Category: Land Defense

Samir Didn’t Die! He Multiplied!

Post author By carolina
Post date February 23, 2019

With sorrow and rage, thousands of Mexican people are mourning the assassination of Samir Flores Soberanes and promising to carry on on his commitment to the defense of the land, water, education, grassroots communication and autonomy of the people.

On February 20th at 5 o’clock in the morning, Samir Flores was killed just outside his front door in Amilcingo, state of Morelos. “Around 5 o’clock in the morning, two carloads parked outside his house and began to call him until Samir went out; four shots were heard and two of them hit him in his head, killing our comrade,” says a statement released by the Peoples’ Front in Defense of the Land and Water in Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala.

People immediately began to arrive in his town for the wake that was held with much love and affection.

A message from the Assembly of the Peoples of Morelos (APPM), which Samir founded, says: “We have no more boys, girls, sons, daughters, wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, fathers or mothers to sacrifice…We have no more tears to cry.”

Autonomy Indigenous Land Defense

Cherán Names its Third Council of Elders to Their Communal Government

Post author By el pinche simon
Post date August 15, 2018

By TV Cherán

On Sunday May 27, 2018, the indigenous Purépecha municipality of Cherán, Michoacán, named its Third Council of Elders (Consejo Mayor, Consejo de Keris) to their communal government.

Cherán has been practicing a traditional form of self-government for seven years. Earlier this year, on April 15, 2018, the community celebrated the seven-year anniversary of its uprising against what they all call today “the narco government.”

Autonomy Indigenous Land Defense Media Solidarity

Support an Independent Journalism Collective in Latin America

Post author By bookofthel
Post date May 5, 2018

For the past four years, Avispa Midia has provided in-depth coverage of events throughout Latin America, from risky situations like the 2016 teachers’ protests in Nochixtlan, Oaxaca, where federal police assassinated 8 people, to catastrophes like the major earthquakes that devastated Mexico in September 2017. They have also worked throughout Central America and Brazil to investigate how military and police forces collude with organized crime to control populations and protect corporate interests.

Today, this independent journalism collective — which has made the best of limited resources in the absence of stable funding — is asking for your solidarity so that it can continue to visit and document resistance movements and fix and replace basic equipment.

DONATE HERE

Land Defense

Rebel Oaxaca kicks out Peña Nieto

Post author By carolina
Post date September 12, 2017

x carolina

Up until now, Enrique Peña Nieto hasn’t been able to make a public visit to the city of Oaxaca because too many people have come out against it. But last September 7th, the chief executive took advantage of the inauguration of the Cultural and Convention Center to make a brief surprise visit. His stated goal was to attract big investments from the 900 businessmen attending Mexico’s 24^th Foreign Trade Conference. And in order to attract those investments, he planned to show that the rebel city has become a stable place, where all protests are under control and a state of law prevails.

Indigenous Land Defense Repression

On 8th anniversary Xayakalan inspires defense of land and life

Post author By carolina
Post date July 4, 2017

x carolina

Under heavy rains, two busloads of people and dozens of others traveling in cars or public transportation came together in the community of Xayakalan in Ostula, Michoacán, on June 29, 2017. There, the compañeras welcomed us with steaming coffee, tortillas and a delicious stew.

The purpose of the trip? The celebration of the eighth anniversary of one of the most amazing things that’s happened in Mexico in many years ––the recovery of 3000 acres of land stolen from Ostula half a century ago, and the construction of a community where resistance is part of its identity.

A bit of history

In a brief history of the defense of the lands of Santa María Ostula and the founding of Xayakalan, the lawyer Carlos Gonzalez told us that for centuries, including the entire twentieth century, the community had constant border conflicts. When a presidential decree issued in 1963 certified that the communal lands rightfully belonged to Ostula, small landowners in La Placita took advantage of errors in the decree to take over thousands of acres. In 2008, they won a court case that took land away from Ostula precisely in the area where they’d obtained concessions from the transnational mining company Termium.