(from Kolectivo Todxs Somos Presxs)
 
San Isidro Aloapam. Ixtlàn de Juàrez. Oaxaca
June 20, 2007

End to the violence of the PRI party, paramilitaries, lumber poachers, and police against the compañeros, compañeras, defenders of the forest of San Isidrio Aloapam, CIPO-RFM members, and adherents of the Zapatistas’ Other Campaign!
 
To the people of the world:
To the people of Oaxaca:
To the people of Mexico:
To people, groups, and collectives:
To the anarchists of the world:
To all the compañeros and compañeras that make up the Other Campaign:
Compañeros and compañeras:

On the morning of June 18, approximately 600 lumber poachers from the municipality of San Miguel Aloapam entered the ecological forest reserve under the care and protection of San Isidro Aloapam with sharpened sticks, firearms such as rifles and shotguns, machetes and axes. Under the pretext of an insect plague, they entered with the intention to clear the forest that does not belong to them.

Prior to these events, approximately 70 inhabitants of San Isidro Aloapam, who had decided in a community assembly in 1999 to defend the forest and not to kill the trees, approached the location where the lumber poachers were trying to cut down trees in order to persuade them of the importance of protecting the forest and natural habitat that provides the water that they consume, wild animals, and the air that we breathe. This site is called Iyu-Ziuni in the local Zapotec language. Upon arrival at this site they found that the lumber poachers were armed and inebriated.

The inhabitants of San Isidro Aloapam respectfully greeted the authorities present from San Miguel Aloapam. The response was insults, physical attacks, gunshots, the arrest of five inhabitansts of San Isidro Aloapam, imprisonment and torture. In the moment of these events, the compañeros and compañeras from San Isidro Aloapam were surrounded, physically attacked, and those who were able to, escaped running and falling through the forest. Many of the victims were women and elders. Those detained were brutally assaulted, their clothes torn as a result of the violence, and they were tied at the wrists. At the present time, their physical and emotional condition remains unknown.

It is important to state clearly that while the attackers from San Miguel Aloapam were pursuing our compañeros and compañeras, the PRI municipal authourity of San Miguel Aloapam, C. Fidel Alejandro Cruz Pablo, who was in the background and intoxicated, opened fire on all those who were running - resulting in the injuring and killing of members of his own assembled forces.

The following words were said by San Miguel Aloapam authorities, attackers, and lumber poachers during the violence: “Give these assholes what they deserve”; “We were born to die, and if it doesn’t happen, now is when”; “Now that we’re here, let’s give it to these upstarts, isn’t that what we came for?”; “For once let’s grab them and kill them, here they’ll stay as food for the vultures, which there’s not enough of.”

In anonymous phone calls from San Miguel Aloapam it was said that those detained were tied at the hands and feet, were being beaten, tortured, stripped, and submerged in cold water, and were not being fed.

The detainees are the following:
JUVENTINO CRUZ PEREZ, 19 years old
JUANA MORALES PEREZ, 30 years old
EUTIMIO MENDEZ LOPEZ, 32 years old
ANASTACIO LOPEZ PEREZ, 48 years old
ARTEMIO PEREZ CRUZ, 53 years old, deputy authority of San Isidro
SANTOS PEREZ CRUZ, 54 years old

We denounce that the release of the detainees is conditioned upon the turning in of San Isidro Aloapam’s own authorities and selected inhabitants to the authorities of San Miguel Aloapam. We also denounce the attackers’ theft of two trucks in which the residents of San Isidro had been travelling. We further denounce that the mainstream media have provided mixed information, are inciting further violence and confrontation, are creating conditions of escalated violence against San Isidro Aloapam, and have directly accused members of Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca (CIPO-RFM) as those responsible for the events. The media have stated repeatedly and dishonestly that those of San Isidro who are members of CIPO-RFM were armed during the events. These declarations only escalate the situation, provoke the violence of San Miguel Aloapam, create an atmosphere of fear and stress in the small population of San Isidro Aloapam, a population of elders, women, men, and many children, who now find themselves under the threat of further violence against their community and forest. We would also like to mention that as only one town in the municipality of San Miguel Aloapam, its population is much smaller than that of the capital, also named San Miguel Aloapam.

Currently Priistas from San Miguel have blocked some roads from San Isidro with chains and trees. At some points along the route there is surveillance by these same Priistas to impede the passage of San Isidro residents, and to ensure that the population neither enters nor exits the community.

WE HOLD RESPONSIBLE:

The state government of Oaxaca, headed by Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, which permits, contributes to, helps, accepts bribes from, and advises the lumber poachers and Priista authorities of San Miguel Aloapam. In addition, at other times, the Preventative Police of the State of Oaxaca has called on the support of paramilitary lumber poachers against people from San Isidro Aloapam.

The federal government for having provoked the current problems between San Isidro Aloapam and the PRIista lumber poachers of San Miguel Aloapam, because in 1981 the president of Mexico, in an official document, only recognizes the communal land holders of San Miguel Aloapam, thus excluding and forgetting the people of San Isidro. With this the legal recognition of the communal land holders of San Isidro Aloapam disappears, “perhaps because of bad faith, or the limited memory of the functionaries” (in the words of San Isidro Aloapam inhabitants). This legal [dis]recognition was taken advantage of by the lumber poachers in their anxiousness to strip the entire forest.

The following are the people who have attacked and detained our compañeros and compañeras:
C. Fidel Alejandro Cruz Pablo, municipal president of San Miguel Aloapam
C. Joel Santiago Cruz, municipal treasurer of San Miguel Aloapam
C. Isaías Alavés Cruz, elder of San Miguel Aloapam
C. Pablo Alavés, municipal secretary of San Miguel Aloapam

IN THE FACE OF THE SEVERITY OF THE THREATS AGAINST OUR COMPAÑERAS AND COMPAÑEROS OF SAN ISIDRO ALOAPAM, MEMBERS OF THE POPULAR INDIGENOUS COUNCIL OF OAXCA (CIPO-RFM), ADHERENTS TO THE OTHER CAMPAIGN:

-WE INVITE-
*The formation HUMAN RIGHTS OBSERVATION AND ACCOMPANIMENT BRIGADES to the community of San Isidro Aloapam. For security, come with Human Rights organizations.
*The organization of SOLIDARITY CARAVANS with the people of San Isidro to break the media blockade and help with supplies and food for the population.
*That ALTERNATIVE MEDIA and HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIATIONS come to San Isidro Aloapam to document the history of the community, its struggle and resistance in defense of the forest, and the agressions of the lumber poachers, paramilitaries, and Priistas against the community.
*The organization of WORKSHOPS in the community: human rights, painting for children, music, dance etc. and workshops to conquer fear, stress, and terror that the Priista lumber poachers have brought to the community.
*The arrival to San Isidro Aloapam, only with PRIOR NOTICE AND PREVIOUS COMMUNICATION with the CIPO-RFM communal house in the city of Oaxaca, as well as prior notice to the residents of San Isidro Aloapam by calling the telephone numbers mentioned below.
*The sending of SOLIDARITY STATEMENTS AND LETTERS to the community of San Isidro Aloapam via the email address: todos_somospresos@hotmail.com

“SOLIDARITY WITH OTHERS IS PROTECTION FOR OURSELVES.”
NO TO THE VIOLENCE OF THE PRIISTAS, PARAMILITARIES, AND LUMBER POACHERS AGAINST THE CITIZENS OF SAN ISIDRO ALOAPAM! STOP THE CLEARING OF THE FORESTS! IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF THE POLITICAL PRISONERS OF SAN ISIDRO ALOAPAM!

Further information and links to the CIPO-RFM house in the city of Oaxaca:
51 7 81 83
51 7 81 90
Telephone number of the community offices of San Isidro Aloapam:
(01951) 15 29 00 1

With respect:
Kolectivo Todxs Somos Presxs
Adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle
todos_somospresos at hotmail dot com

Please send emails and make calls in solidarity and support of San Isidro Aloapam:

Juan Rafael Evira Quesada
Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, SEMARNAT
Telephone: 5628 0602 ext. 05, Fax: 56-28-06-43, Red: (Red 300,349 Red de Voz: 10901)
E-mail: c.secretario@semarnat.gob.mx .
Blvd. Adolfo Ruiz Cortínez 4209 Col. Jardines en la Montaña. C.P. 14210. México D.F.

Esteban Ortiz Rodea
Oaxacan delegate, SEMARNAT
Telephone: (951) 512 96 00, Fax: 951-5129634, Red: 29630
E-mail: delegado@oaxaca.semarnat.gob.mx

Ignacio Loyola Vera
Federal Attorney of Environmental Protection, PROFEPA
Telephone: 26-15-20-95 54-49-63-00, Fax: 26-15-20-41
E-mail: iloyola@profepa.gob.mx
Central Office: Ajusco 200 CP 14210 Col Jardines en la Montaña, Distrito Federal, TLALPAN

Edgar Guillermo Sigler Andrade
Delegate of PROFEPA in Oaxaca
Telephone: 9515160078, 9515141991, Fax: 9515169213
Email: delegado_oax@correo.profepa.gob.mx
Av. Independencia 709, Palacio Federal, Centro. CP 68000 Col Centro Oaxaca de Juárez, Oax.

Salvador Anta Fonseca
Regional Manager in Oaxaca of the National Forest Comission, CONAFOR
Sabinos 402, Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca. Colonia Reforma
Telephone: 01 951 5187210, E-mail: conafor@conafor.gob.mx

President FELIPE DE JESÚS CALDERÓN HINOJOSA
Official Residence “los Pinos,” Casa Miguel Alemán, Col. San Miguel Chapultepec, C.P. 11850, México D. F., Tel: +521 (55) 27891100, Fax: +521 (55) 52772376
felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mx

Licenciado Francisco Javier Ramírez Acuña,
Secretario de Gobernación,
Bucareli 99, 1er. piso, Col. Juárez, Delegación Cuauhtémoc, México D.F., C.P. 06600, México,
Fax: +521 (55) 5093 3414, Tel. +521 (55) 5093 3400
La dirección mail no aparece en los directorios, favor de mandar comunicación por fax

Lic. Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza,
Procurador General de la República
Av. Paseo de la Reforma #211-213 Col. Cuauhtémoc, Delegación Cuauhtémoc. México
D.F., C.P. 06500
email from website: http://www.pgr.gob.mx/index.asp

Dr. José Luis Soberanes Fernández
Presidente de la CNDH
Periférico Sur 3469, Col. San Jerónimo Lídice, 10200, México, D.F.
Tel: 631 00 40, 6 81 81 25, Fax: 56 81 84 90, Lada sin costo: 01 800 00
Correo electrónico: correo@fmdh.cndh.org.mx , correo@cndh.gob.mx

Jaime Mario Pérez Jiménez
Presidente de la Comisión Estatal de Derechos Humanos
Domicilio: Calle de los Derechos Humanos no. 210, Col. América, C.P. 68050, Oaxaca, Oax.
Teléfonos/Fax: Lada (951) 503 02 20, 503 02 21, 513 51 85, 513 51 91, 51351 97
Correo electrónico: correo@cedhoax.org