State repression on February 15, when President Felipe Calderón visited Oaxaca.

State repression on March 5, when activists protested outside of a bullfight.

By Daniel Arellano Chávez

March 10, 2011

[Spanish original]

Translated by Scott Campbell

Gabino Cué, businessman, “defender of private investment” in Oaxaca, has begun to show his true face. Peace will not come to Oaxaca if first there is not justice and that indelible fact shows the first repressive acts of a government which tried to shield itself under a false rhetoric of peace and progress and which now turns to the same shields, batons and guns of the unpunished murderer Ulises Ruiz.

This past month’s repressive acts in Oaxaca have shown the true face of an allegedly democratic government: the visit of the murderer Calderón set loose anew a small part of the strong popular forces that have not been suppressed; injustice, impunity and injuries remain, as does the government’s repression.

The repressive methods and forms have not changed at all with the so-called transition and the arrival of a coalition which combines the ultra-right and the traitors to the peoples’ struggle in Oaxaca.

Impunity remains, and as if that weren’t enough, new injuries are added, the repression of February 15 and March 5, 2011, proves the continuity of an authoritarian system which locally tries to displace the peoples by imposing megaprojects, and which nationally bloodies the country in a war which, carried out under orders from Washington, has left a total of more than 34,000 dead.

He, the good Spaniard, promotes the return of acts and “celebrations” of his world view, Spanish “customs” in one of the most indigenous states in Mexico, which generates the discontent of conscientious youth indignant over the torture of living beings which cannot be called culture.

In the context of popular demands, on February 27, the Community Support Center Working Together (CACTUS) carried out the start of the Global Community Action for Justice and Dignity, with an event in the Zócalo of Oaxaca, at the encampment of Displaced Women and Children of San Juan Copala; which represents the demand for justice and punishment for the assassinations of Bety Cariño Trujillo and Jyri Jaakkola, killed ten months earlier in the ambush on the caravan on the way to the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala.

The announcement of the creation by decree on March 9th of the “Prosecutor’s Office of Investigations into Crimes of Social Importance,” is an act of propaganda, empty of content and above all of meaningful actions or repercussions. The crimes carried out against the people of Oaxaca have gone unpunished for four years, the struggle of the peoples of Oaxaca didn’t begin in 2006, historic injuries have remained latent, not forgetting that ten years earlier one of the most brutal acts of repression against the indigenous peoples of the Loxicha region was carried out, in which Gabino Cué was directly involved, massacres and crimes of this magnitude were what gave rise to the popular uprising of 2006. If he expects to look back “to reach justice,” will he be inclined to review the repressive acts of 15 years ago? Acts which have resulted in the cruel and unjust imprisonment of indigenous Zapotecs since that time, or to review the multiple massacres that this system of tyrants and repression have supported, such as those carried out in the 1960s in the Mixteca, such as the massacre against the town of Santiago Ayuquililla, the Agua Fria Massacre, or more recently the brutal paramilitary actions in the Triqui region, to mention just a few of the many unpunished cases.

Injustice remains, the injuries accumulate, the peoples prepare to defend themselves from a so-called progress which does not include them but instead displaces them for the benefit of others; all of this together clearly shows that Oaxaca is not at peace.