Two Dead in Confrontation in Oaxaca, Near Site of Canadian Mine

[cory777]

Source: Upside Down World

Environmentalist Priest Padre Martín Beaten

Just two weeks prior to the July 4 state-wide election in Oaxaca, Mexico, an anti-mining and political confrontation took place. A battle broke out between PRIistas and residents of the villages El Cuajilote and Maguey Largo who oppose the exploitation of the mine "La Trinidad" located on communal lands in the municipality of Ocotlán, Oaxaca on June 19. The confrontation between those opposing the Canadian silver mine in the Ocotlán municipality of San José del Progreso, and PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) city officials resulted in the shooting deaths of two: PRI mayor of San José del Progreso, Venancio Oscar Martínez Rivera, and his town councillor for Health, Felix Misael Hernández.

The struggle against the Canadian-owned mine has been ongoing since early 2009. No general agreement by residents was ever obtained to permit mining operations. Meetings and forums facilitated by local parish priest Father Martin Octavio García Ortiz took place in San José del Progreso in the spring of 2009. As follow-up, people from the neighboring villages of El Cuajilote and Maguey Largo, and from the municipality’s head city of Ocotlán, blocked access to the mine "La Trinidad" to demand that the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) cancel the mining concession. Its exploitation would contaminate their natural resources, principally the water, with metals, cyanide, mercury, copper sulfate and arsenic, they insisted. Furthermore, they demanded that Mexico comply with Covenant 169 of the International Labor Organization, which says local residents must be consulted for approval of such projects. Nevertheless, on May 6, 2009, agents of the Federal and State Preventive Police violently broke up blockade protests. Men and women who opposed the mine resisted with sticks and stones against police with attack dogs and riot gear.

Mayor Martínez Rivera not only did not consult the population about the mining operation, he personally solicited Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz to send in the anti-riot police from Police Unit for Special Operations (UPOE) "to repress" those blocking access to the mine. At the time, in 2009, Section 22 of the National Education Workers Union (SNTE) declared their support for the mine opposition organization. When the mining company offered various payments to the city of Ocotlán, such as new school classrooms and books, the then non-candidate Gabino Cue Monteagudo suggested to the peoples’ assembly that they accept the money. They refused.

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“They bathed him in blood, he was held and badly beaten. He was detained illegally by persons identified with the PRI. They beat him with stones, sticks and a pistol butt; that was really aberrant,” said Padre Uvi.

Read more: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2559-two-dead-in-confrontation-in-oaxaca-near-site-of-canadian-mine

[Judi Lynn]

1. Hope this struggle with the Canadian mine will somehow render a different outcome

since every time a mining company seeks to ignore the will of the people, the residents of the area, their wellbeing, the innocents get murdered, often tortured first.

Remember the current struggle by the people of El Salvador with their own Canadian-owned mining company, and the devastating toll it has taken on the lives of the citizens while the executives who make these murderous decisions remain totally beyond the reach of moral concern, beyond the reach of grief-ridden loved ones of the people they've had slaughtered.

Here's the area where the article's conflict is taking place:

http://www.cds1.net.nyud.net:8090/~n1al/oaxaca_tour/oaxaca.jpg
An article from last year regarding this same struggle, and the same company, and the same priest who has just been beaten bloody:

April 19, 2009

The national and international forum “Weaving Resistance for Defense of our Territories” (Tejiendo la resistencia por las defensa de nuestro territorios) took place on Friday and Saturday April 17 and 18, 2009 in one of thirteen tiny towns in the municipality of Ocotlán, Oaxaca. The town has no restaurants, no hotels, no bus service. A van came by every half hour to drive people into the city of Ocotlán. The town is small in everything but resistance.

According to numbers last published in 2000 by the national government, the economically active population totals 380 persons. The taxi driver guessed the entire population is maybe 1,500 inhabitants; a total of 79 persons still speak Zapoteco. In Ocotlán County (municipio), San Pedro Apóstol is typical. The entire municipality, including its city head, holds about 20,000 people, mostly indigenous.

Neoliberal projects historically target areas of poor or indigenous people, whether they live in Mexico or Guatemala, or the USA. These are the people of whom it could always be said: they are defenseless, they have no power, they have no political clout. In the case of Ocotlán, the land beckons investors with its mineral resources: gold, silver, and nickel. But to extract them, earth and water are irreparably damaged with no regard for the local inhabitants. The federal and state government of Oaxaca has leased over 300 concessions to foreign mining companies, the majority of them Canadian, like Fortuna and Continuum.

Tejiendo la resistencia forum indicates that the days of the indigenous and/or poor surrendering their land and livelihoods, their health and their drinking water without a struggle have ended. Marcos Leyva, a director of the non-governmental organization EDUCA, opened the forum with the question: Why are we holding this forum? And the reply : Because resistance by individuals, organizations, towns, states and nations, all working to defend their territories from mines, wind generators, transgenic corn, single crops, privatization of water, dams, air pollution, trash pollution, and other problems of so-called “development”, now requires joint efforts.

More:
http://www.narconews.com/Issue57/article3501.html

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Please take a moment to read this:

Megaprojects and Militarization: A Perfect Storm in Mexico
By Todd Miller
North American Congress on Latin America (https://nacla.org)
19th May 2009

Recent events perhaps demonstrate what a Bush administration official meant when he said that Washington planned the "armoring" of NAFTA. As Mexican security budgets inflate with U.S. military aid, rights groups say security forces are increasingly targeting activist and community groups opposed to foreign-financed and government-backed . In the southern state of Oaxaca, these resource conflicts seem inevitable.

The 40-day blockade of the Trinidad mine in the Oaxacan community of San José del Progreso came to a sudden and violent halt on May 6. Mine representatives and municipal authorities called in a 700-strong police force that stormed into the community in anti-riot gear along with an arsenal of tear gas, dogs, assault rifles, and a helicopter.

The overwhelming show of force was in response to community residents' demand that the Canadian company Fortuna Silver Mines immediately pack its bags and leave. The company is in the exploration phase of developing the Trinidad mine. The result was a brutal attack, with over 20 arrests and illegal searches of homes. Police seemed to be going after a heavily armed drug cartel, not a community protest.

This is one of the drug war's dirty secrets: As Mexican security budgets inflate with U.S. aid - to combat the rising power of drug trafficking and organized crime - rights groups say these funds are increasingly being used to protect the interests of multinational corporations. According to a national network of human rights organizations known as the Red TDT, security forces are engaged in the systematic repression of activists opposed to megaprojects financed by foreign firms such as Fortuna Silver Mines.

In Oaxaca and throughout southern Mexico these types of conflicts seem destined to increase. Defying the logic of the international financial crisis, Mexico remains the top destination in Latin America for foreign direct investment, particularly in extractive industries. In the last three years alone, multinational companies have received over 80 federal mining concessions in just Oaxaca, covering 1.5 million acres of land. Mining is only the tip of the iceberg: Other megaprojects include hydroelectric dam construction, tourism and infrastructure, energy generation projects, water privatization, and oil exploration.

In response to the influx of capital-intensive projects, Marcos Leyva, director of Services for an Alternative Education, a community group, says, "We saw it coming, but we didn't realize the utter force with which it was coming at us."

The warning signs were there. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) gave foreign investment free range in the country. NAFTA even forced changes to the constitution so that communal lands could be broken up and sold piecemeal - in a word, privatized. In 2000, Plan Puebla Panamá was unveiled; the Plan sought to link southern Mexico with Central America through a series of networked megaprojects. But a strong wave of community resistance pushed the plan into the corner. Many say the plan is back, moving ahead with all cylinders, under a new name: Plan Mesoamerica.

More:
http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=9277