This Wednesday, June 17, at approximately 1:30 in the afternoon, the encampment set up in the Zocalo of the city of Oaxaca by the Family and Friends of the APPO Political Prisoners was attacked by a group of around 40 hired hoodlums (porros), well-known in the city as a paramilitary force that committed violent actions beginning with the Oaxaca insurrection of 2006.
The attack occurred only minutes after several APPO members, including some of the teachers and VOCAL member David Venegas Reyes, started to give a press conference at the encampment to make their position clear about the accusations against David made by Hugo Jarquín, leader of the “8 Regions” organization.
Several days beforehand Hugo Jarquín accused David Venegas Reyes of being a “mercenary” and an “infiltrated agent” responsible for organizing “acts of vandalism” last June 14. Jarquín stated that he would form “shock groups” to put an end to the “insecurity generated by ‘El Alebrije’ and his followers.” Jarquín’s organization, “8 Regions,” and the FALP had withdrawn from the encampment on June 15 supposedly because of their disagreement with our comrades, but they really left because of the agreement they made with the killer Ulises Ruiz’s state government to destabilize the camp and provoke its removal.
Jarquín’s statements only confirm that he is the person responsible for the brutal attack suffered by our comrades at the camp, including David Venegas, on June 17, by dozens of hired thugs swinging lead pipes.
After the attack, with the support of the teachers participating in the camp, some of the aggressors were intercepted, including Marcos Mateo Esteva Cruz, alias “El Aladin”, known as the Commander of the Death Squads responsible for dozens of deaths during the insurrection of 2006 and other violent acts since then. These factors lead us to believe that there was complicity between Jarquín, FALP, “8 Regions,” the paramilitaries, and the police themselves in yesterday’s attack, ordered by killer Ulises Ruiz’s state government.
The camp was set up on May 15 by the family and friends of APPO political prisoners Víctor Hugo Martínez Toledo and Miguel Ángel García, who were released last June 4. Even though they are free, the camp is still being maintained in spite of all the harassment and violent attacks in order to achieve the freedom of political prisoners Pedro Castillo Aragón and Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno.
The aggression on this day occurred in a context of state government repression in which weak organizations are bought off and then used in a strategy of violence along with the paramilitary thugs to quell dissent in the Zócalo.
In spite of these attacks and the criminalization of our struggle by the government as well as by certain groups that consider themselves part of the movement, we plan to keep on participating in the encampment.
NO FORGIVING, NO FORGETTING! THE KILLERS MUST BE PUNISHED!
Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Freedom (VOCAL)
Oaxaca de Magón, City of Resistance, June 18, 2009.
