 |
| Reyna Martínez Flores spoke in the camp of women. Photo: Verónica Villalvazo |
David Garcia, previously reported as wounded and missing, now reported as dead, but still have not said where is his body. The
UBISORT has gripped the city hall of San Juan Copala. The group sent a press release in English and a video on YouTube Triqui calling for all members of the UBISORT repopulate return to San Juan Copala now that there is no self there.
The Oaxacan government continues with its plans for a police operation for Restore electricity and education, which cut the UBISORT in February, in San Juan Copala, now controlled by the UBISORT.
The autonomous municipality has not yet issued a ruling on its strategy now that it has lost its municipal cabazera autonomous municipality. However, Afrim Martínez Flores: "It was not our people in Copala, but the autonomous municipality will not disappear because we have in our hearts and our minds."
Autonomous Authorities Evacuation Ordered Total San Juan Copala, Oaxaca
By Kristin Bricker, Upside Down World
Tuesday September 21, 2010 19:19
 |
| The municipality of San Juan Copala, full of AK-47 bullets. |
cut water, electricity and access to the public in February. They also placed armed men in the hills surrounding the city and leads to anyone who saw in the streets. For months, San Juan Copala survived with little food that women could take the city on their backs, the paths through the woods to sneak through the armed men patrolling the perimeter.
However, on 13 September, the situation became unbearable when gunmen took the city of San Juan Copala. These armed men who affirm the autonomous municipality were part of a rival organization to the organization Movement Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT) and the Union for the Welfare of the Triqui Region (UBISORT), have remained at San Juan Copala under a constant rain of bullets, since they took the town hall.
The autonomous municipality has reported at least five women wounded, including a girl, and one man killed, all by gunfire since UBISORT MULT and took the town hall. Gunmen killed a second man, David Garcia and since then know whether he is alive or dead. According to Jorge Albino, spokesman for the autonomous municipality, the police gave her body to the paramilitaries who are occupying the town hall. The autonomous municipality believed that Garcia was alive when police handed him over to the gunmen who shot him.
Two people with disabilities disappeared while fleeing the San Juan Copala. Jose Gonzalo Cruz a hundred years old disappeared while fleeing with others through the bushes, under heavy fire. Cruz is blind and is believed to have left the group, and was lost.
A woman with mental disabilities also called Susana López Martínez was reported missing. She tried to run away from San Juan Copala with a group of women on September 18, under heavy gunfire. When women were grouped outside the line of fire, López Martínez, 21 years old was gone. Nobody saw it disappear and it is unknown whether he was injured during the shooting. If Lopez Martinez has fallen to UBISORT, she is in extreme danger. Last May, the leader of UBISORT Rufino Juárez Martínez López allegedly kidnapped and her mother. The two women escaped and reported the kidnapping to the human rights organizations and international media.
reports of the autonomous municipality reported armed men who took San Juan Copala went house to house beating people were found inside. The gunmen also are burning the abandoned houses of residents who have fled the violence.
The autonomous municipality reported the existence of fifty families in San Juan Copala at the beginning of the raid, on 13 September. All but two families have managed to escape. These two families are found in two houses that are completely surrounded by armed men.
Women and children Triquis have kept up a protest camp in the plaza of Oaxaca City since August, demanding an end to violence and justice for the victims. These women went on hunger strike on September 10 to press the government to send police to San Juan Copala, to evacuate two families who are trapped inside. The striking women who were expelled from San Juan Copala by violence, want the government to bring families trapped in the city of Oaxaca.
The Oaxaca state government said it is preparing an operation to "restore order" in San Juan Copala. Interior Undersecretary Joaquín Rodríguez Palacios Oaxaca announced that it is provided that the Oaxaca state police restore electricity and reopen schools in San Juan Copala. The plan seems totally absurd when one considers that at least 25 residents remaining in San Juan Copala, want to leave. Palacios did not mention any plan to evacuate the residents who remain in the locality.
remains to be seen whether the government will go ahead with the operation. The leader of the UBISORT Rufino Juarez Oaxaca told the News there would be a bloodbath "if the government does not agree" with your organization regarding the proposed police operation.
dialogue again failed
Bishop Lona Reyes of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, and the father Wilfrido Mayrén of the Diocesan Commission for Justice and Peace in Oaxaca, asked the MULT and the Movement Unification and Triqui Struggle (MULTI), a separate group of MULT who co-founded the autonomous municipality, a church-mediated dialogue. The objective of this proposal for talks was to reach a peaceful solution through negotiations. Past government-mediated negotiations broke down because the autonomous municipality has refused to sit at a negotiating table with a fine and UBISORT, while these groups were allegedly killing his supporters. MULTI
refused to participate in the dialogue mediated by the church, since it says that MULT is one of the groups carrying out armed attack on San Juan Copala. MULTI conditioned its participation in dialogue on a cease-fire in the autonomous municipality and the presentation of the residents who disappeared during the attack.
The Mexican newspaper Milenio interpreted the failed dialogue and the evacuation of the autonomous municipality as a sign that the autonomous project is dead. However, a source close to the regional authorities said, "Once we get out to all [of San Juan Copala] we will continue with the project from the outside. At the moment we get worried about these people alive."
The complete evacuation of San Juan Copala in itself does not mean that the autonomous project is dead: San Juan Copala is the name a town and a municipality (a group of localities, as a county). Only the town of San Juan Copala which is the municipal (county seat), has been under siege, and only the people being evacuated.
representatives of twenty Triqui communities allegedly involved in the founding of the autonomous municipality. In addition to the town of San Juan Copala, ten Triqui communities are officially aligned with the autonomous municipality. The autonomous authorities claim that there are six communities that support the autonomous municipality, but they fear retaliation if they publicly declare their affiliation. In addition to the sixteen communities that give their full support to the municipality independent, autonomous authorities claim to have supporters in a handful of communities that are controlled by rival organizations.
Of the ten communities that officially belong to the autonomous municipality San Juan Copala was the only one that is under siege. The other communities have suffered attacks and killings, but were not affected by the blockade nor the recent paramilitary invasion.
0 comments:
Post a Comment