Salvador Huároco Román – “Chavira” is a community member from Cherán, Michoacán. He has been a militant in the social movement in Cherán, participating in the assemblies, as an authority in the communal government, and as an DJ on Radio Fogata since its inception! As an authority in the first communal government he also supported the Cherán TV project very much.
Four years ago, on July 31, 2015, Nadia Vera Pérez, Yesenia Quiroz Alfaro, Mile Virginia Martin, Alejandra Negrete Avilés, and Rubén Espinosa Becerril were murdered in a Mexico City apartment. Nadia, a social justice activist and human rights defender, and Rubén, a photojournalist, had both fled Veracruz after receiving death threats for their work. Before her murder, Nadia stated that if anything should happen to her, it would be Javier Duarte who was responsible. Duarte was then governor of Veracruz, renowned for his corruption and human rights abuses, including the deaths of 17 journalists during his rule. The state’s investigation into the murders has been condemned as full of irregularities. Nadia’s mother, Mirtha Luz Pérez Robledo, wrote the following two pieces on the fourth anniversary of her daughter’s murder. Translated by Scott Campbell, the original texts in Spanish can be found here and here.
In my name and on behalf of my family, I send my deepest thanks to all those who have supported us with your kindness and solidarity from every corner of the world, through your messages, your political protests, your artistic protests.
Because without you, without your solidarity, without your art, without your protest, without your demand for justice, this tragedy that has touched us would have passed unnoticed, like so many others in this country.
At four years without justice, we are not the same, and we need to continue supporting ourselves with your kindness. For those of you who have embraced us, we embrace you now, after four years of our Nadia Dominique Vera Pérez’s absence, because thanks to you, her voice and protest continue to be heard.
To those who murder, to those who order the murders, to those who violate due process, we say: There are dead who will never be silenced.
Mirtha Luz Pérez Robledo
July 2019
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.
Radio Totopo is a community radio that has transmitted from the city of Juchitán in Oaxaca, Mexico for more than 10 years. Totopo’s work in the community has earned it the respect and backing of local residents, who recognize the radio as a space that uses their diidxazá language to reflect their ancestral culture as Binnizá, or Zapotec, people. Totopo has also established itself as a vital cultural and community space that serves as a physical meeting point for community members. There children take academic classes; a gallery space features paintings and photographs, documentary screenings, concerts, and the sale of traditional food; and the Popular Assembly of the Juchiteco People holds regular meetings.
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By Scott Campbell
It’s Going Down
“When horror knocks at your door, it’s difficult to hide from. All that can be done is to breathe, gather strength, and face it….I shared news of the woman found in University City. From the first moment, I was angered and protested the criminalization of the victim. The next morning I woke up to the horror and pain that she was my relative.”
– Statement from the family of Lesvy Rivera to Mexican society
“[W]e take responsibility for the homicide of another human in University City on May 3rd….Much has emerged about that damned thing leaning lifeless on a payphone… ‘that she suffered from alcoholism, that she wasn’t a student, this and that.’ But what does it matter? She’s just another mass, just another damned human who deserved death.”
– 29th Statement of Individualists Tending Toward the Wild (ITS)
Some things shouldn’t have to be said, but as is too often the case in this disaster of a world, that which should be most obvious often gets subsumed to the exigencies of politics, ideologies, money, emotion, or internet clicks. The purpose of this piece is to condemn the recent acts of eco-extremists in Mexico and those who cheer them on from abroad.