Two strong earthquakes battered Mexico this September. The first, with a magnitude of 8.1 degrees, hit the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca on September 7th; the second arrived on September 19th with a magnitude of 7.1 degrees, affecting areas in Puebla, Morelos, Mexico City, and Mexico State. In Oaxaca in the South of Mexico, two of the most devastated zones were the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the neighboring Sierra.
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By Jaime Quintana Guerrero
January 20, 2016
Desinformémonos
Translated by Scott Campbell
Bi, in the Binnizaá or Zapotec language, means “air”, means “spirit.” “For us, air not only represents life, it also carries loved ones who have died. When one dies, their spirit becomes air and returns to the people.”
The struggles against the wind farms that abound throughout the state also, then, contain this element: “They want to change the path of the wind, of the air, of our spirits, of our loved ones.”
Carlos Martínez Fuentes, a member of Radio Totopo in Juchitán, Oaxaca, is the one who explained the above. Radio Totopo, with its nine years transmitting together with the spirits in the air, also belongs to the Popular Assembly of the Juchitecan People.
By Scott Campbell
For more than a year, the indigenous Binnizá community of Álvaro Obregón, in the Isthmus of Oaxaca, have defended their lands against the imposition of a wind park by the multinational Spanish firm Mareña Renovables. As part of that struggle, “the community became aware that the parties and political leaders have only used them for political and personal ends.” In August of 2013, the community held an assembly and decided to return to the traditional indigenous usos y costumbres form of governance, where community leaders are selected via general assembly, without the participation of political parties.
With 1,236 people participating, the general assembly to select the community’s leaders was held on December 8, 2013. Yet on February 8, 2014, Saúl Vicente Vázquez, the Municipal President of Juchitán, which includes Álvaro Obregón, announced that new elections, involving political parties, would be held in Álvaro Obregón on March 2, ignoring the popular and expressed will of the people. Ironically, Vicente Vázquez until recently served as an expert on the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
[ March in Álvaro Obregón. February 10, 2013 ]
by Daniel Arellano Chávez
Today, February 10, 2013 is certainly a watershed in the struggle for the defense of the land and territory on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. After the successful resistance against the repression ordered by Oaxaca state governor Gabino Cué to shield Mareña Renovables, the peoples of the Isthmus are at a decisive moment in their struggle to defend their territory. The Assembly held today and the sizeable march in Álvaro Obregón has provided the ideal setting for announcing townspeople’s decisions, expelling false political leaders and their political parties, and beginning the construction of a Community Police.
At the old General Charis military quarters, the scene of the historic resistance of February 2, men and women from San Dionisio del Mar, San Mateo del Mar, Xadani, Emiliano Zapata, San Blas Atempa, Unión Hidalgo, and Juchitán, among other communities, came together in the morning to ratify their total rejection of the wind projects in the region and demand the immediate expulsion of Mareña Renovables from the territories of the Isthmus.
by Scott Campbell
December 30, 2010
On December 16, a freight train left Arraiga, Chiapas, with 300 migrants from Central America riding on top of it. While passing through Oaxaca the train was stopped twice. First, around 100 people were detained at an immigration checkpoint. Twenty minutes later, those remaining on the train were attacked by a gang of armed men, presumably Zetas or Maras, two groups known for preying on migrants and robbing or kidnapping them. Kidnapped migrants are usually held for ransom or forced to become gunmen or drug mules. The Zetas are likely responsible for the massacre of 72 Central American migrants in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas on August 24 of this year.
During the attack, at least 40 migrants were kidnapped and have not been heard from since. Of the 300 people to depart from Chiapas, only 20 made it to Ixtepec, Oaxaca, a common layover stop where a Catholic-run migrant shelter is located. A short video with testimonies from some of those who survived the events is posted on YouTube. I translated it and added the subtitles, so any errors in those departments are mine.