Countrywide Day of Action in Solidarity with Oaxaca
On June 8, anti-authoritarians and human rights activists are trying to break the paramilitary blockade of the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala in Oaxaca. We need to support them to help avoid another massacre.
In 2006, Oaxaca was the site of one of the most inspiring, important social rebellions of the decade. Between the brutal crackdown of the Mexican state and the constant harassment by paramilitaries, dozens of people have been killed and the rebellion was largely crushed, but parts of Oaxaca are still organizing their autonomy.
For five months, the Triqui village of San Juan Copala has faced severe paramilitary repression for declaring itself autonomous from the Mexican state and the neocolonial capitalist policies it enforces.
On April 27, paramilitaries attacked a convoy that included activists, anarchists, and humanitarian workers trying to reach the village to lift the paramilitary siege. Two people, Beatriz Alberto Cariño and Jyri Jaakkola, were killed and several were wounded. Beatriz, an indigenous Mixtec, was a long-time advocate for food sovereignty, community water management, soil conservation and indigenous autonomy. She directed the organization CACTUS (Centro de Apoyo Comunitario Trabajando Unidos). Jyri, 33 years old, was a Finnish human rights activist who had been involved in the Fair Trade movement and delivering humanitarian aid to Africa.
On May 15, paramilitaries kidnapped and beat 12 women and children inhabitants of the municipality, who were later released. On May 20, paramilitaries assassinated Cleriberta Castro and her husband, Timoteo Alejandro Ramirez, who was the leader of the indigenous Yosoyuxi community within the municipality.
Multiple indigenous, Zapatista, anti-authoritarian, human rights and other groups are calling for a second caravan to lift the blockade of the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala, arriving on June 8.
For this reason, we are calling for a day of solidarity actions the day before, on June 7, to create pressure and prevent another massacre. The paramilitaries work on behalf of the Mexican government and Mexican and international corporations invested in the area. They do the dirty work that provides the basis for state control and commercial investment.
As comrades in Oaxaca go face to face with the paramilitary thugs, all the rest of us need to let the bosses of the paramilitaries know there will be consequences for more brutality.
Call-ins or protests at Mexican consulates, visits to corporations invested in Mexico, counter-information and direct action are all necessary. Because solidarity spreads or it dies.
Decentralized Solidarity Actions on June 7: Against Capitalism and its Death Squads! For Indigenous Self-Determination!
–anarchists and anti-authoritarians in Boston, Chicago, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, Olympia, Tacoma and beyond.
Para más información en español:
kaosenlared.net/noticia/oaxaca-mexico-nuevo-ataque-paramilitar-causa-dos-muertos-san-juan-copa
For more information in English see:
http://elenemigocomun.net/2010/04/paramilitary-attack-leaves-two-dead-three-disappeared/
Puget Sound Action:
Seattle, Tacoma, & Olympia anarchists & antiauthoritarians will be at the Mexican Consulate in Seattle at 1 PM on Monday June 7th for a demonstration in front of the consulate. Colonization continues this day in Oaxaca and the Northwest, through the destruction of resources, the marginalization of peoples, and the crushing of struggles of resistance. The state sponsored violence in Oaxaca is a clear incident of repression that is deeply connected to the state’s monopoly on violence everywhere; from the NW Detention Center in the Tacoma tideflats, to the April 17th police beating (wherein the cop said explicitly “I’m going to beat the fucking Mexican piss out of you homey.”) of a Latino man in Seattle, and the 2008 police killing of José Ramírez-Jiménez in Olympia, as well as the ongoing raids and kidnapping of all migrant peoples in the Northwest. For comrades in Oaxaca, for comrades everywhere we stand in solidarity with all those that dare to take their lives into their own hands. For the destruction of all borders and those that uphold them. For the freedom of movement! Solidarity means attack.
Mexican Consulate (Seattle): 2132 3rd Ave. 98121
Number: (206) 448-3526 Ext 117 and 118
FAX: (206) 448-4771
Email: comexico1 (at) qwestoffice.net
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source: https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/06/01/18649472.php
