We demand the presentation of David Venegas Reyes

Oaxaca de Juárez, January 29, 2012   8:00pm

At approximately 15:50 this Sunday, January 29, 2012, our comrade David Venegas Reyes was arbitrarily arrested under the direct orders of Jesús Martínez Álvarez, Secretary General of the government of Oaxaca. This happened as he and other comrades were accompanying the caravan returning to the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, headed by women displaced more than a year ago.

According to the first news that came out this afternoon, he was arrested approximately 20 minutes outside San Juan Copala and then taken away from the Caravan of the Displaced People. No one knew where he was taken, so he began to search for him.

At 17:50 we went to the State Attorney General’s Office, and specifically to the office of the Undersecretary of Preliminary Investigations of the State of Oaxaca. There, they refused to give us any information about the whereabouts of our comrade. At the same time, others went to the State Attorney General’s Office in the City of Huajuapan de León, near the Triqui region. Then at 19:30, we went to the State Attorney General’s Office located in the Experimental neighborhood and to the General Headquarters of the Ministry of Public Safety asking for information about the whereabouts of David Venegas Reyes, but we received no information in any of these offices.

Furthermore, we have requested that several different officials of the State Human Rights Commission undertake searches for him, but our requests have been denied. In view of all this, we denounce the forced disappearance of our comrade David Venegas Reyes.
 
In this context, we are on the alert due to the tense situation that exists in the region at this time, since we are not sure whether or not the comrades from San Juan Copala have gone into their town or not.
 
This deed comes on top of many others in the outrageous campaign to legitimize impunity in Oaxaca armed by the Gabino Cue Monteagudo government in the last few days in order to justify the attacks against the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala. This shows that peace will not come to the Triqui region or to Oaxaca while the government itself confronts and represses the peoples in the state in their struggles for self-determination. The Cue government impedes their return to their homes by means of force, bragging about a non-existent peace, when in fact it was the state government itself that has broken off the dialogue aimed at finding a solution to the violence committed against the inhabitants of the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala. 
 
We hold Gabino Cue Monteagudo y a Jesús Martínez Álvarez directly responsible for the disappearance of David Venegas Reyes. 
We demand the immediate live presentation of David Venegas Reyes.
 
Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Freedom (VOCAL)