Open letter from Ojo de Agua Comunicación
to La Jornada (en español)
on the conflict in Tanetze de Zaragoza
published Sunday, February 18, 2002
This page is at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Grass/Tanetze/2001-02-18.htm
Dear Señora Carmen Lira, Director of the newspaper La Jornada: We thank you in advance for publishing the following letter in the section of Illustrative Mail.
Vicente Fox Quesada, President of the Republic.
Santiago Creel Miranda, Secretary of the Interior.
José Murat Casab, Governor of the State of Oaxaca.
We, the organizations and individuals that have signed below, express our concern for the physical safety of the Zapotec video film producer, Crisanto Manzano Avella, a native of Tanetze de Zaragoza, Villa Alta, Oaxaca, who together with his family today faces threats by the Municipal President of his town, Virgilio Hernández Bautista and by the local cacique Jacobo Chávez Yescas.
Crisanto has been recognized in many countries for his work in video films that express the realities of the region where he lives. His work has been shown and premiered in Mexico and abroad. Besides, the indigenous film producer has fulfilled all the posts of responsibility (the cargos) of his community, meriting him the position of Person of Character.
Crisanto was a founding member of the independent campesino organization United Villages of the Rincón of the Sierra Juárez, composed of eight Zapotec towns that have been struggling for twenty years to improve the conditions of life in their communities by means of constructing roads, the formation of social programs, working for fair trade of coffee and peppers, and by creating a cooperative society for automotive transport of passengers and freight.
Currently the municipal president and the local caciques, colluding with the transportation entrepreneur Josué Samuel Ruiz, with the local deputies and federal PRI-Party members Romualdo Pacheco Paz and Cándido Coheto Martínez, and with the complacency of the local ex-deputy and regional delegate to the government Mauro Francisco Méndez, have decided to put an end to the Autotransportation Cooperative "United Towns" in order to open the way for private truck lines. Six months ago they seized, and have held the two newest buses of the cooperative, and in an arbitrary manner have refused, up to the date of this letter, to comply with any of the agreements for a solution that have been signed.
Faced with the intransigence of the mayor of Tanetze and the ineptitude of the negotiators from the state government, the people of the organization decided to block, for an indefinite time, all the access roads to this community until the municipal authorities return the buses. This extreme measure has made the threatening situation in the region where they live even more tense.
We signatories support the statements of the representatives of the organization United Towns of the Rincón of the Sierra Juárez, and we will hold Virgilio Hernández Bautista, Jacobo Chávez Yéscas, and the entrepreneurs and PRI politicians who support and advise them, responsible for any aggression suffered by Crisanto Manzano Avella, his family or any of the citizens of Tanetze who sympathize with the cause of their regional organization. We also insist upon immediate intervention by the federal and state governments to guarantee a peaceful and negotiated solution of this problem, with full respect for the rights and the autonomy of the towns of the Rincón of the Sierra Juárez.
Respectfully,
Unión de Organizaciones de la Sierra de Juárez (UNOSJO SC), Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la Región del Istmo (UCIRI), Servicios del Pueblo Mixe (SER), Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la Zona Norte del Istmo (UCIZONI), Unión de Pueblos Contra la Represión y la Militarización de la RegiOn Loxicha, Centro Cultural Driki, Ojo de Agua Comunicación, Binigulazaa AC, Grupo Mesófilo, Centro de Apoyo al Movimiento Popular Oaxaqueño (CAMPO), Comunicación Alternativa Mixe (COMALMI), Filoteo Revilla, Jaime Martínez Luna, Eucario Angeles Martínez, Filemón Miguel Valdez, Engracia Pérez Castro, Macario Donínguez, Luis Cervantes Montes, Melitón Bautista Cruz, Jesús C. Martínez, Alvais Montaño Hernández, Federica Díaz Pérez, Juana López M., Virgilio Jiménez, Israel Espinoza, Fidalma Cabrera Matus, Silvia María Zúñiga Arellanes, Marcos Sandoval Cruz, Tonatiuh Díaz-González, Arturo Guerrero Osorio, Ceberino Hipólito Morales, Sergio Julián Caballero, Juan Cristián Gutiérrez, Lucrecia Gutiérrez, Juan José Garcia Ortiz, Francisco Luna García, Miguel Cruz Pérez, Néstor Hernández López, Estanislao García García, Hilda Marcial Juárez, Fernando Ramos Morales, Alvaro González, Emma Beltrán Casanova, Bruno Varela Rodríguez, Roberto Olivares Ruiz, Gabino Chávez López, Mauricio Soberanes Hernández, Fernando Guadarrama Olivera.
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