2018

January 10: The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) ruled to protect the installation of the wind farm of the Spanish company Eólica del Sur in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

January 10: Oaxaca’s Junta de Coordinación Política (Jucopo) decides to install the Special Commission to address and investigate feminicidal violence.

January 18: The feminist organization Consorcio para el Diálogo Parlamentario y la Equidad Oaxaca reported a series of aggressions against it that form a “systematic pattern of attacks” that include intimidation, monitoring, surveillance, smear campaigns, searches and robberies in the organization’s offices, and even in the homes of its members.

January 19: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) ordered Mexico to “immediately protect the life and personal integrity of the social activist Bettina Cruz and her family members,” after affirming the dangerous situation she faces because of her work in defense of the rights of indigenous peoples who oppose the construction of wind projects in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

January 22: The disappearance of the Isthmus Sun journalist Agustín Silva Vasquéz was reported.

February 12: Three members of the Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Rights (CODEDI) lost their lives and two more were injured after an armed attack when they were traveling from the city of Oaxaca de Juárez to Puerto Angel after a meeting with government authorities in the state capital.

February 16: An earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale occurred on the coast of Oaxaca, with an epicenter 11 kilometers south of Pinotepa Nacional. The State Coordination of Civil Protection reported 6 thousand damaged houses.

February 23 and 24: The Second State Meeting of Peoples, Communities, and Organizations, “Here We Say Yes to Life, No to Mining” took place in the community of Magdalena Teitipac, Tlacolula.

March 3: The Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Rights (CODEDI) denounced that, after carrying out a sit-in in the zócalo of Oaxaca City to demand a response to an armed attack in which three of its members died last February, CODEDI has suffered acts of intimidation, harassment, and political violence.

March 8: Within the framework of International Women’s Day, various organizations and collectives in Oaxaca protested with the objective of, among other demands, express that “we are fed up with inequalities and precariousness that place us in very adverse positions in the face of patriarchy, wage labor, care, consumption, the exercise of our rights, and political participation, because of the inequalities that we face due to origin, class, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disabilities.

March 14: Community authorities presented the Internal Rules of the ejido Paso de la Reyna in Jamiltepec, which seeks to protect its territory, communal goods, its ways of life, and organization, in the face of the threat of the construction of a dam in the region.

29 March: Five members of the General Assembly of the People of San Dionisio del Mar were wounded after armed men shot them while they performed a religious Easter tradition in their ikoots community.

April 1: The president of the Committee of Victims of Nochixtlán (Covic), Santiago Ambrosio Hernández, was found in his house tied up and with signs of torture after being attacked by four individuals who entered his house by force.

April 9: Community members of the Zapotec town of Unión Hidalgo rejected the implementation of a consultation process that the Secretary of Energy (Sener) wanted to promote in favor of the company “Eólica Oaxaca”, subsidiary of Electricidad de Francia (EDF) for the construction of a new wind farm in their community.

April 16: The members of the “Coordination of Peoples United for the Care and Defense of Water” (COPUDA) denounced that the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI) “does not attend the indigenous consultation meetings, which is why the negotiations have been cancelled and delayed” and that these non-compliances are part of “a strategy of the State to tire the communities which we have organized to care for and defend our water.

April 18: The “Caravan of the Forgotten”, formed by 500 members of the General Coordinator of the Isthmus of Oaxaca (CGDI) arrived in Huajuapan de León, where Mixtec communities joined the caravan bound for the City of Mexico.

1 May: Reporter Juan Alberto Carmona Contreras for the digital media site Piñero de la Cuenca, received death threats through Facebook by unknown people in Tuxtepec, and was harassed by unknown people outside his home.

May 6: Municipal and agrarian authorities, as well as residents of San Juan Mixtepec, rejected the reopening of the Los Tejocotes mine, demonstrating at its entrances.

May 7: The Collective for the Citizenship of Women and Women belonging to the muxe and trans community, originating from diverse regions of Oaxaca, demanded the cancellation “of the entries of the men who illegally registered their candidacy in order to participate in the electoral contest, occupying spaces designated for women.

May 17: The First District Court pronounced itself not only in favor of the definitive suspension of the consultation procedure, but also in favor of the construction and operation of the “Gunaa Sicarú” wind power plant of the Oaxaca Wind Energy Company, subsidiary of the French company EDF in Unión Hidalgo, Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

June 13: The Office of the Human Rights Defender of the People of Oaxaca (DDHPO) issued an Early Warning for the high-risk situation faced by Zapotec indigenous defenders of Unión Hidalgo who have been opposing megaprojects of wind energy in the Isthmus.

June 18: In the framework of Nochixtlán’s second anniversary, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico (UN-DH) expressed its concern that the Mexican government has failed to explain the tragedy of June 19, 2016 involving the repression of a teachers protest, in which several civilians were killed and more than one hundred injured.

July 1: Mexico held the largest elections in its history, with 3,400 public offices, including the president of the Mexican republic. Several violent incidents occurred in Oaxaca.

July 16: An armed attack occurred between residents of San Lucas Ixcotepec and Santa María Ecatepec, in the south mountains of the state of Oaxaca in a conflict over land boundaries. The attack left 13 dead, two of them women.

July 22nd: The Assembly of Indigenous Peoples of the Isthmus in Defense of Land and Territory (APIITDTT), as well as the Community Assembly of Álvaro Obregón denounced the assassination of indigenous defender Rolando Crispín López.

July 26: The Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Peoples (CODEDI) denounced that a group of soldiers installed a checkpoint 500 meters from the entrance of the former German farm, where CODEDI’s training center is located in Santa María Huatulco.

July 27: Members of the Council of United Peoples in Defense of the Río Verde (COPUDEVER), made up of 6 municipalities, filed an appeal to prevent the privatization of the “Cuenca Río Verde Atoyac, Paso de la Reina” which would open the possibility of the construction of a hydroelectric dam or mining project.

August 1: The Coordination for the Freedom of Criminalized Human Rights Defenders in Oaxaca, made up of 10 state civil organizations, demanded justice for 33 human rights defenders who are under judicial process.

August 8: Personnel from the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) will search state facilities in Oaxaca for militants of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sánchez and Edmundo Reyes Amaya, who disappeared in Oaxaca In May 2007.

August 26: The 8th Meeting of Earthquake Victims took place, where more than a thousand people from the Isthmus of Tehueantepec, Chiapas, Morelos, Puebla, and Mexico City gathered in Juchitán City to demand a dignified rebuilding process after the earthquakes that occurred during September 2017.

September 2: At the request of the Oaxaca Human Rights Defenders Office (DDHPO),

The Ministry of the Interior (Segob) issued a Gender Violence Alert (AVG) due to the lack of action by the Oaxacan state government.

September 7: One year after the 2017 earthquake, the civil association Gobixha Committee for the Integral Defence of Human Rights (CODIGO DH) published a report on the progress and pending reconstruction, as well as the situation of the victims in Oaxaca.

September 14: The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) denied permission for the South American transnational company Generación Enersi to install a hydroelectric dam in San Felipe Usila, in the Chinanteca zone of the state.

September 25: After 11 p.m., around 80 members of the Oaxaca State Investigation Agency (AEI) surround the home of journalist Deimos Sánchez Cruz, and 20 of the members violently entered his home. The agency did not produce a search warrant for the invasion.

September 27: The Citizen Report “Under Attack, Human Rights in Oaxaca“, was presented. It is a document which was prepared by Oaxacan civil organizations in the framework of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).

October 7: Due to heavy rains, the jales dam overflowed, which stores mining waste from Minera Cuzcatlán S.A. de C.V., a subsidiary of Fortuna Silver Mines, which has been operating the “San José” Mining Project in commercial production since 2011.

October 11 and 12: in Oaxaca City, 50 indigenous communities and civil organizations took national and international mining companies, as well as the Mexican State, to a “popular community trial” for 22 cases of violations of the rights of indigenous peoples derived from the 322 concessions granted for 41 mining projects covering a total surface of 462,974 hectares in the state.

October 12: The Federal Attorney General’s Office for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA) requested the Compañía Minera Cuzcatlán, S. A. de C. V., a subsidiary of the Canadian company Fortuna Silver Mines, located in the municipality of San José del Progreso, to carry out “urgent measures regarding the spillage of mining waste”.

October 25: Noel Castillo Aguilar is shot dead in the municipality of Santiago Astata. He is the fifth member of the Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Rights (CODEDI) assassinated in 2018.

October 29: The Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Rights (CODEDI) denounced that “another act of aggression was registered” against them, “when members of the Military approached in a convoy to the Training Center of the former German Farm in the southern Zapotec mountains”.

November 3 and 4: The First Meeting of Ejido communities for the Defense of Life, Water, Land, and Territory was held in the community of San Juan Cacahuatepec, on the Costa Chica of Oaxaca.

November 6: The Coordination for the Freedom of Criminalized Defenders of Oaxaca reported that “after more than three years of facing a judicial process with serious violations of due process, torture, and unreported detention, 22 members of the organization Corriente del Pueblo Sol Rojo had their criminal cases from 2015 dropped, in which they were accused of terrorism and carrying weapons (Molotov cocktails). The end of the judicial process was promoted in August by lawyer Ernesto Sernas, refuting a series of evidences brought by the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic.

November 15: The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) denied protection to indigenous people who oppose the installation of 132 wind turbines in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec by the company Energía Eólica del Sur. “The SCJN had the chance to protect the rights of indigenous peoples, but preferred to endorse a simulated consultation. Its decision in favor of a megaproject is contrary and regressive to human rights principles and standards,” criticized the organization Fundar.

November 28: The Gobixha Committee for the Integral Defence of Human Rights (CODIGO DH) and the National Network All Rights for All (RedTdt) warned of the risk of a possible armed attack against the General Assembly of the People of San Dionisio del Mar shortly before the special municipal election scheduled for December 9.

December 9: The State Electoral and Citizen Participation Institute of Oaxaca (IEEPCO) reported that it suspend the day’s special election in the municipality of San Dionisio del Mar “for lack of conditions and [the] violence generated.

December 10: On International Human Rights Day, in an act in front of the Government Palace of the City of Oaxaca, peoples, communities, and organizations that participated in the “Community People’s Trial against the State and Mining Companies in Oaxaca” last October publicly presented the final ruling.

December 11: Seven journalists from different Oaxacan media outlets reported a collective threat against them, received via message on the Facebook page of the newspaper Noticias Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca the day before.

December 11: 28 femicides have occurred during the 103 days since the Gender Violence Alert against Women (AVGM) was issued in Oaxaca, reported Consorcio para el Diálogo Parlamentario y la Equidad (Consortium for Parliamentary Dialogue and Equity).

December 28: Twelve political prisoners were released, mostly teachers affiliated with the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) and activists from Oaxaca.