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| CODEP Members opposite the door that the military broke paving premises without warrant. Photo by Santiago Navarro |
approximately 6:45 pm on Tuesday 11 January, the Mexican Army raided the office of the Committee for the Defense of People's Rights (CODEP) and the Committee for the Defense Women's Rights (CODEM) both in the city of Oaxaca. According CODEP members who were present during the raid, about 20 uniformed soldiers in an official vehicle parked in front of the building where are the offices of these organizations, they broke the door and recorded lamina temporary offices. After the soldiers broke down the door, pointed a gun to sponsor Martinez, a member of CODEP. Martinez says he demanded a search warrant, but the soldiers pushed him and ran down the stairs of the building, which is currently half-built.
Other members of the organization managed to close the office doors where they maintain their computers, copiers, and their archives, so that soldiers could not get to record those offices. However, the soldiers managed to get themselves to other offices that were open, which included one bedroom and a printing workshop. According to Martinez, the soldiers took pictures of those offices. However, they did not take any article of the building, or made any arrests.
CODEP members who witnessed the raid said the soldiers were asked at gunpoint on the work of the organization and organized crime. Ernesto Lopez said that the commander of the soldiers, who only identified himself as "Carlos," he said received a "claim that organized crime was meeting here." Meanwhile, other soldiers questioned some neighbors if they knew of possible criminal activity or drug-related, at or near the building of these organizations.
During the raid the soldiers never had a search warrant and refused to identify. However, one of the members of CODEP managed to score the vehicle plate number of the military convoy as the soldiers were traveling.
After the raid, the CODEM CODEP and made contact with a deputy, who in turn contacted the Army. According to the deputy, the military said they "had detected something in the area" and that was the justification for that raid.
CODEM The CODEP and filed complaints with the National Commission and state human rights and the Human Rights Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, seeking to investigate the raid and you provide the CODEM CODEP and information about what happened. History
Enforcement
In an interview with Upside Down World, members CODEM CODEP and did not seem disturbed by the recent night raid on its offices by soldiers armed with assault rifles powerful. This is because it was not the first time they have suffered repression by the government, nor was the worst attack. In the latter event, "he more or less measured," says Claudia Tapia CODEM leader. "Because before going with great violence, beating us."
In his eighteen years of organizing women, farmers, taxi drivers and indigenous, CODEP and related organizations as CODEM have faced fierce opposition from the state government, and in particular the former governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. "Since his days as a Senator, we knew what kind of person [Ruiz] was," says Tapia. "So much so that since the beginning of his campaign, we resisted."
In February 2005, during the period before the 2006 popular uprising that nearly toppled Ulises Ruiz, José Luiz Soberanes, then president of the National Human Rights Commission of Mexico, organized a negotiation between the state government of Oaxaca and CODEP. The CODEP wanted to negotiate the release of political prisoner who was arrested immediately after Ruiz took office. "However," recalled Tapia, "instead of Ulises Ruiz arrived [at the negotiating table] as we had agreed, sent the police and they arrested our comrades." The police raided the hotel where negotiations have taken place, and a CODEP office, detaining a total of seven members of CODEP. Some spent several months in prison.
Angered, CODEP members continued to fight Ruiz administration. In May 2006, when the union of teachers in Oaxaca went on strike to improve conditions in their schools, the CODEP joined their encampment in the zocalo of Oaxaca City. CODEP members were in the camp with her children until 14 June, the infamous day that Ruiz sent the state police to violently break up the encampment of teachers without any warning.
The CODEP is one of the organizations that formed in the beginning to the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), the conglomerate of organizations, communities and individuals that emerged after the June 14th repression to oust governor Ulises Ruiz. When then-President Vicente Fox sent federal police to violently break up the movement of the APPO in Oaxaca City November 25 2006, Marcos Garcia, a member of CODEP, supporters traveled to Oaxaca communities and pledged support to defend the capital. On November 27, while traveling to a community, Garcia was attacked by an armed commando that CODEP identified as a paramilitary group, one of many that operated in the state at that time. García attacked with high-powered weapons, shot his car with 177 bullets, eight of which hit him in his body. Miraculously, he survived the attack.
State repression against CODEP uprising that has continued since 2006. On October 25, 2008, about twenty federal police invaded a home in Oaxaca City where members of CODEP worked and lived. Police said the raid was an anti-organized crime operation. The police tortured Luis Ramón González López, member of CODEP for an hour. They beat him, placed a plastic bag over his head, and applied the infamous tehuacanazo, a tactic of torture which is popular among Mexican police. The tehuacanazo is mineral water (sometimes mixed with chile) is thrown in a stream inside the nose of the victim, creating a feeling of choking, which causes a severe burning sensation, sometimes causing the victim faints. That torture session left him with a rib González López broken and a punctured lung. During the interrogation, asked police to tell them González López location of a "bag of money," a request that the CODEP baffles to this day. "That house is so humble that neither case is the question," says Tapia. "They just want to terrorize us." After the torture, the police confiscated a laptop, two cell phones, documents and newspaper clippings about the uprising of 2006.
War on Drugs is the New Cold War
The CODEP know it is no coincidence that this is the second raid in pursuit of anti-drug war that they have suffered since President Felipe Calderon deployed the army to combat drug cartels in late 2006. In a press release about the raid, the CODEP said: "It is clear that this strategy of state terrorism that continues to make progress in our country, is part of the Merida [an aid package of the drug war] and Mesoamerican Plan [formerly known as the Puebla-Panama Plan, a project of "development" neoliberal] governments PAN and PRI [Mexico's] signed with the U.S. ... with the aim of destroying the human rights organizations and social organizations representing popular opposition to continuing the destruction of our nation and surrender of national sovereignty to foreign interests. "
" This is not new, "says Lopez." We have seen during the Cold War and other wars. Now America does not have an excuse or a fictitious enemy as they had in the seventies, where the enemy was communism. When the Soviet Bloc fell, there was an enemy who used to invent a war. So now the enemy is created related to drug trafficking and organized crime. Now, those who fight against the government to demand their rights, are also considered as organized crime. In Mexico, the Merida Initiative, the U.S. wants to control military on the territory ... and not allow a social movement such as occurred in Oaxaca or Chiapas in 2006 [the Zapatistas] in the nineties. U.S. wants to control our government and control our country to take ownership of natural resources in Mexico. "
Other members of the organization managed to close the office doors where they maintain their computers, copiers, and their archives, so that soldiers could not get to record those offices. However, the soldiers managed to get themselves to other offices that were open, which included one bedroom and a printing workshop. According to Martinez, the soldiers took pictures of those offices. However, they did not take any article of the building, or made any arrests.
CODEP members who witnessed the raid said the soldiers were asked at gunpoint on the work of the organization and organized crime. Ernesto Lopez said that the commander of the soldiers, who only identified himself as "Carlos," he said received a "claim that organized crime was meeting here." Meanwhile, other soldiers questioned some neighbors if they knew of possible criminal activity or drug-related, at or near the building of these organizations.
During the raid the soldiers never had a search warrant and refused to identify. However, one of the members of CODEP managed to score the vehicle plate number of the military convoy as the soldiers were traveling.
After the raid, the CODEM CODEP and made contact with a deputy, who in turn contacted the Army. According to the deputy, the military said they "had detected something in the area" and that was the justification for that raid.
CODEM The CODEP and filed complaints with the National Commission and state human rights and the Human Rights Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, seeking to investigate the raid and you provide the CODEM CODEP and information about what happened. History
Enforcement
In an interview with Upside Down World, members CODEM CODEP and did not seem disturbed by the recent night raid on its offices by soldiers armed with assault rifles powerful. This is because it was not the first time they have suffered repression by the government, nor was the worst attack. In the latter event, "he more or less measured," says Claudia Tapia CODEM leader. "Because before going with great violence, beating us."
In his eighteen years of organizing women, farmers, taxi drivers and indigenous, CODEP and related organizations as CODEM have faced fierce opposition from the state government, and in particular the former governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. "Since his days as a Senator, we knew what kind of person [Ruiz] was," says Tapia. "So much so that since the beginning of his campaign, we resisted."
In February 2005, during the period before the 2006 popular uprising that nearly toppled Ulises Ruiz, José Luiz Soberanes, then president of the National Human Rights Commission of Mexico, organized a negotiation between the state government of Oaxaca and CODEP. The CODEP wanted to negotiate the release of political prisoner who was arrested immediately after Ruiz took office. "However," recalled Tapia, "instead of Ulises Ruiz arrived [at the negotiating table] as we had agreed, sent the police and they arrested our comrades." The police raided the hotel where negotiations have taken place, and a CODEP office, detaining a total of seven members of CODEP. Some spent several months in prison.
Angered, CODEP members continued to fight Ruiz administration. In May 2006, when the union of teachers in Oaxaca went on strike to improve conditions in their schools, the CODEP joined their encampment in the zocalo of Oaxaca City. CODEP members were in the camp with her children until 14 June, the infamous day that Ruiz sent the state police to violently break up the encampment of teachers without any warning.
The CODEP is one of the organizations that formed in the beginning to the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), the conglomerate of organizations, communities and individuals that emerged after the June 14th repression to oust governor Ulises Ruiz. When then-President Vicente Fox sent federal police to violently break up the movement of the APPO in Oaxaca City November 25 2006, Marcos Garcia, a member of CODEP, supporters traveled to Oaxaca communities and pledged support to defend the capital. On November 27, while traveling to a community, Garcia was attacked by an armed commando that CODEP identified as a paramilitary group, one of many that operated in the state at that time. García attacked with high-powered weapons, shot his car with 177 bullets, eight of which hit him in his body. Miraculously, he survived the attack.
State repression against CODEP uprising that has continued since 2006. On October 25, 2008, about twenty federal police invaded a home in Oaxaca City where members of CODEP worked and lived. Police said the raid was an anti-organized crime operation. The police tortured Luis Ramón González López, member of CODEP for an hour. They beat him, placed a plastic bag over his head, and applied the infamous tehuacanazo, a tactic of torture which is popular among Mexican police. The tehuacanazo is mineral water (sometimes mixed with chile) is thrown in a stream inside the nose of the victim, creating a feeling of choking, which causes a severe burning sensation, sometimes causing the victim faints. That torture session left him with a rib González López broken and a punctured lung. During the interrogation, asked police to tell them González López location of a "bag of money," a request that the CODEP baffles to this day. "That house is so humble that neither case is the question," says Tapia. "They just want to terrorize us." After the torture, the police confiscated a laptop, two cell phones, documents and newspaper clippings about the uprising of 2006.
War on Drugs is the New Cold War
The CODEP know it is no coincidence that this is the second raid in pursuit of anti-drug war that they have suffered since President Felipe Calderon deployed the army to combat drug cartels in late 2006. In a press release about the raid, the CODEP said: "It is clear that this strategy of state terrorism that continues to make progress in our country, is part of the Merida [an aid package of the drug war] and Mesoamerican Plan [formerly known as the Puebla-Panama Plan, a project of "development" neoliberal] governments PAN and PRI [Mexico's] signed with the U.S. ... with the aim of destroying the human rights organizations and social organizations representing popular opposition to continuing the destruction of our nation and surrender of national sovereignty to foreign interests. "
" This is not new, "says Lopez." We have seen during the Cold War and other wars. Now America does not have an excuse or a fictitious enemy as they had in the seventies, where the enemy was communism. When the Soviet Bloc fell, there was an enemy who used to invent a war. So now the enemy is created related to drug trafficking and organized crime. Now, those who fight against the government to demand their rights, are also considered as organized crime. In Mexico, the Merida Initiative, the U.S. wants to control military on the territory ... and not allow a social movement such as occurred in Oaxaca or Chiapas in 2006 [the Zapatistas] in the nineties. U.S. wants to control our government and control our country to take ownership of natural resources in Mexico. "
Translated by Jeremiah Medina
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