2011

11 January: Alba Cruz, lawyer and human-rights defender in Oaxaca, receives an intimidating text-message to her cellular phone. The message was sent from the same number from which death-threats were sent in 2010 both against her and Marcelino Coache Verano, one of her clients.

11 January: more than 20 soldiers from the Mexican Army enter the building occupied by the human-rights organizations Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the People (CODEP), the Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Women (CODEM), and the Regional Indigenous Center of Human Rights (CRIDH) in the city of Oaxaca de Juárez. In accordance with the same information, soldiers entered the residence using excessive force, destroying and tossing aside the entrance-door, without showing a search warrant; they were reported to have pointed their arms at those they found at the site, interrogating them regarding organized crime and narco-trafficking.

25 January: Renato Cruz Morales, state leader of the Cardenist-Democratic Campesino Center (CCCD), and Santos Lagunas, his escort are killed near the Bethania ejido, 20 kilometers to the east of Tuxtepec. Cruz Morales had been detained on 16 August 2006 for his participation in the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO).

31 January: Edgar Coache Verano, son to Marcelino Coache, member of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) receives a text-message threatening him with death.

January: several violent acts are denounced in Oaxaca related to the post-electoral context.

8 February: a violent confrontation between residents of the communities that neighbor Zimatlán de Lázaro Cárdenas (municipality of Putla Villa de Guerrero) and San Sebastián Nopalera (municipality of Santa Lucía Monteverede) provokes the death of eight persons. Following a police incursion, five individuals are detained. A number of firearms and more than two thousand cartridges are decommissioned. The conflict dates back to 2006 when the communities of Zimatlán and Nopalera jointly resolved an agrarian conflict and did not agree on how to divide the land.

15 February: protesters comprised largely of teachers from Section 22 of the National Union of Educational Workers (SNTE) and other social activists clash with state and federal police while attempting to enter the zócalo of Oaxaca de Juárez to express their rejection of the visit by President Felipe Calderón to the city. At least 28 people are injured. The mobilization was organized in response to the presidential decree made on 14 February that tuition for private schools would be made tax-free, a move that social sectors have interpreted as yet another assault on public education.

16 February: teachers from Section 22 of the SNTE strike in Oaxaca de Juárez and several regions of the state, blocking more than 37 highway points of the Oaxacan state in protest of the repression.

8 March: the Committee for Citizens’ Defense (CODECI) denounces that the Mexican Army and the federal police invaded its offices located in Tuxtepec and destroyed much under the pretext of responding to a “citizen’s complaint.”

13 and 14 March: a cultural day and mobilization in defense of the Río Verde and against the multi-use hydroelectric-dam project Paso de la Reyna is organized by the Council of Peoples in Defense of the Río Verde (COPUDEVER) in Pinotepa.

14 March: teacher Carlos Rene Román Salazar, member of Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) disappears. The Oaxaca State Attorney General’s Office has offered 500,000 pesos for information regarding the identity and whereabouts of those presumed responsible for the disappearance.

5 April: professor Luis Quiroz Quiroz, member of Section 22 of the National Union of Educational Workers (SNTE) is killed in the community Dos Caminos (municipality of San Agustín Chayuco).

7 April: the community Paso de la Reina, Defenders of the Río Verde, which operates in Jamiltepec, Oaxaca wins the National Prize for Human Rights Don Sergio Méndez Arceo.

12 April: Filiberto Vicente Aquino is violently detained. Aquino is part of the movement against the high-prices of electricity that has some strength in a number of populaces of the Tehuantepec Isthmus. He is released two days later.

15 April: communal authorities of San Miguel Chimalapa, municipality of San Miguel Chimalapas (Oaxaca), denounce that individuals from the ejidos Rodulfo Figueroa and Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, municipality of Cintalapa (Chiapas), invaded a thousand hectares of their communal lands. The state governments of Oaxaca and Chiapas agree to request that the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat, a federal agency) suspend and cancel the permits for forestall logging, given that this has generated tensions that grip the region.

25 April: Roberto Jorge Navarro Martínez, also known as El Thín is detained. He is accused of being one of the material authors of the murder of Heriberto Pazos Ortiz, president of the Communal Political Council and founder of the Movement for Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT).

25 and 26 April: the first regional meeting of the Network against Repression and for Solidarity is held in the community Soledad de Juárez, Tuxtepec, Oaxaca

27 April: Non-governmental organizations, university collectives, and members of the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala pay their respects to Bety Cariño and Jyri Jaakkola and denounce the impunity of their case by means of different activities taken up in Oaxaca as elsewhere in the country and the world. For their part, 250 displaced individuals from San Juan Copala march to demand justice once again.

12 May: Rufino Juárez Hernández, director of Union for Social Welfare in the Triqui Region (UBISORT), is arrested. He is suspected to be one of those responsible for the grave climate of violence experienced in the Triqui region, particularly the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala.

14 May: a group armed with rifles ambushes and murders 9 indigenous people and injures 10 others in the municipality of Santiago Choapam, Oaxaca. According to the affected, the cause is a post-electoral conflict that had already been mentioned to authorities.

20 and 21 May: the Third National Forum “Weaving Resistance in Defense of Our Territories” is held in Capulálpam de Méndez, Oaxaca, regarding the principal problems faced by indigenous communities and peoples.

23 May: The Section 22 of the National Educational Workers Union (SNTE) initiates an indefinite strike and a sit-in in the historical center of the city of Oaxaca. Among the demands made by the teachers is found payment for wages, reached after the social conflict of 2006, the appearance with life of the disappeared teachers Carlos René Román Salazar and Guadalupe Pérez, as well as a plan to improve the educational sector.

18 June: Mario Ambrosio Martínez, an indigenous Zapotec man from San Agustín Loxicha who was processed and condemned for presumably having been associated with the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), is released from the Central Penitentiary of Santa María Ixcotel, following nearly 15 years in prison.

21 June: the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights in Mexico presents in Oaxaca de Juárez its most recent publication, “The right to consultation among indigenous peoples: The importance of the implementation in the context of large-scale development projects.” The document recognizes that megaprojects such as hydroelectric dams, mines, highways, and the cultivation of monocultures imply at the least grave human-rights violations, particularly with regard to indigenous peoples.

23 June: ejidatarios from Unión Hidalgo in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec denounce that they have been threatened by representatives of the Spanish firm Demex who arrived with State Agents of Investigation (AEI) who, armed, observed and protected the Spanish business people aboard a white Nissan truck without tags. These ejidatarios have been organizing themselves to protest that Demex has failed to comply with its promises to rent their lands and avoid greater environmental degradation by means of the construction of a wind-energy project that would supply the bread-making operations of the Bimbo corporation. They assure that the Spanish firm entered their lands without giving them complete information about the project

5 July: Navanethem Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, visits Oaxaca.

8 July: Rosa Lizbeth Caña Cadeza presents her resignation for the charge of superior auditor of the state of Oaxaca. Human-rights defenders from civil organizations in the state demand that the Public Ministry investigate her regarding her role as head of the State Attorney General’s Office in the administration of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (2004-2010).

16 and 17 July: the Fourth Regional Forum of the Southern Sierra is held in the municipality of Santa Cruz Zenzotepec, so as to exchange experiences and knowledge regarding the problems faced by the peoples of the region due to the looting of their lands and the ongoing violations of the human rights of the indigenous.

5 August: three Triqui indigenous members of the Movement for Triqui Unification and Struggle-Independent (MULT-I) are ambushed and murdered by gunshots at the crossroads that lead to the communities of Agua Fria and San Pedro Chayuco.

10 August: in Oaxaca de Juárez in front of the Palace of Governance, 21 individuals from different social organizations carry out a fast of 8 hours to demand justice in the case of the murder of José Jiménez Colmenares, on the fifth anniversary of his death.

15 August: A group of civil and social organizations, collectives, and citizens creates the Citizens’ Space for Justice and truth in Oaxaca as an autonomous effort on the part of civil society.

27 August: Women’s organizations demand that the governor of Oaxaca, Gabino Cué, put an end to feminicides in the state following the appearance of the corpse of a decapitated and mutilated woman in the farm of San Pedro Ixtlahuaca, a municipality adjacent to the Oaxacan capital.

2 to 7 September: The Eurodeputies Franziska Keller, Satu Hassi, and Gabrielle Küppers visit Mexico to request information regarding the advance of investigations into the murders of the Mexican activist Beatriz Alberta Cariño and the Finnish observer Jyri Jaakkola that occurred on 27 April 2010 in San Juan Copala

11 September: the Caravan to the South called for by the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity and comprised of more than 500 persons and 13 buses arrives in Oaxaca from the neighboring state of Guerrero.

14 September: the Chedraui Commercial Group inaugurates a new store located in Oaxaca de Juárez. In opposition, residents of the Yalalag neighborhood installed a protest-site outside the Palace of Governance to manifest their opposition in light of the complicity of state and municipal authorities with the Chedraui firm, which in their view has violated all sorts of regulations in the construction of the new local store.

30 September: the Council of Peoples United in Defense of the Río Verde (COPUDEVER) participates in the VI Mesoamerican Forum for water, rivers, nature, and life in Pacuaré, Costa Rica, to exchange experiences of resistance processes initiated since 2007 against the hydroelectric dam Paso de la Reyna, where the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) is planning and promoting a dam.

21 October: approximately 50 workers from the hydroelectric firm Wind Development of Mexico (DEMEX) enter the lands of the indigenous Zapotec community Unión Hidalgo and threaten the human-right defenders Bettina Cruz Velázquez and Maribel González with death. These two are accompanying the property-owners who oppose the Wind Corridor of the Isthmus (CEI).

3 November: the civil organization “Consortium for Parliamentary Dialogue and Equity Oaxaca A.C.“ presents a denunciation before the State Attorney General’s Office (PGJE) regarding the harassment of its offices and the robbery of documents on the human-rights situation in the state as well as cellular phones and computer equipment.

4 November: the historical conflict between entities in Oaxaca and Chiapas for the possession of 4,975 hectares in the region of Los Chimalapas ends in two confrontations, which leave 10 injured and 2 disappeared

4 November: opponents of the Wind-Energy Project of Unión Hidalgo in the Tehuantepec Isthmus, present a legal denunciation for injuries, gunshots, dangerous assault, and death-threats before the municipal agent of La Venta, Ventura Ordaz Santiago.

14-23 November: a “symbolic compensation” is awarded by the government of Gabino Cué to compensate 64 “survivors and former political prisoners” due to the “moral damage” suffered during the socio-politial conflict of 2006-7, a fruit of the demand for reparation made through civil methods. It provokes a confrontation between the Mexican League for the Defense of Human Rights in Oaxaca (Limeddh) and the Committee of Relatives, Disappeared, Murdered, and Political Prisoners in Oaxaca (Cofadappo).

24-25 November: In observation of the International Day of Non-Violence towards Women, the movement “Totally indignant“ organize an event in Oaxaca de Juárez to remember the victims of violence and to celebrate life in the state that occupies the fourth place in feminicides at the national level.

25 November: In commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the repression directed against the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) in 2006, teachers from Section 22 of the SNTE carry out a march in Oaxaca de Juárez. Members of organizations and the teachers’ movement unveil a commemorative plaque to remember the resistance of the movement.

30 November: The Council of Peoples for the Defense of the Río Verde (COPUDEVER) presents a judicial demand against Gabino Cué Monteagudo, governor of Oaxaca, for violating constitutional guarantees, concretelly the right to petition and to audience. The organization’s protest follows its attempts during nearly eleven months to formally solicit an audience with the state-governor to request the definitive cancellation of the “Paso de la Reina” hydroelectric project and to show him studies of the negative impacts this dam would have.

19 December: In light of the lack of responses by the state government 16 months after their having been expelled from San Juan Copala, displaced women from the Triqui zone announce that they will engage in a walking march from the communities of Agua Fría, Santa Cruz Tilapa, and Yosoyuxi toward the capital. In other news, several media publish articles on the report of the Euro-deputies Satu Hassi (Finland) and Franziska Keller (Germany) after their official visit to Mexico last September. Said report identifies several challenges regarding investigations into the murder of activists Jyri Jaakkola and Bety Cariño

24 December: Rafael Rodríguez Vicente, ex-director of Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (1995-8), is murdered in the municipality of Santa Lucía del Camino, Oaxaca.