Repression in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Filiberto Vicente Aquino detained

April 12, 2011
Translated by Scott Campbell

Today at 2:30pm compañero Filiberto Vicente Aquino, who is part of a movement comprised of numerous towns in southeastern Mexico against the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and its charging of high rates for electricity, was violently detained. Compañero Filiberto was violently detained in his community, Santa Maria Xadani, Juchitan, Oaxaca, by state police officers and taken to the offices of the Federal Attorney General (PGR) in Salina Cruz, Oaxaca. He was brought before the Sixth District Court of Salina Cruz for the theft of electricity, which is a federal offense.

It should be remembered that the resistance movement against the CFE’s high rates for electricity emerged in the southeast of the country given the CFE’s abusive charges for electricity service for the inhabitants of this region, which is the largest producer of electricity in Mexico. In particular, the peoples of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Oaxaca joined this resistance as a result of the installation of wind farms in their territories – through deceptions and threats by Spanish transnational corporations who had the complete backing of the Ulisista tyranny and who now enjoy the complete backing of the Spaniard Gabino Cue.

In response to this repressive act, compañeros in the resistance movement against the high rates of electricity took over the highway which runs from the city of Tehuantepec to the city of Oaxaca to demand the immediate release of compañero Filiberto, however, instead of releasing him, the state police have maintained a presence in order to intimidate in a threatening manner the compañeros who at this moment continue resisting.

We hold the federal government of Felipe Calderon and the state government of Gabino Cue responsible for the detention of compañero Filiberto Vicente Aquino and for the repressive acts that the government may carry out against the compañeros who as of this moment continue resisting in front of the Tehuantepec jail in the takeover of the highway to demand Filiberto’s freedom.

We similarly denounce the increasingly evident democratic farce that Gabino Cue represents here in Oaxaca, who, in spite of having come into power as a result of Oaxaca’s repudiation of the PRI, continues to use the same repressive methods and the same deception of the peoples of Oaxaca so that the rich and foreign transnational corporations may continue benefitting at the expense of the lands and wealth of the indigenous peoples of Oaxaca. Now it is even more serious, as unlike Ulises Ruiz, Gabino Cue has gained complete control over the local media, which keeps Oaxacans from being aware of the repression and violence which different social sectors are suffering at this moment, such as the recent disappearance of compañero and teacher Carlos Rene Roman Salazar, a member of the teachers union, Section 22, who was disappeared on March 14 and whose whereabouts are still unknown.

We issue an urgent call for all the conscious men and women of Mexico to protest using all means possible to demand the release of compañero Filiberto Vicente Aquino and against the atmosphere of a dirty war against social activists, which at this moment Oaxaca is again living through, from the federal government of Felipe Calderon and the state government of Gabino Cue.