2009

10 January: Ruben Valencia Nuñez, member of Oaxacan Voices Building Autonomy and Liberty (VOCAL), part of the APPO, is the subject of an attempted assassination in the centre of the City of Oaxaca.

12 January: The newspaper El Correo de Oaxaca reports 42 attacks against reporters in a systematic wave of repression during 2008. The newspaper denounces the fact that “in Oaxaca it has become impossible to carry out independent journalism”.

20 January: An appeal is granted to Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, a member of the APPO, who is accused of killing of United States journalist Bradley Roland Will.

29 January: A group of armed persons, presumed to be linked to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and to the Spanish company Eurus, attack and attempt to evict a group of campesinos from the La Venta ejido, municipality of Juchitán de Zaragoza in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The campesinos had organized together in opposition to the La Venta IV wind farm, which the Spanish company was building in the ejido without the permission of the residents. The campesinos had been blocking construction for a number of months.

29 January: The journalist Verónica Villalvazo, also known by her pseudonym Frida Guerrera, is attacked by a group of youths while walking in the historic centre of Oaxaca City.

2 February: The offices of the community radio station Radio Mixteca 88.7 FM in the municipality of Santiago Juxtlahuaca, in the Mixteca region, are shot at by unknown persons. It is claimed that the assailants were PRI activists.

4 February: The organisation Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), based in the US, states that there are major inconsistencies in the conclusions of the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) regarding the killing of the United States photographer Bradley Will. They state: “The theory the PGR maintains is that Brad Will was killed by a shot from a gun at close range. A ricochet shot, as determined by the PHR, supports the theory that he was killed by a shot from a longer range.”

5 February: The Attorney General’s Office of the Republic overturns an appeal granted to Juan Manual Martínez, accused of the killing of photographer Bradley Will, delaying his possible liberation.

18 February: A group of people, supposedly linked to the PRI, breaks up a protest blockade by fourteen teachers opposing an order of the governor, Ulises Ruíz. The teachers are beaten and detained for a number of hours.

20-22 February: The Second Ordinary Congress of the APPO is held in the city of Oaxaca. Among the final agreements, they decide not to recognize any level of government, except in negotiating the release of political prisoners.

20 February: Edgar Coache Verano, son of Marcelino Coache Verano a union activist and member of the APPO, is threatened by a group of men who harass and chase him.

4 March: Marcelino Coache Verano, a union activist and member and leader of the APPO, is abducted in Oaxaca City, tortured for hours, and then released the following morning.

18 March: Approximately 25,000 members of the Indigenous Movement for Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT) march in Oaxaca City to demand that the state government comes to the negotiation table to address their call for “justice, due to the onslaught and violence” committed in the last two years against members of MULT: “they have not yet investigated or detained anyone”.

26 March: Between the months of May 2006 and July 2007, the magistrates committee entrusted with the investigation of possible violations of individual rights in Oaxaca, submits a preliminary report to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN). The report does not judge if the actions of the municipal, state and federal authorities in recent events “were legally valid or not”. Nevertheless, it confirms that “serious violations of individual rights” were carried out during the period of intense social mobilization that occurred in Oaxaca to demand the resignation of the Governor, Ulises Ruíz.

6 April: Beatriz López Leyva, an ex local leader of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) is found murdered by unknown intruders at her house in the municipality of San Pedro Jicayán. In 2005, when López Leyva worked as secretary for the town council of San Pedro Jicayán, she had suffered a gun attack, for which local politicians linked to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) are alleged to have been responsible. More recently, López Leyva had denounced the mayor, Leonardo Silva Palacios, for having threatened to kill her in order to stop her taking part in protests against the diversion of municipal funds.

17 April: More than twenty organisations demonstrate against the killing of women in Oaxaca and the to call for the resolution of outstanding cases.

17 – 18 April: The forum “Weaving Resistance for the Defence of Our Territory“ takes place in San Pedro Apóstol, Ocotlán, Oaxaca, bringing together more than 400 people.

20 April: After more than eleven months of imprisonment and more than a year of freedom on bail, David Venegas, otherwise known as “El Alebrije”, is finally fully acquitted of all charges relating to the possession and sale of drugs. David Venegas issues a call for solidarity to all other prisoners.

23 April: Nadín Reyes Maldonado, daughter of Edmundo Reyes Amaya, one of the members of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR, Ejército Popular Revolucionario) who disappeared in Oaxaca on the 24th May 2007, ask members of the Mediation Commission between the EPR and the Government (COMED, from its initials in Spanish) to make one “last effort” and to meet the call for dialogue issued by Fernando Gómez Mont, the Interior Minister. A few days earlier, members of Comed had dissolved the organization, due to “lack of political will” on the part of the federal government to resolve the case of the disappeared.

23 April: Members of the Mexican army enter the indigenous community of San Miguel Panixtlahuaca and station checkpoints at the entrances and exits while they carry out searches, supposedly in accordance with the application of the law for the control of firearms. Community members have since reported that they were robbed of money and subjected to intimidation.

28 April: Family members and defenders of Marcelino Coache report a worrying increase in harassment against them. On March 4^th Marcelino Coache was detained and tortured by individuals dressed in police uniforms. In February, Marcelino Coache’s son reported harassment, while the week before, members of his defence committee received threatening messages via their mobiles. At the beginning of May, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH, Comisión Inter Americana de Derechos Humanos) grants Marcelino Coache along with his family and defenders, preventative measures for their safety, meaning that the Mexican state is responsible for anything that happens to them.

6 May: More than 700 state and federal police forcibly remove a group of residents from the La Natividad mine, located in the municipality San José del Progreso. The mine is owned by the mining company Cuzcatlán, a subsidiary of the Canadian transnational, Fortuna Silver. During the events one policeman is injured and eighteen people are detained for resisting the police, fourteen of whom are released the next day. Finally, the other four detainees are released on 14 May due to lack of evidence.

24 May: Family members and political activists of the APPO take part in a march to demand the re-appearance of the members of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), Edmundo Reyes and Gabriel Cruz, who were detained in Oaxaca in May 2007.

5 June: APPO activists Victor Hugo Martínez Toledo and Miguel Angel García are released from the central penitentiary, Santa María Ixcotel, after having been accused of the violent rape of a woman.

5 June: Tuxtepec Municipal Police open fire on a caravan of the Regional Independent Campesino Movement – National Co-ordinator of the Plan de Ayala – National Movement. Three members of the caravan are injured.

8 June: Sergio Martínez Vásquez, an activist of the Committee for Defence of the Rights of the People (Codep), an affiliate of the APPO, is found dead inside his vehicle, in the community of Pino Súarez, municipality of Santiago Juxtlahuaca.

8 June: A march entitled “Freedom for the 12 Political Prisoners from the Loxicha Region” leaves Oaxaca for Mexico City.

13 June: In an attack on the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala in the Triqui region, a thirteen year old boy is killed and his sixteen year old sister seriously wounded. The attack, using high calibre weapons, takes place in the centre of the municipality and lasts two hours.

15 June: The National Human Rights Committee (CNDH) submits recommendation 26/2009 to Governor Ulises Ruiz, along with Attorney General of the Republic (PGR), Eduardo Medina Mora, and the State Congress, for not having taken the necessary preventative measures for the safety of Beatriz López Leyva in 2005. López Leyva was murdered on April 6th.

16 June: The caravan / march for the freedom of the 12 imprisoned Loxichas arrives in Mexico City, made up of family members of the imprisoned, as well as members of The Other Campaign. They march to demand the freedom of the prisoners who have been detained for supposed links with armed groups.

22 June: Following the fourth order for the commitment of Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, accused of the murder of journalist Brad Will, members of the APPO announce that they will seek the intervention of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (CIDH) and of Amnesty International (AI) to secure his freedom.

29 June: In response to the insufficient and empty responses given by the state and federal government, the full assembly of Section 22 of the National Education Workers Union (SNTE) takes the unanimous decision to cast a protest vote against all political parties in the elections on July 5^th.

5 July: 60% of the electorate fails to vote in the federal elections. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is the leading party in eleven federal districts of Oaxaca. The Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) comes in second place, with the National Action Party almost equalling the PRD vote. According to statistics, 4.47% of voters spoiled their votes, while 0.97% voted in favour of other candidates who were not registered.

13 July: A group of 87 owners of 1,050 hectares of land that houses the wind farm, ‘La Ventosa’, expel Spanish technicians and operators from the electricity plant, which is owned by Spanish company Iderranova. The landowners demand that they be told the exact quantity of electricity generated by the plant and to whom the energy is sold, as after six months of operation, landowners have only received between 25 and 100 pesos per hectare per month.

18 July: After twelve years in prison, four of the twelve indigenous prisoners from the Loxicha region, Estanislao Martínez Santiago, Ricardo Martínez Enríquez, Cirilo Ambrosio Antonio and Urbano Ruiz Cruz, are granted early release from jail. However, eight indigenous people remain in prison, four of whom have sentences lasting from 30 to 34 years.

22 July: Ernesto Reyes Martínez, a journalist working for the daily newspaper Noticias Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca and a correspondent for Radio XEW, is detained after attempting to photograph the pursuit of an alleged extortionist by the ministerial police. Approximately fifteen soldiers from the 98^th Infantry Battalion violently detain Reyes, temporarily confiscating two cellular phones (from which they erase all photographs), searching his vehicle and belongings and illegally detaining both him and his wife.

27 July: The Council of Peoples United for the Defence of the Rio Verde (Copudever) in Tataltepec de Valdés and the president of the Commission for the Assets of Paso de la Reina’s Ejido announce that the Ejido’s general assembly has decided to revoke permission given on 27 June 2007 to the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and its subsidiaries that would allow for field studies for the Paso de la Reina Multiple Uses Hydroelectric Project.

July: The Oaxaca Attorney General welcomes the concluding report from ex-agents of the Canadian Royal Mounted Police which confirms that Indymedia reporter Brad Will was killed at point blank range. In response, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO, Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca) and the teachers’ union discount the investigation, stating that it is a ruse, “another farce” played out by the governments of Felipe Calderón and Ulises Ruiz to hide the truth.

5 August: LIMMEDDH, an NGO, reports that since the beginning of 2009, 63 of the people that were detained on November 25, 2006 and who were victims of human rights violations have made complaints to state authorities demanding reparation for injuries. These include arbitrary detention and torture, among other violations. The total amount demanded in reparations is 58.4 million pesos.

13 August: Campesinos from La Ventosa in the municipality of Juchitán in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, call on the Spanish company Iberranova to respond to their demands, among them payment for the use of their land by the company and an increase in the rent for the plots where the company has installed wind turbines. They warn that if the company does not comply with their demands they will tear up the contracts they have signed for the operation of the Mexican Ecological Park in La Ventosa.

17 August: A national assembly is held in Matías Romero (in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec) by the Zapatista Indigenous Agrarian Movement (MAIZ, Movimiento Agrario Indígena Zapatista), with more than 150 delegates from diverse organizations. They agree to the creation of a campesino front with the purpose of insisting that sectoral policies contain as core themes food sovereignty and no further cuts to the farming budget during 2010.

27 August: The November 25 Liberation Committee (Comité de Liberación 25 de Noviembre) demands that the Federal judicial authorities guarantee an adequate defence for Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, the APPO member accused of killing U.S. photographer, Brad Will. The Committee denounces delays in the trial process due to legal subterfuges employed by the Federal Attorney General’s Office. It says that these include “attempts to fabricate evidence in order to incriminate the detainee… who we consider a hostage of the State and a bargaining chip in Plan Mérida, as the Brad Will case has been an issue in the negotiations in the transfer of resources promised under the initiative.”

31 August: The state assembly of Section 22 of the National Educations Workers’ Union (SNTE) agrees to suspend all work for a period of four days and to mobilize the union to demand punishment for the intellectual authors and perpetrators of the murder of teacher Antonio Norberto Camacho. He was killed a few days earlier when teachers of Section 22 took over two schools in San Pedro Jicayán and were shot at by teachers from Section 59.

30 August: Several unknown individuals brandishing fire arms show up at the home of the journalist Guillermo Soto Bejarano, editorial director of the weekly newspaper De Opinión, Voz del Istmo.

7 September: The Federal Attorney General’s Office for Environmental Protection (Procuraduría Federal de Protección al Ambiente, or PROFEPA) shuts down construction work on a dam in the municipality of Santa Catarina Minas in the Oaxacan Central Valleys region.

17 September: The full session of the Federal Access to Information Institute (IFAI, Instituto Federal de Acceso a la Información) upholds the decision by the federal Centre for Research and National Security (CISEN, Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional) to keep secret for twelve years documents relating to the violence involving the APPO the during the 2006 events in Oaxaca.

24 September: Raúl Cisneros Peláez and Jaime Solano, members of the Triqui Movement for Unification and Struggle (MULT, Movimiento de Unificación y Lucha Triqui), are killed in an ambush in Putla Villa de Guerrero in the Mixteca region.

30 September: The Federal judicial authorities deny an appeal by Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz; as a consequence the State Congress is obliged to start the process to impeach him. During this year’s federal electoral campaign the Convergencia party denounces Ruiz for the alleged use of funds to promote his image, with decals with his photo displayed on vehicles used by the “Mobile Development Units” social programme.

14 October: The Supreme Court (SCJN, Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación) publishes a resolution on human rights violations committed by authorities during the Oaxaca conflict of 2006 and 2007. The resolution states in particular that the governor during the period, Ulises Ruiz Ortíz, is responsible for human rights violations.

14 October: Several NGOs present a report on the state of human rights defenders in Oaxaca which highlights seven characteristics of the current situation in the State of Oaxaca. Impunity in cases of human rights violations; criminalization of social protest, which worsened after the social movement of 2006; militarization, which has been a hallmark of the current federal government; the destruction of the social fabric; the existence of agrarian conflicts and the defence of natural resources and finally, the electoral process leading up to 2010. Additionally, in describing the situation faced by human rights defenders in Oaxaca, the analysis profiles the aggressors and concludes that the majority are individuals with close ties to the government.

1 November: The autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala in the Triqui region reports an assassination attempt against Mayor José Ramírez Flores, which led to the death of Antonio Ramírez Paz, a resident of the municipality. The assassin is detained and later confesses that the planners of the attack included, among others, leaders of the Union for Social Welfare in the Triqui Region (UBISORT) as well as state officials.

13 and 14 November: The Oaxacan Collective for the Defence of the Land hold the Second National Forum “Weaving Resistance in Defence of Our Land” in the Mixe community of San Juan Jaltepec de Cadayoc, a municipality of San Juan Cotzocón. The forum’s stated objectives are “to allow for the sharing of experiences in defence of the land, territory, and natural resources of indigenous communities, and to explore the possibilities for joint communal efforts in promotion of a common defence of indigenous peoples’ land, territory, and natural resources.”

16 November: State police dressed in civilian clothes attack teachers of Section 22 of the National Educational Workers’ Union (SNTE) and members of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) who are protesting in front of the former governmental palace during the fifth annual report of governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. The protesters read a “governmental counter-report,” which claims that the five years of Ulises Ruiz’s rule have in fact been “tyrannical and anti-democratic.” Referring to the protests held during his report, Ulises Ruiz claims that his opponents “are desperate with regard to their campaign, since their candidates [for the next elections] can’t get anyone’s support.” He adds that the incidents constitute “little protests.”

18 November: Family-members and friends of Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, accused of the murder of American journalist Brad Will, announce that they will go on hunger strike. Their announcement marks the beginning of a sit-in outside the Fifth District Court, which is to continue until Juan Manuel is released.

18 November: The “Meeting for Justice and Against Impunity: Cases Before the Supreme Court of Mexico” is held in Oaxaca City. The objective of the event is to analyse the findings of the Supreme Court in the cases of Lydia Cacho, Atenco, Acteal, and Oaxaca as well as the implications of each for social movements, victims of repression, and the defence of justice and of human rights.

19 November: A communiqué is released denouncing the intimidation of residents of Paso de la Reina by state police units, the day after a mass presided over by the bishop of Puerto Escondido is celebrated in support of their cause.

25 November: Hundreds of teachers from Section 22 of the National Educational Workers’ Union (SNTE) march in Oaxaca City in commemoration of the third anniversary of the repression by the Federal Preventive Police of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), to which they belong. APPO teachers and activists from other parts of Oaxaca also march in the principal cities of the state.

27 November: The Council of Peoples in Defence of Land and Territory announce that ejidatarios of San Pedro Ixtlahuaca, Tiracox, Cuilapan de Guerrero, Zaachila, and San Lucas Tlanichico have agreed not to cede their lands for the construction of a highway. The Council claim that some ejidatarios have received death-threats from workers associated with Roads and Airports of Oaxaca (CAO).

29 November: The Independent Triqui Movement for Unity and Struggle (MULT-I) denounces the murder of a minor and the injuring of three others by members of the Union for Social Welfare in the Triqui Region (UBISORT) and the Popular United Party-Movement for Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT-PUP) in the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala. The attack takes place after members of UBISORT block the road to the locality in an attempt to prevent commissioners of the Popular Front for the Defence of Land (FPDT) from San Salvador Atenco from passing through. The next day, MULT denies involvement in the attack and claims that UBISORT was responsible.

1 December: Leonardo Clemente Cruz, an indigenous Chinantecan activist from the Committee for Popular Defence (CODECI), is found dead five kilometres from the municipality of Ixtlán de Juárez. His corpse bears signs of a beating. On 24 November, more than a hundred CODECI activists leave Tuxtepec for Oaxaca City in eight buses with the intention of participating in the State Democratic Convention “Free Oaxaca,” but are intercepted by units of the State Preventive Police (PEP). The police forcibly remove passengers from the buses and detain some for half an hour. Clemente Cruz is reported missing the same day.

8 December: A member of the Union for Social Welfare in the Triqui Region (UBISORT) is killed during a shoot-out in San Juan Copala.

13 December: Prisoners incarcerated in Santa María Ixcotel, outside Oaxaca City, protest on top of the prison roof claiming inadequate medical attention and abusive treatment from the prison authorities.