March 02, 2023
STATEMENT
The organizations that make up the FRONT OF OAXACAN ORGANIZATIONS – FORUM (FRENTE DE ORGANIZACIONES OAXAQUEÑAS – FORO), strongly condemn and repudiate the recent acts of brutal police repression ordered by the illegitimate Governor of Oaxaca, Salomón Jara Cruz, against residents of the indigenous community of Santiago Xiacuí and indigenous Triqui women, displaced from San Juan Copala.
We also denounce acts of intimidation by the National Guard and the Navy against the Ejidos of Mogoñe Viejo and El Zarzal in the municipality of San Juan Guichicovi, where Mixe indigenous peasants maintain a sit-in protesting the damages that are being caused by the expansion work on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec railroad.
These acts of repression by an administration that calls itself “new” and that came to power with a shameful 38% of electoral participation and 62% abstention of those of us who did not go to the polls because we do not believe in the electoral farce, only demonstrates that this government seeks to legitimize itself by the use of repressive public forces. This obsolete regime that continues administering an old, outdated and reactionary State, carries out the same dictatorial practices that former PAN and PRI governments such as the disastrous, spurious and tyrant URO (Ulises Ruiz Ortiz) perpetrated against the people of Oaxaca in 2006.
We also reject the hate speech of those who today wield power and that with impunity try to justify the excessive and violent repression against the organized peoples. These speeches only seek to discredit the just struggles of the people who take to the streets in the midst of this economic, political, social and violent crisis that all Oaxacans are going through.
These practices exercised by those who proclaim a supposed “Oaxacan Spring” only serve to deepen the great social wounds and impunity that the people of Oaxaca have historically suffered. This is why we share the grief of those who are now repressed. It is nothing new that throughout the state, official and mercenary armed forces continue to be used to try to silence popular discontent.
The recent actions of the state send the message that new acts of repression are being prepared against the people of Oaxaca. We cannot remain silent, nor ignore such attitudes of despotism, because these are actions that can be repeated against any movement, collective, organization or social struggles in Oaxaca.
That is why we call on the people of Oaxaca to organize and mobilize, to confront these acts of a clear Ulisista line (from Ulises Ruiz) and united in action, defend the rights and true access to the justice that we have been demanding for many decades.
Defending Human Rights is not a crime. Exercising the right to protest and free demonstration are constitutional rights. No government, much less an illegitimate one, can use repression to violate these rights.
NO MATTER WHO GOVERNS, THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE WILL BE DEFENDED!!
UNITY IN ACTION!!
English translation by Sexta Grietas del Norte of the communiqué in Spanish published on the APIIDTT website