2019

January 6: Community elections are held in San Dionisio del Mar a month after reports of tension within the municipality and after the suspension of the special elections initially planned.

First week of January: At least three cases are reported in which elected municipal presidents did not assume their political positions, so that they may be occupied by men.

January 22: Almost nine years after the murder of Bety Cariño Trujillo and Jyri Antero Jaakkola, human rights defenders who were killed in San Juan Copala in 2010 while participating in a humanitarian mission, Daniel Martínez López is detained in the municipality of Juxtlahuaca for his alleged participation in the case.

January 22: Gustavo Cruz Mendoza, member of the Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca “Ricardo Flores Magón” (CIPO- RFM) is allegedly killed by a “paramilitary group” in the municipality of Santiago Jocotepec.

February 3: The Coordinator of United Peoples of the Ocotlán Valley (CPUVO) warns of the risk of violence in San José del Progreso, in the face of “the authoritarianism and abuse of power by [the mayor] Servando Díaz Vásquez, with his stubbornness in wanting to open the Municipal Palace in a violent manner,” an action in which, Díaz states, he could use “paramilitary groups” against those who oppose the San José mining project of the Fortuna Silver Mines company.

February 5: The Meeting in Defense of Territory, Common Goods, and the Rights of the People in Mexico is held in Santa María Atzompa.

February 9: The muxe activist and leader of the LGBQTTI community, Oscar Cazorla López, is assassinated.

February 11: Gerardo Froylán Gónzalez Cruz, member of the Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Rights (CODEDI) is detained by the Oaxaca State Attorney General’s Office on alleged criminal charges. CODEDI denounces that he showed signs of mistreatment and that the charges against him were “fabricated”.

March 4: The Coordinator of the United Peoples of the Ocotlán Valley (COPUVO) calls on the three levels of government to “work seriously on the dialogue tables established last February due to the increase in insecurity in San José del Progreso in the framework of the mining project of the Canadian company Fortuna Silver Mines.”

March 5: The All Rights for All Network (Red TDT) calls on the authorities to intervene “immediately through peaceful channels of dialogue” in the face of an agrarian conflict over seven thousand hectares in San Juan Jaltepec, Sierra Mixe.

March 14: Inhabitants of the Paso de la Reyna ejido announce that they have won an injunction that they had presented against the decree signed in June 2018 that abolished water bans and established reserve zones for national surface waters.

March 15: The Oaxacan Collective in Defense of the Territories once again demands justice for the murder of Bernardo Vasquez Sanchez who was an opponent of the San Jose mining project seven years ago.

March 20: Journalist Jesús Hiram Moreno, director of the information portal Evidencias, from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, is shot in Salina Cruz.

March 30 and 31: Consultations are held with indigenous peoples so that they can decide on the “Program for the Integral Development of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec”, a development project that would include the modernization of the ports of Salina Cruz, in Oaxaca, and Coatzacoalcos, in Veracruz, and that would seek to renovate about 300 kilometers of railway between both points.

April 1: Ten ejidatarios and landowners of the company “Grupo México” that operates the wind farm “El Retiro” on the same land, “were detained and violently evicted by elements of the state police and taken to unknown locations, denouncing relatives and the rest of the owners” in La Ventosa.

April 4: The indigenous and campesino organizations that make up the Council of Autonomous Oaxacan Organizations (COOA) begin a day of “struggle in protest of the serious abuses of the state” to demand a halt to the murders of defenders and activists, to the “simulated consultations” for the mega-projects, and to the criminalization of protest, among other demands.

April 10: Ana Luisa Cantoral, a reporter for the digital media site Página 3 and MVM Noticias in Oaxaca, receives death threats with a gender connotation via text messages.

April 10: In a solemn session, the town council of Magdalena Ocotlán de los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca declares its territory off-limits to mining,

April 11: The organization Corriente del Pueblo Sol Rojo denounces the murder of human rights defender Luis Armando Fuentes Aquino in the community of San Francisco Ixhuatán, Isthmus.

April 12: Juan Quintanar Gómez, lawyer and human rights defender who advises indigenous communities in various agrarian conflicts is shot in Oaxaca City.

April 25: Under the slogan “The Isthmus is ours,” around 50 indigenous and campesino organizations launch a joint declaration to express their “resounding rejection” of the mega-project of the Transisthmian Corridor.

April 28: In the framework of a tour in Oaxaca and in an act convened in Juchitán, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) converts a rally in which social programs were to be delivered into a free hand consultation to support the one that took place in the area two weeks before on the realization of the Transisthmian Corridor.

Early May: The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) proposes to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) an electrical network and a gas pipeline to connect Mexico with Central America. The plan would connect the Mayan Train and the Corredor Transístmico with these new projects.

May 2: Telésforo Santiago Enríquez, founder and communicator of community radio 98.7 F.M. “El Cafetal”, is assassinated in the municipality of San Agustín Loxicha.

May 7: In the framework of the ninth anniversary of the death of Bety Cariño Trujillo and Jyri Antero Jaakkola, human rights defenders murdered in San Juan Copalá in 2010, family and friends place commemorative plaques in the Estela de Luz and in the representation of the government of Oaxaca in Mexico City.

May 9: The All Rights for All Network (Red TDT) reports that the human rights defender, indigenous Zapotec, founder and legal representative of the organization Indigenous Women for Ciarena A.C., Silvia Pérez Yescas, has been the victim of new aggressions despite being in the Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and journalists.

May 9: A court ruling urges the head of the National Defense Secretariat (Sedena) to allow soldiers and officers to be questioned about the case of the forced disappearance of Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) members Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sánchez in Oaxaca in May 2007.

May 10: One year after the disappearance of human rights defender Ernesto Sernas García, his family members and members of the organization Sol Rojo denounce that up to now the justice system has not produced any results.

May 16: The Oaxacan organization Consortium for Parliamentary Dialogue and Equity presents a complaint to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT) for torture and grave violations of the guarantees of the human rights defender, Damián Gallardo Martínez, from his detention on May 18, 2013 until his release on December 28, 2018.

May 17-19: 59 indigenous Zapotec, Mixtec, Chontal, Cuicatec, Ikoots, and Mixe communities meet in Santa Catarina Lachatao and Capulálpam de Méndez de la Sierra Norte to “reflect on and exchange information about the situations that threaten our mother earth, through diverse extractive projects that violate our way of community life, our bodies, our relationship: with the earth, with our corn, with our water, with our spirituality, and with our sacred territories.”

May 25: The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) and the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) challenge the sentence, which favored the families of the victims of forced disappearance Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sánchez, both militant social fighters of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR).

May 28: The federal and state governments inaugurate the Energía Eólica del Sur park in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. It is considered the largest in Latin America and was built with an investment of more than 1.2 billion dollars by the Japanese company Mitsubishi

June 6: International human rights organizations issue a communiqué asking the Mexican authorities to protect Oaxacan journalist Soledad Jarquín Edgar, in light of the increase in threats against her “in connection with her search for justice for the femicide of her daughter, communicator María del Sol Cruz Jarquín” in June 2018, in the municipality of Juchitán de Zaragoza.

June 10: 15 days after the inauguration of the “Energía Eólica del Sur” park, a group of landowners from lands leased by the Japanese company Mitsubishi take over the electricity substation “for an indefinite period” to demand payment for the temporary and permanent damage to their lands.

June 14: 13 years after the violent eviction ordered by the former governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, of a sit-in by teachers demanding better working and educational conditions, Section 22 of the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) calls for a march in Oaxaca City. This march proposes to continue demanding justice and punishment for those guilty of the repression in 2006, which marked the beginning of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO).

June 14: The decree of the Inter-Oceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is issued, which will allow the project to begin, including a freight train and the expansion of the highway between Salina Cruz (Oaxaca) and Coatzacoalcos (Veracruz), as well as a duty-free zone to attract investment in the area.

19 June: Three years after the police evicted a blockade in opposition to the education reform in Noxchitlán, which left eight dead and 198 wounded by firearms, thousands of teachers from Section 22 of the National Education Workers’ Union (CNTE) march to demand justice.

June 21: “free, prior, and informed consultation of indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples and communities” begins, which will have the objective of “receiving opinions, proposals, and approaches on the principles and criteria that will support the Constitutional Reform Initiative and the corresponding regulatory laws on the rights of indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples.”

Early July: Ayuuk community defenders (Mixes) present an appeal against the federal authorities “for promoting the decentralized public body called ‘Inter-Oceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec’ which was published in the Official Journal of the Federation on June 14.

July 10: The LXIV Legislature of the Congress of the State of Oaxaca approves the law against digital gender violence in Oaxaca.

July 10: The Committee of Victims for Truth and Justice (Covic) announces that the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) denies its request to investigate the chain of command involved in the violent eviction on June 19, 2016 in Nochixtlán.

July 23: Zapotec communities of the Central Valleys, members of the “No to Mining Front, for a Future for All”, organize an alternative Guelaguetza in San Martin de los Cansecos.

July 31: The town council of San Francisco Ixhuatán declares in a public session that the municipality will remain “territory free of mining”.

August 15: An arrest warrant is released against the members of the Executive Committee of Section 09 of the Independent National Union of Health Workers (SINTS) in the state for participating in a strike to demand the reinstatement of more than 170 people who were fired.

August 15: Communities of the Chatinos and Mixtecos peoples of the Sierra Sur and Costa regions of Oaxaca speak out “in the face of the new threat of the construction of a new hydroelectric project in the Río Verde, promoted by the company GENERACIÓN ENERSI S.A. de CV.

August 27: The local Congress of Oaxaca approves a reform of the Civil Code to legalize marriage between same-sex couples.

August 30: One year after the broadcast of the Gender Violence Alert (AVG) in 40 municipalities of Oaxaca, several organizations working in defense of women’s rights report that 126 women were murdered in this period.

September 7 and 8: Representatives of social organizations and national and international groups participate in the National and International Assembly among Peoples “The Isthmus is Ours” that took place in Juchitán, Oaxaca, at the invitation of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) and the Indigenous Government Council (CIG).

September 19: Teachers from Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE-CNTE) begin six blockades on the main communication routes in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to demand the reconstruction of some 3,000 schools damaged by the September 2017 earthquakes.

September 22: An armed commando attempts to assassinate Cesar Luis Diaz, a member of the Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Peoples (CODEDI), and his family in Santiago Xanica, Miahuatlán.

September 25: The state Congress votes on and passes legislation which decriminalizes abortion.

Early October: Tropical Storm “Narda” causes serious damage in several states of the country, including Oaxaca.

October 6: During a speech in front of 2,506 students of the high school in Huajuapan, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) faces protests from the crowd, while mentioning the advances in various social programs.

October 7: Jales Dam overflows in Magdalena Ocotlán causing serious damage to the population.

October 10: 17 Months after the forced disappearance of Dr. Ernesto Sernas García, the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) denounces the inaction of the Mexican State.

November 6: Fredy García Ramírez, member of the Political Commission of the Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Rights (CODEDI), is detained in Oaxaca City. This organization denounces that this detention was arbitrary.

November 15: Alejandro Murat Hinojosa, governor of Oaxaca, presents his third government report.

End of November: Women throughout the state join the global protest called “The rapist is you” which aims to draw attention to violence against women through dance and song.

December 5: The Center for Human Rights and Advice to Indigenous Peoples (CEDHAPI) denounces the “extrajudicial execution” of indigenous defender Catalino Barradas Santiago, by elements of the municipal police of Santos Reyes Nopala, on the eve of the municipal presidential elections (by traditional methods) in that community.

December 6: Members of the Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Rights (Codedi) announce protest activities to demand the release of Fredy García, who was arrested last November.

December 11: Carlos Abad, a reporter with El Piñero de la Cuenca, denounces having been mentioned on a list of people threatened with death by the alleged organized crime group “Carteles Unidos”.

December 13: Juchitán’s traditional doctor and community defender, Isabel Jiménez, denounces that she was attacked by a man who got off a motorcycle taxi unit, took out a knife and attacked her.