happiness (through 
participation in the celebrations and sponsorship). "

All this is based on a principle which was built 
from their own communal identity, autonomy, 
"since its formation, the idea of commonality has 
been linked to the idea of self-determination, 
that the actual language is autonomy. It is 
precisely the commonality which was and is able 
to create (recreate) the necessary conditions for 
autonomy. In this sense, "the abolition of state 
authority and oppression is understood as the 
exercise of the autonomous community's 
organizational will." And the experience of 
native peoples that are thus constituted "shows 
that it is historically possible to live in 
collectivist anti-autoritarian collectives."

This anti-authoritarian nature of the 
communities' political organization is based on 
their own conception of power as a service to the 
people and the assembly as a means of political 
decision making. For Martinez Luna, "the 
significance of power in an indigenous community 
in contrast to what is depicted in both the rural 
and urban mestizo world is very different. In our 
communities, power is a service, namely it is the 
implementation of guidelines for an community 
assembly. In another words, it means exercising 
the decisions of the authority that has been 
elected through electoral mechanisms with little 
supervision by society. A community authority 
that is in effect, an employee at the service of 
all, an employee who is not paid, who is not 
allowed to design, and when this occurs, design 
can be achieved only if there is consultation. In 
contrast, political power in rural and urban 
mestizo communities is to the contrary, it is the 
opportunity to run their own ideas and satisfy 
their personal interests, there is no 
consultation. "The assembly is the highest 
authority in the community, it is the meeting of 
all heads of households and which also includes 
women. Both the silent and the speakers 
participate in this. The field workers along with 
artisans and professionals. The assembly always 
works by consensus, but in many cases and with 
practical issues by using majority vote. "The 
election of the authorities does not reflect any 
intent or partisan guideline and is based on 
prestige and in the work. " A conception of power 
that makes "our immediate obstacles would be the political parties."

 From this point of view, and perhaps as a 
result, the socio-political proposals of the 
indigenous peoples have been as denostadas own 
people outside the development and progress 
embodied in the Western political and economic 
systems, when in fact pose a real alternative ( 
not merely utopian) to existing structures. For 
Chucho, "the indigenous struggle is the one that 
is going to force real change. The practices of 
community life are the ones that really could 
truly confront the state ", establishing an 
intimate relationship between the practices of 
both indigenous and urban groups of libertarians.

Some libertarian principles are intimately linked 
to the indigenous and that, if we can talk about 
it in a testimonial manner, have made almost all 
of these groups and organizations join the 
initiative of the Zapatista Other Campaign.

Did an anarchist state live in Oaxaca?
As a fast food seller at the Pochote Market said, 
"in Oaxaca, we miss those days that we lived in 
anarchy." Certainly his claim would not be very 
orthodox in regards to a formal and comprehensive 
definition of what is a "state of anarchy", but 
since his participation in the barricades, a 
sentiment shows that, while not widespread, it is 
present in many people and in many of those 
involved in the movement. The absence of the 
repressive institutions (at least in an official 
capacity) in the city, the actions of the people 
who developed resistance without any 
organizational leadership, the solidarity and 
mutual aid amongst those who filled the streets 
in resistance and the very organization at the 
barricades ... This is certainly the basis of this sentiment.

For Dolores Villalobos, "it's something that 
nobody will be able to forget. Everyone was in 
the streets and everything was a real brotherhood 
... There was a form of organization, solidarity 
and mutual support, people were concerned about 
the other person. So I think that today the 
resistance continues, because people have taken 
that step. That is the important thing: as it 
began to generate a different type of 
relationship between human beings. " and she 
adds, só a los que creían que podían tener al 
movimiento controlado. She adds, "people broke 
those who believed they could have controlled the 
movement. It is also why there was a lot of 
repression, because the government saw that it 
could not control it because none of those who 
went to the negotiating table could halt it nor 
could say, 'this shall done', but rather it was 
in those camps and in the barricades where the 
direction of the movement was decided."

For as Chucho explains rather "ways to react to 
the direct attack of the state" are not exactly 
anarchy, but there was an attitude of 
"disobedience" both regarding the state as well as to APPO.

Benjamin Maldonado is more pessimistic: "I think 
that we lived a situation of chaos, not anarchy. 
I saw a lot of creativity but lack of clarity, 
but it lacks a lot of energy project, a lot of 
enthusiasm but lack of vision, a lot of 
confluence without seeing the impossibilities of continuity. "

The current situation

Despite the repression and issues with internal 
groups, the movement has left behind the 
principles that were born. The struggle in Oaxaca 
that is inspired by a structural change in the 
ways of life of native peoples is not over. One 
example is the recent formation of Voices of 
Women from Oaxaca Building Autonomy and Freedom 
(VOCAL), a space formed not only by individuals 
and anarchist collectives but also by many others 
since the beginning of the mobilizations that 
were fought from inside and outside the APPO. U. 
An area that affects autonomy as a basis for 
socio-political order and refuses to leave the 
reins of political destiny in the hands of political parties.

VOCAL has already been subjected to harassment 
and repression and not only by the State. The 
imprisonment on April 13th of one of its members, 
David Venegas Reyes, a member of the State Board 
of APPO from where they fought against the 
positions of electioneering to those he defined 
as traitors to the movement (and who have 
identified and even accused of being a 
infiltration) is the clearest example of this.

Currently Oaxaca is living in a state of 
selective repression and harassment against all 
groups who continue to advocate the need for the 
disappearance of the state and the formal 
democracy that underpins it and this is helped by 
groups, such as the RPF, that criminalize all 
those who are standing in way of the claims of 
institutional power. Surely the media will give 
support to some of the processes that sooner or 
later will erupt and lead to situations worthy of 
a good photograph on the front page. Until that 
time, we must not forget and as often is said 
these lands, "Zapata lives, the struggle continues."





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