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-----: HUMAN RIGHTS<SPAN class=212000219-13112006><FONT color=#0000ff>
</FONT></SPAN>VIOLATIONS<SPAN class=212000219-13112006><FONT
color=#0000ff> </FONT></SPAN>IN<SPAN class=212000219-13112006><FONT
color=#0000ff> </FONT></SPAN>OAXACA <BR>> <BR>> <FONT face=Arial
size=2>Please dsitribute to your network of English-speaking colleagues and
friends...Hopefully it is not a return to the very, dark days of Latin
American Human Rights violations some decades
ago..... </FONT><BR>> <BR>> <BR>>
<BR>> <B>Subject:</B> Fwd: [oaxacastudyactiongroup] FW: URGENT: HUMAN RIGHTS
VIOLATIONS<SPAN class=212000219-13112006><FONT color=#0000ff>
</FONT></SPAN>IN<SPAN class=212000219-13112006><FONT color=#0000ff>
</FONT></SPAN>OAXACA <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> </FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid">Date:
Sat, 11 Nov 2006 09:38:28 -0500 <BR>> Subject: [oaxacastudyactiongroup] FW:
URGENT: HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN OAXACA <BR>> <BR>> PLEASE DISTRIBUTE
WIDELY!!! <BR>> <BR>> >URGENT: HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN OAXACA
<BR>> >November 9th, 2006 <BR>> > <BR>> >Oaxaca is living a
brutal government repression of the social movement, <BR>> >where there
are disappearances, torture, detentions, killings, and many <BR>>
>injured. Given the situation, it is difficult to know exactly how many
<BR>> >people have been affected, but there is no doubt that there are
severe <BR>> >violations of human rights. According to the Oaxaca
Network for Human <BR>> >Rights (Red Oaxaqueña de Derechos Humanos ),
from June 14th through <BR>> >November 5th, there were 145 detained, 34
of whom have been freed, 17 dead, <BR>> >and 33 seriously injured,
including 5 journalists injured and one killed. <BR>> >Some sources
speak of 65 disappeared. There are numerous people who have <BR>> >also
received death threats. <BR>> > <BR>> >Below is an interview with
one of the members of the Human Rights <BR>> >Collective, working to
defend human rights and documenting cases of <BR>> >violations. <BR>>
> <BR>> >From the “planton” of Santo Domingo, Oaxaca: <BR>> >
<BR>> >What is the human rights situation here in Oaxaca? <BR>> >
<BR>> >Human rights basically do not exist here anymore. All human
rights are out <BR>> >of order. You can be at any moment kidnapped by
people who call themselves <BR>> >police. They can be mercenaries. They
can put you in jail. They can make <BR>> >you disappear. And you don´t
have any human rights. <BR>> > <BR>> >This is ironic because
Mexico, this year, is in the human rights leadership <BR>> >in the UN.
They should watch and guard human rights, but they are the <BR>> >first
to do away with them. <BR>> > <BR>> >What violations of human
rights have there been? <BR>> > <BR>> >The violations can be
killing them, torturing them, beating them. We have <BR>> >now reports
of people who were in jail. They were kept for two, three days <BR>>
>without any food, nothing to drink. They wanted to go to the toilet but
<BR>> >they didn´t give them a toilet, just made them urinate in their
pants, this <BR>> >kind of abuse. They are threatening their families.
<BR>> > <BR>> >And we also have numbers. We are talking about at
least 45 disappeared <BR>> >people. We have the first report of people
who saw with their own eyes how <BR>> >a teacher was thrown out of a
flying helicopter. Also we have a report, <BR>> >not verified yet, of a
doctor who works in a hospital, who saw twenty dead <BR>> >people the
2nd of November (the day of a major confrontation between <BR>>
>government and popular forces). This was in a hospital of Oaxaca. <BR>>
> <BR>> >We are still in the process of verifying all this. There is
a danger that <BR>> >days go by and that a lot of these crimes cannot be
proved anymore. <BR>> >Therefore, it is very very important that
everybody join us, gives us a <BR>> >hand to document this. <BR>>
> <BR>> >Is it known how these people were disappeared? <BR>> >
<BR>> >Some were kidnapped from their houses. The police entered in the
middle of <BR>> >the night, at one, two in the morning, without arrest
warrants, and they <BR>> >took our compañeros away. Others disappeared
from the barricades. Others <BR>> >we know were walking on the street
and they took them away also. Others <BR>> >disappeared last Sunday,
when there was a march here in Oaxaca and there <BR>> >was great
national support. People came from Mexico City, Chiapas, and <BR>>
>there were military checkpoints. There they also disappeared various
<BR>> >compañeros. <BR>> > <BR>> >Do you have documented
cases of people who have been killed or detained? <BR>> > <BR>>
>We know that from the 14 of June (when the government repression began)
<BR>> >until today, November 9th, there have been 17 dead people. We
have the <BR>> >names of all of them, their age. Two were children, one
a 14-year-old <BR>> >child and one a 12-year-old child. Detained, from
the 29th of October <BR>> >(when the federal police force came in) until
the 5th of November, we have <BR>> >87 people who were detained. But one
should say they were kidnapped <BR>> >because there were no arrest
warrants. 34 of them have been freed. <BR>> > <BR>> >What
information is there in terms of who is responsible for these <BR>>
>killings? <BR>> > <BR>> >We know that the responsible is the
government of the state of Oaxaca, <BR>> >Ulises Ruiz (the “governor”),
and some of his police force, dressed in <BR>> >civilian clothes killed
some of the 17 people. Some of the 6 people who <BR>> >have been killed
in the last few days were killed by the PFP, the federal <BR>> >police
force, which was sent in on the 29th of October. <BR>> > <BR>>
>Besides this, we are getting everyday reports of shootings at the <BR>>
>university campus, where Radio Universidad is. It´s almost a daily affair.
<BR>> > People come and take out their guns and shoot at the students.
<BR>> > <BR>> >What are the efforts that are being done to protect
human rights? <BR>> > <BR>> >Here, we are working hard with
volunteers and lawyers. We have a <BR>> >collective. First we try to
locate the prisoners in the jails, and to <BR>> >liberate them. But the
work has to go much further. We have to find the <BR>> >disappeared! The
liberated come back and can report on the abuses, the <BR>> >violence,
the beatings. But we are very very worried about the <BR>> >disappeared.
<BR>> > <BR>> >What would you ask of people listening to you from
other parts of the <BR>> >world? <BR>> > <BR>> >We ask for
solidarity. You can create committees in solidarity and put <BR>>
>pressure on your local politicians where you live and also demand from the
<BR>> >Mexican embassies and consulates wherever you are that human
rights be <BR>> >respected here and to call an end to this violence.
<BR>> > <BR>> >Aside from the detained, the disappeared, I already
have seen with my own <BR>> >eyes, people who are obviously traumatized,
and who have psychosis due to <BR>> >the violence they have witnessed.
Yesterday, a woman came here who was <BR>> >crying, and the next minute
she was laughing. This was the effect of the <BR>> >trauma that these
people are suffering. Two days ago, a woman came by who <BR>> >was
participating in a peaceful women´s march, which passed the zocalo, <BR>>
>where the police threw rocks and she ended up with her nose and mouth torn
<BR>> >up and bloody. <BR>> > <BR>> >There are many abuses.
And here we cannot expect anything from the <BR>> >government, from the
judicial branch, because they are the same people who <BR>> >are
committing these crimes. <BR>> > <BR>> >Anything else you would
like to share? <BR>> > <BR>> >I would like to call on all the
compañeros and compañeras of the world, who <BR>> >hear this:
international solidarity live on! The struggle of the people <BR>> >of
Oaxaca is for a better world, and this is the same struggle that people
<BR>> >in the United States, in Europe, wherever they are carry on.
<BR>> > <BR>> >Interview by Amanda Aquino, Indymedia. <BR>>
> <BR>> <BR>> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR></BODY></HTML>