on Aug 25th, '11
“…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 Continuous Resources, which has thirty concessions in just this region alone.
on Aug 12th, '11
“…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.
on Jul 18th, '11
jueves 21, 19hs.
Presentación del libro
Enseñando rebeldía
Historias del movimiento popular en Oaxaca
Editado por Diana Denham y Colectivo C.A.S.A.
Librespacio cultural La Jícara
Porfirio Díaz #1105, Col. Centro
Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca.
on Jul 5th, '11
At approximately 1 o’ clock pm last Sunday July 3rd, Señora Isabel and Señora Reyna Ayala Nava, 54 and 58 years old respectively, were assassinated as they left a temple on November 20th Ave. in Colonia Las Flores, Xaltianguis, in the municipality of Acapulco, Guerrero. Two persons driving a blue car shot them from within the car, and afterwardsone of them got out, approached the victims, and stole their cell phones.
on Jun 8th, '11
Our history is not only like the mature fruit which falls from a tree when we became aware that is was time to walk together as a people, nor like the spring of our grandparents when times were good, or the times to plant and to see our lands full of life and our people walking without being afraid, our history is more than the branches which create shade in a patriarchal and dominating system, it is more than the trunk which is the unity of our peoples and their thousand-year old forms of organization which have always allowed us to sustain ourselves...
on May 26th, '11
There is a human rights crisis in Mexico. Central and South American migrants traveling through Mexico on their way to the United States, in search of a better life for themselves and their families, have become the prey of gangs, cartels, and corrupt authorities. Tens of thousands are robbed, extorted, raped, kidnapped en masse and killed every year. The Mexican government chooses to allow this to continue, and prefers that the migrants and their plight remain invisible. So we must act.
on May 16th, '11
On Sunday, May 8, several hundred demonstrators took to the streets in the city of Oaxaca to voice their opposition to Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s so-called “war against organized crime,” which after more than four years of brutal violence unleashed by the army, police and drug cartels (often overlapping professions) has left nearly 40,000 people dead. The march in Oaxaca coincided with the National March for Peace with Justice and Dignity, which left from Cuernavaca, Morelos on May 5 and ended with a rally in the zócalo of Mexico City this evening.
on May 12th, '11
There's a popular saying in Latin America that if they're going to globalize commerce and capitalism, we're going to globalize the struggle. With that pretext the Mesoamerican Peoples Forum was launched in 2001 in Tamaulipas, Mexico to combat Plan Puebla Panama, a neoliberal plan, replete with mega projects, launched by the Interamerican Bank of Development and promoted by former Mexican president Vicente Fox. Plan Puebla Panama has since been re-baptized as Project Mesoamerica incorporating Plan Colombia and the Mexican Merida Initiative, two U.S. conceived projects that funnel millions of dollars into army budgets supposedly to combat “narcotrafficking.”
on May 11th, '11
Drug war victims finally made themselves heard in Mexico in the most unlikely way: a nation-wide silent March for Peace with Justice and Dignity.
on Apr 26th, '11
In an October 2006 communiqué, the federal army acknowledged the existence of the following troops in Oaxaca:
Miahuatlán - 624 soldiers pertaining to the 6th Infantry Battalion.
Pinotepa Nacional - 645 of the 47th Infantry Battalion
Nopala - 609 of the 54th Infantry Battalion.
Juxtlahuaca - 372 of the 95th Infantry Battalion.
Tuxtepec - 442 of the 6th Motorized Calvalry Regiment.
Tlaxiaco - 104 of the 95th Infantry Battalion.
Coxocon - 489 of the 13th Motorized Calvalry Regiment.
Huajuapan de León - 185 of the 23rd Uncontained Infantry Company (No Encuadrada).
Border with Puebla - 489 of the 24th Motorized Calvalry Regiment.
Border with Guerrero - 1,455 of the 48th and 93rd Infantry Battalions
Ixcotel – An Infantry Brigade of three batallions, or 1837 troops.
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