By Riccardo D'Emidio
Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico. On the 28th and 29th of November the “State Forum of Indigenous Communities of Oaxaca” took place. More than 400 the participants, among which there was the former Bishop of San Cristobal de Las Casas, Don Samuel Ruíz, civil society organizations, APPO members, and representatives of the Zapoteco, Chinanteco, Mixteco, Chatino, Mazateco, Mixe, Huave, Cuicateco, Chontal, Zoque, Triqui, Amuzgo, Chocholteco and Tacuate communities.
The forum started with a ceremony, celebrated by two Mixe and Zapoteco women, giving thanks to the four winds- northern, eastern, southern, and western. Archbishop Samuel Ortiz took part by giving a blessing to the participants of this forum. The presence of the Archbishop of San Cristobal was particularly significant, as he was a key actor in the peace negotiations between the Mexican federal government and the EZLN, which led to the San Andres Accords.
Omar, an APPO delegate and participant in the 560km march to Mexico City at the begginning of the conflict, underlined the importance of this space of dialogue while building a new form of governance, “because this movement is of a pacifist nature, where dialogue, nonviolence and justice are the are the central pillars”.
Marcos Levya, representative of the civic associations in the People's Assembly of Oaxaca, states that Oaxaca is only one side of the coin of the crisis that the entire Mexican Republic is presently living. “Oaxaca represents the paradox of the Mexican transition” where the governing institutions coincide with a cacique system to which no opposition is allowed, nor is an alternation in the executive power or a transformation of the institutions permitted. In a country where the institution in charge of checking the electoral process (Instituto Federal Electoral IFE) and the State Commission of Human Rights are appointed by the executive, it is not surprising that a popular grassroots movement has developed that denounces the total lack of legitimacy of the electoral process both at a state and federal level. On the 14th of June, when the teacher's sit-in was displaced, and the conflict evolved from a labour rights issue to a political one, the State Commission of Human Rights, received the order from the State to not receive any reports by the demonstrators.
Further details regarding human rights violations were given by Sara Mendez of the Oaxacan Network of Human Rights (Red Oaxaqueña de Derechos Humanos, RODH). Since the 14th of June to the 28th of November the following numbers have been recorded: 17 dead, 304 illegal detentions and 141 of them illegaly moved to other states. According to Sara Mendez these are numbers are low compared to what's actually estimated, if you consider the violations taking place in the isolated indigenous communities where the brutal acts carried out by memebers of the army and paramilitary are unknown. Entire families have been detained, violating above all the sexual integrity of women and children.
The microphone was then passed to Gilberto Lopez, anthropologist, researcher of indigenous autonomy and advisor during the peace process in Chiapas. “There is a secular tendency,” he says, “to discredit the indigenous movement versus the campesino or workers' movement, when, actually, we should have the humility to learn from this movement”. Indigenous communities find themselves in a process of recovering their autonomy, culture and organization; they have become a world reference as an example of community life, demonstrating that another world is possible. Indigenous autonomy is based on communion, the Caracoles Zapatistas, for example, represent a horizontal organizational form, where decisions are made through plenary assemblies. “Autonomy” is translated in Mixe and Zapoteco as “doing what the community decides”, it is therefore in indigenous language, organization, and culture where an alternative to a vertical and authoritarian form of government might be found.
According to Miguel Alvarez of SERAPAZ – another key actor in achieving the San Andres Accords – the authorianism of the old Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which has governed Mexico for more than 70 years, finds an evolution in the new party of Fox and Calderón. The economic innovation made up by the raging neo-liberal economy through the implementation of NAFTA and the Plan Puebla Panamá, supports and gives strength to an authoritarian form of government, where the violation of human rights, including economic, social, cultural and political rights, of indigenous people becomes systematic. In a state like Oaxaca, where 70% of the population is indigenous, the cultural and social diversity present in Oaxaca make it one of the richest states in Mexico; “the indigenous movement needs a change, the present socio-political situation in Oaxaca favours the full integration of the indigenous movement within the broad popular movement developed in the state capital”.
In Mexico they say “El Indigena va despacio pero va lejos” (The indigenous person goes slow but goes far), and this was, indeed, the case in this Forum, where the plenary Assembly divided for two full days in four round tables dealing with:
– Autonomy and organizational form of Indigenous communities.
– Land, territory and natural resources.
– Indigenous culture, educational and communicative initiatives.
– Human Rights violations in Indigenous communities.
The conclusions of the four roundtables can be synthetized with denouncing a sistematic violence against indigenous identity, culture and autonomy on behalf of the state, accusing the state, in all its forms, of promoting the political, social, economic, and cultural marginalization of indigenous communities. As an answer to this constant aggression, the assembly proposed to consolidate community radios and demand them as an inalienable right and as a fundamental instrument in circulating information and news in communities where newspapers and internet don't get to. The importance of Radio Universidad during the popular fight was mentioned as the only media link and nevralgic centre of the movement. The assembly denounces state education as a new form of colonial conquest, the proposal is therefore to follow the Zapatista example in terms of education and autonomy; and to recover their cosmovision characteristic of indigenous populations. A constitutional reform was demanded, in which indigenous rights are respected fully as written in the San Andrés Accords, as the only way to build a true multicultural and multiethnic Oaxaca that respects the right of self determination.
It has been two months since Felipe Calderón assumed the presidency, and the repression continues in the city of Oaxaca. Arrest warrants have been given for the supporters and sympathizers of the movement, federal and state police have increased surveillance and arbitrary detentions. While organizations of civil society have formally invited the new president to adopt a policy of distension, denouncing openly “state terrorism” that is being lived in the state capital. The new Home Office minister Francisco Ramirez Acuña, ex governor of Jalisco, well known for the brutal repression during the '90s, has already promised heavy hand against the popular movement in the name of democracy, justice and state of law. The representative of the Diocesis Commission of Justice and Peace stated that “Oaxaca is in the same situation as Guatemala was under the dictatorship of Efrain Rios Montt” accusing the Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz of “near-sightedness, astigmatism and daltonism, mistaking social justice with organized crime and social indignation at injustice with social instability” The wave of persecution is taking the movement towards clandestinity, making it difficult, if not impossible, for any kind of negotiation for the liberation of prisoners.
The capacity which the Oaxacan population has demonstrated in this forum for formulating proposals that address the needs of society risks being suffocated by fear and repression. However, with the State Forum of Indigenous Communities of the State of Oaxaca the integration process between the APPO and indigenous communities has formally started, shedding some light on one of the new paths of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca.
